Page 30 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
She couldn’t stab the screen fast enough.Is he okay?
I’m on my way home now, Josh says it went out on its own but he used the fire ext so I’m sure it’s a huge mess. Yr dad doesn’t need to come in anymore, can u pls tell him to give me the key back
The image of the house she’d drawn in the sand rose in her mind. The flames around it.
A warring text came in from her father.Grant’s idiot son almost burned your old house down. We have to get your important paperwork out of there. I can get it all for you, just tell me where it is. I still have the key.
Carefully, Beatrice swiped away her father’s text.
Then she typed back to Grant,Tell him yourself.
“Is everything okay?” Cordelia’s fingers twitched as she added more stitches to whatever it was she was knitting.
Beatrice tapped the Do Not Disturb button and slipped her phone back into her pocket. “Small fire. Dad, um, helped, and it’s apparently all okay.”
“Losing the plot, is he?” said Astrid with satisfaction. “Unsurprising.”
Screw that—no matter how angry she was, this woman didn’t get to criticize him. Only Beatrice had earned that particular right. “He’s the smartest person I know.”
Astrid narrowed her eyes and stared at her. “We all knit. Do you?” She made the abrupt change in subject sound like an accusation.
“No.”
“I’ll teach you.”
Beatrice had always wanted to learn, but she’d rather learn from a YouTube video in a language she didn’t understand than learn from this woman, who had broken her heart by dying and, then again, by being alive.
Cordelia placed her knitting on the table and stood. “Beatrice, would you mind helping me in the kitchen?”
Minna leaped up. “I’ll help, too! I’vegotto hear about the three-legged cat.”
Touching her daughter’s face, Cordelia said, “Thanks, lovey, but you pulled back the curtain on my crafty ruse. I’m just trying to get her alone for a minute.”
Minna sighed, but sat.
In the kitchen, Cordelia held up a bottle of mineral water. “Yeah?”
“Please.” The kitchen was as welcoming as the rest of the house. Colorful bowls and well-used-looking kitchen tools covered the long counters. The walls were blue and purple, and violet gingham curtains hung at the large window that looked out into the garden, now lit with white twinkle lights. A honey jar and three boxes of tea sat next to the blue-and-white crockery, stacked in friendly piles on a mosaic-tiled island, and a slab of yellow butter rested on a matching plate.
Cordelia poured the sparkling water into a green glass. “Mom can be a bit much. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“So can Minna, obviously.”
“She’s perfect.”
Cordelia’s expression softened. “She is.” She handed the glass to Beatrice, and then leaned against the island. Her hair swung forward to hide her face, her white stripe bright under the rustic wagon wheel chandelier.
Beatrice waited.
Cordelia’s shoulders rose once, and then again, before she raised her face. “Do you remember the mirror?”
“The mirror?” Beatrice could have sworn that as the words left her mouth, she had no idea what her sister meant, but by the time they hit the air, she did. When she’d been very small, all the mirrors in her father’s house were boring, everyday mirrors, showing her the plain old Beatrice she saw every night as she brushed her teeth in front of the toothpaste-spattered glass.
That mirror, though, the one hidden at the back of the closet—that one was special. It had been round and chipped at the edges like a mouse had been nibbling at it in the dark. The closet light overhead had been just right, dim and yellow, so that when she’d crawled in to sit in front of the mirror and talk to herself, she could imagine that the little girl she saw was someone else. A real friend, someone who laughed when Beatrice laughed and seemed to love Beatrice’s stuffed elephant as much as she had.
Her little friend that no one else could see, the one she’d chatted to in the mirror so long ago. “Oh, my god.”
