Page 51 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland

Sometimes Spirit asks that we try again, that we try harder. Other times, we’ve fucked up so royally that we should just go to bed for a while and stay there. Ask me how I know.

—Evie Oxby, in conversation with Barbara Walters

So Beatrice went home. With nothing more she could do, she got in bed and pulled the covers over her head.

Her dreams made the scant hour or two she slept hardly worth it: pitch-black cemeteries, bony fingers writhing up from damp earth to claw her down into the mud, the padding of feet, the quick-moving shapes of girls running fast to a bloody, fiery doom.

When she woke up in the morning, she couldn’t have felt worse if she hadn’t gone to bed at all.

A text waited from her father: At the cafe.

Nothing else, nothing about Minna.

She called Cordelia, but it went straight to voice mail, so either her phone was off or she’d blocked her. Probably the latter.

Quickly, she dressed, and then hurried down the dock and toward the café.

Minna’s fine. Of course she’s fine. She’d probably turned up an hour later.

Maybe she’d tried sneaking into her bed, only to be caught by Cordelia.

They’d probably had a good heart-to-heart before Minna fell asleep, wrung out from emotional exhaustion.

Cordelia would still hate Beatrice, but nothing mattered beyond Minna being safe.

Surely Minna was safe.

She had to be.

Mitchell sat in the back corner of the café, a newspaper and a becrumbed, empty plate in front of him. She waved and got in line.

When it was her turn, Fritz said, “Your order, please?”

Funny that this would be the thing that undid her. Struggling not to choke on her tears, she said, “Extra-hot cappuccino, please.” They nodded, shoving the credit card reader at her, before moving toward the espresso machine, their face blank.

Keelia and Olive sat in the other corner. She hadn’t noticed them when she came in, but their heads leaned together as they glanced in her direction and whispered.

She could do this. Using the last tiny dreg of courage she had, she walked to their table.

“Have they found her?”

Keelia pressed her lips together, as if trying to decide whether to speak. Then she shook her head.

Olive, bless her, took pity on her, though. “No, but everyone’s searching. They set up a headquarters at her house. We’re going to bring them a box of coffee and all of Fritz’s donuts.”

Everyone. She wanted—needed—to be part of that. “How are they doing it? Are the police involved? They’ll need a lot of people, right? I couldn’t fall asleep, obviously, so I did quite a bit of reading about grid searches, and if they make sure to lay it out from the cemetery in the direction of—”

Keelia rose. “Fritz, that box ready?”

Fritz pushed the coffee box across the counter, along with a carry bag and three donut boxes. “All the milks, soy, almond, and regular, plus sweeteners. Cups and lids are in there.”

Beatrice almost dropped her phone as she tried to wrestle her credit card out of the attached wallet. “Let me get this. Please. It’s the least I can do.”

Keelia raised an eyebrow. “It’s the least, all right.”

Fritz just shook their head as they slid her cappuccino halfway across the counter, as if they couldn’t stand to get any closer to her. “As if I’d charge them for this. You really aren’t from around here.”

And you never will be.

Straightening her spine, she turned away and moved toward her father, who, of course, had witnessed the whole thing. Great. She was going to have to explain it to him, and she wasn’t sure she was going to find the right words. But she needed to try.

“Dad. I’m not sure how long you stayed at the party after I slipped away—” Beatrice could almost smell the roses, could almost see the unearthly moonlit glow of them blooming around her and Reno. The most perfect moment of her entire life, followed by the most devastating one.

He raised a hand. “I’m all caught up, don’t worry. How you doing? You must feel pretty shitty.”

“How? How are you caught up?”

“Astrid.”

“Have they heard anything from Minna?”

“Not yet.”

The deep thud of disappointment was followed by a jolt that shot through her. “Wait, go back a second. Astrid? I mean, I know you danced, but…”

He stiffened slightly. “She was my wife, Beatrice.”

“Yeah, well, she’s not the wife I ever saw you with. When did you talk to her?”

With a shrug, he said, “Last night. This morning.”

Something small and metallic frizzled in Beatrice’s head. “You—no. You didn’t. No.”

“She needed comfort. She was upset.”

Should Beatrice laugh? Should she cringe? “I can’t believe you.”

“Fair enough. She can’t believe you, for what it’s worth.”

“Whatever.” Great. Now she sounded as old as she felt, which was considerably younger than Minna. Next, she’d be lying on the floor, forcing people to step over her while she howled.

“She said you’re exactly like her.”

“Excuse me? No.”

“And I have to agree.”

How was this getting worse? “You think I’m like the woman who abandoned me as a baby?”

“You’re both stubborn as an exhausted geriatric mule.”

“I get that from you .”

“Maybe. But unlike me, both of you think you can control the universe. Both of you think that if you have enough facts backing you up, that you’re right.”

But that was basically just science. “If the facts back us up, we are right.”

A long, unfillable pause stretched between them. Then her father said, “Besides letting Cordelia go, the worst thing I ever did in my life was teaching you to rely on information.”

“Instead of what, exactly?”

“Instead of your gut. Your heart. Anything but your brain.”

Too angry to speak, she sipped her (cool) cappuccino.

After they had finished their coffees in uncomfortable silence, Mitchell said he had to get back to the house. He didn’t need to say which one he meant.

“I’ll walk you there.”

With a chagrined look, he said, “You might not be, ah, very welcome at the moment.”

“I can handle it.” What was the worst Cordelia could do to her? Okay, fine, truthfully, she didn’t know the answer to that. Could she turn her into a toadstool? Curse her to knit straw into railroad tracks?

Some of this, yes, was Beatrice’s fault.

But Minna had lied to her, and neither Cordelia nor Astrid had trusted her with the full truth.

Beatrice had to at least try to help find Minna, to make sure she was safe.

She had only one goddammed miracle left and she couldn’t leave Minna without—no.

Unable to even think it, she walked next to her father, passing the bookstore and the butcher and the pocket park next to the elementary school.

I will do this. I will figure out how to help.

She continued her affirmations right up till the very moment she opened the bottom gate and looked up at the porch.

Reno leaned against the railing, despair etched on her angular face. She was wearing the dark watch cap she’d worn the night before, and her shoulders drooped with exhaustion.

But when Reno saw her, she straightened. Slowly.

Her eyes flashed like a lighthouse’s beam.

Up until this exact moment, Beatrice had always thought of lighthouses as comforting. They were emblems of safe passage, weren’t they? A welcome sight on a stormy night.

How wrong she’d been.

A lighthouse was the direst warning of all. Dangerous rocks. Unnavigable terrain. If you value your life, stay far away.

To her father, Beatrice mumbled, “Call me if you hear anything.”

Then she fled.