Chapter Text
The text reached Cedar as she was photographing the sunset.
She felt her phone buzzing in the front pocket of her overalls, but didn’t bother fishing it out to check immediately, instead keeping her eye on the camera. If it was an emergency, she would soon get a proper call, and if it wasn’t... well, in a few minutes the message would still be there, but these pretty colors in the sky wouldn’t.
She’d have loved to paint it live, put her impressions down in quick succession, but she much preferred taking things slowly, biding her time to pick the perfect shade, and that could never happen, unless someone figured out how to freeze frame in real life. Taking pictures now and trying to reproduce it later in the comfort of her own room would have to do, at the moment. It was a good thing she’d gotten a fancy camera – not the fanciest, of course, because that was for professionals and she was only thirteen, but still better than the easy digital tool she’d had before – for her birthday; it would have been a shame, to only be able to rely on her phone for visuals.
Right. The phone. Cedar let the camera hang from her neck as she went to retrieve it, scrolling through a few useless notifications until she found the right one. It seemed she’d been correct in assuming it wasn’t time sensitive – it was just Raven hitting up the group chat, the one with just their closest friends, no relatives in sight. sleepover on halloween for my birthday? its a friday.
Cedar mulled it over for a moment before sending a quick response. Raven’s birthday was on the 28th, right in the middle of the school week, so it made sense that she’d postpone it on a day where they could dress up and stock up on candy as well, but the problem was- it wasn’t just her birthday. Won’t Sparrow want to do the same thing?
Predictably, her friend’s answer didn’t take long to follow. don’t care. he and his friends can take the other side of the house or ill lock them out.
The girl smiled. Raven cared a lot for her twin brother, that much was certain, but she’d also got progressively more fed up with his antics as they were growing up. Besides, it was much more likely that Sparrow would be throwing toilet paper at random houses rather than disrupting his sister’s sleepover...at least until a certain point of the night, that was.
She texted back that she’d be there for sure, provided she got permission (which was almost guaranteed to happen, anyway), then turned on her heel and made to return inside, careful to leave her muddy sandals out of the back door before she bounded off to set the table for dinner. Her grandfather was one of the kindest, most loving people Cedar knew, but even he had his limits, and keeping shoes on inside the house would definitely cross them.
Her father always remembered, too. She heard him fumble on the front steps as he came in from the shed, and then slip in more quietly, smiling when he saw her hard at work. “You’re too quick, kiddo. I thought I could help you with that.”
“I don’t mind.” Cedar smiled back cheekily, setting down the last of the cutlery. “Why, are you afraid I’ll drop a glass again?”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, that only happened once. Of course, if you also count the breakfast mugs…”
She stuck her tongue out at him, then giggled when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, playfully rough. She knew he wasn’t scolding her for real, and her clumsiness was a fact, besides. She always tried her best not to break anything that couldn’t be fixed, which was why she’d yet to remove the safety strap from her new camera, but accidents happened to everyone. They’d all been very insistent she memorized that, when she’d been little.
And she was grateful for her dad’s solid hug, anyway, even if she caught his brow furrowing a little when his fingers dug gently into the slope of her shoulder. “You’re very tense- is something wrong?”
Cedar shrugged, wincing slightly at the pressure. “We had PE today. Maybe I didn’t stretch right.”
She could have sworn she had, though. She might not be as good as people like Cerise in sports that weren’t swimming, but the effort she put in usually didn’t end up making her ache for so long afterwards, and yet she still had a crick in her neck, and her legs felt stiff and tired, especially around the knees. She couldn’t wait to be in bed and stretch them out – hopefully she just needed to rest, and in the morning she’d be good as new.
“Or maybe it was the cold air,” her grandfather interjected, coming in from the kitchen with a big pot in hand. “What do I tell you all the time? If you don’t cover up properly, you’ll get a stiff neck.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s just a myth, Papa.”
The older man pulled a face that made it clear just how much faith he put in that. “I’ll believe it when I see it. Did you wash your hands?”
“I did!” Cedar said, holding her hands out in mock-resignation. “I always do!”
“Both of you.”
She met her father’s eyes for just a second, but it was enough to make them both struggle to bite back their laughter. He’d told her once that even though he was a grown man now, some part of Geppetto would always see him as a little boy, and he was pretty sure the same would happen with Cedar when she got older. It was a sweet thought, even if it was hard to picture herself as a woman her father’s age, but in moments like these it was also very, very funny.
