The Scent Keeper(55)

“She said you met in a park in New York City. You’d learned about a job here, and you asked her to come with you.” Even after all these years, I still remembered the story.

“Did she tell you she said no?”

I looked at him, surprised. “No.”

He laughed softly. “She did—said she couldn’t go running all the way across the country with a guy she’d just met. I went anyway. I’d been here a week, feeling sorry for myself. Feeling like I deserved every bad thing that could come my way. And then one afternoon there she was, walking down that dirt road toward me. Said she didn’t know what she’d been thinking, letting me get away.” He smiled. “Best moment of my life.”

Over the cove, the clouds parted just enough to let the moon shine through.

“It’s a full one,” Henry said, pointing. “There’ll be a high tide tomorrow.” I thought of the night Fisher and I had run away. I took Henry’s arm and leaned close to the paint and sawdust smell of him.

“Henry,” I said. “I didn’t want to leave you and Colette, back when…”

“I know,” he said, putting a callused hand on mine. “And you won’t the next time, either. That’s okay.”



* * *



The next day there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and when I got home from school I learned that Henry had taken advantage of the weather to do his deliveries to the islands. Usually he was home by four, but by the time he got in it was well past dark, and Colette was getting ready to call the coast guard.

When at last we heard his motor, I went down the dock to meet him.

“Colette’s having a fit,” I said.

He chuckled. “Of course she is.” He reached down into the boat and pulled out a cloth bag. “This is for you.”

I took it with uncertain fingers. I could feel a weight, cylindrical and not too heavy. I pulled it out, and held it in disbelief. My bottle.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I thought you might need it.”

Up at the house the front door opened.

“You still in one piece, old man?” Colette called down.

Henry winked at me. “Can you put that bag somewhere less obvious? Colette said if I went through that channel again, she’d have my head.”



* * *



That night, as Henry and Colette slept, I packed my things. This time, I wrote a note.

Going to find the truth. I’ll call you, I promise. Love, Emmeline

I put the bottle in my pack for a second time. I leaned down and put my arms around Dodge, kissed him on the head.

“I’ll come back,” I said. He didn’t open his eyes, but he shifted out of the way.





PART THREE



The City





ARRIVAL


There was only one bus per day, leaving town at 8 A.M., and my hands trembled as I counted out the money for a ticket. I’d left the house with 387 dollars, tips I’d saved over the years of cleaning cottages. I’d never had much need for money at the cove, but as the bus grumbled its way out of the station, the bills felt like a safety net made too small.

I curled into my window seat, my arms tight around my backpack, watching the trees go by, a wall of green broken only by flashes of clear-cut, or enclaves of houses, a small store or two. I’d studied the maps in Colette’s atlas, but now those tiny paper kilometers turned into roads and mountains and the smells of the other passengers, their turkey sandwiches and burnt coffee, the leftover scents of cats and dogs and last night’s dinner clinging to their clothes.

My body ached. It had been a long night, and a longer walk to get to the bus. I settled deeper in my seat, pretending its arms and back were the whorls of a shell, holding me safe. I fell asleep, barely registering the people exiting and entering, the way the smells were shifting, gaining edges.



* * *



I jerked awake to the sound of a blaring horn, and found myself in a forest of metal and glass.

Towers taller than trees grabbed at the sky. Cars swarmed around my bus, shrieking their way through intersections. People pressed by on the sidewalk, heads down into the phones in their raised hands as if they were praying. I saw a man who looked like a pile of leaves sitting on a box, playing a guitar. A dog no bigger than a squirrel scurried through black-clad legs. I could feel the smells, pulsing against the glass, trying to reach me.

I’d seen cities on TV, but never felt their physical force. How could you find anyone here? In my backpack I had two sets of clothes, a list of addresses, Fisher’s T-shirt, and my father’s green-wax bottle. Heroines in fairy tales set off with far less, but they had magic to help them. There was no magic in this place, only a smiling mermaid on a sign above a store.

I knew about mermaids.

The bus pulled over, and as the doors clattered open, the smells rushed in. Car exhaust and hot oil, cold coffee and old urine. The sharp stink of fear-sweat. The deep purple bruise of longing. Over it all, like a lowering fog, the reek of asphalt and plastic. I slid down in my seat, pulling my sweater up over my nose.

The bus pulled back into traffic once more, the doors closing. I shut my eyes, tried not to breathe. I imagined the aroma of warm yeast pillowing into bread, of dirt opening to the rain. I slipped my nose into the top of my backpack, tried to find the scent of Fisher’s T-shirt, his skin.