Chasing Skies Beyond Lavender Lane: A Sequel To: the Beans of Lavender Lane

By Shelby Eve Sayer

Oliver West has been wondering about his parents since he could remember. But what happens when you cross a lifelong ache, with a ticket to the Channel Islands, a lively co-captain, and an unearthed secret? Endless discoveries—that’s what! Discoveries that lead to new beginnings as unexpected friendships, stories of yesterday, and new definitions of home unfurl.

Buckle up as The Beans of Lavender Lane adventures continue in its sequel across the sea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669853824

Shelby Eve Sayer

Shelby Sayer began writing at age 6. At 16, she found herself in a worldwide pandemic that fueled creativity, resulting in her first full-length novel. Buckle up for a fresh voice that has a knack for expressing joy in both an insightful and colorful way. You do not want to miss being a part of this author’s beginnings. When she is not writing she can be found on an adventure or surrounded by her spirited family.

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 by Shelby Eve Sayer.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For more information,

please visit:

www.shelbyevesayer.com

Rev. date: 11/14/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

843898

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 What Never Was

Chapter 2 Change of Course

Chapter 3 Ruffian in the Boardinghouse

Chapter 4 A New Life

Chapter 5 A Happy Corner of the Universe

Chapter 6 Maybe or Maybe Not

Chapter 7 A Willing Brother

Chapter 8 Out Cold

Chapter 9 Horizons

Chapter 10 Light in a Cave

Chapter 11 The Earth beneath Them

Chapter 12 Another Memory

Chapter 13 Lost Words

Chapter 14 A Subtle Plea

Chapter 15 A Call to Adventure

Chapter 16 The Trailhead

Chapter 17 Basil Creek Road

Chapter 18 Invisible Strings

Chapter 19 Tea and Stories

Chapter 20 Fill-in Mother

Chapter 21 Polly Abbot

Chapter 22 Airplanes

Chapter 23 Obviously

Chapter 24 A Familiar Call

Chapter 25 Countless Redheads

Chapter 26 Au Gratin Potatoes

Chapter 27 The Boy Who Extinguished the Sky

Chapter 28 Supposedly Abandoned

Chapter 29 A Capeless Hero

Chapter 30 The Truth

Chapter 31 End of Discussion

Chapter 32 A Land above the Clouds

Chapter 33 The Letter

Chapter 34 Admiral Peg Leg

Chapter 35 Dusk with Dad

Chapter 36 The Moon’s Ears

Chapter 37 Buried Treasure

Chapter 38 Their Ongoing Story

Chapter 39 Significant Strangers

Chapter 40 Two Lions

Chapter 41 The Home They Never Knew

Chapter 42 Remnants of You

Chapter 43 Motherless Wonders

Chapter 44 A Brother Brawl

Chapter 45 The Sea and a Surprise

Chapter 46 The Flames of the Future

Chapter 47 New Skies

Acknowledgements

About the Author

In memory of the

loved ones who came before

me—forging a road of adventure.

01

WHAT NEVER WAS

It didn’t matter that Oliver was a grown-up—that was a meaningless label. It didn’t matter that he was tired and wanted a long, restful sleep. Heartache doesn’t care—it doesn’t get tired.

Oliver was only a year old when his mother and father passed. And with no other known family to give him a home, he was raised by nuns in an orphanage that smelled of sulphur. After fifteen years, he never felt home. It wasn’t until he escaped at sixteen that he discovered he’d had an uncle the whole time, an uncle who thought he was dead. But that was not the point. The point was Oliver never grew out of his mum and dad. Or perhaps he never grew out of not knowing them. He ached to know them, to look them in the eyes, and to have a conversation. And even at twenty-one, this ache still lived loudly—sometimes rambunctiously—inside him. Even at twenty-one, he still dreamt about his mother.

Do you see that, Ollie boy? Kate asked her son with wild hair that matched her own.

He sat next to her on a gingham picnic blanket. If the breeze was a biscuit, it would be a plain, salty one with a perfect crisp. The waves in the distance caught the sunlight as they crashed against the rocks, and the wildflowers blew softly in the salty biscuit breeze.

See what, Mum?

In the dream, Oliver was no older than ten. His hair was messier and lighter brown, his shoelaces were untied and frayed, and he was much smaller. Around his neck, a bright red cape was fastened and on his head pilot goggles.

