Thursday, August 15th, 1991

     This was a bad idea.

     These last ten weeks have been getting progressively worse. Everything started out fine. Nick and Ava were quiet around me, which was understandable. I wasn’t immediately warm to them either, but I was cordial. I take them to school every day. After school, I make them dinner or take them to Granny’s. Kathryn and I take them around town, they have friends come over and even Graham and Sidney have taken a liking to them. They light up on Wednesday evenings, when Sister Astrid comes to check in on us. The nun let me know on one of her first visits that their mother neglected them. Sister Astrid helped them overcome their grief and I gathered she was the closest thing to a friend for a while.

     But when it’s just the three of us, the children act differently. They become very quiet and if I talk to them, they appear suspicious of me. I took them to Dr. Hopper, who found nothing wrong with them and suggested that it could just be difficult for them to adjust to their new lives with me.

     But things did not improve with time. I flipped through my book of riddles one day, and sure enough, I found one that suggested that children are more vulnerable to coming out of the curse before the savior arrives. All they have to do is be alone in my presence and their true selves will shine through. It can take a while, according to the book, but the curse should break for them in just under three months.

     One day after school, Miss Blanchard called me into a conference. The children and I were just over a month into our trial period.

     “Here are some drawings Nick and Ava drew while in class.” Miss Blanchard showed me paintings of the ocean and flowers. “And here are some drawings they drew for homework.” The two drawings were both disturbing, but the one that stood out to me the most was Ava’s. It was of a woman burning in a small chamber.

     Miss Blanchard suggested I take them back to Dr. Hopper, but no amount of counseling was going to fix this. Nick and Ava’s true selves were shining through and they were fixating on something that connects us.

     They’re fine when they’re around other people. I just needed to give them back and stay as far away from them as possible. Last week, I asked Sister Astrid if I could take advantage of that return policy Mother Superior mentioned.

     “You’re just nervous.” She said. “The children are, too. You’re both so close to becoming a family. They’ve been through a lot, so it’s true that they might not be your typical children. But I know they’re so grateful to have you. You just have to have faith. I have faith in you.” She turned and left, and I knew I was stuck with them.

     The next morning, on the way to school, Ava called me a witch. This made my hands tighten on the steering wheel. Witches are treated differently in this world than in the old one. Of course dark witches are feared and light witches are appreciated back home, but this world doesn’t differentiate between the two. And even though Hansel and Gretel knew the difference, these children are seeing the world from Nick and Ava’s perspectives.

     Over the next several days, the children started testing me. I’ve read enough while searching for Vivian’s book to know that the past people of this world tested their witches to prove they were witches. The tests were stupid, but so were the people conducting them. Even so, Nick and Ava weren’t familiar with the correct tests for witches at first. Nick brought home a clove of garlic and shoved it in my face. I promised him I wasn’t a vampire and used the garlic in our lasagna for dinner. On the night of the last full moon, the children sat and stared at me.

     “Wrong house,” I said before sending them to bed.

     But their tests became more accurate. On Thursdays, I take the children with me to the cemetery so we can both pay respects to our family who’s buried there. When we visit my father’s crypt, we only visit the surface. I haven’t gone underground to my safe haven since taking them in. I’m sure everything’s collecting dust. Afterwards we go back into town to Granny’s.

      This Thursday, on our way back into town, Nick begged me to pull over. He’d been drinking water all day and didn’t take care of things before we left the house. Now he was panicking and we wouldn’t reach town in time. I pulled off to the side of the road and Nick ran into the woods. I shouted after him not to go too far. After five minutes, I became concerned, so Ava and I got out of the car and searched for him. We walked down to the river bank, but there was no sign of him.

     “There he is!” Ava was pointed to our right. I turned and saw Nick was running up to us. Then hands pushed against my back. I fell into the river and splashed around to get my bearings, while Nick and Ava just stood and watched me. I called out for them to help me, but they continued to study my actions. The water was cold, but the current wasn’t as strong as it could have been and I was able to pull myself out. I stood before them, wet and shivering.  

     “Why the hell did you do that?!” I removed my coat and held it away from me as water poured from it.

     “You floated.” Nick said.

     “Oh, is that what I was doing?”

     “You failed the test.” Ava said.

     “Did I?” The wind suddenly picked up around us. I used it to emphasize my authority. “Well, there will be no more tests, or you won’t be going back to Sister Astrid. You’ll be going someplace much worse.”

     “Hi, Graham!” Ava smiled at the Sheriff as he strolled over. She was clearly smitten, and who could blame her?

     “What are you doing out here?” Graham held out his arms and Nick and Ava ran to him. Graham hugged Ava with one arm and used his other arm to ruffle Nick’s hair. The children who were attempted-murderers only seconds ago giggled at his affection.

     “We stopped by the lake and Regina fell in.” Nick looked up at the Sheriff and back to me. “She’s okay now. We tried to help her.”

     “No, you didn’t!” I was soaked, shivering and furious. Graham made the smart decision of getting the children away from me. Once they’d left for my car, he offered to escort me into town before going back to work.

     “No, Graham, I need you to stay with me. They’re different when I’m alone with them.”

     “They’re fine. They’re children.” He was so confident. “They were probably scared to see you fall in.”

     I locked the children in their rooms (and locked my own door, just to be safe) and called Mother Superior that night and expressed my concern for the twins’ well-being and told her my decision to give them back. Mother Superior gave me a quote from the bible about strength and the ability to love before telling me we should wait out the trial period. She said she’d see us in church on Sunday before hanging up.

     I know the people of Storybrooke aren’t aware that I’m the only one who’s not supposed to be miserable, but it seems like they all believe I should be dead. No one believes that these children are dangerous, therefore only one option remains: I have to kill them before they kill me.