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Belle has been changing. After an outburst at Granny's, Rumpelstiltskin, her devoted husband, decides to investigate. What he discovers will change his life forever. Read on!
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2.
Like Something His Mothers Used to Make
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He had tried for
time immemorial to break free of its grip. He wanted the power it provided, but
not the Dagger itself. He thought that silly now that it was once again in his hands.
“You’re just an
object,” he murmured, examining it. “I haven’t looked at you for five years, or
even thought of you. So you’re still with me. What of it? Most people enslave themselves
to far less worthy things than you—social media, booze, drugs, fads.”
He turned the blade
over.
Dark magic. It
suffused every single cell of his immortal being. It defined him in countless
ways. But with it he had saved many lives, not to mention this entire town. He
had used that magic for good—for light. He had used it to rescue Belle.
Here it was, ready
to come to her aid once again.
Here it was, ready
to exact long-awaited retribution on that flea infestation.
But Belle was gone,
either knowingly or not with the assistance of the fleas.
Who else was
involved? Before he acted, he was going to make sure every single doomed duck (or
flea) responsible was accounted for and in his or her proper row.
He sat in his
favorite cushy chair and let the late afternoon light filtering through the
curtains glint off the weapon.
He didn’t expect
Belle to return. She was gone, probably not even in Storybrooke. Whoever had
done this to her, or with her, was powerful enough to portal her pretty much
anywhere. She could be in any of a hundred different realms. Finding her wasn’t
possible. At least, not yet.
She wouldn’t be in
the Enchanted Forest
He flipped the
blade and ran his finger over the ornate etching that spelled out his name:
RUMPELSTILTSKIN
He needed sleep.
He’d healed his self-inflicted wounds, magicked the store back to its original
state before he lost his temper, and returned home. But sleep would not come.
He put the blade
down and went upstairs, where he went through Belle’s things again. Not to look
for clues or hunt for more spells, but to test himself. He wanted to explore
his feelings as he did, to see what, deep down, he truly felt for his wife now
she was gone.
Truthfully, he felt
almost nothing. The fire had long since died. Not the fire of passion, which
had never been that strong to begin with, but the much more important fire of friendship.
It became clear to him these years that she would be much happier with a
different man. She had consistently refused to accept him as he was, even
though she had made many pronouncements, both publicly and privately, that she
loved “the beast” within him.
He had allowed her
to berate him, however gently she might have done so. On occasion, and to her
credit always privately, she furiously browbeat him. When that didn’t work, she’d
leave. They’d make up—always after he came begging—and the cycle would begin
anew. He had promised to put the Dagger up and leave it alone, and he’d made
good on that promise. Even so, she never really came to trust him.
Not that she had
been wrong. He had manipulated her in every way possible to hold on to and expand
his power. As he looked over her clothes, he thought of the time he transformed
into the pirate in order to get the Dagger back again. That was pretty low.
There were many
more examples. Too many. None he was proud of. His part in their continuing
drama was at least half, almost certainly more. Centuries of bad habits were
very hard to break. He couldn’t blame her if she’d had enough and finally
snapped.
He fingered a black
mini-skirt and sighed.
Would it be such a
bad thing if the marriage were allowed to fail? Would it be such a bad thing if
he just ... let her go?
Would the “darkness”
inside him, jealous and possessive as it was, allow it?
He sat heavily at
the edge of their bed. After a time, he went back downstairs to sit with the
Dagger.
“Lasagna, please.”
When Granny didn’t
move, he glanced up at her. She glared down at him over the order pad. She
hadn’t written his order down.
“The same lasagna
your wife bad-mouthed the other night, and said that you said tasted like shit?”
“I never said
that,” he responded. “She lied. I’ve always liked your lasagna. Once again, I’m
sorry that exchange took place. And—a bottle of your best red,” he added,
closing his menu and handing it up to her.
She threw a
significant glance at the empty seat across from him, hesitated, and snatched
the menu away. He heard her grumble when she got close enough to the cook to hand
him the order: “Lasagna. Make it a little extra.”
The cook chuckled
and got to work.
It was the truth.