The horizon, it takes us to a world beyond this one, far from life as we know it, into the vibrant unknown. Climb aboard, will you?

Aboard Sky Chaser-57, Oliver announced with a salute to the horizon itself.

Aboard. Kate lay down on the picnic blanket as if in a rocket ship.

We’re going to the stars, Mum, to save the prime minister.

How gallant, Kate commented.

He’s been held captive . . . by the wicked Mr Templeton.

Blimey! He’s already got a war to fight, and now Mr Templeton too? The poor man must be tired!

Oh, he is. But Mr Templeton doesn’t care.

He’s ruthless! And how will we save the prime minister? Luck alone cannot get us very far.

Indeed, you’re right, Mum. We’ll need a smart plan.

And what do you suggest, Captain Oliver? For our plan? Kate looked straight into his eyes.

We’ll lure Mr Templeton with this fine marmalade. Martians cannot resist apricot.

So I’ve heard. Kate chuckled.

And remember, Mum, don’t laugh. It’ll unmask our disguise. We must be sly, Oliver reminded her.

I won’t let you down, Captain Oliver, she promised. I’ll pinch myself if I have to.

Good.

Oliver turned in his bed again; the vision of him with his mother faded into the dark, and he opened his weary eyes. The room was occupied by the dancing shadows of the night. He flicked on the lamp and waited as his eyes adjusted to the unfamiliar brightness. There were two frames on his bedside table. One contained a picture of him and Bea skipping down a hill at Lavender Lane. The second was of him and his parents long ago, when he was just a baby, before they died.

The light focused on his mother in the second frame. She had dark, shoulder-length hair that was wavy and messy (like his), hazel eyes, and a bright, luminous smile that mirrored joy. Hi there, Mum. Oliver sat up with the frame tightly in his grasp. I wish I knew you, he quite simply said.

For a moment, the room was bathed in reverent silence, the kind that accompanies reflection. "At the orphanage, you and Dad seemed to be constantly on my mind, especially you. I’d wonder what you looked like and talked like. I wanted to know you, to feel your presence.

At night when all was quiet, I’d often dream of you and Dad. I could hear your voice whispering to me. I still hear it. But I can’t help but wonder if it’s just my imagination. How can I know? Bea says our dreams are the most reliable evaluation of truth and character. Her dreams must be different from mine. He laughed to himself. I want them to be real. Are they?

Silence filled the room again. Do you know me?

No reply.

It was hard to live his entire life wondering about the most important people in it.

02

CHANGE OF COURSE

The world was blurry as Vern stumbled out of bed that morning. He stretched his massive, bearlike arms and yawned, and as he did, the walls seemed to shake. It was a new day, but to him, it seemed just like every other day, dull and quiet. He staggered to the kitchen, unenthused, and started his kettle. Vern then planted himself in his colossal armchair, where he unfolded the London Times and began reading without processing a single detail from the article. His thoughtless reading resulted in him snoring in his armchair, with the paper hiding his exhausted face.

As he drifted back to sleep, old memories awoke in his mind, and he was haunted by the many regrets of his life. Vern was a private man, and as a result, he faced his demons alone in his head. He was the kind of man who hid from monsters that no longer existed and fears that no longer applied to him, the kind of man who never really knew what it was he was hiding from.

His nightmare was interrupted by a piercing whistle that hung eerily in the air. Vern shot up immediately. His heart sank in his rib cage, and he cocked his head in every direction, expecting the villain from his thoughts to march around the corner, but instead, his blurry eyes tied the noise to the whistling kettle. Oh. He gasped, relieved. He shook as he struggled to his feet and made his way slowly and feebly to the kitchen, where he reached for his kettle.

Still fixed on his nightmare, he poured steaming water into his mug. He was so fixed on the nightmare that he continued to pour the water until it flooded out the sides of his mug and onto the floor. He yelped as the hot water seared his foot.

Still distracted, Vern lowered himself once again into his armchair, critical thoughts crowding his mind. What have I done with my life?

Vern suffered from an itis that couldn’t be cured with antibiotics. Vern lived his whole life with an unsettling inability to pinpoint what it was he was living for, a question that for most is answered in simple yet unexpected ways. Never having this medicine prescribed to him, Vern slumped in his chair, once again resigned to his irksome thoughts.

