Page 51 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
“You’re making me worry now.”
“No.Don’t worry. There’s just some people in town who say shit about her. But she’s literally the best and you did the right thing. Anyway, forget reading in the library. Mom texted that she left our grimoire with you. She made me swear not to tell Gran.” Her eyes lit up. “Your plans just changed. I’m taking you to my favorite place, and I’llshowyou what’s in that book.”
Minna’s favorite place was the graveyard. Of course it was. When Beatrice was her age, she liked the one near her father’s house, but it was a rather boring, flat piece of grass-covered land, each marker either set flat into the ground or tastefully upright and regularly cleaned. Very mundane.
This?
This place was different. Set into the undulating hillside behind Cordelia’s house, just past Reno’s motor home, the graves wandered up through the grass. Through overhanging trees, the sun dappled enormous blocks of chipped stained marble. A cool breeze came off the glinting water in the distance. The space was friendly. Mostly. Maybe in the darker spots it looked spooky and spine-tingling, but not actually frightening, which was a distinction Beatrice had never had to make before.
Minna leaped from broken flagstone to grassy hummock. “That’s where my second-grade teacher is buried. She died in her sleep of old age, which my mom says is the best way to go. And that’s the guy who invented a machine that makes paper clips. See the paper clips etched all around the stone?”
In some places, the grass grew high, more weeds than plants,and a few of the old stones were broken and crumbling. “Do they still use this place for burying people?”
Laughing, Minna jumped off the edge of an old, dry fountain. “Use is kind of relative, right? Are these bodies using it? But no, there’s a new town graveyard closer to the highway, and it’s covered in boring grass that’s mowed once a week and theythrow outthe flowers you leave after a week. It’s way more respectable than this old place, which is why I love it here. Hey, speaking of relatives, check this out!”
Minna led her down a row of aboveground crypts that looked like small marble houses. Some were ornate, with open doors that allowed the breeze to push leaves through. Peeking into one, Beatrice saw a grime-covered stained-glass window at the back, and a vase holding plastic flowers tipped onto its side. On either side were plaques with names, and presumably, the original owners of the names were lying behind them.
“Look.” The crypt Minna led them to wasn’t huge—maybe half the size of a single-car garage.
Hollandwas carved grandly at the top of the door’s arch.
Beatrice inhaled sharply.
Her family, right here.
Engraved in smaller letters wasAnna Holland, daughter of Valeska Holland. The next line:Rosalind Holland, daughter of Anna Holland. Decorative fleur-de-lis wound over the marbled sides. The tomb had one door, also marble, which looked firmly closed. There was no handle, nor anything else that suggested an entrance, just a single slot that might fit a key.
“Gran really wants to get permission to be buried in there with her mom and grandma. She also wants me and Mom to be shoved in there, too, although honestly, that’s not her business, is it?”
Mutely, Beatrice shook her head. She had a living will inwhich she’d stated she wanted to be cremated and placed in Grant’s prepurchased plot at Forest Lawn.Thatwas going to have to be amended. Sooner might be better than later.
Minna went on, “Gran wants to get in and clean in there, too, but we’ve never been able to find the key, and no one at the city council seems to know what to do next about getting permission to remake one. Anyway, over here, I have something even better to show you!”
Her niece hooked her hand around the top of a stone pillar and swung herself around it so that she was facing the lettering. “Here we are. Meet your earliest foremother to live in Skerry Cove.”
Xenia Holland, b. 1827, d. 1919.Below that, carved into the marble in a light script:She who sees must share her vision.
Minna crossed her ankles and sank to the grass, patting the ground next to her. “Sit with me? We’ll spend time with the ancestors. First with the ladies. My dad’s here in the graveyard, too, but I’ll show you his spot later.”
Ancestors.Her very own. “So who is this?”
“Xenia is my great-times-five-grandmother, so she’s your quadruple great. She came to the island in 1851 with the first wave of white colonizers. Even though Xenia’s husband left to hunt for gold in California, her daughter Valeska was born here in 1857, and she refused to leave. Valeska married Theodore Velamen in 1877.” She shot a quick glance at Beatrice. “He wasn’t a good man. She’s not buried in this graveyard because of him. Gran won’t tell me much about them, but I’ll get it out of her someday. Valeska’s daughter is Anna, who’s in the family crypt I showed you, with Rosalind, her daughter. Rosalind was Gran’s mother. I met her when I was a baby, apparently, but I don’t remember.”
Beatrice sat, the grass’s coolness rising through her jeans.She reached forward to touch the marble, and of course, it was cold, much colder than the grass. But she also felt an odd banked warmth, like the side of a cold mug when you’ve just poured the coffee in, the second before the ceramic heats. Maybe the sun had warmed it all morning, even though there was no sun overhead now, just dark, looming clouds.
Minna nodded as she unzipped the top of her backpack. “You can feel it, right?”
Beatrice yanked back her hand. “What?”
“That weird warmth.”
She wasn’t going to admit it. “Xenia and Valeska. Not common names.”
“I think they’re Slavic, maybe? I’m not sure if we know where Xenia’s family came from, but we know they were both powerful AF. I’ve been trying to get Valeska to talk to me foragesbut nothing yet. Don’t tell Mom, though. She worries.”
Beatrice sank her fingers into the grass. “And by getting Valeska to talk, you mean…”
“Oh, Aunt Bea.” She looked shy suddenly. “Can I call you that? I want to, but I won’t if you hate it.”
