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Charlie knocked on the door to Ingledew's Bookstore and entered when nobody answered. He wasn't worried about intruding -- it had been the same thing the past five times he and Emma had met up before going to the Pets' Café.
The door jingled when he entered and Emma looked up from a book ok the counter. "Oh!", she said, cheeks reddening. "I'm realls sorry, I was distracted... Give me a moment to get my things and Nancy, then we can go."
Charlie nodded and smiled. Paton, Julia and Emma were all very much bookworms and he'd found that he had a soft spot for them. While waiting for Emma to be ready, he busied himself by studying the picture wall she had created in the backroom. He kept a tight grasp on the armrest of a nearby chair to keep himself grounded in reality – he was in no mood for travels.
There were many pictures of Emma and her friends: Olivia was in many of them, but many also showed Tancred, Lysander, and Gabriel. There were pictures of Emma's family: Julia, Paton and both Nancys -- the photograph of her and her father that had been swapped with Charlie's photo of Runner Bean was there, next to the first ever picture of Emma with Julia after she had been brought into the bookstore. There was even a picture of "Emilia Moon" enrolling at Bloor's Academy. What really caught Charlie's eye, however, were the many pictures of the two of them together. They had been at the Pets' Café, walking in the woods, visiting Ocean View and even gone ice skating.
The picture of Emilia was a big contrast to the happy smiles she wore in all of the others. This wall was not just an artfully crafted collage -- Charlie knew that it meant more to Emma than that.
This was her wall of memories. This was all the things Emma had been robbed of during her trance and everything she had lived since. This was so that she wouldn't forget how to live ever again.
And to Charlie, it was alive. It was a living memory. This were pictures of a girl that was lost but found. He hoped that he would get to see his father like this, too, someday.
"Charlie?", a voice said from behind him. Charlie tore his gaze from the photograph of little Emma on her father's lap.
The older, recently freed Emma sat on the couch behind him. She was wearing different clothes from before: baggy pants and a green shirt. Julia was there, too, a book in hand.
Charlie cleared his throat, embarassed to have been caught starting at her picture. "Are you ready?", he asked her.
Emma stood up from the couch and started crossing the room. She gave him a nervous smile. "Did I ever thank you for the role you played in my rescue?"
"I just did what had to be done. Olivia, Benjamin and Fidelio did most of it, really," Charlie responded. When Emma stopped in front of him, still smiling, he added: "You did thank me. Many times."
He averted his eyes and glanced back at the pictures. When he looked at Emma again, she was tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. His mouth suddenly felt very dry.
"Well," he started. "Are we going, or..."
"Where to?"
"Who are you talking to?", Emma asked, halfway down the stairs. She was ready to leave, wearing a red jacket and outdoor shoes, Nancy's basket in hand.
He looked back at the Emma in the green shirt, noticing that it was slightly too big for her.
"I don't know," he said.
"Oh," said green Emma.
The other Emma dismounted the last steps of the stairs. Her brows were furrowed when he looked at her again. "Is everything alright?"
The Emma next to him waved a hand in front of his face and be blinked back at her.
On the couch, Julia looked up from her book. "is everything alright?", she asked.
"What are you looking at?", asked the Emma with the red jacket.
"Can we talk about this outisde?"
"Sure," she responded.
"Wait," the red Emma said, fidgeting. As he stepped through the curtain, he heard her shout: "Don't-"
Charlie peered back inside the room he had just left.
It was empty.
He felt somehing cold run down his back and involuntarily hunched his shoulders.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Emma remarked
She was the only other person in the room, excluding Nancy.
"Maybe I did," Charlie mumbled.
"I'm sorry. I should've known better than to keep a lot of pictures in a room you're in this often."
"No, it's okay. I was just..."
Emma was chewing on her lower lip, her eyes nervously flicking between him and the backroom.
He tried again. "I was just distracted. I think I know how to avoid it."
"Yeah," Emma said weakly. "Okay. Just don't... don't scare me like that again."