Chapter 88

Hanna went with her mom down the hallway. They stopped at Hanna's locker first.

"Get your things," Snow said.

Hanna pulled out her backpack and shut the door.

"What are you doing? Get all of your books."

"All of them?"

"Look at this pile of work, Hanna." Snow held up the folder. "Yes. All of them."

Hanna sighed and shoved the books into her bag. "Mom, it's really heavy."

"I'm sure it is." Snow turned and walked towards the other end of the school to her classroom. Hanna followed and waited patiently while her mom gathered her things and left a note for the substitute. Then they went to the car.

Hanna tossed her bag into the back seat and sat by her mom in the front. She buckled herself in, and they began to drive home. "Mom I…"

"Later."

"Why won't you talk to me?"

"Hanna, if I try to talk to you right now we are both going to hate me by the time we get home. I need a few minutes to calm down."

Hanna sighed. She leaned her head against the window. The silence made the ride feel like an eternity.

"Sit down at the table," Snow said once they entered the loft.

Hanna did what her mother said.

Snow set the folder of work on the table in front of Hanna. "Get started on this. I need to make a phone call."

Hanna nodded. She watched her mom go behind the curtain into her bedroom. She could hear her muffled voice talking on the phone, but she couldn't tell what she was saying. Hanna turned her attention to the mountain of work that sat in front of her. She opened the folder. There were different colored tabs indicating which assignments were for which class. Math seemed to be the thickest. They were assigned a lesson everyday and Hanna didn't complete most of them. The English section didn't look as big, but the assignments were really involved. There was lot of reading to catch up on and a few book reports. There was at least a dozen worksheets between her history and science classes too. Hanna could feel tears begin to form. She didn't know where to begin. How was she going to get through all of this?

"We'll help you."

Hanna pulled her focus from the work and looked up at her mom. "What?"

Snow sat down beside Hanna. "Your dad and I will help you." Snow wiped the tear that had fallen. "I know this feels overwhelming."

"I thought you were mad at me."

"Oh I am furious, and I'm sure I'm about to get even more so in a few minutes."

"Why?"

"Let's just say you're going to tell me everything you've been hiding these last few weeks whether you want to or not."

"I don't understand."

"You will. Just remember, no matter how upset I get, I still love you, and I'll still help you with your work."

"Mom, what…" Hanna was interrupted by someone suddenly appearing in the room.

"I have what you asked for," Regina said. "Who's the victim?" Regina looked between Snow and Hanna, then stopped on the guilty looking girl. "What did you do this time?"

Hanna gulped.

Regina raised her eyebrows at her.

Hanna avoided her gaze.

"She's been lying about doing her schoolwork and has been changing her grades in the online system," Snow told her.

"And just where did you learn how to do that?"

Hanna jumped at the anger in Regina's voice.

"You didn't you teach her during your magic lessons?"

"Of course not. Hanna, who taught you how to do this?"

Hanna shrugged.

"Tell me," Regina demanded.

"No one. You told me to have more confidence in myself, so I tried a few things and…they worked."

"What other things have you been trying?" Regina asked.

"I made part of my dad's note to my mom disappear once."

"And that was only the one time?" Snow asked.

Hanna chewed the inside of her lip. She definitely did it more than once, but her mom only knew about one.

Snow shook her head. "I'm tired of not getting straight answers out of you. Reinga, give her the stuff."

"What stuff?" Regina pull a vile of yellow liquid from her pocket. "What is that?"

"Truth serum." Regina removed then lid and held it out to Hanna.

Hanna leaned back. "I don't want to drink that."

"Well, you don't seem to be able to tell the whole truth on your own," Regina said.

"You're sure this won't hurt her, right?" Snow asked.

"Oh, did I forget to mention she'll turn into a pile of dust once it wears off? You're okay with that, right?"

"Regina…"

Regina rolled her eyes. "Of course it's not going to hurt her. The effects won't last long though, so be ready with your questions." Regina held the bottle out to Hanna again.

"Mom, please don't make me…"

"Hanna, just do it," Snow said.

Hanna sighed and took the bottle from Regina. She put it to her nose first. Thankfully, it didn't smell like anything. Hanna took a deep breath and drank the liquid. It tingled a bit as it went down her throat, but there was no taste, and she didn't feel any different.

"Regina, her nose…it's glowing."

Hanna's hand shot to her nose. It felt the same as usual.

"That's how you know its activated," Regina said. "Once it stops, she'll be able to lie again."

Snow nodded.

"Well, what are you waiting for?"

"Right." Snow shook her head and turned to Hanna. "Did you do any school work the days you were supposed to while your dad was awake?"

