I managed to finish up this chapter before the insanity of the holiday starts and it picks up right where the last chapter left off with Emma and David heading out to search for the missing Killian Jones. My original plan had this as part of Chapter 10, but I decided to expand it and make it a stand-alone chapter. Emma's anxious to locate Killian but a surprise clue along the way may have a link to the past.
In her short residence here in Storybrooke, Emma had only been this far down Highway 3 once - when she had been in pursuit of an intoxicated driver who struck a pedestrian in front of the church. She knew it was a narrow, two-lane road that meandered through the farmland on the outskirts of town before asphalt transitioned to gravel approximately three miles beyond Anton's farm. She was also well aware of the rumor that a fae community existed out here amongst the trees, but Emma was convinced that story was pure fiction. Even in this magical town, sometimes it as hard to draw a line between reality and fantasy.
Halfway into their drive out to the rendezvous point, Emma's phone rang with the return call from Belle. David asked if Emma would utilize the speakerphone so that he could hear the librarian's response as well.
"Good morning, Belle," Emma answered, immediately pressing the speaker button. "Thank you so much for returning my call so quickly."
"Of course, Emma. I would have called sooner but it took me a bit to find all of the information that you asked for," Belle replied.
"No problem," David assured her. "You're right on time. We're just about to meet with the search party, but since we're going to run out of cell service soon, what were you able to find?"
"Well, there are three registered properties with structures listed in the town records. There are a couple of other parcels of land with registered owners, but since they didn't have any dwellings or other structures registered, I focused on the ones that did," Belle explained over the growing static. "I emailed you and Emma the list with what details I could locate."
"Perfect. Any idea what sort of structures we're talking about?" David asked.
"They're listed as dwellings so my guess would be cabins or small houses. All were listed as being less than 1000 square feet," Belle told him.
"That's a huge help, Belle. I'll have Emma take a look at the email since I'm driving."
"Please let me know if you need anything else. Oh, and Emma - I'm still researching what you asked about your mother. I'll let you know if I can find that answer anywhere," Belle promised.
"Thanks for everything, Belle," Emma replied as she disconnected the call, her service signal down to a single bar.
"See if you can get that email opened up before the signal disappears," David instructed, as if Emma hadn't already thought of that.
"Already on it," Emma stated as she pulled up her work email folder and found the message from with its attachment. Her phone display still showed that single bar as she managed to download the file before service vanished. "Got it!"
She waited until David eased the Sheriff cruiser to the side of the gravel road in front of the Gardner's farmhouse since the tiny screen was too difficult to read while bouncing around on the crumbling road surface. When she could finally take a look at it, she hesitated for a minute, instead surveying the field and the people gathered in it. David was already scrambling out of the car to coordinate with the search party and she recognized most of the faces. Regina's boyfriend, Robin and his best friend, John Sherwood were here and she also spotted Leroy and a couple of the other miners. Graham pulled up and parked behind the cruiser in his 4x4 that would aid them with off-road capabilities.
"What did Belle's email reveal?" David asked her as he poked his head back into the car wondering why his sister was still sitting in the passenger seat.
"I'll know in a second," she replied. "It was kinda hard to hold onto my phone, let alone read the screen, when you were bouncing us all over the place. Did you try to hit every pothole on the highway?"
"Yeah, it was intentional," David huffed. "Seriously though, before we set off out there," he pointed his index finger in the direction of the treeline, "I want to know what sort of buildings we could encounter and where they are in relation to our search area."
"Just as Belle said, there are three dwellings listed. No surprise that one of them is John Sherwood's cabin. The second is a dwelling of unknown dimensions listed as under construction. Sounds like a potentially good place to hide somebody you don't want found…" But just as Emma made that comment, her gaze fell onto the third property listing, a moderately sized dwelling of approximately 900 square feet, but it wasn't the physical description or the location that drew her attention, it was the name of the registered owner.
Ozmund Welch.
She tried to shake off the coincidence, but she couldn't. Was there a correlation between this property's owner, Ozmund Welch, and her mother's mysterious suitor, Ozzie? Ava had described Ozzie as having vanished in a puff of smoke the moment she'd kissed him, but had he actually been real? Real enough to have built a cabin in the dense woods on the outskirts of Storybrooke or was the name similarity merely chance?
"Something wrong, sis?" David's question brought her back to the present. "You planning to stay in the car or are you going to get out of there and tell me about that third property?"
"I'm coming… Just had a little bit of weird deja vu."
"About searching the woods for your would-be pirate boyfriend?"
"Really, David?" Emma wasn't pleased with her brother referring to Killian as a pirate yet again. "Once and for all, he's not a pirate and no - that isn't what triggered it. This name… The third property owner listed is what caught my eye and gave me a weird feeling - someone named Ozmund Welch."
"Okay… what's so strange about that?"
"When I was leafing through mom's journal, she referred to the other man she was dating as Ozzie. He was the one she ended up choosing and caused her to lose the challenge, and of course, her powers. Ozmund. Ozzie. They sound a lot alike and it's a weird coincidence…"
"And you think there might be some correlation?"
