The Scent Keeper(24)

He left without another word. Colette washed the dishes as she watched him tromping down the boardwalk. I’d made this happen, I thought. My bottles had brought that woman to our cove, and now Henry was sad and Colette looked worried. My fault. Again.



* * *



After a while, Colette came over and sat down at the table across from me.

“We’re going to need your help, ma cherie.”

I stared at her, uncertain.

“There’s going to be a lot of people here this summer,” she said.

I shook my head no.

“I know,” Colette said, “but you can help me clean cottages and change sheets—and it’ll be good practice talking to people before you start school.”

“School?”

“Yes. You’ll like it. There’ll be kids your own age, books.”

I shook my head. The thought of a group of kids made me freeze. I was barely used to Henry and Colette. And what would I do without Dodge to tell me whom to trust? Something told me dogs didn’t go to school.

Colette smiled, but there was sympathy in her eyes. “We don’t really have a choice, I’m afraid. I talked to the folks at the school district. We can keep you out for this spring, but come fall you’ll have to go.”

I tried to keep the panic from my face.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “you’ll be fine.”

The phone rang again.



* * *



Even though there was too much to do before the summer guests arrived, Colette set aside a couple hours every morning for lessons with me. I didn’t tell her that this was exactly how my father had started each day, and that every time she and I sat down at the kitchen table and opened a book, it broke my heart.

“You know a lot,” she said encouragingly. “Especially about science. Your father did a good job.”

Except he never told me what really mattered, I thought.



* * *



In the afternoons, I worked with Henry in the boardinghouse while Dodge kept us company. It was cold in there, but I liked the steady rhythm of the labor. I learned how to hold a paintbrush. How to clean eighty years of grime off windows. How to drive a straight line of nails. It was a relief to feel the solidity of a hammer or a brush, to know that this thing in my hand existed and would be there tomorrow. That it was what it was and nothing more.

Mostly, we were quiet, but sometimes I could get Henry to tell me stories about the cove.

“Are those your whale bones?” I asked one day, pointing with my paintbrush toward the blue building next door. A couple drops of creamy white paint fell to the floor. I grabbed a rag to wipe them before they dried.

“Ah,” Henry said. “The whale museum. Those are the professor’s. People used to bring him skeletons they found. He’d clean them up and donate them to museums.”

The wizard. “Where is he?” The words came fast. Maybe the professor could answer my questions.

“I don’t know.” Henry looked over at me, curious. “He used to come every summer, but not for years now. He was an old guy—I keep the bones, just in case, but…”

I could almost feel the door of opportunity shut. Another clue lost, I thought. It felt like every time I got a chance at a real story, it disappeared. In the end, truth seemed no easier to catch than the scent of violets. My father used to show me how their smell could be there, so clear and beautiful, and then vanish, only to return a few minutes later, as strong as it had ever been. You couldn’t control it. You couldn’t hold on to it. I’d thought that was a wonderful thing, back then.

Henry dipped his brush in a can of bright white paint, and started on the window trim. I listened to the quiet swish of the bristles against the wood.

“Why did you come here?” I asked after a while.

He angled his brush around a tricky edge. “I was tired of people,” he said, his eyes focused on his work. “There was a war. I’d had to do some things I wasn’t proud of, and didn’t want to ever do again.” He looked over at me. “This place can heal you, if you let it.”

I ignored this comment; I wanted the kind of healing that came from information. “Who else lives out on the islands?” I asked.

“I thought we were done with the interviews.” But he smiled as he said it. He took the paintbrush from my hand and gave me a hammer. “There are some loose floorboards,” he said. “Check the nails, okay?”

“Please,” I said.

He sighed, picked up his brush again, and talked while he painted. “Well, there’s Old Man Jenkins. Back when he was twenty, he built a canoe and went exploring. Bought an old floating shack from a fisherman for forty bucks. Still lives there, ’cept he’s too old to paddle into town anymore. I take him supplies every once in a while.”

“Did we live close to him?” I asked. My hands roamed over the floorboards, feeling for the sharp edge of a raised nail. Found one. Waited for the answer.

“No,” Henry said, and I could almost hear him calculating distances in his head. “Your nearest neighbor would’ve been Mary. She lived a couple islands over from you. Her husband died in a logging accident, but she stayed on her island. She’s got three kids, too.” He shook his head in admiration.