Lavender House Novels & Stories

JASMINE A few days after Blake’s confession, I was lying in bed late at night, absorbed in a book, when I heard a tapping on my window. Ping. The sound of something hitting the glass clanged. I got out of bed to see what was happening, pulled back the curtains, and looked out my window to see that Blake was outside my house winding his arm back. Ping. A pebble hit my window. I opened it, the warm summer air entering my room, and poked my head out to see him smiling at me and waving his hand, signaling for me to come out.

She could not remember what was it, but it was important for her. Important to her. Wait, again! What about her little lavender pot? It was her most favourite! Her priced possession. It was her precious baby. Her uncle John imported the most expensive lavenders specifically for her from abroad as they were not available in the country they lived in. It was the most fragrant type which spread its scent whenever she walked in the garden, making it look like a magical garden from those fairytales. They were ordered in the memory of her late mother, Cassandra Smith.

I just followed him as he walked towards a two-story house, surrounded by glass windows, there were plants at the entrance, as soon as I entered, I immediately smelled a familiar scent, Lavender. The house has a combination of black and white theme, it’s very elegant, spacious, and relaxing, it suits here, I felt sleepy just by seeing it, he immediately brought me to the room, I sat on the bed but he remained standing and looking for something. He had a remote in his hand, I was amazed because the color of the glass windows suddenly changed.

“Lavender.” I hear Jim’s voice call after me and I briefly close my eyes. Oh, no. The halls of his mansion are wide and tall, and no amount of interior design could make them feel like home. I consider hiding for a second, but then realize how ridiculous that would be, so I turn around.

Within less than a minute, the gas lamp posts of my home appeared, lighting the evening. Parking my car in front of the house, I hurried to my front door. The familiar scent of lavenders drifted through my nose from the fresh flowers, I looked around the large foyer, the white marble floor appear as I leaned against the stairs, looking up the flights to the eerie silence above. I heard a voice that was feminine definitely not Laura's, arching my brow I ran up the step.

I laughed mentally and let myself drown into the aroma of lavender and the freshness it brings to my body. After 2 hours of driving, Hayden stopped the car inside of a village. The houses look like straight from the movies, big and fascinating design. I watched him as he opens the door of one of the houses. “What are you doing?” I asked but he just laughed and motions me to follow him. Instinctively, I follow his steps inside the house and I feel relaxed when I see how fresh the ambiance is. The house exterior palette is just a combination of two basic color, black and white. Even the wooden fence is painted white and black for the gate.

"Why don't you sit down and I will get you some toast. Lavender urged and led her to a chair at the table, avoiding the question. Lynexia felt it in her heart that her parents didn't make it out of that burning house. No one would avoid a question unless the news was bad. She slumped in the chair. She put her head in her hands and howled with pain. Lavender abandoned the tea and toast to comfort the young female. "I'm sorry, young one. I know it's hard to lose those you love. It is the worst pain anyone could ever feel. In time you will have a little less pain. You will, one day, be able to grow from this. " lavender assured.

She hugs me at the garden gate — my mother, who does not hug freely, who holds things the way I hold them, with the Fennel composure that was always the Gamma wolf's gift and is also simply the way we are built. She hugs me long. "Come back," I say. "Yes," she says. "I will." She goes. I stand at the gate. The lavender is visible in the evening light — the blue-grey of it, the specific smell that has come to mean: Caldenveil, home, the garden, the years of root work done. My grandmother's lavender. Not something I chose. Something I was always going to choose. The city hums. The warm stone hums.

They didn't want to kill us; they wanted us to clear the traps so they could take the rune. ​My mind flashes back to the core breach in the packhouse. To Elvira cowering in that basement alcove near the Saferoom, her scent a suffocating cloud of lavender masking the complete absence of genuine fear-sweat. I think of her constant, lingering presence near my office. The way Liora had described her pathetic, calculated sabotage on the stairs before the hybrids dropped. ​Lavender. The strange, metallic-herbal intruder scent Atlas had picked up in no-man's-land weeks ago.