Once Upon a Time in Storybrooke - OUAT DR

Chapter 14 - Miner's Day

There were a lot of peculiar people in Storybrooke. And the one place everyone convened was Granny's Diner.

One of the common breakfast patrons at Granny's Diner was Leroy, the custodian I had met while helping Graham find David a few months back. Leroy was coined as the "town drunk" in our small town, and he sat at the same barstool every morning and ate the same breakfast. He was always in a piss poor mood and wasn't someone you wanted to cross – if for no other reason than his bad mood rubbing off on you for the rest of the day.

I was perched up in my favorite booth with Emma when Mary Margaret came in carrying a clipboard and made an announcement to the breakfast rush at Granny's. Apparently, some local town tradition was happening – Miner's Day – today in which the nuns sell their homemade candles to the good people of Storybrooke and they needed some volunteers. 

Unfortunately, with her affair being the biggest piece of town gossip the last three days, nobody wanted to associate with her so the volunteer sheet remained empty. The look on her face before she turned and left... She just looked defeated. Utterly defeated, as if she had personally singlehandedly ruined whatever the hell Miner's Day was.

She walked out, but Emma and I went after her, catching up quickly. Emma asked if we could join her and what Miner's Day was. Mary explained that it was an annual holiday celebrating an old tradition - the nuns used to make candles and trade them with the miners for coal. Emma pointed out the weirdness of coal in Maine. Lobster, maybe, but not coal. I laughed but Mary just responded exasperatedly that she didn't know, they use it as a fundraiser every year, it's an amazing party, and everyone loves it. I think back to the reaction of everyone at Granny's and mention it doesn't sound like everyone loves it, but she just blames it on herself – about what happened with David.

I was surprised to find that 10 of her volunteers had canceled since the news emerged, and some even had told her it was because of the David situation. We talked as we walked and Emma assured her it was going to blow over, but that charity wasn't going to win people's hearts if that's why she was doing this. Emma got a call and had to run for some official police business. She told Mary Margaret to let her know if there's anything she can do to help she will. After Emma headed off I grabbed the clipboard from her, signed my name, and told her I'd volunteer with her, I had nothing else to do.

We headed over to the church where there were tons of little booths set up all around in front of the building– honestly, it really was really cute. Mary Margaret and I made our way to the Volunteer Center to sign me up and get my assignment. One of the nuns led me away from Mary Margaret at the volunteer table and took me down to the booth outside where they wanted me to sell candles.

The booth was a little lacking, so I did my best to set up a cute candle display to show off the candles the nuns made. Once I was done setting it up a few people walked by, almost seeming interested, but Mary Margaret and Leroy came down to the booth and everyone scattered to other booths. Leroy, the town drunk, had decided to volunteer to sell candles for nuns. 

Ok. Sure. Fine. That's completely normal. 

Our efforts were in vain – nobody would come near our booth while Mary and Leroy were there. Leroy noticed the same thing and proposed they go door to door – people would pay them just to get out of their doorways. I let them go on and volunteered to man the booth while they went, but the damage had already been done. Most everyone had seen them at the booth and nobody wanted to come near it. 

After a while I noticed Emma walking around. I waved her down and she came over to the booth. I asked her what was going on and she told me Kathryn was missing – her school in Boston had called and she'd missed registration this morning – the call she'd taken earlier had been about Kathryn's car being wrecked right at the edge of town. 

Weird, just like Ashley's car when she was trying to flee Storybrooke, I thought to myself as I listened. 

She was looking for someone and finally spotted them, saying goodbye and heading off in their direction. The person she had been looking for? Sidney Glass. So, she was still trusting him. I glared after her and her decision to ignore my warnings about Sidney, trying not to take it personally.

I went back to trying (and failing) to sell candles. One of the nuns came by and helped me at the booth. She was nice, and she let me go off to explore the festival for a bit. Mary Margaret found me and explained they hadn't sold a single candle and all of their plans had fallen through. She was heading to Granny's for a much-needed drink. I still had a couple of hours under my volunteer shift and was shackled to the grounds where Miner's Day was being held. I returned to the booth, worried about Mary but none of my words seemed to get through to her, and I had to let her decide when to ask for help.

As the sun set the area began to glow – the lights beautiful and warm – lighting up the night. The entire area had been decorated with warm white lights. It was almost the end of my volunteer shift when all the lights surged and went out, the entire area being bathed in darkness. 

I started lighting a few candles around the booth, making our booth the only one with any light. People began to flock to the booth, asking to buy candles. Mary Margaret and Leroy rushed to the booth and we started selling candles faster than we could grab them. Before we knew it we had sold every last candle there was to sell.

We celebrated and Mary Margaret sent Leroy over to talk to one of the nuns. Once he was gone she quickly explained everything between Astrid the nun and Leroy as we blew out the candles and made a sold-out sign for the booth.

Candles sold out and spirits higher, I looped arms with Mary and we strolled around to look at everything there was to see at Miner's Day. We both grabbed a candle we had set aside and as we were walking Granny stopped Mary and lit her candle, and then Mary lit mine, and I could see that the moment with the old woman touched her, and was grateful to Granny once again.

Things were going really well until we noticed David being walked and put into the back of Emma's police car.

Well, shit.