Page 36 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
“Oh, mygod, yay. It won’t hurt, don’t worry.”
Cordelia said, “Remember, we talked about the speed of the flow…”
“I know, I know. Can I have your arm?”
Beatrice wanted to make a joke, to ask if the Knock was actually a tattoo she’d just signed herself up for, but something told her to hold her tongue. She leaned toward Minna, who placed one hand on the skin of her upper arm and the other on her lower arm, her fingers soft and cool.
“Close your eyes. Don’t worry, I will, too.”
Beatrice closed her eyes. Her breath quickened.
Minna’s hands tightened and then squeezed suddenly, hard. It hurt but Beatrice didn’t pull away.
She waited for whatever this “magic” was.
But Minna just let go.
When she opened her eyes, Minna and Cordelia were smiling at each other.
“Was that right, Mama?”
“Did it feel right?”
Minna nodded. Then, conspiratorially, she said to Beatrice, “That was my first time giving the Knock. I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t tell you that first. I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Of course,” said Beatrice. She felt a strange, small twist of disappointment. Nothing had happened. Naturally. “Thank you?” No, not a question. She corrected herself. “Thank you.”
Astrid, who’d been almost too quiet, reached for the pad of paper and pen, thrusting them at her. “Draw something.”
Beatrice stared at her. “Excuse me?”
“Pick a word. Draw it, don’t write it. Draw it. Let your hand show you the shape it wants to be.”
It would have been so nice if she could say she didn’t understand.Nothing you say is making sense.But she did understand, which felt… complicated.
Cordelia put a hand on the page. “You can move at your own pace. Or not at all. There’s absolutely nothing you have to do.”
Astrid pursed her lips. “Well, she has to stop being a little idiot like her father.”
“I swear to god, Mother, I’ll make you sleep in the chicken coop if you don’t chill the fuck out.”
“Sorry! I’m sorry. Beatrice, will you please draw a word, any word? Indulge me.”
Beatrice picked up the pen. But—what word? For a moment, all words deserted her. Should she even do this?
A word. A word! Any goddamn word.
If magic was real (which it wasn’t), Astrid would certainly be riding a broomstick. Maybe Cordelia would be able to fly, too, but Beatrice pictured her gliding through the air smoothly, not hurtling clumsily through the sky like the Wicked Witch of the West.
Flight. Wasn’t that, after all, what Beatrice had wanted most as a child? The ability to lift off the ground, rising upward into the sky? She used to have such vivid dreams about it—she’d wake completely sure she knew the secret. The trick was towantit enough. She’d go out to stand on the stump in the backyard, and she’d arrange herself into the magical shape that was the preparation for liftoff. Then she’d wait for the magic to lift her to the clouds. The hours she’d spent standing on that stump must have added up to days. Once, hoping that the light of the full moon would provide what she’d been missing, she’d stayed out so late that her stepmother, Naya, had come out with a quilt to drape over her shoulders.
Fly.
She drew the F long and lean, lowercase with one loop up and one down. The loop of the L backed over the F, so it looked like a three-petaled flower, and then she hung the descender of the Y like a stem below it.
“Oh, that’s so pretty!” Minna leaned companionably against Beatrice’s arm. “Now you charge it.”
“How?”
