The Scent Keeper

This section, in which Emmeline comes to terms with her new life in the town of Secret Cove, begins unremarkably with the line, “The mattress was soft, the sheets stiff” (63). The opening sentence establishes a new tone for the novel. The observation is objective and undecorated by any lyrical ornamentation. This is no fairy tale—Emmeline is in a nondescript bed with a mattress and sheets; her descriptive adjectives are sense-bound, clear, and clean of fantastic embellishments. The novel has moved into the real world.

No longer the fairy tale heroine living in a magical forest with a wizard-father, Emmeline comes to terms with the world of Henry and Colette, who become her adoptive parents. She has no idea what Canada is, and she must be shown her island home in an atlas: “All I saw was flat pages, shapes divided into colors” (73). Everything is bewildering. Henry declines to share with her any specific information about her father and how they came to on the island. Emmeline reflects, “In the end, truth seemed no easier to catch than the scent of violets” (87). Her only way to engage with this strange new world—after all, she does not know what microwaves, cars, baths, or computers are—is through her most developed sense: She catalogues with furious curiosity all the smells of her new home, the cottages that she cleans, and the school where she is sent.

School becomes a different kind of education than she expects. Homeschooled by a father who was extreme in his protection protocols for his daughter, Emmeline was nevertheless kept up to date. She encounters no problems academically; issues arise only because, as a heroine from a fairy tale rescued and delivered to a real-time world, she lacks socialization skills. Her attempts to bond with the kids in her class often center around Emmeline’s overeager willingness to comment on their aromas. Bewildered by her observations of their body odor or cheap fruity perfume, the other students misunderstand her and isolate her as a “freak.”

Just when the novel appears to move into a typical coming-of-age narrative—in which the central character, sensitive and gifted, must struggle against the mean kids in her classroom—the novel veers back to the fairy tale premise: Emmeline meets Fisher. It is a moment of love at first sight. Like her, he is socially awkward and isolated. But what Emmeline notices, as she watches him swing on the playground swing set alone, are his “astonishingly” green eyes, “like trees in the spring” (101). This is not a cheesy expression of teenage carnality, nor is it aching adolescent loneliness reaching out for the solace of someone—anyone. This is framed as fairy tale magic. Emmeline falls in love the only way she can: like in a fairy tale.

Her education, however, is far from complete. Fisher, as he comes to reveal his trauma and abuse, will give Emmeline the chance to abandon the artificial mindset of a child. Fisher will complete Emmeline’s transition into adulthood.

For now, the two discover the sort of magical love typical of fairy tales. Uncomplicated by the itch of lust, the time with Fisher brings Emmeline happiness: “It was the happiest I had been since the time I believed in fairy tales and my father was my hero” (115). The times they spend together are wondrous interludes apart from the rest of the world, as they wander about the resort grounds laughing, taking in the sights, and talking. Fisher even fashions a nest made of broken branches and leaves where they can sit and get away the stress of school. That nest, however, so coaxing for Emmeline, is a red flag to the reader—and to the adult Emmeline who is sharing this story as a cautionary tale to her unborn child. The nest is just her father’s cabin updated: a fairy tale refuge 2.0.

Two events occur late in this section that suggest the tenuous nature of her new refuge. On their deliveries between the islands, Emmeline happens to see Fisher’s father pass by on his boat. His look, at once cruel and angry, send alarms. Emmeline’s sense of smell, “bitter as burnt coffee” (123), alerted her earlier that something was not quite right about Fisher’s father, but this chance encounter again confirms again the problem with putting faith in a fairy tale world.

The second jarring event is Emmeline’s chancing upon the very book of fairy tales she grew up reading in the cabin, except that this edition has no ripped pages. She reads the fairy tale of the emperor who tries to capture and enslave the nightingale as a way to cling forever to the bird’s sweet music. The story says more to the adult Emmeline—and to the reader—than it does to Emmeline at that moment. Here is her father’s sad and bitter acknowledgement that his life’s work—trying to capture aromas as a way to make memories last forever—is as pointless as it is tragic. Emmeline reads that the nightingale, once freed of the emperor’s narcissism, sings happily in the woods, its lilting song helping travelers remember in a moment of genuine, heartfelt spontaneity some wonderful things from their past. Still on her way to adulthood, Emmeline is uncertain over what to make of the story. Later, the excised fairy tale will help her come to terms with the villainy of her father and his misplaced experiments.