Chapter 17: The Drifter

Emma took a deep breath as she guided her yellow bug into a parallel parking space at Chantey's Lobster House. She sighed as she got out of the car. The last time she had been here had been with August when he had tried to convince her about the truth of her own story, a time when she didn't believe any of it.

She looked at the building. She hadn't come to eat. Locking her car she made her way across the street and into the woods on the other side of the highway. It was still daylight so it felt different.

Going deeper, Emma found what she was looking for: the tree with a hole carved out. At the time of her first visit she had never really allowed herself to examine it. It had been just a tree but now it had become more than that. It was a part of her, the vessel that had helped bring her to this world.

Emma caressed the edges of the tree. She felt the soft wooden bottom that had most likely been her resting place before August pulled her out. Emma had never really allowed herself to think of the importance of this tree until now. To anyone else it was just a damaged tree but it was more than that to her now. Without it she never would have come here. She would've been cursed like her parents.

Though Emma had told her parents that being cursed wouldn't have been a bad thing, because they would've been together, now Emma wasn't quite so sure about that. She had seen the damage of what the curse had done to families. Maybe had she been cursed too she and her parents would've been separated regardless. David and Mary Margaret had been.

Emma took a seat on the ground, her back resting against the tree. Closing her eyes Emma wanted so much to erase the last near forty-eight hours. Having Neal come back into her life after eleven years was messing with her head in a way she felt she couldn't deal with.

It was bad enough that he had kissed her and she had all but given in. Had her parents not arrived she wasn't even sure what she and Neal would've done. She shuddered at the thought.

"Interesting tree isn't it," a young woman said to Emma.

Emma opened her eyes, blinking. She wasn't sure what time it was but if she had to guess, at least half an hour to an hour had passed at most.

In front of Emma stood a young girl roughly in her mid twenties. She had a small frame, deep set brown eyes, and her skin was an off tan brown. Her arm muscles protruded through a black shirt that was tucked into a pair of jeans which led downward to brown leather hiking boots. She wore a tan jacket and around her neck was a necklace that didn't hang too low.

"Sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to startle you."

Emma stood up, "It's okay. Guess I just wasn't expecting anyone out here."

"Not many people hit the woods," said the girl. "I wasn't expecting anyone out here either." She stuck out her hand. "River Stone," she said.

Emma shook her hand, "Emma Swan."

River nodded, "Nice."

Emma just shrugged and River turned back to the tree. "Interesting isn't it?"

"It's just a tree."

"It's a lot more than that. Can you imagine the kind of energy it would take to exert that kind of breakage? Normally it doesn't take much but this isn't just some ordinary tree."

"I'm pretty sure it is."

River looked at Emma and smiled. "There's something special about it. We all have our special place, that retreat we need to go to when life doesn't make the most sense. If we didn't you wouldn't be here."

Emma crossed her arms, "You're here."

"I'm just passing through," said River. "The tree caught my attention. Something tells me this place belongs to you though."

"What are you some kind of philosopher?"

"Spiritual naturalist actually," River said with a smile. "You'd be surprised at what her world has to offer. All you have to do is let yourself feel it, let yourself be still and quiet for a moment and just listen. Take this place for example. There's energy here. It's different than the rest of the forest I've walked, almost sacred. It radiates from a small perimeter to the tree itself. Surely you can feel it."

Emma looked at River. She wanted to be skeptical of the young woman but she was having a hard time with that, "Why me?"

River shrugged even though she had a clear answer in mind. She decided to be a little more cryptic in her reply. "Aren't we all beings of a life force, that energy that radiates inside all of us?"

"Sure I guess."

River smiled again. "You came here for a reason Emma," River said to her, "Same reason I hike these woods and others like it. You want answers. Sometimes when we can't find the answers we seek in those who surround us we have to look elsewhere, sometimes in the very place that birthed us."

Emma turned and looked hard at River. What did this girl know? How was it she was getting into her head?

River continued as if Emma's hard stare didn't mean anything. "It's in that place that we find the answer was there all along. We just need to retreat and take a step back from all the noise that clouds our thoughts even if those thoughts are the noise themselves. They just need to be ironed out basically."

"You're not exactly from around here are you," Emma asked.

"No, from out west actually," said River. "I just like to travel."

"That's not exactly what I meant," Emma said in more of a whisper, "but okay. And your family is okay with that?"

"Don't have any. You remember what that's like, don't you?"

Emma was starting to feel herself get frustrated. The girl was being so enigmatic and yet she seemed to know a lot about her. Either that or being a naturalist just made the girl a lot more intune with her surroundings than most.

Either way Emma couldn't help but ask, "Okay who the hell are you?" Emma asked.

"Just a drifter."

"You're more than that."

"Does it really matter if I am?"

"Maybe," said Emma.

"Trust me I'm one of the good guys, you have nothing to fear from me."

"Yeah I've heard that one. You're awfully young to have such insight. No offense."

"None taken," River replied, "I've just had a lot of life experience, same as you."

"You're really not going to tell me who you are?"

"Who I am does not matter. Listen to your heart Emma, you will understand. You will find the answers you seek."

River nodded and made her way to woods to the east leaving Emma in thought.

She replayed some of the words that River had said to her, the final words being "listen to your heart, you will understand."

Emma looked at the now empty woods and then back at the tree.

It couldn't be could it? How was that even possible? Emma looked at the tree; but then how was a wardrobe able to transport a baby and seven year old and blast a hole in a tree?

Emma sighed and stayed for a while longer but she knew she had her answers. It was time to go home.