Page 113 of The Premonition at Withers Farm

Perliett disentangled herself from her mother.

“What are you going to do?” Maribeth’s worried voice followed Perliett into the room.

“I’m going to try to get Mrs. Withers home. She needs rest. This is disturbing her far too much.”

Maribeth started after Perliett, then halted, probably realizing that Mrs. Withers’s absence would mean her study could be reclaimed in peace. “Be careful,” she advised.

Perliett hesitantly reached for the woman crumpled in a heap on the floor. “Mrs. Withers?”

Mrs. Withers looked at her with empty eyes. Tears traced rivers down her cheeks that were devoid of color. Her black dress was drenched in her sweat, and Perliett avoided taking deep breaths as she questioned the last time the woman had bathed.

“Let me get you home,” she encouraged.

Mrs. Withers allowed Perliett to help her rise to her feet. In moments, she had led the woman from the house, Maribeth rushing ahead to make sure the carriage was still hitched and ready from her earlier errand with Jasper.

“I thought Jasper took the carriage to get help?” Perliett frowned at the sight of it.

“I ... I don’t know,” Maribeth said after a long pause.

Perliett wasn’t going to try to understand. She had Mrs. Withers’s cooperation and wasn’t going to squander it. Once they helped Mrs. Withers onto the seat, Perliett carefully climbed up herself, attempting not to bump any of the healing bruises on her arms and legs. Maribeth laid her hand on Perliett’s knee, looking up from where she stood by the carriage.

“Be careful. Come home immediately.”

Perliett noticed her mother didn’t offer to assist her and, with her last statement of caution, was already heading back to the house, most likely to her beloved study.

The distance to the Withers farm did not seem so far in the daylight, driven by horse and carriage. It was the first time Perliett had traversed this road since the night of her attack. She eyed the cornfields bordering it, a frightened tremor passing through her.

Get Mrs. Withers back to the Withers farm and then return home.

It was that simple.

Where Jasper Bridgers had swept off to was beyond Perliett. He certainly hadn’twalkedor they would have come upon him. A nagging sense told her he had a different agenda than seeking help. How difficult was it to fetch Mrs. Withers’s husband? Must they turn this into a complaint that the woman was mad? The family had suffered enough with Eunice and Millie’s murders. To have their mother committed because she was...

Perliett gave Mrs. Withers a sideways glance. The womanhad straightened on the seat of the carriage, tilting her chin up as she appeared to strain to see something or someone.

“Robin...” she muttered.

Perliett frowned. “Who is Robin?”

The sound of her voice startled Mrs. Withers. The woman stared at Perliett, her eyes widening. Her icy hand flew out and landed on Perliett’s leg.

“No. You mustn’t come. Leave me here.”

There was awareness in her eyes now. A strange validation that within her lived the mind of a woman that reasoned.

Perliett shook her head. “I’ll take you to your home.” She pointed. “I can see the barn there. And the house...” The roofline of the white barn and its cupola was bold against the sky.

“We have gravestones in our basement,” Mrs. Withers admitted with a shudder. “I’ve long despised them. Randolph wouldn’t replace them with more fieldstone. Even after I begged him.”

Randolph. Mr. Withers. Perliett had to remind herself of Mrs. Withers’s husband’s name.

“But”—Mrs. Withers’s face transformed into a warm smile that spread to her eyes—“Alden would. He said he would. For me.”

Alden? Perliett had no idea who Alden was. She knew Mrs. Withers’s eldest daughter and son-in-law, and the name Alden was not in the Withers line.

“Stop,” Mrs. Withers demanded. Her fingernails bit into Perliett’s knee.

Perliett tugged on the reins. The horse snorted, tossing its head, then halted, leaving them among fields of corn with the farmhouse and barn roofs cutting the horizon above the tassels of corn.