Beane Odette - Reawakened - A Once Upon A Time Tale

— No. Did you see that wolf?

— Don’t cross lines like that with me again, — Emma warned, stepping back, not interested in any more of his games. — It’s not okay. You’re drunk, and that was a little too close to assault for my comfort. Go home, get over this.

— I’m sorry, — he said. — I just want to feel something. I can’t…

— Fine, — Emma said. — Feel something. That’s good. But whatever it is, you’re not gonna feel it with me.

That was last night. She hadn’t stopped thinking about the kiss since then.

— Yours? — Emma said, looking at Mary Margaret. — I thought they were from Graham.

— Um, no, — Mary Margaret said. — They were from Dr. Whale.

— Oh, — Emma said, going to the cabinet for the dustpan. — Oh.

As Emma cleaned up, Mary Margaret told her about her one-night stand with Dr. Whale. It gave Emma a kind of gleeful satisfaction to imagine her friend indulging in such things, harmless as they were. It was the opposite of her experience with Graham. Mary Margaret needed some more risk in her life, and besides, she needed to get past David. This was good. Emma told her so.

— Maybe, — Mary Margaret said. — I guess so. But do you know what’s also good?

— What.

— Admitting that you have feelings about somebody, — Mary Margaret said. — For example. You admitting you have some feelings for Graham.

Emma screwed up her face.

— What are you talking about?

— It’s obvious, Emma, — Mary Margaret said, smiling mischievously. — Everyone can tell. You don’t have to be smashing vases for it to be obvious.

— The guy gets under my skin, that’s all, — Emma said, knowing she wasn’t quite telling the truth. — Can’t I be irritable without people gossiping?

— Emma, — she said. — Come on.

— What?

— The wall, — Mary Margaret said. — This wall you have up around your heart. — She shook her head, shrugged. — You think it protects you. And it probably does. But there’s a cost to that.

Emma was surprised at the plume of sadness that expanded in her chest as she listened to her friend’s words. A wall. A shield. She didn’t want to risk saying anything, for fear of sounding choked up. So instead she waited, privately admiring Mary Margaret’s emotional intuition, privately resenting it as well.

— It makes it hard to love, — Mary Margaret said, — when you’re defended so well.

When her father died, there was a haze. Snow White would not have been able to describe it that way immediately after it happened, and besides, there was nobody with whom she could talk to about her feelings. One day he was okay; the next, he was gone. The haze came, and she dwelled alone within it through the funeral. Pain. That was what made the haze. That was what created the fog that rolled down through her soul. Snow White couldn’t see through it and wasn’t herself within it. She was a lost girl alone in the world. She was blind.

The haze never fully cleared, of course. She had never felt loss like this, and her whole self seemed to have come undone. She could not find clarity; peace seemed to have left her, and peace no longer even seemed possible. It never does after the death of a parent.

She also felt guilty, as though she might have saved him, even though she didn’t know what she could have done. Again, it was all very hazy.

She was quickly shuttled away from the castle by Regina and sent to one of the country estates. She slept fitfully on the first night there, dreaming of her father as a younger man. Her father, the man who’d showed her the world. The man who’d taught her to know reason, and kindness, and compassion. But in the dream, she kept losing him down on the beach; she would show him seashells, and whenever she would find one, she would turn, holding it up, but he would not be there.

She hardly slept.

The next morning, a knight — one of Regina’s guards? — awaited her in the gardens. He offered to escort her on a walk through the forest.

Snow White looked at him. He wore a helmet, and she couldn’t see his face, but she felt uneasy, and couldn’t place his voice.

She nodded at the man, and he nodded back.

— M’lady? — he said.

— I keep a brisk pace, — she said, consenting. A walk would do her good. — Please try to keep up.

He nodded again, and they set out toward the woods.

They walked in silence for some time. She had seen that the man was uncomfortable in the heavy armor.

The forest was calm. Her thoughts went again to her father — this time, to the man whom she had watched fall in love with Regina, all those years ago. He was still kind and still compassionate then, but Snow — young as she was — had seen how loneliness had worked away at his spirit. Even the wisest man could become… something else. After heartbreak, anything was possible.

When they were far from the castle, Snow White began to speak.

— When I was a little girl, — she said, — the summer palace was my favorite place. The mountains surrounding it were like a cradle. They always made me feel safe. I look forward to returning there, I do. — She paused in her speech but continued to stroll. — But I wonder now whether that feeling of safety didn’t come from my father, not the palace itself.

The strange knight studied her through the slit in his helmet. She stopped walking and turned to face him, studying him right back.

— Go on, — she said. — You can take it off.

The man did as he was told and pulled the helmet from his head.

She studied him. He was handsome, gaunt, and stern-looking. A ragged beard covered his jaw. He said nothing.

— Much cooler this way, isn’t it? — she said.

He nodded, tucked the helmet under his arm.

— And you are not a royal knight, are you? — she asked.

— How would you know that?

— Because without fail, whenever I mention my father, I receive condolences from a knight. But you are someone else, aren’t you? — she asked. — You are who she chose. To take me. To get me out of the way. — She took a deep breath, readying herself.

— You have good instincts, — he said, dropping the helmet. He reached for his sword.

— And you have too much armor, — she said.

Before he could react, she coiled up and exploded toward him, both arms out. She caught him in the stomach, enough to send him stumbling backward. Not used to his center of gravity being so high, the stumble turned into a crash. She had a good hundred-yard head start before he was on his feet again, chasing her.

— You know that I’m a good person, don’t you, Mary Margaret? — Graham was at the school. Class was over. He and Mary Margaret stood outside of her classroom, the trickle of remaining students whispering through the halls. She was looking at him with tender concern in her eyes. Apparently, he’d been a mess since this «incident» with Emma last night. Mary Margaret couldn’t tell what was going on with these two, but she wanted to help. Somehow.

— Of course, Graham, — she said. — Of course. And you — are you okay? You’re covered in sweat and white as a sheet. Have you not been sleeping? — She felt his cheek. — You’re burning up. What have you been doing all night?

— I’ve just been having this sense that you and I used to know one another, — he said. — In some kind of — in some kind of other life. I don’t know. It sounds crazy. — He shook his head, looked down the hallway. — I’m sorry for coming here. I don’t know what I’m trying to accomplish.

— Why do you think that?

— Last night, — he said, — when I kissed Emma, I saw this whole vision. Of… of something. Another world. And you were there, and we knew each other. Somehow. I was — I was attacking you. With a knife. I think? I don’t know. I don’t know why I would be doing that.