Every summer cottage on the lane is dark. Not just dark, but empty. Hurricane shutters have been pulled over the windows, screened porches enveloped in plastic, and trees staked. There isn’t a light on for miles.

I pull into the driveway of Cozy Cottage, my SUV struggling for traction to get up the drive. I open my door and instead of my parents’ voices, I imagine I hear the cottage groan in agony. I step out of the car, slip on the snow and have to grasp the car door to stop myself from falling. I grab my bag but leave my luggage in the car for now and move, one baby step at a time, up the steep stairs, my body at a severe angle like the snow to keep myself from being blown over.

I reach the front porch, my breath coming out in big puffs like steam from a locomotive. I look out at the lake. It is roaring and angry, so loud I can barely hear myself think.

I rarely came to Saugatuck in the winter, and never on days like this. Cozy Cottage was a summer retreat.

This, I think, is like The Shining. But way, way worse.

I turn to face the cottage, little tornadoes of snow lifting off the ground and hurtling into my face. I squint. The cottage’s wood shingles are loose, and a few are now missing on the front. The paint is peeling, there is a crack in the stone foundation, and most of the shutters have come loose and are now banging against the house.

I manage to find the keys in my purse and unlock the front door. A mouse looks up at me as if I’m a stranger who has burst into its home. I scream. It screams. And then it scurries across the rug in front of me. I scream again, and the mouse stops, shocked, and stands on its hind legs scared out of its wits, before zipping toward the stairs.

I suddenly remember what Evan told me, and I retreat back out the door.

I open the Nantucket basket—still on the front door but now worn, the weave loose and unraveled—and I look inside.

No sparklers, I think, immediately sad remembering my parents. And then it hits me: I reach into my bag and pull out a big smudge wand of sage that I brought to cleanse the cottage and give it a new start. I move my hand around until I find a lighter. I turn my back to the wind, holding the sage close to my body and lighting it.

“Ready to recite the rules?” I ask myself over the roar of the wind and groans of the cottage. “What’s the first rule of the summer cottage?”