The Scent Keeper(33)

“Can you smell what I’ve got for you, Miss Piggy?” Dylan would say, his voice low and grinning, his hand reaching down under his desk, toward his lap, making sure my eyes followed. He’d say the nickname like an endearment, made intimate by years of repetition. I hated it.

Fisher was my sanctuary, but things were shifting there, too. One afternoon, as he was helping Henry fix a leaky cottage roof, I noticed muscles in Fisher’s arms that hadn’t been there before. His voice had deepened. He’d always smelled like trees, but now the scent was more roots than sap. Even as I shied away from Dylan, I found myself yearning for Fisher, wanting to tangle myself up in the fragrance of him. It was confusing as much as anything.

The resort had kept changing, too, more and faster each year. Though the media had long ago forgotten the mysterious bottles, Secret Cove had its own momentum now, and by my fourth summer it was barely recognizable. There was a small grocery store and four more cottages. The whale bones had been donated to a museum, and the old warehouse converted into a restaurant that smelled of fish and chips. The boardinghouse provided summer lodging for the young men and women who cooked and waited tables. Henry no longer took people out on sightseeing trips; a company called Wild Blue Adventures started leasing dock space and offering whale and grizzly bear excursions, and a kayaking group led expeditions to the smaller islands. Day-tour buses pulled up regularly at noon, unloading their human cargo.

“No damn reception,” I heard the tourists say, one after another, cell phones lifted high, as if offering landing spots for small birds. They would meander down the boardwalk, checklists in hand—see a live whale/bear/salmon; paddle a kayak. They ate at the restaurant, went out on boats, took pictures of themselves, and left. At the end of each day, our numbers were reduced to only those people staying at the resort, and relative quiet descended. I remembered my first summer at the cove, when the cottage guests had terrified me. Now I was relieved when it was only them.

Most of the young men and women who worked at the resort were college students from the bigger cities, looking for a summer adventure. On their days off, they would go out in the kayaks, voices clear and confident as they called out to one another. They didn’t pay much attention to me and Fisher—we were still in high school, local, and always stuck to ourselves, anyway—but I was fascinated by the ease of them. They were sea creatures that swam through life; they didn’t cower, waiting for the peck of sharp beaks like I did.

The summer I was seventeen, Colette hired a girl with long blond hair and an easy smile. She came from the big city, and carried the shine of foreign places. Everyone was in love with her.

“You live here, don’t you?” she asked me one day as I was coming out of a cottage, my arms full of sheets.

“Yes,” I said, not sure if that was a good answer.

“You’re lucky,” she said. “It’s beautiful.” We heard the sounds of the boys coming out of the boardinghouse, heading for the restaurant.

“What’s the city like?” I asked, trying to hold her there. She carried the scents of sunshine and apples, and I wanted to stay near them.

“The city? It’s big and fast, but you can do whatever you want. There are so many people, you can just get lost.” She smiled. “In a good way, eh?”

The boys looked our way, and called out. “Jessie, you’re gonna be late!”

“Gotta go,” she said to me, and jogged off down the boardwalk. The effortless motion reminded me of someone, and it took me a while before I realized: Jack the Scent Hunter.

How long had it been since I’d thought of him? How long since I’d thought I could be like that myself? I could barely remember the feeling, and yet there it was, lingering like a scent caught inside the pages of a book, waiting.



* * *



Colette had handled the resort’s expansion with equanimity, even enthusiasm. Henry was a different matter. He seemed to become less himself with each summer season, each busload of tourists. Colette watched him carefully.

“Jeff says he can’t do the deliveries to the islands anymore,” she said over coffee one morning. “What do you think about taking them on again, old man? It’s only once every couple of weeks. We’ve got a boardinghouse full of young folks who can keep the resort going while you’re out on the water.”

Henry sipped his coffee, but I could see he was thinking.

“You could take Emmeline,” Colette added.

Henry shot me a quick, troubled look. “Emmeline lives here now,” he said firmly. “She doesn’t have to go anywhere.”

Their words bounced back and forth, as if I wasn’t there in the middle of them, and suddenly I was so tired of everybody talking about me. Island Girl. Miss Piggy. The Girl that Henry Saved. For years now, I’d been scared of so many things. I’d made myself as small and invisible as possible, and yet there was a time in my life when I’d climbed to the top of the tallest trees, searching for scents on the wind. When I’d foraged and known every plant on my island. When I had been a scent hunter.

“I’ll go,” I blurted out.

The kitchen was quiet for a moment.

“Fisher, too, then,” Henry said. I wasn’t sure if I was offended or relieved.



* * *



“Please,” I said to Fisher as we changed the sheets in one of the cottages.