The Scent Keeper(67)

The sentences washed over me in a wave of technicalities, but I could feel what she was talking about. It had happened with every scent-paper I’d smelled, the fragrance shifting, telling a story that deepened even as it disappeared. Even nature was that way, if you thought about it—the bright green of the trees giving way to the dark and complicated dirt beneath, the ocean holding the scent of death under all that life. What Claudia was talking about so arrogantly was simply the world I had grown up in.

“I can do it,” I said.

“It’s a precise science, Emmeline. It’s not for children.”

“I can do it,” I repeated, stronger this time.

Her eyes woke, tightened. “Is that so? All right then, let’s educate you, if that’s what you want.”

She opened a bottle; the scent was tart, quick, and the tiniest bit sweet, like the sparkle of rain on a blade of grass.

“White grapefruit,” I said automatically.

“Top note,” Claudia said, trimming the edges of her ts.

Another bottle—lavender. Softer, kinder. Colette’s soap, the scent hidden in her clothes.

“Middle,” Claudia said. “You following this?” Her dark eyebrows were raised, two slim curves providing their own parenthetical commentary.

“I get it,” I said. The ts on my own words were sharp now.

“Good. So, ready for the big boys?”

“Sure.”

She dug around in the box at her feet for a moment, and brought out a bottle. “Here’s a good one.” She passed it across the table. It was filled with a dark paste, rather than liquid. I unscrewed the cap. The smell rolled toward me, and I reared back. I could almost hear growling, the pop of a bone socket.

“Civet,” Claudia said, unfazed. “It takes a strong stomach to smell an animalic base note straight, don’t you think? But a drop or two, down there in the bottom of a perfume? It sends that other message. Death and sex—that’s what perfume’s all about. You’ll understand when you’re older.”

I stared back at her. I knew about death. I knew about sex. I didn’t need her to tell me.

She held out another bottle, her expression bland. “Jasmine.”

I was cautious this time, barely sniffing the contents, but the smell was a relief—sweet, white, and creamy, almost euphoric. I felt as if I were floating in it.

Just as I was about to put the bottle down, though, I caught a whiff of something else in the background, something narcotic and sticky. I inhaled more deeply, trying to pin it down.

“You like it,” Claudia said. For the first time, she seemed pleased with me. “Do you know what that is, that note you’re searching for?”

I shook my head. It was right there, but in that cool, blank room, I couldn’t quite name it.

“It’s shit,” Claudia said. She smiled, slow and lazy. “Technically, the molecule’s called indole, but a rose by any other name…”

Something in me tightened.

Want to smell my shit, Miss Piggy?

I looked over at Claudia. I hated her right then, in a way I had never hated anyone, even the kids at my school. This cold, sleek girl wanted to break me, just like they had. Back then my skills had worked against me; they’d made me a freak. Here they were finally in my favor.

Claudia thought she knew smells—but all she knew was names, rows, charts.

You have no idea what I can do, I thought.





THE ISLAND


I was glad Victoria was working late that night; I needed the walk home. The chill in the air, as well as anger, kept me walking quickly through the dark evening. My feet took the usual route along the wharf, my thoughts completely focused on the events of the afternoon, on the scent I could make.

My mind roamed through possibilities, then landed on the pink sunrise scent in the first store Victoria had taken me to. She’d told me recently that hiding it was having an effect on sales. But I could do more; I knew I could.

Suddenly, water crashed down in front of me, splashing my shoes, my pants. Broken ice cubes danced on the pavement around me.

“Shit!” I exclaimed, jumping back.

I looked up. On the back balcony of one of the faded brick buildings that lined the wharf stood a young man in a half apron, an overturned white service bucket in his hand, water still dripping. The light from the open door behind him spilled out, illuminating pale skin. Red hair. The shoulders were broader, the hair longer, but I would have known him anywhere.

Fisher.

Without thinking, I stepped back farther into the shadows. It wasn’t necessary, though; he hadn’t even looked down. He lit a cigarette, staring out at the dark water.

Now I watched him from below. How many times had I walked this route home? How could I not have felt that he was nearby? And yet, he didn’t seem to sense me, either, standing right there, looking at him. The old Emmeline and Fisher would have known.

Up above me, a woman’s voice called out and Fisher looked up, stubbed out his cigarette, and went inside.

A cigarette. Since when did he smoke?

Who are you now, Fisher?

I made my way around the building and found the front entrance. The glowing neon green sign above the doorway made me pause—The Island.

Maybe you haven’t forgotten everything, I thought, unsure if I was happy or angry or both.