Child static constructor not called when base member accessed

Question

I have a class defined as:

public class DatabaseEntity<T> where T : DatabaseEntity<T> {
    public static string Query { get; protected set; }
    public static IList<T> Load() {
        return Database.Get(Query);
    }
}

public class Node : DatabaseEntity<Node> {
    static Node() {
        Node.Query = @"SELECT Id FROM Node";
    }
}

When I run Node.Load() from a codebehind (Window.xaml.cs) the Node's static constructor never fires; or at least doesn't hit a breakpoint and does not set Node.Query to anything other than null.

Is there any reason why this might occur?

Solution

Check out the answers below for a few solutions. For my case, I decided to simply make the Query variable public, and set all instances of Query in one place. (Not ideal, but it works.)