Magic is Coming

The air was cooler than the summer heat, but not quite the crisp cold of Autumn yet, on the day I returned.  Rumpelstiltskin had never replied to the letter I sent him about halfway through the summer, and since none of my other Storybrooke friends knew my non-Storybrooke address, I had not received any news.  To its credit, the town didn't look all that different from how it had been the day I had arrived for the first time, but I knew better than to judge by first appearances, even without my teacher's wisdom.  'There is magic here now,' I mused.  'The air is thick with it.'

Of course, how aware everyone was of said magic was still unknown to me.  Rumpel had said that the infamous curse had been broken in his letter, but I still didn't trust his word completely.  To my perspective, the curse being broken would only count when Fairytale Land was restored to us.  Everyone getting their memories back, including me, was only the beginning.  I had been less affected by the curse than others, but I had still been without my powers and/or my confidence, in the face of true evil, when I had first come.

I had been slow to come back after three months away as I was still in the process of arranging a major at my college, and making plans to study away at Storybrooke's local university in my junior year.  (Would I be able to transfer credits from a school that only existed if you were a fairytale character?)  In retrospect though, I should have been quicker because, judging by the distant screams I heard coming from the direction of my house, Mr. Holmes, or Allistair as he would now remember, had caused more trouble than I thought.  As I drove my parents' Prius towards my house (They were loaning it to me until I could afford to get a custom one, in purple, for myself.), I prayed to the Goddess that he hadn't shot holes in my wall and left severed body parts in my refrigerator.
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It turned out that the screaming wasn't about Allistair's insufferable interest in forensic science.  It was because someone had set my kitchen on fire, and that someone happened to be a 10 year old terror.  No, I'm not talking about Henry, persistent though he is; it was Bianca Gold, aka Pearl, who had almost caused my oven to spontaneously combust and, as a consequence, the rest of my house.

It was not without reason though.  She was trying to make brownies as a welcome home present for me in the process.  "Unsuccessfully," her brother, Djem, chimed in, looking more pleased with himself than I thought him capable of.

"Be quiet," said Jefferson.  "I'm the one who's telling Morgana why her house is in disarray, like just about everything else in this town."

"Sorry, Jefferson."

"I've been trying to improve on the homemakers art while you were away," said Pearl.  Djem made to say "Unsuccessfully!" again, but Jefferson stopped him.  "At least, that's what the princess thought I should do.  Having been a servant at some point, she thinks she knows everything about running a house and making it look pretty.  She didn't need to worry about where she would be sleeping the next night for 8 whole years, wondering if this year she would finally make friends that would last forever."

"She's talking about Belle," said Djem, before Jefferson could silence him again.  "Even though they're not technically married, Rumpelstiltskin still wants us to treat her like family.  If not as our mother, then at least as a sister."

"As it should be," I said, both congratulating Djem and chiding Pearl with the same four words.  I could sense though that neither of them were taking to the notion of Belle as family very well.  "Your father did say something about precious things being restored to him in his letter.  I guess he wasn't only just talking about you two.  Speaking of which, why didn't he contact me further?  I could have come back at any time during the summer to help him."

"Allistair was living in your house, hiding away from Mordred's wrath, during that time," said Jefferson.  "If it was discovered that you were harboring a wanted man, a man who was thought to be dead, it would have resulted in a lot of unnecessary trouble, for both of you."

He glanced toward the picture above my television, the one of the witch and the merman embracing, surrounded by dark blue smoke; I eyed it wistfully as I remembered what I had done for my first love.  Mr. Gold had helped Allistair return the favor he owed to me by making sure I was safe, if only for three or four months.  Thank-yous were in order, but they could wait; I still needed to find out why Jefferson was here.

"I was on my way to Mr. Gold's house myself when I heard a smoke alarm going off in your house," he answered.  "When I saw Djem at the door, begging for my assistance, I knew immediately what had happened.  With a quick dousing spell, I remedied the situation of your oven on fire, though I couldn't say the same for Pearl's brownies.  Turns out, so she tells me, that she's been trying to sneak in here all summer to use your oven; the one at her father's house doesn't work, or else the magic has made it go wonky."

"Well, why didn't you come over and ask Allistair?" I enquired.  From the looks that the children gave me, I could tell that he had scared them too much for them to consider him a friend, as they had in Fairytale Land.  I guess getting a job as a consulting detective did a number for your social prospects.  At any rate, the wizard, turned detective, had cleared out of my house before Jefferson had arrived today.  (I had checked the fridge just to be sure, too.  No severed body parts or mad experiments.)  'Without even saying goodbye,' I thought.  'Then again, Allistair was never one for lengthy, sentimental goodbyes, even before he had a fish tail.'

"So, private crises aside, you should probably get settled in, Morgana," said Jefferson, bringing me back to the present.  "Rumpelstiltskin will probably be expecting you within a few days.  The children and I can keep his attention diverted for only so long though."

"You want me to pay a visit to him before getting accustomed to how magic works here," I said, immediately guessing his plan.  "Don't lose your head, Jefferson."  The Mad Hatter's fingers immediately strayed to the scar that encompassed his neck.  "Sorry.  I just meant that I'll deal with it when I'm ready.  My friend knows me well enough to know that I cannot be bothered to do things at any pace but my own."

"Whatever you wish, Morgana.  Just make sure to do it in good time."  He signaled for the children to follow him out of the house, to give me time to move my things back in.  Just as he made it to the door though, he turned back and said, "Morgana, I know that you would never kill someone with your own hand, but know this.  Giving an order for someone's death, or marking them for suffering, is just as bad."

He left me to mull this over as I unpacked presents, new pictures, and fun decorations, which I would be showing off to my friends and new neighbors soon.  I couldn't help but wonder though; even though Jefferson, like Rumpel, understood that the balance between light and darkness had to be maintained, and was skeptical about the outward appearances of everything, he seemed a little more dangerous than the Dark One.  It could be that I just wasn't a fan of Wonderland, or of hat makers obsessed with tea time in a certain children's book, but something in my gut told me that Rumpelstiltskin had done what he had warned me against.