It might have been better than all the previous Friday nights I spent sleeping with dagger under my pillow and crossbow held in my arms like a stuffed animal.

If I only didn't have the feeling…

The feeling that before this night was over, I will tell that story. That source of most of my nightmares. The story I knew he knew, whenever he glanced my way.

"I better get flying," said Blue just after two. I gave her a worried look, because if she ever was drunk enough to try just that, it was tonight. "See you next Friday."

"Really?" I looked around in confusion.

"Oh yes," nodded Granny. "You don't really believe those were all the stories we had to tell, do you?"

I said nothing to that. After just two or three stories from what she almost fondly called her wolf days I had a very good idea how my next few nightmares will look like – and what big teeth they'll have. But of course there was more. There was much more to my story too, and I knew it will take me a while before I'll feel like talking about it. That or another bottle of whiskey…

"I better get going too," said Victor, getting up unsteadily.

"Already?"

I did not like that idea one bit, and I didn't care he was pretty much the only doctor around and needed his sleep. Because I already knew what was going to happen and how little I could do to stop it.

And I was panicking…

"You know," I said, not even waiting for the door to close behind Granny, once we found ourselves alone.

No point in pretending it was a question. Of course he knew. One could hear that story, my story, only in that creepy place on the wrong side of a looking glass.

"I know something," he said, nodding. Any other night I would appreciate he wasn't wasting my time. Not tonight. Tonight the little golden key I was wearing on the chain around my neck felt so very heavy…

"If Duchess told you what happened, there's nothing else I can…" I said, still hoping I might end up not having this conversation. He only smiled, and I knew it was hopeless.

"You need to tell someone."

"What if you're the wrong someone?"

"Duchess didn't think I was," he said.

"And just how sane she looked the day she told you?"

Which was terrible thing to say, but hey, I got years of experience of being mean and just a single night of being able to talk about my demons. And Bluebeard was the demon.

He said nothing. Only looked at me. Waiting.

"I was there. I helped her kill him. She would never manage to do it if it wasn't for me. Is that the story you heard?"

"More or less."

"Then we had nothing to…"

"Why?"

"What?" I did not get surprised often, but this was just not the kind of question I got asked. Ever.

"Why? Everyone knows the story about Bluebeard. Everyone knows what a monster he was and why Duchess killed him. And even knowing all that, it is impossible to figure out why would you get yourself involved. You had nothing to fear. He had a type."

"Right. Blond and young and innocent. Tell me… have you ever met my sisters?"

That silenced him. Just long enough for me to reach for a bottle still left on the table.

"That's a lie. A very convincing one, I'll give you that. But a lie…"

"All right. You want the truth? I was the wicked stepsister. I was then, anyway. I was mean, spiteful little monster, on my way to become a proper sociopath, when Bluebeard came to town. One look into those dead eyes of his and I knew just what my future will look like if I didn't change something and fast… And when he did… when he…"

I reached for the little golden key like I did so many times, frightened and confused, emerging from yet another nightmare. Just to make sure it was still here.

Just to remind myself that I locked that door.

"When he married Lenore," he said, so I didn't have to.

"Did Duchess tell you about her? She couldn't, could she?" I said, not really needing the answer. I remembered too well that look she got in her eyes whenever anyone mentioned the daughter she lost. "She was such a sweet girl. She… we used to be friends. Long ago. Before I turned into a brat. And when I heard what happened… what he did… Did you know he sent her mother back a finger? Wearing…"

"A ring," said Jefferson very quietly.

So maybe he did know this story.

"Does she still have it?" I asked before I could stop myself. "In Wonderland?"

"She does… It's what's keeping her sane on the days when she can't remember if Lenore was ever real."

I had nothing to say to that. I never knew.

It's been so long since I last saw her, just before she crossed into that land of madness, escaping her memories – or so she thought. I tried to tell her it was not a good place for someone who was already half mad with grief. But in the end I couldn't stop her from putting that looking glass between us.

Believing she was doing me favor, I was certain. Believing that if she wasn't around to remind me of what happened, what we did, I might forget. I never had the heart to tell her how wrong she was…

And there was nothing I could do about it now. Now, I still had a story to tell.

"The day she got it I heard her scream… I can still remember it so clear. I think there wasn't anyone in the whole town who didn't hear it. It was… a sound of heart breaking," I said, my voice shaking with emotion.

This was a story I was never meant to tell. Trying to hurt too much. And still I tried – I had no choice, with that familiar echo in my mind. Start at the beginning. Go on until you come to the end. Then stop.

"You haven't answered me."

"I did… If you heard it, you'd understand. It was impossible to know someone was in that much pain and not to help. I had to do something. And when she told me she was going to kill him – not asking me for help, just letting me know that it will be alright, that I won't have to be scared for my sisters anymore… I couldn't let her do it on her own. I just couldn't."

He looked at me with something like admiration then, but I had the feeling it was there all along, just under the surface. And now there was no need to hide it. I was not just a story someone told him once upon a time in Wonderland anymore. Word by word I was becoming very real – or so it seemed to me. But who could really tell what was happening behind those dark eyes…?

"I followed her to Bluebeard's mansion. Don't ask me why – I knew she had magic, that she was willing to die if that was what it took to stop him, I knew there was nothing I could possibly do to help… But I had to go."

"I know what happened in his house if you don't want to talk about it," he said. And didn't mean, not really.

This wasn't just therapy, and we both knew it. This was an exorcism and there were things that needed to be said to make it all a little more bearable. So I said them.

"No. You started this. You're getting the whole story. Because you have no idea what happened…"

"She stabbed him in the chest, which didn't work, for obvious reason, and then, out of nowhere you showed up. Kicking the door open and looking very dangerous. That was the version I got," he said, letting me know that actually he did have some idea. "And then you got that thing," he added, looking at the key I was still holding.

