Though the flock of birds following the family on their hike continued to grow, Emma was happy to note that no other woodland creatures attempted to join them. Well, one squirrel did hop behind them for a while but Emma couldn't be sure whether that was due to her mother, the reluctant animal whisperer, or if it was just coincidence. No matter the reason, when the squirrel turned off the trail and darted back into the trees, Emma let out a breath of relief.
The path they'd chosen wound through trees, around brush, and even ran a quarter-mile alongside a brook that led who knew where. Henry cast disappointed glances at the babbling water a few times before finally heaving a sigh. "If I had a change of socks with me, I'd totally walk right in that thing."
Emma allowed a smile. She remembered a day long ago when she'd waded in a brook very similar to the one beside her. Of course, she and her foster siblings had spent more time kicking water at each other than they had peacefully wading through the brook, but that was somehow beside the point.
That had been on the good day of her camping trip … before everything got shot to hell.
The path eventually veered away from the brook, causing another disappointed frown to cross Henry's face. "Can we follow the water?" he asked as he turned to face his mother, already prepping for Stage One Puppy Dog Eyes.
It was getting late, Emma realized with a small sigh. A breeze had begun to run through the trees. The sun was getting lower in the sky, and the faint rumbling of hunger in Emma's stomach told her that it was coming up on dinnertime. "Another day, kid," she promised. "I'd rather not get too far off the path. I don't know about you, but I'm getting hungry."
In a turn of events that surprised absolutely no one, Henry allowed a brief moment of thought before saying, "Actually, now that you mention it, I'm getting hungry, too."
"You don't say," Emma smirked. An eleven-year-old boy was always hungry.
"If I'm not mistaken, this trail is a loop," David assured his family. "We've probably got another half-mile or so before we circle back to the campsite."
"A half-mile?" Henry asked. "That's a piece of cake."
"Oh, thanks for that," Emma muttered, nudging her son's shoulder. "Now I want cake."
Everyone save Emma chuckled as they followed the path away from the brook. The half-mile passed under their feet quickly, and before Emma had the time to think of another joke, she could see their chosen campsite through the trees.
Henry darted ahead, eager to find small, thick logs to use as fuel wood for the fire. Emma had to resist the strong urge to shout after him to stay in sight. She hadn't even realized she'd quickened her pace in an effort to catch up with him until her mother latched onto her hand and tugged her to a stop. "He's all right, Emma," she murmured, her soft voice filled with sympathy and comfort.
She nodded, swallowing hard and setting her shoulders against her anxiety. Then, with her eyes fixed on her son, she shook her hand from her mother's as they walked forward and emerged through the trees into the clearing.
By silent agreement, it was decided that Henry and David would get the campfire going while Emma and Snow set up the grill. Emma had absolutely no objection to that; she'd had horrible luck starting fires in the Enchanted Forest – magical wardrobes notwithstanding. Mostly she'd just let Snow and Mulan take care of it while she and Aurora searched for fresh water to drink and whatever they could find for food.
In the end, Snow ended up doing most of the set-up by herself. Emma was too focused on the birds circling the clearing. The flock of seven had grown to about fifteen, though that total was give or take. It was hard to count them properly when they kept moving.
After a few moments, the birds all settled onto branches in various trees, surrounding the family. Emma smirked and arched a single eyebrow at her mother, who simply gave her daughter a shrug. "You mean you can't tell them to go away?" Emma asked with mock disbelief.
Snow returned her smirk before closing her eyes for a brief moment. The birds all took off from their perches at the same time, circled the clearing once, and then flew off in different directions.
Emma's jaw dropped open as she turned a look that was equal parts wonder and shock on her mother. "Son of a ... I was just kidding! Did you really tell them to go away?"
"Not in those words," Snow chuckled. "I simply told them that their standing guard, though a lovely gesture, was not necessary."
"You're shitting me, right?"
