The Book of Lost Fragrances

Thirty-two

8:58 P.M.

Jac stepped out onto the terrace and reached for the light switch.

“Wait.” Griffin stopped her. “Let’s see if there’s enough ambient light.”

“None of the surrounding buildings can see down into the maze.”

“The maze? Is that where you think Robbie is?”

She nodded. “I’ll show you.”

Griffin looked up and craned his neck. “Are you sure no one can look down on us? What about there?” He pointed.

“That’s part of our building. These trees were planted so that no one can see the labyrinth except us. One day if a skyscraper goes up nearby, perhaps, but not yet.”

“It’s still better if you don’t turn on the lights. Even if they can’t see us directly, there might be some kind of glow. You don’t want them to know you’re out here at night.”

“I’m just taking a walk in my own garden,” she argued. “How suspicious could that be?”

“Let’s try it without the lights.”

As stubborn as Jac was, he was worse. She bristled. How, after so long, could they reprise their roles so easily? The good and the bad. The comforting and the annoying. Over the years, Jac had assumed the grooves they’d worn in each other’s psyches would have smoothed out. But they hadn’t. In little more than twenty-four hours, she and Griffin had slipped back to the way they had a decade ago.

It was a moonless night. Opaque black. But Jac knew the twists and turns in the warren of lanes by heart and led the way without a misstep. She could have done it blindfolded-by smell. There were roses and jasmine planted in the center, and the stronger their scent, the closer she knew she was.

Arriving at the maze’s heart, she dropped to her knees and with the palms of her hands moved the black and white pebbles away, revealing the metal disc she’d discovered earlier that afternoon.

There had been no flashlights in the parfumerie. Or if there were, she didn’t know where to find one. Griffin always carried a penlight in his briefcase, but that was back in his hotel room. A supply of scented candles from the shop was the best they could manage. Fat, expensive votives that were imbued with the signature fragrances of the House of L’Etoile.

Griffin squatted beside her, struck a match. Once the candle came to life, he shone it on the manhole cover.

“This is a couple of hundred years old.” He ran his fingers over the metal numbers.

1808 .

“How could I have missed that this afternoon?” she said, annoyed with herself.

“You weren’t looking for it. You were looking for Robbie.”

What had been impossible for Jac to do alone, she and Griffin did in their first effort. They lifted the plate and moved it aside revealing a three-foot-wide hole in the ground.

“What’s down there?” he asked.

Trying to ignore her growing panic, Jac kneeled down and peered over the edge. The scent that wafted up contained dirt and dust. Slightly rotting wood and moldy stone.

Griffin lowered the candle into the hole. The small flame only illuminated the metal rim and a few feet of stonework. Beyond that, all Jac saw was an infinite darkness that offered no clues.

“Can you smell the loyalty perfume?” he asked.

“No, not anymore.”

Defeated before they even began.

Griffin lifted up the candle but the speed of his action was enough to blow out the flame. Now the garden was as black as the inside of the hole.

“Don’t worry. We’ll find him.”

Jac couldn’t see Griffin’s face. Just heard his voice. It was like a cool wind. Coming from a distance. Washing over her. The familiar voice that made her shiver with its familiarity and pull her sweater tighter around her shoulders. As if she could protect herself from him.

Griffin struck another match. The wick sputtered to life. He lowered the candle slowly, so that this time the flame didn’t blow out.

The light illuminated only another foot of the stone tunnel. Jac still couldn’t see the bottom. Her heart was beating so fast she could hear it. Panic curled around her and teased her, threatening to paralyze her.

“Are you all right?” Griffin asked. “This must be hell for you.”

She nodded. For one moment, her fear was replaced by surprise that he’d remembered this, too.

Jac had a fear of edges. It was a peculiar phobia. Rare, too, according to the therapists she’d discussed it with in Switzerland. Heights didn’t bother her at all. Her apartment in New York City was on the twenty-seventh floor. But she couldn’t stand on the edge of a train platform without feeling her heart speed up. What if she tripped, or slipped, or-even worse-became paralyzed on an edge, unable to move?

She knew how it started, but identifying its genesis did little to eradicate its grip on her. She and an eight-year-old Robbie had been playing hide-and-seek. He’d climbed out the attic window onto the roof. She’d looked up there and, seeing the window open, climbed out after him. The roof was large, and the many chimneys and eaves were excellent hiding places. Jac was prowling around looking for him. Suddenly she heard voices. Walked to the edge. Looked down. Her parents were below, standing in the street, arguing. They fought hard and often, and it always bothered Jac. She couldn’t bear either of them being unhappy.

