She didn't realize they were holding hands until Killian gave hers a light squeeze. She blinked and all thoughts of the Director were gone. Killian smiled sweetly and asked if she was all right, and Emma remembered the promise she'd made to herself not to waste the good days.
It'd been a full twenty-four hours and no sign of Killian's alter ego, so they'd opted to go out. Killian had suggested a movie, but Emma wasn't much in the mood for crowds. He suggested a restaurant, but Emma didn't have an appetite. With each item she ticked off his list, it became clear that all she wanted was to spend time with him.
So they walked.
Not really talking, but that was Emma's fault—she'd been lost to her own thoughts quite a lot lately.
"You're awfully quiet," said Killian.
"Just enjoying the view." Emma pulled him close so she could rest her head on his shoulder. "We don't get to do this very often. It's nice."
"I agree, Swan. Most enjoyable."
Emma looked up at him when his tone didn't match his words. He smiled a vacant smile and Emma's stomach tied itself into knots. It couldn't be over already.
"What is it?"
"I just…hope it lasts, is all."
"Me too."
Over the past few days Emma had noticed another thing they had in common. This defeatist attitude they each had toward themselves. If Killian faced a problem, Emma had no trouble being encouraging. Her difficulty lied in applying the same optimism to herself. Killian was the same. If it was Emma in this situation, he'd move heaven and earth to save her. How could she attempt any less to save him?
He'd started saying, "It's okay," more often. Like he was giving up. It's okay, Swan. We've had a good run. And he'd smile a crestfallen smile.
He was about to say it now—Emma could sense it.
She stopped walking and turned Killian toward her. He looked puzzled until Emma said "You know I love you, don't you?" And the centuries faded from his eyes. He stood for a few moments, dumbfounded—like they'd never exchanged these three words before. A new crack formed in Emma's heart at what his shock meant. "Whatever happens. You and me—we're in this together. I'm not giving up and neither should you."
Killian pulled her into a tight embrace and said, "I love you, too."
In the comfort of his arms, in the wake of his words—what surely he believed he'd just spoken for the first time—Emma couldn't help letting go of all her anxieties. She felt the years melt away until it was just the two of them, in that moment, on that sidewalk, the rest of the world a distant dream.
But all good things come to an end, and this was no exception.
She heard the car before she saw it. Weaving through traffic and cutting a course straight for them.
Emma acted on instinct. She shoved Killian out of the way but failed to take cover herself. The car sped up, the growl of its engine the last sound Emma was prepared to hear on this earth. She closed her eyes in the final moment before impact, and the world around her slowed to a crawl.
They always said that flashes from a person's life preceded their death. This wasn't true in Emma's case. She wasn't bombarded with sepia-toned scenes from her past. Or visions of the future she would never get to see.
She saw another life entirely.
One she'd glimpsed before in an interrupted dream.
There was a fire. Someone screaming. Emma couldn't reach them, couldn't save them from something she knew, deep down, she had caused. The flames licked higher, engulfing the room.
Emma called their name, but all she heard in response was a deafening silence as the flames overcame that cry—
Emma opened her eyes to find that she was not dead.
The fire was gone, and so was that room. Killian was at her side, his voice like a garbled gramophone, a muffled version of something she'd heard in a cartoon as a kid. The car that'd been on a direct path for the place she stood had come to a standstill. Its front bumper was crumpled, its hood forming an upside-down V, smoke billowing skyward, as though it'd rammed, full speed, into an invisible wall. The driver's side door was open, and no driver inside.
She tried to ask what'd happened, but couldn't make out her own voice amidst the distortion. Killian answered—she watched his lips move, but no sound reached her ears. Only a high-pitched ringing as a crowd gathered around them to document the wreckage.
"What did you do?" She heard herself whisper, the fog in her mind finally starting to clear, the real world coming into focus.
"It wasn't me," said Killian. "Emma…" he shook his head, laughing to himself. It was then that she noticed how awestruck he was. Not confused or afraid. Not like her.
"You think I did this?"
She felt it then. A new sensation in her hands, running up her arms to her chest. An absence. The aftermath of something recently extinguished.
She looked down, half expecting to see scorch marks on her fingertips. Nothing about that moment made sense. But somehow she knew, deep down, that Killian was right.
"I did this."
—
"Thanks for coming."
Alistair didn't know what to say to that. He could already hear the haughty sort of, "You're welcome," that might come out of his mouth, and it toed the line between thanks for inviting me back and I knew you couldn't do this alone.
He'd learned early on that could and would made little difference to her.
So he kept silent, offered a solitary nod, and crossed through a doorway he'd sworn never to darken again.
He didn't know what it was about Emma Swan that had him keeping his promises again, like a boy a lessons, terrified of stepping out of line. Suddenly, annoyingly, he found that consequence had an effect on his actions whenever he was around her.
Even worse, things like integrity had started to creep up on him in the hours they were parted, and Alistair far too often of late, when faced with a moral dilemma, caught himself asking, what would Emma do?
"Is everything all right?" He asked. "Jones, is he—"
"Killian's fine." Emma shook her head. "Not fine—I don't know why I said that. Killian's…well, we're working through it."
She led him past the kitchen and gestured toward the couch, where she'd avoided many of his attempts at sharing the truth. He'd had good intentions at the start—Alistair reminded himself again. It was a justification he'd clung to in the past weeks the way a dying man might cling to that last lungful of air, that final glimpse of fading light.
He hadn't set out to lie to Emma, and that had somehow eased his guilt at doing so.
As Alistair seated himself, a man emerged from the direction of Emma's restroom and headed straight for her refrigerator, opened it while scratching at his stomach, and ultimately settled for a quarter-full gallon of milk. The man didn't seem bothered by the idea of a glass until he noticed Emma standing nearby. Then, sheepishly, he moved to the cupboard above the coffeemaker.
"This is August," said Emma. "He's staying with me for a while."
The man was familiar for all the wrong reasons, and Alistair had the sinking feeling he'd wandered unwittingly into a trap. "Is that…?"
"Yes," said Emma, taking the cushion next to Alistair. "But that's not why you're here."
"Why am I here?"
Emma took a deep breath, bracing herself, and Alistair did the same. "I wanted to apologize. For jumping to conclusions. And to give you a chance to explain your side."
Alistair was taken aback. In all honesty, he felt Emma hadn't acted harshly enough. With the evidence presented to her, how she'd refrained from ending his pitiful existence right then was a mercy he knew he didn't deserve.
