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“Charming, no!” was the last thing he heard before the garbled noises of the portal surrounded him. He felt as though he’d been propelled through the water at top speed. All the air rushed out of his lungs and his throat burned as he fought to breathe.
It ended as quickly as it had began. He felt his hands and knees collide with rough wood. He could just make out a muffled, scared voice over the pounding of his heart in his ears but he couldn’t answer. Not until he got his breath back.
When he did, he slowly raised his head to face the tiny girl sitting wide eyed on the bed, headphones discarded. His mouth fell open. She was more beautiful than she had looked from the other side. Bright golden hair, sparkling green eyes with the hope slowly inching out of them,a tiny button nose. She looked like the princess she was, the princess she should have grown up to be. For a moment, he saw a tiara on her golden locks, her dressed in a white ballgown and slippers. It was a fleeting image but one he’d save forever.
Right now, she was backing against the wall, staring at him with her jaw practically on the floor. He couldn’t blame her. A strange man appears in a little girl’s bedroom after falling through the wall. She’s bound to be frightened.
When she opened her mouth to scream, he snapped into action.
“Don’t, please,” he begged. “Hear me out, Emma.” He took a tentative step towards her and lowered his voice, mindful of the others living here. “Just five minutes. That’s all I need.”
“Who are you?” she asked, fear filling her voice. “How did you come through my wall?”
“Magic,” David panted, smiling. Emma frowned, clearly not believing him.
“No such thing,” she spat.
“Of course there is,” he sighed. “How do you think Santa Claus comes through the chimney, or how the Easter Bunny gives you those eggs?”
“There is no Santa Claus,” she replied, rolling her eyes and looking just slightly like her adult self. David’s heart broke at his this little girl not having that innocence all children had. “No Easter Bunny either.”
“Okay. Okay but I did use magic. How else would you explain me coming in through the wall?” It was clear as day on her face that Emma didn’t have an answer. “Emma, please believe me.”
“Okay,” she said reluctantly, nodding a fraction. “Let’s say you did use magic. Who are you? And how do you know my name?”
“Because I chose it.” Tears stung his eyes now, his voice thick with emotion. He took a few seconds to compose himself as Emma looked up at him, the answer half worked out in her mind. Emma, the name he chose one night when Snow was 6 or 7 months along and they had lounged by the fire, his hand tracing over his wife’s rounded belly. The name ‘Emma’ had fallen from his lips. She looked like an Emma. He couldn’t imagine her having any other name.
“Do you….. know my parents?” Emma whispered. David gave a soft chuckle. He went to ease himself down on her bed but stopped as Emma tensed.
“Emma.” Tears made their way down his face. “I’m your dad.”
The word ‘dad’ hung between them as the room fell silent. All he could hear was Emma’s deep breaths as she processed it. She looked at him, searching for something of her in him.
“Emma, please,” he pleaded.
Her face screwed up, her chin wobbled. She went to wipe her eyes with her sleeve only to have him take a hankie out of his pocket and do it for her. Her tiny soft hand grasped his rough one, bitten fingernails digging into his skin. Not that he minded. She cried silently, no wails or moans. After a while he moved onto the bed beside her and she didn’t push him away. His fingers tangled in her hair.
“Why did you give me up?” she asked, her voice like the calm before the storm.
“It’s complicated.“He didn’t need to look at her to see the thunderous look on her face. "I mean really complicated.”
“Was I an accident? A teenage pregnancy? Was it non consensual?” she asked in a matter of fact voice. He wanted to know when and where she’d learned those big words she shouldn’t have known. “It’s okay if I was an accident.” Her voice was too bitter for a child to have.
“No, no, no. Emma you have it all wrong.” He pulled away to look into her swollen eyes, brushing her hair behind her ears. Even her ears were perfect, he thought. “Emma, we wanted to keep you. So much, so damn much. But….” How was he going to explain the Dark Curse to a child?
“Was it my grandparents? Did they make you do it?”
“Sort of,” he answered. “Emma, I’m going to tell you something crazy, okay? You know how I said I came here with magic?” Emma nodded, again processing, the cogs in her mind turning.
“Are you a wizard?” He chuckled.
“No, Emma. I’m a prince. Well, technically a King.” Emma nodded. Maybe after the magic reveal, telling her about the royalty wasn’t so bad.
“So does that make me a…..”
“Princess, yes,” he finished. She was grinning.
“I knew it,” she told him. “I just knew it. It was one of my……” Her voice trailed off. “My theories.”
“Oh there’s theories?” he asked. Emma nodded, her face turning pink.
“Yeah. I mean I had thought that….. um, maybe I was royalty and you were at war or something and-” She stopped talking.
“You weren’t too far off, kid,” he told her. “Our Kingdom, called Misthaven.”
“Is it in Europe?” she asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s not exactly in….this world.” Emma’s eyes grew wide.
“Am I an alien?”
“No, no,” he chuckled. “Definitely not.” He could have sworn he saw her mutter 'Thank God’. “It’s um, I guess you would call it a different dimension.”
“A different dimension where we have magic.”
“Exactly. And, on the day I married your mother, our wedding was crashed by her step mother. She vowed to destroy our happiness. So she worked and on the day you were born, she cast a terrible curse on our kingdom. She ripped us all out of Misthaven and sent us to this realm. And now they’re all trapped there, they don’t remember who they are.”
