Page 112 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
“Sal’s the truck stop waitress of the universe. Everyone thinks she just works in the joint, but she owns the place, nevermakes a big deal about it.” Reno’s voice was a low vibration in Beatrice’s ears. “You ever been served by one of those waitresses who can do it all, keep it all in her head? Sal can manage everything all at once—she’s got your refill of coffee, and she’s about to bring you the piece of pie you didn’t even know you needed. At the same time, she’s wrangling a civil war over on table fifteen and handling a star going supernova in the corner. You ever hear a song come on the radio at exactly the right time? Like it was just for you?”
“Yeah.”
“And then you think, well, that’s a stupid thought, because this song reallyisplaying for thousands of people, so it’s not about you, but itisabout you, and the next line in the song means something else to four hundred other people, and at the same time, she’s brewing another pot of decaf ’cause the old one got stale.”
“I love that.”
A quick nod. “Yeah. And it’s wrong.”
Beatrice blinked.
“If I knew what the power spinning the universe was, if I understood it, it wouldn’t be a very big power, would it? For my tiny brain to be able to get it? So I just choose to call it Sal. Short for the Spirit of All Life. And that’s good enough for me. Honestly, I don’t care what it is, as long as I don’t have to rely on myself to be the power making things happen.”
But I do make things happen.
Somehow, Reno must have seen, or felt, the thought crash through Beatrice’s mind. And she laughed, which was kind of her. “That’s right, you’ve got magic now. And those miracles. Had any more of those lately?”
She didn’t pull out the letter from Naya, but she could almost feel it in the back pocket of her jeans. “I got a letter from mystepmother yesterday. It was in a bottle that washed to shore, a bottle I tripped over. She wrote it when I was sixteen.”
“Holyshit.” Reno’s face got softer. Sadder.
“Yeah.”
“So you get letters from the dead in a couple of different ways.” Reno sat up straighter, bringing her arms off the back of the bench and rubbing her hands together as if she was suddenly cold.
What Beatricewantedto do: kiss Reno. She wanted to take away that look of pain, lock it far away.
Iron ore at the core, feel the pull you can’t ignore.It wasn’t a love spell, right? It would just be a little nudge? She could try it—
But no.
It was obvious Reno wanted something different. Grieving a wife—that was something Beatrice couldn’t and wouldn’t get in the way of. She didn’t have that right.
But still, something stirred inside her, a recklessness she didn’t understand. She didn’t even know what she was going to say until the words were leaving her mouth: “Do you want me to try contacting her?” She didn’t have to say who.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The dead loved just as hard as we do now. Think about that, how many people have been loved over the millennia. Isn’t that the most gorgeous thing you ever heard?
—Evie Oxby, in conversation with Hilton Als
How quickly Reno’s expression changed, hope skating across her eyes, her mouth—and then, just as rapidly, the hope was gone. “Nah. She’s not the type.”
“What do you mean?”
A shrug. “Dunno. Just think she’d make it to wherever it is they go, and get pretty busy doing things. She’d be loved. Popular. Probably on three committees and managing a minor galaxy or something. I don’t want to bug her. Besides, she’s a close one, and I get it. We don’t fuck around with them.”
Reno rubbed her sternum, and another cloud passed over her face.
“What is it?”
She closed her eyes. “That darkness keeps rolling through,like some kind of ominous lightning storm. It was here for a second, and now it’s gone. I didn’t think it was anything but… I don’t like it.” She rested her hands flat on her knees and stared forward into the darkness.
“That scares me.”
Reno nodded. “Me, too.”
Mustering all the courage she could, her breath high and tight at the top of her lungs, Beatrice placed her hand on top of Reno’s.