Such was Emma's nature. She was better than the lot of them, and she hadn't a clue.
"From the beginning then, shall we?" Said Alistair.
Emma nodded and sank farther into the couch. And wasn't that just his luck? He had her full attention for the tale he most dreaded to tell.
He began this one the way he had all the others, the words, "Once upon a time," never sounding so out of place. They made it seem like he was recounting things that'd happened in a faraway place, to characters as strange to him as the man in Emma's kitchen, now looking on from beyond the rim of a ceramic bowl filled with sugary sweet cereal.
But he remembered these events as though they'd happened just that morning. They were as close to his heart and as fresh in his mind as the day they'd transpired.
He'd not spoken of them to anyone, not even Jones back when they were mates. The Director knew of them, the way the Director seemed to know everything, but even its all-seeing eye could not fathom the truth of such mortal affairs. It could observe and manipulate and extort, but the complexity of human emotion was beyond its immortal understanding.
You 're stalling.
Alistair glanced at Emma then turned away, focusing on a spot on the wall above her television set.
"Once upon a time, a lad of ten set out on a mission that was doomed to fail."
"You told me that one already," said Emma. Discontent with his storytelling skills, as ever—why was Alistair not surprised?
"I can assure you, I have not. It's called drawing a parallel, Darling."
Emma sat back and crossed her arms. A warning. This had better be worth my time.
"Our setting: An unnamed wood, just outside the Enchanted Forest." Emma didn't roll her eyes—didn't flinch or frown. Progress, if Alistair had ever seen it. "Our hero: a strapping young lad with a sunny disposition and a rosy outlook on life. Nothing kept him down for long because in a land filled with magic he was in possession of the strongest, most unbreakable sort: hope."
Alistair paused to gauge Emma's response—fully engaged at present. At the very least, curious enough to humor him.
He rubbed his palms on his legs, all-too aware that the perspiration did not stem from the temperature in that room.
Once upon a time, a lad of ten set out on a mission that was doomed to fail. His mother had sent him, along with his stepbrother and their snorting little friend to retrieve a rare tuber for the stew she only prepared once a year. She didn 't have many traditions—routines, yes. Daily chores, of course. But only one annual ritual had survived the generations.
In truth, Fern wasn 't trained for truffle-hunting, but Alistair's mother was adamant that any pig was better than no pig at all. As she started sniffing the ground and pulling him forward by the leash, Alistair conceded that his mother might've been right about that.
"So this kid with the sunny outlook on life is supposed to be you?" Emma's disbelief might've stung had Alistair not developed a thick skin over the centuries.
"Did you think I was born the sardonic arsehole you see before you? You know, not long ago, you were quite the optimist yourself, Miss Swan." Alistair arched a brow at her. A challenge. Tell me I'm wrong.
She sat back, mumbling something to herself Alistair couldn't hear, and it was as much of a request to continue as he was going to get.
They reached the edge of the wood. One more step and they 'd be in the World Beyond. The farthest from home that Alistair had ever been. Fern urged him forward, straining against the collar that'd started out a tad too tight. The effort spawned small choking sounds, but she persisted nonetheless, while Alistair contemplated which was worse—to step outside the boundary of the only place he'd ever known, or to return home empty-handed.
A breeze blew past and Alistair thought of all the stories he 'd heard of the World Beyond. It was a dreadful place, according to his mother, that lured its victims from their homes with its beauty. With its promise of riches far greater than any common farm boy's humble imaginings.
"Am I boring you?"
"Not at all." Emma yawned. "I'm completely riveted by tales of truffle hunting."
"Setting the stage, here."
Emma rolled her eyes and Alistair fought the impulse to skip ahead in his story. Slow beginnings, he reminded himself, did not always equal disappointing ends.
"Well?" Said his stepbrother from two paces back. Simon had not wanted to follow Fern, had not wanted to hold the sack Alistair's mother commanded them to fill before even thinking of returning home, hadn't wanted to join in the undertaking at all, thank you very much, and had not been shy about reminding Alistair of that fact every five minutes. "What're you waiting for?"
There was a time—not too distant, at that—when Alistair would 've been sent out alone. Refusing to step foot across the border of what he knew to be safe and what he knew to be horrible, he'd give up the search and go home with nothing to show for his efforts. His mother would frown for a beat, then shrug off disappointment as she moved about the kitchen, preparing ingredients that didn't require a trek into the deep unknown. "We'll have to make do," she'd say, and Alistair would go wash up.
Now he had an audience. A two-faced little tattler who would not let Alistair live it down if he turned tail and ran back to Mummy.
Alistair raised his foot to take a step forward but turned around instead. "Can I have that bread my mother packed us?"
"She's my mother now, too," said Simon. "And how can you be hungry already?"
"Not to eat, halfwit. To leave a trail—so we can find our way home again."
Simon scowled at him. "A trail of breadcrumbs? That may be the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What's to keep some animal from coming along and eating them?"
"Suit yourself." Alistair shrugged. "But don't cry to me when there's a witch on your heels and you can't find your way."
"A witch? What witch?"
"Haven't you heard?" Simon frowned, not wanting to look ignorant, but not wanting to fall for whatever trick Alistair might be playing. "They say a witch lives in these woods who eats children for supper. She plies them with cakes and pies until they're good and fat and she turns them into stew—"
"You're lying," said Simon, even as his lower lip trembled. "I'll tell Mother you're making up stories."
"Very well. After you, then." Alistair offered the leash to Simon, who looked at it and then straight ahead, into the World Beyond. A howling wind blew past at that precise moment, so shrill that even Fern took a break from her snorting to look around.
"Race you home," said Simon. Part truce, part gentleman's agreement: I won't tell Mother if you don't.
"Same stakes as last time?"
Simon smiled and took off in the direction they 'd come. Alistair set off after him, only remembering when his arm jerked backward that he was tethered to a pig.
"So which one are you?" Asked August, now seated next to Emma. He'd taken Alistair's place when Alistair stood, finding that the words flowed more freely when he walked. "Hansel or Gretel?"
Alistair only looked at him, wondering why he was even there, then continued.
Simon had never been the best at keeping secrets, a fact he proved once again later that night.
Alistair 's mother came into his room after supper had been eaten and the dishes had been scrubbed, and each of the cottage's four inhabitants had changed into their bedclothes and settled in for a good night's rest.
