It was the final box.
They'd been living in their current apartment for two years, but somehow it had managed to remain unpacked. Unlabeled, shoved into the corner of a rarely used coat closet that contained nothing but dusty shoes they never wore and board games they never played. Emma sat cross legged on the floor, the offending container resting in front of her, and ran a finger over the wrinkled tape that held it closed. It had never been cut open, not even just to rifle through on the search for something that was probably lost in the move. One of the corners was dented, crushed in from what was no doubt carelessness on the part of her teenage son, who had haphazardly tossed their belongings into the truck, eager to move on to the next stage of their lives.
It was also the last to-do for the Great Spring Cleaning. The end of May was approaching faster than she would have liked, and Emma planned to use her last day off to, for the first time in her life, actually finish Spring Cleaning before Spring ended. With a sigh she took an open pair of scissors to the tape, officially bringing herself and Henry into the phase of Actually Moved In.
Junk, She thought, a quiet laugh escaping under her breath It's all garbage. That explained why it had gone forgotten for so long. She pulled out item after item -- an old polka-dotted umbrella with a bent spoke, a hat that looked like a rain coat turned inside out that really should never have seen the light of day, a bag of Henry's old colored pencils. She stacked the items around herself and sorted them into little piles on the hardwood of her living room, sorting them by room, working steadily until she came to the bottom of the cardboard.
Underneath the rest of the items was a jewelry box, about the size of a sheet of paper, dressed in a soft white silk. The top was embroidered with a delicate thread, shades of blue depicting the silhouette of a girl in an elegant dress surrounded by detailed roses of every color. Tiny, glittering beads and pearls accented the design, forming a small crown atop the girl's head. A tree fo rich brown and green rose on either side of the design, branches meeting in the middle and entwining above her. She held a small lavender and violet rose in her hands, clasped at her chest.
It was beautiful, and Emma was certain she'd never seen it before.
She lifted it out of the box, finding it heavier than she expected, made of wood rather than plastic or the heavy paper that many jewelry boxes were constructed of. The lid was held down with a small but ornate gold clasp that was studded with what had to be tiny rhinestones, but were far to clear to be made of acrylic. Emma tilted her head, running a thumb over the clasp before popping it open.
To her disappointment, there was no jewelry inside. The extravagant exterior had some tiny part of her hoping to find a stash of diamonds of gold, despite the fact that there was no way for something like that to have made its way into a crushed box in the back of a coat closet. But then again, the jewelry box wasn't hers, and there was no way for it to have gotten there either.
It must be something of Henry's , she decided. Something he got for a girl. Maybe something he bought with his allowance back in Boston. She nodded to herself, resolving to ask her son about it when he got home. A slight pang of guilt went through her chest at rifling through something that could belong to her son, but curiosity won out in the end.
Sighing, she picked up the more interesting of the two items: A small pouch, made of a deep blue silk of the same texture as the embroidered cover of the lid, drawn closed with a glistening gold thread. It was nestled perfectly into the largest of the compartments of the jewelry box. It, too, was heavier than she expected.
Opening it, she dumped the contents into her palm and froze.
Cold patches of light reflected off the links and the glass of the face. This was the third time she had seen this particular one -- and somehow, she knew, it was the same exact one, as if the memories were imbued into the metalwork. She remembered the gold detailing of the otherwise silver links, the shape of the hands, but more importantly, she remembered tossing it into a gutter the moment she laid eyes on it for the second time.
It was a watch. One of the watches that Neal had convinced her to help steal. One of the watches that he'd let her take the fall for.
He'd left her multiple presents for when she was released from prison. Henry was the first, and by far her favorite. The bug was the second, clean VIN number and all, and she'd grown an attachment to it despite the hole its previous owner had left in her chest. The third was the watch, left in a velvet bag not unlike the one she'd found it in this time, stowed away in the glovebox to her to find. A thank you, probably, but in the moment it only seemed like rubbing salt in a barely healing wound. Looking back, she probably should have pawned it for the money that she so desperately needed at the time. In the moment, anger had kindled in her stomach. Anger that had layered on top of a painful fire that had been crackling for years. And so she chucked it into the gutter, watching as it floated with the rain and grime down a storm drain and into the sewers of the city.
