Twenty-One
Gold has to know, so he drops by Marco's shop one evening after work. He finds the craftsman at his worktable, measuring a block of wood. Handily enough, Marco is wearing the square eyeglasses. "Good evening, Marco."
The craftsman snaps his head up and drops his pencil. "Oh, good evening, Mr. Gold. What can I do for you?" He's quite surprised; Gold never comes out to this part of town.
"Just wondering how those spectacles are working out. I see you're using them for their original purpose, rather than as a curio."
"I needed something for the close work, you know?"
"Are they comfortable for you? Since they weren't prescribed for you, I wonder if it's wise for you to use them as eyeglasses."
"They are comfortable, thank you. It's as if they were made for me: I see perfectly with them."
"No headaches then? No—" He doesn't know how to ask this without tipping his hand. "No tingling in the hands? I, uh, heard that can be a problem associated with, uh, optical nerve damage."
Marco tilts his head. "I am happy with my purchase, Mr. Gold, thank you."
Gold shifts his feet. "Well, then, that's fine. Good evening, Marco."
Marco remains puzzled. "Good evening, Mr. Gold."
So he tests others. Not everyone, but certain shop visitors who show particular interest in an object that he's found to be special—the unicorn mobile, the swords, the oil lamp; he's now cataloged seventy-three special items—he encourages these visitors to handle the object. He watches them for a reaction, but while many seem fascinated, one might even say enchanted, by the object, no one exhibits any of the symptoms he's experienced, and certainly no one returns to report self-answering telephones or flying pens.
Two months into his discovery, he makes a decision to end all experiments. Either he's delusional or he's tinkering with something he doesn't understand; whichever is true, it's best left alone.
Just once in a while, though, when he's alone and tired or his knee aches, he. . . dabbles.
He never sells any of the special objects. Even though there seems to be no danger of any of the objects infecting a buyer the way he's been infected, he senses that something's amiss: either it's the wrong time or the wrong buyer. It's bad business, he realizes: the seventy-three items take up quite a bit of shelf space, but he allows himself this, writing it off as another of his eccentricities.
A brisk wind doesn't deter the trick-or-treaters. Gold passes clusters of them as he walks home at 6 p.m., pint-sized witches and devils and princesses and fairies, all shepherded by parents who wait patiently on lawns while their charges ring doorbells and hold bags open to be filled with candy or gum or oranges (but never apples, because parents believe the urban legends). Gold walks slowly to avoid being bumped into and to eavesdrop as they tell their riddles and giggle when the grownups fail to guess the correct answer.
None of these children will dash up to the door of the big salmon-colored (not pink; he firmly corrects that misconception when it arises) Victorian on Shepherd's Way. The old man who lives there eats children, the urban legends say. Parents add under their breath, he eats other people's bank accounts too.
Just as well. If any of these kids did come to his door, Gold would sooner give them a piece of advice than a piece of candy. Gold has no respect for Halloween traditions. The idea that surrendering candy will keep the evil spirits away is such an oversimplification, anyway. And no self-respecting witch would wear a pointed hat.
Thanksgiving is the worst of the holidays. At least at Christmas he can keep his shop open—he'll always get some last-minute business. But during the whole week of Thanksgiving Storybook shuts down, rushes home in the five o'clock darkness and cranks up the thermostat and huddles in wool sweaters around the dinner table. Even Granny's is closed, so on the night before the holiday Gold stops in at Clark's and buys groceries to tide him over until Monday.
The snow hasn't arrived yet, so Gold drops his grocery bag into the back seat of his Caddy, along with a bottle of something from the liquor store, and he retreats to his second home, the one few people know about, a sturdy, spacious cabin in the western woods. It's far from rustic, with its indoor plumbing, central HVAC, full kitchen and two bedrooms. He's spared no expense on it, since he lives here some weekends when he needs to think. It's here he indulges in a secret pastime: fishing.
The cabin holds two other Gold secrets, in the bedrooms. Nothing sordid, just things he prefers to remain undisclosed. One of the secrets is that in the closet of the smaller bedroom toys are stored: sports equipment, model cars, a train set, a chemistry kit, board games, all in sealed boxes. Also in that closet hang clothes: t-shirts, jeans, hoodies, sweatshirts, all in boys' size 12, all with the price tags still attached. Gold remembers buying all these items on an impulse shopping spree, but he can't say why.
