Page 117 of The Premonition at Withers Farm
“But Eunice didn’t write that poem,youdid.”
Maribeth looked a bit sheepish. “I wanted Detective Poll to allow me to help with the investigation. To prove I have a gift. If you had evidence to show him that Eunice had connected with me ... well, I didn’t know you’d rush out into the night for help! I thought you’d use your apothecary box and stay with me until I could feign coming to. I was hardly able to maintain my silence when you used smelling salts, but I did. You must understand, I havefoursittings scheduled for next week as it is. The need is genuine, Perliett!”
“The need?” Perliett gave an incredulous laugh. “The need to be lied to?” She cast astonished eyes on Jasper. “Youwrote that note from the Cornfield Ripper to yourself, didn’t you? You staged it? It was never left outside your door. You wanted to insert yourself into the investigation to garner more curiosity for my mother?”
Jasper’s lips tightened in affirmation of Perliett’s accusation.
“And the dead robin?” She looked between them. “Was that even the Cornfield Ripper’s doing?”
“It was!” Maribeth wrung her hands. “But I overheard you and Millie. I heard about the poem and—”
“And you used it to appear that you heard from Eunice.” Disillusioned, Perliett shook her head. “You lied.”
Maribeth’s plea straightened into a sterner look. “I don’t lie. I have gifts.”
“Unproven ones!” Perliett cried. “And you turn it into a magic show? No wonder you wouldn’t summon PaPa. Youcan’tsummon him!”
“Perliett, that isn’t true!”
“That time you did try to summon PaPa, who squeezed my shoulder? I felt him. I felt the hand as physically as I can feel you now! The doors to the wardrobe opening? How do you explain that? Did yousummonthat, Mother?”
“I have been in Kilbourn for some time, keeping a low profile,” Mr. Bridgers admitted. “When a person is partaking in a sitting, between the intensity of emotion and the fear of the unknown, they often miss the medium’s assistant.”
“Assistant?” Perliett looked between him and her mother. “You? You squeezed my shoulder? That wasmonthsago!”
“There are certain elements that help make the sitting more real for the sitter,” Maribeth explained, “and then I can connect with the actual spirit and...”
Perliett’s chin wobbled. Tears burned her eyes and then trailed down her cheeks. “If you must resort to trickery to make your beliefs ‘real,’ then they are not the truth. You dabble in a world you knownothingabout, and that is dangerous.”She turned her angst onto Jasper. “And you enable it. Youhelpit. You destroy faith.”
“No,” Jasper countered. “Rather, I help others gain access to experiences that are only enhanced. The experience itself is still real.”
Perliett leveled a frank gaze on her mother. “You haven’t connected with Eunice Withers at all, have you? You have fooled others and given them false hopes.”
“But therewasan influence here that night!” Maribeth insisted, her voice rising. “I saw Eunice by my bedside.” Her voice grew eager to prove herself. “Remember? I saw her apparition!”
“Which you cannot prove,” Perliett finished grimly. “And if there was, it is an influence I want nothing to do with.” She spun on her heel, leaving her father’s study behind. The mysteries of the spirit world—oh, they were real. But they weren’t meant for entertainment, nor were they meant for profit. Her mother played a dangerous game to validate her beliefs, alongside her cohort Mr. Bridgers, whose toying with others’ faith was a mere experiment in the psyche of mankind. It was a horrible, awful game, and it was not one Perliett intended to continue playing.
39
Molly
“You think Jacqueline Withers was behind the cornfield killings?” Molly breathed carefully. In and out. Having an anxiety attack in a crawl space while leaning against a barrel filled with the remains of a woman who had been missing for forty years would do her no good at all.
Maynard shrugged. He wiped sweat from his temples. “Who knows? Does anyone know? Does it matter? Alden. Jacqueline. People died. Just like Tamera.” He glanced at the barrel.
“Why?” Molly whispered. “Why did you do it? Why did you kill her—and January?”
Maynard clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “Oh, come on, Molly. Don’t be so dumb. January is obvious. She was going to uncover my secret. I was barely twenty when Tamera and I were dating. I was twenty when Tamera led me on and then went out with another man. But that wasn’t right. She was mine. And when I told her, we fought. The only place I could think to hide her was here. No one lived in my cousins’ old, deserted farmhouse our grandmother used to own. A renter was one thing, and I wasn’t a fan of it when they did renovations to the living area. But rentingwas a waste of time. So then my family decided they wanted to sell and offered it to Trent before I had the chance to do a thing about it! I had to go along with it.”
“You started the fire, didn’t you?” Molly breathed.
Maynard offered an apologetic smile. “I had to. Twice I tried to get in here. I needed to see that you weren’t disturbing the crawl space. I needed to make sure you didn’t have January’s notes on Tamera.”
Realization, both blessed and terrifying, washed over her. “Youwere in our house? At night?”
Maynard gave a curt nod.
The ghostly steps she’d heard that first week in their home... “Were you ever in my bedroom during the day?” She thought of the movements she’d seen from the coop’s attic window and attributed to a ghost.
