Page 67 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
So… until someone could show her how theyweren’tmiracles, what if she just believed in them, too?
A psychic prophesying her early death?
What if she chose to believe it unless it could be proved false?
If Cordelia said that magic existed, what if Beatrice believed in magic until she was shown actual hard proof that she shouldn’t?
This meant that therewasan action item she could take now, if she decided to do this.
She could learn everything there was to know about magic.
If she believed in it, she would need to understand it.
Beatrice flipped open the laptop again.
If someone told her she had only one day left…
Fuck.
No, she still had no idea what she’d do.
But—if magic and miracles existed, if the dead could speak to the living, that meant that there was an order to the universe that she didn’t understand.
Did that, in turn, imply that there was a greater, orderly force in charge of it all?
What if that force could hear her?
In the box to the right ofIf I have one day left, Beatrice typed one simple word.
Please.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Learn your craft. Gather your tools. Spend time with other people as sensitive as you. Help the newbie. Don’t be a bag of dicks. There, that’s the only lesson in psychic-mediumship you need.
—Evie Oxby,Palm Springs and Bat Wings,Netflix
For the next few days, Beatrice studied.
She studied alone on the houseboat when Cordelia and Minna were busy, and she made lists of questions to pepper them with when she got to see them. She’d managed to talk Cordelia into letting her keep the grimoire for a little longer, and now that her internet had been hooked up, she could cross-reference some of the language used in the family book of spells with what she found online.
Previously, she’d thought the internet was made up of equal parts kitten videos, porn, and political memes, but it turned out she’d missed a whole huge segment of it: witchcraft. Minna came over one afternoon after her library shift and showed her thereputable sites. She made Beatrice put TikTok on her phone and told her the best witchtokers to follow, warning her away from the ones who just wanted to sell her fake crystals from China.
That same afternoon, Minna happened to witness Beatrice’s first verifiable, tried-for spell. It was small, simply spinning a plastic spoon as it sat on the galley table, but Beatricemade it happen. On purpose. She used the right words for a tiny push and then felt the cramp of energy move out of her body through her fingertips. The spoon spun six inches to the left. Nothing touched it. The windows were closed. Not so much as the wake from a kayaker rocked theForget-Me-Knot.
Minna laughed and clapped. “You did it!”
Beatrice gulped a breath. “Not a…”
Minna knew what she didn’t want to say. “Definitelynota miracle. Just some everyday magic.”
“I did magic!”
“You’re, like, one of us, Auntie.”
Beatrice felt her cheeks redden with pleasure.
Other days, when Reno was on the houseboat quietly working on the bookcases, Beatrice got out of her way, spending time at the library with her computer and all the metaphysical books Keelia could load her up with. With the books at her side, Beatrice watched YouTube videos and made notes in aMagicspreadsheet. On it, she tabulated both what she learned (the assemblage of herbs, incantations, and energy work) and the time she spent learning (tracked in fifteen-minute increments, categorized intoReading,Watching,Written Reaction, andQuestions for Further Research).
