Page 43 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
“Sorry?” Beatrice hadn’t said anything out loud. Had she?
“You look… sad.”
“I think I have to quit my job. Which involves quitting my father, I think. No, I know. That’s why I have to quit my job.”
After a few seconds of consideration, Reno said, “Sounds like you know what’s right.”
A tug, like the feeling Minna had put into her chest last night. “How do I know for sure, though?”
“You don’t.”
“I hate that.” Beatrice looked under the galley sink and found exactly what she was looking for: a bottle of cleaning spray and a pile of clean rags. She sprayed the countertop and wiped it down. At home (at Grant’s house), the counter had been so big that it had taken at least five minutes to clean all of it. This one was, what, twenty inches long? It took seconds. “Do you know how much I’d pay for a life manual? Like, why hasn’t someone written a book with all the advice in one place? I mean, obviously, there’s all the religious texts, but I don’t mean that. I mean something bigger. Something that haseveryanswer. You could input something and read the output, and that would be that.”
“Would that be fun for you?”
Of course it would be.Somuch fun. She would always know what to do. She’d always get it right. But something about Reno’s voice made her look at her sharply. “Are you teasing me?”
“Maybe.” Reno rubbed the side of her neck where the blue tattoos spiraled upward. “Maybe not.”
“I’ve just got some hard decisions to make.”
Reno said, “Some people would say buying a houseboat is a hard decision.”
True. And she’d done that without blinking, hadn’t she? “Good point, yeah. Hey, can I ask you something?”
Reno’s dark gaze remained locked on hers as she nodded.
“Do you believe in magic?”
There was a pause, not an easy one. The air between them was thick with something Beatrice couldn’t name.
When Reno finally responded, her voice was low. “Don’t fuck with them.”
“Wait. What—”
“When you walked into the store—Cordelia’s face… She’sbeen hoping for you her whole life. If you hurt either her or Minna, you’ll answer to me.”
It wasn’t an idle threat. This woman would protect Cordelia and Minna; that was clear.
And Beatrice’s heart, which it seemed was completely and intractably twisted up in this place now, approved of Reno’s motivation.
Beatrice placed her hand on her chest as if she were saluting a flag. “I promise I won’t hurt them.”
A nod was all she got in return, but it was all she needed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Some will tell you not to work dark magic, but honey, you think Spirit can’t handle the darkness? Who do you think is in charge of the light switches?
—Evie Oxby, TikTok
Hours later, Beatrice sat on her deck in one of the four new chairs she’d bought at the hardware store. (One for Minna, one for Cordelia, one for… Astrid? No, scratch that. It would be for Reno.) Every limb felt like it weighed double what it normally did, but the exhaustion was almost pleasant in its intensity. After buying the boat and talking to Reno, Beatrice hadn’t stopped moving for hours, in a buying frenzy that left her debit card smoking and the interior of the boat looking like…her. Grant thought that cream was too aggressive a color, so their house had been done in muted shades of bisque.
Fuck Grant and his boring-ass taupe marble countertops.
The boat’s cabin was now colorful. After her shopping binge, the main room had two fluffy orange rugs. The sofa held five newvelvet pillows in yellows and reds. She’d traded out the old, battered toaster and coffee maker for shiny green ones, and she’d hung purple dishcloths in the galley. The bedding was red and purple, her towels bright blue.
She’d scrubbed the interior from top to bottom as well as she could. There were a bunch of things she didn’t know how to work, like the radios and everything in and around the bilge pump, so she’d leave those alone until she learned what everything was for. At some point she’d understand every inch of the boat, from below the waterline to the wind vane that pirouetted overhead.
