A book title and a subject reference, Prospero's Commentaries on Scott, Uncursing, that was all the first text was. But, Grumpy found it lying in the stack of books in Belle's workroom in the library. Inside, he found the section Belle had underlined, one word written on a post-it note in the margin.
How?
That was when he got the second text. He handed the book to Astrid as he looked at what else Belle had to say. There was only one word:
Rope.
Astrid's eyes had widened as she read the instructions. "This should work," she told him. "It doesn't really break the curse, it just makes a sort of bubble, pushing it off for just a few moments. Sort of. I mean, that's what it looks like. Mostly." She looked like a little kid who knew she was messing up in front of a teacher. "It's hard to explain."
"I don't need explanations," Grumpy said. "Just tell me, can you do it?"
"Me?' She'd looked surprised. People didn't often ask Astrid for help, especially magic help.
"Why not you? I've seen you do magic. You're better than you think." Especially when she didn't have Blue looking over her shoulder. "Remember the candles?" he added. "Everybody in town was cursed. No happy endings, right? But, we still found a way to save the day, didn't we?"
"I . . . I can try," Astrid said. "But, it won't change anything. It just gives us a few moments. We can't even—"
Grumpy showed her the second text.
"Oh," Astrid said. "Rope. Yeah, that should work."
That was how they got Dopey back. Doc wasn't too certain about it. After all, Astrid was the one mixing the potion. "Remember when that spell of hers went wrong and people had their feet on backward?" he asked.
"This is different," Grumpy said. "She isn't inventing a spell. She's just following one that's already laid out in a book. No problem."
"I don't know. . . ."
"It's this or nothing. You think Regina's going to get our brother back? Assuming we ever see her again?"
No one mentioned Emma. Emma had nearly destroyed Storybrooke along with her crazy boyfriend one day, then gone marching off into the Underworld the next, dragging everyone she thought might be useful along with her.
They didn't mention Rumplestiltskin, either. The guy might not have magic anymore but he knew more about it than anyone else living, especially curses. But, he was one of the people Emma had dragged off. Since the last time Emma needed the imp, she'd chained him up in a dungeon before siccing a crazy assassin/cursed bear on him, Grumpy would bet his beer tab that, however Emma got him to go with her, it had been by doing something a whole lot worse than saying, "please."
And the guy was just human, now. Grumpy hadn't said anything to Belle but he didn't think much of Gold's chances of getting back.
They went to the town line and looked at the tree that had been their brother a few weeks ago.
The rope went first. Since no one in town had been a cowboy-rodeo-star under the curse, they didn't try to lasso him. Grumpy had tied the rope to a metal weight made from two steel rings from his boat joined together. It took a couple throws, but he got it in position.
Then, he reached over the line with a long pole with a hook tied to the end. Grumpy had spent years under the curse doing community service every other time he got drunk. He'd developed a real flair for making a quick trash grab with a stick when they put him on roadside garbage pickup. This was the same thing. Except for making sure he didn't put so much as a hair over the town line. They were pretty sure you had to be all the way over before something bad happened to you, but it wasn't like anyone ran tests.
He got the hook into the second ring, the one that didn't have the rope tied through it. He dragged it back then tied the rope into a noose knot and pulled. That wasn't going to come loose in a hurry. The rope was about waist high, and Grumpy could only hope that was where it would be on Dopey. No one was ever going to let Grumpy forget it if he wound up strangling his brother.
"OK," he told Astrid. "We're ready."
Astrid stepped forward with the leaf blower Grumpy had modified (there were advantages to being a general handyman and custodian. See if anyone else thought of using a modified leaf blower to break a curse). Astrid checked the wind before holding up the machine nervously.
"It's all right, Astrid," Grumpy said. "Take your time. Just do it like we practiced." The practice shots had been with sand and flour, not magic dust, but they ought to work about the same, right?
Astrid gritted her teeth and nodded. She aimed the leaf blower and turned it on. Grumpy couldn't hear her over the machine, but he could see her lips moving as she recited the spell. The magic dust flew out in a sparkly cloud. Grumpy and his brothers tightened their grip on the rope.
The tree collapsed in on itself, becoming Dopey. The rope was around his chest, not his waist, but that was good enough.
"Pull!" Grumpy shouted.
The Dwarves pulled, dragging Dopey back over the line.
Dopey stared at him. From the look on his face, if he could talk, they'd probably be hearing a lot of swear words. Grumpy was guessing that meant he didn't remember being a tree. As far as Dopey knew, he'd just stepped over the town line a moment ago.
Then, Dopey saw Astrid, who hadn't been there when he went over. He looked over the others and saw the change in clothes. It was an overcast day (but with a good, strong wind blowing in the right direction) when Dopey must be remembering blue skies from a few seconds ago.
"You turned into a tree," Grumpy said. "Astrid turned you back. Sorry, it took a while."
"He's not going to become a tree again, is he?" Happy asked.
Doc checked his watch. "You said the dust would last for a minute at most, right?"
"Go for two, just to be safe," Grumpy said.
They waited while Doc watched the second hand.
"Time."
They all looked at Dopey.
"I don't see any branches," Happy said.