She was so focused in holding back her chuckles that she barely noticed the relief in her legs as she sat down for dinner, but that was okay, too. Maybe if she listened to Grandpa and put on one more layer underneath her school uniform it wouldn’t happen again, and even if it didn’t, it’d probably make him happy, and that was one of Cedar’s most favorite things in the world, making her family happy.
And it wouldn’t hurt when it came to asking to go to Raven’s party, either.
“Why did I have to come along, exactly?” Grace grumbled, casting a morose glance at the shelves before her.
“I can’t be in charge of the budget and keep Holt in check,” Maddie said cheerfully. “One or the other, not both.”
“Frankie’s here, they can do that.”
“Frankie’s looking after Jackson. We need all hands on deck- or do you want to lose one of them again?”
Grace let out a long-suffering sigh and turned away, leaving her younger sister to snicker victoriously as she continued rifling through the costumes hanging from the rack. Maddie had long since mastered the tricks of the trade, the trade in question being convincing Grace to do whatever they wanted her to do – in this case, chaperoning the four of them to the store, to buy stuff in advance for Raven’s party. Maddie loved parties, and she wasn’t about to get caught unprepared for this one, especially since, as Raven’s loyal partner in crime, she’d known about it before everyone else.
Besides, she hadn’t been lying. Despite being twins, the brothers were as different as fire and water; where Jackson, though eyeing the comic books section with interest, was dutifully holding Frankie’s hand as the other continued their search, Holt was one step away from terrorizing the whole store, which would then require Grace to deploy her well-honed eldest-of-the-house glare...unless she decided to physically haul him away instead, that was.
Technically Jackson and Holt weren’t their brothers, and neither was Frankie their sibling, but they’d all more or less been raised together, a part of- of whatever it was that Frankie’s dad and Grace and Maddie’s had going on. As a result, they tended to share a lot of experiences, and picking Halloween costumes was, honestly, one of the more pleasant ones – better than everyone catching chickenpox at the same time, anyway. That had certainly been worse.
Even if they didn’t quite share the same method of search, even as a group. “Frankie,” Grace called out, already sounding tired of their collective mess. “Why would you even need a clipboard for Halloween? Are you going as a school inspector? Put that down.”
“It’s not for the costume,” Frankie protested, clutching her prize to her chest. “It’s for research purposes! It’s hard to write while I’m walking, you know?”
“Frankie’s trying to prove a scientific theory,” Maddie chimed in. “Three years going now. They’re counting down how many people are dressing up as Victor’s monster for Halloween.”
“Of course they are. Oh my God, why are you kids so weird?”
“You are the last person who can say that!”
Maddie snickered aloud, not even bothering to hide it when her sister turned a warning glare her way. She couldn’t help it, really – not only was it terribly funny, but she was also certain Grace’s pissed off facade would fall sooner rather than later. The eldest would huff and puff for however long she saw fit, but afterwards she’d capitulate and get them whatever they wanted. Money wasn’t a problem, and neither was getting in trouble once they got home; Dad often said that the only good thing the Dark Curse had done was make him rich, and Victor couldn’t honestly ban anything from his house, not after what they’d found in the garage lab cabinets.
Right, Maddie?
The girl looked up abruptly, her brows knitted together. “Did you say something?”
Frankie glanced at her in confusion. “What?”
“I thought I’d heard someone call my name. Do you need anything?”
“Nobody said anything, Mads,” Grace sighed, resignedly picking up the stationery Frankie had piled up in Jackson’s arms. “This place is just a bloody echo chamber. Would it kill them to open a window every now and then?”
“In October?”
“Global warming is a thing, Frankie, get with the program.”
Normally, Maddie would have laughed again, but as it was she only managed to coax out a small smile. It was the stupidest thing, but she couldn’t shake off the feeling that someone had actually called for her, nor the bizarre shiver it had sent down her spine for some reason, as though it had come from one of the cheap plastic ghosts on the shelf behind her, possessed like the props in a Halloween B-movie – which was even dumber, of course. What few spirits had ever come to Storybrooke had had bigger fish to fry, like Raven’s mom or Apple’s sister.
