Page 84 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
Minna said, “That’swhy you get those feelings. And why you can’t control them.”
The more they said, the less Beatrice understood. “What feelings?”
Reno looked at her. “I told you. Astrid hears voices of the dead, Cordelia communicates with them right after they pass over, and Minna sees images they give her. Me—I feel them.”
“What do you mean?”
She rubbed her sternum again. “I feel their emotions. Sometimes I feel what they felt when they died. Other times I feel their current emotions.”
“Who?”
“Anyone. Anyone dead. I can’t block it, and I can’t choose who comes through. Can’t even tell who they are, usually.”
“So,” said Beatrice, “you’re, like, emotionally possessed?”
Astrid scowled. “That’s a ridiculous way of saying it.”
“Exactly right,” said Reno. “But I’m protected in this house and in the hideout.”
It made sense now. “The sigils over the doorways. But only here and the hideout, not in your motor home? Which you park just outside agraveyard?” She turned to Cordelia. “Why don’t you protect her in her vehicle? Or draw a sigil like that on her body?”
“You think we haven’t tried?” Cordelia pointed at the tattoos writhing from below Reno’s shirtsleeve. “It only works where we live, where the power’s the highest, we think. And she refuses to stay with us in the house.”
Reno said, “I prefer it out there. The dead don’t actually like hanging out in the graveyard, unless that’s where they spent most of their time when alive. They tend to go to where they lived, where their emotions were the most intense. If they do come through the cemetery, their emotions pass through me like wind.”
Minna snickered, and the sound of it lightened the tone of the room. The candle in front of Beatrice flickered more brightly.
“Okay, yeah. I pass spirit gas.” Reno smiled. “Anyway, I was in the motor home, and I felt this total blackness roar through me like a hurricane of the soul. This one wasn’t like the others; it had a direction. A physical one. I was just in the way. It was headed right for the hideout. So I ran at it. Astrid, what you told me about how it would arrive—you were right.”
“Mom?” Cordelia stopped twisting the thread in her fingers. “Whatisit? We know it’s bad. And now we know you warned Reno, which, no offense, Reno, you know I love you, but Mom, that’s not cool. You should have warned all of us.”
Astrid drew herself up straighter and rubbed her upper teeth as if wiping off lipstick. “I knew she’d feel it coming first.”
Cordelia snapped, “You do know that the canaries in the coal mines were sacrificial?”
“I don’t mind.” Reno looked at her hands, the fingers interlaced tightly. “As long as I get it right.”
With a shake of her head, Cordelia said, “You know you can trust yourself. We trust you, and—”
“I’mthe one who got it right,” said Astrid. “Thread your needles. All of you.”
“Mother! Tell us!”
Beatrice fumbled with the thread—it had been years since she’d picked up a sewing needle. Maybe decades, come to think of it. The eye of the needle was so small, difficult to see in the low, flickering candlelight. This might take a while.
“The Velamens know the Holland power comes from its aggregation.”
“Can you put that in English, please?” Minna also seemed to be struggling, tilting her hands toward the light.
“Pfft.” Astrid snapped her fingers, and when Beatrice looked at her needle again, it was threaded. So was Minna’s needle. And Reno’s. “Together, we Hollands have our full power. Twins, like you, make that power even greater. Together, we have what they desire most, what they feel cheated of. When we’re together, they’ll do anything to get across the veil to us. Because we’ve been involved with them for so many generations, our strength calls to the strength they used to have. Separated, our family’s power is fractured. Separated, they ignore the Hollands. They’d almost forgotten us; I could feel it.”
“Oh, my god.” Cordelia stared. “Mother.That’swhy you split us up?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
That connection you feel when you sing with a group? That’s Spirit. When you laugh together, that’s Spirit. When you worship as a collective in any direction at all, whether to Jesus or Buddha or Allah, you’re calling Spirit. And you might have noticed, Spirit loves a party.
—Evie Oxby, in conversation with Beyoncé and Jay-Z
