By the time I wake, the world has turned to white noise.
Wind presses against the glass in long, low groans, and something loose on the roof taps in an uneven rhythm, like a fingernail on a door. I roll over in the big guest bed and squint at the window. The view that usually gives me a clean slice of the Sound is just a blur of moving gray, snow sweeping sideways instead of falling.
My phone buzzes with a weather alert. I swipe it open with stiff fingers. Winter storm warning extended. Travel discouraged. A map glows red over our narrow peninsula, the highways into Harbor Glen outlined with warning symbols.
Downstairs, the TV murmurs. I pull on a sweater and thick socks and head toward the sound.
The great room feels dimmer than usual, the tall windows crowded with storm. Someone has built a fire in the stone hearth; the smell of woodsmoke curls around the scent of pine garlands and the faint, scrubbed-clean tang of furniture polish. On the far wall, the TV throws shifting light over a stack of board games arranged on the coffee table like a curated Instagram post.
A local anchor, hair perfectly sprayed, stands in front of a highway sign ghosted by snow.
“The main access road into Harbor Glen is now closed in both directions,” she says. Behind her, a plow crawls along a buried lane, its orange lights flashing. “Several cars have already skidded off into ditches. Police are urging residents to stay in place.”
At the bottom of the screen, a scroll lists closed back roads and detours that don’t exist. People in Harbor Glen use private lanes behind estates to bypass the manicured center; none of those get mentioned.
Daniel stands near the windows with a mug in his hands, staring into the white mess. His guest-sweater version of himself—soft wool, Mercer-appropriate gray—looks softer than he feels beside me.
“Hey,” I say.
He glances back and smiles, a little too bright. “Good morning. Welcome to our snow globe.”
“Is it that bad?” I nod toward the TV.
“Worse, according to Mom.” He takes a sip. “She’s already on with the town manager. Half the peninsula is calling to complain about plowing priorities. Mercer problems.”
On-screen, the shot cuts to downtown Harbor Glen. The postcard main street is buried in white, the boutique awnings sagging under it. Lights flicker in the bakery behind the reporter, then blink out. She turns, startled, as the camera shakes.
“We’re getting reports of power outages throughout the town center,” the anchor in the studio says. A small inset map shows patchy blacked-out zones. One of them hugs the slope up to the hospital, but a photo in the corner shows the Mercer Foundation Wing glowing bright against the gray.
“Backup generators,” Daniel says, following my gaze. “They’re bragging about those on the call, I bet.”
Right on cue, the camera cuts to a prerecorded Mercer Foundation promo: footage of last year’s Light the Harbor boat parade, yachts jeweled with white and blue bulbs gliding across the dark Sound. Evelyn appears briefly on a deck, cheeks rosy, wrapped in a cream coat, the Mercer crest pinned at her lapel. The hospital’s logo overlays the scene, all waves and clean lines.
“Even in the harshest storms,” the voiceover says, “Harbor Glen Memorial keeps the lights on for our community.”
The ad fades back to live footage of downtown, dim and stuttering.
The estate’s own lights don’t flicker at all. Somewhere in the bowels of the house, the generator hums steady, a low mechanical purr threaded under the wind.
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly aware of how warm this room is compared to the streets on the screen. This house really does sit above everything—above the town, above the storm, above the consequences.
“So we’re stuck,” I say.
“For a day or two,” Daniel answers. “Maybe three. Dad already moved his meetings online. Mom’s thrilled; she loves captive audiences.”
I let out a breath that is not a laugh.
“It’ll be cozy,” he adds quickly. “We can do a movie marathon. Board games. Mom’s planning some kind of cocoa bar.”
The TV cuts to social media footage: clips of cars spinning out, kids sledding on repurposed country club trays, a shaky video of the hospital hill wreathed in fog. For a second, the camera pans wide enough that I catch a glimpse of the back roads behind the cliffside mansions, half-visible through blowing snow, then the shot tightens again.
“Cozy,” I repeat.
Trapped, my bones answer.
Claire appears in the doorway, cheeks pink from the kitchen heat or from stepping outside; I can’t tell. “Mr. Daniel? Mrs. Evelyn asked me to let you know brunch will be served in the dining room in ten minutes. She’s requesting everyone present.”
