Regina Mills sits in the dark, damp jail cell, staring out at the nothingness before her, too numb to even cry.
She's vaguely aware of the others there-guards in an adjacent room, prisoners like herself chained in their cells and somehow asleep-but she can't quite feel their presence, as though she's already left this world.
She knows that it's raining outside-she can smell it and hear it. The droplets tap at the open stone window, pooling on the sill and spilling down over the edge and trailing down the wall, dripping down and forming a little puddle beneath the window, ticking like a clock.
They'd given her a thin dress made of burlap and grayed with overuse and lack of washing to wear, and her hair was wound into a tight bun at the back of her head, tied with twine and leaving her neck exposed. Her jaw trembled as she cowered on the stone bench in the corner of her cell. Her hands were bound in shackles behind her and her feet were tied together with rope that was wet from the rain, rubbing against her skin and rubbing it away. It should have burned, and maybe it did, but she couldn't feel it anymore-just like she couldn't feel the cold.
It was late in October and the rain chilled the air even more than usual, and in her cell, she didn't have as much as a blanket to keep her warm and hours ago, she'd stopped even trying to warm herself, knowing that it didn't matter and if she died in the night from cold or exhaustion or even just by sheer will, it'd be for the better.
Guilty.
Guilty and sentenced to hang at dawn.
It played again and again, over and over, behind her eyes and the words rang in her ears.
She could still feel their hands on her, holding her down and removing her clothes for the examination in open court. She hadn't looked at any of them as it happened-not as they pointed at blemishes and scars, and asked her to recite random passages of scripture she was far too scared to remember. They pricked her with pine needles and touched hot metal to her skin-and it seemed her most natural reactions to these tests only proved her guilt.
The final test before her trial had been the worst, and for a moment, she thought that would be the end, that she'd die right then and there. Still naked, they tied a rope around her waist and bound her hands behind her back. They led her out of the church and to the water, and the closer she got to the coast, the harder she tried to dig her heels into the sand-but every time she tried to stop, they shoved her forward and whipped her back. Finally when they reached the coast, they led her down a dock that suddenly felt like a plank, and spun her around so that she was facing them-and before she could even muster the courage to plea for her life, they shoved back and stood on the dock, watching as she struggled in the water.
For a moment, she sank down and water filled her lungs. Her feet kicked and her shoulders rocked back and forth, her movements frantic as she tried to loosen the rope-and when she finally succeeded, her chest ached and her head was dizzy as she swam up the surface. But as she struggled for air and tried her best to stay afloat, a gasp shuttered through the crowd standing on the dock.
A witch, they'd said. It's true!
She didn't have time to comprehend it, and then next thing she knew, they were dragging her roughly from the water.
What happened next was a blur, and in so many ways it felt a dream-like it hadn't actually happened.
But she knew that it did.
They let her get dressed, but not in the one she'd been wearing that morning. No, they dressed her in prison rags and told her she should be fortunate that they weren't going to cut the hair from her scalp and let her bleed out-and when they bound her wrists with tight rope that cut through her skin and rubbed against the open wound, she wondered if what they did was worse.
She barely listened as they presented the evidence of the tests-and when she turned away from the judge who'd already decided her fate, she caught the eye of her husband, Leopold Blanchard, and a rage filled her.
Her jaw clenched as she remembered how he'd pointed and called her a witch, how he hadn't even allowed her to explain what had actually happened. His daughter, Mary Margaret, stood behind him, her green eyes wide as she watched in horror-and Regina found herself wondering if she regretted her accusation or if her the look of shock was all for show.
She wondered if it'd all been a set-up.
It was no secret that her marriage was not a happy one or a godly one, and it hadn't quite been what either of them had anticipated on their wedding day. They were each sold something that wasn't quite real. She'd been promised a good, easy-going husband who only wanted her as a mother for his young daughter, and he'd been promised a good, god-fearing wife who'd obey his every request. But his indifference was cruel and nothing she did was ever good enough, and for him, she was strong-willed and a burden.
But still, she hadn't expected it to end this way.
She hadn't expected to walk into her step-daughter's room and see a man hovering over the bed. She didn't know who it was or what he wanted, but she knew that he could be there for no good reason. He was there to do harm, whatever that might mean. So, she grabbed a silver candlestick holder from the dresser and let out a cry, drawing attention away from Mary Margaret and drawing it toward her. The man turned and she thought she saw the glint of a knife, so she screamed louder and pummeled him with the heavy bottom of the candlestick holder. Though it was dark, she could see a bloody gash above his brow, and when she struck him again, he stumbled back, getting blood on the girl's blanket as he rolled across the bed and lept toward the opening window. He left her there, standing bloodied in the bedroom, still screaming.
Mary Margaret cried out, shrieking as she scurried off the bed as her father entered the room. She hugged his legs and looked on in horror-and when he asked her what had happened, her eyes shifted to Regina.
Witch.
She's a witch!
