As soon as Henry left, Lily cried herself to sleep wondering why he had called her "Aunt Lily". Maybe she misheard him. Perhaps because she was so small to him that she was the same size as an ant. When she woke up the following morning all her crying from the night before brought about an appetite so she snacked on the tray of assorted cheeses and crackers her kidnapper left behind. While she ate, she listened for any subtle movements outside her door for her captor and was relieved to hear nothing. She wasn't entirely sure what time it was. Lily got up from where she sat and craned her head to look outside her room's window. Based off of the limited light entering her room it could have been early in the morning or late in the evening. She wasn't completely sure, but it felt like morning to her.
Lily pondered some more about her strange captor. He didn't seem evil. If he was feeding her then there was something about him that made him care for her well being. Apparently he knew her and knew about her father, but she knew nothing about the man who kidnapped her. Apart from saying very little to her, he never hurt her. Sure she had struggled against him, but it was only when she resisted that the stranger used some force to restrain her. Lily found her whole kidnapping very odd. Even her environment felt strangely familiar. As she moved about, she felt a peculiar sensation tingling in her bones as if the air she breathed around her was telling her that she was 'home', but she knew she wasn't. She wondered where she was and looked about the wooden room. She got up and moved closer to her room's door pressing her ear against it. When she couldn't hear anything she braved turning the knob. She turned the knob slowly and then silently peeked out into the rest of the cabin. Abandoned. She exited her room and braved the hallway.
If her kidnapper left her unattended then surely there was a bit of trust at play. He trusted her. At least he gave her enough freedom to roam about the deserted cabin, but why? Why would this strange man capture her? What did he want from her parents? Something about giving her father something. Why couldn't he have just given whatever the item was back in New York? What was so special about this place that he had to give it to him here?
She left her wooden cell and walked cautiously about the cabin. She scanned her surroundings, trying to burn into memory as much as she could in hopes to recant the details to her parents later when she escaped. If she could escape. She saw an abandoned fireplace and moved by it. As she snuck by the empty pit it suddenly roared into life. The sudden blaze frightened her and she jumped back a few steps out of alarm.
How was that possible? Motion detectors? She wondered. Was this old cabin more technologically advanced than she realized? Lily knew that she had never been to this cabin before in her life, so why couldn't she shake this familiar feeling about this place? It wasn't the cabin. She wasn't cold. In fact, the room's temperature was quite comfortable. So why were there goosebumps on her skin? Perhaps she was having some form of an allergic reaction.
When her heart settled back down into her chest, she looked about the main living space some more. She noticed a few books her mother would have enjoyed sitting over in a corner collecting dust in an ill-forgotten bookshelf. Across the room there was a fridge with a hand written grocery list. She moved in closer to get a better look at the parchment. Upon closer inspection, the handwriting looked eerily similar to her father's penmanship, especially with the letters 'f', 's', 'r'. Suddenly, she saw the cabin's door. When she saw that the coast was clear she made a mad dash to escape. She turned the knob and attempted to run through, but was immediately repelled backwards into the cabin by some mysterious force. Lily fell to her back and the force from the blow knocked the wind out from her lungs.
As soon as she was able to catch her breath she got up and slowly approached the door's open frame. She inserted her hand through the doorway but it was like pushing her hand through saran wrap and could not pierce the door's invisible barrier. She couldn't escape. The invisible force was preventing her from leaving, as if it was being enforced by… magic.
"Magic?" Lily said out loud with disbelief. "No way. This has to be some sort of… new defense system my Papa's been working on."
Lily wasn't completely ignorant of the technology out there in the world. From her school's library she had read stories on kid spies and their adventures. It wasn't completely out of the realm of possibility, was it? Lily suddenly thought of an extreme theory. What if her father was once part of a government program developing new technology and they were holding her hostage until he could fix the item in question. She always knew that her father was really good at fixing things. She would even see her father bring work home sometimes, against her mother's wishes of course, to tinker on a new item or adjust a gadget that would find its way out of his pawn shop. It wouldn't surprise her if that was the case, but she knew her father. She knew that whatever the item was that her kidnapper wanted him to see, he would see it and know exactly what to do.
Suddenly she heard a couple of window taps knock from the opposite end of the room. She turned towards the source of the sound and discovered a little boy with blonde hair and blue eyes peering through the glass window. Lily ran to the window and shouted to the little boy, "Help me! I've been kidnapped. I'm trapped!"
"Try lifting the window!" he called back to her through the window pointing toward the latch. Lily did as the little boy suggested and released the latch above the frame. She tried with all her might, pushing, clawing and willing the window to go up but had no success. The little boy on the opposite side of the window pane even tried to help, but was unsuccessful as well. Defeated, she gave out an exhausted and panicked whimper.
Seeing the panic on her face, the little boy called to her again, "Have you tried all the windows?"
Frustrated, she wiped the tears from her face and began checking the other windows of the room. Each window greeted her with the same results.
