Once Upon a Time: Ever After High (Book 12)

Ch.77 Hidden truth

That evening, Rachel Fox made her way down the sidewalk with her to go drink in her hand as she entered Mr. Gold's Antique Shop where she saw her boyfriend Andy Darwin at the counter on his phone with a box of plastic golden apples next to him.

"Is this what you do everyday?" she asked with a smirk "Go on social media instead of working?"

"Well I'm about to leave so this doesn't count" he smirked back as she gave a small giggle before walking up to him and giving him a small peck on the lips.

"So you ready to go?" she asked.

"Yeah let me just put these away real quick."

He picked up the box of plastic apples and moved them to a shelf where he began to store them.

"Have you ever wanted to try a golden apple?" he suddenly asked while examining one of the plastic apples.

"I have thought of it, but I'm not really into becoming immortal."

"You know not all golden apples give you immortality."

"I know but, it's kind of hard to tell which one do."

"Yeah" he agreed as he finished stocking the apples "You know I don't know why my dad wants me to stock these, there's just plastic apples."

"That happen to be very pretty for decorations" she put in when a thought came to her "Hey uh, quick question. Are you really okay for calling Mr. Gold your dad? Even after finding out who he really is and the things he's done?"

Andy gave a deep sigh.

"I don't know Rache" he muttered "I mean he is the one who took care of me so I'm used to calling me my dad, but now that I think of it, I might be better off without him."

"You think he'll be okay with that?"

"He's the Dark One" he frowned "The only person he truly cares about is himself."

"I can't argue with that" she sighed.

"I'll try to talk to him about it someday, until then let me close up."

Rachel waited outside as Andy locked up the shop as they began down the sidewalk.

"Hey do you still think about what happened in your past when your mother thought you were dead but you ended up being not?" she suddenly asked.

"Of course, I think about it whenever I can. I just don't understand how she thought I was dead, and yet here I am, alive and well."

"Have you tried to find out?"

"I've been trying since I found out the truth, but since my mom's dead and I don't know who the hell my real father is, I'm pretty much stumped. Not even Mr. Gold has anything that can help me."

"Man" she sighed disappointed "This sucks, I really wanna know too."

"Yeah like I wanna know what caused your dad and my mother to break up before we came along?"

"I know" she agreed with a wondering look "I mean they seemed to be so in love in the story, but I had no idea what happened that caused them to split up."

"Although, if they hadn't of split up, we wouldn't have been here."

"For the record Andy" she put in a slight frown "You wouldn't be here, Eros adopted me remember?"

"Oh right" he replied "Sorry, I forget sometimes that you were adopted."

"Don't worry, I forget too sometimes."

"So uh, do you have any ideas on how we can find out the truth?"

"Sadly no" she sighed "I mean we can try to talk to Brooke, but she's been very distant lately."

"What do you mean?"

"I haven't been seeing her around lately, and from what I've heard, she's been acting pretty weird, like suspicious weird."

"That's odd" he raised an eyebrow "Wonder what's going on with her?"

"Never mind we'll ask her when we can, in the meantime, do you at least have any theories?"

"Well-" he began to think "For starters I think that someone put a curse on my mom when she was pregnant which made me appear dead when I was born, thus causing all of this to happen."

"That's a possibility, or perhaps you were just born that way so that your mother thought you were dead. It's happened before, sometimes babies are born appearing dead and the parents don't even know it."

"Perhaps" he nodded "But I guess we'll never know."

All of a sudden Rachel came to a stop when a thought came to her.

"Actually-" she spoke "What if there is a way?"

"What do you mean? How?"

"The Dreamcatcher, it has the ability to show someone's past, perhaps I can show up what happened to our parents."

"But I thought the person's past who you're trying to see has to be there in order for it to work."

"I know but, what if we touch it together? I mean we never met back in the Fairytale world, maybe if we touch it together it can show us our parent's past?"

Any just stood there, not knowing what to think of this idea.

"You'll think it'll work?" he questioned.

"No" she sighed "But we gotta try."

"And if it doesn't work?"

"Then we'll have to find some other way."

"And what if the other way is to go down to the Underworld and find my mom?"

The sound of that sent a pit to Rachel's stomach, remembering all the problems she and her friends went through the last time they visited the Underworld.

"I really hope not" she admitted a bit nervously "I never really want to go back considering what happened last time."

"Oh" he replied, knowing what she meant.

"And besides" she added "If your mother really did know what happened, she would of told me before."

"Oh right."

She gave another sigh "I'm sorry Andy, we will find out what happened."

"And if not then I guess we'll just have to live not knowing the truth" he sighed back.

Seeing the sadness in his eyes, Rachel reached her hand over and gently rubbed his arm.

"We will find out" she promised "I know it."