"I don't really know," she sighed, knowing the probability was slim considering the rest of the information Belle had provided. "There's only one big problem with it - according to Belle, the structure was built and registered in the 1920s."
"I don't think your mother was really in to older men…"
"No. Certainly not based on the description she gave in her journal entries."
"Father and son maybe?" David suggested as Emma clambered out of the cruiser.
"I guess that's possible. Or it's possible that it really is just a coincidence." She tucked her phone away into her jacket pocket as she pushed the car door closed. "It's just weird…"
"Then why don't you and I take that particular property? If you've got any sort of suspicion about that property, we'll go with it."
"Okay. According to the property listing, it's located about a quarter of a mile from John's cabin. I copied all of the coordinates into my phone."
"Alright then. Let me go hand out assignments and get this search and rescue underway. That's in one of the more remote sectors so how about you go commandeer a couple of those ATVs?"
Emma had never really considered herself to be the outdoorsy type so this trek through the forests of Eastern Maine riding an all-terrain vehicle was quite out of her element. By the time they reached the edge of the Welch property, they could both see the single-story wooden frame house that, at first glance, appeared well-kept, but vacant. As they got closer to the house, they began to see signs of recent occupation. Weeds had been cleared from the dirt road to the entrance as well as from a path to a small shed beyond the house.
With a reminder from David that they couldn't enter the property without permission from the resident or a search warrant, they parked the ATVs and started surveying the perimeter. Little seemed to have changed about the premises since it had been built nearly a century ago. They saw a neat stack of firewood next to the shed but no visible power lines connected to the building. Whoever resided out here definitely enjoyed living off the grid. The windows of the cozy house were covered with decades worth of grime, making it difficult to peer into the interior. If someone was living here, cleaning their windows to allow sunlight inside wasn't a priority which led credence to the probability that it was currently uninhabited.
"Looks vacant," David said as the siblings regrouped near the front door. "But it's almost impossible to see inside."
"Something isn't right," Emma insisted. "It may look vacant, but that wood pile over there isn't overgrown with weeds. There isn't any smoke rising out of that chimney right now, but my gut says there will be signs of a recent fire."
"Kinda hard to determine that from out here," David reminded her. "And one of the neighbors could be using the wood."
"Are you serious, David? Do you really think that someone out here would want to traipse through the woods to stack wood at an abandoned house? That makes no sense whatsoever."
"Just offering up possibilities."
"Well, it's pretty obvious that the bigger possibility is that someone has been secretly living here. It's rustic, but that doesn't mean it isn't livable. I don't know if Ozmund Welch is still living out here in the boondocks, but I'm quite sure someone is."
"Don't tell me - your gut is now telling you that this would be a good place to hide someone?"
"What? You don't think so? Come on, Dave - it's in the middle of nowhere and looks abandoned… Where would you hide a person you don't want found?"
"Em - you know the rules…"
"And this is a magical town where most rules don't even apply! David, my intuition is telling me that there's more to this place than meets the eye."
"You can feel your Captain boyfriend nearby?"
"I wish my instincts were that specific," she scowled at him, "almost as much as I wished that the locator spell came with GPS coordinates. I just know that there's something very wrong here…"
David pondered her plea for a moment. As Sheriff, he was tasked with upholding the law, not breaking it, but at the same time, if Captain Jones was here, being held against his will, rescuing the missing man should take priority. It was just that it all rested on his sister's gut feelings, not actual evidence…
"Okay, okay," he relented. "If you think this place is suspicious, let's go find out. Can you get that door open or were you planning to break it down?"
"Very funny," she scoffed as she withdrew her wand from inside her jacket. "Good thing I brought this along. Pretty sure a little magic can open that lock…" With a flick of her wrist and a swish of her wand, she recited the Latin phrase to open the door. "Recludo!"
David led the way once the door was unlocked, inching it open cautiously as he scanned the interior with his flashlight held in his left hand and his weapon clutched in his right. Emma followed at his heels, sweeping the beam of her flashlight around what looked to be a combination living room, kitchen and dining room. The room was sparsely furnished. A faded, but garishly upholstered sofa occupied a space facing the fireplace and a matching chair with worn wooden arms sat beside it. On the opposite wall, there was a makeshift kitchen featuring a sink with an ancient water pump, an old fashioned wood-fired stove and a two door cabinet hanging over the sink. At the other end of the building from where they stood, there was a wooden table with two flanking chairs and a narrow hallway leading to two doorways.
Emma took a few steps towards the fireplace while David immediately headed to the first of the two doors in the rear of the house. Her eyes were drawn to the mantle where a set of random books sat atop it, flanked by two heavy stone bookends. She recognized a few of the titles as books she'd been forced to read in school but there were others written in languages she didn't recognize. She also instantly noticed rectangular voids amongst the dust and cobwebs as though something had been removed recently.
She held no doubt that someone had been here.
David pushed open the first of the doors off of the rear hallway revealing a small, unoccupied bedroom containing only a spartan double bed and a plain, five drawer pine chest of drawers. He discovered the second door led to a primitive bathroom with a pedestal sink and an old claw foot bath tub. There was no toilet visible so the well-maintained path behind the house meant that the shed was likely an outhouse. In neither room did he find evidence of anyone being held unwillingly. Maybe Emma's instinct had been wrong…
"There's no one here," David announced as he strolled back into the living room area.