“On our way,” Daniel says.
Claire’s gaze skims to me. “You might want boots if you plan to step out on the terrace later. The snow’s piling, but the view is… something.”
I nod. “Thanks.”
When she leaves, Daniel bumps my shoulder with his. “Come on, Mrs. Mercer. Let’s go endure brunch.”
The title rings differently today. Mrs. Mercer is the person that blocked caller wanted, and the person Evelyn is defending with her teeth. I push that thought down and follow him.
The dining room windows frame the storm like a set design. Outside, the Sound is a ghost, the cliff edge a white blur. Inside, the long table gleams, every place setting lined up with military precision. The silver smells faintly metallic, overlaying the warm scent of cinnamon pastries and strong coffee. A centerpiece of white roses and winter greenery runs down the middle; tiny crystal ornaments catch the chandelier light and throw it back in sharp little flares.
Evelyn stands at the head of the table, a queen in soft cashmere. Her sweater is a deep blue that echoes the Mercer crest stitched into the cloth napkins at each plate. She holds a champagne flute, the stem pinched elegantly between manicured fingers.
“There you are,” she says when Daniel and I step in. “Our snow refugees.”
“You mean prisoners,” Daniel jokes, shrugging out of his cardigan. “Highways are closed. Back roads too.”
“Then we’ll make the best of it.” She lifts the glass slightly. “I told the staff no one is going anywhere until it’s safe. Harbor Glen will survive a few hours without their favorite martinis.”
“The town center already lost power,” I say. “They showed it on the news.”
Evelyn’s lips curve. “Yes. Poor things. The infrastructure up here is much better. The hospital’s on backup, of course. And we have the generator. That’s the benefit of planning ahead for storms.”
Storms like investigative phone calls, I think.
Daniel slides into his seat midway down the table. I take the chair beside him. Evelyn watches, adjusting slightly so she can see both of us.
Staff move around us with practiced silence, pouring coffee, orange juice, another bottle of champagne. The smells—coffee, butter, sugar—wrap around me in a way my body recognizes from childhood snow days, when my mother would microwave instant cocoa after her night shift and we would watch school closures crawl across the screen. Back then, being snowed in meant freedom.
Now it means the opposite.
Evelyn clears her throat and raises her glass higher. The room stills.
“Before we tuck in,” she says, “I’d like to make a small toast.”
Daniel straightens automatically. I pick up the flute in front of me, the stem cool in my fingers, bubbles climbing in nervous streaks.
“We spend so much of the year scattered,” she continues. “Work, travel, obligations, the Foundation, the hospital. Sometimes the only way we get true, uninterrupted time together is when nature forces us to stop.”
She tilts her glass toward the blizzard outside.
“To storms, then,” she says. “The kind that remind us what matters. To the people under this roof and to the ties that hold us together—through gossip, through tragedy, through… opportunists who would love to see us divided.” Her eyes find mine, steady and bright. “To family.”
The last word rings like a warning.
My throat narrows around it. I take a sip anyway. The champagne is crisp, bubbles stinging my tongue.
“To family,” Daniel echoes.
“To family,” I say, because there is no other script that doesn’t make things worse.
Evelyn smiles, satisfied, and lowers her glass. “Wonderful. Let’s enjoy being snowed in. I’ve had the staff bring up some old board games from the attic. We’ll make it a proper holiday.”
“Monopoly?” Daniel groans. “You know Mom only likes games she can win.”
“That’s not true,” she says, but her smile sharpens. “I just like to see that everyone understands the rules. Games are only fun when people respect the structure.”
She says it lightly, but the air around the table goes tight. I watch her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, perfectly relaxed, and catch the faintest twitch in her jaw.
Everyone understands the rules.
I cut into a pastry, the fork scraping porcelain, and remind myself that rules are only useful if you intend to follow them. I am starting to collect a different set.
After brunch, the house shifts into forced coziness. The great room fills with the sounds of cardboard boxes opening and plastic game pieces clattering onto wood. The fire pops and crackles; cocoa steams on the sideboard in a row of mismatched mugs. The smell of melted marshmallows mixes with pine and the faint, constant hint of disinfectant that the wind carries in from the hill where the hospital sits.