"Where did you hear such a terrible thing?" She asked him as she seated herself at the foot of his bed. "A witch, indeed—and one who eats children? I'm sure Simon won't sleep soundly for a week."
"The kids at school are always on about some cursed being or other." Alistair mumbled. He was sure he didn't care about his stepbrother's sleeping habits. And he wasn't afraid of whatever punishment awaited him. Still, he found that he was incapable of withstanding his mother's stern gaze for long. "What's the harm in a little ghost story now and then?"
His mother leveled a hardened stare at him. A moment later it was gone, replaced by a self-satisfied smile. "You're right, my darling. No harm at all. I'm sure this will give you boys ample time to bond."
"What does that mean?"
"Since your brother—"
"Stepbrother."
"—refuses to sleep alone, you two will be sharing a room."
Alistair 's mouth hung open, even as his mother called over her shoulder for Simon. He wandered in with his blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak and the stuffed bear Alistair's mother had made him tucked under one arm, a shameful expression on his face.
"Come along, Dear, don't be afraid." Alistair's mother patted his mattress and Simon climbed up beside him. Alistair crossed his arms, glaring daggers at his mother but knowing better than to argue. "Sweet dreams, my darlings."
She turned out the light and closed the door and left Alistair in hell.
Simon kicked and snored and made it impossible for Alistair to get a wink of sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he 'd get a knee to the ribcage or an elbow to the throat. He eventually gave up trying.
He sat at the window and stared up at a sky lightly dusted with distant stars, scarcely a sliver of moon to be seen. He listened to nocturnal birds and soft breezes rustling the trees and the nightly arguing of his mother and her husband just down the hall. They always waited for the boys to go to bed, but their voices were never as quiet as they believed them to be.
It 'd been a year since Alistair's mother had brought them home. The blacksmith and his son. In an effort to make new friends, she'd invited them over for supper, and the two of them never left.
They'd been married faster than Alistair could say incompatible, and nary a night passed when he didn't miss the way it used to be when it was just him and his mother and their idyllic life, deep in the wood. Far from a displeased society, ever turning their noses up at anyone who didn't align perfectly with their preconceived notions of what a proper family should be.
A single mother and her son? Did the father die? Was he sent to war? Oh, you poor dear, to be widowed so young.
How their sympathy waned upon learning the truth. His mother was unmarried and his father had never known he existed. Oh, dear, I'm afraid there simply aren't any rooms available. Perhaps you should try the inn down the road.
Even the kids at school took a few steps back whenever Alistair passed. Parting down the middle, lest scandal be catching.
Maybe his mother had gotten tired of being the outcast. The strange case no one could explain yet wouldn 't shut up about. He'd tried his best to make them feel welcome—the blacksmith and his son—for his mother's sake, if nothing else. But he didn't know how much more of this he could take.
They 'd invaded positively every part of his life. He had to share his mother and his home and his clothes—now his room? What next? What was left?
When a falling star streaked across the sky, Alistair didn 't waste his chance. He closed his eyes and made a wish, and when he opened them again there was a girl standing in his room.
Alistair fell off the windowsill and onto the floor. "How did you—what did you—who are you?"
"My name is Wilhelmina," said the girl. Even in the shadow, her red hair glowed like flame, her dark eyes like the sky, spotted with tiny points of light. Her hooded cloak, white and radiant, must've been fashioned from starlight itself. "I'm here to grant your first wish."
Alistair scrambled to his feet. "First wish? I've only made one."
"For now. But there will be others, Alistair Smith."
"That's not my name," Alistair grumbled, annoyance rising to take the place of shock.
"Not yet."
"Not ever. That man is not my father."
The girl—Wilhelmina—who could not have been much older than him, stood perfectly patient at the foot of his bed. Alistair looked to Simon, still asleep, his mouth open toward the heavens and a rasping sound escaping every time he exhaled.
He heard footsteps in the hall and rushed to open the door before his mother could walk in, sandwiching his face inside the narrow crack. "Hello, Mother," he said too loudly. "What brings you to this end of the hall?"
"Sweetheart, is everything all right? I heard voices—did Simon have a nightmare?"
"No, no, everything's fine. Just…telling him a bedtime story, is all."
His mother frowned. "A pleasant one, I hope."
"Of course." He thought of the secret behind his door and prayed her glow had been swallowed by the dark of his room. "You know, fairies and unicorns and the like."
His mother studied him a moment, not appearing entirely convinced, then said, "Make it a short one. You boys have an early morning."
Alistair said a quick, "Yes, Mother," and shut the door, leaning his body against it.
Wilhelmina was still there, still watching him, still waiting. Still appearing wholly out of place in such humble quarters.
"When you say, 'grant' my wish—"
"Your deepest desire is to have your mother back. For life to be as it was before your stepfather and his son came along to, as you put it, 'ruin everything.'"
"And you can make that happen…?"
Wilhelmina nodded once, showing no outward signs of judgment—neither sanction nor condemnation regarding this. "You will have to speak the words aloud."
"And things will go back to normal?"
"Your life will be as it was when your mother loved only you."
Alistair smiled, even as something told him this was too good to be true. But what was the disadvantage here? None that he could see. If he made a wish and nothing came of it, then so be it—he 'd go on suffering as he had done for a year. But if something did…
He licked his lips and closed his eyes and said these words aloud: I wish for life to be as it was when my mother loved only me.
"Your wish is granted, Alistair Smith."
And Wilhelmina was gone before Alistair could remind her that wasn 't his name.
The next morning he awoke to an empty bed and the smell of breakfast drifting up from the kitchen.
His mother greeted him with a bright smile and a full plate of food. "Eat up, my darling—mustn't be late for school."
"Where's Simon?" Asked Alistair, partly out of habit, partly to test if what he remembered happening the previous night actually happened and wasn't some torturously sweet dream. "Shouldn't he be getting ready, as well?"
"Who?" Alistair's heart skipped a beat. It'd worked. His wish had come true. It was him and his mother again, and things would be as they always should have been.
He walked to school with a spring in his step, and was nearing the front door when realization struck—he 'd forgotten his books. Mr. Crane did not suffer forgetfulness lightly—nor tardiness, to be sure. Which was why Alistair ran back home before he was spotted.