"You can't escape, you know…" called out an eerie voice from within the cabin. She spun at her heel and saw her captor gawking idly, watching her fail at attempting to escape. How long had he been standing there? "…I've cloaked this cabin with magic."
Lily looked at the original window for the little boy who was trying to help her escape, but he was gone. What stood before her now was her kidnapper.
"Magic?" Lily repeated back with disbelief.
"Yes, magic! Come now, couldn't you sense it? I mean, you must have felt it when we passed through."
"Pass through… where? Where are we?"
"We… are in a place that doesn't technically exist on any map. This, my dear Lily, is Storybrooke and is the only place in this world where you'll find magic."
"How do you know my name? Who are you?"
"Now that… is an excellent question. For now, just call me Arthur."
"Arthur," said Lily as she started to cry, "I want my Mama and Papa. When can I see them?"
Upon seeing Lily cry, Arthur grimaced as if feeling sorry for his keeping her hostage and pulled out a handkerchief from within his breast-coat pocket. "There, there…" he said offering the handkerchief to her. She backed away from Arthur and fell into a chair, shaking her head and refusing his offer. Why was he offering? Why did he care so much? She wanted to be scared of him, but she couldn't. First, he offered her food, then her freedom to roam around the cabin and now his handkerchief. He seemed genuinely concerned for her welfare.
He came to her side and knelt down before her, looking at her at her eye level. Despite refusing his courteous gesture, Arthur began dabbing the tears away from her face with the handkerchief anyways. "Lily," Arthur started to say with a baffled look on his face, "what do you know about your parents?"
"My mummy's a librarian at a university in New York and Papa owns a pawn shop."
"Is that all?"
Lily nodded her head. Arthur looked disappointed, he pressed on, "Lily, what do you know about the story 'Beauty and the Beast'?"
Lily was caught off guard by such an obtuse question. She stammered as she gave a brief summary of the story, "Uh… A handsome prince was cursed as a hideous beast… uh, Beauty… had a loving father who got kidnapped by the beast and in exchange for his life she traded places with him… Beauty had beautiful sisters who were hideous on the inside and… and during her time with the Beast realized that true beauty was found within. The Beast gave her back her freedom knowing full well that he was near death. Beauty's sister were so horrible that it made her miss her Beast because the Beast was nothing but kind to her. So… so she returned to him and agreed to marry him."
She knew she jumbled the main plot points, but she was nervous and felt strange retelling her parents' favorite tale to a complete stranger.
Arthur smirked and nodded as if approving. "What if I were to tell you that the fairy tales you've read about or were ever told to you… were real?" Lily stared at Arthur with stunned awe. "Now," he continued, "the stories you may have heard or read are actually slightly different than what actually happened, but your parents… are fairy tale characters."
"What?" breathed out Lily. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"That story, 'Beauty and the Beast' is your parents' story. Your mother is Beauty and your father is Beast."
"No! My mother's name is Belle-"
"-which is also another name for Beauty."
Just behind Arthur's shoulders Lily glanced up and saw the little boy from earlier peek through the kitchen window. Without letting Arthur on to her observation she stuttered, "But… but my father's name is Gold!"
"That may be true, but what other name does he answer by?" Lily knew about her father's first full name, but no one but her own mother ever called him by it. More often than not, she usually only heard her mother call him by the abbreviated version. She never really thought about how odd it was for only her mother to call him by this other name until now. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the little boy at the kitchen window gesture for her to punch Arthur in the face and then run toward the door. When she didn't reply right away Arthur answered for her, "…Rumplestiltskin."
"How do you know about my father's name?" Lily asked, glancing back and forth between Arthur and the door.
"Because… I'm his grandson."
The revelation fell down upon her like a ton books falling to the floor, "But… that's impossible. I… I'm an only child."
"Your Papa's beastly history goes way, way back and he is much, much older than he appears to be. However old you think he is his tale is even older."
How was this possible? Nothing Arthur was saying to Lily was making sense to her. Arthur looked down at his suit for a moment to put away his handkerchief and Lily seized her chance. With all of her strength she kicked Arthur square in the face and rendered him unconscious. She ran as quickly as she could to the door and opened it. She checked with her hands to make sure the invisible force was gone and when her hands fell through she burst forth from the cabin and ran as fast and as far away from the cabin as she could.
"Wait!" called the little boy from the window to her. He was running to catch up to her. "I know the way back to town. Take my hand!"
"Who are you?" Lily asked.
"My name is Neal. Now come on! My nephew could be waking up any moment."
"What?! You're nephew? What is this place?!"
"There's no time for questions," Neal said grabbing her hand. As soon as their hands touched the world around them disappeared. When the reappeared, they were still in the same forest but the cabin was about thirty yards away. She and Neal kept running, but after running for about ten feet or so the world would suddenly disappear and reappear at different parts of the forest. What was happening? As much as Lily appreciated the help getting away from the cabin, the whole popping in and out of existence was becoming disorienting. Lily felt her stomach churn, her head spin and her legs wobble. She was going to vomit.
