it on the humans, reading them, trying to find a safe minimum time to erase the energies clinging to their skin. Sit.”
The null room at HQ made me feel a little nauseated. This portable one was less powerful but more . . . spikey? It felt a little like the way my arms had felt the day I insulated the upstairs bedroom walls with rolls of pink stuff. The room also was affecting my ears and I caught myself on the back of a chair.
“Nell?” Worried tone.
I waved at her and sat. “Sick at the stomach,” I said. “A little dizzy.”
“Okay. Good to know. You need to hurl, I’ll push you outside. And we’ll get barf bags for the next batch. You get any other symptoms, tell me.”
“Batch?”
“Half an hour seems to be enough time in the null room to clear most humans, but five still read as contaminated, even after two stints in here.”
“Oh. Right.” I swallowed down the sick feeling and sat.
“You want to talk about it? About what made you look so terrified a few minutes ago?”
I firmed my mouth, thinking through how much of my childhood I wanted to share. “My mama . . .” I stopped. “My mama had me tested to see if I was a witch when I was little. Because I could make things grow so well in the communal greenhouse. There’d been . . . talk.” I gripped my arms again, holding myself. “You know that part. I remembered standing in a circle. I was nine? Ten?”
“Okay.” T. Laine looked calm, compassionate. Ordinary. And in spite of her exhaustion, strong. As if I could tell her anything and she wouldn’t bow under the weight.
“That memory brought up some others. The sound of Colonel Ernest Jackson’s voice in front of the whole church, when he stated his intent to take me as his concubine.”
Lainie’s eyes narrowed again. It was her “going to battle” look.
“I had just started my menses. To a churchman, that meant I was a woman grown. That was the first time he demanded me for his bed. The second time I was in the greenhouse, encouraging the basils to grow. I was good at growing basil.” I flapped a hand to show I knew I was vacillating. “I was working one afternoon and he grabbed my arm. Tried to pull me away.” I rubbed my arm where his hand had gripped it so hard it had bruised purple and black. “Mama Grace stepped in and talked his ear off about the church social coming up. He left. The mamas all came and we walked home together. Then that night . . .” The rich sweet scent came to me. “Mama Grace had made me a blueberry pie and we had just cut it, when the Colonel walked in. Didn’t knock. Just walked in like he owned the place. I ducked behind the counter and curled up in a ball. The Colonel informed Daddy for the third time that I was ‘ripe’ and he wanted me for his wife or concubine. He didn’t care so long as I ended up in his bed. My father said he would think about it.” I met T. Laine’s eyes again, hers black and stormy. “I was twelve. The next Sunday in church, I told him off in front of the entire congregation and that’s when I left with John and Leah Ingram. Went to live with them. Married into their family.”
She said, “I’d burn that church to the ground and every man on the premises if I could, and take the jail sentence as worth it.”
“I thought my family had abandoned me. But they went in secret to the Ingrams and negotiated me a safe haven, living off church grounds, but still within the church membership. If I’d left the membership, the men might have found me and taken me back. Daddy and the mamas? They kept me safe as best they could, as best they knew how.”
“Sure.” Her tone said she didn’t believe it.
Years later, I had killed someone who attacked me on the farm. I had never known who it was, never seen his face in the twilight. And then, even later, and much more recently, I had killed one of the worst churchmen. He was dying. I could have healed him. But I killed him and I fed him to the land, every scrap of clothes, shoe leather, skin cells, and eyebrow hair. Maybe it was the null forces beating