Nah, she must have imagined it. And it was a proper mess in there – she couldn’t wait to be out of that store, all of a sudden, so her ears could apparently stop ringing and they could go grab a hot drink before going home. That would sort her right out, she was sure of it.
Are you, child?
The ball hit the rim of the basket, bouncing away without going in.
Cerise huffed, then unzipped her hoodie and shrugged it off, tossing it to the side before chasing after the runaway ball. It really wasn’t that warm, and Granny would probably have a stroke if she saw her great-granddaughter wearing short sleeves at such an hour in autumn, but there was no one at the park to snitch on her, and Cerise was sweating, anyway. She’d been shooting hoops for a good couple hours now, but the last few ones had all missed the mark, and that wouldn’t do. You couldn’t leave the court without a good last shot.
Another throw, and another miss. It was starting to get irritating. Sure, the sun was going down and the streetlights weren’t on yet, but she couldn’t blame everything on shitty lighting. That was a stupid excuse.
She was about to make another attempt when the blaring of a car horn startled her, almost making her drop the ball. Cerise turned around to snap at whoever had thought it would be a smart idea to honk at a thirteen year old (Storybrooke was pretty chill in that aspect, usually, but nasty people were everywhere), but it turned out it was only her sister, leaning out of the window of her car with a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth – Ramona plucked it out, probably more as not to risk wasting a good smoke than as a matter of politeness, before shouting: “Why are you still out here? I thought you were supposed to be the good girl home before dark.”
“And I thought you weren’t supposed to smoke.” Cerise turned away and adjusted her stance, refusing to let the older girl’s presence intimidate her. She couldn’t allow Ramona of all people to make her feel stupid, honestly.
Luck was on her side on that, at least; the ball finally went in cleanly, smacking on the concrete court on the way down. Ramona whistled aloud, giving her a mock clap. “So you can do shit, sometimes. Come on, I’m not waiting around here all night.”
Cerise sneered back at her, then went to retrieve her stuff, covering back up and pulling the hood over her sweat-damp hair. She didn’t get sick very often, but she’d never hear the end of it if she managed to make it happen by catching a chill while out practicing.
Ramona had been at practice, too, clearly. Her gym bag with the high school volleyball team logo was on the passenger seat when Cerise opened the door – she moved it to the back to allow her younger sister to sit, then let go of the brake and turned the car around, heading towards the diner. “Ew, Mona, do you ever wash your knee pads? This place stinks.”
“Says the one smelling like wet dog. Hey, can you believe one of the moms in the parents committee or something tried to give me and Abbey shit for not shaving our legs and arms? Says it’s unladylike. Maybe I should tell her all the unladylike stuff her daughter did with that cheerleader on the bus last year. What a bitch.”
“Such a bitch,” Cerise echoed her, only half listening. Ramona’s high school gossip was interesting in small doses, but at some point one lost track of all her teammates and their girlfriends, most of which were old enough to still have fairytale names like Uberta or Rosaura.
The rest of the ride went on mostly in silence, aside from some bickering about which radio station to settle for. The car had been Mama Red’s when she’d still lived in Storybrooke, but right now she was off traveling with Ma in some other land – they hadn’t done it that often once Ramona and Cerise had started needing to go to an actual school five days a week, but at this point the two of them were old enough to just stay with Granny while their mothers took an adventuring break. That had left the car free for the taking, and Ramona hadn’t wasted any time in claiming it as her temporary vessel, which she thought also gave her the right to always pick the music.
Cerise wasn’t up for fighting too much tonight, however. Wolfstime had been over for a few days now, and yet she still felt restless, uneasy in her own skin. Mama Red had told her it might take a while to adjust to it, since it had been barely a year since Cerise had started feeling the full moon’s effects completely, but she wasn’t convinced. Sure, she’d been tired in the past few months, and she’d felt the need to huddle close to her sister, even when Ramona had been acting like an asshole, but it had never felt like...this. It was as if the irritation could come and go in waves, her bag randomly feeling lighter or heavier on her shoulders, her back itching, her mind becoming fuzzy when she least needed it to.
It had to be the hormones, which sucked, but what could she do? Perhaps when their mothers came back, one of them could take her to Dr. Whale, to see if she could take something for it. He and Mama Red were friends, and he was Frankie’s dad, besides, so he probably remembered her and wouldn’t accuse her of making it up to get out of PE, like her teacher had done. That had been stupid, too – Cerise loved PE, and would never have skipped it, not even if another giant smashed into the school gym.