Hanna kept her mouth closed. Maybe she could fight off the spell. Regina did say it wouldn't last long. After only a few seconds, the tingling she felt when she swallowed the potion came back. The sensation grew and before Hanna could stop herself, the words came spilling out of her mouth. "No I didn't do homework while dad was awake. Not even once."

"Does your dad know about the homework situation at all?"

"No. I told him my homework was already done."

"Did you use your magic to change the note I left about switching off homework days?"

"Yes. That was the first time I tried the spell."

"How many times have you changed our notes to each other?"

Hanna shrugged. "A bunch of times."

Snow sighed. "Did you even do your homework the days you were suppose to do it with me?"

"Maybe half the time."

"What about your sister? Did she know about all of this?"

"Of course she did. We're incapable of keeping secrets from each other."

"What about Henry?" Regina asked.

"Yeah he knew about some of it."

"Who else knew?" Snow asked.

"Violet."

"Her nose is starting to dim," Regina said. "Is there anything else you need to ask her?"

Snow shrugged. "I don't even know what to ask. Is there anything else we need to know young lady?"

A million thoughts swirled through Hanna's head the moment her mom asked the question. Not just her own secrets, but other people's. She tried to keep them in, but the tingling became too much. She clamped her hand over her mouth to muffle the words.

Snow pulled Hanna's hand down. "Tell us, Hanna."

"I'm the one who keeps eating all of the cereal. I know I blamed Emma, but it was me. I stay up late after dad goes to work. I eat it while I watch tv. Sometimes I don't even go to bed at all and rush into the bed and pretend to be asleep when I hear Dad coming back. I've fallen asleep in class a few times. I'm surprised the principle didn't know about that. I use my magic to make my vegetables disappear when you're not looking. I do the same thing when you make meatloaf too." Hanna looked towards Regina. "Henry sneaks out to see Violet in the middle of the night sometimes. They like to go to the park." She looked back at her mom. "Neal crawled for the first time last night, but Dad told us we shouldn't tell you, so we were going to pretend it was the first time when you saw him crawling. And…" Hanna felt the tingling sensation go away. She didn't have to talk anymore. She was finally free from the spell.

Hanna felt much better, but then she saw the stunned looks on her mom and Regina's faces. She felt like she was going to throw up again.

"I don't…I don't even know what to say right now." Snow turned to Regina. "Do you have the other thing I asked for?"

Regina waved her hand and held an object out to Snow. "Here."

Hanna's eyes went wide. "Mom, don't."

"You've left me no choice." Snow reached out towards Hanna.

Hanna stood up and backed away from her mom. She hid her hands behind her back. "I don't want to wear that thing."

"You don't have a choice. Give me your hand."

Hanna shook her head and backed away. She glanced towards the door.

Snow blocked Hanna's path. "Don't even think about it!"

Hanna raised her hand to send herself away, but felt herself being frozen into place. She looked to Regina.

"Sorry."

Hanna sighed and watched her mom put the magic blocking cuff onto her wrist. Regina waved her hand and Hanna could move again.

"Mom, please take it off. I'll be good. I promise."

"I need your phone too," Snow said.

Hanna sighed and pulled the phone from her pocket. "If I give this to you, will you take the cuff off?"

"No." Snow swiftly took the phone from Hanna's grasp and held it out to Regina. "Can you take everything off?"

Regina nodded. She waved her hand over the phone. "Everything's gone."

Snow gave it back to Hanna.

Hanna quickly opened her phone and found it empty. All of her apps were gone except for the ones used for texting and making phone calls. Her photos were still there, but she had no games and even the little wifi icon at the top disappeared.

"Mom, seriously?"

Snow shrugged. "I've reached my limit with you, Hanna. I don't know what else to do."

"If that's all you need, I'm going to return home," Regina said. "Apparently, I need to have a conversation with my son when he gets back from school."

Hanna felt guilty about telling Henry's secret. She hoped he wouldn't be mad at her.

"Thank you for the help," Snow said.

"Of course." Regina arched an eyebrow at Hanna before waving her hand and sending herself away.

"Mom, I'm sorry."

Snow sighed and sat down next to Hanna. "I really hope you are because I am so disappointed in you. You know how hard it's been for your dad and I being under this curse. I know it's been hard on you too. Probably even more so. And you've been incredibly helpful with Neal and we are so thankful for that, but we thought we could trust you to do your work, go to bed on time, and be honest with us. We needed to be able to trust you, and you let us down. You knew your dad and I couldn't talk to each other and you took advantage of that."

"I know."

"Why did you do all of those things?"

"I don't know…I guess because it was so easy. I'm really sorry."

"Well, I hope that's true."

"It is."

"Okay," Snow held onto Hanna's hand and gave her a smile. "How about we sort through all of this?" Snow pulled Hanna's folder of homework over so it was in front of her. "We can get the assignments organized and make a plan for how you can get it all done without it being too stressful."

