Page 45 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland

You can think of emotion like a fire. Grief is the center of the flame, as painful as it gets. It’s destructive and terrible and absolutely necessary for life. I wish I could tell you how to go through it, but each person’s fire burns differently.

—Evie Oxby, to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Harry and Meghan

The bonfire roared, the high red flames gnawing on the inky black sky. Children awake long past their bedtimes raced around it, and small groups of laughing people shifted as the smoke changed directions and chased them.

Honestly, none of it felt very safe.

But it wasn’t Beatrice’s job to police any of this. Okay, true, she had allowed herself to prowl the edge of the house until she found the hose, so that if anything caught fire, she’d be able to race for it. That was it, though. She wasn’t responsible for anything else here.

That included her father. He’d apparently made a couple of friends, other older men who liked fly-fishing as much as he did. She heard them chattering on about dead drifts and hollow hairs and hackles—were they working spells, too? He gave her a wave as she passed by.

She’d forced herself to come out of hiding, but she wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be good for. It was already after eleven, and the party seemed in no danger of sputtering out like she was.

Minna, freed of the drinks table duty, raced past wearing a short black dress and blue sneakers, an identically dressed Olive on her heels.

“Aunt Bea! Someone brought red velvet cupcakes! Don’t forget to meet me at midnight!

Ceremony of the Dead’s about to start!” In a blur, before any of that made complete sense, they were gone.

Shit, meeting Minna in the graveyard. She’d almost forgotten.

She should never have agreed to that. She’d grab Cordelia as soon as this ceremony—whatever it was—was finished, and no matter what, she’d tell her about Minna’s obsession with hearing from her father.

Then they would both meet her in the graveyard.

Minna would be pissed, but she’d have to get over it.

The sound of a gong being struck rang through the night, the noise shivering through the air and raising goose bumps on Beatrice’s arms. Everyone turned, moving in their small, shifting groups toward the bonfire. Beatrice followed.

At the front, Cordelia climbed up onto a picnic table that had been set perhaps a little too close to the bonfire. Minna scrambled up to stand next to her mother.

Reno moved through the crowd. She didn’t get up on the table, but she sat on the bench at their feet, keeping her gaze directed up at the stars that blinked above the sparks.

When the guests finished forming a semicircle around the fire, and when all eyes were focused on Cordelia, Minna, and Reno, the three of them raised their hands into the air.

Then firmly and at the exact same time, they clapped once.

As one, the crowd clapped once in response.

Beatrice’s hands went together too late, softly. Silently. Not knowing it was coming, she’d missed the moment.

“Greetings! Welcome to our Celebration of the Dead!” Cordelia put her arm around Minna.

“Tonight marks fifteen years since I lost my husband and Minna lost her father. Tonight it’s four years since Reno’s wife, Scarlett, died.

This night has come to mean a lot to a lot of people, not just us, and I’m grateful you’re all here. ”

She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Now, y’all know what to do, and if you don’t, someone will tell you. Goddess bless, let’s burn some shit!”

The crowd murmured and began moving.

Someone touched Beatrice’s elbow. “You burning something?” asked a man quite young to be so bald.

“I don’t know.”

“You can write a note if you want.” He pointed at a table she hadn’t noticed. “To your people.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

Dad was already there, bent over a scrap of paper illuminated by a gas lantern.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” He folded the page.

“I want to, too.”

He passed her a piece of paper.

“Thanks.”

But when she picked up the pen, her mind went blank.

What to write to Naya? Carefully, she pressed her fingers against the fabric of her long-sleeved blouse, feeling below it the plastic wrap covering the tattoo at her wrist. How could she possibly respond to the letter she’d received the day before?

So she just wrote, Thank you for teaching me about anger. Naya had always said that no matter how much it hurt, the pain from a pepper, or from anger, would eventually stop. Faster with a glass of milk or a beer. Chocolate milk worked, too. Thank you for teaching us about love.

She turned back toward the crowd.

A large woman with dark, glossy hair that fell to her waist was herding people into rows. “Three years? That line. Seven? Over there. See? Between six and five. Clever, right?” She beamed at Beatrice. “Ah, Cordelia’s twin. How gorgeous you are. What time zone, love?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.”

“That’s right, you’re new to this. How much time since your loved one died?”

“Oh. Two years?” Why had it come out of her mouth like a question?

The woman touched her shoulder. “I’m very sorry for your loss. Now go stand with Horace over there, in time zone two.”

The line for the forty-one-year time zone was the oldest one, and it went first. There were only two people in it, a man and a woman. They held hands at the edge of the fire. Cordelia, still standing on top of the picnic table, raised her arms.