Though Snow did wince at her baby girl's language, the calm and slightly smug expression that settled on her features afterward indicated that she was not at all shitting her daughter.
"I'm not sure whether that's the coolest thing I've ever seen or the strangest thing I've ever seen," Emma muttered, squinting back up at the now-empty sky.
"Definitely the coolest," Henry spoke up from where he and David were setting up the ring for the fire. The wide grin of wonder on his face indicated that he was not kidding, either. David and Snow exchanged a grin.
Emma was leaning more towards strangest, herself, which again was saying something. Was this how it was going to be now? Would she see weirder and weirder shit until everything else seemed normal in comparison?
She shook her head, finally remembering she was supposed to be helping her mother. The camping grill had required very little set-up, however, and Snow had already turned it on and was waiting for it to come up to temperature.
Which was honestly just fine with Emma; she was getting hungrier by the minute. Apparently a two-and-a-half mile hike worked up quite the appetite.
She sat down on the cooler to wait. No matter how hungry she was by the time the food was cooked, though, she had to remember to leave some room for dessert. A couple of s'mores and even a few roasted marshmallows on their own sounded like gooey, sticky heaven.
That was another thing she'd learned on the good day of her one and only camping trip: how to perfectly roast a marshmallow on a stick. It had taken a few marshmallows for her to find the sweet spot between not cooked enough and charred but her foster father had been far more patient with her than any of the previous ones would have been.
"You're awfully quiet."
Snow's voice startled Emma out of her reverie. "Sorry," she muttered as she shook herself back to the present.
Unwilling to look over at her mother – because she would not be able to handle the gentle, loving expression that was surely on her face – Emma turned her head to check on the boys. There was David, arranging the thick logs of dead wood Henry had found to fuel the fire.
Henry was nowhere to be seen.
Emma's breath caught in her throat as she shot to her feet. Henry had been with David. She hadn't been watching him because he was with David. Her frantic eyes darted over the entire clearing but the only sign of her son was the backpack he'd abandoned next to the cooler.
Her heart throbbed in her chest so hard it echoed in her ears. "Henry?" she croaked. It came out soft and tentative, a far cry from the frantic screaming in her head.
Snow had turned away from the grill, her brow wrinkled in confusion. Emma thought Snow might be saying something to her but she couldn't tell. All she could hear was her own heartbeat pounding in her ears and her own breath becoming ragged.
Before she could take even one hesitant step forward, Henry emerged from the trees with a bundle of sticks tucked under each arm. The wave of relief that washed over Emma was so strong that she sank back down on the cooler. He'd only gone to collect some kindling. Knowing Henry, he'd probably grabbed some marshmallow skewers while he was at it.
Emma could tell without even looking that the hand that slid onto her shoulder belonged to her mother. "Emma, you're shaking."
"I'm fine," she said dismissively, shrugging her mother's hand away.
"All right, enough of this." Emma looked up sharply at her mother's no-nonsense tone. "You don't normally panic every time Henry slips out of your sight for a few seconds. That only started when we got here. Something happened to you, didn't it? Something happened to you in the woods."
Denial was pointless, but Emma shook her head anyway. She had no desire to tell this story. She didn't want to relive it.
But she was reliving it whether she talked about it or not, wasn't she? It was around every corner, in every noise she heard in the forest. It was in the way she couldn't relax, the way she dreaded everything except for dinner.
"I'm not going to force you to tell me, Emma," Snow spoke up, her voice once again gentle. "Whether or not you tell me is up to you. I just think you'd feel better if you let it out."
For a variety of reasons, Emma had had no intention of telling her mother anything. It was years ago, and clearly, nothing could be done about it now. She didn't delude herself enough to believe she was over it, because she obviously wasn't, but it was over and done with. It had happened, and no amount of talking could make it un-happen.
Which was why she was just as shocked as her mother when she blurted out, "I was seven the first time I went camping. It wound up being the only time I went camping."
