Page 55 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
The plastic barrel of the pen, which had felt like hot metal just two seconds before, was cool again. Just a plastic Paper Mate. The air was heavier and colder, and thunder rumbled close by.
Minna swam back into focus—her mouth was slightly open, her eyes wide. “Whoa. What did that feel like?”
Feel like?
Beatrice hadn’t felt. She’d justbeen. Sometimes, when she was working on a particularly thorny tax problem for a client, she’d look up to find an hour had passed instead of a minute. It had been like that—the knowledge of herself had vanished, and she’d—somehow—become the blue line on the page.
“What did you write?” Minna was clearly working hard to control herself, but her fingers twitched as if she wanted to grab the notebook right out of Beatrice’s hands.
Beatrice read from the page: “Norman, the key is in the g/f pizza box in the freezer.”
“Huh?”
She read the next line. “K–M and J send love and out of season peppermint bark. Don’t worry. We’re watching O. Froggy carries our kisses.”
“What does that mean?”
Beatrice blinked at her. “You thinkIknow?”
“And what’s that one?”
“Patrick, you’ll be forgiven but not yet. Andy says be patient.”
“This is so great. And the last one?”
Beatrice read it out, “K is here with me. We are together. At the same time, I’ve never left your side, nor has he. He knows his blue hanky will always catch your tears. He still loves salt and vinegar chips dipped in Nutella, and he says you never have to let him go. I’m sorry I said you did. L.” Good grief. This was ridiculous.
“Nothing for you, specifically, though?”
“I mean, I have no idea. But they’re not my initials…”
Minna’s voice got smaller. “And nothing for me?”
Oh, no. “Come on, we can’t read anything into this. It’s like playing with the Ouija board, you know?” When she was a kid, she’d talked Naya into playing with one after she’d found it at a garage sale. The planchette had rocketed around the board, but the words it spelled had never made sense. Naya had said her father could never know, which was weird, because surely Naya had been the one pushing it.
Minna’s eyes were huge. “The Ouija board always tells the truth.”
Just because Minna presented herself like a small adult didn’t mean she wasn’t just a kid. “It’s a board game made by Hasbro, and this—whatever this is—is a game, too.”
“Bullshit.” Now Minna did yank at the notebook.
Beatrice let her have it. She passed the pen back, too, before picking up the grimoire and slipping it into her bag. The sooner she returned it to Cordelia, the better.
“Youknowit’s real. You can feel it. I saw your face—you felt the power.”
“Power? I just scribbled junk on a page because…”Because why?“Because I wanted to buy into it. To make you happy.”
“You’resofull of crap!” Minna blinked rapidly, her nose scrunching up, looking like she was on the verge of tears. “You’ve probably known you could do this since you were little, and you’ve been shoving it back inside you, too scared to let any of it out.”
“I swear to you, I don’t believe in magic, and I never have.”
“Don’t call it magic, then. Gran sometimes calls it divine intention, and youcan’tdeny that you want things. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t put energy and intention into somethingyou were desperate to have. What do you want to do with your intention?”
I want to live.
So that just made her exactly like any other human on the planet. Not special. Definitely not magical. “Fine. So what doyouwant to do with your intention?”
Tears rose to Minna’s eyes. “I want to talk to my dad.”