For now, though, there wasn’t much she could do; so she rested her head against the window and closed her eyes, hoping her sister’s bumpy driving might distract her until they got home.
“Mom, I’m starving, can we go home?” Sparrow lamented, dramatically flopping against one of the fancy armchairs.
Raven shot him a sneering glare. “How can you be starving? You ate your snack and mine! What’s in your stomach, a black hole?”
“Well, your snack was ridiculous, so it didn’t actually do anything. Might as well eat that printer paper over there. And it’s been ages. I can’t survive on PB&J sandwiches like you, my brain needs actual food.”
“To do what? Remember which shoe goes in the right foot?”
“Stop it,” their mother chided them, firmly gathering a stash of documents before sticking it in one of her desk drawers. “Both of you. I’m almost done here, and then we can go home. Just a few minutes, okay?”
“Yes, mom,” Raven sighed, but couldn’t resist the urge to flip her brother off as soon as the woman had looked away, earning herself a sputtering whine from Sparrow.
She’d loved accompanying her mother to the mayor’s office when she’d been younger, but back then it had felt like an adventure every time, marveling at the glossy, glimmering air of it all. Henry had showed them the best places to play hide and seek, and Roland had taught them how to slide on the marble floors, especially when they’d been freshly cleaned. They’d been small kids, at that point – it had been easy to find their own fun, together or alone.
But now they were too big to try and crawl into a vent, and they were already done with all the homework they’d brought along, and Sparrow was a pain in the butt. Raven would much rather be out shopping with Maddie, or hanging out in the woods with her father, but her friend’s schedule was as unpredictable as the wind, and Robin Hood had said he needed to talk with Little John about something, so she was stranded there for the moment, bored out of her mind.
The end seemed to be in sight, though. The mayor closed the ledger she’d been parsing through with a firm slam, then pushed a strand of hair out of her face and reached for her handbag. “There. All done. Are you guys ready?”
“Yes.” Sparrow peeled himself off the armchair with an enthusiastic hop, scrambling to gather all his stuff. The mess of it made Raven wrinkle her nose – she couldn’t pretend to be the tidiest person in town, but sometimes she wondered how her brother seemed to be trailing bits and pieces of himself wherever he went. He wasn’t Tom Thumb, dammit. That one had already graduated in Henry’s class.
At least there was no way they could ever mix their bags and clothes up. Sparrow’s room and outfits all tended towards garish tones of green and brown, while Raven’s taste leaned more on darker shades – when Maddie had been allowed to get temporary hair dye, she’d begged her mother for the same permission, so they could match for a little while. Raven’s hair was the same liquid black as Regina Mills’, usually, but now there were purple strands peeking out here and there, the same color as her backpack and most of her shirts, though the dye had already started to fade a bit. She might need to freshen it up, soon.
But first, home. She was stashing schoolbooks away as quickly as she could when a noise caught her off-guard; a knock on the office door. All three of them turned to look for the source – Raven hoped it would be her father, honestly, coming to collect them so they could all go home together.
And yet, it wasn’t Robin Hood standing in the doorframe. Instead, it was a much taller, much broader, seemingly older man – his hair and thin mustache were graying, and there were wrinkles at the corners of his eyes as he met their confused gazes with barely any hesitation, his hand still raised from where it had clearly knocked against the already open door.
His left hand, that was. His right arm was wrapped firmly against his chest, clutching what appeared to be some kind of leather-bound book. At first glance, it reminded Raven a bit of the one Henry’d had at her age, even if the size and shape were all wrong; she remembered being little and begging her eldest brother to let her see it from up close, her and Sparrow and Apple and Cedar, their tiny fingers tracing the pretty drawings of their parents when they were younger. She didn’t know if there might be such fancy illustrations in this book, and the binding was darker and less worn out, but the decorations on the cover were as golden as the ones she remembered, at least from what could be seen behind the man’s thick arm.
“My apologies for the late hour, Madam Mayor,” he said, his voice deep and grave. “The lady at the front desk mentioned you wouldn’t be receiving anyone at this time, but I just arrived in your town and I needed to see you immediately.”