He really did like Granny’s lasagna. It reminded him of a dish his mothers used
to make, one which he couldn’t remember the name. Belle had included him in her
outburst for reasons he couldn’t fathom. Was that part of Lacey’s personality?
It seemed likely.
Granny returned
with the wine; a few minutes later she lowered a plate heaped high with steaming
lasagna and garlic bread in front of him. She glanced at the empty seat again,
then turned to leave.
“You haven’t seen
her, have you?” he asked at her retreating back.
She stopped and
turned around. The heat in her eyes cooled a little. She shook her head. “No.”
He picked up his
fork. “Thanks.”
She grunted and
went back to the kitchen.
One of the lesser
known consequences of being the Dark One was that drunkenness was not possible.
He could drink all he wanted, but would never become inebriated. Oh, he could
get “buzzed” as it was known—that pre-drunk state was possible. But not
drunkenness. He looked up from his meal at one point and noticed that half the
bottle was gone.
He wouldn’t have
minded getting drunk tonight.
He enjoyed the
lasagna more than usual. Granny’s batch was particularly satisfying. He wiped
his mouth and dropped the napkin back into his lap, then took another sip of
wine. The “buzz” felt good as it warmed through his heart and into his
extremities.
The restaurant
wasn’t busy. Grumpy and three other Dwarves were in the corner drinking and
occasionally guffawing, and Doctor Hopper—Jiminy Cricket—had dropped in for
take-out. He paid, bags in hand, and gave him a courteous nod on his way out
the door.
“You wanna talk
about it?”
He hadn’t seen
Granny approach. She stared sternly down at him.
He completed the
motion of bringing fork, heavy with lasagna, to his mouth. He chewed, staring
at the bottle, and motioned towards the empty seat.
In all the time
he’d been in Storybrooke, he’d never really gotten to know Granny. She’d always
seemed too grumpy, too stiff in her ways, too judgmental—especially of him—to
bother.
She sat across from
him.
“You’ve never once
come in here and eaten by yourself,” she said, voicing a fact he was painfully
aware of. It had taken plenty of will even to consider it, but he was tired of
sitting in his big empty home and brooding. Walking out the door, he had no
idea where he might go. Regina ?
No. She was probably with his grandson or hanging out with the Charmings or her
sister. His store? He honestly didn’t know if he even cared if it stayed open
from this point on or not. The Savior? No way. She’d be with the pirate. Their
detente was enforced by distance, not communication. He had no urge to intrude,
let alone be a nuisance.
He ended up here
when it occurred to him that he was hungry.
“I’m sorry again
for how Belle treated you,” he said after more wine. He picked up the fork and speared
more lasagna.
“She seems to be
changing,” Granny stated matter-of-factly. “It isn’t any of my business, but
have you spoken to her father lately?”
He slowly lowered the
fork back to the plate before its burden reached his mouth. He hadn’t even thought of her horrible father! How was that possible?
He knew, of course.
The spells those damned fairies were at least partly responsible for had seen
to it that her father was forgotten!
“It’s really none
of my business, but ...” she shrugged. “I wasn’t truthful with you. I have seen
her. I saw her walk into his flower shop just the other day.”
“You didn’t happen
to see her walk out, did you?”
She shook her head.
“I was still quite peeved at her. I did consider confronting her, but then
thought, ‘The hell with it!’ ”
He nodded. “That’s
still helpful, thank you.”
“I’ve got one more
bit of information to give you. I mean, it’s none of my business, your marriage,
so ... well, forgive me if this is butting in ...”
“Please. Go ahead.”
“Well ... Belle
didn’t ... smell right.”
“She didn’t smell right?” he demanded, and then
stopped himself before angrily dismissing her. Granny was, he reminded himself,
a werewolf. Or at least a former one. (He was never quite clear on that.) Her
sense of smell was therefore well beyond that of an ordinary human’s.
“Go on. What did
she smell like?”
“I noticed it the
other night. To be honest, I’ve noticed it more and more for some time now. The
other night it was rank. And then the other day, when she was going into her
father’s flower shop, it was ...” She waved a hand in front of her nose, as
though trying to swat away a pesky gnat. “... it was whew! The thing is, that flower shop pretty much masks anything
else I might smell near it or in it. But not Belle. I was across the street and
could still smell her! She smelled
like ... do you remember Oldnight’s moat?”
