I smelled of earth and the little people. Or a brownie.”
“Well then,” she said, as if that explained everything. “But y’re no’ a brownie.”
“What’s the difference between a spriggan, a sprite, and a brownie?” I asked, curiosity shooting through me. Curiosity and hope. This woman might know what I was.
“A brownie is a household paranormal who does chores in return for a safe place to live and food to eat.”
I stilled. That sounded like what I had been when I lived with John and Leah Ingram.
“Spriggans are bug-ugly haints. Sprites are fairy creatures.” She tilted her head. “Yeah, so you’re a sprite.” She took the laptop from my fingers and showed Astrid. “Greenish liquid.” She pointed to the last photo. “Do you be thinking the bottle burned and the liquid was used up in the energies?”
“Interesting,” Astrid said. “A trigger. This may explain everything.”
“Not to me,” I said, wanting to return to fairy creatures and sprites, but the conversation had moved on. I would have to add those terms to the list of research into what Mud, Esther, and I might be.
“If it’s a trigger, then it was set to discharge, if you will, when the box was opened,” Astrid said. “However, before the lid was opened, some of the liquid amulet could have evaporated through the hole in the lid, coating the silver wire, which is why we’re seeing the low-level but widespread decay and then the fast-acting decay later. The curse slowly entered the air and the first women who went to the basement this morning breathed it in for, what? Over an hour? Then died. The ones present when the box was opened got the highest concentration of the energies, but for a much shorter time.”
“Monica Belcher got the pure dose,” I said.
“When Belcher opened the box,” T. Laine said, “she was hit with massive energies.”
“A preservation working, to keep the box and the shirts in a form of stasis,” Astrid suggested. “A preservation working could have been calculated to not break down the shirts or the box until the trigger was activated. If a witch did this, if it was a witch-made trigger, it’s a very sophisticated, layered mechanism.”
“But the shirts are still breaking down more slowly than anything else in the room,” I said. “Things were breaking down before the box was opened. So . . . it’s in the air.” Dread filled me.
“You’re saying that death and decay was in the air we were breathin’,” Etain said.
“Breathe in and out,” T. Laine commanded me. She looked me up and down, using a seeing working as I breathed. Etain joined her, both of them silent. “I missed it. You’re right,” she said to me. “It’s in us, small odd little magics on each exhalation.” She looked around. “So that means those of us who spent the most time in the basement need more null room time. It’s magic, but I don’t know what kind.” She shook her head. “Maybe it’s speeded-up nature, like you said.”
“It’s glad I am that I’ll be spending more time in the null room, then,” Etain said, “but ma sister is in jail and has no access to the null room and she was down there, in the basement.” She looked at her watch and blinked away sudden tears.
“I’ll find a way to get her a null pen,” T. Laine said. “We also need to find a way to get the T-shirts and the potential trigger into the null room,” T. Laine said, “along with what’s left of the bodies. We could put them in coolers, but there’s no way to carry all that safely up the stairs.”
“Open the French doors and back the trailer inside the basement,” I said. “Shovel it all into the null room.”
“Well, slap me silly,” Astrid said, whirling and striding away, her black skirt flaring wide.
“What just happened?” I asked Etain.
The girl laughed. “That meant we witches should ha’ thought of it, though I never knew there were doors down there. I thought it was all windows. Come on. Let’s get your cowboy and go stand in the null room again together. Like a threesome but without the fun. Maybe he has a brother?”
“No,” I said. “He doesn’t. And he’s taken and we aren’t interested.”
“No ring on your finger says different.”
I scowled at her, my very best churchwoman scowl, and Etain grinned.
“I’m teasing you. I admit it’s mostly to keep ma mind offa ma family. I promise not to poach on your man. Or on you,