Page 20 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland

Never look a gift synchronicity in the mouth.

—Evie Oxby, New York magazine

The next morning, Beatrice blew a fuse while making breakfast. It was her own fault—she should have realized that toasting bread while the electric kettle heated might be too big a drain on her mysterious electrical system, but when she couldn’t even find the fuse box, her own internal electrics started to overheat, too.

The internet company was coming later in the afternoon, but until then, she was making do with the shitty cell phone reception that came and went with the island wind.

Pulling up houseboat diagnostics at the dial-up speed of the late nineties wasn’t helping her irritation level.

Her mood probably had something to do with the fact that her life as she knew it was over.

Or maybe it had to do with the fact that she’d quit her job without warning. It got harder to breathe every time she remembered that. Yes, she had savings. But savings were supposed to be for the future, not for the now . That was the whole point.

Maybe her mood was bleak because she’d bought a boat?

Who bought a boat ? Sure, it was a houseboat that didn’t like to be away from land.

But still. She used to do the books for a sailing instructor who’d said the second-happiest day of a sailor’s life was the day they bought their boat.

She’d fallen for it, asking, “What’s their first-happiest day? ” He’d grinned. “The day they sell it.”

Or perhaps this dire cloud of fear that had settled into her brain like a summer thunderstorm had something to do with the fact that she’d never noticed that her husband was in love with another woman, and had been for the duration of their marriage.

Beatrice tried to put peanut butter on her untoasted bread and succeeded only in ripping the slice to shreds. Fine. She ate the sticky pieces with her fingers.

Or maybe—just maybe—this dark mood had a little something to do with a prediction of full-on death after seven miracles, and that two of them might have already occurred.

She wiped more peanut butter on another sad, torn piece of bread.

A voice called out from the dock, “Beatrice? Are you home?”

Home. Was she home? When would she know that for sure?

Outside, Cordelia’s hair hung in two braids, and her face was bright with hope. “Hi. Good morning. I didn’t want to bug you, but I brought you something.” She carried a red patchwork bag over one arm and held a to-go cup in each hand.

“Please tell me one of those has my name on it.”

Cordelia thrust one cup forward. “Extra-hot cappuccino. Fritz says hello.”

“Bless you both. Come in.”

Inside, Cordelia put her bag on the galley counter and slowly turned in place. “This can’t be Hector’s old place. How did you do this in just one day?”

Every muscle in Beatrice’s body ached. “It’s possible I worked a little too hard.”

“I get it. I’m the same way with a new place. Which reminds me, I brought you a housewarming gift.” She reached into her bag and took out a piece of folded white cloth. “Here.”

It looked like a simple handkerchief until Beatrice unfolded it to find the middle intricately embroidered.

Three overlapping circles of red thread crossed two lines that resembled spears.

Four thicker lines wove around seven French knots.

It was stunning, equally pretty on the right side as on the wrong.

“Just a little protection. I sell kits for something similar at the store, but this sigil is just for you.” Cordelia’s smile was wide, her gaze open.

“You, buying this boat… Beatrice, I can’t tell you how happy it makes me.

It means we have time. All the time in the world.

” She blushed. “That is, if you want that time. Here I go again, rushing in, assuming you’re staying because of me, because of us, and I could be completely wrong.

Maybe you’re here for the golf. I hope I’m not. But I could be. I know that.”

Emotions, too fine and too many to untangle, knotted in Beatrice’s chest as tightly as the French knots on the cloth. “I hate golf.”

She needed to tell her what Winnie had said. Soon.

“Oh, thank goddess.”

Beatrice sank into the tiny armchair and gestured for Cordelia to take the small sofa. “Dude. I have questions .”

“I bet you do.” Pulling a thick book bound in dark leather out of her bag, Cordelia sat. “I’ll do my best to answer anything you ask.”

Okay, then. Beatrice folded the handkerchief tightly in her fingers. “What’s the book?”

“Our family grimoire. Our book of spells.”

The words tumbled out before she could stop them. “Are you a witch?”

“Mmm.” Cordelia looked at her hands, which rested on top of the book on her lap. “You could call me an energy practitioner.”

“And that means…”

“I manipulate energy, shaping it a bit, to make things around me and my loved ones a little better.”

“That sounds really witchy.”

“Okay, fine, I do call myself a witch, but I don’t do it in the hearing of the nonmagical. Makes ’em nervous. Even at Which Craft, I play dumb if it comes up. I’m just one in a very long line of people who’ve learned how to harness an ancient gift.”

She, Beatrice, was presumably part of that long line. It was nice of Cordelia not to push that. “So, is it Wicca? Is that what it’s called?”

“No—Wicca was started in the forties and fifties, and while I respect it, I don’t practice it.”

