Disclaimer: Don't own anything!
My take on how the storybook was created. First story. It's not that great, but I figured I'd give it a try. Felt inspired by the great song from BatB's Enchanted Christmas.
After being ordered from the Dark Castle, Belle began exploring the other lands in the Enchanted Forest. As she strode through a grove of towering trees one afternoon, enjoying the peaceful calm she was enshrouded in, she slowly began to register the faint sound of footsteps behind her. She started to run and wound her way around thick tree trunks, searching for a way out of sight further into the woods. But in another moment her stalker had seized with one hand her flowing cape, and kicking and screaming, Belle was dragged out of the forest into the harsh light of day.
Belle was promptly thrown into a dungeon upon arriving at an imposing castle unknown to her. Since she already knew it would be useless to beat against the door, she simply slid down the back wall of her cell to the cold, hard floor.
Belle had nearly fallen asleep as night approached when a light shone through the cell's small barred window, casting a blue tint over her huddled frame. In confusion, she tilted her head up to see a fairy drift between the bars on the window down to her eye level.
"Belle, I've been watching over you for some time and your courage has always been great; you cannot lose hope now, not when our world will soon be taken from us."
"How?" Belle gasped. "By who?"
"We will be banished by the same woman who tricked you into earning Rumpelstiltskin's hate and ordered you imprisoned: the queen. But although the curse she will bring upon the Enchanted Forest may be made of the most powerful evil forces there are, it can still be broken. I am working now to make sure the one prophesized to break this curse will be safe from being trapped by it, but I fear it will not be enough."
Belle, after partly recovering from her initial horror, thoughtfully asked, "Can you get pieces of parchment to me? And a quill and ink to write with?"
The Blue Fairy was startled into silence for a moment. "Of course…but I don't see how—"
"I know a way to make sure your plan works, if you are willing to hear it. But I will need all the help you can provide."
For the first time since hearing of Regina's terrible scheme, the Blue Fairy smiled, eagerly nodding as Belle began to describe her idea.
Belle wrote down everything she could about the people she had met on her journey in between the queen's visits to her cell, and the Blue Fairy would help when she could spare her time by sharing stories of others Belle had never had the chance to encounter.
More than for anyone else, however, Belle wrote to save Rumpelstiltskin in the next world. She desperately wanted the Blue Fairy to share his story with her, but the one thing that stopped her was the thought of him telling her himself, if—no—when they reunited.
As Belle would write, the Blue Fairy created pictures to accompany the words. Belle liked to imagine in this other land she would read it to her love by the light of a warm fire, as she used to do in the Dark Castle. Before she drifted off to sleep, she would sing softly to herself. "I'll read him stories from picture books all filled with wonder, magic worlds where the impossible becomes the everyday…"
One of the last stories Belle committed to paper was of her time with Rumpelstiltskin in the Dark Castle. How she fell in love with him so unexpectedly, so deeply, and now cherished every moment she had spent with him. Her tears nearly prevented her from writing, but she also had renewed hope for them to begin again in this other realm where there would not be curses or queens to make them falter in their resolve to be together forever.
Just before Belle stitched the pages together, though, she removed their story from the pile. She had decided she must keep it with her in case the Savior somehow failed in her mission, and tucked it away in a small hole in the wall.
As an eerie silence fell over the entire Enchanted Forest early one evening, tears of panic began to fill Belle's eyes. She still needed to send this book to a place safe from Regina's evil clutches before the curse wrenched the possibility of a happy ending away from them all.
Blue Fairy, Belle entreated in desperation, I wish for you to use your magic to include words within that will explain the nature of the Dark Curse and how it may be broken, and to shield these pages so they will be protected from being destroyed by its force.
With no immediate response, Belle felt helpless as she cradled the precious pages to her, believing all of their work to have been in vain. She leaned against the wall for support as the crushing weight of her failure settled, head bowed in defeat, when she glanced up at the sound of fluttering wings to see multiple fairies flying fast toward her window.
The Blue Fairy had in fact heard Belle's plea, and as she approached, she waved her magic wand. The pages floated out of Belle's tight grasp into the air, glowing with a luminescence that shone brilliantly inside the darkened cell. Suddenly, an encasement for the parchment pages was produced, turning it into a book that slowly descended back into Belle's waiting arms. The phrase "Once Upon a Time" in shining golden calligraphy now graced the front cover, the capital letters decorated with intricate designs. Belle's hands traced it lovingly for a moment, but when all of the fairies had entered her cell, Belle held out the book and instructed, "This must be left in Rumpelstiltskin's possession; if you hurry, you can reach the Dark Castle before it is overtaken by the curse."
The Blue Fairy opened her mouth, presumably in protest, but Belle interrupted her. "I trust him to save us, even if no one else will. And," Belle added, holding up the pages she had hidden away, "I have already created a way for us to find our way back to each other. As long as I keep these with me, I will search for the rest of the book, and once we're together, we will find the Savior and help her break the curse when the time comes."
Resigned, the Blue Fairy nodded and gave her word that it would be placed inside the Dark Castle, and once each of the fairies had grasped the book in her tiny hands, they quickly carried it up and away from sight.
