When my eyes opened, I was surprised by daylight streaming in through the window. Was it really morning already? It felt like I had slept no time at all. Sitting up, I stretched my arms out over my head and threw my covers off. Standing, I walked to my vanity mirror and checked my reflection a moment. I was nearly to the door when I stopped dead in my tracks. Looking around, I took in the collection of polaroid pictures plastered on the wall near the bed. The gray-and-white pinstripe comforter. The extra-warm quilt that I refused to admit I kept because Gran made it for me when I was a baby. The hammock chair hanging from the rafter. The books and CDs stacked neatly on the shelf.
Those were my things. My personal belongings. They belonged in my room. When I laid down that night, that room was empty except for the bed and the furniture.
"What the hell?" I muttered, brow knit.
Voices carried from downstairs, loud and angry, and I pushed my door open. As I made my way down the stairs, the voices grew louder and louder. When I got to the bottom stair, I peered around curiously.
"How could this have happened?"
My ma streaked past me, pacing back and forth in the foyer. Her hands were on her hips, her blonde hair pulled back, and her face was a mask of worry. Mom emerged from the living room, one hand covering her mouth and the other wrapped over her stomach. Her eyes were red-rimmed. It only took one look for me to know this wasn't Regina and Emma. These were my moms.
"I don't know," she whispered. "I don't understand any of this. What… What could have happened?"
"Guys," I smiled widely at them. "Hey, I'm right here!" They didn't even look up, and I frowned. "Hello? Anyone listening to me?"
"God, where could they have gone?" Ma rubbed her forehead. "Anything could happen…"
"I'm literally standing right in front of you." I stepped off the stairs in front of her. "Yoo-hoo!" Ma lifted her head, and she stared dead at me. No, not at me. Through me. Then, she walked straight through me. I gasped as my body dissipated, fading before rematerializing.
"Oh my God," I breathed, eyes wide as I looked myself over. "Oh my God. What the hell is this?"
"They must be in town somewhere." Gran appeared as well through the foyer, Gramps close behind her. Just like Ma and Mom, they were the picture of anxiety. Gran had clearly been crying, and Gramps had his eyebrow pinched, his eyes exhausted. "We must have missed somewhere. Where would two fourteen-year-olds go?"
"Mom, we looked everywhere." Ma shook her head. "Dad and I tore the whole town apart. They're not here. Nobody's seen them. Not since they left home for school."
"I think we need to consider a possibility we all want to avoid," Gramps said, and they all looked at him. "Maybe they're not just lost. Maybe they ran away."
"No." Ma and Mom both said it immediately.
"Ava wouldn't run away," Mom said confidently.
"Regina, I know you don't want to think about it," Gran sighed. "Neither do we. There were no signs pointing to it in her or Neal. But I've been working with kids long enough to know that sometimes they don't show when they're unhappy. You never thought Henry would have run away before, either, but he did. More than once."
"This is different," Mom growled back at her. "I know my daughter. She didn't run away. Something else happened. I don't know what, but I know that, wherever they are, Ava and Neal didn't go by choice." She looked so certain of it, but behind that certainty was something else. An insecurity. I knew my mom well enough to know exactly what was running through her mind. All the what if's. She was thinking back, trying to imagine if she'd done anything wrong to make me leave. If she'd missed a signal that would point to this. It made my heart ache that I couldn't tell her that there were no signals. That she'd done nothing wrong. That this was no one's fault but my own for opening that stupid book in the first place. I just wanted to hug her. To hug them all. But when I tried to reach out to her, my hand disappeared like smoke against her shoulder, and she didn't even blink an eye.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, tears burning my eyes. "I'm so sorry for this. I'm going to make it right. I'm going to come back home. I promise. I love you."
I bolted out of bed, eyes wide and chest rolling with panting breaths. One look at the plain, barren room around me told me that I was back in the world I'd gone to sleep in. Closing my eyes, I struggled to calm down.
The sound of slightly raised voices below caught my attention, and my eyes snapped back open. Not again. Please, not again.
Standing and pulling my hair up out of my face, I padded barefoot out into the hall for the stairs. The voices were clearer now, and I frowned to myself. No doubt about it. That was my parents. I groaned.
"Yeah, they do this a lot." Jumping, I turned to see Henry standing behind me, already dressed for the day. He looked at me with a frown. "Mom and Emma can't do anything good together except fight."
I smirked at him. "Yeah, I've noticed." My stomach let out a ravenous growl. "Think we should risk entering the war zone for some breakfast?"
He smiled. "Absolutely. Mom makes pancakes whenever I have friends over." His expression dimmed slightly. "Doesn't happen very often."