“Oldnight?
Enchanted Forest Oldnight?”
She nodded with a
grimace. “That’s the jerk.”
He allowed a small,
companionable, short-lived grin to form on his mouth. “How do you know Oldnight?
Of all the denizens in that wood, he may be the nastiest. And why wouldn’t I or
others smell that moat on her?”
He held up. “Stupid
question. I already know the answer to that. Please—go on.”
“I wasn’t always a
lasagna-makin’ granny, Dark One,” she offered. “I too was young once. Back in
my wolfin’ days, I used to ... well, let’s just say I liked making trouble.”
“I’m listening.”
“I robbed Oldnight
with my fiancé. As you know, he was famous for being a rich miser, richer n’
you, so said some rumors! He had a mistress, just like you had Belle. He
imprisoned her, just like you did Belle. What he didn’t do is fall in love with
her like you did with your mistress. He kept her in his dungeon. She was a
mage—a witch. Somehow he captured her. He got her to make all sorts of potions
for him. One was a Willing Potion.”
“A Willing Potion,”
he reflected. “Something that restores at least partial control of one’s will
over a curse without the need of true love’s kiss.”
Granny nodded.
“Like the curse of
a werewolf bite.”
“That’s right. True
love’s kiss doesn’t work on werewolves.”
“I see,” he said. “And
yes. That’s true.”
Willing Potions
were almost impossible to create and considered even more cruel than the curse
they were conjured to partially defeat. Between being totally cursed and being
partially free of that curse, most people, perhaps unsurprisingly, found the
latter to be as bad, if not worse.
He refocused on
her. “How did you know about this mistress? Oldnight was a miser, true. But he
was more infamous for his secrecy. Even I couldn’t trick out his many misdeeds.
Believe me, I tried.”
“One of Oldnight’s
guards was a turncoat and wolf like us,” answered Granny. “We gained his trust
over a long time. He eventually opened up. He’d worked for that bastard for
decades and knew that castle inside and out. We got in and out with almost no
trouble. He helped.”
“Almost?”
She nodded sadly.
“The mistress was a witch named Gothel. When we stole the Willing Potion, she
demanded we release her. We didn’t. She vowed revenge. We didn’t think she’d
ever be able to carry it out. She looked completely screwed, from what we could
tell. Four years later, free as a bird, she found and killed my husband, and
nearly killed Red as well. I don’t know how we managed to survive.”
“Gothel. You mean
‘Mother Nature’? The angry Wood Nymph? That one?”
“Yep,” nodded
Granny.
He glanced to the
side as he tried piecing together more of the mystery of Belle’s transformation.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. That makes sense.”
“What does?”
He brought his gaze
back to her. “You took this Willing Potion?”
“I drank every last
drop in the beaker once we were outside the castle.”
“Otherwise you’d
still be under the full curse of the full moon every twenty-nine days.”
“Yes. I was in such
a hurry to be free of it that I slipped and fell right into Oldnight’s moat. I
still managed to have the beaker in my possession. None of the potion spilled
out. But boy do I remember that smell! It stuck to me for weeks!”
“A couple of
questions have finally been answered,” he murmured. He focused on her as she
waited. “Gothel must return to Oldnight once a year. She must do his bidding
for the whole of winter. I always wondered why. Now I know. She must have
somehow made herself some Willing Potion. Oldnight would have locked the curse before
she escaped so that she could never be completely free of it.”
“You can do that—lock a curse?” asked Granny, looking
alarmed.
“Rarely, but yes.
Sometimes it can be done.” He took a sip of wine as Granny let that sink in.
“But as you know,” he went on after swallowing, “no lock, physical or magical, is
a hundred percent secure. They can only get close to a hundred percent. The
more skilled a sorcerer, the better a magical lock they can put on a curse.
True love’s kiss will work, but only if the true love passes various increasingly
difficult benchmarks. Gothel is powerful, but apparently not powerful or clever
enough to break Oldnight’s lock.”