“Scrabble or Clue?” Daniel asks, juggling boxes. “Vote wisely.”
“Clue is tacky in this house,” I say. “Too on the nose.”
He laughs louder than the joke deserves. “Scrabble it is.”
Evelyn chooses a leather armchair near the fire, where she can see the board and the TV at once. Local news plays without volume, the red ticker flashing fresh closures. Every few minutes, a shot of the hospital appears, its Mercer-branded facade bright through the snow.
“You start,” she tells Daniel.
I pull a tile rack toward me, fingers brushing the smooth wood. The letters in my hand are useless for a strong opening—too many vowels, not enough backbone. I arrange them anyway, watching Daniel add “HOME” to the center of the board.
“Nice,” I say. “On theme.”
“You can work ‘prison’ off that later,” he murmurs.
“I heard that,” Evelyn says, not looking up. “Don’t be dramatic. Most people in town would kill to be stuck here instead of in the dark.”
She isn’t wrong. The donors down in the country club development will spend the day rearranging flashlights and complaining about the Wi-Fi. That’s the hierarchy here, encoded not just in plaques and waitlists but in who gets heat when the grid fails.
I place my tiles carefully: “CAGE,” hooking the E to his HOME.
Daniel snorts. “You two,” he says. “I’m surrounded.”
Evelyn’s gaze drops to the board. Her lips press together for a fractional second, then curve.
“Interesting choice, Hannah,” she says. “Though I think you’ll find this house more sanctuary than cage the longer you’re here. People who love you are a kind of protection.”
“Protection can feel tight,” I say lightly. “Like a hug that doesn’t let you breathe.”
“Only if you fight it.” She draws tiles, the ceramic clicking. “Loyalty makes everything easier.”
The word hangs in the air between us, heavier than the crackle of logs and the soft storm outside.
I play the game. I drink cocoa that coats my tongue with sugar and an edge of salt, a memory of the sea even in chocolate. I laugh when Daniel plays some ridiculous high-scoring word that makes no sense to me. I let myself sink, for an hour, into the illusion of a normal snowed-in holiday.
Underneath, my mind scrapes at the walls.
The storm closes roads, but it also closes exits. No coffee shop to duck into, no “quick drive” into town, no polite excuse to run an errand. We are all stuck inside this glass box together, and every move I make now happens under Evelyn’s gaze.
That doesn’t have to be a disadvantage.
The generator hums on. The TV scrolls fresh warnings. The estate’s lights stay steady, every room a stage Evelyn believes she controls.
I start to watch for the gaps.
When Evelyn takes a call in her office, I note how long she stays and which staff hover outside the door. When Daniel goes down to the basement to “help check the generator,” I watch which hallway he takes and how distracted he looks when he returns. When Claire brings in extra blankets for the staff quarters, mentioning they might need to sleep over if the roads stay bad, I hear the unspoken part: even the people who usually go home at night are trapped here now.
“You’re in your head,” Daniel murmurs that evening, when we move from board games to a jigsaw puzzle spread over the coffee table. He presses another piece into my hand. “Storm brain?”
“Something like that,” I say.
“Hey.” He nudges my knee. “We’ll make it fun. Mom wants to do a movie night after dinner. All of us in the media room. Full Mercer bonding experience. You can even pick one of the movies.”
“All of us?” I ask.
“Yeah. She already told the staff they can handle cleanup without her. No one gets out of family time.”
All of us in one room, with the door closed, the lights down, the sound up.
My heart gives a small, sharp kick.
“That could be nice,” I say, placing the puzzle piece where it belongs. “If we’re stuck here anyway.”
“Exactly.” He leans back, satisfied.
I let the rhythm of the day carry me through dinner, through another soft toast about gratitude and resilience, through the walk down the hall to the media room with popcorn in hand. My body does what’s expected; my mind traces routes in the dark.
Generator in the basement. Family in the media room. Office on the main floor, door that locks but has to be relocked by someone’s hand.
Outside, the storm tightens its grip on Harbor Glen, sealing the peninsula off from the rest of the world.
Inside, I count down the minutes until the lights go down for the movie and I can test just how much freedom I can wrestle out of a perfect, Mercer-approved cage.