Once Upon a Time E-Book

Michelle Zink

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Once Upon a Time
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 237

Beschreibung

A new Once Upon a Time novel that reveals a previously unseen adventure from the hit ABC series!Henry and Violet finally have a chance to be alone. Granted, it's on a school field trip, but with some clever planning and strategic maneuvering, they can orchestrate their own adventure in New York City, a fairy-tale land in its own right.While they search for a treasured item that once belonged to Violet's father, they are met with obstacles they could never have predicted. What they thought would be a romantic getaway ends up being a true test of their relationship. The journey forces them to face the most pressing question: Are they destined for happily ever after?

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Also Available From Titan Books

By Michelle Zink

Based on the ABC Television series created by

Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz

TITAN BOOKS

Once Upon a Time: Henry and Violet

Print edition ISBN: 9781785659515

E-book edition ISBN: 9781785659522

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First Titan edition: May 2018

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

© 2018 ABC Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Published by arrangement with Kingswell, an imprint of Disney Book Group.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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Dedicated to everyonewho is ready for a new fairy tale

By Michelle Zink

One

The minute she opened her eyes, Violet knew the next two days were going to be special. It was the first day of an overnight field trip to New York City. This wasn’t the first time she’d been to the bustling metropolis, but it would be the first time she dared something as bold as sneaking away with Henry. The bus was leaving Storybrooke at five a.m. sharp, and she stretched in bed and allowed herself a few precious moments in the dark to think about him.

It was because of Henry that she’d been living a real-life fairy tale. Because of him that she’d made friends so quickly, that she felt at home against all odds. He was the one who had shown her how to work her cell phone, how to stream movies on her computer, how to dance to modern music.

There was nothing she didn’t like about him, from the way his brown hair sometimes flopped over his forehead to the warmth in his eyes when he looked at her to the way he always made her laugh. He was her best friend, the one person besides her father she could count on no matter what.

There was only one problem. Or to be exact, a whole town of them.

Despite the fact that they saw each other nearly every day, it was becoming increasingly difficult to escape the overattentive gaze of the people of Storybrooke, her father being the worst of the culprits.

The next two days would be different.

They would have hours to hold hands and steal kisses without looking over their shoulders. They wouldn’t have to worry about Granny reporting back to Emma that they’d been spotted at their favorite make-out spot behind the diner or about Mary Margaret coming upon them snuggling in the halls of Storybrooke High. Emma wouldn’t appear with a sudden errand for Henry, and Violet’s father wouldn’t make that sound he made when dinner was already on the table and Violet was on the phone with Henry.

Finally, they would be able to spend time together without every adult in Storybrooke seeking to put distance between them—her father the most enthusiastically of all.

She tried to ignore the nervousness that fluttered in her stomach when she thought about sneaking away from their classmates on the field trip, not to mention Emma and Killian, who planned to chaperone. It was only for a few hours the first day, and whatever trouble she and Henry got into later would be worth the time spent alone, to say nothing of the other reason for her master plan.

The thought of it prompted her to sit up in bed. She stretched in the darkened room, then reached to turn on the bedside lamp. After tying back her long dark hair with the elastic she kept on her nightstand, she flung her feet over the side of the bed and crossed to the laptop on her desk.

She clicked refresh on the website she’d been monitoring for the past five days and watched as it loaded.

The notebook with the cracked leather cover was still there, and she scrolled down, reading again the description of the journal filled with intricate drawings and familiar handwriting. She could hardly believe it was within reach.

She clicked on the picture of the first page, her eyes moving over her father’s signature and the date, left incomplete when he had been transported suddenly and mysteriously to Camelot.

Hank Morgan

1887–

He’d spoken often of the notebook he’d left behind in Connecticut. She’d thought she understood his sadness, but it wasn’t until she’d found the notebook online at Back in the Day, an antiques store in New York City, that she truly felt the breadth of all he’d lost.

The pages were filled with drawings of complex inventions, some of which she understood while others remained a mystery. Each illustration was accompanied by detailed notes, and Violet had immediately been able to imagine her father before he’d left Connecticut, head bent as he scribbled furiously in its pages. Even more vividly, she saw him as he’d been the past three years in Storybrooke, his head bent to empty pages as he struggled for new ideas.

