Helpless

Prologue

  I didn't ask for this.
  Being abandoned as a child in the Enchanted Forest wasn't exactly the perfect lifestyle. Wandering across regions, wiped memories, and eventually stumbling upon another realm. It wasn't easy. But somehow I made it through.
  Okay, let me back up. You should know my story from the beginning.
  I was found as a baby abandoned in a river, wrapped tightly in a lilac blanket with my name, Audrey, printed across it in light blue cursive letters. Somehow I was spotted by a young maiden, and she took me in with her husband. They raised me until I was about nine, but her husband was awful. As I got older, he got more and more impatient. You see, he was an alcoholic. Every night he came home from the pub drunker than a pirate, and he would release rage on his wife and I. I grew to love her very much. She always stood by me and tried her best to protect me from him. Her name was Katrina. And his name was Brom.
  Yeah, that's right. I floated all the way to Sleepy Hollow.
  Katrina quickly became a motherly figure to me, but Brom was never anything more than a bastard. I despised him for what he did to me and my adoptive mother.
  One day, after he finished throwing glass bottles at us and passed out, Katrina pulled me into her and Brom's bedroom and told me to run. I didn't want to leave her there with him, but she told me I needed to get out of that place. She quickly bandaged my hand and shoulder that had been cut by bottles as I cried and told her I didn't want to leave her. She told me it was what was best, and that she wanted to give me my best chance. She handed me enough gold to survive for a week, a magic bean to transport to a different realm, and gave me directions to her old friend's house in a place called New York.
  I sobbed quietly, careful to not wake Brom, and she held me in her arms. She told me the glass would probably give me scars, and to remember that they were a sign of strength. She told me she loved me, and led me outside. She told me to follow the river, and only use the bean after I'd followed the stream for two sunsets. I begged her to come with me, but she told me she needed to stay with Brom. She pulled an invisibility cloak over my shoulders to hide me from the Headless Horseman, and I could see the tears in her eyes. Right before I took off, she unlatched the necklace from her neck and dropped it into my hand. She told me that it was from my birth mother, that it was in the basket I was floating in and she wore it to make sure it was protected until I was old enough to hold onto it. She told me one last time that she loved me, and that was the last I saw of Katrina Van Tassel.
  Unfortunately, the Horseman's steed sniffed me out. He chased me for hours before I finally swung behind a tree to hide and led him astray. I fell asleep and when I woke up, I realized I wasn't in Sleepy Hollow anymore. The entire place was unfamiliar. It was a small village, and the people were very friendly. I met a young boy there, named Baelfire. We instantly connected. Over just two days we became best friends. I stayed with him and his father, Rumplestiltskin. They were a lovely family, and Baelfire told me about his mother who abandoned his father for a pirate and was killed. I told him about my mother and her husband, how he abused us and my mother told me to escape. Baelfire didn't want me to go. He asked me to stay with him and his father, but I just couldn't. I ended up staying with them for a week as opposed to just two days, but Katrina wanted me to go to the other realm. So I left. I opened the portal and fell down it.
  I woke up in a foster home with no memories. They told me they found me in the forest, unconscious. They told me all I had on me was a vintage looking slip and I was wrapped in a blanket with Audrey inscripted on it. I accepted that as my name and lived in the foster home for around a month. Ever since then I've been on the run.
  Every foster family I stayed with hated me. They disliked not knowing who I came from or where I came from or why I was in the middle of the forest. They thought I was too suspicious. So I left. When I was eleven, I found a recently abandoned house on the edge of a place called Long Island in New York. I made it to where Katrina wanted me to go, though I didn't know due to my missing memories.
  One night, as I sat in the dank basement of the abandoned house surrounded by my blanket and the few possessions I'd managed to pick up (or steal) from my foster homes, I remembered the necklace around my neck. I unhooked it from around my neck and looked at it. It's a red glass apple on a silver chain. It's quite beautiful. I wonder why my mother would've given me something like this and then abandon me.
  The house was discovered when I was thirteen. I escaped right before I was caught, and I went on the run again. I tried not to steal, but sometimes it was all I could do to stay alive. A few times I even picked up gross, drunk, newly legal guys at bars only to get to their apartments, knock them unconscious and wipe their memories before taking as much cash as I could find, once even care keys, and bolting. I didn't take the car keys until I was fourteen though.
  The things I stole held me over. I bought food and sometimes clothes with the money I stole and slept in the car, which was actually a really nice red Corvette. I never got caught for stealing it, or driving without a license and underage. I picked up on driving quickly. I made sure to keep careful on the road and not to draw attention to myself.
The day I turned 15, while I was eating in a diner, I put all my clues to my birth mother on the table in front of me. My blanket, my necklace, and a ring that I'd never noticed on my finger. It was just a simple silver hoop, but it must've been from my past life. That was the day I decided I was going to find my birth mother. And that day was yesterday.
  Welcome to the present.