The heady scent of lavender sent me to my sleep. I dreamed I was waking through fields of the purple flowers. My fingers brushed the delicate blooms and their scent swam around me. Bees buzzed by and birds sing from the trees whilst above the sky was pink and orange, the sun just a smear. I could stay forever in this dream.
(Inspired by; https://only100words.xyz/2020/07/30/three-line-tales-235/ with thanks).
The toddler was screaming the house down again. Marley had had enough. She went upstairs and from her bedroom drawers pulled out the little cloth bags of fragrance she kept in there with her clothes. It was an old habit from being brought up by her grandmother.
Marley entered the nursery and picked her daughter up. The toddler thrashed around but then Marley held the lavender scented backs to the child’s nose.
A few minutes later, her daughter stopped cry and screaming.
Marley let her hold one of the bags then placed the toddler back into the cot. Marley dropped the other bags around the now calming child and thought; peace at last!
Amelia discovered the bracelets and essential oils online.
‘Can help with anxiety,’ she read aloud.
Scrolling through the reviews, she decided it was worth a shot. Her anxiety had become so bad that she rarely left the house anymore.
She ordered a nice black lava stone rock bracelet and an anxiety relief oil.
A few days later, they arrived. She opened the oil and found she liked the calming smell of lavender and yang yang. The bracelet too was really nice. Amelia put a few drops of the oil on then slipped the bracelet on her wrist.
She smelt the lava stones and the oil scent wrapped around her like a calming blanket.
Hannah’s family could trace it’s business back to the French monks who had lived in the 12th century monastery in the valley. Today, that holy place was in ruins and made a fine tourist attraction.
The family relayed on that draw for customers to their gardening shop, specialist laid out gardens, wild meadows and small woodlands.
Hannah’s favourite place was the lavender field. There were over twenty kinds of the purple, heady smelling flowers. It had been great-grandma’s job to tend the field and now it was Hannah’s. She knew each plant like an old friend, it was just a shame she could no longer smell.
(Inspired by; https://flashfictionforthepracticalpractitioner.wordpress.com/2019/08/07/flash-fiction-for-the-purposeful-practitioner-36/ with thanks).
When all her tasks were done and the Big house was busy with other things, Nanny liked to take the children for a long walk. In the winter and autumn months the time spent outside depended on the weather and the fussiness of the six children. In spring and summer, whole days could be spent in the vast gardens.
Elizabeth the oldest at fourteen did not like her hair and dresses getting wet and muddy. Often, she would take shelter in one of the many alcoves and read romantic fiction. In contrast her twin brothers; Henry and George aged ten, loved getting as dirty as possible. They would scamper through gardens left wild, splash in the brook and hunt for bugs. Getting those two back inside was a trying time for Nanny.
Mary, seven, and Anne, five, liked picking flowers to make necklaces, crowns and give as bunches to people. This was highly frowned upon by the gardeners! Whilst the youngest, two year old, James, would sit in his pram or on a blanket and try to join in with his siblings play.
Nanny would find nice comfortable seats to rest on and she would knit, sew, read, join in with games and sometimes nap in the hazy heat of the afternoon. Nanny liked the fragrant scents of jasmine and roses, her favorite though was lavender because it was so calming.
The children liked to bring Nanny handfuls of lavender whenever she was cross at them. Nanny in return would use dried lavender in bedding and clothes to keep things fresh.
As the children grew up and left the Big house to led their own lives, the smell of lavender always reminded them of time spent in the garden with their Nanny.
(Inspired by; https://scvincent.com/2019/01/31/thursday-photo-prompt-fragrant-writephoto/ with thanks).
In your dream, a child walks through a lavender garden. The child wears a blue dress, but you aren’t sure if it a girl or a boy. You never get to see the face of the child and really it is nothing more than a figure wearing a blue dress. You watch as the child goes through the tall lavender flowers at a gently walking pace. You think the child’s hand touches one of the purple buds, but you can’t quite see. The smell of lavender is overwhelming. At the start of the dream, the lavender smells nice and makes you feel relaxed, but as all ways, the scent starts to grow thicker and makes you feel sick. You don’t know why that is, but you do know that it normally starts to happen just before the child disappears. The child all ways disappears. You don’t know why because you have a clear view of the garden. You can see where it meets the ocean blue sky. The child doesn’t fade, more like vanishes before you and you feel an undescribed anguish. Often this feeling has made you believe that you are connected to the child. Is it your baby? Or a relative’s that you are watching over? You don’t know, but you do understand that you’ll never see the child again. You rush through the garden and lavender buds attach to your clothes like rose thorns. You try to escape them, never questioning why they seem like they are. You only know that they are going to stop you and you must, must find the child! Why is the child so special? So wonderful, so important? You fail to ask yourself as you struggle away from the thorny lavender. Then you are falling off a cliff edge and the sea is a roaring monster below you. Your body hits the water, tumbling in along some stones. You drown then, just as you do every night.
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