It had been easy in Camelot. He had, after all, come from a much more advanced time. All his ideas had seemed like magic to their friends in the kingdom.

But the world had advanced while he’d been gone. He tried to put on a happy face, but she saw the toll it had taken for him to leave everything behind again. The notebook would be just the thing to lift his spirits.

She closed her computer and started getting ready, washing her face and brushing her teeth and adding her toiletries to the overnight bag she’d packed the day before. When she was done, she slipped a floral sundress over her head and slid her feet into flats, then went to work fixing her hair. She did one last check to make sure she had everything—especially the money she would need to make an offer on the notebook—and stepped into the hall.

The house had felt foreign and strange when they’d first moved in, with its smooth walls and the heat that emerged like magic from vents in the ceiling. It had been almost too warm in the winter and she’d spent her first Christmas Eve with her bedroom window open a crack in spite of the frigid temperatures outside.

But over the past three years she’d come to love the soft feel of carpet under her feet in her bedroom, the cool wood floors in the halls. She’d gotten used to being warm when it was cold outside and to the hot baths she could run in an instant in a bathroom that was all hers. They’d had to board Nicodemus at a nearby stable since there wasn’t enough room at the house, but it was a small price to pay. She rode him almost every day and she felt comfortable and safe as she descended the stairs amid the smell of frying bacon.

Her father was sliding scrambled eggs onto a plate when she reached the kitchen. He looked up as she entered the room.

“Good morning,” he said. “I thought you might need a proper breakfast today.”

She smiled and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. He was forever worrying about her lack of interest in breakfast.

“I think you might be right.” She would happily eat breakfast if it would prolong his smile, even if the twinkle was still missing from his eyes. “It looks delicious.”

“Are you excited for the trip?” he asked, arranging the bacon and a piece of toast around the eggs and setting the plate in front of her.

She picked up her fork. “Very. I love New York.”

He nodded a little sadly as he poured her orange juice, and she wished she could stuff the words back in her mouth. They hadn’t talked much about what would happen after high school. There was the last month of junior year to get through, then summer before she had to start thinking about senior year and college, but they both knew the moment was coming when she would have to decide what was next.

She’d avoided talking about it with him, had avoided even thinking about it too much. She couldn’t imagine leaving her father in Storybrooke when he was still so sad. She remembered the notebook and felt a surge of hope. Maybe it would inspire him to start inventing again and give him something to focus on when she left home.

He set the juice on the table and took the seat next to her. “Emma and Killian are still chaperoning?”

“Yes, and there will be other chaperones, too. Plus, I think Mary Margaret is standing in for Mrs. Holt.” Mrs. Holt, everyone’s favorite French teacher, had had to leave unexpectedly when her baby arrived a month ahead of her due date. Henry’s grandmother Mary Margaret had offered to take the other teacher’s place on the trip to New York City. “There’s no need to worry.”

It wasn’t easy having a father who’d left the Land Without Stories in 1889 for the even more conservative court at Camelot. In the years he’d been in the other realm, he’d adopted all of their customs and expectations. It had taken her and Henry nearly six months of surreptitious dating to share a kiss thanks to the impossibility of finding time alone. Her father had been like a guard dog with supernatural hearing and eyes in the back of his head. It had gotten a little better, but he still asked a lot of questions when they spent time together. Chaperones had been at the top of his list when she’d brought home the permission form for the overnight trip to New York.

“Will this be enough for everything you need?” he asked, passing her a folded stack of cash.

“I don’t need it,” she protested. “I have money.”

He always had plenty of business in the carriage house at the back of their property, where he repaired electronics and small machinery, but she tried to pay her own way with earnings from her job at the bookstore whenever possible. It cost a lot of money to live in the modern world, and even though he never complained, she knew it couldn’t be easy.

“Nonsense. I’m your father. Take the money.”

She knew from the gruffness in his voice there would be no arguing the point. She took the money and squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”

Theirs was an unspoken arrangement: she wouldn’t get too mushy with him and he would try to listen when she really needed to talk about her feelings, even if he squirmed while she did it. She hoped if she went away to college he would find someone else to fuss over and that whoever it was would understand him and let him be himself.

