The Hidden - Jessica Verday [12]
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,