A woman with a troubled past is drawn into a small town in Maine where the magic and mystery of Fairy Tales just may be real.

The story is set in the small town of Storybrooke, Maine. The town is populated by characters from fairy tales, who have been exiled to the real world due to a curse cast by the Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla) as part of a revenge plot against Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin), and Prince Charming (Josh Dallas). Because of the curse, most of the inhabitants of Storybrooke have no memory of their true identities and have been stuck timelessly in Storybrooke for years.

This changes when Henry (Jared S. Gilmore), the adopted son of Storybrooke's Mayor Regina Mills, seeks out his birth mother, Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison), a bounty hunter living in Boston and coerces her to come to Storybrooke.

Henry, who knows about the curse from a book given him by his teacher Mary Margaret Blanchard, informs Emma that she is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming and that she is destined to break the curse holding everyone in Storybrooke. Skeptical, Emma decides to stay in Storybrooke after seeing how lonely Henry is and how he is emotionally neglected by his mother