Looping my arm around his shoulder, I walked with him downstairs. "Don't sweat it, dude. Give it a little time, and I know you'll have loads of friends."
He looked at me brightly. "Really?"
"Absolutely. You already have one in me."
He dropped his head an inch, an ear-to-ear grin on his face as he murmured, "Thanks."
It was so odd seeing Henry like that. Not just so young but so shy, too. As an adult back home, he was so much more confident. So sure of himself. He was always the big brother comforting me when I was awkward or worried. It felt kind of nice to repay the favor now.
We got to the bottom of the stairs and peeked into the kitchen. Mom and Ma stood with the island between them, their faces expressing nothing but rage. If the island wasn't there, I had a feeling that Ma would've tackled Mom already. It was unsettling to see them look at each other like that. I'd witnessed my parents fight plenty of times before, but it had never been like this. There was still love between them back home. This was primal. Hate. I didn't like it.
"You couldn't have waited to show up after breakfast?" Mom taunted, hands on her hips. "Now I've lost my appetite."
"I wanted to check on the kid," Ma spat back. "Make sure she was okay."
"Afraid I might poison her?" Mom said, narrowing her eyes. "I'm not sure when you think you became parent-of-the-year, Miss Swan, but I have much more experience at caring for children than you." Her lips tilted in a venomous smirk. "I'm not the one who gave their child up after all."
My grip on Henry tightened as his shoulders sagged, and Ma physically tensed. I thought for sure she was going to deck Mom for such a low blow, but instead she just grabbed hold of the countertop in front of her and gripping it for dear life. My brow knit. She was restraining herself? Weird. Ma was known for a lot of things, but self-control wasn't one.
"You listen to me, you selfish, vapid—"
"Hey!" I called out, and Ma spun on her heels, eyes wide. Mom's mouth fell open as she looked at me and Henry, who looked like he'd love nothing more than to shrink into oblivion.
"Henry," Mom breathed, her expression pained and filled with regret. Ma just stared at us with bulging eyes. The tension was thick enough to choke on. Somebody had to break it.
I covered Henry's ears with my hands loosely. "Easy with the language there, guys. There are children present."
With a playful giggle, he shoved my hands away, and I grinned. "I'm not a child."
"Yeah, sure. I believe you." I gave him an exaggerated wink, and he pushed me gently.
My mom's both breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed, and there was nothing but gratitude on their faces when I looked back at them.
"Well, you two seem to be getting along swimmingly," Mom noted with a smile. Her eyes caught mine. "Did you sleep well?"
I chewed on my lip. "Yeah. I slept like a baby."
"Lie," Ma declared. Damn human lie detector.
I sighed. "I slept fine. Just had a weird dream, that's all." Wandering further into the kitchen, I peered at the griddle on the counter. "Is that breakfast?"
"Apple-cinnamon pancakes," Mom informed me. "My specialty."
I pumped my fist. "Oh, yes." She didn't know it, but I'd had her pancakes a million times before, and they were my favorite.
I paused before looking at Ma slyly. "I'm assuming you'll be joining us?"
Her mouth flopped open and closed a few times before she finally found her voice. "Uh, I don't think so. I was just checking to make sure you were good."
"Well, I am," I said. "Really good. And since you're here, you might as well stay and eat breakfast. If that's okay with Regina and Henry, of course."
Henry piped up from the across the island. "Yep!"
I looked at Mom with a big smile. "Can't send the Sheriff to work on an empty stomach, can you, Madame Mayor?"
Ma spoke up. "It's fine. I can just get something quick from—"
"Why don't you stay and eat, Miss Swan?" Mom stopped her and shocked both Ma and Henry. Not me, though. I knew I'd seen the look she'd had on her face when she and Ma were fighting. There may have been anger and loathing, but there was also a glimmer that came in her eyes whenever she and Ma were being gross-in-love back in my world. It was definitely a stranger relationship than I was used to between them, but there was still, even in this world, an attraction. Disgusting but also good.
"Seriously?" Ma asked her with raised eyebrows.
I grinned at her. "You can't turn down an invitation from the Mayor, can you, Sheriff Swan?"
She cut her eyes at me. "You're going to be trouble, aren't you?" I beamed, and she sighed. "Okay, sure. I'll stay. Only because those pancakes smell great."
"Awesome!" I said. "I'll make the hot cocoa and coffee."
I moved around the kitchen expertly, retrieving the cocoa mix and coffee can from the pantry. As I turned the pot on and started to make the cocoa, I caught glimpse of all their eyes trained on me questioningly. That was when I realized my mistake. Quick as I could, I thought up an excuse.
