CHAPTER SIXTEEN - CITRUS
The house smelled like lavender and warm vanilla, the air thick with the soft perfume of drying candles. My hands were stained with melted wax, but I didn't mind it felt good to work, to create.
"Mama, can we help?" Isla's little voice came from the doorway, followed by Lila's eager nod.
"You already helped," I said, smiling. "Who do you think chose the flowers we used?"
The girls giggled, proud of themselves, and went back to playing on the rug in the sitting room.
The first time the scent of citrus oil filled the air, it was a revelation. It happened on a quiet afternoon in the middle of a grove, where rows of orange and lemon trees swayed gently under a golden sun. The fruit was ripe, its peels glowing like lanterns. A hand reached for one of them, tearing the peel, and at once the fragrance leapt out, sharp and bright, as though the air itself had been splashed with sunlight.
That was the moment the dream began.
Years later, that dream had turned into an obsession. The world had grown efficient at making citrus oil, but in doing so, it had stripped away its soul.
Cold pressing was the most common method. The fruit peels were pricked and squeezed against rotating drums, forcing out the oil. The yield was small, but the scent was vivid. Unfortunately, mountains of discarded peel were left behind, wasting a treasure trove of nutrients and potential uses.
Then there was steam distillation. The process filled rooms with the hiss of boiling water and the metallic clink of condensers. It was faster, yes, and produced more oil but the heat dulled the top notes, scorching away the delicate, floral, and leafy accents that gave citrus its true personality.
The more this was studied, the more it felt wrong. Citrus oil should be alive.
A new idea began to take shape what if there was a way to draw the oil out gently, without bruising it, without boiling it, without losing its brightness?
The answer came one night in a small, quiet lab when a simple experiment with pressure revealed something extraordinary. By reducing the pressure inside a sealed chamber, water could be evaporated at very low temperatures cool enough to preserve fragile molecules.
What if citrus oil could be extracted the same way?
The vision was born: a system that combined gentle mechanical pressing with vacuum-assisted evaporation and an advanced green technology supercritical carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would slip between the microscopic spaces in the peel, dissolve the oils, and then harmlessly vanish when the pressure was released, leaving only pure, unaltered citrus oil.
This would become the new way a process that could honor the ancient tradition of citrus cultivation while stepping boldly into the future.
Building the first prototype was an exercise in determination. Scrap metal, copper pipes, and secondhand pumps were assembled piece by piece. The scent of lemon and orange peels filled the air as test after test was run.
When the first vial of oil was finally collected, it felt like discovering fire.
The liquid glowed pale gold under the light, and its aroma was unlike anything ever encountered before. It was as if someone had bottled a sunlit grove at dawn a perfume so clean, so layered, it made the heart race.
But the challenge was not over.It is when I started doubting the process.
"This is too complicated," I said.
"Too expensive."
"Unnecessary."
Every rejection cut deep, but giving up was not an option.
Instead of stopping, the process was refined again. The device was upgraded, bigger and better, with separate stages that captured every drop of juice, recovered every fiber, and turned waste into valuable byproducts pectin for jams, dried peel for teas, even pellets for clean biofuel.
This wasn't just oil extraction anymore. It was a zero-waste citrus revolution.
Then came the day when someone outside the circle of skeptics inhaled the new oil for the first time.
Their reaction was immediate wide eyes, a smile of surprise, a wordless nod.
"This," they said softly, "is what sunlight must smell like."
That single moment was enough to set everything in motion. Orders followed. A larger facility was built. The small-scale prototype became an industrial marvel, shining with stainless steel and humming with quiet efficiency.
What made this method so extraordinary was not magic, but science.
Citrus oils are complex cocktails of volatile compounds limonene lending its sweet, fresh character, citral giving a lemony sharpness, linalool adding a floral softness, myrcene bringing a subtle green edge.
Traditional processing often destroyed or unbalanced these molecules. Heat broke apart the most fragile ones, and rough pressing could introduce bitterness from the white pith.
This new process changed everything. By using a low-temperature, low-pressure environment, every compound was preserved exactly as nature had created it. The resulting oil was more than just fragrant it was an unbroken memory of the fruit at its peak.
Soon, kitchens, perfume houses, and wellness studios around the world were buzzing about this new oil. Chefs discovered that a single drop could lift an entire dish, adding brightness without acidity. Perfumers said it smelled truer than anything they had ever used. Aromatherapists found that its effects were deeper, its calming qualities more profound.
Even better, the process was sustainable. The groves that supplied the fruit thrived, nourished by compost made from the leftover pulp. Solar panels powered much of the extraction facility. Every step of the process was designed to give back more than it took.
And somewhere, far from the noise of the factories, a single grove stood under the sun. The trees swayed gently, heavy with fruit. A hand reached for one of them, tore the peel, and crushed it.
The scent leapt out once again, bright, sharp, beautiful,but now, it was more than a memory. It was a promise.
That will never fade.
The first knock came just as i finished wrapping a jar.
"Mrs. Hale?" It was Mrs. Cardew, the bakery owner, holding out a small coin purse. "Do you have more of that citrus oil? My eldest daughter can't stop using it."
"Yes," I said, reaching for a small bottle and handing it over.
Within the hour, two more neighbors stopped by one for candles, another for a small vial of rosemary-scented oil. By the time I closed the door after the last visitor, my small shelf was half-empty.
It wasn't much, not yet. But it was something.
I leaned against the counter, staring at the little coins in the dish. For the first time since I had arrived in Calderhallow, I felt something other than fear.
I felt… proud.
That night, after tucking the girls into bed, I sat at the table with a cup of tea and my notebook, jotting down ideas for new scents. The house was quiet, except for the faint sound of Lila's soft breathing through the door.
Once, not so long ago, I had believed my life ended the night I lost everything.
But here, in this little house, surrounded by candlelight and the smell of wild rosemary, it felt like I was starting over.
Not as the Ravenwood heiress.
Just as Rina Hale.