False Notes and Other Fragrances by Rowan Tate

From the time she was seven, Ketra could smell lies.

Some reeked of burnt hair. Some of overripe plums. A half-truth had the scent of chewed mint, stale and thin. The worst ones, the ones people told themselves, had the scent of a sickly perfume.

Her mother told her not to say such things aloud. You’ll end up alone, she warned, or institutionalized.

Teachers lied about caring. Classmates lied about friends. Parents lied about time. Neighbors lied about caring. Strangers lied about hurry. Supervisors lied about chances. Lovers lied about forever.

She read the world in lists: chewed wires, syrup, pennies, chalk dust, wilted lavender, burnt toast crusts, seaweed, sour apple skins.

Ketra dated, once. He loved her, the man claimed, but the moment he said it, her eyes watered from the stench—chemical, acrid, of melting plastic.

She vomited on the balcony and never called him again.

Over time, Ketra stopped trying to explain herself. She lived alone in a green, fifth-floor flat that faced east. On good mornings, she stood at the ivy-laced window with nettle tea and inhaled the clean slate of sky, like a cool rag pressed to the forehead.

The truth didn’t smell like anything.

That winter, the pipes froze. Ketra’s landlord called a plumber named Amir. He didn’t say much. He barely spoke, in fact—just worked with slow hands and mumbled something about the seal. But when Amir handed her the invoice, the air between them was still. Utterly neutral. Not sweet, not sour, no scent at all. 

It was the first time she hadn’t winced at someone in years.

Ketra asked him if he wanted coffee. He nodded once.

They sat in a fat silence, sipping. No false compliments, no small talk. Just breath and ceramic. 

He left his blue and yellow gloves on her counter.

The next day, Amir returned—not to ask for them back, but to fix the hinge on her bedroom door. She hadn’t asked him to. He didn’t explain. 

Again, she made him coffee. Again, still space sat swollen between them like a kind of truth. Not not holy, not heavy, just exact.

Years later, when Amir died in his sleep, Ketra opened his closet to find his clothes all carrying that same scentless stillness.

She slept in his sweater for three nights.

By the fourth morning, she smelled sugar rising on the air. But this time, she didn’t mind.

Rowan Tate is a creative and curator of beauty. She reads nonfiction nature books, the backs of shampoo bottles, and sometimes minds.