The Scent Keeper(38)

I’d never been so far up the path. I came across a deserted cabin, the roof caved in on itself, young trees growing up through its center. Someone had tried to clear a garden there once, but the woods were reclaiming that space as well.

Keep going, Emmeline, I told myself. Go find Fisher.

I started walking again, but the smells were all around me, full of early September, the woods just beginning to think about sleep, thick with rain and wet dirt and damp leaves.

When I was young, my father used to tuck me in every night. He’d climb up the ladder to my loft, wrapping his big warm arms around me and arranging the blankets. I always thought fall was like that, nature tucking everything in. Nothing had ever felt so safe.

Who were you, Papa?

The article had given me a name, but bigger questions were hammering in my brain now. Why did you take me? Did you love me? Why did you keep me from my mother?

I was so deep in my thoughts that I almost tripped when the path stopped suddenly at the edge of a dirt road, about as wide as ours, but more deeply rutted.

Which way?

I stood there, scanning back and forth, hoping for a clue. All I saw was a mass of trees and a road that had as much chance of going in the wrong direction as the right.

Follow your nose, Emmeline.

They were my father’s words, but the voice in my head was mine.

I inhaled, shallow, then deeper, letting the scents of the woods and the road come to me. That was when I smelled the alderwood smoke. The scent was coming from my left, so I turned in that direction, walking on the flat parts of the road between the ruts.

Ten minutes passed before I saw the house, a forlorn-looking thing, its once yellow paint peeling and faded, the porch sagging on one side. There was a rusted car in the side yard, and the surrounding trees grew close to the walls and roof, as if trying to hide it. The smoke coming out of the chimney held that alderwood scent, though. I was in the right place, even if it felt wrong.

As I started up the short driveway, I heard the sound of a car coming up the road behind me. At almost the same time, the front door opened and a woman came out on the porch. She was too thin and too pale, but I could tell she’d been beautiful once. Her eyes were the same incredible green as Fisher’s, her hair a faded version of his red. She saw me and stopped, uncertain. Stuck between her gaze and the approaching car, I had nowhere to hide.

The woman said nothing. The car rounded the bend and I saw it was actually a big red truck. Fisher’s father was at the wheel, with Fisher next to him in the passenger seat. The shock on Fisher’s face when he saw me made me wish I’d stayed back at the cove with Dodge. I’d come here for me; I hadn’t thought what it might do to Fisher.

They pulled into the driveway.

“What’s this?” Fisher’s father asked, getting out of the truck.

Fisher’s mother shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just saw her when I came outside.”

Fisher’s father turned to me, looked closer.

“You’re that friend of Fisher’s, aren’t you?” he said.

I nodded. There was no point in lying; we’d met.

Fisher had gotten out of the truck and was standing behind his father. He smelled of fish.

“Maridel,” Martin said. “You’re always complaining we don’t have company, and here it is, delivered to your door. You should ask the girl to dinner.”

“Colette will be expecting me,” I said, glancing at the strained expression on Fisher’s face.

“You must be hungry,” Martin said. “We’ll give Colette a call; I’m sure it will be fine.” He started into the house, confident that I would follow.

Fisher’s eyes met mine.

I’m sorry, I mouthed. He shrugged, and in that motion I saw a memory—my father, folding into himself when winter came.





THE DINNER


Once inside, Fisher’s father walked straight toward the back of the house.

“I’m going to take a shower,” he said. “I’ll be ready by dinner.”

Fisher’s mother went to the kitchen and returned with a beer, heading off in the direction Martin had gone. I heard a shower turn on, smelled water—cool, then warm, then hot. I looked around the living room at the lumpy blue couch, the red and yellow woven rug on the floor, all of it faded, all of it meticulously clean.

On her way back through the living room, Fisher’s mother showed me the telephone on the table by the couch.

“You should call Colette. She’ll be worried.” Her eyes flicked over me, to the hall, to the kitchen. She was a fragile, birdlike person, all red hair and green eyes and constant, vigilant movement.

Reluctantly, I picked up the phone and dialed, watching as Fisher followed his mother into the kitchen. He hadn’t said anything yet and I tried to read him as he passed—the smell of him, the expression on his face. All I got was fish and emptiness.

“Hello?” Colette’s voice came through the receiver.

“It’s me,” I said.

“Thank God,” Colette said. “Where are you? The school called; they said you ran out in the middle of the day. Nobody knew where you went.”

“I’m at Fisher’s.”

The flow of her sentences stopped abruptly. “What?”

“Can I stay for dinner?”