Skeleton Keys

The Skeleton Keys are items featured on ABC's Once Upon a Time. They first appear in the seventh episode of the first season.

Before the Curse
It is unknown how or when the Evil Queen the key, but it is written in a book that she uses it to open any door. The key is first used by the Evil Queen to open a box that contains the Agrabahn Vipers. She tells the Genie of Agrabahn that she is going to kill herself from the bite of a poisonous Agrabahn viper, he stops her and offers to kill the king instead, so that they can be together forever. However, it is revealed that the Evil Queen never love him and specifically chooses the Vipers in order to frame him. Later, one of the key was stolen by the Huntsman, who was trapped under the Queen's order because she has his heart to unlock Prince Charming's cuff in order to free him.

During the Curse
Early on, after the casting of the curse, the Evil Queen's counterpart mayor Regina Mills assumes complete control and watch on Storybrooke's residents by having a chain of keys that allow her access to any door in town. The keys also open a crypt that leads to her vault where she keeps a collection of hearts that mimics her collection from the Enchanted Forest. She uses these keys to withdraw Graham's heart when she realizes he is no longer of any use to her as he is beginning to side with Emma. Regina instigates Kathryn finding out about her husband, David and the town schoolteacher, Mary Margaret are having an affair. Kathryn comes to terms that she and David have never been in love, and says her goodbyes to Regina as she prepares to leave for Boston. She mentions to Regina she will support David and Mary Margaret staying together, and has left him a note. This becomes an obstacle in Regina's grand plan to separate David and Mary Margaret, so she breaks into David's house using the keys and steals the letter so he will never read it. Later, Regina burns it with a lighter. Mr. Gold and Regina make a deal to help each other out so the opposite parties can be satisified. Mr. Gold wants Regina's help to drop the charges against him for assaulting Moe French, and in return he advises Regina a solution to separating David and Mary Margaret is to make something tragic happen to Kathryn, so Mary Margaret will be blamed. He also says it'd be a good idea that once Mary Margaret is arrested and held in the sheriff's department jail cell to hide a key so she will use the opportunity to escape.

Mary Margaret is accused of harming Kathryn, who has disappeared from town with her car mysteriously found at the town border. Regina's adoptive son, Henry steals the keys from her office and persuades Emma to try out one key to see if it opens Mary Margaret's apartment. She picks a random key from the chain, and surprisingly, the key opens the door.

At the sheriff's office jail cell where Mary Margaret is held as a suspect, she is making her bed cot when she discovers a key underneath. The skull-emblazoned key is able to unlock the door to her cell. She hides the key when Emma walks in to give her breakfast and bad news. She confirms that the DNA from the heart is a match for Kathryn; therefore, the case against Mary Margaret is going through. Unwilling to submit to being guilty when she is innocent, Mary Margaret uses the key and escapes from her cell during the night. The charges against Mary Margaret are dropped when Kathryn turns up alive. August Booth helps installs a new lock on Mary Margaret's door, and she comments that she is relieved as long as the lock keeps Regina from using her "skeleton keys" to get into their apartment. Mary Margaret and Emma also believe that Regina used these keys to break in and plant the evidence to frame Mary Margaret. Upset that Regina broke her deal with him to assist him in getting his daughter back after he helped her retrieve an item from his hat, Jefferson decides to take payback by exposing one of her secrets to Mr. Gold. Jefferson poses as a hospital orderly and plants sedatives in the nurse's tea so he can get past her into the asylum ward. He snatches the keys to the asylum cells, and unlocks one to free a patient. He urges her to find Mr. Gold and tell him that Regina has been holding her prisoner.

After the Curse
Emma and Mary Margaret are sucked into the Enchanted Forest by Jefferson's hat while trying to rid the town of a dangerous creature. Henry desperately wants them back, and makes up an excuse to meet up with Regina at the diner for lunch. While she unsuspectedly goes to meet him there, Henry sneaks into her office and steals the keys. He manuvers his way into the crypt and then into the vault to look for something that might help to bring them back. Regina is struggling to change for Henry, and it means giving up on magic. She has been seeing Dr. Hopper in therapy sessions, but leaves abruptly after getting emotional speaking about her past lost love, Daniel, who she could never let go of. She preserved his body in her vault as a way of keeping him close though he is dead.

On the rainy drive home, Regina sees hallucinatory figure of Daniel. Unsure, she goes to the vault to make sure, and discovers Daniel's body missing from his glass bier. She suspects Dr. Whale has done something, and hurries to the hospital, and unlocks a door to search for him.

Appearances
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