Well that was a simplification if I ever heard one. I got the key off his neck, yes, but in order to do that I had to get close. Close to that monster of a man that could snap my neck like a twig. Which he almost did…

"That's the part I still have nightmares about," I said, though I had no doubt he could tell from my expression. "It was like a dream from the moment I touched it. I knew just where to go, just where to find the one room in the house that was locked. And like in a dream… I knew that no matter how fast I ran it will not be fast enough. I knew he was right behind me. And when I got into that room and realized that it was never true I still felt like screaming. It was a spell, I think. It still works sometimes. When I walk alone in the night… I can still hear his footsteps," I said, dropping my eyes to that small golden key.

It looked so ordinary. Just a trinket. But it was all that protected my sanity.

"Why keep it then?" he asked me, bringing me back from the past. I blinked away the tears that were still threatening and looked at him.

"It always reminds me that I locked the door behind it all," I heard myself whisper.

"You got his heart from that room. That's what I heard – and it's all I need to know," he said as the seconds went by in silence. Offering me way out, I knew.

"Oh, don't. We both know why I'm telling you. You understand. And maybe that means you can understand what I found in that room. Why I had to make sure to lock it behind me. So the madness wouldn't get out…"

That did it. Not the memory, just the words that were stuck in my mind for years. Never spoken out loud, never, to anyone. Can't let the madness get out…

After all those years of putting them off, I found tears running down my face, remembering…

all that blood…

He didn't tell me it was all right and he didn't promise he won't let anything happen to me. Just held me. Just listened to my whispers, to the memories that shaped my darkest dreams. He was just there as I became the scared girl I was that night.

"I want to go home," I said when the tears stopped blurring my vision. Knowing how childish I sounded, but really too exhausted to care.

He took me by the hand and led me out into the streets that seemed confusing even in broad daylight.

We didn't talk for a very long time. Just walked in silence that made me think about all the other little details of that story, too dark to be ever called a fairytale.

About his heart, not just dark but completely black and so cold to touch. About Duchess, looking so very calm when she told me to turn away. Not to look. Not to look while she cut off his head. To make sure, she said. And I believed her. She wasn't doing any of it out of revenge or madness. Just to make sure. To prevent anyone ever knowing the same pain she knew and could never put into words.

"Did she ever get better? The Duchess?" I said when I couldn't stand the silence any longer.

"The last I saw her she looked… sane. If that means better."

"I suppose that's the best one can hope for after surviving what she survived," I said, with echo of that terrible, heartbreaking scream in my head.

"And what about what you survived?"

"Me? Oh, but this wasn't a story about the only girl ever to enter that room and leave it again. This is a story about a mother… The kind I never had."

I surprised myself then, feeling another tear running down my face after I thought I cried them all. But this felt different. This had nothing to do with horror of that night – this was about the pain of the knowledge I lived with my whole life.

"I kept thinking about it, all the way home. What my mother would do if it was me. If someone sent her my finger wearing a wedding ring, as a memento. I thought about it and… before the dawn I could admit it to myself. I never had a mother. I had someone who considered me a chess piece. Just for that knowledge, it was worth it. All of it. It gave me what I would never have otherwise."

"What?"

"Control over my life. The strength to take it," I said very quietly. But I did manage a very poor excuse for a smile.

"That night…" I continued. The story felt incomplete without that last little detail. "When I got home that night I did two things – I burned all my clothes…" I said, not needing to add anything about the blood on them, "and I cleaned up my room."

He gave me a confused look.

"I know how that sounds, but it was a big deal. I've never done that. And I mean never. In my life. When Ella brought me breakfast that morning I thought I gave her a heart attack… But I felt like doing something. Changing something. Does that make sense?"

"The day I got my daughter back… let's just say I burned a lot of hats," he said in answer. "It made sense at the moment."

"Exactly…"

The silence came back, but this time it felt almost peaceful. There was no sound of footsteps in the night, no monster that still followed me after all the years.

"When my mother got the news about what happened to Bluebeard, she looked… disappointed," I found myself saying after a time. Only after I heard those words said out loud, I knew how long I needed to do this. And how much it was part of this nightmarish fairytale for me. "That was the moment I realized what she planned for Ella. And the only way I could protect her was if she thought I was her masterpiece – the manipulative, heartless, power-hungry daughter she could be proud of."

And then he asked the last question I expected to hear.

"How old were you?"

"Sixteen. Just barely," I added, since I could tell he knew that wasn't the whole truth.

"Dru…"

"Don't feel sorry for me. I punch people who feel sorry for me. I would do it all again," I said. A bit too harshly.

"I don't doubt that for a moment."

"And don't call me a hero…!" I added just as seriously, because I could see that was exactly what he was about to do.

That got me a smile. And the night didn't feel half as dark anymore.

But it might have something to do with how close to morning it was getting… Ella will kill me for disappearing for a whole night like this, I just knew it. She was probably thinking about organizing s search party by now, certain that I ran off into the woods again.

"I believe that is your sister watching us from the window," he whispered to me when we finally got near the house I was looking for.

I glanced up towards the window he indicated with a very bad feeling he might be right. And I did my best to do something about my unsteady walk.

"That does look like her. Could you try to… you know… look like less of a tall dark stranger."

"That will be the least of your problems. You smell like a distillery."

"Right. That can't be very Disney," I sighed, already mentally preparing for the conversation I was going to have with Ella.

Not trying to hide his amusement he said "You have no idea what that means, do you?"

And since it appeared I was done with keeping secrets, I was not surprised to find myself shaking my head. Vigorously.