The Scent Keeper(49)

I remembered what he’d said on the island: I want to kill my father. His eyes held the horror of someone who’d tried.

“I’ll go with you,” I said. Don’t leave me.

“You’ve got a good place here, Emmeline. People who love you. You can finish school.” His words cracked with bitterness. I dug into them, searching for love.

“I don’t care,” I said, leaning forward.

He closed his eyes, tired.

“This is my fault,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, but he didn’t open his eyes.

A doctor I hadn’t seen before walked in the door. He checked the chart in his hand and then smiled brightly at Fisher.

“Good news, young man,” he said. “You’re progressing nicely. You’ll be back home before you know it.”



* * *



In the end, Fisher’s release came unexpectedly, three days after his father’s. Colette got a call from Fisher’s mother early one morning, and we dashed over to the hospital. We opened the door to Fisher’s room, false cheer on our faces.

But he was already gone. His mother stood by the bed, staring down at the indentation in the pillow.

I turned on her—she could have stopped this, too. But when she looked up, the pain I saw on her face shut my mouth.



* * *



There were notes on the bedside table, one for his mother, one for me. His mother’s said simply, Take care of yourself. Mine said, I’m sorry. His name a scrawl across the bottom.

He’d vanished, left me behind with only a note. I couldn’t believe it.

I sat down on the bed, the paper in my hand, my mind racing back through everything he’d said in the hospital, looking for clues. Hansel and Gretel had left breadcrumbs to follow. There must be something that could lead me to Fisher. If I could just talk to him, I could make things better, I thought.

But there was nothing.



* * *



I stalked the mailbox after that. I couldn’t believe that note was the last I’d hear from Fisher. We’d been through too much together, meant too much to each other. Then I remembered his eyes, the way they’d looked that first night in the hospital. As if what was inside him was worse than anything that had been done to him. I wanted to tell him it didn’t matter, that I knew who he really was—the boy on the island, whose fingers had slipped between the stalks of the sea plantains, touched the curls of my hair.

But I knew, too, that some things couldn’t be fixed. Sometimes the water was too cold. Too deep.

Colette mentioned school, but I started throwing up at the thought, and we all decided it was the stomach flu. She and Henry watched me warily. It was as if everything was too big to talk about now.



* * *



Finally, after almost two weeks, a letter arrived.

Dear Emmeline, it said. I’m okay. I got a job in a nursery. I’m working with plants and I found a place to live. It feels good to have my hands in the dirt.

I am sorry I left the way I did. There’s so much in my head right now. I can see you smiling, wanting to help, but you can’t. You don’t know what this is like.

I’ll be fine. I’ll write more soon.

I looked at the letter in my hand—You don’t know what this is like.

Except I did. I’d stood on the bluff and seen my father looking up at me, seen the worst of myself in what I had done to him. I’d felt it crack my soul in two.

But I’d never told Fisher about that, had I? I’d held it back, my own precious secret. And now he was gone.

I turned the envelope over in my hands. It was slim, white. My name, c/o Secret Cove Resort. No return address, just a postmark from the city.

How would I ever find him? I raised the letter to my nose. It smelled of dirt and, faintly, of Fisher—but I needed far more than that.

I sat there, tapping that letter with my finger as if I could make it talk. It felt as if my whole life had been shaped by things people wouldn’t say.

Enough, I said to myself. Enough secrets.





THE SEARCH


I went back to school the next day. As I opened the classroom door, I heard the whispers start, but they were different now. They didn’t curl around me, looking for a crack to slip into and widen; they kept their distance.

“That island…”

“A whole month…”

“He almost died…”

Their voices were hushed, holding the story like it was something sparkling. Dangerous.

As I walked to my seat, Dylan stretched his legs across the aisle and looked up, his gaze locked on mine. The other kids watched. I stopped right in front of him, stared back.

Go ahead, I thought. See what happens.

I stood there until he pulled his legs under his chair.



* * *



With Fisher gone, I had no friends, but I was cloaked in a new island fairy tale now, one full of survival and bravery and, quite possibly, sex. The girls could hardly wait to find me in the cafeteria.

“What did you do out there?”

“Where did he go?”

The last question, quivering and eager: “Do you miss him?”

I never answered, but it didn’t seem to matter. Maybe the story was better without the real details. Fairy tales often are.