Page 25 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland

Starting to learn about your own psychic power is like being alone in a tiny boat in an immense sea. During a hurricane. And your boat’s just sprung a leak, your period’s just started, you have no tampons, and your cell phone just went overboard.

—Evie Oxby, Come at Me, Boo

So for the second time in four days, Beatrice found herself telling a fire official what had happened, how she (and this time, three others) had escaped certain death.

Without discussing it, neither she nor Minna mentioned exactly how they’d ended up in the right place at the right time, and people seemed to accept her explanation.

The storm was starting to rage—I just didn’t think it was safe for the girls to be in there.

Then Cordelia was there, and before Beatrice knew what was happening, she and Minna had been herded into Which Craft.

Cordelia flipped the Open sign to Closed and locked the door. Then she moved three afghans and a basket of yarn from the sofa. “Sit. Breathe. Then tell me everything.”

Astrid appeared from the back room, sweeping out in a long black linen tunic, her white hair piled artfully on top of her head. “You’ll tell us everything. And only us.” She raised an eyebrow at Reno, who was behind the counter, pulling waters out of a mini fridge.

“Reno is us, Mom. You should know that by now.”

“Oh, fine .” Astrid sank into the largest armchair. “What happened? I saw the tree fall and the fire start, so lightning, yes? But all that screaming—a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

Cordelia sat next to Minna, draping an arm over her daughter’s shoulders. “Mom, how about we let them tell us? In their own words?”

Reno handed each of them a water, and then, instead of sitting in the spare chair, she sat next to Beatrice. Her dark curls fell over her forehead as she glanced at Beatrice. In a low voice, she said, “Still okay?”

Was she? Maybe. She nodded.

Cordelia pointed at Minna. “Okay, my darling. Go.”

Minna’s words tumbled quickly from her mouth.

“Okay, so we went to the graveyard because I wanted to introduce her to the relatives. We saw Anna and Rosalind’s crypt, and we sat with Xenia, and then we tried some things from the grimoire and no offense, Aunt Bea, but Mom, she wasn’t good at anything , and then I—” She broke off and stared up at her mother.

“You’re not going to get in trouble.”

“Okay, so I talked to a guide—”

Cordelia’s jaw tightened. “I told you not to do that without me.”

“—and it showed me this image sent from Aunt Bea’s stepmom, and then she kind of believed me a little more, and then she tried it, and oh my god, you should have seen it, she reached for my pen and then she was writing—”

Astrid started. “She wrote in our grimoire?”

“She wrote in the notebook I’d brought because I’m not the dumbass you sometimes think I am, Gran, and then she went super red in the face and wrote a bunch of things, and none of them make sense, but I bet they do somehow, we just don’t know it yet, and she still didn’t really believe, so I told her—” Minna broke off.

Cordelia squeezed her shoulder. “Yeah?”

“I. Um. I asked her if she would try again, as a favor to me. Um.”

Cordelia’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you want that?”

“I know I shouldn’t have. But I wanted to hear from Sienna.”

Beatrice stared at Minna—no matter who Sienna was, that wasn’t the truth.

But Minna gave her a miserably piteous look, the look of a lost kitten taking shelter from the rain under a truck’s rusted bumper.

So Beatrice shut her mouth. For now.

Astrid said, “Who?”

Cordelia stroked Minna’s hair. “Her friend who drowned last year, remember, Mom? Baby, we talked about that. I know you’re sad, but Sienna’s just fine where she is.”

“I know. I mean, I should have remembered. But then—this is the weirdest part—Aunt Bea didn’t even get to the end of the incantation.

Maybe not even halfway! So I don’t get that, but she did it again, went all red like a tomato again and wrote down—wait, I have it here.

Look.” Minna shook the notebook out of her backpack and flipped it open.

run to the tree house get them out don’t wait run and then run more go NOW

“So we ran.”

Cordelia traced the words on the page with her index finger and Astrid demanded they be read aloud to her. Minna did, and then said, “Beatrice scaled the tree like a cat, I swear, and then the kids came out so fast, it was like she’d turned the whole thing upside down and shook it.”

The kids. Minna was still a kid herself, and she’d been near the tree, way too near—what if she’d been struck? Beatrice’s pulse juddered in her throat again.

Next to her, Reno tapped the back of her hand, then pointed to her own chest. She took a deep breath in, then let it out just as slowly.

Gratefully, Beatrice mimicked the motion.

“So that’s the story. The end. Magic for the win. I told her about divine intention, Gran, but maybe you can explain that—”

Astrid shook her head. “That wasn’t magic. That wasn’t divine intention.”

The cap of Beatrice’s water bottle slipped out of her hand.

Cordelia folded her lips as if she agreed but didn’t want to.

Astrid continued, “Magic requires intention and energy. A miracle is a gift. Plain and simple.”

Now Beatrice was confused. “I did say the spell. I put intention into it.”

“But you didn’t finish saying it?”

Dumbly, Beatrice shook her head.

Astrid’s expression looked almost kind. “There you go. You were given the gift anyway. I’m not sure why you look so upset. Miracles are good things.”

Miracle number three.

In a very quiet voice, Minna said, “Do you think, maybe, the person we were trying to reach—Sienna, I mean—was the one who told us to run?”

Cordelia leaned forward as if her stomach hurt. “I don’t know, baby.”

“Oh.”

Cordelia looked at Beatrice. “Three miracles down.”

No , Minna didn’t need to know about the prediction. “Don’t—”

“Only four to go.”

Minna’s expression was horrified. “Wait. What’s going on?”

Beatrice had no idea what to say.