He was halfway down the hall when he saw them. Simon 's boots outside what used to be his room. Alistair stood there staring at them for far too long, deliberating, before he approached the door. What lay on the other side had the capacity to shatter his perfect illusion—what would it mean if Simon's bed was still in its proper place? If his wardrobe still contained the clothes Alistair's mother had passed down the very instant he'd outgrown them?
The door opened with a soft groan and Alistair entered a stark new reality.
Simon 's room was empty but in the wrong sort of way.
There were faint patterns on the floor where furniture once had been. A bed and a wardrobe and a writing desk. Subtle scrapes in the wood where Simon 's chair had been repeatedly pushed back.
If Simon had never been here, why was there evidence of him?
Maybe wishes didn 't work that way, Alistair told himself. Maybe Wilhelmina had taken his mother's memories but not all the physical traces.
Alistair tried to shrug it off as he left Simon 's old room for his own, as he reached under his own bed for his book bag and remembered the homework he'd neglected. As he began to wonder if he didn't bring misfortune upon himself.
He heard his mother tinkering around with the dishes and slowed his pace as he passed, tiptoeing by the archway en route to the door. When he checked to see if she was watching, he caught sight of another incongruous item.
He didn't want to see it. He looked ahead, at the door he'd closed so carefully behind him it hadn't made a sound. He imagined continuing on to the day that'd been laid out for him. He'd arrive at the schoolhouse a moment too late and incur the wrath of Mr. Crane. His fellow students would snicker behind their hands or their books—but that was nothing new. He'd take his seat and Mr. Crane would deliver his sentence—you will write, 'Punctuality is a virtue,' one hundred times. Again, nothing new. He'd stay in his seat while all the others went out to play. Then he'd trudge home, shoulders slumped, his book bag weighed down with more assignments than his classmates had received. But when he arrived home and when he was asked about his day, he'd paste on a brilliant smile and tell his mother all that he had learned.
But he knew in that moment, standing outside the kitchen, with Simon 's vest glaring back at him from beside the hearth, that he would not know a moment's peace for the rest of his life if he ignored it for the warning it was.
His heart sank and his palms began to sweat as he took the first step toward the woman who 'd raised him.
She stirred the contents of a large black pot that had never more like a cauldron in Alistair 's life—
"Oh my giddy aunt, she ate them." August leaned back against the couch, hands clutching his knees. "Didn't she?"
"Please tell me that's not true," said Emma, sounding disturbed.
Alistair swallowed thickly, unable to meet her eye. "We're getting there."
"Mother?" He forced his voice to work, though it sounded small and afraid. "What are you cooking?"
"Oh!" She spun on her heel, hand to her heart. "Darling, you startled me. What are you doing back so soon?"
"I forgot my books." Alistair adjusted the strap on his shoulder.
"Well, I see you've got them now—off with you. Don't want to be late."
"Is that more stew?"
His mother sighed. "Well, you've ruined the surprise, haven't you?"
"What surprise?"
"We're having guests for dinner."
"What guests?"
"So many questions." She shook her head. "You'll know soon enough, now get. I'll not have Mr. Crane at my door with that superior state of his, snooping about our business."
"Whose vest is that?"
His mother turned her head and Alistair saw the calculation behind her next words. She walked to the hearth, picked up the vest, and unfolded it. When she looked back at Alistair, there was something off about her smile. "I made it for you. Would you like to try it on?"
"It's too small."
"We won't know for sure until you try it on."
Alistair eyed the patchwork vest, portions of garments too petite even for Simon, stitched together like a quilt. He shook his head.
"What's the matter, Darling?" Said his mother. Her tone was light but her eyes conveyed a darkness Alistair had never seen. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
He should 've gone to school. He should've snuck past and out the door without his mother being the wiser.
What had that cursed fairy done? This wasn 't the way it was supposed to be.
It was supposed to be like old times. He was supposed to be happy, not riddled with guilt and suspicion. Plagued by a nagging voice deep inside, insisting something wasn 't right.
He took a step back as his mother 's eyes bore into him, unblinking. "I'll just…head off to school, then."
"One more thing before you go." Alistair took another step away from her, not agreeing to anything until he knew exactly what he was in for. "Check that Fern hasn't gotten out of her pen again I haven't heard a snort out of her all morning."
This felt like a trap, but Alistair couldn 't see how. It was a mundane, everyday sort of chore—just check the pig hadn't escaped—and yet it'd been issued like a challenge.
He took measured steps toward the exit, beads of sweat collecting on his forehead the nearer he got. A wintry morning breeze blew in and Alistair took a deep breath. Clearly, he 'd overreacted. Fresh air and the mocking torment of his peers would do him good.
He just needed to get back to his routine, was all.
He 'd gotten exactly what he wanted and here he was rejecting it.
They were relics, Simon 's boots and vest. They only meant something sinister if that was how Alistair chose to interpret them. The world had been set right again, and he'd best enjoy it while it lasted.
Fern was right where he 'd left her the night before, happy as…well…
She snorted excitedly at Alistair's approach and stuck her snout through the fence—what Jon the blacksmith had taught him to fix his first week under their roof. Alistair patted Fern's head with a laugh. Then his eyes caught on something he'd all but forgotten. He ran his fingers over the wood post, stronger and much sturdier than the moth-eaten plank that'd preceded it, and read the initials carved along the bottom, one set for him and one set for Jon. "An artist always signs his work," his stepfather had said.
Another relic.
This wasn 't how it was supposed to be at all.
There weren 't supposed to be echoes of them everywhere Alistair went. His wish was meant to make things better. It wasn't supposed to haunt him like this.
The wind picked up suddenly, gusting, and the cellar door just off the side of Fern 's pen burst open from the force. Alistair walked over to it, intending to secure it properly, but stopped a few feet away. There was nothing but shadow inside the cellar, and yet, Alistair could've sworn something had moved. Something had…blinked.
That nagging voice chimed in again—offering its twopence where it wasn 't wanted.
If Alistair ran away now, he 'd never escape it.
He 'd never sit through another supper with his mother again and not wonder what'd peered back at him from the dark.
He took slow steps toward the entrance, his chest tight with every move that brought him nearer a truth he was sure he didn 't want to uncover.
He was at the threshold when another voice came upon him. Not from his conscience and not from inside the cellar.
Alistair spun around to see his mother. "You never were a clever boy," she said. "Why did you have to start now?"
Before another word was spoken, before Alistair could get his wits about him, his mother shoved him. Alistair stumbled back, lost all footing, and tumbled head over feet into shadow.