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" shouted out Lily to her fortunate companion. "I'm going to be sick."
"I'm sorry," apologized Neal. "I'm not very good at magic. Disappearing and reappearing for the first time made me want to throw up too."
Lily collapsed to the forest floor. While trying to catch her breath she asked intermittently without trying to gag, "That… that was magic?!... Arthur is your nephew?... How is that even possible? What is this place? Wait…" she took a deep breath and looked into Neal's eyes, "…how did you find me?"
"I don't know who this Arthur is but that person who was holding you captive was my nephew."
"Was?"
"Henry is his actual name. I don't know why he was holding you hostage," said Neal, just as confused, "he would never kidnap anyone. He would never hurt anyone either, not even a fly! That person that you met back there is not the nephew I know." Seeing that she was still very confused, Neal continued explaining, "I have an older sister who's like, super old… well not super old, but older… and she had son…Henry, but she had him way before I was born."
"But… Arthur called me Aunt Lily. Why would he call me that? I don't have any brothers or sisters."
Neal shrugged his shoulders and kicked some rocks and debris away from Lily, wondering the same thing too. He looked at Lily curiously, "So your name is Lily, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Who are your parents?"
"Belle and Gold."
"Gold?! As in the town's famous Pawn Shop? Mr. Gold is your father?!" Neal said stunned.
"You know of my Papa?"
"Not really, only the little that my parents told me about him… that he was a powerful sorcerer and how he frightened the whole town."
"Papa? A sorcerer? No," Lily said scrunching her face in confusion. She shook her head in disbelief, "No, that doesn't sound like my Papa. He wouldn't scare anyone."
Lily was left baffled. She was confused by what was happening, where she was, about magic, about why she was kidnapped, about why Arthur kept her hostage but never harmed her, about this little boy's obscure family lineage. So much was happening to her and it was all too much. All she knew for certain was that Neal was helping her get back to her parents and so she was extremely grateful for him. The sooner she got back into her parents, the sooner they could leave this strange place and then be done with this nonsense.
"Well, Mr. Gold or not we should keep moving. Come on," Neal insisted as he reached for her hand to help her up from the ground.
"No more magic, please. My tummy can't handle it."
"As you wish, but we should still keep moving."
Lily finally took Neal's assistance and he helped her to her feet. They moved steadily on through the woods when Lily realized that Neal still hadn't answered her original question. "So… you can do magic."
"Yeah, but I'm not very good. Obviously."
"And Arthur… I mean, Henry… he has magic too?"
"Yeah and he's really good at it too. He was the one that taught me how to do that disappearing-thing back there. Weird… for the past few days he had been acting really strange, being distant from the rest of the family. He and I were supposed to have our magic lesson yesterday, but he missed that too and he never misses it. That cabin was our secret meeting spot and we'd meet there every morning to learn something new or perfect a spell. Well this morning, I go to check out the cabin again and discovered that not only had it been sealed by magic, but that you were stuck inside it."
The sun was beginning to rise and she had no idea where they were. She stared at the sun and it immediately reminded her of the conversation she had with her father before she got kidnapped.
"…the first step to understanding magic, is knowing that it exists. You just have to know where to look…"
She looked around at her surroundings. She didn't recognize anything with her eyes, but she felt it. She closed her eyes and was suddenly able to identify the familiar feeling; the air, this place, these woods… it was all magic. Even if she wanted to not believe in its existence, her upset stomach from all the magical traveling was telling her otherwise. Magic is real and she could feel its very existence in her bones.
After a while of walking in the woods Lily asked Neal, "So, where are we heading? Arthur said my parents were here, so they must be close by."
"We're heading back into town… back to Storybrooke. If your folks are here, then they'll be there too."
"Are you sure?"
"Well, all I know is, my sister's the town's Sheriff. She pretty much knows everything there is to know about Storybrooke. We just need to find her and she'll help you get back to your mom and dad."
The thought of being reunited with her parents made her smile. As they walked, a small breeze wafted through the trees causing Lily to cover her arms. Neal turned and noticed Lily's chill. Almost automatically, he took off his own jacket and handed it to her.
"Thank you," said Lily graciously accepting the jacket.
"It seemed like the right thing to do," replied Neal with a warm smile.
"But, won't you get cold?"
"I'll be fine. Besides, you're not from around here. I'm betting your home is really far away. My home isn't too far. I'll just get another one when we get there."
"Are we getting any closer?" she asked as she slipped her arms through the sleeves of his big jacket.
"Just a little while longer. Hopefully, we'll get to our folks in time before Henry wakes up."
The kids trekked on and hoped that Lily's kick to Author's face gave them enough time to escape the woods and into the safety of their parents' arms.
I'm so glad that my Henry twist didn't turn you guys away. Thank you Imusicluver23, Grace5231973, ladybugsmomma, DNS Akina, NatalieMosherRumbelle and Cryptic Cobra for your review on the previous chapter! As always, it is a pleasure to hear from you and read your comments and reviews. See you next chapter!