“Yeah, I got nothing.”
Caspian looked down at it. “That’s not true.”
“I have some black smears. Hardly anything to get excited about.” I turned the page sideways and studied it, putting the charcoal down. “Hey, if you look at it this way, it kind of looks like a giant monster hand or something.”
He laughed. “Let’s see what we can do with this.” Picking up the charcoal again, he set it to the page and started making quick, short strokes. Dark magic seemed to flow from his hands and settle right onto the paper. Long, smooth lines were next, and I could see something taking shape.
“Is that a forest?”
He nodded and kept working, transforming my pathetic, spindly attempts at a tree into a dark, twisted stump. The background came together, and trees started springing up, gathering around the edges in a wild dance of abandon. Some of the trees had spiky, forked branches, a stern warning to pay attention to what they had to say-while others pointed whimsically this way and that, their arched spines and flowing limbs swaying in time to some unheard beat.
“That’s amazing,” I breathed. “You’re making it all so real. I can see the story there.”
He kept working, smoothing and shading, until the edges were perfect. The lines sharp where they needed to be sharp, and soft where they needed to be soft. I didn’t speak, barely breathed, not wanting to interrupt him.
Finally he finished.
When he looked up at me, his eyes were bright and happy. He nudged back the sweep of hair that had fallen into one eye, leaving a charcoal smear on his forehead. Overwhelming gratitude filled me to have this chance, this perfect moment, to witness his happiness.
His passion.
“What should we call it?” he asked.
Without hesitation the words flew out of me. “Dance of the Forest.”
“Perfect.” He scrawled the name on the bottom of the paper, and then ripped the page out of the art pad, placing it on the covers beside me. “For you. See what a good team we make?”
I snorted. “Yeah, right. Without my terrible tree you totally couldn’t have made that brilliant drawing.”
“I wouldn’t have had anything to start with,” he corrected. “So, I wouldn’t have ended up with that.” He began another piece as he spoke, this one just a simple river. It was finished quickly, and he flipped the page again. Next a garden came to life, and he filled it with flowers.
I could have watched him draw all morning, but eventually he broke the stillness. “You know, you’re not completely out of perfume supplies, if you want to make something.”
“Yes, I am. Vincent broke everything.”
“What about your supply briefcase?”
My briefcase? I got up and went to check under my desk. “It’s still here! You’re right! I can make something with the supplies I have in here.”
I propped it up on the desk and opened the latches. Delight filled me as I ran my uninjured hand over the rows and rows of shiny amber glass bottles. I grabbed vanilla essential oil, butter CO2, basil essential oil, and oakmoss absolute to start with. Then I plucked up a handful of transfer pipettes and a mixing glass, and sat in the chair.
After pulling out a bottle of jojoba oil, I poured twenty drops into the mixing glass and flipped open the nearby perfumer’s notebook to write down which oils I was using.
“Did you know that the art of perfume is one that goes back to ancient times?” I said to Caspian. “Perfume was commonly found in the Bible. Cypress, sandalwood, myrrh, frankincense, cinnamon, and Balsam essential oils were used in the preparation of anointing oils and were burned as incense for sacrificial offerings.” I carefully measured out ten drops of basil oil and mixed it with the jojoba carrier oil. Five drops of oakmoss came after that. And then five of vanilla.
Caspian watched over my shoulder.
“There was even a bunch of perfume on the Titanic,” I said. “Adolphe Saalfeld was a perfumer who lived in England but wanted to market his scents in the United States. So he booked passage on the ship and took sixty-five test tubes of concentrated perfume scents with him. He survived the sinking, but left the perfumes behind. When they made that big discovery over the crash site a couple of years ago, they found his perfume samples and brought them up. Almost all of them had been perfectly preserved and they were able to re-create them.”
Using one of the transfer pipettes, I stirred the mixture awkwardly, not used to having to work around a sling, and then put the lid on. “Can you even imagine that? Being able to re-create a perfume that sat for all that time buried under the depths of the ocean? God, what a find.” I opened the bottle a couple of seconds later and inhaled deeply.
He watched in rapt fascination as I kept writing and mixing, adding more drops of this and that, then recapping and smelling.
“Needs more woodsy tone,” I muttered to myself after the fifth try. “Something …” I searched my supply case, eyeing what I had left. Spotting the Balsam oil, I grabbed for it. “Like that.”
Caspian read the label. “Isn’t that a Christmas tree?”
I nodded. “But you’re thinking of Balsam fir. That’s the pine-needle-smelling kind. This is Balsam from the Balsam bush. It smells spicy. A little bit like cinnamon. Unless it gets old. Then it smells like vanilla.” I added a couple of drops and made a note. “Some people believed that Balsam was harvested by a group of people called the Essenes who lived in Egypt and were known for their healing practices using essential oils. They lived where there were Balsam bushes and became cultivators of it, collecting it to sell and using it to support their way of life.”
He put his hand next to mine on the desk, and I paused, looking up.
“You are amazing,” he said softly. “Smart and beautiful and talented. Where did you learn all of this?”
Embarrassment filled me, and I looked away. “Research, mostly. I’m just some dork who needs to get another hobby.”
“No, you’re not. You’re-” He suddenly paused and glanced back at the door. Like he had heard something I hadn’t.
And then I heard it too.
Someone was right outside my room.
A halfhearted knock came, and the door opened. I leaned back, getting ready to say something to Mom, and then I saw Beth, from school.
Here.
At my house.
In short shorts and a bikini.
“Hey, Abbey,” she said brightly, all smiles. Her skin glowed like she’d just been airbrushed to perfection, and the toned gap of skin between her bathing suit top and shorts made me all too conscious of the fact that I hadn’t exactly spent my summer running track like she obviously had. “I totally called first, you know.”
Caspian moved to the closet. I watched him go, trying not to notice if he was noticing the short shorts.
“Hey, Beth,” I said slowly, getting to my feet. “This is … unexpected.”
She wandered over to the bed and sat down by the pile of drawings. Flipping past the top one, she stared at the garden of flowers. “Yeah, I’m on my way to the family beach house and thought you might want to come.” Her gaze flitted over to my sling and then swung away. “I, uh, heard about the whole hospital thing. How bad was it?”
“It’s fine. This is just overkill, really. The doctor insisted.”
“I hate when doctors do all this bullshit stuff just to tell you you’re fine. My mom works for an insurance company, and I swear, the things she says hospitals can get away with …”
Her fingers idly traced paths down the page in front of her. I could tell she wanted to ask me more about the attack, and I groaned inwardly at the thought. Beth was really nice, and I liked her, I did, but I totally wasn’t in the mood to go through it again.