She tried to explain, but no one would listen-and while what they called her wasn't necessarily untrue, it didn't mean what they thought they it meant.
But they wouldn't listen, so she'd stopped trying to making them, hoping that if she just played around and did what they asked, the truth would come out and she'd be exonerated.
That hadn't happened though, and at the end of it, when she pleaded for them to just hear her out and listen, they listened to everyone but her.
Leopold told them he always knew, deep down, that she was wicked; he always suspected her a sinner, but as a good man he wanted to give her the benefit of doubt, wanted to see something in his wife that simply wasn't there. But after a time, it became hard to ignore. She didn't repent as she should and she was lax in her church attendance, and he could smell the incense she burned. Again, she tried to explain how harmless it all was, but he didn't want to hear it-no one did.
They gagged her then, in an effort to silence her, and she nearly choked as they tied the kerchief around her mouth-and when they did, all she could think of were the times that Leopold bound her and locked her in an attic closet as punishment for her evilness. Her heart beat faster as she thought of that darkened closet and quickly her relief would fade when the door opened to see Leopold standing there with a bottle of holy water and his bible.
Guilty.
Guilty and sentenced to hang at dawn.
Those were the words that snapped her back into the present moment, and it took her a minute to understand what they meant-and when she did, she came to realize that her life was over. Then, from that moment on, they repeated over and over, echoing in her ears again and again in an almost deafening way.
And now, all she could do is listen to it as she sat idly and waited to die...
"Hey…"
Her brow furrows as she looks toward the window.
"HEY!"
Swallowing hard, she holds her breath. Her mind was playing tricks on her—it had to be, because no one in their right mind would be out in this rainstorm, risking their life to come and simply say hello to her. No one was that stupid.
"Hey! Regina Mills!"
Her brow arches. Maybe someone was and she considers that maybe it's a hallucination, that maybe the voice is just in her head and maybe-
"Are you Regina Mills?" the voice calls again as a little pebble sails in through the open window. "Hey!" Her brow arches as she stares at the pebble-she may be an accused witch, but even she doesn't have that sort of power, and when the voice calls her name again, it's clearer and more direct, and in an odd way, the stranger's voice is almost comforting to her.
Getting up, she moves carefully and slowly toward the window, mindful of the rope and chains that bind her wrists and ankles. She narrows her eyes at a hooded man standing beneath the window-and as she appears at the the window, he steps in a little closer. "You're Regina Mills?"
"I… I am," she murmurs. "Who are you?"
"That doesn't matter."
Again, her eyes narrow. "I think it does."
"We don't have time to exchange pleasantries when-"
"You know who I am. It's only fair that I should know who you are, too," she says, sighing at her own defiance as her arms cross over her chest. "Besides, you came to me to-"
"To break you out of here."
She blinks. She had to have misheard that-but before she can question it, he steps in and pulls back his hood, revealing bright blue eyes and a kind smile hidden behind a mask.
"How?" she asks. "The guards-"
"Are they near?"
"No," she admits, looking behind her and suddenly feeling nervous. "But-"
"Well, I won't very well be going through the front door."
Again, she blinks, her eyes focusing in on the bars on the window as her heart beats wildly in her chest and a thousand questions swirl thought her head-yet, the one that comes out of her is the least important of all of them. "Surely, you don't think I'll fit through-"
His brow cocks. "I'm going to pick the lock."
"Oh-"
"Keep a lookout, alright?"
"But, I don't-"
"Look," he cuts in, looking around himself as his voice drops an octave. "We don't really have time for explanations right now, and with all due respect, you don't really have many options at this stage of things, do you?" He pauses as her jaw tightens-and though defiance prickles at her, he makes a valid point. Even if she were caught escaping and even if he was a madman, neither of those things matter because at dawn, she's sentenced to die, and she has nothing to lose by trusting him. "I'll work the lock, just… make sure no one comes," he says. "My goal is to get both of us out of here alive. Please don't make that any more difficult than it already is."
Nodding, she moves to the front of the cell, fumbling with her fingers as she cranes her neck to catch a glimpse of the guard-and she breathes out a sigh of relief to find him sleeping by the hearth.
"No one's-" She stops, her voice halting as the masked man grins and the window swings open. "I can't believe-"
"I mean, it's not witchcraft, but-"
A little grin tugs onto her lip as he reaches through the window and her eyes fall to his hand-open and reaching for her-and for a split second, she hesitates and looks back at the guard sleeping just beyond the cell. She has no reason to trust this masked stranger and this masked stranger has no reason to help her, but it's not like she has anything left to lose. So, she takes hold of his hand and climbs up onto the stone bench beneath the window, letting him pull her up and through it. He pulls an arrow from the quiver on his back and slices it through the rope that binds her, then no sooner than her feet are free, he's picked the lock on the shackles on her wrists-and before the shackles fall to the mud at their feet, he grabs her hand and they steal away together into the night.