The Scent Keeper(78)

Fisher’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry,” he said.

The words fell on the dock in front of me and broke, the sound jagged and sad. And just like that, I could see my twelve-year-old self again, riding my wave of righteous indignation toward my father.

You lied, Papa. There are no mermaids.

I remembered how that wave had crashed on all of us. My father, Cleo, me. I’d been so focused on the ride, I hadn’t even tried to stop it. And here I was now, doing the same thing again.

Fisher stood in front of me, waiting.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

I took a long, shuddering inhalation, slowing my momentum. I could smell our scents reaching out toward each other, searching, slipping underneath our words, caring not at all about the ways humans tried to hurt one another. I waited for a moment, letting the air move around me—and then I knew. The question I hadn’t asked my father, the one that might have changed everything.

“Tell me why,” I said.



* * *



Everything grew still. Then Fisher spoke, slowly, gradually, as if easing himself down from a high ledge. “Okay. Can we go someplace else, though? There’s something I’d like to show you.”

When I nodded, he took us toward a wide channel that headed out of the harbor. A footpath ran along one side, and we followed it, away from the center of the city. We didn’t speak. Everything still felt raw; we needed time to let our old and new selves find their positions in the space between us. I listened to the sound of his footsteps, their familiar, steady rhythm, and I wondered how much of my Fisher was still left inside the man next to me. As his arms moved with his stride, I felt the heat of his skin come close, then swoop away. I wanted to take his hand, but then wondered who else had.

Just as I was starting to question how much farther we would go, the path opened into a wide street that ran between a row of elegant houses and a dark green slope of grass that rolled down to the channel. Out on the water, I could see a cluster of ramshackle boats—an antiquated tug, some battered fishing trawlers, a couple of bedraggled yachts, and half a dozen sailboats, their masts like a row of fingers obscenely gesturing at the houses up the hill. A part of me drew back at the sight. But there was another part of me that remembered how it felt to be different, set apart.

Fisher, of course, led me toward the boats.

When we reached the edge of the water, he whistled and a man popped his head out of the closest sailboat. A black flag hung limply from the mast, and what looked like wet laundry was draped along the railing.

“Ferry?” Fisher called out. The man clambered down a ladder into a dinghy and headed toward us, oars slapping at the water.

“Will we all fit in that thing?” I asked.

“Don’t worry,” Fisher assured me. The dinghy scraped against the shore. “This is Jim. He’s our ferryman.”

Jim clambered out of the boat. His hair was ragged and his arms were like wire. He reminded me of the men who stood on the corner by Inspire, Inc., sometimes. Victoria refused to give them money. You need to make your own way in life, she always told me as we passed. You can’t rely on anybody else.

Now Jim turned to Fisher. “Did you bring any beer?”

“Couldn’t. I got kicked out,” Fisher said. “Next time.”

“Man, you know that’s not how it works.” Closer up, Jim’s face was as craggy as cedar bark. He looked at me, head cocked, and then said, “I’ll give you a pass this time because I like her curls.”

I braced for Fisher’s reaction, but he just smiled. “Thanks, old man,” he said.

I looked over at the dinghy, which was as battered as its owner. “Seriously, it’s fine,” Fisher said to me, and Jim held out his hand.

“Mademoiselle,” he said, motioning to the back bench.

Fisher took the oars. As we approached the boats, I saw they were in even worse condition than I’d thought, rust running down the sides, blue tarps forming temporary roofs, windows sealed up with cardboard. Two of the sailboats appeared to have sails, but something told me none of the vessels had pulled up their anchors recently.

It took Fisher no more than ten good strokes of the oars to get us out there. When we arrived, Jim secured the dinghy, and we all climbed the shaky metal ladder onto his boat.

“Welcome to the Desolates,” Jim said, and I heard the note of proud defiance in his voice.

From this vantage point, I could see the boats were arranged around a floating deck made of pallets and plywood. Four mismatched plastic chairs surrounded a barbecue grill, a five-gallon jug of water, and a single terra-cotta pot with a pink geranium in it. Still life, courtesy of a yard sale.

“Thanks, Jim.” Fisher smiled at him and took my hand, gently this time. “We go here,” he said, leading the way along Jim’s deck and across a wide plank onto an old tugboat. Its once-white paint and the wood of its trim were so faded that they’d blended together into an indeterminate gray. If that vessel was a log, it would have been sprouting new trees by now.

“You live here?” I asked.

“No choice,” he said, echoing my words with a sideways smile.

He was different here. Something calmer, less obvious had replaced the roughness I’d seen in the bar, the despair he’d shown on the dock. Even as the boat rocked in the current, his feet seemed steadier.