Page 49 of The Premonition at Withers Farm
Perliett closed her eyes against the gruesomeness of the dead robin. She had washed Eunice Withers’s dead body, but this? The bird was symbolic of her. Perliett knew this now. Someone was watching her.
Who killed Cock Robin, indeed.
16
Molly
“I’m fine.”Embarrassmentwas too nice of a word for what Molly felt.
“Hold still.” Gemma Rabine leaned over her as Molly sprawled on the couch. “I need to clean this.” She dabbed at the scrape on Molly’s knee where it had connected with the basement step. “You’re lucky you don’t have a concussion.”
Molly looked past Gemma, whose ministrations, while welcome, were detached and unemotional. Uncle Roger stood over her, his hands at his hips. Brandon and Tiffany hovered just behind him, staring down at her as if her fall in the basement had awakened them from their grieving stupor.
“Do you need help?” Tiffany offered Gemma.
“She’ll be all right.” Gemma flicked on a penlight and checked Molly’s eyes again. “She’s responding fine. I don’t see any signs of anything serious.”
“I’m fine.” Molly tried to push herself up. She heard the mudroom screen door slam, and sure enough, Trent barreled into the room, tossing his car keys onto the coffee table.
“Is she okay?” He ignored any greetings to his extended family, who had heard Molly fall in the basement.
Molly squeezed her eyes shut against the observations of the group gathered over her.
“She’s fine,” Gemma reassured Trent, and Molly hoped she left it at that. She’d no idea that Gemma was a nurse, and she really hoped Gemma didn’t start drilling her for more details. A fall. That was it. Molly’s explanation that she’d slipped on the stairs seemed to satisfy. There was no way on God’s green earth she was going to recount the vision of Gemma’s murdered sister, January, standing at the head of the stairs, ghoulish and haunting. Everything had gone black. Molly had fallen. The next thing she’d known, Uncle Roger was hoisting her up with Brandon’s help.
Trent edged past his uncle and cousins. He knelt beside Molly, concern radiating from him. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” Though she said it for the thousandth time, Molly could read the doubt in Trent’s eyes. “I slipped on the stairs. I was getting tissues for Tiffany and—” she looked beyond them toward the dining room just off the living room where they’d gathered—“there’s still a hamburger for you if you’re hungry.”
Uncle Roger dared a laugh at Molly’s diversion tactic. He clamped a hand over Trent’s shoulder. “If she’s thinking about the welfare of your stomach, boy, then I’d say your wife will be A-okay.”
Trent eased from his position on the floor.
Gemma gathered the bandage wrappers and snapped shut the first-aid kit she’d apparently retrieved from her car.
Molly moved to sit up and succeeded, not mentioning to anyone that her head was pounding. She’d hit it, she was sure of it. But worse than that, she was sure that January Rabine had somehow floated down those stairs and infiltrated her psyche. Molly could sense her presence—or at least she was afraid she could. She dared a look at Tiffany, January’s mother. Even in death, January held a resemblance to her. She also had the Wasziak chin and jawline. Molly shot a glanceat Trent. He had it too. That stubborn, determined set that spoke louder than any words. Molly had seen it in her vision of January as well, whose ghost had not looked friendly.
“Molly?” Trent reached out to help her from the couch. The rest of the family had moved back toward the dining room, leaving them somewhat alone. He searched her face as if to reassure himself she wasn’t injured. His brows drew together. “What happened?”
“I slipped,” Molly insisted. She avoided his eyes.
“But what’s wrong?” he pressed, lowering his voice.
Molly shook her head. “Nothing.”
A stiff silence built between them, the kind that reflected their relationship.Nothing, okay, andsure—they were all words that silenced any real conversation. Squelched their going deeper.
At one time, Molly would have craved to have Trent study her with such devoted concern. But now? She shied away from him and moved toward the others, who seemed to be waiting for them anyway. Waiting for Trent. To ask him questions about their daughter, their sister, their granddaughter. Now wasn’t the time for her and Trent to resolve anything, and Molly preferred it that way for now. There was no way to explain what she had seen in the graveyard of their basement. There was no way Trent would accept the truth without taking drastic measures to get her help.
She wanted it to stop, didn’t she? The whispers, the sightings, thefeelingsthat they weren’t alone? Yet to stop it took more than increased faith and a prayer. Molly knew that. And the idea of the medical world becoming involved and psychoanalyzing her condition? That scared her almost as much as January Rabine’s ghost.
Molly rummaged through the closet, where their clothes hung together in a jumbled mess. She chose an oversizedT-shirt emblazoned with the logo of Clapton Bros. Farms on it and slipped into a pair of cotton bike shorts. Glancing in the bedroom mirror, she took a brief second to re-messy-bun her hair, then pulled a few tendrils down by her ears so she didn’t look so severe. She eyed her own brown gaze.
“You’re a mess.”
Saying it out loud didn’t make Molly feel any better. Evenshedidn’t want to hang around herself. She could hardly blame Trent.
Padding across the wood floor, Molly made her way downstairs. The smell of coffee permeated the air. A glance at the wall clock she’d hung last week stated it was 8:00 a.m. Trent must have made coffee before he left for work three hours ago. Which meant it was probably burnt coffee now if he’d left the pot on.
