The Lavender Heir

Intro

The old house hummed with the ghosts of forgotten laughter and whispered goodbyes. Sasha ran her hand along the cool, polished banister, a faint scent of lemon polish and something else, something indefinable, clinging to the wood. It was the scent of them, her parents, woven into the very fabric of the home she was leaving behind. The last removal van had pulled away an hour ago, leaving only echoes and the vast, empty spaces where furniture used to be.

Her cat, Moschops, a furry shadow, wound himself around her ankles, a small, purring anchor in the ocean of her grief. He was her constant, her quiet companion through the desolate weeks since her father’s passing. Now, with both parents gone, the world felt too large, too silent. London, her small flat, her friends—they were a lifeline, a promise of a future she desperately needed to grasp.

She stepped into the garden one last time, the familiar rows of her father’s meticulously tended lavender swaying in the autumn breeze. Its sweet, herbaceous perfume, usually a comfort, now felt like an ache, pulling memories of bare feet on summer grass, Penny (her old dog) barking at butterflies, and the quiet, chubby neighbour boy who’d always watched from the fence, saying nothing.

The weight of the house key, cold in her palm, felt heavier than she could bear. It was the last link, the final turn of a lock that sealed off a chapter of her life. She climbed into her car, the engine a low growl of anticipation and farewell. The vape offered a momentary distraction, the vapor mixing with the sting of unshed tears that finally broke free. She didn’t fight them. They came, hot and fast, for everything she was leaving behind, for everything she had lost.

She reversed out of the driveway, the gravel crunching under the tires like a muffled drumbeat. She didn’t look back. The past was behind her, sealed off. Ahead lay London, her quiet flat, and the hopeful promise of home. But she didn’t know then that home wasn’t just a place she was returning to; it was a truth waiting to be uncovered, a legacy whispered on the wind, rooted in a place far from what she knew, a place where lavender still bloomed, and secrets waited to be found.

New book coming soon !! xxx