"Oh, um, I may have gotten up last night for a midnight snack and done a little exploring." It was lame even to me, but it was the most believable thing I could think of. "Sorry."
"It's fine, dear," Mom finally smiled. "Thank you for helping—I appreciate it."
"You're welcome." While she may have been placated by the lie, Ma still had her eyes narrowed at me suspiciously.
I turned my back and focused on the cocoa to escape her gaze. "How did Neal do last night?"
"He was fine," she answered. "He woke up on the drive to the apartment, but he saw Mary Margaret, and he was okay. He was still asleep whenever I left this morning."
"Yeah, he's a late sleeper. Didn't keep you up with his snoring, did he?"
She chuckled. "Not too much, no."
I finished the three cups of cocoa off with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon for each and delivered them to their owners. Then, I poured out a cup of black coffee and gave it to Mom.
"You seem like you take it strong," I told her. From the corner, Ma snorted out loud. Making eye contact, both our faces brightened.
"That's what she said!" We rang out together, pointing our fingers at each other and rolling with laughter. It felt so wonderfully normal that I almost forgot where I was.
"Children come now." Mom tried to scoff, but she couldn't hide a slight smirk.
"Who's she?" Henry inquired as he set the dining room table for breakfast.
"Nobody," I assured him. "It's a really dumb joke that you do not even want to understand." Mom plated the pancakes, and I carried them to the table. Henry looked annoyed at being left out of the loop, so I leaned forward and mouthed, "It's a sex thing."
His ears burned. "Oh." Then, his eyes widened as the context of the joke set in. "Oh. Ew. Gross."
"But funny," I added, and he grinned.
"You guys have made really fast friends," Ma remarked as she and Mom joined us at the table. "Like, really fast."
"It's kind of weird," Henry mused. "I feel almost like I've met you before. When I saw you and your brother yesterday, I got this weird sense of déjà vu."
"Y'know, I sort of felt that, too." It took everything in me to hide my knowing smile. "Like a separated-at-birth kind of thing."
His eyes widened. "Maybe we're, like, long-lost siblings or something."
Ma coughed over her cocoa. "No. Nope. Definitely not. I distinctly remember only ever having one child."
Henry reached for the syrup absently. "You only had one kid, but maybe my father…"
He stopped himself, eyes wide at the slip, as the entire room tensed again. Ma's eyes were dark and glued to the table while Mom busied herself with her pancakes awkwardly. I sat among them, chewing on my bottom lip. I had been told all about Henry's dad, Neal. Like how he was Rumpelstiltskin's long-lost son. How he set my mom up to take the fall for a theft he committed at the bidding of Pinocchio. How he came back and redeemed himself to my mother just before his death. But he hadn't done any of that in this world. Not yet anyway. As far as Ma knew, he was just some jerk who abandoned her like everyone else in her life.
"I have a great idea," I stated, and they looked over at me. "Let's change the subject. How about them Sox, hm?"
Ma squinted. "Red or White?"
"What kind of a question is that? Red, of course."
A grin broke out across her face. "You're alright, Ava."
I smiled and grabbed my fork, forgetting entirely about the stitches in my hand.
"Ah!" I hissed, the fork clattering down on my plate from my throbbing hand. Examining my palm, I grimaced. Even uglier than it was last night.
The sounds of chairs scraping against the floor rang out as Mom and Ma both jumped to their feet in concern.
"Are you okay?" Mom demanded.
"Yeah, I'm fine." I flexed my fingers and cringed at the soreness. "Just forgot."
"Look at it this way," Henry said. "You'll have a really cool battle scar when it heals. You should tell people you got it fighting a monster. Something cool like that."
"Good advice. I'll remember that. Fighting a monster is a much better story than how it really happened."
"How did it happen anyway?" he asked, and I frowned.
"She was doing something very foolish," Mom supplied. "Let that be a lesson to you both: if you do something you know is wrong, you will pay for it in some way."
"Karma," Ma nodded in agreement. "Gets you every time."
"Learned that the hard way," I muttered.
There was a knock at the door, and Mom stood. "Who could that be?"
She walked to answer it while I struggled to hold my fork and stab a piece of pancake, scowling in frustration. Ma smirked at me while Henry chuckled.
"What in the—" Before Mom could finish the question, she was cut off by pounding footsteps. I looked up just in time for Neal to envelope me in a massive hug.
"Ava!" he exclaimed. "Oh my God, you're alive!"
"Yeah," I said, shucking his arms off me. "I was alive last night when you saw me, too." I grinned. "Y'know, right before you fainted."