"Someone's been here," Emma assured him, pointing to the mantle. "Stuff has been recently taken off of that mantle. There are several areas with no dust."
"So? Someone might still be using the cabin, but Emma, there isn't anyone here right now, willing or unwilling."
"We're missing something," she insisted, combing her fingers through her hair in frustration. "We have to be…"
"It's a pretty small place, Em," David reminded her as he crossed through the center of the room toward his sister. "What do you think we might possibly be missing?" Emma shrugged as she turned to face the front door, ready to concede defeat - until David stepped onto the worn, heavy wool rug in the middle of the floor. He took two strides onto the rug when Emma's alert ears picked up a distinct change in the sound his footsteps were making.
"David - do that again," she ordered as she spun to face him.
"Huh? Do what again?"
"Take a step backwards, then forward again," she instructed her bewildered brother.
"Why?"
"Just humor me," she said as David rolled his eyes skeptically. He shifted his weight back one step and then another towards Emma, this time noticing the change in tone.
"There's something hollow here," he announced, tapping his foot a few times on the spot to confirm what they'd both heard.
"That's what I thought," Emma smiled as she hurried over to David. He kicked the well-trodden rug away to reveal a recessed trap door concealed beneath. "Well, well… what do we have here?"
"A trap door," David stated the obvious. "Maybe there's a basement or an old root cellar underneath?"
"What a great place to hide someone," Emma said, repeating her earlier words. David ignored her as he stooped to grasp the reinforced edge of the plank trap door. Emma kept her weapon trained into the void below as he raised the panel but there was nothing visible in the dark space except a rough-hewn wooden staircase leading deeper into the recess. Emma directed her light into the inky blackness of the stairwell, seeing that there was a narrow panel door at the bottom which was secured with a rusty padlock. "I see a doorway down there with a lock on it."
"I'm guessing you can open that one too?"
"Piece of cake," she grinned hopefully as they descended the steps. Reaching the bottom, Emma tucked her weapon into her hip holster, trading it for her wand while David maintained a tight grip on both flashlight and weapon. Her magic made quick work of the padlock and as David kept the flashlight beam trained on the door, she eased it open. A tiny room bathed in darkness lay beyond the wooden door and Emma crinkled her nose in disgust as the wafting odors of damp cement and moldy earth assaulted her senses. But she was also smelling faint traces of something else in the mix - the coppery scent of blood and the sweetness of the rum she'd partaken of last night. "Killian?" She called out to him. "Killian? Are you here?"
She heard no response as she retrieved her own flashlight, switching it on to find the limp figure curled up on the dingy concrete floor in the center of the room.
"Killian!" she exclaimed, dropping to her knees on the dusty floor beside her unconscious friend, placing the flashlight on the floor next to her knees. He was lying on his right side and even in the dim light, she noticed something shiny was protruding from his left shoulder. She wasn't entirely sure, but it appeared to be his hook.
"Is that Captain Jones?" David queried, keeping a watchful eye on the trapdoor above as Emma checked on the person locked in the dark cellar.
"Yes and I think he's hurt. It's too damned dark in here, though." She needed more light and she remembered one of the first spells Zelena had taught her. Grabbing her wand, she held it above her head and recited "Inlumino!" Instantly, a series of twinkling, floating orbs began to swirl overhead, illuminating the dank room so that she could positively identify Killian and take a preliminary assessment of his injuries.
"It's him!" she shouted to David.
"What's that sticking out of his shoulder?" David wondered, staring quizzically at the glint of shiny metal. "It looks like some kind of hook…"
"It is a hook," she stated. "Killian sometimes wears it as a prosthetic and somebody plunged it pretty deep into his shoulder." David wanted to make a comment so badly about a ship captain wearing a hook for a hand, but he held his tongue as he recognized the concern evident on his sister's face. She had carefully rolled Captain Jones into his back and was pressing her index and middle fingers against his neck. "He's unconscious. He's got a pulse, but it's weak and a little slow. His skin is pretty cool to the touch so I'm pretty sure he's been in this cold basement for hours."
"Is he breathing?"
Not sensing any rise or fall of Killian's chest, Emma leaned in closer to his face, hoping she would feel the warmth of his breath exhaled against her cheek. As she lowered her face above Killian's slightly agape mouth, for a split second, her lips brushed his and she felt a little spark. It wasn't unlike the static shock you'd get when touching a metal surface after running across a carpeted floor in your socks but in the heat of the moment, it never dawned on her that she shouldn't be experiencing any static electricity shocks down here. She mentally dismissed any thoughts of the shock as she felt a soft puff of air against her skin.
"He's breathing, but just barely," she informed David who was immediately on the radio calling for a remote rescue unit. There was no way the two of them were going to be able to maneuver an unconscious man out of that root cellar and back to the road without assistance from the other teams. "Hang in there, Killian. Help's on the way," she assured her friend as she gently caressed his stubbled cheek