This altercation was especially nasty and loud. She was so absorbed in their insults and threats that she didn’t hear Robbie come up behind her. He said her name, startling her. She turned too fast and her left foot slid over the edge. She was falling. Robbie grabbed Jac, held on, and pulled her up across the tiles-scratching her as he dragged her, but saving her from what would have surely been broken bones or worse.

Breathe. The trick to everything. Breathe, she told herself.

If Robbie is down there, you have to help him.

She knew how to calm down. Inhaling, she focused on deciphering the scents in the air. Earth. Rotting wood. Stone dust and mold. Crisp, clean resins from the cypress hedges that made up the maze. The night-blooming jasmine planted in the garden along with the early roses. And grass. Together all the scents created a loamy dark Oud. A mysterious and bewildering earthy perfume that suggested forests heavy with foliage. So thick only shafts of sunlight penetrated. So dense a child could wander forever and never find her way out.

Nowhere in the scent was a hint of what she was searching for.

Was her brother here or not? Had he been giving her clues? If not, then why was the tip of the obelisk smeared with dirt? Why had the pebbles been awry? Was it just a cat creating havoc?

“Robbie?” she called out, then strained to listen.

An echo of her own voice mocked her simplistic effort.

As if he might be there just waiting for her, she thought to herself.

“Robbie?” She tried again, despite knowing better.

Nothing.

“What is down there?” She whispered as much to the night as to Griffin. She sounded scared and was suddenly ashamed.

Griffin opened his fingers and let the candle drop. For a few seconds it enlightened more stonework. Then, like a shooting star, it tumbled downward, extinguishing itself through its own velocity.

Jac was shaking. Shivering as badly as if she were out in a snowstorm without any protection. She knew her physical symptoms were due to the phobia, but she couldn’t stop them. She turned to Griffin and was about to say something, when he put up his hand to stop her.

When the candle hit bottom, the sound was faint, far away.

“Why did you do that?”

“I wanted to see how long it took to fall. Figure out the depth by feet per second.”

“How long did it take?”

“Almost thirty seconds to hit bottom.”

“How deep is that?”

“Over a hundred feet.”

Griffin lit a second candle, leaned as far over the rim as was safe, and lowered the light.

“It’s just a rock wall covered with moss and lichen.”

“No, look,” he said.

She inched closer. Her heart accelerated. Jac couldn’t tell where he was pointing. “Where?”

“See that indentation?” He pointed.

Two feet down was a depression.

She shook her head. “What is it?”

“Steps, Jac.”

He leaned down a little bit farther. “See. There’s another one. They’re carved into the stone. And probably descend all the way to the bottom.”

“We have to go down there. Look for him.”

“I know, but not yet.”

“Why not?”

“We’re not prepped.” He pointed to her shoes, her clothes. “We need sneakers, helmets with lights. We need rope and a first aid kit in case Robbie is hurt.”

She tried to argue, but his experience trumped her impatience.

“Not till we’re outfitted. If we get hurt, we won’t be able to help Robbie.”

“Even if I knew where to go to get that kind of equipment, there’s not going to be anything open tonight.”

“I’m sorry, but we’ll have to wait till tomorrow. We have no way to see where we’re going. No way of tracking our path. We don’t know where that goes. We could get lost.”

Sweat was dripping down Jac’s back despite the cool air. She was frightened, but that didn’t matter. Robbie had left a message for her. He was all that she had. She’d fought worse demons than this. Visions and nightmares had once threatened her sanity. They’d put her in the hospital. Given her electric shock. Drugged her. She could tolerate a tunnel.

Even though she’d just agreed with Griffin that they should wait, she couldn’t do it. Getting down on her knees, she backed up toward the opening.

His fingers wrapped around her wrists. His grip was so tight, pain shot up her arm. He pulled her away from the hole.

“You’re hurting me,” she gasped.

He let go. “You’re crazy, you know that?” His face was twisted in anger. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”

Her heart was pounding, and she couldn’t catch her breath. Sitting on the damp earth, she leaned against the hedge. Her arms ached from being pulled away. She blinked back tears. The very last thing she was going to do was cry in front of Griffin.

“If Robbie escaped and is down there-he’s as safe there as anywhere. No one could possibly know where he is. He’ll survive another night. We’ll go down tomorrow.”

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

“I promise,” he added.

The combination of fear, frustration and sadness mixed in with the memory those two words elicited proved too much. The first hot tear slid down her cheek. She turned away from him. A second tear.

She felt his hand on her shoulder.

“Let me help you. I pulled you pretty hard. I was worried you might fall.”

Ignoring his hand, she stood up, wiped her hands off on the back of her jeans, and started for the house.