Alistair took a moment to gauge his audience. For once, neither of them seemed inclined to interrupt. Pepper him with a dozen questions about where this was going or what it had to do with anything. They sat in rapt, horrified silence and waited for him to go on.
He landed on something soft that grumbled and groaned and pushed Alistair off.
The world was eerily still inside that cellar. Alistair hadn 't even heard the door slam, but he knew instinctively that his mother had thrown it shut behind her as she'd sauntered off.
"Jon?" Alistair whispered—what sounded like a shout in that quiet space. "Is that you?"
His stepfather took him by the shoulders and shook him hard. "I was calling for you. Why didn't you answer? You just kept petting that stupid pig!"
"I-I didn't hear you."
"I was screaming for you, Alistair."
Alistair shook his head, unable to see the figure that held him. His lower lip trembled as he tried to come up with an excuse that would appease his stepfather, but he himself did not understand.
"Did you know?" Jon tightened his hold, his fingers sinking into Alistair's arms. "Did you know what she would do to my boy?"
"N-no…I swear it. I wouldn't have let her—you have to believe me."
Alistair would've said anything, promised anything to be freed of that crushing grip. But something inside him, something that sounded uncannily like that nagging voice, wondered if anything he'd ever known was true. Or if it'd all been a lie he'd been party to. If he'd lived these ten years in happy denial of a truth too terrible to name.
Jon sighed and let Alistair go. "I believe you." Alistair heard a few scrapes and scuffles as Jon turned away—he reached for him on instinct, his only anchor in a dark so absolute Alistair's eyes had yet to adjust. "I couldn't see it, either—and I chose to come here. To be with her. I guess it's true what they say about love." Jon scoffed.
It got quiet again after that. Alistair didn 't know what to say that would assuage his stepfather's heartache. He wanted to apologize. For what, exactly, he didn't know. For the sins of his mother, he supposed. What a hollow offering that'd be.
He lost track of how many hours they sat there, not speaking. No matter his efforts, Alistair couldn 't see a solitary blasted thing. Jon had said he'd screamed for Alistair to help him, and Alistair hadn't heard a peep—he took that as evidence that there was magic afoot and gave up on calling for aid before a single attempt had been made.
After what felt a lifetime of being lost in his own thoughts, Jon spoke, his full voice clapping like thunder after so much silence. "I know you never particularly warmed to me. But I've come to consider you a son. As dear to me as…" Jon cleared the wobble from his throat.
"There might still be hope," said Alistair, believing in his heart of hearts that there had to be a way out of this. For all of them. "We don't know for sure if he's lost, do we? He could've run off, could've hid. He could be out there right now, waiting for us to find him."
Forgetting for a moment that some things were impossible to hear, Alistair thought he could make out a sad smile in the dark, as his stepfather whispered, "I hope you're right."
An idea came to Alistair then—one he felt a right sod for not thinking of sooner. "I'm going to try something," he told Jon. "Don't be alarmed."
Alistair closed his eyes and wished with all his might, beseeching whatever gods still remained in that part of the world that someone, anyone, might hear.
"But…the last wish didn't work," said August, and for once, Alistair wasn't annoyed by his assumption—for he'd had the same thought all those centuries ago. "Why try again?"
"Only it did," said Alistair. "It worked exactly as Wilhelmina intended it to. Nothing changed because this was how it'd always been: My mother had always been a witch, and she had always loved only me."
Something crept into August's eyes—a cross between revelation and pity. Alistair took up his tale again before he could feel anything other than exasperation for the uninvited man-child.
Wilhelmina appeared in an instant, and suddenly there was light again. Stark, blinding light that had both Jon and Alistair recoiling in pain. "I knew you would call again, Alistair Smith."
Jon 's eyes shot to Alistair, and Alistair pretended not to notice. "I need to make another wish," he said to Wilhelmina, who grinned an all-knowing grin.
Mortals, she must've thought to herself. Every last one of them the same.
"We need to get out of here. Without my mother seeing us."
"You know what is required," said Wilhelmina.
Not a moment after Alistair had spoken his wish aloud, he and Jon were out of that cellar and above ground again. Only …they weren't outside, as Alistair had assumed they would be.
They stood side-by-side in his mother 's kitchen. His mother knelt on the floor, covering her eyes with one hand and reaching out with the other, whimpering.
Blasted fairy!
How had she twisted his wish this time?
Jon tapped Alistair 's shoulder and pointed toward the door as he lifted one foot slowly off the floor. Alistair followed suit and the two of them tiptoed past his distressed mother, nearly clear of the kitchen when the first floorboard creaked. Alistair's mother turned as though it'd called her name. Her lips curled back in a snarl, all crying at an end. Her eyes were open—once the same shade as Alistair's, there was naught but glossy white staring across the room at them.
She bounded toward them like a beast on the prowl and snatched Alistair by the ankle, yanking him to the ground in one fluid motion.
He didn 't remember screaming, only knew that hours later and well into the next day, his voice was hoarse. His throat feeling as though something had ripped clean through it.
Jon didn 't hesitate, didn't leave Alistair behind, though he could've easily done. He didn't so much as look at the door in lament of the freedom he'd never know again. He went for the nearest hard object—his wife's favorite frying pan—and struck her in the hand. She howled like a banshee, releasing Alistair, who scurried away.
She didn 't waste time with her next victim, grabbing Jon with her unbroken hand, and hauling him up by the neck.
His eyes met Alistair's and he mouthed the word go.
Alistair searched for something to use—some common, everyday item to wield as a weapon, just as his stepfather had done. But there was nothing. A shawl, a few books, the figurines Jon had carved for him and Simon to play with.
Perhaps his mother had been right—he was not a clever boy. For he couldn 't see anything that might prevent his stepfather's demise.
She released Jon and he fell to the floor, gasping for air. "And where do you think you're going?" She asked Alistair.
He looked to Jon, who shook his head. Don't try to be brave, his expression said. "Go. Run." He coughed, clutching his throat. "Take the chance Simon never had." A tear ran down his cheek, and then a second. "I can't lose you both."
Though every fiber of his being told him it was wrong, it was cowardly, Alistair heeded his stepfather 's advice. Turned tail and ran, calling for Wilhelmina as he sprinted out the door and into the cold night air.
"Another wish so soon, Alistair Smith?"