Emma swallowed the memory, dumping the watch back into its pouch and setting it back into the box. What she would do with it was a problem for another time. Firmly pushing it to the back of her mind, she turned her attention towards the other item in the box: a folded manila envelope.. It looked out of place set next to the silken bag, resting atop the white velvet lined interior. The clasp was broken off, as if it had been bent closed and reopened over years, and the edges were weathered. A tiny hole had formed in one of the bottom corners. She lifted it from the box and unfolded it, carefully sliding what appeared to be a stack of photos from the inside.
Greetings From Storybrooke, Maine!
A cheery font glared back at her, set in front of an old-style painting of a clock tower against a blue skye.
"Storybrooke," She muttered to herself, flipping the postcard over. "Really?" The back of the card was blank, save for one word.
Broken.
"The clock is broken. Noted." She set the card aside, moving on to the next item in the stack.
The picture featured a crumbling well, surrounded by picturesque trees. A woman with a round face accented by a dark pixie cut stood beside it, leaning into a blonde man whose arms were wrapped around her. There was snow on the ground and they were both bundled in coats and gloves, but she was holding on to his arms, and they were gazing at one another with an expression that Emma could only describe as pure, unfiltered love. There was a grin on the woman's reddened face, and the man was smiling back at her, clearly lost to all surroundings but her. Something warm rose in her chest.
Still, the picture was a little too lovey-dovey for her, and she set it atop the post card. The next featured the same man, but this time it was set in a park, and the weather seemed warmer. He was dressed in a flannel rather than a coat, and he was gripping a crudely rendered wooden sword. There was a child in front of him, ten or so, with his back to the camera and a sword of his own in his hand. The boy's tousled brown hair and his short stature reminded Emma of Henry when he was younger, and she felt the corners of her mouth twitch into a smile.
I guess everything in that town is old, even the hobbies, she mused, shuffling the picture to the back of the stack and moving on to the next.
It was a group photo. There were probably fifteen people in the shot, crammed up by the bar of an old fashioned diner. And in the center, was her.
Or, at least, someone who looked like her. Or maybe a photo taken in one of the towns she and Henry passed through on their way to find a more permanent residence. She probably just didn't remember, probably hadn't been sleeping much at the time. They passed through Maine once, four years ago on a mother son road trip where they had crossed paths with plenty of strange people. It was probably from back then.
That's what she told herself, at least, until she saw the boy to the right of her in the photo, his arm around her shoulder.
Henry. Only, he was old.
Well, not old old. But a teenager. He'd gone through a growth spurt recently, shooting up six inches and developing features that were more suited to a man than a boy. But that had been only a couple of months ago, and with the way he looked, the picture in her hand could have been taken yesterday.
The pixie-haired woman from the first picture was there, to the left of photo-Emma, who was sitting in one of the stools. The woman was leaning her head on the blonde woman's shoulder in way that she knew only Henry would be allowed to do. That same man stood beside her, arms around the dark haired woman's shoulder again, hand dangling casually off of Emma's shoulder beneath the woman's head and overlapping slightly with Henry's. Perched behind them on the bar was a slim woman with red streaks in her hair, leaning in towards an elderly lady who stood behind the counter, a rag thrown over her shoulder. There was a dark haired, devilish looking man in a heavy leather coat standing in front of the bar to the left of where the red-streaked woman was sitting, leaning with one arm on the bar. Instead of a hand, a silver hook hung from under his sleeve. Something stirred in the back of her mind -- a mix of regret and confusion that she didn't quite understand, combined with the sheer weird that came from seeing someone in what was essentially a pirate costume in an otherwise -- somewhat, besides her and Henry's unexplained presence -- photo.
