Page 79 of The Premonition at Withers Farm

Another thud jerked Molly’s attention to her bedroom door. She squeezed her eyes shut.

God, please take them away.

The presence of the dead. The ones she wanted nothing to do with. She wasn’t a medium. She didn’t have some special talent that psychics would rejoice over if they knew. This was different. This was ... aneeding. Purpose. Connection. Her babies. The ones she’d lost. The little ones she was supposed to be holding, raising. They were ghosts. But just because they were ghosts didn’t mean she could hear other ghosts. See other ghosts.

The curtain at the window lifted, its filmy lightness brushing her shoulder and cheek. Molly shrieked, jumping away from it.

The window was closed.

There was no breeze.

The curtain was like a manifestation of another presence.

Molly ran from the bedroom, grabbing at the doorframe to keep from falling as she turned into the hall. The staircase leading down to the main level loomed before her, carpeted in an old shag, its rail marked by chipped white paint.

Her bare feet pounded down the stairs.

She swore if she looked over her shoulder, she would see the curtain, having dislodged from the window, floating down behind her, the form of the dead beneath it, reaching toward her, its arms begging for the conclusion to their life.

Limbo.

Lingering.

“No, no, no,” Molly whimpered. She reached the kitchen and backed against the sink, grasping the edge of the counter. Her eyes scanned the dining room through the doorway beyond. She glanced into the hallway that also opened into the living room.

No one was there.

She’d give anything to find an intruder. A masked man. Someone intending to steal or attack. Ahumanentity was far preferable than an elusive spirit that dodged her and toyed with her.

“Go away!” Molly shouted. Her words echoed through the house.

She heard the floor creak.

“Go away!” Her voice was wobbly as she shrieked. “Oh, please—” sobs caught her breath—“please, just go away.”

Nothing. Silence.

Then, “I saw her die.”

It was audible. The voice. It shattered the silence with a violence that sent Molly scampering away from the sink, pressing her back against the refrigerator.

“I saw her die.”

“Oh, God, help me.” Molly bit her lip. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She held her hands out to ward off the voice. The sound of the gravelly tone that resonated in her ears. She needed to call someone. She needed help.

Molly shot a look at the table, but her phone wasn’t there.

The floor creaked again. A door slammed, the air becoming stifling as the breeze from the open mudroom door was shut off as it closed against the screen door. Molly couldn’t see it, but she could feel it.

Spinning, she raced from the kitchen away from the front door. She needed to get herself out of the house. It was haunted. The Withers sisters—the dead who owned the unfinishedgravestones in the basement—God only knew who was dodging her, teasing her mercilessly.

Molly turned into the side room with the basement stairs to the left and the door to the outside straight ahead. She ran for it, grabbing at the doorknob. It twisted, but the door wouldn’t open.

Molly darted a terrified look over her shoulder.

She heard another door slam. That would be the living room door. The only other main level exit to the outside. It was as if a poltergeist occupied the house with only her and was determined to shut her inside.

Molly tugged at the door. “Open up!” she screamed at it.