The Lavender Letter

Closing up the shop was always her favorite part of the day. It was quiet, and slow. Little puffs of herbs swirled around her as she poured them back into their jar—it felt surreal that this was her life. Running her dream herbal book store.

Getting home that evening was different from all the other nights she came home. There was a letter taped to her door. An old, vintage envelope with a wax seal in the shape of lavender. With her eyebrows raised, she took a deep breathe, grabbed the letter, and unlocked her door. The keys jingled as they landed the dish on the doorway table, the door quietly closing with the push of her foot. Kicking her shoes off as she walked into the kitchen, she slid her fingers under the wax and peeled open the letter.

My sweet Lily,

Oh, how I have missed you so. If you are reading this, I have shifted into the Earthly In-Between. It makes me so sad, and I promise I am feeling it here. I wholeheartedly believe that your mother did you a disservice by not allowing us to know each other, but I always tried to support her choices as a parent.

The thing is, now that I am not here to protect the bloodline magic, we need you. I know this is going to seem crazy, but I promise you will understand when you have arrived at the Cove Breeze Coffee Shop in Whistleton, WA. Ask for Ryan.

I love you, sweet girl. Talk soon,

Grandma Elise.

“Talk soon? Talk soon? How am I going to talk soon to my dead grandmother?!” She yelled out loud to her empty house. “Sweet chocolate sauce, what is happening?” Rubbing her temples, she spoke quieter this time. Her mother had passed last year, she didn’t know her dad, she was alone except for her herbal clients and bookstore patrons. She did have Ella, her best friend. She would need her take over the store while she wandered off to a weird little town to talk to her dead grandmother and a dude named Ryan.

The one thing she did know is she did have a grandmother named Elise. It was her mothers mother, and her mother hated her. For unknown reasons, Lily had never met her, and was forbidden to speak of her. So, at the very least, she trusted that she had a grandmother named Elise, and she knew she lived in WA. She, however, did not know how to talk to dead people.

She needed to shower and sleep. With wet feet, and her hair and body wrapped in sage green towels, she wandered back into the kitchen to get some water before heading to bed. On her phone, she had Whistleton, WA opened on her GPS app—3 hours, 22 minutes. Her eyes drifted toward the letter still sitting on the counter, her stomach did gymnastics, and she shifted her feet toward the bedroom. Sleep. If she slept, she would feel better, and come back to look at this rationally.

The next morning, she was staring at it again. It seemed to have it’s own energy flowing from it. As scary as the words were inside the letter, the whole thing made her feel calm and grounded. That thought made her stomach do higher-level gymnastics.

Bringing up Ella’s text thread, she sent a message:

Hey, I have a family emergency in WA. Think you can handle the shop for a few days? I would owe you big!

A family emergency in WA? What family? What emergency? Are you okay? She giggled as she read the reply.

Yeah, I’m good. I got a letter from my moms mother who lives up there, she needs some help. I shouldn’t be long.

Okay, okay. I got you. I am going to need some special editions of my favorite book series, tho. Love you!

You got it. Thank you. I’ll text when I am there. Love you, too!

Ella didn’t need to know the truth until she knew the truth.

She locked her phone, packed her bags, and headed to her car.

3 hours and 47 minutes later she had arrived at the Cove Breeze Coffee shop in a town she had never heard of. The door jingled when she opened it, but it was a magical sound, not a bell ringing. Odd, she thought.

“Hello, I am looking for someone named Ryan,” she said as she walked up to the counter. The girl behind the counter side-eyed the room next to her and very calmly said “Hey Ry, there’s someone here to see you.”

She didn’t know what she was expecting to come out of that room, but it was not that. A very tall, very handsome man with a beard and longish-shortish dark brown hair, stepped out with dirt on his hands, his green eyes pierced into her soul when he looked at her. He said something, she heard something muffled, but didn’t know what.

Suddenly, she snapped back to reality. “…to meet you” was the end of whatever he had said.

“Huh?” She asked.

“I said, you must be Lily, I am happy to meet you,” he replied with a slight smile.

“Oh yes, I am Lily. You must be Ryan. I am sorry, I am tired, I think. My grandma sent me a letter telling me to come here and ask for you so I did that, and here I am.”

“I am so sorry for your loss, Lily. Elise was an incredible woman, and I wish you could’ve had the chance to grow up with her. Do you want a drink, on the house? We can chat some more,” he said it as if it was totally normal that she got a letter from her dead grandmother who told her to come ask for some guy named Ryan. She shook it off.

