Chapter 3: Spitballing

"So now what?" asked Emma. The four women had just settled into a far corner booth at Granny's, after Emma was careful to make sure Regina had already left with Henry. August had said he needed to rest, as he could now barely walk, and needed to conserve energy. He had also explained that he believed that any form of dishonesty, including simple social subterfuge, was speeding up the petrifaction process. So, after a simple suggestion that Mary's trigger would likely be tied to sparking her connection to Emma, the women had excused themselves. Although he'd offered to be on standby with his phone, should they have any questions, Emma was hesitant interrupt his rest. While she knew it was ultimately Regina's fault, she couldn't help but feel guilty that August was quickly being overtaken by his past as Pinocchio. She knew it wasn't rational, but she couldn't take something like what happened to Graham, happening to Booth.

"You tell us," replied Phoebe. "Snow White's your mother."

Emma shook her head. "Can we just stick to calling her Mary, please? The Snow White thing is weird enough. I can't wrap my mind around her being my mother to boot."

"Why not? I mean, I know you never knew her, but I've been there," replied Paige.

"Not like this you haven't," said Emma.

Phoebe nodded. "We lost our mother before Paige and I were old enough to remember her. We only met her a few years ago."

Emma realized that the Halliwells hadn't actually met any fairy tale characters, except August, and as such, didn't realize they hadn't aged. "Yeah, except your Mom wasn't the same age as you."

Phoebe smirked. "Oh, yes she was!"

"You're kidding," replied Emma flatly.

"You're gonna wear that phrase out before the day is over, if you don't start realizing that with magic, anything is possible," teased Paige. "Hell, she was younger than me, the last night we saw her!"

"So… what? Your Mom stuck in some kinda limbo too, or something?" asked Emma.

Paige shook her head. "No… she passed away. Killed by a demon who didn't take kindly to her taking away his source of camper snacks."

"Demons are real too? You're kid- ugh, nevermind. Go on. So, he was stealing people's camping food?"

"No, more like eating campers. Like, kid's summer camp, campers," replied Paige.

"Oh, God!" exclaimed Emma. "I'm so sorry… your mother sounds like an incredible woman."

Piper nodded. "She is."

"So, what, I guess her ghost still looks like your age, then?"

Phoebe nodded. "Yeah. But the first time I met her, she was very much alive, and very much in her twenties. And pregnant with me." She shrugged. "Long story short, we went back to the 70's to get her and our Grams' help with our own demon problem."

"She was a ghost when I met her. And of course, she came to the future, from a time even earlier in the 70s, so she was like, 5 years younger than me.," said Paige.

"And, like, 8 years younger than me!" Piper shook her head. "Yeah, too weird."

Emma raised an eyebrow. "And you say my family is screwy?" The women all chuckled.

Phoebe tilted her head. "So, I don't get it. How has it been 28 years and your mother hasn't aged a day?"

Before Emma could answer, an older, but still vibrant woman, arrived at their table, holding a pencil and pad of paper. "What a rare treat – we almost never see visitors in this town! Welcome to Grannys! Are they friends of yours, Emma?"

Emma nodded. "Uh, yeah, friends from Baltimore. Just visiting."

"Well, any friend of yours is a friend of mine. How are you liking Storybrooke, so far?"

The three sisters all gave her wider than necessary smiles. "Oh, it's certainly memorable!" said Paige.

"Good, good. Well, can I get you anything? I make a wonderful cherry cobbler – just finished baking!"

"Uh, maybe another time," replied Piper. "We're, uh, not hungry just now. I could use a cup of tea, though."

"Chamomile, alright?"

"That was would be perfect!" replied Piper, genuinely.

Granny nodded. "And the rest of you?"

"Coffee," replied Phoebe and Paige in unison.

"Make that three," said Emma. "The usual mocha."

"Coming right up!" replied the aging woman. "Just holler if you need me!"

When she had moved a safe distance from the booth, Emma leaned in. "Does that look like someone who would have been a Granny 28 years ago?" She also nodded at the saucily dressed young woman behind the counter, clad in a red cardigan. "That would be Little Red Riding Hood. It still sounds insane when I say it!"

"But isn't Red Riding Hood supposed to be a kid?" asked Paige.

Phoebe shook her head. "Not necessarily – the story is widely thought of as an allegory for sex, with the wolf being either temptation to go off the right path, or give in to sexual desire. Viewed from that perspective, it would make sense that she'd be of a marriageable, fertile age."

Paige narrowed her eyes at her sister. "Cripes, woman! Is there anything that isn't about sex, according to psychologists?"

"Sure. Actual sex," Piper rejoined, sarcastically, before turning her attention back to Emma. "So, what you're saying is this whole town has been, like, frozen for 28 years?"

Emma shook her head. "Not exactly. According to Henry, everyone has essentially been walking around in a haze, with implanted memories. Never aging. Nothing ever moving forward."

"So, like the DMV?" remarked Paige.

Phoebe rolled her eyes. "So everyone look the same as the day they left the fairytale realm?"

"Apparently. So, you can imagine that when Henry insisted that his teacher, and my roommate who by all appearances couldn't be more than a couple years older than me, if that, was my mother, I didn't really believe it was possible."

"So how did you end up living together then?" asked Piper.

Emma shrugged. "I needed a place to stay, and she offered. Truth be told, it was like I trusted her immediately. Which is not something I do. Ever."

