Henry’s locking his room when he goes to bed now. I can’t say I blame
him. Too many times now, Regina has let Graham come in through the front door
and led him up the stairs to her room, panting and kissing all the way. It’s so
hard to convince the sheriff to only use the window after she does that! My
skeleton key was out of my pocket and in the keyhole before I could roll my
eyes.
His room was dark, and Henry was out. A fire-breathing dragon wouldn’t
wake this boy when he’s sleeping, but I moved to his desk as quietly as I could
as a precaution. His backpack was open and upright. I reached inside and my
fingers wrapped around a large book. Lifting it up into the moonlight pouring
in from his window proved it was what I’d been searching for these many years. “Once
Upon a Time” shined across the leather cover. I held the book close to me and
crept out of my son’s room, locking the door back up behind me.
I knew I had a limited amount of time. I sat the book down on my bed and
read the whole thing, with its incredibly biased storyline, from cover to
cover. I took a moment when I finally finished and checked for signs of Regina.
I could still feel her. Why didn’t it work?
I thought back to Vivian, my one friend, now long gone, who’d broken the
curse without the return of a savior. Vivian had said once that it was not only
reading the book that brought her back, but a combination of things. She had
also said that by now, I’d be begging the savior to come to Storybrooke. Not
inclined to getting on my knees, I tried other ways to find my special
combination.
My first thought was to destroy the book, but that proved futile. I
tried tearing the pages, but that was like trying to tear sheet metal with my
bare hands. I held a match to it, but the pages again reacted as sheet metal
would, and I jerked my hand back with the rising heat of the book.
I had no magic that I was willing to use, but I still had my book of
riddles. I pulled that book out and opened it up beside the book of my history.
I investigated it to see what it had to say, if anything, on what to do.
The riddle about the dress came to mind. Rid the room of those who would rip the fabric/ The tailor will stitch it back/ The greater
the tear, the greater the repair/ The sleeves may not be even, but the dress
will fit. I think the reason Regina doesn’t like Henry so much is because
he doesn’t belong. He’s not cursed, and so his absence would not upset her. She’s
been nicer to him, sort of. But there is no love from her, only obligation.
Page after page yielded no result, so far as I could tell. I’d read
every one of the riddles before, and none of them sounded like they applied to
this. I reached an empty page at the end and the only thing that made sense was
to go back and read through them again. But before I could turn back, there was
movement on the page. Black ink appeared on the white page, as though it was
leaking from the other side. The ink separated and spread, straightened and
curled, until it formed some very obvious words:
I will win.
The book of riddles hit the wall across the room before I realized I threw it. It landed open on the same page. I got off my bed to the corner by the door and saw that the ink was still scrolling across the page. I snapped it off the floor and held it in my arms as a new riddle revealed itself to me.
How can a Queen be saved?
Though the loss is little, it may
feel high in cost
A sacrifice deserves a sacrifice
An end deserves an end
For a Queen to be a Queen
She must give up the Thing She
Loves Most
Nothing else appeared on the page. I choked on nothing and coughed. I
sat the book down to catch my breath and think about my interpretation of the
riddle. It couldn’t mean what I thought it meant. It sounded like the book was
telling me—in order to rid myself of this false personality—I would have to
kill Henry, as I killed my father.
I closed the book of riddles and put it away. Maleficent once warned me
that the one who cast this curse would have no morals. Now the curse was
counting on me still having none. But there is no reason great enough for me to
kill my son. There may come a time when my cursed self takes me over and I
forget who Henry even is, and for the first time in a long time, I considered
the possibility of giving up my son. I would rather Henry safely live in a
world where I didn’t know him, over knowing he died for me to remember him all
the days of my life.
I took the book of fairytales back to his room and looked on my sleeping
son before closing the door behind me.
Vivian had always said the curse was a living thing that could think for
itself. I never agreed with her, but this is no ordinary curse. It is trying to
trick me and beat me, and has told me as much. Before I reached my own room, I
embraced Vivian’s theory, and with it a new motivation. If I start to think of
it as a living being, then I know I can manipulate it like every other person
I’ve had to fight, and I will win.
