Neal was glad Emma got to spend some time with her mother, but unlike he and Henry had hoped, no spark of recognition had come to either of woman. Neal had been right in feeling the curse would be harder to break than that.

He and Henry got their hopes up once more when Snow came to them the next day, frantic, and explained that "David" had left Katherine and wanted Snow to meet him later. They had all encouraged her in the endeavor. Neal had started to believe that maybe Snow and Charming would break the curse after all.

But it was the next morning when Snow told them David had gone back to his wife that Neal realized Charming had finally received his cursed memories. He suspected Ursula had something to do with this sudden memory revival, though he couldn't be sure how. In any case, the curse was seeming more and more impossible to break. Even Henry admitted he was out of ideas.

Neal's mind returned to the solution his father had suggested. He still wasn't keen on sending Emma into unknown danger with nothing but a sword to protect her. But he could not shake the feeling that there was something important under that clock tower.

The family spent their final days of vacation finishing the Places of Interest list. They would have finished it much sooner had they not repeatedly fallen into the habit of staying at one location for most of the day - like when Henry had wanted to stay at the stables or when his mother had taken him to the park and he'd loved the castle too much to leave.

But at last they had crossed everything off - everything but the library.

"It's closed," Emma said when Neal suggested they visit the place. "They've boarded it up. You've seen it."

"We should still look around," Neal told her. "It was important to the town once. Maybe we'll find something interesting."

Emma had shrugged and let it go. They hadn't had anything else planned for the day anyway. But she wasn't at all happy when they arrived at the location and her husband started shaking the boards.

"Neal," she warned.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"This is breaking and entering," she told him.

"We haven't broken anything yet," he said, continuing to shake boards.

"Neal!"

"Don't you want to see inside?" There was a screech and a board came lose. Neal feigned a gasp, placed the board on the ground and stepped through the open hole.

"Neal!" Emma shouted after him. "Henry, no-" She reached out to grab her son, but he slipped through her fingers. "Don't you-" But he headed through the hole after his father.

Emma hesitated. This wasn't right. This was wrong. Sure, she and Neal had done this sort of thing hundreds of times in their younger days, but they had sworn that off. They had promised not to walk on the other side of the law again.

And yet here was her husband, ripping down boarded windows and illegally entering abandoned buildings. And her son had gone after him.

She was putting them at risk by standing out on the sidewalk and gawking, so she followed them and stepped inside while making a mental note to give her husband a stern talking to later.

Her anger dissolved into surprise as she stepped into the library and saw how pristine everything looked. She would have expected dust to have covered everything and be at least a few inches thick with how no one in town could remember the library ever being open. But the books sat neatly aligned in their shelves. The floors and walls were clean, as though the library had been open the day before and had just closed down for the night. The surrealness of it all gave her the creeps.

"What's going on here?" she asked to the air, but it didn't answer her.

Henry stood in front of the librarian's desk, looking up and turning slowly in a circle, taking everything in. Neal had disappeared behind a bookcase.

"Look at this!" he shouted. Henry and Emma and joined him where he stood in front of old looking elevator. It had a set of double wooden doors and a series of mechanisms to either side that Emma imagined helped operate it. "Wonder where it goes."

"Neal, don't!" Emma told him as he reached for the wheel that would open the doors. "We shouldn't be in here."

Neal ignored her. He grasped the wheel, fulling intending to turn it. For a moment, he was elated. Finally, they could figure out exactly what was going on here. Finally, they could break the curse.

But the more he examined the elevator and the mechanical workings he could see, the more he realized it wouldn't run on its own. Someone would have to stay above and operate it manually. That's why his father must have insisted Emma do this alone.

He was not going to send his wife into that place by herself, not when he had no idea what was down there. And he certainly wouldn't do it with Henry. "You're right," he said, changing his mind and letting go of the wheel. "Let's go."

"But-" Henry protested.

"Let's go," Neal repeated firmly.

But when they rounded the bookshelf, someone was standing in the hole they had made.

"What do you think you're doing?" came the firm voice of the town mayor.

"Mayor Caro," said Emma, stepping in front of her family. "I can explain. We were just-"

"It's my fault," said Neal, interrupting her. "I dragged Emma and Henry in here. They had nothing to do with this."

"I don't care whose fault it is," said Ursula, staring them all down. "All three of you are here. Therefore, all three of you are trespassing on city property."

"No, please," said Emma. "Henry-"

Ursula stepped toward the family. "I don't know what a vacation means to you people. That you can just do whatever you want? Let lose against the laws of society?"

"No," said Neal quickly.

The Mayor eyed them slowly, then sighed. "It is my understanding that your family is leaving within the next couple days. I suggest that you all leave the premises this instant, and that you avoid breaking any further laws. Do this now, and I will reconsider pressing charges."

"Yes, Mayor Caro," said Emma. "Thank you."

"Out!" Ursula demanded, pointing out the hole they had made.

The family hurried on their way. They didn't look back to see if Ursula had followed them.

"What were you thinking?" demanded Emma when they got back to their room at the inn.

"I-I just-" Neal struggled. He hadn't come up with a brilliant story for this one.

"Do you realize the kind of trouble we could have gotten into? Could have gotten Henry into? Breaking and entering on city property! Neal! What were you thinking?" she asked again.

"I just ... I just thought it would be cool to see, you know?"

That had not been the right words to say. Emma looked outraged. "We're lucky she didn't press charges!"

That had been lucky, but Neal imagined Ursula didn't bother to charge them because she wanted the family out of Storybrooke as soon as possible. He also didn't think she wanted to draw any attention to the library. Something was down there, and she was hiding it. Neal just had no idea what.

Emma threw up her hands. "I'm going over to the Mayor's house and apologizing tomorrow."

"What?" asked Neal, Emma's words drawing him away from his thoughts.

"You don't have to come," she said, too angry to look at him or even bother arguing with him anymore. "But I'm taking Henry, and we're going."

There was nothing Neal could say. He knew better than to talk when Emma was this upset with him. She slept as far as she could on the other side of the bed that night.