Page 16 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
Don’t be an idiot.She took a deep breath and punched the digits into her phone to connect to the hotel’s Wi-Fi. It rattled to life, filling with pings and bloops as messages landed, and before she could chicken out, she opened the messages app.
Most of them were from her father.Happy birthday, honey!
Honey, I’m sorry I’m so late texting you, but I was at the store buying every single treat you’ve ever loved.
Button? You having fun?
When you get home, we’re having Frito pie for dinner!
Did you make it all right?
Tell me you’re there safe, okay? You know I worry.
Beatrice closed the sliding door but immediately opened the window to let out—something—she wasn’t sure what. She just needed more of the cold night air to breathe, to suck into her lungs.
The right thing to do would be to call him. Beatrice knew that.
She dialed Iris instead. “It’s my birthday.”
“Fuck.”
“I forgive you. As usual.”
A heavy sigh. “Well, why would this year be any different? Thanks. I’ll make you dinner when you get home. How’s it going?”
“Hm.” Despite the sentences flapping around in her throat, the words got stopped up just behind her teeth.
But Iris knew her well. “You did it. You got your tarot read.”
“Um.”
“I knew it. Tell me.”
Beatrice didn’t even want to say it out loud. “So… at Grant’s birthday party, I talked to Evie Oxby. She predicted that I would experience seven miracles and then I would die.”
“I’m sorry—what? You’re just telling me this now?”
Wincing, she said, “Then the tarot reader said the same thing. And that the first two miracles would happen today.”
“I—I don’t—” There was a long, long pause. Then, “Thehell?”
“This really is your fault.”
“Oh, my god, the two miracles happened?”
Gah.“I almost died. But then I didn’t.” Beatrice explained the woodchipper blade and the push from someone who wasn’t there. Iris’s gasps grew louder with every word. “If I hadn’t fallen to the ground… I mean, it was just luck, right? Very good luck.”
“And an invisible push? That sounds pretty miracle-ish to me, but okay. What about the other one?”
“I found… a twin sister?” No, it wasn’t in question. “I have a twin sister. I found her.”
Iris, who’d never run out of words once in her whole life, was silent.
“And a mother. And a niece.”
“But—but your mom died when you were little.”
“That’s what my father always said.”
