It was like watching a movie. The memories came in chronological order. Flashes of light, a face here or there. Up they would flash, and then they were gone. Emma tried to grab hold of them, keep them in her view, watch the movie for as long as possible, but it was like all the movies were jostling for space, arguing about who should be shown first and for how long.
Emma knew the day she arrived. She had watched it from the video. This time she is behind the camera as Kevin is reprimanded. She is there when Kevin comes back, and threatens to make her life a living hell.
Later that night, she attempts to escape. The light flicks on and Ingrid tells her not to go. She tries to convince her to stay, to tell her that someone now cares for her, but Emma doesn't care. She is ready to go. But then Ingrid mentions Kevin's deathly fear of any spider, even the rubber ones she keeps in her desk, in the drawer, on the right, behind the box of stapes. Poor Kevin. Emma finds herself agreeing to stay.
On the word spider a new memory flickered to the front. Emma and Ingrid crept along the white corridor of the house, silently. Emma's belly is full of hot cocoa, so it was the same night as when she tried to escape. In Emma's hand she has a small rubber spider,no bigger than the size of her thumb. She smiles to herself and to Ingrid. Ingrid opens a door silently. Inside, on the bottom bunk, lies a snoring Kevin. Emma creeps inside, Ingrid behind her all the time as they edge closer to Kevin's chubby red cheeks.
In all honesty she doesn't like spiders much either, but this Emma knows that she could get Kevin back. This Emma is dying for her revenge. She dumps the fake spider on Kevin's chest and nudges him. After a loud snort he wakes up. His eyes fall on the spider, they widen before Kevin lets out the loudest, highest scream Emma has ever heard. Kevin jumps up, pushing the fake spider away, still screaming. All the other foster children in the house run to the door. Soon, everyone is laughing, but Ingrid and Emma laugh the most. They laugh and they laugh and they laugh all the way back to Emma's room and collapse on her bed, still laughing, holding each other close whilst their bellies ache from laughter.
The memory fizzled out, leaving Emma feeling guiltily happy. She squirmed on her bed. Should she be feeling this? Was it right to say that once, she had actually liked the Snow Queen? The woman who now kept her trapped in a castle, in a fake land that she didn't know.
But Emma didn't have time to consider this before another memory wriggled its way to the front of her mind.
Emma is holding a bowl. Ingrid is whisking some eggs yolks and sugar.
"Can you check that mixture?" Ingrid calls. Emma sticks her finger into it and licks it dry.
"Tastes good." She says, sticking her finger back again. Ingrid comes up behind her. The mixing is finished.
"Don't eat it all." She scolds jokingly
"How did you finish the mixing so quickly?" Emma asks
"Oh..." Ingrid fumbles with her spoon, dropping it on the ground "Tricks of the trade, I guess."
"You make ice cream a lot?" Emma queries
"Every summer, especially when I was a kid. I introduced my family to it." Ingrid smiles and puts the bowl down before she drops it
"I thought you didn't have a family." Emma replies
"Ah." Ingrid sits down. "I don't have a family, anymore. When I was a kid I had a family, but they disowned me, when I got cold."
"Cold?" Emma sits next to Ingrid at the table
"Cold." Ingrid smiles. "I screwed them over Emma. I was a rubbish sister, so I'm making up for it by giving other people a home."
Ingrid tips the mixtures together and puts them in the freezer. Then she takes out another bowl and gives it to Emma.
"Here's one I made earlier." She winks and Emma sticks her finger in to the gooey vanilla mix, and smiles. There is a shout upstairs and Ingrid goes to sort out whatever fight had been going on.
Emma ate some more of the ice cream before wondering what had happened upstairs and putting it back. Whilst she thinks up possible theories of Kevin terrorising the new kid, John, she puts the bowl back. WHat Emma doesn't realise is there is no other bowl inside, and the one she was holding was identical to the one Ingrid had poured the ice cream they made together in.
In hindsight, Emma laughed at this. At her naivety, and how stupid Ingrid had been to almost let herself be found out. It was funny, she thought as she watched the daily life of the people of fake Arendelle, that warning bells had never gone off in her head. But beofre she could consider it further, another memory washed over her.
She's dancing around the wooden kitchen table, shaking her head and rocking out. Emma found some old records stored in a box under the sofa, along with an old record player. She recognised Michael Jackson immediately, and pulled it out. Now, whilst dancing and singing, rather atrociously, to Billie Jean, Ingrid lets herself into the house and laughs as she finds Emma alone, dancing in the kitchen.
"What did you find Emma?" Ingrid laughs as she puts down her groceries on the table near to where Emma is dancing. Emma turns down the music.
"I found all your old records. I had no idea you loved 80s music so much!" Emma grins
"It was a good era." Ingrid concedes
"It's the only era you've got!" Emma takes Ingrid's hand and pulls her into the living room, where records have been discarded across the floor as Emma tried to find something she wanted to play. "Don't worry, I'll clean up." Emma insists and kneels down.
Ingrid looks at her collection and smiles as Emma leafs through countless albums that she purchased.
"Why didn't you show me before?" Emma asks. She's going through a box of music from 1980, two years before she was transported to this land.
"I had no idea you were interested..." Ingrid kneels beside Emma, who has just reached the end of the box. At the bottom lies one record, it's cover is baby pink and it has blue snowflakes decorating the border. Ingrid reaches down to grab it, but Emma gets there first.
"Oooh! What's this..." She turns the record over. "The greatest folklore of Arendelle..." She reads off the back.
Ingrid is quick to snatch the record away. She hugs it close to her chest.
"Emma," Ingrid is kind but sharp with her words as she stands up "I don't want you going through this stuff anymore. Put it away."
"But..." Emma sighs
"Put it away."
Arendelle. Emma knew she had heard that name before Elsa turned up in Storybrooke. Now she had the memory to go with it. Ar-ren-delle Emma tried out the words on her tongue before she is consumed by yet another memory.
Emma could feel her insides warming. They were snuggled under a blanket. Hot cocoa in hand, wrapped around each other as a film began on the TV.
Cinderella
"Ooh! A classic!" Emma says. "I don't think I've seen this one."
"You haven't seen Cinderella?" Ingrid looks shocked
"No..."
"Lucky you, this is better than the others."
"Nothing can beat Snow White. I feel an emotional connection with her." Emma smiles. Emma watches as Ingrid's face hardens. Then, she forces herself to laugh.
"Okay, honey. But these are just fairy tales." Ingrid says, overtly cautiously.
For a while, they watch the film in silence, sipping the mugs of cocoa and enjoying the frolics of a girl who can't be free.
"What would you do if fairy tales were real?" Emma says suddenly. Ingrid looks worried, but masks it incredibly well.
"I'm sure Walt Disney would have a field day." Ingrid replies quietly, clutching her mug of cocoa harder than before.
"I bet they are real, I bet they live in a far off land, only accessible by...by..."
"Portals."
"Yeah, portals." Emma shrugs. There is another silence, and Emma goes back to watching the film.
"Why?" Ingrid asks
"Why what?"
"Why the sudden interest in fairy tales? Do you...do you...remember something?" Ingrid touches Emma's shoulder cautiously
"Remember?!" Emma laughs "What do you mean remember?! These are stories! Don't tell me you believe them!"
"Oh no, of course not!" Ingrid tries to chuckle, but ends up coughing instead.
Emma's head was spinning. A few more memories came back. Adoption papers. A car. A funfair. But Emma couldn't make sense of them. Her head was spinning, her emotions were tied. How should she feel? Who is Ingrid really?
Emma passed out before she could even address any of her feelings.