Reawakened: A Once Upon a Time Tale (32 page)

“Just about?” he said, cocking his head.

“You said that if I want to beat Regina, I have to see the big picture. Do you remember?”

He nodded.

“Well. I need to see the big picture.” A little grin crept across August’s face. “Show it to me.”

“Okay,” he said. “I will.”

They took his motorcycle. Soon they were tearing down the road out of Storybrooke, Emma holding his waist, her helmeted head pressing against his leather jacket. As they crossed the town line and headed toward the interstate, Emma realized that this was the first time she’d been out of Storybrooke since the night she’d arrived with Henry. How was it possible that her world had been so overturned? That her life had become something else entirely? Henry’s warnings about leaving Storybrooke rang through her head, but she discounted them. She didn’t know where they were going, but August apparently had a destination in mind. Fifteen minutes later they were cruising at eighty back toward Boston, August expertly weaving past the slower vehicles. What was it about this man? He knew something. She knew he knew something. Whatever it was, she was about to find out.

• • •

With August driving, it did not take them long to get to the outskirts of Boston.

August piloted them down a forgotten road, and soon they were back in the woods, still far from the urban population of Boston. He slowed as they approached a dusty old diner on the side of the road; Emma couldn’t even tell if it was operational.

August stopped, and Emma got off the bike and removed her helmet. “What the hell,” she said, looking at the diner, “are we doing?”

“Revisiting history.”

“Can you stop screwing around, please?” she asked. “I’m not
a character in one of your books. Tell me what we’re doing here.”

“I think you know,” he said. “I think that’s why you’re so upset.” He nodded toward the diner. “You’ve been here before.”

Emma squinted at the diner and tried to remember any time in the last few years she’d been here. August watched her for a moment, then reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded newspaper clipping.

The headline read seven-year-old boy finds baby girl on side of highway.

“You see the diner in the background?” August asked. “That’s this one. This is where that boy brought you.”

She looked back at the diner, but she didn’t have to. She knew that they were the same. And that he was telling the truth.

“You brought me to the place I was found,” Emma said defensively. “Big deal. Why?”

“This is my story, too. Yours and mine—it’s the same story.”

“How is that?”

“That seven-year-old boy who found you?” He nodded once more. “That was me, Emma.” He pointed to the picture of the boy. “That was me. “

• • •

Emma followed August in silence as he led her through the woods. Being here made her think of her parents’ choice to leave her. She had been dumped, like garbage, by the people who were supposed to take care of her. This walk was stirring up the old rage, which she’d worked so hard, for so many years, to suppress.

“Why are we in the woods?” she asked August, mostly to distract herself from the growing cyclone in her stomach.

“The answers are all out here,” he said. “Right where I found you.”

Emma stopped walking. After a moment, August glanced back, saw her, and turned as well. He reached out and braced himself with the trunk of a tree.

“You’re not that boy,” Emma said. “You know how I know? I wasn’t found in the woods. I was found by the road. Near that diner.”

“Why do you think that?” asked August. “Because you read it in the newspaper? Did it ever occur to you that maybe the seven-year-old boy might have lied about where he found you?”

“It occurs to me that you’ve been lying to me,” she said. “About everything. And that I’ve been eating it up because I’m vulnerable, and you know that.” She shook her head. She was not going to cry in front of him, no matter what this place was doing to her. “I’m done listening.”

He took a pained step toward her. “When I found you,” he said, “you were wrapped in a blanket. It was white with purple ribbon around the edges. And the name ‘Emma’ was embroidered along the bottom of it.

“That wasn’t in the article, was it?” August asked.

Emma told herself he could have found it; he could have seen it in the apartment.

“No,” said Emma, “but it’s not very convincing. Why would you lie about where you found me? All the way back then?”

“To protect you,” he said plainly.

“Protect me?” she said. “Protect me from what?”

August took a breath, then went back across the trail to the big tree. It was no different from any of the others around, at least not on first glance. Emma watched August as he went to
it, though, and she could see, once he was there, that the middle of the tree was hollow.

“No one could know where you really came from,” August said.

“I came from a tree?”

“You know the stories from Henry’s book, right? You know about the curse in those stories, and how you play a role in them. Am I right? It’s true, Emma,” August said. “All of it. We both came into this world through that tree. Just like we both left the last world through a wardrobe.”

“I get it,” Emma said. “You’re Pinocchio. That explains all the lying.” She nodded. “You’re the one who added that new story to the book, aren’t you?” she said. “And actually, I see. You’re the one who replaced the whole book. After the first one was lost.” She shook her head. “You’re nuts, aren’t you?”

“I needed you to know the truth.”

“The truth is that you’re out of your mind. And you’re not even a good liar, August. Why not put an ending to the story?”

“Because this?” he said, opening his arms. “This is the ending. We’re writing it. Right now. You and I.”

“How does it end?” Emma said.

“With you believing me,” he said pleadingly.

Either that, Emma thought, or with this guy chopping off my head and burying me out here.

“It’s not going to happen, August,” she said, “so just drop it.”

“Just—just trust me,” he said. He was getting frustrated, something Emma didn’t like to see. “Touch it. The proof that you need will reveal itself to you. Just touch it. How hard is that?”

“Why are you doing this?” Emma said. “Why do you care so much that I see whatever truth it is you want me to see?”

August nodded and looked down. “Because I promised my father that I would protect you,” he said, “when we came through to the other side.” He took a breath and looked back at her. She was surprised to see tears in his eyes. “And I failed you. I left you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I left you at the foster home,” he said. “I promised I would stay with you, and I left you.”

Emma didn’t know why, she couldn’t explain it, but this made her tear up as well. She did everything she could to hold it in.

