Page 43 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland

Magic is so plentiful, it’s hard not to find it. And believers, in the same way, are everywhere. You have to look, though. I say this with love, sugar: put down your phone, m’kay? Time to get out there.

—Evie Oxby, Palm Springs and Bat Wings, Netflix

The party was packed. It was fun. And it was beyond intense.

It felt like everyone had arrived at one time, en masse, carrying plates. The food tables groaned with the weight of lasagnas, sushi, chana masala, and cupcakes. The drinks station was staffed by a giggly Minna and her friend Olive.

Just outside the covered porch was a table laden not with food, but with framed photographs of guests’ deceased loved ones. The images mostly showed older people, but there were also a few heartbreaking photos of children, as well as some adorable pictures of dogs and cats (and one iguana).

Beatrice directed traffic as Cordelia had asked her to, and during a brief lull, she studied the photos. She touched the edge of a silver frame that held the image of a woman with flame-red hair, who grinned so brightly that it was impossible to believe she wasn’t alive anymore.

This time next year, would Beatrice’s photo be on the table?

“Here, dear.”

“Thank you.” Beatrice placed the photo of a tabby next to the other cat pictures.

“Oh, you are the spitting image of Cordelia, aren’t you? My word!”

“That’s what I hear.”

The comments kept coming. Look at you! Can you believe it? What’s that like, finding a twin? A whole family? There wasn’t an easy response to any of them.

Beatrice handled it well for about an hour. Then she found an excellent hiding spot, the little space behind the largest two planters on the patio.

It took her sister just ten minutes to find her. Cordelia grinned as she wiggled into the spot next to her. “So this is where you went to. A bit much?”

Embarrassed, Beatrice set down the empty beer bottle she’d been clutching like a life preserver. “It’s a lot.” She peered around the leaves. “It has to be the whole town, right?”

“And then some.” Cordelia pointed. “Those three are from the mainland, and that guy came all the way from Idaho.”

“And you know them all?”

“Most of them, yeah.”

“Tell me about them.” She needed to tell Cordelia about Minna’s plans, but first, Beatrice just wanted to listen, to let her sister’s voice wrap around her in the middle of the party.

Cordelia smiled and obliged, telling her about the fishmonger and his wife who ran a ship-to-shore community-supported fishery, about the head librarian who was supposedly vegan but had been spotted in Seattle eating churrasco in a Brazilian steakhouse, and about a man with broad shoulders who’d been Cordelia’s latest sexual escapade.

“If he looks like he could chop an enormous log in half with one swing of his ax, I can confirm that you’re right.

And no, I won’t tell you about that night until I’m thirteen percent more drunk, but then I’ll tell you everything . ”

Beatrice laughed. “You’re such an extrovert.”

“And you try to fool people into thinking you’re one, but you’re not.” Cordelia bumped her shoulder with her own.

“Is it that obvious?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard for me to tell how other people see you.”

Beatrice picked her bottle back up. “How do you see me?”

“You’ll laugh.”

“I promise I won’t.”

“I still see you like I saw you in the mirror. I always knew Mom wasn’t telling the truth about the car accident.

She tried to tell me that the girl in the mirror was just a trick of my imagination, but I knew it wasn’t.

So now I see you like…” She paused. “Like I’m looking at my best friend, the one who’s always been there for me. ”

It hurt to know that she hadn’t been. Beatrice glanced out at the crowd to reassure herself that no one could see them. “I hate that you felt I was out there. That you had to carry that amount of hope with you for so long. That must have been awful.”

“I guess. But at the same time, I would never have traded it for what you had, that not knowing.”

“What you don’t know can’t hurt you, right?

” Ha. She didn’t believe that—why had she said it?

Cordelia didn’t know about the messages in the bottles, the fifth miracle, yet.

She needed to tell Cordelia about the tattoo Minna had given her, and sharing the image of the lock and key with Minna.

Most importantly, she should tell Cordelia how obsessed Minna was with hearing from her father.

But if she told her all those things, she might make Cordelia’s glowing face fall. And her sister looked so happy . There would be time for sharing those worries later, after the party.

Cordelia said, “Oh, look at Fritz.”

The barista was balancing on the balls of their feet, their gaze pinned on Winnie’s sequined tank top.

“Did they ever date?”

“In Fritz’s dreams . At least, that’s what Keelia told me. I like Winnie, what little I know of her. I think they’d be good together.” Cordelia looked at Beatrice, her eyes alight. “Hey, you want to learn a little spell?”

