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crew out, the gust of wind sent a fireball out over the heads of the people in the Orchestra section and incinerated the folks in the upper balconies.” He made a face. “There was so much outrage about the fire that it changed safety regulations for public buildings to this very day.”
    “Yikes.”
    “Eugenia and Todd were lucky. They got out. In the chaos, they wandered around in the cold, until a policeman found them,” Trinket said quietly. “You can imagine, they were both in shock although they weren’t injured. Eugenia was never quite right afterwards – they called it ‘nerves’ back then. Todd was young enough that he outgrew the nightmares and seemed to be fine. Oddly enough, the opera glasses were passed down through the family as a lucky charm, since they had been a Christmas gift from Daniel to Eugenia that year.”
    “Were the glasses always haunted?” I asked, leaning forward.
    Trinket frowned. “No. That’s what’s so odd. Eugenia left them to Todd, and they came down through his family along with the story. I remember seeing them at my grandmother’s house, and when she died, she left them to my mom. Mom kept them on a shelf for years, until we had to box up her stuff when she went into the nursing home.”
    “Last year, I moved mom’s boxes out of storage and into my garage, so I could go through them more easily. I found the opera glasses and thought it would be cool to take them on a trip to New York City when my husband and I went a few months ago.” Trinket sighed. “That was a mistake.”
    “Do you know if anyone else tried to use the glasses at a play since the tragedy?” Teag asked.
    Trinket nodded. “That’s what makes this so strange. Eugenia was a strong woman. Even though she never completely got over the tragedy, she refused to let it take away her love of the theater. She willed herself to go back to plays after a year or two, and was a patron of the theater for the rest of her life.”
    Trinket’s expression showed that she was just as baffled as we were. “Todd kept up the patronage, and down through the years, it’s been a family tradition to support local theater groups. My mother and grandmother used to dress up to go out to the theater, and I remember seeing them take the opera glasses with them.
    “I always thought they were so beautiful. That’s why I wanted to take them to New York, once I found them again in Mom’s things.”
    Teag and I shared a look. “Did anything happen to the glasses between when your mother used them and when you inherited them?”
    Trinket shook her head. “There was no chance for anything to happen. We boxed everything up when we sold her house, and I’m just unboxing things now.”
    I wasn’t any closer to figuring out why the glasses had suddenly become a menace, but I felt a little better about what had happened to me at the play. I managed a smile. “Thanks for telling us, Trinket.
    We’ll make sure no one else has a bad experience with the glasses.”
    After Trinket left, I stayed at the table for a few moments, finishing my coffee and going back over the tale Trinket had told. What would make the opera glasses suddenly get haunted? I wondered.
    Something had changed them. Maybe, because of the tragedy, they had always been imprinted with strong emotions, but it wasn’t powerful enough to manifest. What could have possibly happened to juice them up? I didn’t know, but I figured Sorren might.
    The shop door opened, and a bike messenger leaned into the shop. Teag signed for a package, and he brought the small box over as I finished my coffee.
    I frowned. “I wasn’t expecting anything. Who’s it from?”
    Teag looked at the return address. The handwriting was barely legible and the ink had smudged. “I can’t read the name, and I don’t recognize the address.”
    That wasn’t unusual. Trifles and Folly had a whispered reputation as the place that would take haunted heirlooms off your hands. Once or twice a month,