In Vern’s quiet life, he enjoyed the company of but a few people. He could think of them all in one minute. Unfortunately, his four greatest friends never knew one another. Benji, his first friend and brother, died in an accident holding his wife Kate’s hand twenty years ago, leaving their baby son behind. He contemplated how deeply he missed his brother, Benji, and his friend Kate. How they would’ve loved to see their son, Oliver, grow into a captain.

Realising his sad, slow-dancing thoughts did him no good, Vern arose from his chair and hobbled to the linen closet where he reached for a cardboard box on the top shelf. He opened the box with reverence and sorted through its contents. On top sat a recent picture of Vern with his living friends, Bea and Oliver. They wore bright smiles in the photograph, just as they did in real life. Vern let out a sad chuckle, thinking of the lively pair. He set the picture aside and dug deeper into the box.

He stumbled onto a photograph from long ago when living felt natural. It was a photograph almost identical to the one on top, yet instead of Bea and Oliver beside him, it was Benji and Kate. As his eyes focused on the happy picture, he felt something rushing through his veins. Was it sadness? Adrenaline? Remembrance? Obligation? All he knew was that it wasn’t simply blood.

He laid the photographs next to each other and compared them. Oliver resembled his parents in many ways. He had his father’s eyes and smile, his courage, and his charisma. And he shared his mother’s wild hair and fierce compassion. Having recently grown to know Oliver, he could attest to that. Both parents lived boldly inside Oliver. As for Bea, even though she wasn’t connected to the Wests by blood, so much of her reminded Vern of Kate. Perhaps it was the passionate look in her eye or the way she listened to a story, soaked it in, and allowed it to become a part of her. Maybe it was her laugh or her yearning for adventure.

Vern smiled as he considered what it might be. As he did so, his sad heart seemed to lift in a slight and silent way. I must do something, he ruminated aloud. He muttered it repeatedly as he studied the oddly shaped shadows dirtying his wall. Something to help Oliver know his parents.

He mulled it over as an idea started to take shape. He seemed to awaken, adding in a low whisper, Who knows how much longer I’ve got? For dissatisfaction was not the only illness he suffered from.

Rifling to the bottom of the box, Vern pulled out a pad of paper and pen. He began to write, something he hadn’t done in ages. At first, it felt unnatural; but as he remembered whom he was writing for, the awkward feeling faded, and his pen moved easily.

When Benji and I were just lads, we firmly believed that there was nothing worse than the human girl. Mother clearly didn’t agree. For her greatest disappointment was that she had sons rather than daughters. She spent every day sewing dresses and bows for the little girls in town and scoffing at us ’cause we weren’t cute and girly. Some would call this a tragedy but not us. Mother ignoring us meant freedom—freedom that noticed children didn’t have. So we took advantage of it.

We started an organization called Warriors of Adventure, strictly a boys-only club. We met every day in the forest by the brook in a makeshift shelter we created with tree limbs. It was Benji, little Louis Scab (an unfortunate name really), Michael Bentley, James Christensen, and me. We planned pranks to pull on the girls in town, hunted forest animals, embarked on dangerous dares, and tormented one another.

It was nearly the end of primary school when Benji and I ran into a new boy in town. He was a sharp-looking lad, Benji and I thought; plus, he was quick and therefore should be admitted into our club. However, before we got to the invitation, the unexpected happened. At school, the new boy refused to take off his hat. After relentless but polite protests from the new boy, Mr Willoughby gave in and let the boy keep his hat. He was never a very resilient teacher, which didn’t bode well when he oversaw a room full of rowdy boys.

That day at break, we held a race in the pasture. Each of us boys lined up by the tree and sprinted to the other end of the pasture. Benji was known for his speed. He was lightning shooting through the trees, and none of the boys could catch him, not even me. Benji took pride in this.

We expected the new boy to be at least a pace behind him, just like the rest of us. But our conclusion was misguided. The new boy took off after Benji right away, like a gust of wind. Anyone could tell the boy wanted badly to win, so badly that his hat fell from his head for trying. Everyone gasped at what lay under the hat! Still closing in on Benji, two long brunette braids fell from her head and flew in the air as the boy ran. Benji won the race but narrowly, and as he turned to see his opponent, he could only muster a blank stare.

The braid-wearing creature didn’t process what had happened until past the finish, when she turned to see the others’ horrified looks. She felt her head where her braids hung and let out a loud cry. Please! You mustn’t tell a soul, she begged.