“What was the other
question you got answered?” she asked, fascinated.
“You said Belle
smelled like Oldnight’s moat.”
Granny nodded.
“What I know now is
that Gothel, Oldnight, her father, or all three are also involved in her disappearance.”
He paid at the register.
“I may require more
of your help,” he said. “Would you be willing?”
Granny cocked a
critical eyebrow at him as she handed him his change. “And what would be the
price? Nothing comes free with you, Dark One.”
“Indeed. But the
obligation would be mine to pay. Judging by what you just said, it seems you’d
be eager to be of service.”
“I have always
wanted justice against Gothel,” she said with an angry glare. “That bitch killed
Rolf, and came within inches of taking Red’s life. No good mother—no good person—would ever forget something like
that. So yeah, I’m eager to help. Count me in.”
“Tell you what,” he
said, handing her thirty dollars for the tip—almost triple the expected amount.
“Think about how you’d like to be compensated. I’d like to move on this
immediately. Do we have a deal?”
She stared at him
for a long moment. Cautiously, she nodded. “We do. And I will. I’ll drop by
tomorrow. Good enough?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,”
he said, inclining his head.
He walked out into
the drizzly night.
Gothel was a very dangerous witch, no doubt about it. She
would be a formidable foe. She had for the most part avoided him. The few times
they clashed she always disappeared before the magic got really interesting.
As for Oldnight ...
There was the true danger. Massively
secretive, reclusive, and, if rumors were true, even more violent than him at
his worst. He had never directly clashed with Oldnight, who had no interest in
political power or extending his magical influence. But the Dark Magic the man
possessed was unmistakable and almost certainly his match, or very close to it.
There were spells known
as “Testing Spells.” They were launched remotely towards a suspected witch or
wizard in an attempt to plumb the depth, quality, vibrancy, and reach of that
witch or wizard’s magic.
Testing Spells were
problematic—at best. They were, to begin with, unreliable. Or, better put, they
were entirely reliant on the strength of the caster. The weaker the caster, the
more unreliable the Testing Spell. Being the Dark One, arguably the most
powerful Dark Wizard anywhere, the Testing Spell he cast from his castle
towards Oldnight’s years ago was probably as reliable as any ever conjured.
The second problem
with Testing Spells concerned physical distance. The farther from one’s target,
the more unreliable the results. Rumpel’s and Oldnight’s castles were separated
by a hundred miles of dense forest (the “Infinite Forest
Testing Spells
always revealed the caster to the target. There was no way to get around that.
For those reasons,
Testing Spells had long since fallen out of favor with practitioners of either
Light or Dark Magic.
But Rumpelstiltskin
in those days was unencumbered by humility or restraint. So one night not long
before Regina
cast the Dark Curse, he cast a carefully crafted Testing Spell at Oldnight. The
prospect of learning more about him was too powerful a temptation.
The results came
back within half a minute, as expected. What wasn’t expected was the curse
riding them, one he managed to avoid by milliseconds, and one he wouldn’t have
been able to avoid were he not actually gripping the Dagger. The Dagger’s raw
power drew the curse away into its blade. The curse, purple-black as it
appeared in the apparent realm, screamed his name in Oldnight’s voice:
“Die, Dark One, die!”
The curse tried to
compel him to harm himself frantically and uncontrollably, and in the most
awful ways imaginable. As the curse disintegrated into the blade, he got the
involuntary and weakening desire to take a dull butter knife and yank it across
his neck.
He studied the
results of the Testing Spell once he was sure they were curse-free. Even plus
or minus ten percent, Oldnight was indeed a formidable match.
He woke to someone pounding on his door. He turned over to
glance at the clock, which read: 5:48.
“Who the hell—”
He blinked sleep
out of his eyes, sat up, and completed the sentence:
“—wants to die a horrible death this
morning?”
It couldn’t have
been Granny. He knew from long experience living in this town that she had to
be opening the diner. She would drop by later, before the dinner crowd showed
up.
Robe secured,
slippers on, he made his way down the stairs. As he did he again thought of
Belle.