“Mom?”

Gently, Cordelia said, “Keelia has a sister named Winnie who’s just moved to town.

I haven’t met her yet, but I know from what Keelia says that she’s the real deal.

Aunt Beatrice received a prediction, from her and another psychic.

She—um—might be dying, but before she does, she’ll experience seven miracles. ”

It took Minna only two or three slow blinks to digest it. “That was the third miracle? The tree house?”

I don’t believe in any of this. But something kept Beatrice from saying the words out loud.

“It might have been.” Cordelia took her hand. “We’ll figure it out, though. Stronger together, right?”

Astrid had gone so pale that her skin resembled the undyed fiber in the basket perched next to her. “Winnie said that?”

Cordelia nodded.

Astrid glared at Beatrice. “Who was the other psychic?”

Reluctantly, Beatrice muttered, “Evie Oxby.”

“Oh, no .” Minna bit her lip and stared at Beatrice as if she was going to kick the bucket right then and there. “We’ll figure it out. We will!”

That was nice. But none of them had to deal with the rising existential panic that threatened to choke Beatrice, did they? No, that was hers, her own dire gift bag of terror.

I’m young. Youngish, at least. I’m healthy.

At her last routine physical, the doctor had said, “Whatever you’re doing, keep it up. You’ve got the blood pressure of a twenty-year-old runner and your labs are gorgeous.”

I’m youngish and I’m healthy.

A chill swept through her, cooling the sweat that had broken out along her spine.

Reno bent to pick up the cap of her water bottle for her. When she pressed it into Beatrice’s hand, the kindness of the small gesture made tears rise behind her eyelids.

Cordelia turned to Astrid. “We are going to figure it out. Right?”

Instead of answering, their mother rose.

“Mom?”

Astrid went to the front glass door, unlocked it, passed through, and with a key she withdrew from a pocket in her coat, relocked it again from the outside. Then she was gone, down the sidewalk.

Beatrice’s throat knotted so tightly, she could hardly breathe. Yep, that was just about what she’d expected from a person who’d abandoned her as a baby.

Minna sighed. “She’s just pissed all the action isn’t happening to her .”

But Cordelia shook her head. “There’s more to it than that. I think it’s guilt. And fear.”

Bullshit. Astrid didn’t fear losing her. How could she? She barely accepted the reality of her.

Besides, the reality of Beatrice wasn’t going to last very long at this rate. Nausea rolled through her at the thought. “Fuck,” she said softly.

Reno spoke. “What about those other things you wrote?”

Cordelia threw her a grateful look. “Of course. Start with what we have.”

Minna flipped back a page. “Here.” She let Cordelia read the page first, and then passed it to Reno.

As Reno read the words, Beatrice skimmed them again.

Drivel. All of it.

Except…

It had felt the same to write the sentence about the tree house.

So, what if it wasn’t drivel?

Minna listed names on her fingers. “Norman. Do we know a Norman? And Patrick—isn’t that the name of the new butcher at the store? And those initials, K , M , J , and O .”

“Keelia and Olive?” said Reno.

Beatrice scanned that one again.

K–M and J send love and out of season peppermint bark. Don’t worry. We’re watching O. Froggy carries our kisses.

Cordelia said, “Keelia’s mother’s name was Margaret, right? What was her dad’s name?”

Minna’s mouth formed a circle. “Olive was just talking about her grandpa on her mom’s side. Grandpa Jackson.”

At the bookstore, Keelia was ringing up a customer. The girl who had put her arms around Minna in the gazebo was behind the register also, perched on a stool, reading a thick romance novel. She must be Keelia’s daughter, Olive.

Minna said to her, “Hi, you.”

Olive said, “Hi back.”

Something swam in the air between the two girls. Beatrice looked at Olive and then back at Minna. Oh. Okay, that was damn cute. Maybe she’d get a chance to ask Minna about it later.

When the customer had left the store, Cordelia said, “Keelia, this is going to sound really weird—will you trust me?”

Keelia tipped her head to the side. “The last time you said that, you made me get a mammogram that showed stage one breast cancer, so you think I won’t trust you now? Spit it out, though. Am I sick again?”

“ God , no. Absolutely not. Sorry to scare you like that. This is different. What does peppermint bark make you think of?”

Keelia’s laugh was relieved. “I didn’t expect that.” She shot a look at Olive. “We love that stuff. My parents used to give us each a box of it at Christmas, and Mom would always buy two extra boxes, put ’em in the freezer. She’d give them to us in July, as a half-Christmas surprise.”

Spit caught at the back of Beatrice’s throat as she choked.

“What were their names again? Margaret, right? And…”

“Jackson. Margaret and Jackson.” Keelia sighed. “Oh, we miss them, don’t we, honey?”

Olive nodded.

Cordelia slid the notebook across the counter. “Beatrice did some automatic writing. That means that—”

“I’ve been your friend a long time. I know what it is,” said Keelia, pulling the notebook toward her. Olive stood behind her, and together, they read the words.

Beatrice held her breath. This was nothing. It meant nothing. That’s what Keelia would say, right? Any second now.

“Well.” Keelia thumped down onto the stool behind her. “Okay. That’s… something. That sure is something.”

Good god. What was happening? Beatrice stepped forward. “It actually makes sense to you?”

“Every word of it. Mom used to watch Olive when I was here at the store, on the days I couldn’t bring her in, do you remember that?

And when Mom was dying, what, six months after Papa passed?

She said she’d always watch her. That they both would.

” Keelia rubbed her cheeks. “And Olive still has Froggy on her bed, the one they gave her when she was a baby.”