Raven saw her mother’s lips twitch before she answered, clearly repressing a tart remark. “I don’t know who you are, sir, but office hours are over,” she said instead, the picture of firm politeness. “Whatever it is, it can wait until tomorrow. I’m sure you can find your way out and get an appointment. Goodnight.”
He inclined his head slightly, as if acknowledging her refusal at least a little. “Forgive me, but that might not be the case. I’m afraid time is of the essence at the moment.”
The mayor arched an incredulous eyebrow. “Really? And what could be so important that you’d barge in like this?”
“An issue you’ve resolved before, if my information is correct. Unless you have forgotten about the damage a wayward Author is capable of doing, if not kept in check?”
The newcomer had spoken lightly, casually, but it was as if he’d slapped Raven’s mother clean across the face. Her expression changed immediately, her dark eyes becoming wary and alarmed, watching him with great caution – she set her purse back on the desk without ever looking away, and searched through it for a long moment, ultimately fishing her car keys out and handing them to Sparrow.
“Kids, go wait for me in the car,” she said, a strange edge to her voice that was hard to understand. “And text Roland that we might be a few minutes late. I suppose this won’t take long, will it, mister…?”
“I’ll make it as quick as possible,” he replied, bowing his head again. “And my name is Milton Grimm, at your service.”
“What kind of dumbass name is that?” Sparrow whispered to his sister, probably not as quiet as he thought he was being, but Raven ignored him completely, her attention focused entirely on the two adults.
“Can’t we stay, since it’s going to be quick?” She asked, eyeing the big man and his book suspiciously. “It’s warmer here than in the car.”
“I’m sorry, blackbird, I’d rather you get downstairs. You turn the heat up and switch the radio on while you wait for me, okay?”
After that, there was no protesting against their fate. The twins herded themselves out despite their disappointment, and even their eavesdropping plans were quashed right off the bat – as soon as they got in the hallway the door swung shut behind their backs, and they knew from experience that there was silencing magic spread across all of it, hiding whatever was going on in the office from prying ears.
“That was weird,” Sparrow muttered, even if there was no one to scold him for it. “You thought it was weird, too, right?”
“Right,” Raven echoed him, only half listening. She’d been on edge ever since the man had stepped foot inside the room, which would have made sense in any case – people tended not to come bother a queen for a tiny little problem, especially afterhours, especially unannounced. It had to mean trouble, there was no question about it; their mother had even used her powers in front of him to close the door without getting up, and that meant he’d convinced her he wasn’t one of the outsiders that sometimes wandered into Storybrooke, rare as they might be.
But that was only part of it. The truth was- when he’d moved aside to allow them to leave, the girl had felt watched. Not the gross kind of watched, of course, not like the time she’d walked past the Rabbit Hole with her friends and some boys had whistled at their group until Maddie’s older sister had given them a dressing down; it had felt more as if she’d been a bug under a rock, and someone had lifted it just to stare at her, except when Raven had looked up she hadn’t seen a curious child, but the stranger’s cold green eyes scrutinizing her.
It had made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She might have just been nervous, unsettled by what was definitely a weird five minutes; except that when Sparrow made to grab her hand and tug her away to the car in an uncharacteristic show of affection, he immediately jolted back, swearing under his breath – she’d given him a little bit of static shock, like someone who’d been petting a cat the wrong way, but she hadn’t, and there wasn’t any storm in the air, either. She was just jittery all over, with goosebumps and frayed nerves, almost as if-
Almost as if she was the source of the electricity, a live wire in her mother’s office, and not a girl who’d have much rather stayed home to plan her birthday party, honestly.
The wall is feet upon feet of solid stone, covered in vines and with no crack in it big enough to fit through.
Brooke wants to curse, but she cannot. She needs to save her breath. She’d expected this outcome, anyway, even if a small part of her mind kept hoping she’d be proven wrong. She wishes she could be lucky, at least once.
But wishing is for wells, and nothing’s well around her anymore. She’s exhausted, but she’s so close – just this final stretch, and then she’ll be where she needs to be. Hopefully.
“Brooke began climbing the wall, clinging to the vines and to the little nooks and crannies,” she whispers, trying to keep her voice steady. “It was difficult, but she reached the top without falling.”
Her feet begin moving as if of their own accord. Her fingers begin looking for a decent crevice to hold on to. And then up, up, up she goes.
Up, up, up she went.