Phoebe smiled. "See? You are connected. Always have been, even before you two knew it."

Emma smiled briefly. "Yeah. I guess so. Still, it's just… I can only wrap my head around one piece of insanity at a time! I mean… she's Mary."

"So. The question is, how do we use that bond?" asked Piper. Granny appeared at their table and quickly unloaded her tray of hot beverages. She appeared to realize that the group was in need of some privacy and made herself scarce without a word.

Emma gently dusted her coffee with a shaker full of cinnamon sugar thoughtfully. "If August is right, I need to figure out some way to connect on a deeper level with Mary Margaret."

"Well, this Graham woke up when you kissed him, right?" said Pheobe.

Emma shot her a wide eyed look of horror. "If you're suggesting that I kiss Mary Margaret, you ca forget it! We're close, but I don't need her thinking I'm coming on to her or-" She shuddered. "Never mind that she's my mother!"

Paige laughed. "Relax, I wasn't suggesting that! That would be… yeah, ew. No, what I was thinking is like… Booth said that you were found with a blanket. And having been given up for adoption, left only with a blanket myself, I'm guessing you still have it."

Emma nodded. "I thought you were all sisters?"

"We can swap our Annie stories later," replied Paige. "But you have your blanket?"

"Yeah. But she's already seen it – and it didn't seem to trigger anything I noticed," said Emma.

"Ok, well, maybe it's context. Like seeing you wrapped in it?" asked Phoebe.

Emma shrugged. "You're the magic experts, not me. But we've been living together for months now. I don't know what it could be."

"Are we sure she should even be woken up? I mean why not Prince Charming. He is a prince and all. Doesn't that mean trained in fencing and all those other manly warmongering pursuits?" asked Paige. "What's Snow White gonna do? Bake a pie at her? Faint her into submission? Send an army of sparrows to poop on the Queen until she ends the curse?" Suddenly realizing that was Emma's mother she was talking about, Paige cringed at the blonde. "No offense."

Emma simply pulled Henry's storybook open. "None taken. Turns out, the Disneyfied version is pretty much what you'd expect from a bunch of 1930's male chauvinists." She pointed to an illustration of a dark-haired woman, decked out in an outfit more fitting for a huntsman than a princess, leading a group similarly dressed, short make companions, and a girl who bore a striking resemblance to the woman wiping down the diner's countertop.

"That's Snow White?" said Paige. Emma flipped through a few more pages. "Now, see, Piper. If this was what Grams' book of fairytales looked like, I'd be totally down with reading them to my kids! She's a badass!"

Emma nodded. "Mary isn't quite like the woman I've read about here, but the sparks still there. Henry believes it has something to do with replacing their memories."

"Well, if she reacts anything like I would in her situation, I can't think of any better ally to wake first," said Piper.

"And Piper's the scariest momma grizzly around," added Phoebe.

Emma smirked, narrowing her eyes. "You haven't seen me, yet."

"Or this Regina," replied Piper. "If she's as powerful as we've been led to believe, and really wants to hold on to Henry, we're going to need every angry mom on our side we can get."

The four women spent better part of an hour pouring through the story of Snow White and Charming, looking for something that might be used to trigger her memory. They had spitballed the possibilities of everything from seeing Emma in the blanket to setting a trap net to recreate Snow's meeting with James, or locking her in a glass shower enclosure to simulate the glass coffin but to no avail. Nothing seemed likely to work and feasible, while allowing for plausible deniability should it fail. "Where are these last pages?" asked Phoebe as they got to the end of the story.

"Henry ripped them out and made me promise to keep them safely hidden from Regina. It's the part of the story where I come in…"

"Well, whatever the key is, it's gotta be in there!" declared Paige. "You're the second half to the trigger, after all. Where are they hidden?"

"Back at my apartment."

"Well, let's go meet the one and only Snow White!" said Paige.

"Without a plan?" replied Emma.

"I've been thinking. August said our magic couldn't break the curse, right? But that doesn't mean we're powerless," said Phoebe. "And obviously, our powers work within Storybrooke – we've seen it already."

"So?" asked Piper.

"So, maybe we can just use a spell. Like, the one we cast to bring back lost items. You know, like memories? Or even just a simple remembering spell? We're the most powerful witches of all time, there has to be something we can do!"

"So how does that work exactly?" asked Emma."You just wave a wand and 'poof' she's Snow White again? Or is it more like 'The Craft' and you've gotta sit around chanting for hours?"

"Uh, neither. It's more like make up a limerick and hope it works without going screwy," said Paige.

"Why am I suddenly not at all reassured by that description?" replied Emma.

"Don't worry. We always fix it," said Phoebe.

"Oh… great," said Emma, raising an eyebrow.

Piper pulled out a ten dollar bill and tossed it on to the table. "Shall we?" At this, her sister nodded and began to stand up.

"Why do I get the feeling that this isn't going to go smoothly?" asked Emma.

"Because you're even smarter than you look?" replied Paige, patting her on the shoulder. "Just try and go with it. We're more for fly by the seat of pants kind of girls."

"Don't you mean by the seat of your broom?" rejoined Emma, slyly.

"I'm afraid we're fresh out of flying broomsticks," replied Phoebe.

"Well, lucky for you, I'm a practiced pants flyer, and don't have any better suggestions," said Emma as she made her way out of the diner, the three sisters at her heels.