Belle could sense the curse advancing now, creeping as winter tendrils upon grass. She closed her eyes and knelt to the floor, desperately clutching the few pages she still possessed to her chest. She whispered, "I will remember," as the curse wrapped her in its embrace.
Storybooke, Maine, 28 Years Ago
The orderly making rounds in one of the psych ward's wings glanced through a small opening in the door of a room. The patient huddled on the floor, repeating to herself, "I will remember, I will remember, I will remember."
With a sigh, he pulled out a sedative and grabbed the set of keys with his other hand from his pocket to open the door.
"It's all right. There's nothing you need to remember," he said as he walked in and approached the young woman. He firmly grabbed ahold of her arm, turned it to find the vein in the soft inner crook of her elbow, and plunged the needle in while pressing down on the plunger. Feeling her go limp within a few moments from the drug's powerful effects, he scooped his arms under her slight frame and lifted her onto her bed.
As he laid her down, he noticed the patient clutching something in her hands, her fingers nearly white with the strain even in medicated sleep.
Confused, the orderly pried open the woman's hands. The patients were never allowed to keep anything with them; where could she have possibly gotten this?
He unfolded the yellowed pages in his hand and his puzzlement grew as he skimmed over one page, then another, reading nothing but a silly fairytale.
He crumbled the papers in his fist, deciding it wasn't worth his time reporting this to his supervisor. He walked out of the room and locked the door behind him.
Mr. Gold was taking inventory of the items in his shop before it opened when he came upon a fairly heavy tome on the counter.
Glancing over the title, he absentmindedly flipped through the pages, and after observing no damages, placed it on a shelf behind him.
28 Years Later
Mary Margaret walked into Mr. Gold's pawnshop for the first time she could recall with a purpose. As she perused the shelves, her eyes lingered over multiple trinkets, but she could not find anything that stood out in her mind as the perfect gift for Henry. He was different from the other kids she taught; quiet, but so imaginative. She had been steadily growing worried about him since she noticed he did not have any friends to talk to at school, and had even heard that Regina was taking him to Dr. Hopper regularly. Mary Margaret's heart ached for him, and she hoped she could offer him something that would help him through whatever problems he may be going through.
"If I may assist you in finding what it is you are looking for, Miss Blanchard?"
Startled out of her worried thoughts, she whipped her head around to meet Mr. Gold's gaze, feeling slightly unsettled as she always was by his strange demeanor. "I—I'm looking for a gift for one of my students. Not a toy, but something more…" Mary Margaret struggled for a moment to find the right word, "meaningful."
After a moment, Mr. Gold turned around and reached up to pull a large book off the top shelf of the bookcase behind the counter. Facing her once more, he held out the book and extended it towards Mary Margaret for a closer look.
"This book… just might hold magic for the right child."
Mary Margaret took hold of the book and grinned as she turned the pages, positive that he had managed to pick out exactly what she wanted.
"Henry, can you stay after for just a minute?" Miss Blanchard asked as the bell rang, signaling the end of school on the following Monday.
Henry hesitated a moment at the classroom door, anxious to leave, but when he turned around to see his teacher's encouraging smile, he decided not to voice an excuse for having to leave right away and walked toward her desk.
"Henry, I've noticed that you seem to be struggling with making friends with the other kids, and I thought you might like to have a…companion of sorts to keep with you."
Miss Blanchard reached into her purse and pulled out the storybook she had bought from Mr. Gold.
"Fairytales?" Henry asked skeptically, observing the title.
"Oh Henry, fairytales hold wonders for someone as special as you; they can fill you with hopes and dreams. Please, take it and enjoy."
Henry accepted the book from her, wary, but pleasantly surprised by this unexpected gift from his teacher. "Thanks, Miss Blanchard."
Miss Blanchard smiled with joyful satisfaction and replied, "You're very welcome, Henry."
He reached behind him to open the zipper of his backpack, stuffed the book inside, and waved goodbye as he hurried for the door.
Henry ran up the spiral staircase to his room and immediately turned on his computer to begin his search for his birth mother.
As he waited for the computer to start up, he reached into his backpack for the storybook. Fascinated with its old-fashioned style, he opened it to see a tiny inscription on the inside cover.
"The people within these pages exist in this world, but have been banished from their original homes in the Enchanted Forest by the evil Queen Regina. The savior from our curse is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, and her name will be Emma. She will come to break our curse on her twenty-eighth birthday, and whoever holds this book must make sure of it."
Curious, Henry flipped from the title page that showed a dark castle to the first story about Jiminy Cricket. As he continued reading through the ones that followed, poring over the words in rapture, his eyes widened in shock as his mind made the connections.
By the time he finished, there was no doubt in Henry's mind: all the people in Storybrooke were actually from a fantasy world, and his mother had been the one to send them all here.
But, why had he grown while no one else had aged? How had he been brought to this town? It didn't make any sense; who was he? And where could the Savior, Emma, be?
Suddenly remembering the website, he looked up from the book after what might have been hours to see the name of his birth mother boldly imprinted on the screen.
Emma Swan.
He checked the general information listed. She would be twenty-eight tomorrow.
Coincidence? He thought not, recovering from his shock.
This must be his destiny then. To bring her here, convince her of who she truly was, and help her with the job she was meant for.
Excitement growing, he wrote down directions to her current address and started planning a way to bring her to Storybrooke.