It was true that he
missed her. But it was also true that he didn’t miss her nearly to the degree
he thought he would. His freedom, in fact, was a nascent and growing guilty
pleasure that he wasn’t quite ready to fully acknowledge, but was most
definitely there nonetheless.
Growling, he made
his way through the living room to the foyer, which he crossed, his temper ramping
up with each step. The pounder was at it again.
He pressed the
intercom button. “Whoever you are, rest assured that you better come bearing news
of catastrophic importance. Otherwise, this is your one chance to leave without
doing so shaped like a cockroach.”
A long, tense,
silent ten seconds passed. The pounder answered via the intercom. “Let me in,
Rumpelstiltskin. I want to talk to you.”
There was no
mistaking that voice. It belong to Grumpy.
Rumpel opened the
door. Grumpy glared up at him, obviously fearful as evidenced by his fidgety
stance. “I want to talk to you about Granny.”
“Our dealings
aren’t your concern, Dwarf.”
He went to shut the door.
Credit Grumpy: he
was suicidally brave—or still drunk from partying last night. He jammed a muddy
steel-toed boot in the doorjamb just before the door slammed. “She’s one of my
closest friends! I’m not done with what I have to say to you!”
For a moment he
considered turning the Dwarf’s leg into ash. With gritted teeth, he reluctantly
lowered his hand before casting the curse. He jerked the door open.
Grumpy stared up at
him.
“You better hope
that what you’ve got to say I find well worth my time.”
Grumpy held up. He
took a deep breath, reached up and removed his ski cap, licked his lips, and
stepped fully into the house. “If you’re gonna curse me, Dark One, then do it
because I failed you in a larger purpose. I can be of service to you on your
quest.”
“As you can see,”
said Rumpel, motioning down at himself, berobed as he was, “I am not on a quest
except perhaps for some coffee and scrambled eggs.”
“Everyone knows
what happened with Belle,” said Grumpy incautiously. “It’s all over town.”
“Of that I have no
doubts,” growled Rumpel. “One cannot wiz on the bushes in this quaint little
hamlet without making the evening news. Again, as you can see, I’m not at
present on a quest. I will be investigating what happened to her, yes, with
Granny’s help. I do not at present have any intentions of leaving Storybrooke,
or carrying the investigation beyond the city’s limits. My concern is simply
that she is well, and that she is finding happiness.”
Grumpy’s face hardened
in blank confusion. It held that way for a moment, then dissolved into
sympathy. That was something Rumpel did not
want to see. “Get out,” he ordered.
Grumpy didn’t
immediately move, as common sense should have prompted him to. He held his cap tightly
with both fists and stared down at the floor.
“You know something
about what happened to her—to Belle.”
He advanced on him.
Grumpy, backing up
against the wall next to the door, nodded fitfully. “Yes. I’m sorry—I’m sorry! I’m not interested in getting
in other people’s private business, so I didn’t say anything to you. I did it
out of respect to you and your marriage, not because I was trying to hurt
you—or her. Please. That’s the truth!”
That cooled him off
a little. He had to admit that Grumpy’s bravery, as foolish as it was, was
admirable.
Grumpy looked up at
him. “You wanna know what it is?”
He nodded after a
time. “Yes. Go ahead.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Talk.”
“I didn’t mean to,”
began Grumpy, shrugging and shaking his head. “But I saw your wife with ...
someone. In the woods. They were kind of ... well, involved with each other.”
“When was this?” he
demanded, instantly visualizing the curse he was going to lay on Will Scarlet.
It had to be him!
Grumpy shrugged
again. “I don’t know ... a couple of months ago?”
“Months?” he snarled.
“Months?”
“Yeah,” nodded
Grumpy sadly. “Yeah. I’m sorry, man. Seriously.”
He took a deep
breath, steeling himself to hear the inevitable name, and said, “Go ahead. Who did
you see Belle with?”
The Dwarf hesitated.
“If I tell you, will you let me out of here alive and in the same shape and
form and health as I had coming in?”
“That’s the only
way you will walk out of here in that
condition.”
“All right,” said Grumpy.
“All right. It was ... Mulan. She was with Mulan.”
~~*~~
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