Page 53 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
Experiment. People think they’re going to accidentally open a portal to hell, but I hate to break it to you, it takes a lot of training to do something like that. The worst that might happen is you could poison a few people. The hellmouth worry is overblown. Just play.
—Evie Oxby, to Martha Stewart at her Skylands home
Beatrice’s whole body jolted, as if Minna had reached out and slapped her.
The girl continued, “You take out the suitcase every year on her death day and let yourself look at it for exactly fifteen minutes. You literally set a timer. The suitcase holds only one thing—I can’t quite figure out what it is. It’s round and clear, like a snow globe with no snow. Like, red rocks instead? I don’t get it but that’s what I see. Then you zip up the suitcase and you try not to think about her again until the next year rolls around, but you always fail.”
“What the fuckingfuck.”
“Ooof.” Minna leaned forward, looking a tinge green. “That one hurt a little.”
“How did you do that? Who told you that?”
“I asked someone.”
“Did I put that on Instagram or something?” As far as Beatrice knew, she’d never put the globe on social media, but maybe she’d just forgotten?
Minna shook her head. “What’s the thing with the red rocks? Is it really a snow globe?”
A million years ago, when Beatrice was a junior in high school, Dad and Naya had taken her to Bryce Canyon. One morning, Dad slept in while she and Naya went to Inspiration Point before the sun came up. It was late in the season, and it started snowing as they waited. When the sky streaked purple with the sunrise, the red pillars glowed through the floating snow. Beatrice had laughed at how hard Naya cried at the beauty of what she called a miracle. Later, in a gift shop, Naya bought a snow globe, tiny limestone columns rising inside it. Instead of fake snow inside, it held reddish sand. After Naya died, it was the one thing Beatrice had asked her father for.
She exhaled roughly. “Snow globe, with sand. But—how do you know about it? You’ve got to tell me because you’re freaking meout.”
“A guide told me.”
“Aguide.” Beatrice couldn’t keep the heat, the panic out of her voice. “I don’t understand. This doesn’t make sense.”
Minna scooted closer. “You have to stop trying to make it make sense. It’s not going to. Not really.”
A blast of cold air struck Beatrice’s face. “Minna.Tell me how you knew.”
“Okay, okay! I chanted an incantation that gets me into contact with someone who can connect me with dead people.”
“Someone?”
“I told you. A guide. I’ve worked with them before. And no, I didn’t connect with your mother figure herself.”
“Naya. Her name was Naya.” Even saying her name still hurt.
“I didn’t connect with her, and my guide didn’t, either, but—okay, this is kind of hard to explain. It’s kind of like that game you play in grade school. Telephone, you know, but I don’t hear things, I see them instead. Naya must have given someone the image of the suitcase, and then the image of the snow globe, in order to prove to you that it was her, and then that someone sent the image to my guide, who sent it to me.”
“So you see images in your head.” No, Beatrice couldn’t believe this. She didn’t want to believe it.
Or did she? Could it be possible Naya was reaching out?
If she was—if that could be true—what would thatmean?
“Yeah, I’m a clairvoyant medium. In training, I mean. And I only see images when I ask for help in seeing them—it’s not like I’m getting images from the dead all the time. Which is good, especially during the school year, because that would seriously mess with my homework.”
“Oh, my god.” A warmth crept through Beatrice’s bones as if she’d been covered with a heated blanket—could Naya really be thinking of her?
If so, it would mean Naya still existed somewhere.
The taste of salt rose at the back of Beatrice’s throat.
Life after death, come on. No one in the history of the world had everprovedit, and certainly, if it were a true thing, someone would have managed to. Which meant it was all crap. But—how to explain the red rock snow globe?
The warmth she felt shifted to a chill as the wind blew colder against her face. “It could just be coincidence.”