Ryan sat down at the table with the chai tea latte she had ordered, and started in on a story that sounded like a fairy tale book you read to small children.

Her grandmother was the matriarch of their bloodline magic, and in recent years she was protecting it from another magical bloodline that was not earth-based magic. Earth magic in the area was connected to the original bloodline magic from the founders of the area. Once upon a time, it was full of happiness, joy, and magic—it was enchanted, Ryan had explained. Will was the guy who was trying to take over the magic, but without the connection to the Earth, his bloodline magic didn’t work well in this region. He had a history of evil doings, and causing havoc. Her grandmother had thwarted him more than once, but with her passing, the Earth magic opened a little, leaving room for a takeover if one could manage the spell. It wouldn’t be easy since Lily was still alive, but she didn’t have magic, just connection to the herbs and the Earth.

Or so she thought.

Ryan explained that her mother, hating all things magic, had her bound as a child. A magical spell that binds a persons magic within them. She had always felt like she had a ‘better than most people’ green thumb, and was really good at mixing herbal concoctions—turns out her magic was seeping.

Elise had left a vial of her blood, and the spell to unbind her magic with Ryan (who was magical, too) to help Lily unbind her magic, and fight Will.

As Ryan shared that last bit, she stood up, knocking over her coffee and bolted for the dark hallway under the sign that read Restroom. After vomiting her two sips of latte, she rinsed her mouth, and walked back out with her head held high. She could do this. Even if she honestly thought she could, in fact, not do this, she knew she could because there was no other choice.

Ryan’s face about took out hers when she opened the bathroom door.

“I am sorry. I know that was a lot especially for someone who had no idea any of this even existed but we are short on time, and I had to just kind of throw it at you,” he exclaimed sincerely.

“I’m fine. My body just needed a minute. Where do we go to unbind my magic?” The words fell out like she had been in this type of situation before. Squeezing around Ryan, she walked back toward the table to clean up the mess and grab her purse. The mess had already been cleaned so she grabbed her purse, spun on her feet, and said “whatcha waiting for?”

Ryan smiled a full face smile, and said “my truck awaits.”

10 minutes later, and they were pulling up to the cutest little moss-covered witch’s cabin she had ever seen. Her eyes wide, and a smile on her face, she looked at Ryan and gasped “this is where she lived? This would’ve been the perfect spot for an herbal shop. Please tell me she had an herbal shop?!”

Ryan laughed and replied “of course she had an herbal shop. She was our local herbalist, everyone came far and wide to get medicine and potions from your grandmother. She can’t wait to talk to you.”

Her heart felt like it was going to jump out of her chest. Talk to her? Did she fake her death or something? She was feeling a little light headed, but more excited so she rolled with it.

“Did she fake her death? How can she be alive if there was a tear in the magic? She asked with confusion on her face.

“Come on, I’ll show you.” He climbed out of the truck, walked around, opened the door, and let her out.

Oooh, hot and sweet, she thought.

The ambush of lavender and lemon balm attacked her senses as she walked in the door. She closed her eyes and just felt the overwhelming power surge into her. Her eyes snapped open when she heard a whisper “Hello, my sweet girl.”

Her heart stopped. She sucked in air. Almost choked. Opened her eyes, and there was a see-through version of her grandmother standing in front of her.

“I have missed you. You came a little close to the edge here, and we are running out of time. Let’s get you unbound.” She said in the softest, most caring, grandma voice she had ever heard.

Tears flowing down her face, she said “okay, let’s.”

They sat around the table in the middle of the room. There were small piles of dirt, crushed dried herbs, a few crystals, and a vile of blood — her grandmothers. Ryan walked over, and gently took her hand in his, using a knife, he poked her ever so gently with a crystal knife. She hissed, but it didn’t really hurt. Her blood pooled on the table in front of her. Ryan opened her grandmothers blood, added a few drops to Lily’s blood, dropped some dried herbs into the blood, and sat next to her. Suddenly, candles lit all around them, and her grandma winked at her.

Ryan was holding her hand, and touching the area where her grandmothers hand was, she noticed that her grandmother was “holding” her hand, too.

He asked “are you ready? This might hurt a little.”

“Yes, as read as I’ll ever be.”

He started reciting the spell, and her grandmother was whispering along with him. The flames jumped up and down, and the blood was moving in waves.