Beatrice boggled. “As in the nineteen fifties?” She’d imagined centuries of women standing in circles in forests, calling upon—something.

“Yeah. While they’ve reclaimed some ancient traditions, we Hollands use magic that’s somewhat longer in the tooth.”

“And you keep your last name.”

“We tend to keep it, yes. Matrilineally.” Cordelia leaned forward. “But you can do whatever you want with your powers, including ignoring them entirely.”

Maybe they’d circle back to that, but Beatrice’s big questions were busy having lots of squirrely little question babies.

“So, let’s assume I buy that magic exists.

Which I don’t. But for the sake of argument, I’m going to pretend I do.

” She ignored Cordelia’s look of satisfaction. “Is everyone in this town magical?”

“Not like us, no.”

“Does everyone know about the family… talent?”

“Only those we’ve deemed safe to know. You can imagine that it’s dangerous for the wrong people to learn about us.”

“How much of this town knows?”

Cordelia shrugged. “I’ve never thought about it that deeply. Maybe forty percent of them?”

“How do you keep the ones who know from talking to the dangerous ones?”

“Spells of safety. And hoping for the best.”

That didn’t sound very safe, but Beatrice only said, “Why does magic work for you and not for others?”

Cordelia gave her a proud smile. “Good one. Magic is in the land and sea and sky, and it tends to puddle up where those things meet. Islands, like this one, are great for collecting it, especially if magic has been practiced in the same place over many years. Minna is the seventh-generation Holland to live in Skerry Cove.”

“Really?” Beatrice couldn’t even remember the names of her father’s grandparents, all of whom had died before she was born. She couldn’t fathom seven generations of her kin, all in one place.

“We’ll show you at the cemetery. It’s kind of astonishing.

Anyone with a sensitivity to magic—and I believe that’s most people, though Astrid would definitely disagree with me—can learn to use magic.

It’s just that, in some families, we’ve built up some extra talent, if you will.

Just like the land has. When you combine pooled magic in the land with a familial gift, and if you know how to jump-start that talent—”

“With that Knock thing. Which didn’t feel like a knock, by the way.” It hadn’t felt like much of anything.

“Yeah, I have no idea why we call it that. When you activate your strengths with it, that strength grows, fast.”

“But what is it?”

Cordelia slipped a ziplock bag of oatmeal cookies out of her bag.

“Mom made them, but I swear they’re not poisoned.

Okay, how to explain it. You know how the immune system works, right?

It’s just kind of hanging out, waiting for a threat to activate it.

The Knock is like that—it’s in your body but it can’t really get to work until someone starts it up.

Before you’re activated, any magic you do is either accidental or the kind that nonwitches can do.

Afterward, once it’s been fired up… well, the sky’s the limit, really. ”

“But I didn’t feel anything. Did Minna? How are you supposed to know it worked?”

“You don’t feel anything when the immune system turns on, either. It’s autonomous, just happening, the same way your heart beats and your lungs breathe. As to how we know—we all saw it work when the butter flew.”

“Technically, no one saw it.” It still could have all been a coincidence. That wasn’t out of the question.

“Mmmm.”

“And this, this Knock, is just in our family?”

Cordelia lowered her eyes and pulled out a cookie. “Ours and some others.”

“So if it’s not for everyone, is it blood-borne? Or can you give it away to someone who isn’t genetically related?”

Cordelia paused, appearing to choose her next words carefully. “You can, yes. It’s not always… the best idea to do so. Someone for whom the knowledge is completely new often struggles with controlling that kind of power.”

It still didn’t make sense, but Beatrice’s mind was full of questions ping-ponging in every direction. “So what’s the difference between magic and miracles?”

“Whew.” She smiled. “An easy one. Magic is the intentional transformation of energy to affect an outcome. A miracle, on the other hand, is an unearned gift.”

“Huh.” Beatrice sipped her coffee, relishing the way the caffeine slipped through her veins. “What about psychic predictions? Prophecies?”

“I don’t receive them myself. But yes, some people get predictions of the future.”

“Do you trust them?”

A careful shrug. “Depends. For every real psychic, there are five running around taking money for preying on people’s grief.”

“Do you know Keelia’s sister?”

“Winnie? We’ve never met, strangely enough. But I know she’s moving to the island, and I believe from what I’ve heard that her power is strong.”

“You would trust a prediction from her?”

“From what Keelia has said, a hundred percent, yes.”

Time to rip off the psychic Band-Aid. “She said I was going to die soon, but before I did, I’d experience seven miracles. And it was kind of backed up by Evie Oxby, if you know who she is.”

“Ah.” Cordelia sighed. “Well, fuck .”