Beane Odette - Reawakened - A Once Upon A Time Tale

— It’s okay, — Kathryn said. — It’s fine.

She gathered her batteries, and Kathryn handed her the water. Mary Margaret reached for one more item, a small white box, and handed it to Kathryn, ready to apologize once more. Then she realized what she was holding.

It was a pregnancy test.

— Thank you, — Kathryn said, taking the box and offering one more tense and apologetic smile.

Walking home, Mary Margaret found herself fighting back tears. She dropped off her things and went out to the woods near the edge of town. She wanted to walk and clear her head.

She parked and headed off down the trail, still rattled by what she’d seen at the store. Why, though? She still hardly knew David, and had no understanding of why she’d fallen in love with him — love or whatever it is, she thought. A more reasonable point of view would be to note that Kathryn was pregnant, feel a quick pang of envy, and move on, happy for both her and David. But when she’d seen the box, she’d felt devastated. She’d felt like her heart had been ripped out of her chest and shown to her. None of it made any sense. And even if…

Mary Margaret stopped.

In the brush, just beside the trail, was a dove.

The dove looked hurt, or sick — she couldn’t tell. It seemed to be caught up in a netting or a mesh screen, its feet tangled and trapped. It was upright and awake, but it was quivering, terrified, and struggling to move, raising its wings as though readying itself to take off, only to lower them again.

She knelt down.

— What’s wrong, girl? — she said. — What did you get bound up in?

The dove simply cooed.

Mary Margaret picked it up. She had to take it to the animal shelter. That David worked there was irrelevant.

That said, she was fairly sure he worked on Saturdays.

She took the stunned and wounded bird back to her car and drove directly to the shelter, intent on helping it rejoin its flock. When she saw David, the sting of the pregnancy test was still on her mind and she asked for the head of the shelter, a veterinarian named Thatcher.

With David and Mary Margaret watching, Dr. Thatcher cut the webbing from the bird’s feet, examined the wings, and determined that there were no broken bones.

— There is some bad news, unfortunately, — he told Mary Margaret. — This is a North Atlantic dove. Migratory species, very unique among American doves. They form strong, monogamous bonds, meaning…

— Meaning she has to get back to her flock or she’ll be alone. Forever.

— That’s right, — said Dr. Thatcher. — That’s not to say she wouldn’t be happy here, on her own, but with the storm coming, the window of time is closing for her to get back to where she belongs.

— So I need to find her flock, — Mary Margaret said, — and release her as it flies by. I need to get her back out to where I found her.

— It might work, — said Dr. Thatcher, getting a small cage from the closet. He brought it to the table and set it beside the bird. — I wouldn’t keep you from trying. It’s probably the happiest ending, anyhow. — He smiled and scrubbed his hands. — Good luck, — he said as he was walking out the door. — If you don’t find the flock, feel free to bring her back here.

— Listen, — David said. — With this storm coming, I’m not so sure you should be…

— Don’t look after me, — she said. — I don’t need your help.

David watched her, a little hurt.

— Did I do something? — he said. — I don’t understand what…

— You didn’t do anything, David, — Mary Margaret said, gathering up the cage. — Nothing at all.

She walked out the door.

It was a misty night on the lake when Snow White met Rumplestiltskin. After Red had told her of the mysterious wizard, she hadn’t been able to shake the idea of a spell that could free her of her love — or at least her thoughts — for a man who was not available to her. She sent word through the birds of the forest and Rumplestiltskin obliged her with a meeting.

Snow had just tied off when she turned and saw him sitting across from her in her own rowboat. She jumped, sucked in her breath.

— You really are the fairest, aren’t you? — he said, a wry and terrifying grin on his shadowed face.

Snow White wondered what could compel a man to do such terrible things in exchange for magic.

She leaned toward him, tilted her head. She was afraid but fascinated.

— Looking at something? — Rumplestiltskin said.

— I am in need of a cure, — she said finally. — For love.

Rumplestiltskin began to laugh.

— Love! — he cried. — Such a fancy and beautiful thing. So wonderful, so painful. Am I right?

— I would like to not be in love anymore, — she said. — Can you make a spell?

— I cannot, — he said. — Love is too powerful to eradicate, unfortunately. What I can do, however, is create a spell that makes you forget your beloved. Perhaps not quite the same, I know. But it can do the job.

Snow White considered this. What was the difference? To not remember love or to not be in love? To her it was the same.

— Yes, — she said. — I want that.

— Very well, — said Rumplestiltskin, who produced a slender vial and dipped it into the river. When he withdrew the full vial, he passed a skeletal hand over the water, and a white glow came from the liquid. He smiled.

— That’s all? — she said.

He reached forward and plucked a hair from her head, causing her to reel back and yelp. The boat knocked against the dock.

— Not quite yet, — he said, amused by her surprise. — Not all loves are the same. I have to make it slightly more… personal. — He dropped the hair into the potion and put a cork in the top. — There, — he said, handing it to her. — Drink this and you will forget your true love, and all of the stories of the two of you.

Forget our stories? Snow White thought, wondering if the pain of forgetting them would be worse than the pain of not having Charming.

— Don’t doubt yourself now, dearie, — said Rumplestiltskin. — Love makes us sick. It haunts our dreams and destroys our days. It starts wars and ends lives. Love has killed more than any disease. The cure? This is a gift.

— And what’s the price?

— The price? — he said, as though he hadn’t yet thought of it. Snow White was skeptical. But Rumplestiltskin merely grinned again and held up a few more of her hairs, which had come from his original pluck. — These will do just fine, — he said.

— What do you want of my hair?

— What do you need of it now that I have it? — he asked in response.

Snow White couldn’t think of why she’d need it back, and decided she didn’t care. The price seemed very low.

Snow White journeyed back to her corner of the forest. She rowed her boat upstream through the night, then hiked on foot throughout the morning, stopping once to eat. She avoided looking at the vial in her tunic pocket, as she did not want to see it. It was one thing to fantasize about a potion and another thing entirely to have the potion. Did she really want to forget him? Even if he did get married? Was it not a part of her, either way, to have loved him and to have known of that love? Who would she be if she didn’t remember? Someone else completely?

The debate raged in her mind all morning and into the afternoon. She would go an hour having decided not to drink the potion, but then a pang of sadness would come as she imagined the wedding, and the scales would tilt again, and she’d become determined to swallow it right then and there. Back and forth she went, unsure what to do, until she reached a familiar glen, looked up, and realized she was home — back, at least, to her cabin, where she’d been staying. Seeing the modest little structure, she was filled with sadness again, knowing she would spend the night alone, and the next night alone, and the next night after that. She didn’t want to face a life like this with the weight of regret, too. She took the vial from her pocket, pulled the cork, raised it to her lips…