9 | Mary Margaret

"Henry took the spirit of the town with him," Ruby quietly said after narrating the whole story. "I was there, you know, that afternoon. I was the one who served them nachos. Henry looked so happy. They all looked happy. None of us ever thought…" her voice cracked as she looked down at her hands.

They were sitting inside the Mills mausoleum after placing the flower arrangement on top of Henry's tomb. There were plenty of smaller flower arrangements scattered inside that came from residents who have arrived and have left before they got there. Ruby had been quiet the whole ride to the cemetery and only began to tell her the story after she had paid her respects to Henry.

Ruby cleared her throat, wiping a few stray tears from her face. "It took a while for everyone to recover. Regina left. Albert Nolan became the mayor then left. Everything was so unstable for a couple of months. Then everything just went back to the way it was before. Not completely, but almost."

Mary Margaret had no words to say after what she heard. No wonder Regina was the way she was. It was one thing to lose a child, but to lose him in such a terrible way was nothing short of a nightmare. "Did they ever arrest the one behind the wheel?" Mary Margaret asked.

"No," Ruby shook her head sadly. "Whoever it was covered his tracks very well."

"Poor Graham."

"Graham took it pretty hard. It was awful to see the person who was always cracking jokes and making everyone laugh become a hollow shell of himself. He blames himself for what happened. It took a few years and many, many sessions with Dr. Hopper to be the way he is now, but nobody thinks he's going to really get over it. I doubt anyone in this town will ever be."

Then the strangest thing happened. Ruby leaned against the tomb, and the tomb moved with her. Her friend screamed a little as they jumped back in fear. They were both clutching each other's hands tightly as Ruby began shaking, "Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. What did I do? Oh, God. I'm so sorry."

Mary Margaret's heart was thudding against her chest as she quietly assessed the situation. "Okay. Okay, this is what we do. We just – we just have to push it back. No big deal."

"No big deal?" Ruby echoed in disbelief. "Snow, it freaking moved!"

Mary Margaret cleared her thoughts about spirits and Henry coming back to haunt them just in time to see something peculiar on the floor. There was a small opening peeking out, like the tomb was covering something underneath it.

"Ruby, do you see that?"

Ruby scrutinized the floor she was pointing at. "What should I be seeing?"

Mary Margaret positioned herself with both hands pushing the tomb further from its original place.

"Snow!" Ruby said in alarm. "You're making it worse. Stop that!"

"Come on. Just help me!"

Ruby hesitated, looking warily at the entrance. "Someone might come in and see us."

"The quicker you help me, the quicker we can get it back!"

Ruby sighed in defeat before joining her. It wasn't long before they revealed a secret staircase leading to an underground level. "Would you look at that?" Mary Margaret said in awe.

"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Ruby asked nervously. "What if there's something down there?"

"Aren't you up for a little adventure?" Mary Margaret nudged her friend. Ruby was trying to fight off a smile at her antics. "Come on. We might find something interesting down there."

They gingerly went down the stone steps. Mary Margaret was trying to conceal her nervousness. The farther they got down, the darker it became. When they reached the bottom, they both turned to the left and began screaming at the top of their lungs. She was the first to realize what it was, making her hold Ruby in place and hushing her, "Ruby! It's just a mirror! It's just a mirror!"

"Damn it, Snow. Can we please get out of here?" Ruby almost whimpered. "We shouldn't even be here. This is trespassing!"

Mary Margaret barely heard her, having discovered a room filled with old books. She opened one of them and it contained drawings and a language she didn't understand. She placed it back where it belonged before scanning the rest of the room. All the walls were made of red bricks, but the farthest wall had red curtains over it. When she pulled them aside, she discovered a wall made of gold drawers that had a keyhole in the middle of each. The keyholes had a design that was familiar to her, but she couldn't remember what they reminded her of.

"Snow!" Ruby called out.

"Just a minute," she told her, smelling something weird. "That's strange."

"What is?" Ruby asked, suddenly right beside her.

Mary Margaret jumped at the sound of her voice before answering her. "Do you smell that?"

Ruby leaned closer to the drawers before drawing back almost immediately. "Smells like something from a science lab."

Something clicked inside Mary Margaret's head at the mention of a laboratory. "I know what this smells like."

"What?"

"Formalin."


The three officers were quiet, lacking the enthusiastic bantering among them that particular day. Leaves were crunching underfoot as they made their way to the mausoleum. David was carrying the flowers, and Emma had her hands wrapped around Graham's arm while his were inside his pockets. There were flowers already lining the stairs outside of the mausoleum, letting him know the residents were thinking of his boy.

When they stepped inside, the solemn air around them dissipated at the sight of the tomb pushed away from its position. In its place was a secret passage none of them had seen before. Graham's blood began to boil at the thought of someone defiling his son's resting place, making him run down the steps without thinking. Emma's and David's calls faded behind him as he pulled out his gun, blinded with anger.

