When my stepmother thought it was clever to host a party at my late mother’s cherished lake retreat, she had no idea karma was already waiting for her. I never needed to lift a finger; fate took care of it more thoroughly than I ever could.

My mother, Margaret, passed away when I was sixteen. She left me her lake house in Vermont, a place she had bought before marrying my father. To her, it was more than property. It was her sanctuary, a place she claimed saved her spirit when life grew unbearable.

As a child, I spent endless afternoons there. She would set up her easel by the water and paint in soft strokes while I skipped stones. Sometimes, I’d ask her why she loved it so much. “Elena,” she told me once, dipping her brush into blue paint, “this house holds every good thought I’ve ever had. One day, it will hold yours too.”

I remember a summer when I was fifteen. We stayed for a whole week. She showed me how to cook blueberry pancakes on the old stove, and we ate them on the porch while the sunrise shimmered across the lake. That was the happiest I had ever seen her. She whispered one evening, “This place kept me whole when I thought I would break.”

After her death, the house became sacred. I kept it as she left it, even the pillow she embroidered that read Still waters, steady soul. I didn’t rent it, I didn’t share it, and I guarded it fiercely.

But my father remarried within a year to a woman named Denise. Everything about her felt polished and hollow. She had the kind of smile that stretched wide while her words cut deep. She didn’t throw insults directly; instead, she cloaked them in sweet tones. “Your mother had… such whimsical taste,” she once cooed, as if whimsy was something to sneer at.

Denise replaced my mother’s quilts and artwork at our main house with cold furniture that suited her sterile taste. What pained me most was not her style but her constant mockery of my mother’s way of living. At her wine nights, I overheard her friends joke about Margaret’s “hippie herb garden” or her “childlike paintings.” I stood in the hallway once, listening, and felt my chest ache with anger. But I was young and kept silent.

When I turned twenty-one and officially inherited the lake house, I made my boundaries clear. I told my father, “That place is sacred to me. No one goes there but me.” He nodded, but Denise only smiled and said, “Of course, darling, we’ll preserve your mother’s little fairy cottage.” The way she said it made me feel like she was mocking me.

Every year, on the anniversary of my mother’s passing, I drove to the lake house to spend the day alone. I would bring flowers, sometimes sit in silence, sometimes cry. It was the most personal day of the year for me.

That year, when I pulled into the gravel driveway, I froze. Four cars were parked outside. Laughter spilled from inside, music blared, and I recognized Denise’s voice above it all.

Peering through the window, I saw strangers drinking in my mother’s kitchen. Someone had tossed their feet onto my mother’s embroidered pillow. And then I heard Denise herself. “She thought burning sage could fix problems,” she said, and her friends roared with laughter. Another voice added, “Those so-called abstract paintings—what were they even supposed to be?” Denise laughed and poured herself more wine.

I backed away, trembling. The locks weren’t broken. She had stolen my key. Later, I discovered she had persuaded my father to lend her my apartment spare key under the excuse of watering plants while I was on a business trip. She had gone straight for the lake house key.

When I confronted her, she didn’t deny it. “Elena, you’re being dramatic,” she said, flicking her manicured nails. “It was just a small gathering. The house was sitting empty.”

“You stole from me,” I shot back.

She smiled coolly. “I borrowed it. Besides, your mother wouldn’t want you drowning in grief forever.”

I wanted to scream, but instead I smiled politely and walked away. That night, I called my lawyer, Margaret’s old friend Julia. I showed her the security footage from the cameras I’d installed the year before: Denise unlocking the door, her guests mocking my mother, one of them even shattering a stained-glass piece my mother had made. And then the text messages surfaced. Denise had written to her friends: “Bring champagne, we’re partying at the hippie hut. She won’t find out—she does her grief thing later. Time to see how the half-baked lived.”

In court, those words sealed her fate. She faced charges for trespassing and theft, plus a civil fine for property damage. My lawyer secured a restraining order preventing her from coming within five hundred feet of me or the house.

When my father saw the footage and read the messages, something inside him broke. Two months later, Denise packed her things and left. He never spoke of her again.

Now, the lake house is safer than ever. The locks have been changed, the security upgraded. It remains my refuge, the place that ties me to my mother’s gentle spirit. Each time I sit by the water at sunrise, I hear her voice in the breeze: “Still waters, steady soul.” And I know I kept my promise to protect what she loved most.