"You had a needle sticking out of your arm, and there was blood everywhere. It was gross. Don't laugh at me!"
I couldn't help chuckling. "You're such a wuss. Check this out, Henry." I held my palm up for Neal to see, and he gagged immediately. Henry laughed beside of me, and I dropped my hand.
"Well, excuse me for worrying about you," Neal scoffed sorely. "I won't make that mistake again."
"Shut up. Eat a pancake." Using my good hand, I speared a piece and held it up to him.
"No thanks. Mom—" he stopped, glancing at the others— "I mean, Mary Margaret made breakfast." He lowered his voice. "And as Snow White's son, I am smart enough not to eat anything apple made by the Evil Queen."
I popped the pancake in my own mouth. "Your loss. This is delicious."
"Well, this is… odd." We looked up to see Gran staring at us from the doorway. Mom brushed past her with an indignant huff, perching herself back in her chair at the table. "You all look like one big happy family."
"Except for Regina," Ma smirked. "She's pissed."
"Can't imagine why," Mom growled. "With strangers barging into my home as if they own the place."
"I apologized already, Regina," Gran sighed exasperatedly. "What else can I do?"
"Leave," Mom answered shortly, cutting her pancakes.
"It's my fault," Neal muttered, toeing the ground. "I made her bring me. I wanted to make sure Ava was okay."
Mom's tone immediately softened. "It's quite alright, dear. I understand your concern for your sister." She had always had a soft spot for kids. Even Snow White's. She did marry one of them after all. Or she would in the future. Or past? Or… Ugh, time travel was confusing.
I finished my breakfast and walked up to my bedroom with Neal behind me, excusing myself from the others. I closed the door behind us and faced him.
"So, something weird happened last night," I said.
"Weirder than accidentally falling through a portal into the past?" he asked me.
"I had a dream," I answered. "Except for it wasn't really a dream. It was like…" I sighed frustratedly. "I think I went back to our world while I was asleep last night."
"What?" he choked out, eyes wide. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I was back home. Here. In this room. I went downstairs, and my moms were there. And Gran and Gramps, too. They were talking about us, worried sick about where we were." I pushed my hair back from my face. "It was so weird, Neal."
"Did you tell them where we were? Are they going to get us out of here?"
"I tried to talk to them, but they couldn't see or hear me. Ma looked right at me, and she walked through me. Through me, Neal. Like I was a ghost. I have no clue how or why it happened, but it did. Maybe it's my magic tapping into theirs. I don't know, but I have some sort of link to them."
"Can we strengthen it?" he questioned. "You know, so maybe you can communicate with them somehow?"
"How would we do that?"
"I don't know. You're the magic one." His face lit up suddenly. "This is just like that Patrick Swayze movie that Mom doesn't know we watched—the one where he's a ghost, and he, like, gets back in touch with Demi Moore. The one with Whoopi Goldberg." He put on his very best angry Whoopi face, eyes bulging. "'I ain't no DAMN secretary!'"
"I know the movie, Neal," I snapped at him. "This isn't that. Because I'm not a dead guy hung up on his ex, and you aren't my Oda Mae Brown. This real fucking life. Do you get that?" He looked hurt, but I was too upset to stop now. "I was standing right in front of them—and they couldn't see me. I yelled at them, and they didn't hear me." Tears burned my eyes. "Neal, I don't know how we're going to do this. I can't keep this up. It just gets harder and harder, and it hurts. And it's all my fucking fault we're here. I did this, and I don't know how to fix it. God, Neal, I'm so sorry I did this to us." I began to cry, and he gaped at me for a few seconds with his mouth hanging open. I couldn't blame him for being shocked. If there was one thing I never did, it was cry. But I just wanted to go home. To get back to my parents.
"Hey, Ava, it's okay." His arms wrapped slowly and awkwardly around me, and he patted my back uncertainly. "We're going to figure this out. And it isn't your fault. Neither of us knew what that book would do. We're going to get back home. We just have to find the book and undo all this."
"What if we can't? What if we're stuck here forever?"
"We won't be. Even if we can't figure this out, I guarantee that our family will. They won't give up on us, Ava. We're going to get home." He smirked at me. "Trust me. Your moms will cross realms and kick ass to get us back."
I laughed through my tears. "Thanks, Neal. You really inherited the annoying 'hope' speech thing, huh?"
He smiled, dropping his arms. "You have to admit that they do come in handy. So, Chief, what do we do now?"
Setting my jaw, I felt a new determination solidified in my gut. We were going to get home. No matter what, I was going to get us back where we belonged. "We're going to find that stupid book and go home."
