In 1935 six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family's summer house on a remote Minnesota lake. Her mother and two sisters spend the rest of their lives at the lake house keeping a decades-long vigil for the lost child. Sixty years later Lucy the middle sister lives in the lake house alone. Before her death she leaves the house to her grandniece Justine. For Justine the lake house offers freedom and stability - a way to give her daughters the home she never had. But the long Minnesota winter is just beginning. . . In a house haunted by the sorrows of the women who came before her Justine must overcome their tragic legacy if she hopes to save herself and her children.