No time for pleasantries. Before the thought had fully formed in his mind, the words came tumbling out. "I wish for my mother to be trapped in that house." He remembered his last wish, not five minutes expired, and the one preceding. How they'd backfired. How Alistair's lack of specificity had doomed them all. Despite knowing what it meant for his stepfather, or perhaps knowing it was what he would've encouraged Alistair to do, Alistair said, "Forever."
His audience sat silent and still, expectant. When Alistair refrained from speaking further, Emma said, "Not to be…insensitive, but…"
"What has this story got to do with you?"
Emma nodded.
"It was the beginning of the end," said Alistair. "For me. Ten years old and my fate was decided." He tried for a sarcastic smile but didn't have it in him. What a pitiful sight he must've been. "We met again, some years later. Wilhelmina and I. See the thing about wishing in those days, before the Director and the council—it was limitless, unconditional. Until it wasn't."
Thirty-three years after the wish that 'd trapped his mother inside his childhood home, Alistair felt a familiar pull. He'd sworn off wishing, taking the easy way out. Whatever problems he faced, he'd face them head-on.
But it was hard to forget that such a method existed. He hadn 't forgotten its inherent flaws, how easily his desires could turn against him—or perhaps it was that the only magical being willing to answer him found his desires distasteful.
Still, he was tempted.
Wilhelmina had not aged. When Alistair called her, she appeared in as swift a fashion as she had in the past, and was wholly unchanged from the last time he 'd seen her.
"Mortals find comfort in the familiar, I've learned," she said, seeming to read Alistair's mind. "But perhaps this mask would be more to your liking."
Wilhelmina transformed from a young girl into a grown woman. Her red hair fell past her waist and her eyes, dark as the night sky, contained a well of secrets. If Alistair stared deeply enough, might the truth of the universe be revealed to him?
"I've met someone," said Alistair.
"I have met multitudes, Alistair Smith," said Wilhelmina. Her tone had not changed from the moment she started talking, yet Alistair got the distinct impression she was not pleased. "I have looked into their hearts, and do you know what I have seen?"
Alistair shook his head.
"I have seen the mortal condition. And it is bleak. Do you think you are unlike them? That you are virtuous by comparison? Let me assure you, Alistair Smith, you are not."
"Have I…done something to offend you?"
"Your very breath offends me, and yet you continue to draw it. To call upon my presence and demand favors. And what have you done with them? You have lived when others have died. You have forsaken the sacrifices made on your behalf and turned your back on the ones you were meant to love."
"I haven't—"
"You've met someone. You want to marry her. You haven no money, no title, no rank. You have nothing, Alistair Smith, save for the clothes on your back and a shameful family line you'd sooner let die than pass on. Do you think that fear will not linger in the back of your mind every time your own offspring savors the taste of meat? Will you raise them on vegetables alone to starve the witch you were too cowardly to kill?"
Excuses crowded Alistair's mind, each a trifling justification. Jon told me to go. If I'd stayed, we'd both be dead—
"So much the better," said Wilhelmina. "Do you believe the world benefits from your continued occupancy in it? Because your mother crooned such platitudes by your bedside as a child? How long after you learned the truth of what she was did you indulge yourself in denial?"
"I didn't. I didn't know—"
"The story you told your brother of a witch who lived in the woods. Who ate children for supper. Turned them into stew. Where had that come from if not your own ignored suspicions?"
Alistair swallowed thickly, curled his hands, suddenly slick with sweat, into fists. "I…don't know."
"I could fill entire worlds with all the things that you, Alistair Smith, do not know."
He shook his head, biting back a horde of hateful words—but Wilhelmina had undoubtedly heard. He 'd known it was a mistake to call her, to take his chances with another wish after all he'd experienced as a boy. "If I take it back, will you leave?"
"It's too late for that," said Wilhelmina. "The laws of magic have been rewritten since last we parted. No longer will mortals be afforded unlimited wishes, to dole out as they please, reshaping history on selfish whims."
Reshaping history? What harm had Alistair ever done to the world outside his humble cottage in the woods? If anything, he 'd spared countless others from suffering his stepbrother's fate.
"All I ever wanted—"
"All you ever wanted was your own way. Such is your nature, I suppose. But nature, as all things, can be overcome." Here, Wilhelmina smiled. An unsettling thing to behold. It wasn't kind or even civil, nor was it outwardly malicious. But Alistair was nervous all the same. "Under the new magical order, mortals will be allowed one wish, to be granted at the council's discretion, and their minds relieved of any memory of magical intervention."
"So you're here to take my memory?"
"I am here to collect a debt."
Alistair turned out his pockets. "I don't have any—"
"Mortals are allowed one wish, Alistair Smith. As it stands, three have been granted in your favor."
"I don't understand," said Alistair, even as a strange foreboding twisted his stomach.
"So that's how you became a guide," said Emma.
Alistair nodded. "My induction was rather less…voluntary than others. I was a prototype, if you will. The first of our kind—the standard by which all future guides would be fashioned. Until Jones came along with his pirate's charm and raised the bar."
The bastard.
Before Jones, some resistance had been expected. Anticipated. The council had accepted that the recruits wanted to be there about as much as they wanted the plague. Jones had been surly in the beginning, as they all had been, but over time, something shifted. It was the council this and good form that, and talk of taking pride in a day's hard work.
"I tried countless ways to escape—recruits nowadays have me to thank for certain protocols being in place." Alistair's smirk was brief and tinged with nostalgia. Pride in a day's hard work, indeed. How long had it taken him to map the facility in his mind? Adding a new corridor, another dead end. "But there is no way out. That place…"
It was built on magic, sustained by it. Surrounded on every side. Magic ran through its foundations like arteries through a mortal form. One inextricable from the other.
But kill one, Alistair thought—not for the first time—and the other dies.
He looked up at his audience and remembered why it was Emma had called him here. Not to plot against the council, but to gain answers.
His vengeance would keep.
"Never mind," he said, and started to walk again. Back and forth across Emma's living room—it had never seemed such a small space until he attempted to fill its walls with the secrets of his past. "The first hundred years or so flew by. New client after new client—what is that phrase you're all so fond of? Lather, rinse, repeat. When you've lived as long as I have, you start to forget the things that distinguish one day from the next. They all start to blur together, especially when there's hardly much to differentiate one from another. But on the hundred year mark, precisely, as a gift from the Director to commemorate the beginning of our time together, something happened that was significant for the worst of reasons."