The burning came first, all through her body followed by a sudden, sharp stabbing pain in her chest then darkness.

She opened her eyes a few minutes later to Ryan putting a bandaid on her hand from the poke.

“It’s done,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“I feel…” she was cut off by the sudden explosion of glass from the front windows in the cabin.

“Did you think I wouldn’t know that she was here? That you were trying to unbind her?” Will, she assumed, was screaming as he flung fire balls around the room.

Ryan leaned in and whispered, “your magic is free, think and feel the desire to do you need, and it will manifest, you are water magic, but have access to Earth bloodline magic, so all elements are at your disposal. You do not need a spell, just a thought and a feeling. You water magic will stop his fire magic - I believe in you.”

Then he jumped back and was yelling back at Will. She couldn’t hear his words, her heart was in her ears. She took a deep breathe, and remembered how she used to dream what it would be like to be a real witch. Standing up, she threw out her arm toward will and summoned water magic that flew from her fingertips. It was incredible, and scary, and she felt like she was watching a movie with her as the character. The water hit Will right as he flung a fire ball at Ryan, stopping it in it’s tracks.

That felt oddly satisfying, she thought. With a startling rush of adrenaline, she starting flinging water magic at him left and right, with both hands, faster than he could figure out what was happening. She pushed him further toward the wall as he lost his balance and smashed into it, and out of nowhere, Ryan jumped in front of her flinging his hands at Will—vines attacked Will holding him against the wall.

He must be Earth magic, she assumed.

Will screamed “She’s only been here a day, how did she get unbound without Elise here?”

Ryan responded in a very angry tone she hadn’t heard before “we were already prepared for your attempted takeover, Elise and I knew what was coming. You think you can take over the Greenwood line when you do not have the bloodline/earth connection, and turn into a black magic fest. It will not happen when there are still Greenwood witches around. Lily is here to guide the magic in the right direction, to keep the herbalism alive, to keep the joy, and the good magic within Cove Breeze the way it has always been. You want the magic for evil, and hatred, and she wants the magic for what it was meant for - family, community, and love.”

Ryan reached behind him, grabbing Lily’s hand, and said “I need you to hold my hand, and touch the spirit of your grandmother, and believe with everything you have that you can bind his magic as yours was bound. I will recite the spell, but without your magic, it won’t work. Think you’re up for it?”

“Yes, yes I am. Let’s do this” she said louder than she meant to, and a little out of breathe.

As Ryan spoke the spell, Will screamed in agony. She could feel the magic swirling inside her, touching her soul. She felt full of life, and home. She had never had this feeling of home, of where she belonged before.

When the spell was done, Ryan said something else, and Will disappeared. Ryan said “I put where he can’t hurt anyone else.”

Lily just nodded, she trusted Ryan. She felt this weird connection to him, she couldn’t explain. She jumped when her grandmother spoke in her ear “you two were bound as children to be together as the holder of the magic. Ryan is from a family we have held the magic with for centuries. What you’re feeling is deep-seeded love we gave you two.”

She glanced at Ryan with a sliver of a smile, and smiling himself, he leaned in and kissed her. Literal sparks flew through the room, and her body jolted.

“The magic has been reconnected, and the scared keeper of the bloodline has reclaimed it’s spot at the top. I always believed you would end up here again, my sweet child. I will be here to hold your hand along the way, and we will revive this town to what it used to be,” Elise exclaimed loudly.

Ryan’s green eyes dug into Lily’s soul, and she could see the future. The happiness he would be bring her, and her to him. The town as they rebuilt it. Her life as the new matriarchal herbalist, her shop she would leave to Ella. There were black shadows throughout the vision, obstacles she knew they would face together.

Six Months Later

The shop was fully rebuilt and running smoothly. Ella was loving that Moongove Herbals had become her own shop. Lily gifted it to her. Standing there behind the counter staring out the new bay window Ryan had installed with her chai tea in her hands, she finally knew what it meant to have a family, and people who believed in her. She came here thinking she was crazy, and was now more clear than she had ever been in her entire life.

Ryan swung open the door, a smile came over her face. In his hands, he held, the biggest lavender plant she had ever seen. “Lavender was your birth herb, and I’ve been growing this I was 16 in hopes that you would be here one day. Since today is your birthday, I figured I would give it to you now. Happy Birthday, my love.”

She giggled like a school girl, set down her drink, wrapped her arms around his neck, and thanked the stars that she didn’t throw away the letter taped to her door six months ago.