A new friend

Emma's new story

Growing up in the foster care system, Emma moves from family to family. At three years old, she is adopted by one set of foster parents who abandon her when they get their own child. ("Pilot")

In the year 1989, Emma and some children from her group home visit a movie theater in Minnesota to watch the Disney film, The Sword in the Stone. In the theater, Emma steals an Apollo candy bar from another person, and as she takes a seat, an usher tells her to not do "it". She begins apologizing for stealing, but he is actually referring to something else, and cautions her against doing things for the right reasons because bad things will happen. He tells her she will have the chance to pull the sword out of the stone one day, but that she must never do it. After giving her the message, he disappears. ("The Dark Swan")

Emma, now eleven years old, lives in a group home in Boston. One day, she and the other children watch as a little girl, Cecilia, leaves in a car for a new home after being adopted. Even as the vehicle pulls away, Emma continues to stare longingly as she, too, desires a family. ("Snow Drifts", "Breaking Glass")

Realizing she will never catch the eye of adoptive parents, Emma hops a bus to Minnesota. In Hopkins, she enters a store and goes to steal a poptart box. Emma notices a girl, Lily, watching her, but the latter walks away. After concealing a box in her jacket, Emma begins walking out when a store employee stops her. Before the woman frisks her, Lily approaches with a cart; thanking Emma for waiting until she got a card to buy their things. Relieved that her cover wasn't blown, Emma expresses gratitude while Lily decides they should team up. After buying food, Lily spots a man in a car pursuing them, but they escape into an alley. Near a lake, the girls take out their food and have a picnic. Emma opens up about why she came to Minnesota as Lily shares similar feelings of being invisible and unseen to the world. Mistakenly, Emma assumes the man in the car is a social worker trying to return Lily to a group home. Lily, however, has other plans and points out a house across the lake, which is vacant during the fall season. She suggests they move in, which Emma happily accepts. Inside the home, following a video game session, Emma sees a star imprint on Lily's wrist. Lily imagines the star makes herself special, and she then draws a matching one on Emma's wrist. Upon finding a camera, they record themselves goofing off. Growing close, Emma and Lily promise to remain friends no matter what. That night, the same man, who chased them earlier, arrives. At first, Emma stubbornly persists that they are not going back into the foster care system, but she learns he is Lily's father. Once the police show up, Lily gives her contact information to Emma so once everything blows over, they'll run away together. Lily attests that though she lied about her family, everything else is real as she was adopted and her home life is miserable. Hurt by her lies, Emma walks away, rubbing off the star on her wrist, as Lily repeatedly calls her name.
After this, Emma is taken in by foster parents in Mankato who already have two sons. While packing for her first camping trip with them, she searches the garage for her sleeping bag, discovering Lily hiding out there. Emma's foster father sees them, as Lily lies about being another foster family's child, and she is subsequently invited to join the family for dinner. During the meal, Lily lies about how she and Emma met, while the blonde is shocked by her lying. Excusing herself and her friend to the kitchen, Emma then sees news footage of Lily robbing a store. Emma asks her to leave, but Lily refuses to go without retrieving her crescent moon necklace, which is in an abandoned house she was staying at. Emma goes to get it, and after she returns home, her foster parents confront her about Lily, who has stolen their money and disappeared. They also know, from a few phone calls, that her friend is now wanted for robbery. Emma admits knowing this and having asked Lily to leave because of it, to which her foster father criticizes her for allowing a criminal to be endanger his children. Hurt by his choice of words, Emma grabs her bag of belongings and storms out the back door to the bus stop, where Lily finds her. Blaming Lily for ruining her chance at having a family, Emma throws her the necklace and tells her to go away. Lily, however, wants to stay with her, considering Emma as her only source of light amidst all the darkness in her life. Emma coldly asserts that she would rather be alone and walks off. ("Lily")

Ending up in another group home in Richfield, Minnesota, Emma moves in, keeping her old camera as well as the footage of her time with Lily. Another child in the home, Kevin, grabs the camera and toys around with it as the device unknowingly begins recording them. As Emma shouts at him to give it back, her new foster mother Ingrid, approaches to take the camera and returns it to Emma. After Ingrid leaves, Kevin blocks Emma's way and threatens her into giving him the camera, or he'll make her life miserable. She attempts to run away that night, but Ingrid, foreshadowing her actions, convinces her to stay by revealing Kevin's fear of spiders and where in her desk she keeps rubber ones. Realizing Ingrid is helping her, Emma agrees to stay. ("Breaking Glass", "Shattered Sight")

Some time later, Ingrid takes her to a carnival where she unknowingly displays her first signs of magic whilst causing a claw crane game to glitch. After winning, Ingrid states that Emma's a special girl and that she will someday surprise everyone with her "extraordinary gifts". Seeing papers from an agency in Ingrid's bag, Emma assumes she will be sent away again. However, Ingrid happily admits she is adopting her. While she knows Emma might not see her as a mother, she'll gladly be a big sister to her. While waiting for the bus together, Emma suggests it'd be cool to have magic powers so she can teleport home. Ingrid reminds her of how the crane game flickered and implies it wasn't an accident, but Emma just shrugs it off. Knowing of the potential in the girl, Ingrid pulls her in front of an incoming car and pushes her to use magic to stop it. Instead, a frightened Emma flees onto the sidewalk. Ingrid then attempts to connect with Emma by elaborating about discovering of her own powers. Emma, believing Ingrid is crazy, runs off and never returns. ("Shattered Sight")

At seventeen, Emma breaks into a car in Portland, Oregon and meets a man, Neal, who is also attempting to steal the vehicle. Neal sneaks them into a closed amusement park where Emma learns he once had a loving home, but ran away once his father changed too much. They begin dating and pull small robbing heists. While donning a fake pregnancy belly, Emma steals items from a convenience store as Neal distracts the store owner. When they are caught by a customer, Emma feigns labor pains. As they hastily leave, Neal steals a swan keychain for her. The duo drive away and go to a hotel where Neal allows her to make a decision on the place they are going to spend their lives together. Emma picks Tallahassee. Later, Neal admits to being wanted for stealing watches and plans on escaping to Canada alone. Though Neal is against her tagging along, she takes back the stolen watches as he goes to look for someone to buy them so they can use the money for travel. While she waits for him at a meeting spot, the police arrest her for possession of stolen goods. To Emma's heartbreak, she is told Neal tipped them off. She is sent to a minimum security prison in Phoenix for eleven months. One day, Emma tests positive on a pregnancy test when she receives mail from Phuket, Thailand containing the swan keychain and car keys. ("Tallahassee", "There's No Place Like Home")

Sometime during her pregnancy, she decides to give the baby up in a closed adoption. On the day Emma goes into labor and births a son, she struggles with her desire to keep the child. Though tempted to change her mind, Emma believes she simply isn't fit to be a mother. ("The Heart of the Truest Believer")