The other secret is in the master bedroom. There's the usual furniture: a dresser and a bed. But most of the space is taken up by a pair of antiques: a spinning wheel and a vertical loom. A basket of wool waits beside the wheel.
They came with the property. Gold has no use for them. He supposes he'll sell them—they're in magnificent condition for their age. Not just yet, though; he likes them where they are.
On Thanksgiving a snowstorm prevents him from fishing. He prepares his dinner: a Cornish game hen, a baked potato, apple pie and coffee with lemon. While it's in the oven he wanders the cottage looking for something to do. He's read all the books here; he turns on the radio but it's Christmas music. He wanders into the master bedroom and lies on the bed a while. He really should get a girlfriend for days like this. He rolls over and his gaze falls on the spinning wheel. He gets up and gives the big creaky wheel a turn. He's reminding himself to research its value when his hands start to tingle.
And before he realizes what's up he's taken a pair of big metal combs from the basket and he sets a clump of wool on one of the combs and he's—he doesn't know what he's doing or why. He's set the clump onto one of the combs and he's dragging the second comb through the clump. His brain doesn't process it, but his hands, still tingling, act independently. His body relaxes into the work and he catches himself humming along with "Silver Bells."
A little bell dings and he jerks out of his reverie. He sets the combs aside and returns to the kitchen to take his game hen out of the oven. He lays out his dinner, but as he slices into the hen he's still half-dazed and his hands are burning and when he thinks about what he was just doing, the work that he has no name for, those big metal combs come flying out of the bedroom and land in his apple pie.
Years go by; who knows how many? Thanksgivings, Christmases, Fourths of July: decorations go up, decorations come down. The days change but the people don't. No marriages, no births, no deaths, no graduations, no promotions. Neither the gray in Gold's hair nor his waistline spreads. His house is still salmon and he still drives a Caddy. Nobody changes.
Except the boy.
Other kids run or bike or skate past Gold's shop on the way to school. The mayor's son trudges. As fall clamps its hold on Maine, the boy's steps grow slower and slower. Gold watches him: in a small way, Gold is responsible for him, because in his seldom-used capacity as an attorney, he arranged for Mayor Mills to adopt Henry when the boy was three weeks old. With each passing year, Henry's grown more and more serious until he's now downright grim.
With each passing year, Henry's grown. . . .Something about that bothers Gold. He remembers delivering the infant to Regina. He remembers teaching the mayor how to change a diaper. He remembers watching the nanny pushing the stroller in the park. He remembers the boy's first teddy bear, first tricycle, first bicycle, all gifts from the pawnshop. And that's the problem. Gold remembers Henry's grown.
No other kid in Storybrooke has. The same kids who were in diapers last year are in diapers this year. The same faces pass his window, biking and skating and trudging to school, year after year, never changing. No one says anything about it.
But one afternoon something begins to change. The teacher Mary Margaret Blanchard is strolling past his shop, as she does every weekday, moving from the school to the apartment she rents from him. He often watches her as she passes his window: there's a gentleness to her manner that makes her stand out. The few times he's spoken to her, he's perceived a rare innocence in her: it's not naiveté or ignorance, but a chosen innocence. He, in his jaded old age, is fascinated by it, compelled to touch it, as though he could draw a beam of it to himself and heal his own shriveled soul.
Of course, he has nothing that she wants, so they have little reason to speak. But today is different. As she strolls past his window, swinging her overstuffed tote bag and smiling greetings at other passersby, his hands tingle and a thought jolts him: he must speak to her. He doesn't move from his place at the counter, doesn't call out to her—she wouldn't hear him anyway—but she suddenly stops, her mouth falling open, looks around, then glances back over her shoulder through his window. She blinks, puzzled. He smiles at her, and in she sails. When the bell above his door tinkles, he jumps imperceptibly.
"Good afternoon, Ms. Blanchard," he welcomes her, the greeting genuine. "On your way home, I see. Lovely fall day, is it not?"
"It is," she swallows, collecting her thoughts. "Yes. Lovely day. I, uh, I just had an impulse to. . ." She glances around the shop.