Emma held her breath—were it not for what he was about to disclose, for how close these truths were to his heart, Alistair might've delighted in how thoroughly engaged she was.
"A wish came through the line that night. From a humble cottage at the edge of an unnamed wood."
August gasped and whispered the word no.
"The Director has a unique sense of humor," said Alistair. A statement that made Emma avert her gaze. Something was bothering her, Alistair could now clearly see, that had nothing to do with him. If they were friends again at the end of this, and if August ever left her side, Alistair would ask her if there was any way he could help. "My mother had wished, as was only expected, to be freed of the prison to which I'd sentenced her. Back in those days, the council was still making its collective mind up about the rules, and it was decided by them that one wish could not unmake another. Therefore, she would remain exactly where she was, for exactly the duration specified by my own wish over a century ago. That didn't stop the Director from sending me, complete with client contract, to her door." Alistair began to scratch at a nonexistent itch until he realized what a Jones-like thing he'd done, and dropped his hand to his side. "Thus begins the version of the story you're familiar with. Being a witch, my mother had conjured all manner of confectionary enticement and decorated her cottage with them, so as to make it all the more appealing to unsuspecting children." Alistair's stomach churned. He avoided Emma's eye as he continued, finding it impossible to withstand so pure-hearted a stare so disturbed. "Upon learning she could not wish herself free, and that despite this, she had a full year to make up her mind about what her wish could be, she'd devised a way to enact some small revenge upon me."
She'd call upon him at all hours of the day and night. Alistair would answer, and she would force him to sit at the table where he'd supped as a child and listen to what the last hundred years had been like for her. How she'd suffered. So lonely, so hungry. How could someone betray his own mother in this manner? And simply go on his way? No shame? No remorse?
She'd started to leave souvenirs by the hearth. One day a dress, the next a cloak, some fancy riding boots. Alistair would stare at them while she talked and think of the countless lives she'd destroyed—his own included. He'd think of his father and brother and his young, ignorant self. How he'd once loved his mother more than any soul alive. And something roiled inside him, crackled like flame, burned with a fury he'd painstakingly contained until the moment he couldn't hold it in any longer.
In short, Alistair snapped.
He flew into a rage as magic erupted from him, engulfing the cottage in blinding light.
When his vision cleared and his breath returned, he saw no change. Everything was in the same place it'd been before he'd lost control. The cottage stood, as he was beginning to fear it always wood, firm and resolute against his rage. His mother sat at the opposite end of the table and smiled. She threw her head back with a laugh, wiped delighted tears from the corners of her unseeing eyes.
"Oh, Darling, don't you remember your own words? You wished for me to stay in this house—"
The past, present, and future existed simultaneously for a terrible, soul-crushing second. He saw the truth of it, of everything, in a horrifying flash. He was as much a prisoner as she was, trapped by the choices she 'd made. Haunted by them. There would never be a time when he wasn't held captive by them. When his every move, every decision wasn't the direct result of what he'd witnessed in that cottage in the wood.
She would get her way. Again. She would win. Alistair could no sooner outwit her than he could escape the council 's grip. Than he could drain his veins of the power they'd inflicted upon him. His to wield but not to own.
He 'd set these things in motion—he'd set them both on this path the instant that single, damning word had left his ten year old lips.
"Forever."
His mother grinned as she gripped the table 's edge and stood. "Thanks to you, the only way for me to die is to starve—and I simply can't see that happening, what with my rather ingenious redecoration."
Alistair gritted his teeth and swore, "I will find a way."
She stepped to his side, reached up to tousle his hair the way she 'd done when he was a boy. "Ever the idealist. But this is real life, my darling. And there are some things no amount of hope can overcome."
Alistair grabbed her by the wrists, not simply to stop her touching him. "Who said anything about hope?"
She tried to withdraw but he held her tight. Her eyes went wide with panic when she finally felt it. She wrested and squirmed, to no avail. When it was done, Alistair shoved her back.
She held her hands in front of her, opening and closing her fists. "What have you done to me?" She asked in a bewildered whisper as her hands followed familiar patterns through the air. When nothing happened, she snarled at Alistair. "You ungrateful little weasel!"
Alistair turned to leave, resolved not to answer her call ever again.
"You little—wait, please, you can't leave me like this. Without my magic, I'll starve."
The front door was a foot away when she grabbed him by the arm. "Alistair please. My son, my boy—you wouldn't do this to your own mother. Surely not even you could be so cruel."
Alistair looked down at her kneeling form, hands clasped in front of her as though she were begging the mercy of a sovereign. She looked the way Alistair had felt for a hundred years. Helpless, hopeless. "Goodbye, Mother. You won't see me again."
He walked outside, took a deep breath of autumn air, and turned toward the cursed cottage a final time. With a wave of his hand, the confections began to spoil, turning a putrid, nauseating green as they rotted away, a sickening stench replacing the sugary sweet smell that 'd lured unsuspecting children to their dooms.
"It was the first time I'd used nonessential magic, and the council, to put it mildly, was not pleased. That should've been the end of it. But the Director took great interest in my mother's proclivities and struck a deal with her. Spruced up her cottage and delivered wayward children straight to her door."
August and Emma looked simultaneously shocked and sick to their stomachs.
"It took great pleasure in learning of my own child," said Alistair, with a tremor he couldn't keep out of his voice. "Used knowledge of Gwen to keep me obedient."
"Quite the sweet tooth your daughter has," the Director would say."I do hope it doesn't lead her down a painful path…" the Director smirked at Alistair's desperate expression. "Cavities, that is. Why, what did you think I meant?"
"It reached a point where I couldn't bear it any longer—the constant worry. The fear that at any moment the Director might get irritated or angry—or worse, bored—and take it out on Gwen…" Alistair swallowed against a lump in his throat that only seemed to grow the more he spoke. "So I hid her away. I learned of the Evil Queen's plans to enact a curse and send all of Misthaven to the Land Without Magic. To trap them with magic so powerful, so absolute, even the Director could not break it. Not without the secret ingredient."
"Me," said Emma.
Alistair nodded. "So I hid you away, as well. Out of sight of the Director so you could never be used to break the curse."
"But now you want it broken."
"Once the Director discovered who you were…" Alistair sighed. "It was like fireworks had gone off at HQ. Alarms sounded, recruits scattered, and the Director began strutting around with renewed purpose—come to life after so many centuries of searching. The Savior had been found."