Snow sat down on the cooler next to her daughter and reached for her trembling hand. Emma allowed her to take it and even squeezed, almost against her will. It wasn't until Snow returned the gesture that she continued. "I was with one of the good families then. The Brownes had three kids of their own and two fosters, me and a nine-year-old boy named Timothy. One weekend that summer, they decided to take us camping. The first day and night were a lot of fun. We ran around, we hiked, we played in a brook, we told stories and sang around the campfire ..."
"Sang?" Snow gently asked when Emma let the story trail off.
She nodded, a tiny nostalgic smile on her lips. "Even back then, I hated to sing, but Mr. Browne's love of music was infectious. He taught me the words to both 'Beyond the Sea' and 'Piano Man' on that trip. I remember thinking it was really funny that he was playing a song called 'Piano Man' on a guitar."
Snow allowed a smile, squeezing Emma's hand again. Emma took a deep breath in preparation. "The next day, we went on another hike ... a different trail this time. Tim and I were at the back of the group. He stopped me and told me he had seen a climbing rock a little bit beyond the path. No one would miss us if we went to play for a few minutes, he said. Mischief was practically my middle name, so I followed him."
Emma felt more than saw Snow inch closer to her as she tightened her hand around her daughter's once again. In her mind's eye, all Emma could see was a tiny girl with bouncing blonde curls taking the hand of a dark-haired little boy. "After we walked for a little while, Tim stopped short, saying he heard a noise up ahead of us. I hadn't heard anything but he told me to wait while he checked it out."
Now all she could see was that same little girl, standing in the woods all alone, waiting for something that would never happen. "He didn't come back. After a while, I started walking forward, thinking maybe he just forgot to come back for me. It didn't take me long to realize there never was a climbing rock in the first place. Tim had led me out there and then left me on purpose. By then, I was hopelessly lost. I was so little and the woods were so big, and I didn't know how to get back to the campground or even the trail we'd been following."
She paused and looked up, finally meeting her mother's gaze. "I was alone in the woods for thirty-two hours before the search party found me."
"Oh, Emma."
Her father's voice surprised her. When on earth had he and Henry approached the cooler? Before she had time to even attempt to figure that out, Henry dashed forward and threw his arms around her in a tight hug. She hugged him back, squeezing just as tightly. "Why would Tim do that?" he murmured into her ear.
A look up at her parents indicated they had the exact same question. She let Henry go but Snow once again latched onto her hand. Snow was in full-on overprotective mom mode, so trying to pull away would have been pointless. "He was just a kid, too, remember. I never talked to him again after that, but my social worker told me later that he admitted he was jealous of me. He was the Brownes' first foster kid. Then I came along, and he was afraid they would adopt me and not him. In the end, we both wound up being removed from the house. It wasn't the Brownes' fault, of course, but neither Tim's social worker nor mine felt comfortable leaving us there in light of what happened."
"They didn't want Tim getting what he wanted if they removed you, and they didn't want him thinking he had been right if they removed him," David breathed, sudden comprehension on his features.
"Exactly," Emma nodded. "The only thing they could think to do was to remove us both. It sucked, though, because I really liked the Brownes." She met the eyes of each of her family members in turn as she let out a heavy breath. "So now you know why I don't like camping. I'm sorry I've had such an attitude but, as you can see, I didn't exactly have a boatload of fun on my previous camping trip."
"It's quite all right, Emma," Snow assured her. "I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to tell us."
As she looked at her family, a tiny smile tugged at the corners of Emma's mouth. As cliché as it sounded, she already felt a little bit better. Maybe now that the story was out, she could allow herself to have some fun.
Her stomach rumbled, once again reminding her that she was really flippin' hungry. "All right," she said as she stood up from her perch on the cooler, ready to inject some much-needed humor into this conversation, "you know what I need right now?"
Henry glanced from the cooler to the grill and then back at Emma. "A bacon cheeseburger?" he asked with an innocent little smile.
Emma grinned at him. "You got it in one, kid."