Prologue
At Happy Hills Animal Sanctuary, hundreds of animals lived out the rest of their lives safely—rescued from neglect, farms, laboratories, or abandonment. From pigs and donkeys to chickens and dogs, they each had a story. But none quite like Sunny, the little goat who refused to be like everyone else.
Prologue
The wind didn’t always whisper kindness. Sometimes, it mocked with its cold gusts and blew the leaves away as if they didn’t belong. In a village nestled between hills and meadows, there lived a small stray cat with no name, no home, and no friends—at least, not yet.
The street curved like a question mark through the neighborhood, and every house along it had something to say. Some had wind chimes. Some had grill smoke curling up through the trees. Others had porches with swings that creaked when the wind passed through—but the one at 215 Juniper Lane had people.
It was one of those evenings when the sky turned copper and the cicadas sang louder than the streetlights. Dinner was done, leftovers cooling on the counter, and the neighborhood slowly shifted into its second wind—the porch hour, when the air got kind and the world exhaled.
The neighborhood was the kind where kids rode bikes with no shoes and folks waved just because they knew your mama. A place where the breeze came slow, sweet, and full of sound—windchimes, screen doors creaking, laughter slipping through open windows like gospel.
Miss Lottie’s porch sat right in the heart of it.
The community garden was a quilt of green—rows of okra, collard greens, sweet potatoes, and sunflowers towering like sentinels. Every Saturday, long benches appeared under the oak tree at the center, and neighbors came bearing tools, laughter, and coolers of sorrel punch.
This morning, the circle formed quickly.
The block party took up the whole street.
Somewhere between the bounce house, the DJ booth, and the rows of fold-out tables stacked with macaroni pie, collard greens, and fried cabbage, there was a circle that stayed full all day. Right in front of Miss Deena’s house, where the sidewalk turned warm under bare feet, the music stayed loud and the joy ran deep.
They met at the lake every June.
No invites, no flyers, no RSVPs. Just a call that passed through the city like breath:
“We heading to the water this weekend.”
By ten in the morning, the park near the lake was alive—coolers cracking open, old-school R&B pouring from someone’s speaker, towels spread across picnic tables, and braids shining under the sun like ropes dipped in honey.
The restaurant was already half-full when Sanaa walked in, sunlight catching on the gold hoops in her ears. Her dress was long and loose, the color of ripe papaya, and her hair fell in thick twists down her back, each one shining like polished wood. She moved like she belonged—because she did. Because someone before her had made sure she could.
The bathroom smelled like eucalyptus and lemongrass, and the mirror was fogged over with steam. Zora rubbed mango butter into her arms while her favorite playlist bounced off the tile walls—voices that sang like home, soft and full of soul.
Every evening, the porch light came on just before the sun went down. It wasn’t a fancy bulb—just a soft amber glow, the kind that made everyone look good. Made skin shine like polished mahogany. Made laughter sound warmer.
The morning sun crept gently through the kitchen window, lighting up the jars of herbs on the sill—lemongrass, dried hibiscus, and sprigs of fresh rosemary in a glass of water. The scent of shea butter and lavender oil lingered in the air, mixing with the sweet steam rising from the pot of cinnamon-spiced oatmeal on the stove.
The picnic was a last-minute idea, born from a rare free Sunday and a cooler full of leftovers. Mara suggested the hill near the old orchard, and no one argued. Not even Jace, who usually tried to escape family outings by disappearing behind a video game screen.
The stone field wasn’t on any map. Not the official ones, anyway. But Grandpa Leo swore it was real.
“When I was a boy,” he’d say, “I found it on a foggy morning. The stones whispered to me—told me how to breathe right again.”
It had been a long week for the Elwin family. Deadlines, school stress, and a fridge that decided to die midweek had left the house full of frayed nerves and silence. So when Rowan suggested a Saturday outing to “Lantern Grove,” a place she’d heard about from an old hiker at the farmers market, no one objected. They just piled into the car—Ben in the passenger seat, teenagers Jules and Mae in the back—hoping for a break.
They reached the overlook just as the sun began to crest the far ridge.
Calla tightened the strap of her pack and looked behind her. Her two kids, Eli and Mira, were still trudging up the trail, red-faced but grinning. Her wife, Sam, followed last, pretending not to be out of breath.
“Why are we up here so early again?” Sam asked, hands on her hips.
They almost missed it.
The trail sign was so weathered it looked like a broken fence post, but Milo spotted it while looking for a place to pull over for lunch.
“Bellows Hollow,” he read aloud. “Says there’s a short loop trail. Might be good to stretch our legs.”
Iris, still waking from her car nap in the back seat, groaned. “Can’t we just eat in the car?”
The town legend said the Skywell only opened once every ten years—when the clouds spun counterclockwise over the lake at the edge of the valley.
Most people laughed at the story. But not the Virelli family.
“It’s real,” Grandpa Luca would always say, leaning on his cane. “The Skywell finds those who need to remember how to breathe.”
It began with a simple plan: a family hike into the northern woods where the map marked a place called Wind Hollow. The name alone had sparked Callie’s interest—soft and strange, like a whisper from a dream.
“It’s a good distance for a day hike,” her husband Milo said, loading the car. “Quiet, uncrowded. A little adventure.”
They almost didn’t make the hike. Rain-clouds hovered above the hills, and Nora had a headache. But her son, Callum, was already lacing his boots, and her husband, Theo, had packed the lunch and maps before she’d even gotten out of bed.
They needed this. A family day, away from buzzing phones and heavy silences.
The trees in the grove bent as if to whisper secrets to anyone who would listen. Legend said the silver-leafed Elowen trees only grew in unt...