“She went that way!” cries Camp Snoopy, his voice faint. Feeling ridiculous, I pick my way through the spiky ferns until I reach the edge of the forest, then sprint down a pathway lined with bark shavings. I could hide inside one of the redwoods with a rotted-out trunk, but I have a better idea. One less obvious.
I sniff around for the eastern red cedar with the hollow spot just large enough for a person to squeeze through, where Mother and I once found a Cinderella’s slipper orchid growing on a high branch. The Cinderella traps bees into its “shoe,” where they get dusted with pollen until they manage to escape.
The dense needles scratch at my arms but I manage to duck inside just before the kids rush by like a pack of bloodhounds.
A chaperone hurries after them, blowing her whistle. “Hey, kids, come back here!”
Not long after the chaperone passes my tree, I smell Court.
“Court!” I hiss.
He puts on the brakes, and quickly finds the entrance. The tree shudders as it swallows him up.
He’s tied his sweater around his waist and the front of his polo shirt is soaked down the middle. Sweating magnifies a person’s scent by tenfold. His scent, a heady blend of evergreens and roasting hickory nuts, is so strong I can almost wind my fingers through it. It muscles out the Cinderella still flourishing inside the tree, and makes my insides flutter. I lose mass with every bump-bump of my heart, and I’m thankful for the weight of my boots, anchoring me to the ground.
The kids’ voices grow louder again, and I go still as a pinecone. Our space is barely big enough to fit both of us, but we still manage not to touch. Court looks down at me, cheeks flushed from his game. A blanket of heat knits between us.
“Lost my flower,” he whispers.
“We can find you a new one.”
“I liked the old one.”
I take a deep breath to beat back the giddy feeling in my stomach. That’s when I catch it. Miso soup. I smell it. Alice’s missing note. It’s part of Court’s scentprint, though a thousand times less intense. Heart notes run in families.
My startled eyes take in his, brown, flecked with striations of gold and even green. A tiny mole dots his jaw, just like his mother’s. He’s my answer, right in front of me.
What did Mother say? Immerse yourself. Meditate on the scent. It will tell you where to go.
The kids run back past us to their teacher, brushing so close, our cedar sways. Court’s eyes, gazing at me, widen a fraction as our bristly capsule shakes. I grab onto a branch so I don’t accidentally fall into him.
I’m vaguely aware of an adult on a megaphone calling the children back to the buses. But like those bees that are seduced into Cinderella’s slippers, I am trapped, held captive while Court’s pollen flies around me. Only unlike those bees, I don’t want to escape.
The sound of children laughing diminishes completely.
Court peeks through the branches. “I think it’s safe.”
My palms begin to sweat. “I need to focus on something. Will you promise not t-to,” I stammer, “not to move?”
“Okay. What are you going to do?”
“Smell you.”
FIFTEEN
“DO THEY LOOK LIKE THEY’RE ABOUT TO VOMIT?
THEY’RE IN LOVE.”
—Reseda, Aromateur, 1724
“AREN’T YOU ALREADY smelling me?” Court asks around a smile. “I just played an hour of soccer with twenty-five third graders.” He leans in as if telling me a secret, and my pulse spikes at the warmth of his breath caressing my forehead. “Girls won. And anyway, I thought you already knew how I smelled.”
His throaty purr nearly liquefies me. Just like someone fixed by an elixir, my feelings for Court multiply like bacteria with each succeeding exposure to him.
I affect a business tone. “You have a bunch of smaller notes that aren’t obvious. One of those you share with your mom. I haven’t sourced it yet, but if I could get a better smell of it, I might be able to.”
“Okay. Smell away.” He spreads his arms, and if I were any other teenage girl, I would jump right into them.
I wrestle down my nervousness over what I’m about to do. Analyze the scents, comes Mother’s voice in my head, don’t give them the upper hand. I am a professional. A love professional. “I have to warn you not to touch me.”
His eyebrows lift in a question.
“I don’t want to infect you.” I already sprayed him once, after the bee sting, which should have been enough to last a lifetime. But why take chances? Especially when I’ve never hugged a boy before.
“Are you sick?”
“Not exactly.” I lick my lips. “But you could get, er, sick if you touch me.”
“What do you mean, sick?”
Wonderful. Now he’s going to think I have some transmittable disease, which isn’t far from the truth. “Lovesick.”
The corners of his mouth tuck back even more in amusement. “Lovesick?” he asks.
“Yeah, crazy, I know.” I try to keep a casual tone but I feel the flush.
My skin has gone clammy. What’s wrong with me? I’ve never felt so nervous in my life. He’s just a boy, human being like me, Homo sapiens. I lean in so that my nose is only an inch away from him and sniff.
Unlayering the mood notes, I find his scentprint. The nutmeg and cinnamon are especially strong and enticing.