The Blue Door

By Carol Holland March

The youngest child of a poor peasant family, Delia must marry or find a position as a servant in the nearby town to help her aging parents. She is loathe to relinquish her freedom, and has refused many suitors, when the duke of the land expresses interest in her. Maltric has lost four previous wives in mysterious circumstances. No one knows what happened at the castle, and many fear black magic is loose in the land. Delia is wary of Maltric’s attentions, but cannot refuse to meet him when he sends a message announcing his arrival.

At night Delia dreams of her perfect lover, a beautiful green-eyed woman named Atishi who knows everything about her and offers her sensual pleasure more exquisite than anything she has experienced in her waking life. She begs to stay with her dream-lover. When Atisha tells Delia they can be reunited in flesh if she finds the blue door in the duke’s castle, Delia agrees to the courtship with the duke.

Married and the mistress of an enormous castle, Delia searches for the blue door and finally locates it in an unused hallway tucked away on the top floor. Inside, she finds Atishi waiting for her under a gigantic oak tree in the land of Elysa. Delia must renounce her family and her world.

When the duke finds out, he accuses Delia of witchcraft and forbids her to use the door again. Time is running out before the passageway to Elysa closes. Torn between her love for Atishi and her family, fearful of her life if she stays with the duke, and fearing black magic pervades the castle, Delia must decide what she is willing to sacrifice for love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Mar 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781685504335

Carol Holland March

Carol Holland March lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico where she writes about the intersection of dreams, reality, and time. She sets her speculative fiction in locations where the veil is thinnest. She teaches classes on writing and creativity at the University of New Mexico and blogs at CarolHollandMarch.com.Her newest release is a nonfiction book, When Spirit Whispers, the first in a planned series on Healing from Trauma.

Book preview

The Blue Door

By Carol Holland March

Published by JMS Books LLC

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2023 Carol Holland March

ISBN 9781685504335

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Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

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The Blue Door

By Carol Holland March

The kiss, moist and tender, lingered on Delia’s lips. She squeezed her eyes shut even tighter and curled her fingers around her blanket, longing to return to the dream of the woman with green eyes. Another kiss, she begged, but the words the woman was murmuring in her ear faded. The dream dissolved. Delia trembled. Heat coursed through her veins. Her limbs tingled. She turned with a slow, languorous movement, imagining the green-eyed woman was lying beside her.

Del!

Her mother’s voice spoiled any chance of re-entering the dream. The sun is up and you are not. Get out here.

Delia thrust away her ragged blue blanket. The heat from her dream evaporated, and she shivered in the frigid air. Coming, she called. With a sigh, she reached for her clothes.

Dressed, her long hair pulled away from her face, Delia pushed aside the curtain and joined her mother in the main room of the cottage. It was warmer than Delia’s tiny alcove, but she shuddered at the sour odor of last night’s pottage lingering in the stuffy air.

She grasped the heavy black kettle in both hands, but before she could hang it on the hook over the fire, Marthe said, Another message came. At first light. She drew it from her pocket and handed it to Delia.

Delia tucked the folded and sealed sheet of vellum into the pocket of her apron and positioned the kettle on the pot hanger.

Marthe stopped her work and stared at her daughter, arms crossed. It’s from the duke. Why don’t you read it?

Have you heard from Rob? Delia said. She