Page 102 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
“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 sohappy. 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’sdreams. 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 herMagicspreadsheet. 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 andnickel 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 actuallytrembledin 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 eachother 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.”
