Who is Emerson Cole from Hourglass and what is their importance?

Emerson Cole (Hourglass) is a 17 year old girl that is suffering form the loss of her parents in a bus accident. A few months prior to the accident Emerson believed that she was seeing the dead. Because of this, and her conversation with some of the dead in public, she is committed to a mental hospital. They determine that she is depressed. Later, she finds out that the money for her boarding school has run out and that she has to go back to finish the last year of high school in Tennessee. In an attempt to help her with her 'gift' her brother Thomas hires a group called Hourglass.