She nibbled at her toast, her earlier excitement suddenly tempered by the feeling that it couldn’t last. That all of them—she and her father and even Henry—were balanced on the knife’s edge of change that would come for them whether they were ready or not.

She forced the thought aside and focused on her breakfast, making a point to eat every bite in silent thanks for her father’s effort. She was being pulled into the vortex of the melancholy that had been stalking her father. The trip to the city was just the thing to set everything right. She would spend the day holding Henry’s hand and kissing him whenever she wanted. She would get the notebook for her father.

Everything would be fine.

Two

Henry Mills could hardly contain his excitement as he packed his backpack. It was more than the trip to New York City; it was the idea of spending so much time with Violet that he was really looking forward to.

They’d gotten pretty good at finding opportunities to sneak away from her father’s watchful eyes, but the moments were always stolen, both of them all too aware that an interruption was inevitable. Maybe it would be one of Henry’s moms, Emma or Regina, not-so-innocently bringing a fresh bowl of popcorn into the living room when he and Violet were watching a movie. Or it could be his grandfather pretending not to know he was interrupting when he happened upon them kissing behind Granny’s Diner. More likely it would be Sir Morgan, who seemed to have a gift for knowing exactly when things were heating up between his daughter and Henry.

He and Violet were usually able to laugh it off, but they were both looking forward to two whole days outside Storybrooke. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea of sneaking away from the group—and his parents—on the first day of the field trip, but if getting the notebook that had belonged to Violet’s father meant Henry and Violet would have time alone, he was all in.

Sir Morgan had seemed happy to be back when he and Violet first came to live in Storybrooke, but over the past year he’d become more and more withdrawn, saving what little enthusiasm he had for keeping Henry from being alone with Violet. Henry hated seeing the change in the stubborn, vital man who’d returned with them from Camelot, but most of all he hated seeing the sadness in Violet’s eyes and knowing there was nothing he could do about it.

It had been easy when she first came to Storybrooke. There had been so much she didn’t know: how to stream music and listen to it through headphones, how to buy things and make sure she got the right change, how to use the internet and a cell phone.

Now it was like she’d been there forever, and Henry had to admit he missed knowing she needed him. As if that wasn’t enough, there was the prospect of graduation the following year. Henry wished he could be as sure as Violet—who wanted to go to college—about his future, but the truth was, he didn’t know what he wanted to do next. He’d been in Storybrooke his whole life, and while college was the most obvious option, he wasn’t entirely sure it was for him.

The thought of him and Violet on different tracks was like a distant storm cloud hanging over their relationship. He tried not to dwell on it. Instead, he focused on what he knew—namely, that he loved Violet Morgan. He loved the way her cheeks turned pink when she was happy or excited and the way she bit her lip when she was thinking hard about something. He loved to watch her ride Nicodemus, how beautiful and free she looked when she took the horse through his exercises. He loved the way she talked, kind of fancy like she was still back in Camelot, and the kindness she showed to others. In fact, he couldn’t think of a single thing about her he didn’t like.

They would find a way to make their future work, whatever it held.

“Henry! Emma’s here!”

He zipped up his backpack and grabbed his duffel bag as Regina’s voice carried from downstairs. Having two moms was cool most of the time. He had two bedrooms in two houses and moved easily back and forth between them. Killian was there when Henry was on Mom overload, and his grandparents’ house was always available as an escape. All in all, his life was pretty awesome, and he had a spring in his step as he headed down the stairs.

“Hey, kid,” Emma said when he walked into the living room. “You ready for this?”

In her red jacket and black jeans, she was the opposite of Regina, who always wore tailored slacks and a blouse. It wasn’t the only way they were different. Emma had long blond hair, while Regina had shorter black hair. Emma was funny, while Regina was strict. Between the two of them, they covered all the parental bases. It had taken a long time to get to a place where they were family, but he felt lucky to have them both.

“Ready,” he said.

“You haven’t eaten breakfast,” Regina protested.

“I’m not hungry.”

She held out a brown paper bag. “I had a feeling you were going to say that. This should tide you and Violet over until you get to the city.”

Henry gave her a hug. “Thanks, Mom.”

“You’re welcome.” Regina looked at Emma. “You going to survive two whole days with those monsters?”