"Please feel free to browse all you like. Impulses are a shopkeeper's best marketing tool." He's smiling and feeling rather silly about it, but something about her scrapes the barnacles off his heart and makes him want to raise the sails of niceness.
As soon as that metaphor occurs to him, he wants to gag. He clears his throat and reminds himself who he is. But as Mary Margaret wanders the store, peering into the display counters, tilting her head up to see the bicycle and the canoe and other things he's hung from the ceiling, Gold's hands are still tingling. He glances down to determine the cause and jerks back when he finds it: his hands had been resting atop a large leather-bound book, its cover decorated with a title in ornate gold letters.
Mary Margaret is pulled to the unicorn mobile. The afternoon sun lights up the glass ornaments and when she touches one, delicately, with just the edge of a finger, a rainbow prisms through it. Her eyes enlarge and her lips part. She stands transfixed for several minutes and he doesn't break her concentration. When finally she sighs deeply and retracts her finger from the ornament, she offers a stumbling apology.
"I understand, Ms. Blanchard; it's a very special piece, that mobile."
She's not quite ready to break away. "Where did it come from, Mr. Gold?"
"Oh, I seem to have had it forever. I'm sure I have something of its history in my records; if you like—"
"That's all right. I'm sure it's way more than my budget could take."
"Perhaps something for Christmas, then? I have a lovely snow globe that just arrived."
"Snow? Thanks, but, uhm." She comes back to her senses now. "I wonder if you might have something a boy, a ten-year-old, would like. You see, one of my students has been a bit downhearted lately, and I thought I might bring him something to cheer him up."
Henry Mills. Gold doesn't know how he knows that, but immediately his hands are burning and of their own accord they pick up the leather book. "I have just the thing." Only after she takes it from him does he notice the title and realize he's just suggested a book of fairytales for a preadolescent boy. The businessman in him chides him for such a blunder, but his hands stop burning and he finds himself assuring her, "This book is exactly what he needs."
"I don't know." she's frowning, but as she opens the cover and sees a bright color illustration of a medieval prince on horseback, her eyes widen again and she runs her hand over the illustration. "Charming." She's talking to herself, not Gold. She rests the heavy book on the counter and turns its pages reverently. Some of the illustrations elicit an emotional reaction from her—dismay, shock, joy—and when she comes to the last, a drawing of the prince holding a baby, she makes a small sound that Gold can't identify.
"Give this book to Henry. He'll find inspiration and hope in these stories," Gold urges.
"It's beautiful. Must be very old. An antique."
Gold catches himself smiling wryly. "Even the old can have something to teach."
"Oh, but it must be very expensive." She searches for a price tag, but there is none.
"Not as expensive as you think. I would rather see it serving its purpose than taking up shelf space, so let's say twenty dollars."
She frowns. "Oh, no, Mr. Gold, I'm sure it's worth much—"
"Please, Ms. Blanchard. I think this book will bring Henry a measure of happiness; allow me that privilege, to invest in his future."
"You're too kind, Mr. Gold." She fumbles in her tote bag for her coin purse.
"Just—please don't repeat what you just said to anyone else. It could be bad for my business to have the word 'kind' associated with my name." He rings up her purchase and wraps the storybook carefully in butcher paper, then ties it with a string and returns the package to her. "Do drop in again. It's always a pleasure to see you."
She opens the door to leave, setting off the bell again, causing him to flinch. But she pauses before stepping out onto the sidewalk. "Mr. Gold? How did you know this is for Henry?"
"You mentioned it when you first came in."
She frowns again. "No, I—did I? Oh. Well, thank you, Mr. Gold."
"My pleasure, Ms. Blanchard."
And then an actual change comes. The rumor's spread from one end of town to another in less time than it takes to spread jam on toast: a stranger's arrived. Strangers never arrive in Storybrooke.
Gold hears about it as he's making the rent rounds. The citizenry's so excited they forget it's Gold they're talking to, and they describe the newcomer right down to the color of her eyes. The news is just too juicy: she's Henry's birth mother and she and Regina have already butted heads.
Gold arrives at Granny's to pick up the rent but finds that, for the first time in anyone's memory, the B & B has a customer: the stranger is checking in. She gives her name to Granny.
It's Emma.
And then Gold's world falls apart.