The Scent Keeper(35)

“You have to time it just right,” Henry said, turning to him. “You can only get through at the highest slack tide of a full moon, and you can’t do it in a boat any bigger than this.” His voice warmed with the pride of his accomplishment. “You only get one chance a month, maybe two in the summer when it’s light longer. Winter’s almost impossible.”

I thought of my father, trying to swim through that chaos—if he’d even made it to the channel at all—and felt the unintended punch of Henry’s words in my stomach.

My fault.

I stared at that entrance and thought of the lagoon inside it, the beach that no one had run across for years. The berries growing heavy on the bushes. The cabin waiting at the end of the trail.

“It’s like a fortress,” Fisher said, marveling.

“Does anybody live here now?” My words came out cracked and strange.

“No,” Henry said. “No one’s touched it.”

You poor thing, I thought. Left here all alone. I could feel the pull of it, like a hand grabbing mine. Come find me.

“It’s just a couple days until the full moon,” Fisher said. He sent me a look of careful inquiry.

“Another time,” Henry said with a smile. “You’ll be back in school by then.”

Even after all these years, the prospect of school still filled me with dread. I looked at my island, and suddenly all I wanted was to be there, hidden among the trees.



* * *



It was later than usual when we started our return to the resort. Henry had taken a long, slow circle around the group of islands that surrounded mine, as if understanding I needed the time.

Fisher, however, grew increasingly anxious as the afternoon faded. When Henry handed over the wheel, he pointed the boat toward the cove and sent it flying across the waves.

We were almost to the cove’s entrance when I saw a fishing boat coming in, the scent of gasoline heavy on the wind. Fisher shot it a quick look and throttled up the engine, but the boat had a clear view of us. I saw Martin at the wheel, saw the astonishment and anger on his face as he stared at his son.

“Fisher,” I asked, “did he know…?”

Fisher shook his head.

We got to our mooring spot first. Fisher was out of the boat and heading up the hill before I even had a chance to say good-bye. Henry watched him go, concern in his eyes.

The other boat docked.

“Martin,” Henry said, as Fisher’s father walked up the dock toward us. He said nothing as he passed, but I smelled an odor, bitter as burnt coffee, trailing in the air behind him.



* * *



Fisher didn’t come to the resort the following day. Colette tried calling his house, but there was no answer.

“He’s probably just grounded,” she said, but I could hear her hesitation.

It was the last day of the season. School started the next day. The guests and the summer kids who worked at the resort were gone, leaving Colette and me with the insurmountable task of getting all the cottages buttoned up for winter.

“We can’t get to it all today,” Colette said. “But let’s see what we can do.”

Without Fisher, I had my hands full. I didn’t have much time to think, and to be honest, I didn’t want to. The odor of burnt coffee and gasoline lingered in the back of my mind, even as I spent the day in a fog of pine-scented cleaners and laundry detergent. I made my way through one cottage after another, trying to focus only on the work in front of me. I didn’t want to think about school. I didn’t want to think about Fisher. If he was in trouble it was because of me. I was the one who made him go out on the boat in the first place. He hadn’t wanted to, and he’d tried to tell me, but I hadn’t listened.

I finished the red cottage and moved on to the blue one. The guests had left the kind of mess that I knew meant there would be no tip in the envelope on the dresser. There had been young children, and I found toothpaste on every surface in the bathroom, even some on the bedroom wall. In the kitchen, there were pots on the stove with two-day-old macaroni and cheese stuck to the bottom. There were more dirty dishes in the sink, in the bedroom. Mismatched socks were hidden under the chair cushion and left sopping wet in the bathtub. I had learned better than to throw them out—these were the type of people who always called the next day: Son bereft. Favorite socks. Please send. No offer to pay for postage.

But they’d left something else, too.

I was shoving my mop under the bed with more vigor than necessary when it hit something and sent it sliding. I crossed to the other side and spotted the corner of a hardbound book, saw a bit of flowing white dress on the cover. Heart racing, I bent down and pulled it out from under the bed. There was the princess and the crumpled man. The gold lettering—Fairy Tales from Around the World.

My book.

As I ran my hands over its surface, however, I realized that this was a newer copy. I flipped through the pages, the edges flowing smoothly across the pad of my thumb. Some muscle memory seemed to scream at the change.

There was no gap in the middle.

I didn’t move, as if the book were a rabbit that might startle and run. Carefully, I reopened it, checking each story until I found the one I had never seen before. I sat down on the floor with my back against the bed, and began to read.