Page 21 of The Premonition at Withers Farm

He cleared his throat. “Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” she argued.

Trent offered her a lazy shrug. “It is to you.” His eyes grew serious. “It is to you,” he repeated.

She knew what he was referring to. Knew what Trent targeted and Molly’s ire rose. “So I’m not allowed to grieve the loss of our children? I need to just—just move on like they were blips on the map of our lives?”

Trent hefted a sigh and scratched the back of his neck, irritation palpable. “It’s been two years, Molls. Two years since the last miscarriage.”

“So?”

“At what point do we heal and move on?”

“Move on,” Molly repeated lamely. “Move on.” It sounded harder to her than climbing Mount Everest without oxygen.

“Never mind.” Trent waved her off and straightened. He pushed past her, leaving behind his farm cologne wafting in the air. Leaving behind the memories of lost dreams. Leaving behind Molly.

She stood in the kitchen, alone, with only the voices to wrap around her empty soul.

In which we choose to die.

Do we choose it?

Death.

I see it in her eyes.

I saw it leave her eyes.

Death is a powerful thing.

It makes me hunger for more of it.

8

Perliett

“You absolutely mustn’t!” Perliett’s urging fell on her mother’s deaf ears.

Maribeth offered Perliett the same look she gave her during her séances, this being the silent stare down her nose and over her shoulder until her gaze collided with Perliett’s. It was the somber look of a staunch believer.

“Mr. Withers has requested it. Along with his daughter, Angelica.”

“I know, and I may have agreed with you, except after tending to Mrs. Withers, she is not of the mind to manage disappointment should Eunice not make a connection.” Perliett didn’t have confidence in the spirits to come when called. Curiosity or even an aged grief made the risk less impacting. Then there was the element that Perliett didn’t want to admit and that was the smidgen of doubt she carried toward her mother’s practice of spiritualism. The spirit world was impossible to predict, and yet ... there was such confidence in her mother.

She tried again. “Does the Withers family understand it is unlikely Eunice will appear in bodily form? That they won’tbe able to interrogate her and watch her dead lips mouth the name of her killer?”

“Oh, don’t be morbid, Perliett.” Maribeth waved her off and focused on straightening the black lace cloth that covered the round table in the study. “We are merely going to attempt to make a connection. For the sake of Mrs. Withers.”

“Who won’t even be in attendance!” Perliett recalled the poor woman from last night, with her grief having crowded out all sense of living for herself.

“Precisely why you’ve little to worry about.” Maribeth tugged a candle nub from its brass holder and replaced it with a new white stick. “But to let a mother know that her daughter is at peace in the afterlife, wouldn’t you wish that? For me? If I were Mrs. Withers?”

She would. Perliett nodded.

Maribeth smiled then. “And so Angelica and Mr. Withers wish to take that thread of hope to Eunice’s mother. They don’t need Mrs. Withers handicapped by the daunting reality that her daughter was ... was mangled like a pincushion.”

“AndIam the morbid one?” Perliett retorted.