Page 83 of The Premonition at Withers Farm
“Oh, God, oh, God.” It was a prayer. Truly. Molly tilted her head back to look up but saw only blackness. It surrounded her, hemmed her in, and behind her the smell of fire choked the air. It was a physical depiction of how life had been the last three years. Closed in. Oppressive. Heavy. Suffocating. Dismal. Void of life and of hope.
Whispering clichéd prayers of “Save me” or “I promise I’ll do this, if you’ll do that” ran through Molly’s mind, but they felt hypocritical now. All those stories of God rushing to the salvation of people in the Bible via fiery bushes, or mastering the fangs of lions, or tsunamis that swallowed Egyptians—she didn’t challenge Scripture’s authority, but she also didn’t think He worked that miraculously anymore.
She’d take a tsunami now. She’d take an angel. She’d take anything. She’d even take a whisper if it meant she could live.
Someone was shouting. It echoed in her mind like a voice cutting across an English moor. In fact, wasn’t that where she was? Molly could see the rolling landscape, the fog wisping along the earth. She could feel the damp spray of the air at that moment when the rain was a mist before it became a drop that turned into a torrent. She felt the boorish hands of Heathcliff as the literary male dragged her toward him, enveloping her in his cloak like a tarp that—
“Molly!” The voice cut through the dreamlike imagerythat made Molly drop her head back, letting it hang because she didn’t have the energy to lift it.
“Get her out of there!” another voice commanded.
My, my, Heathcliff was bossy. Maybe it was Rochester. Wait. Were Heathcliff and Rochester heroes in the same Brontë sister novel, or separate? She hadn’t read one in eons. No. Not read. She was there, wasn’t she? But the English moors smelled like a firepit, with the soggy thick scent of wet ashes burning her nostrils.
“Get her over here.” It was a woman. “What’s her pulse?”
Someone answered.
Her body jostled like she was dead weight in someone’s arms, and they were trying to hoist her out of a pit.
“Get the oxygen!”
Molly tried to open her eyes. They burned. Stung. Tears flooded them as she strained to see.
Her body settled onto a soft mattress. She was rolling. She could hear the creaking of metal springs, the crunch of wheels on gravel. Lights flickered behind Molly’s closed eyelids. Red lights. Blue. Men were talking. She could hear water spraying.
“Molly!” This time the voice was familiar. It was close.
She realized she was gripping a hand so tightly that her own was feeling pricks of nerves beneath the skin.
“C’mon, Molls, wake up.” He was urging her. A frantic undertone startled her.
Reality crept into the edges of her consciousness. No English moors. It was Michigan. Michigan farmland. This was the aftermath of—
Someone lowered a plastic cup over her nose and mouth. Air, purer than anything she’d breathed before, whooshed up her nostrils, filling her sinuses, her lungs, and startling her into awareness.
Molly’s eyes flew open and instantly locked with Trent’s. His face was sooty, his blue eyes hazed with emotion shecouldn’t interpret. He was holding her hand and stroking her hair away from her face.
A quick glance around and she realized she was on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance, Trent squatting beside her. “Trent,” she said, trying to speak through the oxygen mask the EMT had placed on her. She struggled to push herself up on her elbows. “The house—”
“Molly, lie back, please.” The EMT smiled at her. Molly recognized the woman’s unmistakable air of calm authority. She was in charge.
Molly obeyed but reached for Trent’s shirt. He leaned over her, and Molly noticed his eyebrows were scorched. His cheeks were tinged bright red, as if he’d been in the sun too long. Ashes flecked his hair. Soot dotted his nostrils and colored his face.
“Are you okay?” Worry for Trent flooded her senses.
He gave an exhausted chuckle and ducked his head for a second before lifting it. “Yeah. Yeah, Molls, I’m fine.”
“The house?” This time, she didn’t try to sit up to see whatever remained of their house. Of the historic Withers farmhouse. The murder house.
Trent grimaced. His brows drew inward, and the muscles in his jaw flexed. “We’ll have some work to do.”
“Did it burn to the ground?” Molly felt a band on her upper arm tighten. The EMT was taking her blood pressure.
“No.” Trent shook his head. “But there’s a lot of damage. I barely got you out before that side of the house—the living room wall gave in, and part of the second floor collapsed.”
Not burned to the ground, but practically destroyed anyway.
Molly closed her eyes.