"Okay."

Hanna spent the rest of the day working on her assignments. She took a break for lunch, then another one when it was time to pick up Neal from daycare. They took Neal to the park before dinner, then Snow asked Emma to come over before she woke David to ensure he was given all of the information regarding Hanna.

"I told your Dad not to be too hard on you."

Hanna nodded.

Snow gently lifted Hanna's chin. "I love you."

Hanna sighed. "I love you too." Hanna wrapped her arms around her mom. She was upset about her punishments, but she knew she deserved them. She just wished both of her parents were awake. She hated it when they double teamed her, but she'd give anything to have them both with her right now.

Snow gave Hanna one last squeeze, then leaned back and gave her a smile. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Goodnight."

Snow kissed Hanna on the forehead, then went to the bedroom.

"You're not even going to ask me to not give Dad the letter?" Emma asked.

"No. I'm done sneaking around. Plus he'll see this," Hanna held up her wrist with the cuff. "Unless you'll take it off for me?"

"No, sorry."

Hanna sighed.

David came out of the bedroom. "What's going on girls?"

"You need to read this," Emma held out the notepad.

David furrowed his eyebrows. "What happened?"

"Just read it." Emma picked Neal up from the floor. "I'll give the baby a bath."

"Hanna, would you like to give me a heads up about this note?"

Hanna shook her head and went to the couch. She pulled her knees to her chest, and buried her head in her arms.

After a few minutes, she heard footsteps coming closer. Her dad sat next to her.

"Hanna, look at me."

She didn't move.

"We need to talk about this."

"No we don't."

"Hanna…" David gently pulled her arms down.

Hanna lifted her head.

"Why did you hide all of this from us, honey?"

"I don't know…"

"That's not an answer. I need you to give me more than that."

Hanna sighed. "I guess with you and mom being apart I…I just felt like doing my schoolwork was taking time away from being with you, so that's when I started lying about doing my assignments. Mom caught me, then wrote you that note."

"And you changed it?"

Hanna nodded. "I didn't want you to be mad at me."

"I wouldn't have been mad at you."

Hanna raised her eyebrows at him.

"Okay, maybe for a few minutes, but I would have been disappointed more than anything."

"I think that's worse."

"How did you even know how to change the note?"

"I just thought about what I wanted to do and it just happened," Hanna shrugged. "After that, it got easier and easier to keep things from you and mom and avoid doing what I was suppose to. I got to do whatever I wanted and you had no idea."

"Until now."

"Yeah…I got away with it longer than I thought I would." Hanna gave her dad a grin.

"I suppose you did." David put his arm around her. "The lying and sneaking around ends now though. Understand?"

"It's not like I have a choice anyway." Hanna glared at the cuff on her wrist.

"Well, even if you did have the choice, I hope you would make the right one and be honest with us."

"I will."

"Okay." David reached down and kissed the top of her head. "It seems you've been punished enough, so we don't need to talk about it anymore unless you want to."

"Thanks, Dad."

"I can't believe you spilled the beans about Neal crawling."

"I couldn't help it…Regina drugged me!"

David laughed. "I know you didn't have a choice."

"My mouth felt like it was going to explode if I didn't answer the questions they asked. It was such a weird feeling."

"One that you won't need to experience again, right?"

Hanna nodded.

"Good. Why don't you go upstairs and get ready for bed."

"Already? But it's only…" Hanna stopped herself after seeing the look on her dad's face. "Okay, I'm going."

Hanna was about to go back downstairs when she heard a knock on her door.

"Come in."

"So you finally got yourself busted?"

Hanna felt a twinge in her stomach at the sound of his voice. "Henry, I'm so sorry. Are you in trouble?"

"Yeah." Henry walked across the room and sat at Hanna's desk. "I'm grounded for a week."

"What are you doing here?"

"It's my night to stay with Emma and she's here so…"

"Oh." Hanna didn't know what to say. She couldn't tell if he was mad. "Are we okay?"

"Yeah. I know you couldn't help it. My mom told me about the truth serum."

"Good. I really did try to hold it all in, I swear."

"I know." Henry picked up a pen and started to doodle in the sketchpad on Hanna's desk. "So how much trouble are you in?"

"I have to wear this stupid cuff, and Regina wiped my phone clean. I'm pretty sure I won't be allowed to go anywhere for a long time, so you're going to have to come here and hang out with me once you're not grounded anymore." Hanna furrowed her eyebrows when Henry didn't say anything. "I thought you said you weren't mad at me?"

Hanna walked over to her desk. That's when she noticed Henry wasn't just sketching. His hand was moving frantically, creating marking across the page. His eyes were glazed over. He wasn't even looking at what he was writing.

"Henry! Henry!"

Hanna yelled his name over and over again, but he didn't respond.