On this cue, the man and the woman each threw a note into the flames. The fire was so hot, the paper flared for only a split second.

Then, conducted by Cordelia, the entire crowd clapped exactly forty-one times.

Who were the couple remembering? By the way they never let go of each other’s hands, Beatrice guessed it might be a child. A lump rose in her throat, one that only got bigger as she looked around and saw her father behind her, in the same two-year line, watching the couple at the edge of the fire.

Then, line by line, people walked forward.

They threw their items into the fire. Most of them tossed in notes, but Beatrice saw a teddy bear, and a T-shirt, and three or four bunches of dried roses.

One woman threw in a whole chocolate cake.

After the items were thrown and Cordelia raised her arms, the crowd clapped the appropriate number of times, and now that Beatrice knew what was happening, she clapped so hard her palms stung.

When Cordelia and Minna walked forward, arms around each other, something about the way the crowd clapped those fifteen times made Beatrice want to howl into the night sky. Instead, she bit the inside of her mouth and tasted salt at the back of her throat.

Reno didn’t toss anything into the fire when she went forward with the four-year time zone. She just bowed her head and folded her hands over her chest, keeping them there as the claps resounded through the garden.

And when the two-year line moved forward, Beatrice waited for her father to join her.

She didn’t want to hold his hand, or have his arm around her shoulders—and thank goodness, he seemed to know that intuitively—but she did want to be near him.

Together, they leaned forward, and as their notes caught fire, the paper with their words flew upward, twisting and dancing together, before flaming out, the blackened ashes falling back down into the pyre.

She watched their flight so closely, she realized she hadn’t even heard the claps, and her chest ached as if her heart would break in half.

Then, the one-year line moved forward. It was too long a line, at least twenty or twenty-five people.

Car accident , Beatrice heard someone say.

Dougie would have been a senior. So loved.

Three teenage girls held hands and put into the fire a poster with a large red 37 painted on it.

One was crying so hard, she couldn’t have been able to see.

But what threatened to break Beatrice’s heart in half was the expression of the woman who was obviously the mother.

Her face was somehow both blank and, at the same time, totally wrecked.

A man on either side of her held her up, and after she threw in a red-and-black flannel shirt, she stepped back, her head low, her knees buckling.

There was a long pause, all eyes on the woman.

Finally, she straightened, raising her head. Her shoulders rose as she drew in a shuddering breath. Cordelia, as if she’d been waiting for her to breathe, raised her arms.

The crowd gave one single thunderclap.

Just one heartbreaking crack of loss.

Beatrice thought she might die from all of it. Fuck the two other miracles—how did any heart keep beating after witnessing love like this?

Then the moment—all the moments—were over, and people turned to each other, some hugging, some laughing gently. A man wiped the tears off the cheeks of his two young boys, and an older man threw his arms around a woman who had rushed at him with an overjoyed shriek.

Her father waved and closed the gap between them. “That was good, huh?”

“Yeah. Really good.” Her voice was thick.

“She forgives you, you know.”

Beatrice’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“Naya didn’t need you to write an apology letter.”

But—she hadn’t.

“I know she forgives you. You were doing your best, trying to save her. She knew that. It was okay that you weren’t there for her at the end.

I hope you truly, deeply know that, Button.

” He gazed over her shoulder. “Ah, there’s Astrid.

And I’ve thought of a few perfect things to say to continue our fight from earlier. I’ll see you in a bit?”

“Dad, no! I was there for her.”

But he was already gone, leaving Beatrice gut-punched and alone in the middle of a crowd that was somehow celebrating the loss of their loves.

Her head swam with confusion.

She’d been there for Naya.

She had .

Dad was simply wrong. Maybe she hadn’t supported Naya the same way he had, but she’d been there the only way she knew how to be, with spreadsheets and research and action points.

A screaming kid ran past, wearing a ghoulish skeleton mask that was dripping with blood.

How, exactly, did people survive loss and death and then throw a party for it?

How could Cordelia and Minna and Reno bear this every year?

Or did having this celebration every year on their terrible day make it easier?

She spotted Minna sticking marshmallows onto a skewer with Olive.

Next to her, Cordelia shot the wide-shouldered man a look that Beatrice resolved to quiz her about later.

Astrid stood beside them, handing out chocolate bars for the s’more making.

Her father was already sidling in their direction, and Beatrice tried very hard not to care.

Reno was nowhere to be seen.

And the space where Reno should have been was the thing that suddenly made Beatrice feel like she really might cry, if she didn’t get away from this cloud of celebratory grief.