There were two darkened figures in the small room that froze when his cold tone accompanied the pointed gun, "Hands where I can see them."

Emma and David have caught up behind him with flashlights, and Graham was surprised to see the faces of Ruby and the new girl with their hands up in the air.

"Snow? Ruby?" Emma said, voicing out his own disbelief. "What the hell?"

"We're so sorry," Ruby said with her voice wavering. "We were just supposed to bring flowers, but –."

"It was my fault," Snow spoke up. "I forced her into this."

"I accidentally leaned on the tomb, and it moved," Ruby continued to say as if Snow hadn't said anything. "We saw something weird on the floor and we went to check it out."

Ruby's voice got smaller by the end, her fearful eyes trained on him the whole time, as if wondering what he might do or say. Graham honestly had no idea how to address the situation and was thankful when Emma went into sheriff mode. The sound of handcuffs made him lower his gun and grab his own pair as well.

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

"What?" Ruby squeaked. "You're taking us in?"

"You've been caught trespassing. This is private property," Graham explained in a hollow tone. Nobody argued with him there with all of them sharing a glance with one another. He was sick of the sympathetic looks and the insincere reassurances this day provided him each year. He craved for something to take his mind off of his dead son. He didn't realize his wish would lead him into one of the most sinister cases Storybrooke has ever seen.


Shame. She felt so ashamed.

Mary Margaret flinched at the sound of the cell being slammed shut behind her. Ruby was already sitting on the cushion in the cell adjacent to hers, sporting a defeated look and making Mary Margaret feel even worse. She had let Ruby down. Her friend didn't even want to be down there in the first place. But her feeling of shame increased tenfold at the thought of David witnessing everything that went down in the cemetery. He had not said a word the entire time, and she hadn't been able to lift her eyes up from the ground.

Graham spoke up, his tone making her feel even more horrible. "Why don't we start by you two telling us what happened? We can start from the beginning."

She and Ruby shared a look before she gestured for her to speak for the both of them. Her friend gave her a small smile before turning to the officers. "Mr. Gold came by the inn early this morning to talk to Snow. He told her to pick up the flowers from Game of Thorns and deliver it to the Mills mausoleum for him. I decided to go with her."

Graham looked like he was forced to eat sand. "Gold told you to do this?"

"Just the flowers," Ruby clarified quickly. Mary Margaret knew better. She finally remembered what the keyhole looked like. The set of keys she stole from the mayor's office had a similar design. Mr. Gold planned all this, and it made her angry to be a pawn in his schemes. "I accidentally leaned against the tomb, and it moved. I –."

"Wait a minute," Emma stopped her. "Why would Gold tell you to do all this?"

"Because he and I had a deal," Mary Margaret spoke up. "And I have to hold up my end of the bargain."

Everyone paused at her answer. Even Ruby didn't know that she previously had contact with the pawnbroker.

Mary Margaret finally braved a glance over at David who had his arms crossed against his chest, his eyes trained on her with an unreadable expression on his face. She couldn't hold his stare for too long because Emma asked her the question she had dreaded to hear since she arrived in town.

"Snow," Emma held her gaze before enunciating her every word. "You've been here for a week. You told David that you came here in peace, and we believed you. And for this whole week, nothing out of the ordinary happened. But now, something did happen, Snow. And you were involved. So, I think we're due some answers."

The silence was almost deafening, only the ticking of the clock can be heard in the room. The same cold dread Mary Margaret felt whenever she was forced to face her stepmother washed over her again. She could almost imagine Regina stepping out from around the corner with an evil smile on her face, waiting for her to come with her. Tears pooled in her eyes as she looked at each of them before staying on David.

"Don't make me go back."

They all looked startled at her response. "We won't," Graham said, gentler than before. "We just want to know who you are. That's all."

A tear escaped her eye. "I'm not going home?"

"You don't have to," Emma assured her. "You can stay here, but you have to tell us who we're protecting you from."

Mary Margaret took a while to steel her nerves. Once she tells them, everything will be out in the open. They will be involved. All of them. Ruby and David will be involved in her nightmare, and that was holding her back from telling them the truth.

"At least tell us your name," Graham prodded with an encouraging smile.

With a long, deep breath, Mary Margaret drained her anxieties and fears away, her face turning into the cold expression she had perfected all the years she had been with Regina, a mask that hid her true emotions. A look around the room confirmed that her demeanor had startled them for they haven't met the real Mary Margaret whose heart and soul have been broken by the woman they have once called their mayor.

"My name is Mary Margaret Blanchard, daughter of Leonardo Blanchard, stepdaughter of Regina Mills. I ran from home in the middle of the night because I overheard my stepmother talking to hitman."

Her audience was frozen in their seats.

"She wants me dead, and she wants my heart as proof."


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