Page 114 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
The kiss burned with sex and heat, but also, Reno’s lips were so soft, Beatrice wanted to write an ode to them. They, by themselves, deserved to be worshipped. Suddenly, she felt more religious than she ever had in her life. At the same time, impure thoughts made her want to sacrifice herself to a creature with devil’s horns.
She pressed closer to Reno, feeling the shape of her breasts beneath her shirt, the hardness of her hipbones against her own softer hips. As their mouths tangled, the way Reno’s fingers moved through her hair made Beatrice’s breath catch, and the more she panted against Reno’s lips, the tighter Reno pulled her against her body.
Then Reno gasped, and it sounded different—it wasn’t a gasp from something Beatrice had done to her.
Beatrice opened her eyes.
Reno was gazing at the garden around them—the roses, the violets, the hollyhocks, and the dahlias—no matter their normal color, they’d all gone white. And theyglowed, each bloom seemingly lit from inside. Their luminescence put the twinkle lights hanging above them to shame. Beatrice could almost see them breathing, exhaling the opalescent light that swirled up and around them. No, she wasn’t imagining it—theyweregetting taller, reaching for the sky, growing inside the glow. The arbor of jasmine that Reno had made for her Scarlett was the brightest of all, each tiny white flower expanding to shine with the light of the stars above.
Reno said, “You.”
It wasn’t just the flowers. Reno’s skin radiated a pale blue gleam that made no sense at all against her normally warm skin tone but turned out to be the most beautiful thing Beatrice had ever seen. She followed Reno’s gaze to her own body, and she, too, was emanating the same blue-silver shimmer.
And wherever Reno’s wondering fingers touched, a soft trail of pearlized light was left behind, as if her fingers were sweeping through a sea’s bioluminescence rather than touching the skin of Beatrice’s arm.
Beatrice leaned forward to kiss Reno, softly. A test.
The brightness on Reno’s lips intensified, and in almost exact measure, so did the glow of the flowers. It was as if the moon had dived out of the sky and moved under their skin, into the petals, into the very air around them, the air that trembled with something bigger than just desire. Bigger than just need.
“What is this?” Reno raised her hands, palms up, as if testing the air for rain. The jasmine arbor above her head seemed to sigh with pleasure. “Is this…”
“A miracle,” breathed Beatrice. “I think so.”
“Shit.” Reno pulled her against her body. “What number?”
“Six.” Beatrice ran her finger over Reno’s bottom lip, and the white-blue glow increased. The color should have been cold, but it wasn’t. It waslife.
“It can’t be.”
She knew. She agreed. “But… it might be.”
How can I be falling in love?
Reno said, “I think I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Me, too.” Beatrice closed the gap between their lips.
The light filled each tiny pocket of air between and around them. For a few moments, as they kissed, the lightwasthem. They were the roses that gleamed, they were the shimmer, the brightness, the hope.
Keeping her hand on the side of Reno’s face, Beatrice whispered, “But it doesn’t make sense.”
Reno’s gaze was equal parts hope and fear. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that things don’t have to make sense?”
Of course things have to make sense.
She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, a sharp cry rose in the dark—a thin wail of pain that went on much too long.
Minna.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Don’t forget that you’re part of the Universe. You have a responsibility to the magic that already runs in your veins.
—Evie Oxby,I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts
The glow snapped off as if a light switch had been flipped.
“What time is it?” Beatrice tugged at the gate in the dark, desperate to open it. “I told Minna I’d meet her at midnight in the cemetery. I was going to tell Cordelia—”