“That’s awful,” Emma muttered. “But what does that have to do with-”
“A friend of ours, Gepetto-”
“The guy from Pinocchio?” Emma asked.
“Yes, him. He made a magic wardrobe that could take your mother and escape the curse. But unfortunately, you came a bit early. And…..” He shuddered, remembering that night as Emma’s cries rang throughout the castle, just before their lives were ripped from them. “We had to send you through alone.”
He couldn’t read Emma’s face. Her hands clasped and unclasped in her lap.
“Emma we never wanted to give you up. Ever.” Instinct took over and he pulled her into his lap, pressing his cheek to her hair. “We had so many plans for you.”
“Like what?” Her voice was so timid.
“Like throwing a huge ball every year on your birthday.”
“With a chocolate fountain?” He gave a sad laugh.
“Whatever your heart desired. And giving you a whole stable full of ponies. And getting you custom made armour and teaching you to sword fight.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “And holding you like this every single time you had a nightmare.” He wondered how many times she had woken up in the middle of the night with no one to hold her.
It hit him how much he missed it. He had pushed it down for so long now but it came flooding over him. He missed it all-every loose tooth and birthday and temper tantrum and common cold and bedtime story. Her first steps, first laugh, first everything. He never got to see it.
He’d do anything to have it again.
Emma sat pressed against his chest, fingers tangling in his jacket.
“Emma, are you okay?”
“No,” she answered. He felt her tiny shoulders shaking. “I’m sorry I came early.”
“It’s not your fault,” he reassured her. “It’s your grandmother’s for casting this damn curse.”
“The curse!” Emma jumped up, eyes wide. Even with wet cheeks and puffy eyes, she held a fierce determination not unlike her mothers. “We still have to save them, right?”
“Yes. Um, when you were coming we were told you would be the Savior.” Emma nodded and picked up a dusty pink coat from the floor. “What are you doing?”
“We have a curse to break.” She grabbed his hand and tried to pull him up. “Come on, let’s go right now.”
“Emma we can’t-”
“Sure we can,” Emma said. “You’re a prince, you have an army, right? And if I’m the Savior I must have magic or special powers. We can go up to my grandma and-”
“Emma you have to wait.” Emma frowned at him. “The curse can only be broken when you turn 28. And then you’ll come find us.”
“Why?” Her little jaw was set and there was a fire in her eyes and he saw the woman she would soon grow up to become.
“Because that’s the way the curse was built. Because that’s how we were told it had to happen.”
“Says who?”
“The man who made the curse.” Charming cast a fearful glance at the door. “He said we have to wait until you’re 28. Then you’ll come save us.”
“So I can’t save them now?”
“You’re not ready, sweetheart.”
“I can’t be with you now?” She started crying again. He pulled her into his arms and let her make a damp patch on his shoulder.
“I wish you could baby girl,” he sighed. “More than anything.” He heard her mutter 'not fair’ against his jacket. “You’re going to be a hero, Emma. The greatest hero there ever was or ever could be.”
“I don’t want to be a hero,” she whispered. “I just want you and my mom.”
It took everything Charming had not to break down right there. She was so innocent. She never deserved any of this. She hadn’t asked to be a hero.
“We want you too. More than anything else in the whole world.” He pulled away from her and grasped her hands, rubbing small circles on her wrists. “But we have to put our Kingdom first.”
“That’s what heroes do, right.” She managed a sad smile.
“Emma?” They were interrupted by a voice calling from the landing. Emma ushered Charming behind her wardrobe before opening the door, frantically wiping her eyes.
“Uh-huh?”
“Who are you talking to up there?”
“My dad.” Her tone was so venemous. It simultaneously surprised Charming and hurt him.
“Okay, kid.” Charming heard loud, cruel laughs from downstairs. “Well, lights out.”
“I know.” The door clicked shut and he crept out from his hiding place. “I have to go to bed now.”
“I understand. Do you have anyone to tuck you in?” Emma shook her head. He watched her slip out of her clothes and into a t shirt slightly too big for her and blue pajama bottoms. “Come here, you.” He tucked the blanket around her and stroked her hair. Before he could stop himself, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. A tear fell onto the pillow. “You’ll be okay.”
“I know,” she yawned. “I know.”
“You want a bedtime story? Or are you too old?” She laughed softly.
“Not too old yet.” She clutched her baby blanket-the same one he’d seen Granny work tirelessly on just for her-and pulled it over her nose. He smiled and traced the wool softly.
“Once upon a time, a dashingly good looking prince was travelling with his fiancée to her Kingdom. On the way there…..”
“….When the Prince saw his beloved Snow White in the glass coffin, he knew all that was left to do was say goodbye…..”
“Is the Prince in this story you?” she asked in a low voice, eyes closed.
“Yeah it is.”
“And is my mom Snow White?”
“Yep.” She nodded.
“Cool."
He finished his story with his and Snow’s wedding day. He didn’t want to go further than that.
"Does this story have a happy ending?” Emma asked, almost asleep.
“It does. It just hasn’t happened yet.” Emma didn’t respond.
Charming kissed her cheek, then her forehead, then her nose.
“I love you. I love you so so much. Please don’t forget that.” Shaking, he got up and walked back towards the wall, which shimmered upon his touch.
He looked back at his daughter. She shifted slightly in her sleep, burying herself in her pillow. She looked so alone.
With a heavy heart, he went through the portal.