They don’t have good schools for girls in Jersey. And I don’t want to be a housewife. Daddy wants me to use my brain and make our family proud. And I can’t do that if I only know how to sew and type. I want a life of adventure, she passionately explained.

But you’re a girl! Louis Scab pointed it out as she put her hat back on. Even in the roaring twenties, Jersey was behind the times.

A girl who wants to read books and have a chance at life.

You should really chop your hair off, Benji blurted out of the blue. You don’t want Mr Willoughby finding out.

Benji’s reaction was completely shocking, gently put. Being his brother, I knew that Benji abided by his own stubborn precepts like they were the very things keeping him alive. It was like death if he stepped back from what he knew. I suppose fate was sealed.

The girl smiled brightly at the gift. I’m Kate, she told them, Benji specifically.

After that, the boys didn’t say much about Kate being there. She was the kind of person who could belong anywhere. She brought a kind of sunshine into a room that others couldn’t reject. And when she said things, we paid attention. She had a way of explaining things that just made sense. It wasn’t long before the Warriors of Adventure accepted Kate into the mix. It became a boys-only and Kate Clive club.

Vern picked up his aching hand and smiled contently at the happy memory he’d made alive again. In that moment, it was as if a scab on a very old wound rubbed off, and Vern took one step closer to the light, a new purpose beating in his heart. He was going to fill Oliver’s ears with stories of his parents so that they could march into tomorrow like he’d known them all along.

03

RUFFIAN IN THE BOARDINGHOUSE

It was a cloudless blue day, and the sun hang like a framed photograph nailed to the sky. Oliver was in Amsterdam three days earlier than planned to surprise Bea at her boardinghouse. Bea was a treasured friend whom Oliver had fallen for shortly after escaping his orphanage when he was sixteen. Four and a half years had flown by, and while Bea and Oliver were still tied together, their own dreams were not to be suppressed in that. Those were the rules, clear as mud. Hence, Oliver spent the last year training to be a pilot in Alaska, and Bea was halfway across the globe learning to be a writer. But today their paths would cross.

Oliver slipped into the unlocked boardinghouse door; he’d been to 21 De Jordaan Street once before, granting him the right to sneak in unannounced. Stealthily, he slid through the hall, hiding behind a coatrack, as Bea’s flatmate, Jane, passed by. Thankfully, Oliver was practised in the art of going unnoticed.

He found Bea in the dining room, dusting the display case. She was telling herself a story, something she only did when she thought she was entirely alone and out of earshot. It was a brave thing to do, especially in a boardinghouse full of girls, but today Bea felt confident that she was alone.

And Doris the Duck, in all her free-spirited madness, dreamt of exploring the deep, deep blue, Bea said aloud slowly.

Oliver was anxious to hear the scene unfold. He snuck up right behind her, and thankfully, she was too wrapped up in her story to notice his shadow dart across the wall. He stood there as still as a statue and as quiet as one too, waiting for Bea to turn around. Sure enough, she wheeled around on her heel to dust the dining table and smacked right into Oliver’s chin, knocking both of them backwards. Ah. Oliver massaged his jaw back into place.

The world went momentarily blurry, and Bea, not fully processing Oliver’s face, stumbled to her feet and darted out the back door, thinking it was a strange man who snuck up on her. Help! Ruffian in boardinghouse! she wailed, waving her hands as she sprinted down the lane, like she’d narrowly escaped a house fire.

Uh-oh. Oliver’s heart plummeted. This isn’t how I planned it. He bolted after her, his long legs stretching out and carrying him like wings. Bea! No! BEA, IT’S OLIVER! His voice reached a redefined pinnacle. No ruffian, just me, OLIVER!

Oliver? Bea stopped in her tracks, the words taking form. Her eyes jetted down the cobblestoned road, looking for his familiar face, when a lady walking a dog even prissier than her glared at her curiously.

Bea. Oliver spotted her standing still, scanning the crowd. BEA! he shouted, running to her.

Oliver? She stepped forwards hesitantly as she reached out her hand, half-worried she was seeing things again.

Accepting her hand, he discounted her worry with one Bea.

My goodness, it’s really you. She snickered softly, glad it wasn’t all in her head.

An upgrade from a ruffian, then, I hope? He smirked, pulling her into his arms.

Without a doubt. She laughed, fitting right into his arms. Although you did underestimate my jumpiness just a tad, didn’t you?

I will admit that was not how it happened in my head.