Emma laughed, and Henry cringed when she ruffled his hair like he was still ten years old. “It’s been a while since I’ve been up this early, but it’s going to be great. Killian can keep me company while Henry pretends not to know me.”

“Better you than me,” Regina said. “I’m going back to bed for more beauty sleep.”

“Speaking of Killian,” Emma said, “we should go. He’s probably changing all my radio stations again.”

Henry didn’t bother reminding her a transmitter and her phone could solve the never-ending bickering between her and Killian about the radio stations. He’d tried. Emma was old-school. She liked her yellow VW bug, and she liked her radio presets—even if it did mean reprogramming them every time Killian was alone in her car long enough to change them.

“I’m ready if you are,” Henry said.

“You sure you have everything you need for tonight?” Regina asked. “Your toothbrush? Your suit for the dinner cruise? Clean underwear?”

Henry’s face warmed with embarrassment. Why did his parents insist on acting like he was still a kid? “I’ve got everything, Mom. Geez.”

“I’m just checking,” she said, leaning in to give him a hug.

He submitted to a kiss on the cheek and then he and Emma headed for the car parked next to the curb.

The sky was just beginning to lighten in the east, and there was a hushed quality in the air as the world hovered between day and night. Henry was almost floating with the possibility of the day ahead.

“Don’t even try to pretend you didn’t change all the stations,” Emma said to Killian when she got in the driver’s seat.

“Who, me?” Killian said with a grin.

Henry rolled down the window as Emma started the car. The whole day stretched in front of him. He was going to help Violet get her father’s notebook. After that, they would hit as many of the city’s cheesy, touristy, romantic landmarks as they could before they were forced to rejoin the rest of Storybrooke High’s junior class for more cheesy touristy landmarks. By this time next week, Sir Morgan would be his old self, and Henry and Violet would be closer than ever.

Three

The parking lot was crowded with parents and students when Violet’s father pulled into one of the empty spots. A big tour bus stood at the curb and Violet could make out the shadows of the kids who were already moving down the aisle to claim the best seats. The air was filled with the electricity of expectation, a low hum traveling over the blacktop as everyone chatted excitedly about the day ahead.

“Thank you for the ride,” Violet said, leaning over to kiss her father on the cheek.

She would have preferred to drive herself, but he wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about letting her behind the wheel. She was half surprised he didn’t make her ride Nicodemus to get around. She’d been lucky to get a license at all.

“Would you like me to stay until you leave?” he asked.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m going to get on the bus anyway.”

He nodded. “Be careful, Violet. And call when you’re on your way home.”

Her father didn’t use a cell phone, but he never failed to pick up the landline when she called.

“I will.”

She slipped out of the car and closed the door, then offered him a last wave before turning toward the crowd. Storybrooke High wasn’t a very big school, but it was still hard to spot people she knew with everyone all jumbled together. It was a sea of parents and teachers, students and their younger siblings in pajamas who had been roused out of bed for the early morning drop-off.

Her instinct was to look for Henry first, and she scanned the crowd, searching for his brown hair and the corduroy jacket he wore almost everywhere.

There were Mr. Blankenship and Miss Pond, talking to the bus driver near Henry’s grandmother, who was looking down at a clipboard. A few feet away, Lizette and Sadie, Violet’s best friends and roommates for the overnight trip, were standing by the bus, Lizette on her phone while Sadie sifted through her bag. Violet was starting to wonder if Henry was running late when she spotted him standing between Emma and Killian.

His eyes lit up when he saw her, and she waited as he started across the blacktop. She brushed off the sense of relief that washed over her as he got closer. Most of the kids in Storybrooke had grown up together. It was natural to feel a little out of place, even after a couple of years. There was nothing wrong with relying on Henry.

“Hi,” she said when he reached her.

He smiled and bent to kiss her cheek, then glanced around. “Hi.”

She laughed. PDA was discouraged at school, but really he was looking for her father. “He already left.”

Henry reached out and took her overnight bag, lowering his voice as he leaned toward her. “Is it still there?”

She nodded, knowing he was referring to the notebook. “I checked before I left the house. It’s still on the website.”

He’d been the one who showed her how to set up alerts with search strings that might indicate her father’s notebook for sale. She’d begun to think it was nothing but a fantasy, that the book had been lost or destroyed somewhere in the past hundred and fifty years, when she’d gotten an alert on the listing at Back in the Day. Henry had been the first person she’d told.