Maybe he thought it was a costume party.
There were more people in the photo, and as Emma glanced over each of them, she felt something new twist in her mind, like a feeling she couldn't quite grasp. Like watching a movie -- sympathising with the heroine, but nevertheless never feeling what she felt.
A man in a bar stool a couple seats to the right of Emma, seated so he was facing the center of the photo, head turned to the camera: Fear. Awe. Annoyance, oddly enough. His brown hair hung lank to his shoulders, a cane tilted against the counter to his side. His arm hung around a petite brunette, whose smile was contagious. For her, there was something warm. Happiness; the sense of being curled under a blanket on rainy day. There was even a nun, off in the corner of the picture, posed next to a man Emma could only describe as a dwarf.
And then, there was the woman to the right of Henry.
She was on the next bar stool over from Emma. Henry stood between them, taller than them both, with an arm slung around each of their shoulders. He had them pulled close, so that either woman had their head resting slightly against his shoulders. Her left hand was clasped affectionately to the arm that Henry had wrapped around her.
Emma swallowed, eyes fixed on this picture of a woman she'd never seen before, yet who seemed as close to her son as she was.
She was beautiful. The woman's skin was smooth and tanned, her hair a sleek black that was cropped to her shoulders and perfectly styled. She was clad in a tailored blue business casual skirt and blazer, high heels at the end of her crossed legs. Her lips were painted a dark pink and her makeup was severe, yet the expression on her face was anything but. Emma could just barely make out a small scar on the top of her upper lip.
As she stared at her, Emma felt the same odd sensation at the back of her brain. A mix of nostalgia and wonder, only more intense than she had experienced looking at the others. A wave of regret took her, accompanied by flashes of something, a cloying purple that surrounded her. Longing stirred in her stomach, but butterflies accompanied it, fluttering anxiety and impatience. Excitement.
Emma took a shaky breath and flipped the photo over, not sure what to think. A picture she didn't remember taking, full of people who brought with them flashes of emotions she didn't understand. She was about to shuffle it to the back when she noticed a single word scrawled on the back. She recognized the handwriting as her own: loopy and somewhat elegant, yet hard to read.
Family.
She traced the letters with the tip of a fingernail, brow furrowed.
Henry was the only family she had. There were people that she was close to, sure, friends, but not family. Not even a found family. There was just her, and her son.
So who were these people, who she apparently met within the past few months, who she couldn't remember, but yet felt close enough to to call family?
"Hi mom!"
The slamming of the front door jolted her out of her daze, and she shoved the stack, offending photo on top, back into the envelope. She shoved the whole packet back into the box, pushing it away from herself and attempting to look busy with the random junk that still laid around her.
"Hey, kid. How was school?" Emma asked. She usually shared everything with her son, but this was just too strange.
"Okay. Nothing special," He replied, and Emma heard the thud of his backpack hitting the floor. "Hey, who's that?" He asked, and Emma turned to see him staring at the floor beside her.
The picture of the man and woman at the well still rested on the floor next to her, and Emma snatched it up and shoved it into the jewelry box.
"Nothing," She said, fighting to keep her tone casual. "Stock photo. I was just cleaning out the last box we had in here. It was in an old frame," She explained, gesturing to the beaten cardboard in front of her.
"Oh. Okay." Henry's gaze lingered on her for a second too long but then he shrugged, wandering over to the pantry for an after school snack. "So, we had this substitute teacher at school, and she…" Henry launched into a recap of his day, and Emma smiled, as she listened, genuinely interested in what he had to say. Still, the photos nagged at her, and she stopped him after a moment, saying that she had to use the restroom, but she'd be back in a minute. She lifted the jewelry box from the floor while he wasn't looking and snuck it to her bedroom, tucking it in a dresser drawer for safekeeping.
There were still more photos in the stack, and later, once her son was tucked away in bed, she planned to go through them, hoping they might hold some answers.