“I’m so sorry, Emma,” he said. “I—I ran away. I didn’t like it there. I was afraid. But I should have stayed with you.”

Emma could think of nothing to say, and she instead looked at the hollow tree.

“Isn’t it worth just giving it a shot? Indulge me. Take a leap of faith. Touch the tree.”

Emma looked again at the tree. It would be so simple. She kind of wanted it to be true. She did. More than anything.

She stepped toward the tree. After one last look at August, she reached out and touched it.

She closed her eyes.

She waited.

Nothing happened.

After a few seconds, Emma opened her eyes. August was eagerly awaiting a report. “Do you see it?” he asked. “Do you remember?”

Whatever he thinks, Emma realized, he’s not lying. He believes this. All of it.

“What did you see?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

“That’s not possible,” he said, coming to the tree, touching
it as well. “You were supposed to remember. You were supposed to believe.”

She felt the weakness of all those emotions drain out of her, and her old steely self returned. Her gaze hardened. Her shoulders tightened. “I don’t,” she said, turning away from the tree. She started walking back toward the diner. She had another thought, though, and turned back.

“You wanted me to get answers,” she said. “Well, I think I just did. I’m done, August. With you. With Storybrooke. With all of it.”

He followed her; she could hear him struggling to keep up as he crashed through the bushes. “Emma, wait,” he said. “You don’t understand. This isn’t how it was supposed to be—”

His speech was interrupted by the sound of him falling, and Emma turned to look as he cried out. August lay on the ground, holding his leg in pain. He clenched his teeth and looked at her.

“What is wrong with your leg?” she asked flatly.

“I was supposed to be there for you,” he said. “I was supposed to be brave for you. I wasn’t. For that, I’m sorry.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?” Emma asked. “Do you still think you’re my guardian Pinocchio?”

He shook his head at her sarcasm, then leaned back against a tree trunk. He looked defeated. Thank God, Emma thought. Maybe now we can go.

“You don’t believe,” he said.

“If you think getting me to feel sorry for you now is going to change anything, you’re wrong.”

“I’m not screwing around here. Whatever you believe or don’t—this is real, Emma. I’m sick. I’m dying.” He took a few breaths, and his eyes glazed over. “You ever been to Phuket?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Emma asked.

“Beautiful place,” he said. “An amazing island. The perfect place to lose yourself, you know?” He scratched at his beard. “That’s where I was… when. When you decided to stay in Storybrooke.”

“How the hell did you know, or would you know, that I decided to stay there?”

“Because at eight fifteen in the morning, I woke up to a shooting pain in my leg. That’s eight fifteen at night in Storybrooke. Does that time sound familiar?”

Emma waited. She didn’t know where this was going, but she was ready to not believe whatever he said.

“That’s when you decided to stay. When time started moving forward there again. I should have been there for you, but I wasn’t. And because I was halfway around the world, I got a painful reminder of how far I had strayed.” He got himself back up to his feet during this speech, and now he leaned down to the cuff of his pants. “If the tree won’t make you believe, Emma, maybe this will.”

He pulled up the bottom of his trousers, showing Emma his hairy white shin.

“Are you still ready to deny it?”

“All I see,” Emma said, “is your leg.”

August looked down, his eyes wide. “You don’t see that?” he said loudly. “You don’t see that I’m turning back into wood?”

It was confirmed. The man was crazy. And what did that make her? She was out here with him. She had reached for that tree, hoping to see something. Wanting to believe. But nothing good ever came from wanting to believe. All it meant was that you’d miss the truth.

“You just don’t want to believe it,” August said.

“That’s not true,” she said. “But either way, why is it so important to you that I do?”

“Because the town—everyone—needs you, Emma. It’s your responsibility to save us.”

“My responsibility? You’re telling me I’m responsible for everyone’s happiness? That’s crap. I didn’t ask for it and I don’t want it.”

“Right now. Not so long ago, you didn’t want Henry. Then he came to you, and now you’re fighting like hell for him.”

“For him, yes. Because that makes sense. He’s my son. And that’s all I can handle. I’m not even doing a good job of it. Now you want me to save everyone else?”

August just stared back.

“Take me back,” she said. “I’m done.”

• • •

It was dark by the time Emma returned to Storybrooke. She barely said good-bye to August when he dropped her off at her apartment, and after a moment’s consideration, she didn’t even go in to gather her things. She had her car, she had her keys, she had the clothes on her back. What else had she ever needed?

She drove the Bug to Regina’s mansion, parked on the street, and grabbed her walkie-talkie from the glove compartment. “Code Red,” she said quietly. She took a breath and said it again, this time louder: “Code Red, Henry.”

“Emma!” he cried. “What’s wrong?”

The light was on in his room, and she smiled up at it, imagining him in his bed, excited to imagine another step in the plan unfolding. This would be hard.

“I need to talk to you,” she said. “I’m outside.”

A second passed, and she saw his face in the window. “It’s about you and me,” she said. “Can you come down?”

“Sure.”

He did, and when he got to the car, they sat in silence for a few moments.

“Henry,” she said finally. “Have you ever thought about what’s keeping us here?”

“The curse,” he said immediately. “That’s what’s keeping everyone here.”

She shook her head sadly. “You once told me that I’m different. That I can leave.”

He nodded.

“Then aren’t you different, too?” she asked. “Because you’re my kid?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Why?”

“I need to ask you something, then,” she said. “Okay?”

He waited.

“Do you want to get away from Regina? Come live with me?”

An enormous smile appeared on Henry’s face. “More than anything,” he said.

This is right, Emma thought. This feels right.

“Good,” Emma said. “Then buckle up.”

“Why? Where are we going?”

Emma put the car into gear. “We’re leaving Storybrooke.”