“And you’re sure we shouldn’t call first?” he asked her now. “See how much it is?”

“I’m sure. If it’s out of my price range, I won’t have any leverage on the phone.”

“Yeah, but it’s going to be hard to use the family card in person,” Henry said. “You look a little young to have a father who was alive in 1887.”

“I’ve already thought about that. I’ll say Hank Morgan is an ancestor. I can’t prove it, but it will still be easier to convince someone when we’re face to face.”

Now that she’d said it out loud, she wasn’t so sure. Maybe Henry was right. What if they got all the way to the antiques store and she couldn’t afford the notebook? The price wasn’t listed on the website. If it was more than she’d saved, she would have to resort to convincing the seller she had an attachment to a distant ancestor.

Not exactly common for someone her age.

Plus, antiques dealers were businesspeople. It wasn’t as though they would give it to her at a discount simply because they felt sorry for her.

Henry took her hand. “You’re probably right. Come on.”

Doubt was still echoing in her mind as he led her through the crowd toward Emma and Killian.

“Good morning!” Emma said when she spotted them.

“Good morning,” Violet said.

Violet liked both of Henry’s moms and made a point to remind him how lucky he was when he got annoyed with them. Her mother had died when Violet was young, and Violet had no memory of her at all. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to have not one but two mothers. On the other hand, she had her father, and she wouldn’t have traded him for anything in the world, even when he was grumpy or sad.

“Ready to take a bite out of the Big Apple?” Killian asked her with a grin.

Emma rolled her eyes. “I hope you’re ready for lots of bad jokes, too.”

Violet smiled. “I’m ready for both.”

“Good answer,” Killian said with a wink.

“Emma!” They turned in unison to see Mary Margaret hurrying toward them. She looked down at the clipboard in her hands and blew her hair out of her eyes. “Someone miscounted. We have eight more kids than we expected.”

“Stowaways, eh?” Killian asked.

Mary Margaret didn’t look amused. “Can you take two more in your group?”

“No problem,” Emma said. “Just tell me who not to lose and we won’t lose them.”

Violet had to force herself not to cringe. Emma and Killian would be held responsible when she and Henry snuck off to get her father’s notebook. It wasn’t fair to them, and it wasn’t fair to Henry, either. He would get in a lot of trouble. She wondered if he would let her go alone, then quickly discounted the idea. Henry would never agree, and she wasn’t entirely sure she could navigate the city without him. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get her father’s notebook. She would just have to apologize after the fact and hope that Emma, Killian, and Mary Margaret would understand once she explained the reason for their escape.

“Great,” Mary Margaret said. She pulled a piece of paper off the clipboard and handed it to Emma. “You have six kids. No food allergies or special needs that we know of.”

Emma looked down at the list. “Got it.”

Mary Margaret took a deep breath and seemed to see Henry and Violet for the first time.

“Hi, Henry.” She touched his head and smiled at Violet. “Hello, Violet. How’s your father?”

“He’s well, thank you,” Violet said. “He said to tell you all hello.”

“We should probably get our seat before all the good ones are taken,” Henry said, lifting his duffel bag off the pavement near Emma’s feet.

“That sounds good,” Violet said.

Henry turned to his family. “See you on the bus.”

Emma raised her eyebrows. “Blowing us off in record time.”

Violet wanted to apologize for Henry but he was already leading her toward the bus.

“Don’t you think we should sit with your parents?” she asked as Henry dropped their overnight bags on the pavement with the others that would be stowed under the bus.

“What? No way,” Henry said. “They’re great and everything, but the whole point of today is to ditch the twenty-four-hour surveillance.”

She followed him up the stairs of the bus and down the narrow aisle, watching him consider the open seats. “And that’s what we’re going to do when we get there,” Violet pressed. “We could at least keep them company on the drive.”

He chose an empty seat in the middle of the bus and stepped aside so she could have the window. “If it will make you feel better, I’ll sit with them for some of the ride.”

“I’m sure your mom would appreciate it,” Violet said, sliding into the seat.

They got settled and Violet watched through the window as everyone else started moving toward the bus. Now that she’d talked to Emma, Killian, and Mary