“I need to have some food,” Trish says. “The bowl of peanuts didn’t really soak up the two bottles of wine. What do you want to do for dinner?”

“Hold on,” I say, picking up my phone and nodding to the pizza boxes on the floor. “I have them on speed dial.”

“Want a fire?” Trish says, her voice filled with sarcasm. She heads into the living room, slumps into a chair and takes a healthy sip of wine. “What a day.”

“I’ve had a lot of crazy days since I’ve been here,” I say. Although I told her about my arrival experience, the Dragoon Lady, the skyrocketing renovation budget, the backbreaking work, and all the uncertainty at the bar, I suddenly rush upstairs yelling, “I can’t believe I forgot to show you this.”

I return with Sadie’s letter from the time capsule.

Trish reads the letter, her eyes softening as she does. “This is so beautiful and heartbreaking,” she says. “We feel as if we’ve come so far as women, but so many things have remained the same in society.”

Trish stares into the empty fireplace for a second, then suddenly stands and walks over to the Cottage Rules sign. She points at Rule #5. “Fire!” she says, her voice booming off the beams and vibrating throughout the cottage. “Build a bonfire!”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“We need to build a bonfire, a ceremonial one,” Trish says, her eyes fixed and unblinking, gesturing confidently as if she’s in court trying to convince a judge. “This place needs to be smudged.”

“I already tried that,” I say, taking a sip of wine, Sonny curled up on a blanket by my feet. “Didn’t work.”

“What happened?”

“Wind blew it out on the front porch,” I say. “I think that’s telling.”

“See!” Trish cries, causing Sonny to sit up and tilt his head. “Bad juju!”

“This cottage doesn’t have bad juju,” I say. “It’s always been filled with love.”

Trish walks over and pats my head like I’m Sonny. “It has been,” she says, “but not the past few years. Your divorce, the loss of your parents, the renovations, the Preservation Committee, the budget...” She stops and looks around. “It’s filled with ghosts. And we need to show them the door. Now, where’s your smudge stick? I know my new age girl has one somewhere.”

I stand and return a few seconds later with my smudge stick of sage, an abalone shell and a feather.

“Atta girl,” Trish says. “Now, where are your essential oils?”

I dash upstairs and return with my kit.

“I think we need to add some of those to the sage,” Trish says, “to really do the trick.”

“When did you get into all of this?” I ask, setting my kit down on an end table. “I thought you were too logical for oils and smudging.”