Page 76 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
Minna turned to the workbench. “This. Obviously. Coil machine, old-school.”
The tattoo gun was silver steel with blue accents. Its power supply cord dragged against the old red rug as Minna handed it to her, and the barrel was cold in Beatrice’s hand.
She pushed herself deeper into the battered orange cushions. “I’m worried you’re going to be disappointed.” She didn’t want to let Minna down, but hey, with all she’d learned, Beatrice felt a solid five percent hopeful that this would work. Maybe six percent. Better than zero, right?
“Aunt Bea. Haven’t you figured out that I’m disappointed, like, all the time?”
Oh, crap.
Minna’s face, though, was twisted in an almost-laugh.
“You’re kidding.”
A three-quarter smile broke through. “I’m almost sixteen. Mom says it’s my job to start being more disillusioned soon, and while her attempt at reverse psychology is kind of adorable, yeah, I can admit that I’m only disappointed like once or twice a day, max.”
“That number might rise.”
“It might,” Minna said with equanimity. “But right now, I’mjust happy you’re going to try. Oh! The incantation! We need the grimoire! Do you have it with you?”
Beatrice tightened her grip on the tattoo gun. “I left it in my bag in the house. But I think I remember the words.” Ha. She didn’t think, sheknewshe remembered the words. She could have recited them backward.
“You sure? Gran says it’s better to read from something than to risk screwing it up.”
“I’m good.”
Minna’s eyes brightened as she sat in the rattan chair opposite. “I’ll shut up now.” She mimed locking her lips closed.
Shutting her eyes, Beatrice sat up as straight as she could, the tattoo gun firmly held in her left hand. She took one long breath in and let it out again. Just as she had last time, she imagined the fountain pen fitting into that old-fashioned padlock.
Then she said the words of the spell out loud.
She opened her eyes and held the Sharpie over the blank page with her right hand.
Nothing came to her.
No words at all.
She took another breath as she poked around inside her mind, but found it curiously blank. She supposed she could make up some words. Didn’t every girl simply want to hear loving words from her father? Surely Minna would eat up anything she wrote.I’m close by. I’m proud of you.
Crap, what if the treacherous thought was written on her face?
She couldn’t do that to Minna.
So this was what happened when she finally decided to believe in magic? It ceased to exist? What a cruel prank. She shouldn’t have—
The tattoo gun jumped in her left hand. “Fuck!”
Minna jumped. “Did you do that?”
The gun was buzzing now, jittering against Beatrice’s palm. She dropped the Sharpie and grabbed the tool with both hands. “I don’t—I don’t know!”
“It’s—it’s not connected to the power supply.” Minna kicked at something that looked like a foot switch, which wasn’t plugged into anything at all.
Then the buzz finally rose in her ears, as it had in the cemetery. She set the gun down on the rug, where it immediately quieted, and picked up the pen to scratch the itch flaring under her skin. Only writing would soothe the wrenching ache that curled inside her wrists.
She wrote.
Time moved and stretched around her as the hum turned to a kind of strange ocean song, roaring against her eardrums, enchanting and exhilarating and somehow instantly recognizable, as if she’d always knownthissong,thismovement,thisneed.