“Yes.” It was true. She’d love another spell to add to her Magic spreadsheet. But what she wanted even more was just to sit here while her sister continued to narrate the party to her. She’d never known this was a thing to want, and now she did, and she might never recover from this loveliness.

“Mom taught it to me as a Push-Pull, but Minna called it a Push-Me-Pull-You a long time ago, and that stuck. First, you pick two people that you want to move toward each other. Or alternately, that you want to keep apart.”

“Fritz and Winnie.”

Nodding, Cordelia said, “First, we ground ourselves. Feel your feet and imagine you’ve got roots going into the earth like a tree, but the roots go deeper.

They go through the crust of the earth, through the mantle, through the pockets of air and water deep inside, down through the molten outer core, and into the very middle of the earth. ”

Beatrice could almost feel it, the heat of the earth rising into her, strong and elemental.

“Now that your roots go to the super-heated solid iron and nickel core, you imagine them pulling that stability upward, closer and closer to you. At the same time, you’re looking at your targets.” Cordelia shot her a quick wink. “Iron ore at the core, feel the pull you can’t ignore.”

Winnie, who’d been speaking to a woman holding a newborn, twisted her head in Fritz’s direction as if someone had tapped her on the shoulder.

Fritz took a step toward her.

“Then,” said Cordelia, “if you want to play around, you can reverse and do the push part. Imagine that you’re at the center of the universe, as if everything you know about astronomy and physics is wrong, and it’s literally you—your body—that the universe is expanding out from.

Push energy from your center out past your skin, up through the top of your head, into the stratosphere and then the exosphere.

Then push your power into space, out past the planets, past our sun, past the next galaxies, and all the way out to the farthest edges of the universe. ”

A chilled, metallic stream of raw power surged through Beatrice’s limbs.

Cordelia said, “Power out, space them out.” She nudged Beatrice.

“Power out, space them out.”

Winnie turned back to the woman holding the baby. Fritz took the same step backward, shoving their hands into their pockets.

“Into the ground again, into the core. Ready?”

Beatrice focused. Her roots actually trembled in the center of the earth, a tickling roar that raced up her legs and into her own core. Together, they said, “Iron ore at the core, feel the pull you can’t ignore.”

Fritz took all ten steps needed to get to Winnie, who turned around to face them just as they reached her. They smiled at each other so broadly that Beatrice could practically warm her hands at the heat they exuded.

“So it’s a love spell?”

Cordelia jumped. “Oh! No. We don’t use those. Ever.”

“Really?”

“This is just a fun little party trick, moving around the energy that flows between people.” She shook her head. “But never a love spell.”

“Do they actually exist?”

Cordelia narrowed her eyes. “Is this for your exceedingly anal spreadsheet? Why are you asking?”

“Absolutely zero reason except curiosity, I promise.” Reno’s face rose in her mind, and just as quickly, she blanked it out.

“Love spells exist, yes. But they’re not for Hollands. Trust me.”

Did she want to dig deeper? Absolutely. But she wouldn’t, not yet. Hopefully, she’d earn the right to hear about that at some point. “So we can push and pull a little for fun, though.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Fritz glanced at the band that was playing old-time and honky-tonk tunes from the makeshift stage under an enormous oak tree. The group had just swung into a slow waltz, and while Beatrice couldn’t hear Fritz’s words, their body language made it clear they were inviting Winnie to dance.

Please say yes. Wishing wasn’t magic, was it? Beatrice couldn’t stand the idea of watching Fritz’s face fall.

Winnie nodded, and they joined the other dozen couples already out on the grass.

Some did the correct steps, one-two-three, four-five-six.

Other couples merely swayed. Fritz and Winnie did some kind of hybrid move, and the look of hope on Fritz’s face was enough to make Beatrice sigh. “That’s adorable.”

“Oh, shit.” Cordelia clutched her arm. “ Look. ”

Dad had Astrid by the hand, and with a practiced twirl, they entered the group of dancers. And they looked like they knew what they were doing. Not even the fact that Astrid was wearing a full-ass black cape seemed to get in their way.

Holy crap. When Beatrice and her father had arrived, Astrid had been out of the house, making a run for more ice. Then she’d lost track of him entirely in the swirl of partygoers and hadn’t seen Astrid at all until right now. “Did you talk to him at all yet?”

“No,” said Cordelia. “I keep dodging him every time he gets close. But I suppose I should talk to him at some point. I want to.”