"How did it happen?" She asked. "How did they find me?"
Alistair still couldn't believe, after all his scheming to keep Emma a secret, after all his lying and lurking and covering his tracks—and hers—it'd been something so simple, so small. The same small and simple something that'd trapped them all.
But of course he should've known. Given her upbringing, the things she'd had to overcome just to survive in a world where she didn't belong. She was only human, after all—as Alistair himself once had been. He knew only too well the temptation to wish away one's hardships.
If he'd only been at HQ when Emma's wish had come down the line, he could've intercepted it. Buried it. Been the one to show up in Jones' stead. But he'd been occupied with his own pursuits.
"Did you notice anything strange about your contract?" Alistair asked in return. "Anything seem out of sorts when you signed it?"
"It glowed. Killian thought it was strange, too."
"I won't get into the finer details, else we'd be here all night—suffice it to say, there are parts of us that no amount of magic can replicate or conceal. Take glamour spells, for instance. One can fool the world into seeing a face not one's own, but the traces left behind—fingerprints and the like—will always reveal a deeper truth. It was much the same with your signature. Signing the name Emma Swan to a magical contract was like disrupting the foundations of a house of cards. Everything came tumbling down after that."
Emma lowered her gaze, and Alistair assured her it wasn't her fault. None of this was her fault.
"But that did set us all on our current path. I returned to my quarters to find the body of a council member waiting to incriminate me. I had no choice but to flee. Time passes differently between worlds, but I'd wager Jones' issues began shortly after. And poor Charlotte—"
Emma sat straight, her interest piqued. "What happened to Charlotte?"
He was hoping he wouldn't have to break it to her. Not now, not like this. Though the chances of her having as profound a reaction in this life as in another were slim, Alistair didn't relish being the one to tell her.
"According to my sources, Miss Sawyer is no longer with us."
"By 'no longer with us,' you mean…?"
Don 't make me say it.
Emma took in this information, processed it, tucked it away in that business-first-emotions-second fashion of hers. "I'm assuming your source is that magic tracking device."
"Not so much as a blip of activity in this or any realm."
"You said I disappeared from that thing once."
"For a few seconds, at most. Not weeks on end."
August raised his hand, like a schoolboy at lessons. "Who's Charlotte?"
"No one of any consequence to you," said Alistair, a tad more harshly than intended.
August sat back, holding up both hands in surrender. "Just trying to follow the narrative."
"That's a good question, actually," said Emma. "Who is Charlotte? I mean, other than Killian's friend."
A loaded question, more like. One that Alistair wasn't sure how to answer without triggering Emma's flight reflex. Storybrooke was one thing. The Curse and magic and her fairytale parents being trapped in a town no one could find for twenty-seven years. Now Jones' predicament. Alistair's past. How much could he conceivably pile on before she shut down again? Ran away. Retreated inside herself where no one, not even the great love of her life, could reach her?
"I had a dream the other night," she said. "Charlotte was there." Emma's eyes moved about points in the middle distance, like she was reliving events as she described them. "I couldn't see her, but she was screaming. There was a fire and I couldn't get to her. I couldn't…save her."
Bloody hell, not you, too.
Jones was all but lost to them now, his pirate persona slowly but irrefutably taking over. If Emma got swallowed up by one of her alternate selves as well…
What hope did any of them have?
"You're doing it again," she told him.
"Doing what?"
"Thinking of a lie to cover something up. However uncomfortable the truth is, I can handle it."
Alistair had no doubt she could.
"The truth is you and Charlotte were quite close once. In another life."
Still, he'd have to choose his worse wisely if he didn't want to scare her off.
"Friends and confidantes. It's no coincidence you've encountered each other again. Just as you and Jones have done. The three of you, well…whenever your paths cross, they are intrinsically linked. Like three strands of the same cord." Alistair laced his fingers together. "Unbreakable."
She had more questions. Alistair could see them simmering beneath the surface.
But she moved past them with a different line of inquiry. "If I was already hidden away here, why did you interfere with my life? With Neal and the watches—why did you turn me in?"
"You must understand, the fear of losing Gwen, it was…all-consuming. My methods were shortsighted, at best. I realize now how selfish I was. All I can do is apologize, Emma, profusely. I never meant any harm to come to you—you must know that. I truly believed I was doing what was best for all parties involved."
"But how did going to jail keep me safe?"
Alistair sighed. Again. How was it that the virtues—honesty chief among them—were the most exhausting? "That…incident may have been of a more personal nature. If there was even the slightest chance Mr. Cassidy was your True Love—doubtful as that was…"
"But you didn't try to stop me from being with Killian."
"By that point it was too late. I know it's all quite confusing, but by the time you and Jones had fallen for one another, I'd already been found out, framed for murder, and forced into hiding. Much like Mr. Booth, here," he nodded toward August, "I traversed many a realm before returning to this one. Always sure to cover my tracks, leave no trace of magic behind."
"So when the Director found out about me, you decided I could be useful to you."
"No. Emma, of course not. My first thought that day, same as the day your parents sent you to this forsaken realm, was your safety. I couldn't let the Director get to you first. There was no telling its mindset—was it still bent on using you as a means to get to Storybrooke, or had it moved on to another plot entirely? One where the Savior was a liability and not an asset. You could've been killed."
Emma sat for a moment, quietly thinking. Then said, "What will you do once the Curse is broken? Where will you hide Gwen this time?"
Something happened inside Alistair he didn't quite comprehend. At first he thought something had gone wrong. Something had broken. But, in hearing Emma's words as an echo in his mind, scrambling his thoughts and setting them in order again, he realized it was the opposite. The un-mendable pieces of a shattered heart had come together again. And he felt something he hadn't felt since he was a small boy.
For the first time in five hundred years, Alistair Smith had hope.
"You'll do it?" He said, though said might've been overstating it. It was disbelief dressed up as a whisper that he was certain only his ears had heard.
"All I have to do is kiss my boyfriend, right?" Emma shrugged. "I've had worse jobs."
"How can I ever…what can I do to…"
Emma got up from the couch with a warm smile and gave Alistair something else he'd not experienced for far too long a time. Indeed, he couldn't remember the last person who'd hugged him.
She whispered in his ear something Alistair wasn't sure he could accomplish—but he'd try his damnedest. By the gods, he would try. "Bring him back to me."