There is no remedy for the spell of fragrance. To me the most haunting aspect of scent is not the conjuring of someone else but of a former self—the ghost of you. I recently stumbled on a box of tiny perfume bottles that I collected as a child. As I pulled them out and dusted them off, I suddenly became overwhelmed with emotion. At first it was holding the bottles, seeing their colors and shapes and arranging them on my dresser that made me remember the little girl that did the very same thing decades ago.