It started with an owl. A tiny thing, no longer than her thumbnail, carved delicately from a burl of wood and slipped into her coat. She felt something fall as she took out her wallet, and stared at it, uncomprehending, when it turned out not to be a loose coin. How do you get such detail in something so small? Though her mind tells her to hand it to Granny so that it can be reunited with its proper owner, all she gives her is the money for her coffee and a polite "Thank you"". The delicate animal is slipped back deep within confines of her pocket, gripped tightly in her hand as if it would disappear as unexpectedly as it arrived. She doesn't notice the pair of eyes tracking the movement as she leaves the diner, nor the slight smile that graces the naturally upturned mouth. She tried not to dwell on the object too much, but finds herself reaching for it at odd moments, or running her fingers over the whorl to ground herself when temper strikes. A lucky charm of sorts, to ground her.
A month later she's leading her horse towards its stall. It's hard, this change thing. Remembering that your instincts were not always what you honed them to be. That love is not a bucket that can run out if you keep pouring. Henry can spend time with Emma and still love both of them just as much, and if she repeats that enough it will be true. She is still his mother, and somewhere deep inside she is still the girl that found solace in the stables and the woods beyond. She can find that girl again. There's a harmony she feels, among those trees, that belies the sky high heels and careful makeup she shows the town. It was a place of peaceful afternoons and stolen kisses, of riding and talking and freedom. Even now, in private moments, when the memory of Daniel makes her throat ache and her eyes fill, under the poison she glances a flash of that wondrous sense of possibility that always accompanied them. There's a key there, in the leaves and the logs, and it goes in a lock somewhere in her she's still looking for.
Hand raised to push open the gate, she stops. There, resting on the ledge, is a little horse. Bigger that the last one, it's the length of her finger, the neck of the creature dipped gracefully down as if about to drink. She glances sharply around, but there's nothing but straw and the gentle whickering of the gift's living twin. Of course there wasn't, she'd been gone for hours. Unobserved then she can smile. She takes out the owl that has kept her company these past weeks and places them side by side. Their family resemblance is obvious, these came from the same hand. They were definitely meant for her then. In lower moments she'd scowled at the owl on her dresser, dismissing it as a lost toy someone had dropped and herself as a fool for finding comfort in it. Then later, when her emotions quietened, she'd move it to her bedside table where she could look at it as she fell asleep.
Whose hand though? The Evil Queen could find out, tracker spells were easy games, but it felt wrong somehow. Like the knowledge would taint it. Magic has a way of tainting things, and she'd been trying to keep her promises. Would knowing help her? She considered that for a moment. No. Knowing would mean facing the person behind it, and she'd never been good at people. Rejecting them would mean rejecting this, and she wants this. A little piece of peace to carry with her. She picks them both up, the statue is a little damp, they'd had a shower this afternoon. Giving in to whim she lifts it to her nose, it smells like bark and clean, fresh rain. Calm and good, it smells like the forest. She slides the figures safely into her bag and continues caring for the horse beside her.
Two weeks later she's leaving her house and is brought up short by the sight a little boy crossing the road in front of her. A mop of brown hair can't be contained by the hat pushed down over it, but it's the expression that has her stopped. Dimples flashing he's talking animatedly to a man who must be his father, hand flailing as he takes two steps to keep with the man's one. She remembers that age, when the best part of your child's day is telling you about the absolutely, most important thing that happened. When the world's amazing and you get to see it through them. The memory moves her forward to her car, where she finds a bird statue that looks like it might just fly out of her palm. Maybe she won't drive today. Though the coolness of autumn is setting in, there is a brilliant blue sky, good for walking and breathing in the air. Her arrival at the diner causes only the smallest of ripples, she walks towards her son's table determined to put her best face forward. The conversation is a little awkward. It flows easily around her but is filled with jokes she's not a part of, plans she's not invited to. When they leave her son presses a quick kiss to her cheek before running out with his other family. There's a little pain in knowing that it meant so much to her, happiness he'd given it, but hurt that it meant so little to him. Ruby delivers her order, and her thanks to the waitress is met with no reply, but with a smile so empty she can see the bottom of it. Her hopeful mood punctured she takes out the bird and stares at it again, running her fingers up and down the ridges of the wings. A flurry of movement catches her eye as she realises the little boy from earlier has settled into the booth in front, and is trying his best fit an entire piece of pie in his mouth. His father is telling him to slow down, or at least try chewing, and meets her eyes over the boys shoulder with a shrugging look that says, parent to parent, 'what you going to do?'. His eyes are blue, she notes, and warmer than she's used to.
The sight of them doesn't bring the pleasure it did half an hour ago. She fixes what she hopes is an appropriate expression on her face, this is after all the first openly friendly overture she's had from a stranger in weeks, and turns her attention back to her breakfast. She misses his gaze linger on the keepsake she's still absently toying with, and the light frown as he surveys the remains at the vacated seats around her, the slight downturn at the corner of her lips. The food doesn't seem to interest her anymore; she leaves soon after, only half finished.
He'd heard stories of the great and terrible evil queen, but from what he'd seen in this land, she seems much like a woman. A vulnerable woman at that. He'd spent too much of his life running from her guard to think her innocent, but evil? If she had been then something was obviously happening here. In town he'd see her, alone, or in a group but still isolated somehow. See the ache she tries to hide as she stares after her son when he leaves her. The thanks she gave to the waitress who delivered her order, met with cool silence. She seemed to be genuinely trying to make amends, and everybody, no matter how bad, deserves a second chance. He'd made enough mistakes in his life to believe that. So he'd rearranged the patrols in the forest when he realised she was there, riding or wandering, she seemed to want the safety of solitude to rebuild herself. But solitude and loneliness make easy bedfellows, so he gives the gift of one and does what he can for the other. His whittling knife is tucked safe into a pocket, ready for the next time her shoulders seem heavier than usual. He doesn't know what it is in the air of her that keeps drawing him back to her, but surely everyone, even she, deserves to have some little support when they choose not to take the easy path.
That next night she finds a little carved squirrel, resting in a small hollow in the trunk of her apple tree, and it brings the first hint of a true smile in days. She strokes it gently with her thumb and brings it inside to join the group on her bedside table. Perhaps it's childish, but the sight of them when she wakes up makes her feel like maybe she can do this.
Not everybody out there wishes her ill.