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So, unlike Egyptian mummification, whoever had carved these spells expected the person inside to return, rather than to need the body in the afterlife.
“Over here,” Candi said on my other side. “This allows the consciousness to roam until…” She trailed off as she pressed her palm to the sigil, closing her eyes for a minute before opening them again and smiling. “Until that which they seek is found once more.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, my brow furrowing.
“I have no idea,” she admitted. “If all of this worked, I think that it means the person inside has been able remain cognizant.”
“So it knows it’s trapped in there?” I was horrified at that thought. Being trapped, mentally alive but encased in a coffin for centuries?
“I don’t think so,” Mindi said. She was kneeling at one end of the coffin, her hand pressed to it the way Candi had done. “I mean, I don’t think they’re trapped. I think they wanted this.” She shook her head. “These spells are torpor spells. Meant to put a supernatural creature into a kind of stasis. Essentially suspending their life.”
“Why would anyone want to do that?” I asked, unable to imagine purposely doing something like that to myself.
“I’m not sure,” Mindi said. “But it almost seems like these spells were carved first, and then amendments were made to it later.” She motioned for me to come over to her. “Look at the lines of the carvings here. Definitely firm, sure strokes from some kind of chisel.”
She grabbed my hand and pulled me over to stand between her sisters, pointing to the spells they’d been inspecting.
“But these show definite hesitation. Now, it’s possible that two different people carved the spells and that would explain the irregularities. But I get the feeling that these were added after whoever is inside subjected themselves, or were subjected to, the original torpor spell.”
My head was swimming with this information. I’d never come across anything like this before. And I had no idea what to make of any of it.
“So that mummy in there,” I said slowly, trying to work out a coherent thought through the jumble of things in my head. “Wanted to be in stasis, and someone decided to give them a loophole to come back?”
“That isn’t a mummy,” a man said from the opening of the cave. His deep, booming voice causing everyone inside to jump.
“Damnit Booker!” Mindi yelled, her palm pressed to her chest as she glared at her husband.