"Or leaves," Sneezy added, blowing his nose. They needed to get him back indoors away from the pollen (honestly, it was like someone had tried to make a dwarf who couldn't leave the mines, not if he wanted to breathe. But, this world had some pretty strong allergy medicine. Maybe not strong enough to clear Sneezy up entirely, but it let him walk around outdoors on days like today).
Dopey signed "Thank you," to Astrid. That was another thing they got in this world, sign language.
"You're welcome," Astrid said. "But, Belle's the one you should really thank. She told us how to do it."
"Where's Belle?" Dopey signed.
"I tried to call her when we got everything together," Grumpy said. "But, she wasn't picking up. I'm hoping she finally got some sleep. She's been burning the candle from both ends way too long." Take that text message where she told them how to free Dopey. Belle's messages had been getting less and less clear, and it was even worse talking to her face to face. You had to look at the dark circles under her eyes and try to make out what she was saying between yawns. But, the last message had been short even for her.
One thing you could say about Gold, he did a good job of keeping Belle from working herself to death. Of course, if people needed a magical solution (and were willing to pay the price), he could take care of it with a snap of his fingers instead of letting her do it.
Or he had. Grumpy wondered what things would be like in Storybrooke without a Dark One. Sure, he was still the Dark One. Even with Belle around, nobody expected him to turn into the Starlight-Twinkle-And-Pretty-Rainbows One, but he was a whole lot better than Emma or Hook had been. At least, Gold hadn't ever tried to kill everyone.
It wasn't till they got back to town, though, that they found out what had happened to Belle. The convent was in an uproar when they went to drop off Belle. She'd stopped by to check in on Neal and Baby Hood (someone needed to name that kid. They all knew what Zelena had done to Robin to get that baby, but couldn't he handle being around long enough to fill in the birth certificate?). Somehow, with a small army of nuns to fall back on, none of them had time to feed the two infants they'd promised to look after.
OK, so fairies and nuns didn't do babies normally, not any more than Dwarves did. But, come on, even Grumpy had heard of bottles and burping. What did they think they were volunteering for? Watching over a pet rock?
Whatever the fairies' problem, Belle had stopped by to make sure the babies had some human interaction and didn't starve. And she'd vanished, her and the Baby-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
It had taken the fairies a while to notice. None of them had gone into check until Neal was screaming at the top of his lungs (that was another thing about babies it seemed like the fairies didn't know. No matter what people were like when they grew up, none of them started off with a thing about silent suffering. Babies let you hear about it when the world wasn't living up to their expectations). Even with a baby and Belle both missing, they still hadn't caught on that there was a problem. They figured Belle had taken the Nameless One for a walk without getting around to feeding Neal. Like that would happen.
"When?" Grumpy asked. "When did she go missing?"
All they could do was estimate. They knew the time she'd come and they knew when they'd begun to realize Belle was really missing and not just taking a walk around the convent grounds. It was a pretty wide margin.
Grumpy was willing to narrow it down. He looked at the text he'd been sent. It had been right after Belle would have been picking up one of the babies, a bottle in hand.
Belle might work herself to death someday, trying to solve other people's problems. But, Grumpy didn't think even she would text curse-breaking advise instead of asking for help when she'd been kidnapped.
Belle, are you there? he sent.
There was a pause, a long one. He didn't know why he should feel that way. He was sending a text to someone who wasn't there. Why should he even expect an answer? But, he did. More than that, it was as if he could feel someone on the other side, looking at his words and deciding how to answer.
The letters appeared slowly, as if someone were holding his phone and typing them as he watched even though he knew phones didn't work that way, even though it said the message was coming from Belle.
Rilke, that was the first word.
Then came the next line, Sonnets.
Followed by to Orpheus.
II. 4. Ln. 1
He was a Dwarf. He worked in the heart of the earth with tons of dirt and rock ready to cave in on him if something went wrong and only a narrow tunnel standing between him and suffocation. When that was done, he ground diamonds into dust. He didn't do fear—and he didn't waste time thinking about horror movies or anything else like that. So far, nothing of Stephen King's had creeped out of his corner of Maine to come visit Storybrooke, and that was how Grumpy liked it (if things changed, Grumpy figured a vampire went down when its head got swiped off by a pickax, same as everyone else).
So, he didn't feel anything cold tingling up and down his spine as he looked at the messages. He didn't. Instead, he just looked at what they said, all calm and rational. Really.
He had a name (he guessed Rilke was a name) and a title. The numbers and things probably meant it was from a play or something like that, right?
He went to the library again. No sign of Belle (he looked). But, after a little work (he really wished Belle was there), he found a book of poems by someone named Rilke (and what had that Dewey guy been smoking when he came up with this decimal thing?). He checked the table of contents and found Sonnets to Orpheus (even a Dwarf knew who Orpheus was, but Grumpy figured now wasn't the time to be thinking about people who chased their spouses into the land of the dead or what that might say about what had happened to Belle). Chapter II, Part 4, or whatever you called them in poems.
Line one.
Othis is the creature that has never been.
He wanted to growl at the bad joke and how much time he had wasted finding it.
But, he didn't because, deep down, he was sure he'd been given as honest an answer as he was going to get.
