The evil queen, named Regina, sends all the story characters to a seaside town, Storybrooke Maine, with the help of a curse made by Rumplestiltskin, which makes them forget who they really are. The inhabitants of the city have lived for 28 years isolated from the rest of the world without realizing that they are not aging. The only hope of the inhabitants is a young delinquent named Emma Swan, the daughter of Snow White and Handsome Boy. Emma was sent into the real world as a baby, before the Queen cast the curse on the realm of fairy tales. She is the only one who can break the curse with her son Henry, with whom she reunited (after giving him up for adoption when he was still a baby), and with the help of his storybook that reveals more and more secrets as he approaches breaking the curse. Henry is adopted by the Queen who holds the position of mayor of Storybrooke, which puts the two women at the center of a conflict.