Chapter One
Love at First Sight
Duchess trembled with anticipation. If the house was anywhere near as beautiful as the listing photo, she knew this could be her new home.
Ron, the real estate agent from Orchard Bay, eased the car onto the gravel drive. The road curved through dense foliage, red cedars, ferns and tall maples, and graceful weeping willows.
A flock of blue jays swooped toward the car, whistling and darting in loose formations. Duchess’s eye widened; beside her, the realtor gasped.
White daisies and yellow buttercups lined the shoulders, laced with spiky purple fireweed. A vast canopy of willow branches formed a breezy green drape over the road ahead. Four squirrels skittered to the edge of the drive, rising on their haunches, hiding among the buttercups. Duchess waved. They hesitated a beat, then scampered into the forest.
As Ron slowed the car around the final curve, the house broke through the trees, perched on a slight rise of the west shore of the lake, its manicured lawns lined with scarlet rose bushes. It was big and bold and beautiful, old stone, three stories tall, with sloping roofs, dormers, and arched windows. A wraparound verandah embraced the house and curved stone steps swept up to stunning arched double glass doors. Pots overflowing with red, white and pink petunias brightened the verandah. More scarlet roses posed along the curved stone walk.
Duchess gasped. She flung the door open before the car had fully stopped. She stared at the house, spun around and gave Ron such a gleaming smile he was almost knocked backwards.
“I’ll take it!” She laughed and ran up the stone steps.
Button: Enter the Dreamweaver Forest – takes them to the whole chapter 1 from the beginning.
“I haven’t even told you the price,” he shouted after her.
“It doesn’t matter,” she answered gaily. “I think she’s been waiting for me.”
Duchess’s parents and late husband had left her a very wealthy woman. But she hadn’t found her forever home until now.
A white lacy curtain waved out of an open third floor window.
“See?” Duchess laughed.
Ron scratched the back of his head. He was sure he had secured all the doors and windows.
“I’ll have to close that window,” was his only answer
All the lights went on in the house then, on and off in a twinkling pattern, then slowly went out one by one. The realtor stepped back. He stared. He had heard the house was haunted, of course. But nothing had ever happened in all his showings. Until now. She must be some kind of witch.
“I prefer sorceress,” Duchess called back as she tossed her thin golden sandals and ran down to the lake, dipping her toes in the cool clear water.
Ron stared at her —did she just read his mind? He shook his head. He didn’t care what she called herself, the commission from this sale would buy him that brand new red Corvette he’d been eyeing. He was leaning back on the car hood, studying his phone when Duchess came back up, feet wet, the hem of her jewel toned caftan damp, bracelets chiming.
“May I have the keys, please?”
He laughed. “I thought it was love at first sight.”
“It is,” she smiled as she grabbed the keys, “I need to say hello.”
He started up the walkway and without turning around she called, “I don’t need you, thanks.”
Ron wondered how she knew he had moved to join her, but then shrugged and got back into his car, phone back out already. The double glass front doors opened wide before Duchess reached the curved stone stairs, the keys still clutched in her hand. He dropped his phone. It stayed on the floor a long time.
Duchess stood at the threshold, her chest tight. It was perfect. Sunlight streamed in the tall windows, lighting up the two story stone fireplace, dust motes sparkling, the gleaming hardwood floor leading to an enormous curving staircase.
She closed her eyes. For a moment, she could feel Daniel behind her, his laugh echoing over the water.
“We’ll know it when we find it,” he’d said once, years ago in Tuscany, as they sat on another dock watching another sun slip behind hills. “The place. Our place. The one that holds our hearts.”
She blinked and smiled, swallowing hard. “This is it,” she whispered. “I found it.”
The kitchen was large, modern and spotless. She knew nobody lived there anymore, yet someone must be tending the place. And the view… a sweep of sparkling lake framed by the windows over the sink.
The house was enormous, even bigger than she had imagined. It was far too much house for her but that didn’t matter. Especially when she found the glass-enclosed sunroom that faced the lake. She could see easels set up here, paints, brushes and canvases; an ideal spot for an art studio with that stunning view. It had French doors leading to the verandah. She stepped out as a teal and lavender hummingbird was sipping roses. It was the perfect spot for a late afternoon gin and tonic.
“Wyndhaven” she said aloud to the house. “Your name is Wyndhaven and I think I’m going to call you Wyndy.” The house blushed a light rose in the afternoon sun as faint music floated through the air. Duchess looked up, closed her eyes and let the house wrap around her like a warm quilt.
She tipped an imaginary glass to Daniel and went to find the realtor.
A month later, in the early evening as the setting sun cast coral rays sparkling over her lake and her house and her flowers, Duchess sat at the end of her dock in a big red Adirondack chair, sighing with contentment. The twin chair sat angled to her, empty.
She didn’t know yet what she was going to do with her property, her home, beloved already. But it definitely involved sharing, and finding a purpose, a family. Many years ago, they had stayed in beautiful retreats the world over. Six weeks in Bali, a month in Tuscany, home for a few weeks then back to Hawaii Oceanside Retreat for a time. Some were physically healing, some spiritual, all were of such beauty and benefit that it almost made Daniel’s passing easier to bear.
He had been gone a long time now and it was time to pay it forward.
She stood up and her eyes roamed over the property. A seed was stirring. Ideas. Shapes in her mind. Her pulse quickened as she dreamed the possibilities. She could see it now—a place of rest and rebirth. Log cabins tucked into the trees, each with a porch swing and a braided rug. Morning yoga under the willows. A steam room. The scent of lavender oil and cinnamon buns. Art classes in the sunroom. Laughter echoing across the lake. The kind that healed. The kind that changed people.
A small tightness curled beneath her ribs. Could she really pull it off? Build all this, alone? Run a retreat for strangers, when she hadn’t even hosted a dinner in years?
The thought drifted lightly but persistently. Still, something stirred in her, like the house itself had breathed the idea into her mind.
A low mist swirled at the base of the big draping willow at the edge of the meadow and Duchess watched as pale spirals of mist formed and billowed out and a slight breeze lifted the mists. A pale lavender cat drifted out of the mist and padded across the lawn to Duchess’s side.
The cat met Duchess’s gaze and with a slight Mona Lisa smile, jumped up on her lap and wrapped herself around the woman’s neck. Duchess petted the cat’s soft fur. “Aren’t you a beauty?” Duchess buried her face in the neck of the cat. “I think I’ll call you Misty. What do you think of that?”
Misty purred her approval. Duchess looked up, her eyes glistening with tears of gratitude. She had Wyndhaven and she had Misty. The three of them would build a beautiful retreat, a place where people can make their dreams come true. Where the broken can heal. Where the lost can find themselves. She looked at the house, the lake, the forest. “We’ll call it the Dreamweaver Forest Spa and Retreat.”
A breeze blew through the weeping willow, branches rustling as the wind whistled up to the big glass double doors just as they opened wide. All the lights in the house twinkled a pale violet as scarlet rose petals floated over the stone walk.
Duchess smiled, tilting her face toward the breeze, the perfume of roses and pine washed over her. She was home.
Now the real magic could begin. She would build Dreamweaver Forest and the souls that needed it would find it as she had.