Sunday, March 21st, 2004

     Dr. Mercer would certainly check out of Granny’s Bed and Breakfast as soon as he could. And if he was as bad as Dr. Whale made him out to be, he may even try to leave earlier. I had planned on confronting him in the morning, but considering this, I left the hospital. Henry was sleeping soundly on his own and there were plenty of attendants to watch him.

     The doctor had checked out sooner than I had anticipated. Both Granny and Ruby noted how little they’d seen of him since Mr. Campbell had brought him into town and lent him his clothes. I left quickly, with one idea where he might be. Pulling up to my house, I saw that I was right.

     My front door was slightly open. I stepped inside without making a sound and reached through the panel by the door for my broadsword. At the base of my staircase was a bag full of apples from my tree. Shoe prints made of crumbly soil went all the way up the white carpet on my stairs. They faded on their way to my room. Peeking inside, I saw my open diary on my bed. I led with my sword and looked all the way in. Dr. Mercer was too occupied looking at the small wooden chest that held Graham’s heart to see me.

     I could have run him through before he had a chance to respond, but instead I hid the sword behind the door.

     “How fortunate to find you here, doctor.” My words made him jump away from the chest. “There was no symposium in Boston, was there? And no one you had to call to prevent them from bothering you while you were here?”

     “No.” He stood still. “You’ve found me out, then?”

     “I’ve heard things. But it’s not every day a credible doctor breaks into my house.”

     “And I don’t suppose anyone knows you’re here?” He took a few steps toward me, but stopped and held his hands in front of him when I drew my sword. “Are you going to run me through, your majesty?” He nodded behind him to my diary. “I’ve read things.”

     “That’s just something I write for fun. It isn’t real.”

     “It’s the first thing that rings truth around here. But I know when I’m beaten. I’ll be happy to leave.”

     “I can’t let you do that.” I lowered my sword and leaned it against the wall, which made him relax a little.

     “Are you going to call your sheriff on me? I can’t be arrested. Do you know what they’ll do to me?”

     “You don’t understand.” I walked right up to him. “You saved my son. I want to help you.” I touched his cheek with one hand and pulled him in for a kiss. He responded immediately and put his hands on my waist, pulling me closer to him.

     “Do you want to go to the bed?”

     “Not yet. Come with me.” I took him down to the kitchen and turned on the lights. He was still wearing Kurt’s shirt. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”

     “Do you have anything harder?”

      I reached in my cabinet and pulled out the tall scotch bottle with the red label with the “60” on it. With two glasses in my other hand, I led him into my living room. We sat opposite each other on two sofas and I handed him the open bottle across my coffee table

     “I can’t believe I’m about to ask this—are you aliens?” He passed the bottle to me after filling his glass a third full.

     I poured myself a similar amount and took a sip. “Well, we’re not Portuguese.”

     He swallowed his scotch in one gulp. I looked down at his glass and then in his eyes.

     “I’m sure it’s a lot to take in.” I said.

     “So, there’s magic here?”

     “There was.”

     “Not anymore?”

     “I can still do some things that aren’t normal for this world,” I sat my glass down. “But that’s not important right now.”

     Dr. Mercer sat his glass aside. “Why did you say you want to help me?”

     “Why were you stealing my apples?”

     “You can’t just bring a plague on a plane safely. But with waking fever, I now have a cause and a cure. There are things that need to be tested, but I can do that. I can own the third world.”

     “Why not the whole world?” Every time I said something, he inhaled deeply like I was making him forget to breathe. I think he was only used to me being in a situation I couldn’t control.

     “It’s too risky.” He exhaled.

     “Not if Storybrooke is your home. No one can enter unless someone from here helps you in.” I ran my finger around the top of my glass. “Should I get rid of my tree?”

     Dr. Mercer placed his hand on top of mine. “Not if we’re going to take over the world.”

     I stopped tracing the glass and turned my hand so I was holding his. He pulled me around the table onto his lap and kissed me.

     “How did you figure out we’re not from this world?” I asked before moving from kissing his lips to his neck.

     “That blood test I did revealed a marker I’d never seen before.” He shivered. His neck was a good spot. “I named it the C marker.”

     “Would that explain why no one else was infected?”

     “It could. Everyone I tested had the marker except for Dr. Whale and Mr. Campbell.”

     “And Henry.”

     “No, Henry had it,” his words made me pull back. Dr. Mercer stroked my back with both hands, “but his was different. So I classified everyone else’s as C Positive. That could explain—“

     “Henry can’t have the marker. He’s adopted.” I didn’t know whether to laugh at him or be angry.

     “Well he’s got it.” He shrugged. “Do you think there are more of you running around out there?”

     I don’t think I’ve mentioned what happens when the power of a forgetting charm wears off. The emotion the charm erased is magnified tenfold. If it’s a happy memory, you will be elated. If the memory is sad, you will be distraught. If the memory makes you angry, you will be in a rage. Granted, the rage will only last a few minutes before you become aware of the present. But hope that no one is close enough to you while you’re back in that moment.

     There was no hope for Dr. Mercer. As soon as he said what he said, everything came back to me about Henry’s adoption—and he was the one who made me remember! It didn’t even take me a few minutes to rip out his heart and crush it in my hand. He was dead in less than thirty seconds.

     When I calmed down, I realized where Henry came from wasn’t important. My son is as safe as he can be and has a mother who loves him. Only now I was sitting on the lap of a dead man—and there was sand on my couch. But I knew what to do. I went upstairs and grabbed the chest with Graham’s heart. I opened the lid.

     “You will come here and help me remove Dr. Mercer’s body from my house. Then you will bury him in the woods. Then you will go home and forget about all of this. All you’ll know is Dr. Mercer left Storybrooke.”

     Within minutes, Graham was at my door. He loaded Dr. Mercer in his car. I rode with him into the woods and watched him bury the doctor. My desire to take over this world was buried with him.  We didn’t get back to my house until the sky was beginning to lighten.

     “It’s too bad Dr. Mercer had to leave Storybrooke.” He said as we reached my porch.

     “It is, Sheriff.” I waved goodbye and went inside. There was the doctor’s travel bag by the stairs. Beneath the apples and passport with a false name was a journal. I opened it and found hand-written notes by him of his progress with waking fever. There were records of blood types of all the people he tested. Most people had a C+ beside their “A”, “B”, “AB” or “O”. I flipped the pages until I found my son at the bottom of the list.

MILLS, HENRY    O+ / C-