29

When I arrive at Buzzard’s Roost to find Sina, the first person I run into is Sam. I try to duck behind one of the houses, but he’s too quick for me.

“Alex!” he calls. “What are you doing out here?”

“Um…” I clear my throat. “Getting something from Sina for Miss Lee.”

“Really?” he asks, clearly suspicious. He seems to be dressed for a night out; he’s wearing dress pants and a beautiful linen shirt. I swear, the guy could be in GQ. He steps back and looks at me proudly. “I’m not sure what they’ve done with you, exactly, but these days you look just like your mother.” His eyes mist over for a moment.

“Sam, how well did you know my mother?”

“Oh, we were tight,” he says. “There’s no one I miss more than her.” He shakes his head. “She was so warm and funny. Man. I’d do anything to see her again.”

“Me too,” I say. “Anything.”

“Baby Magnolia!” Sina calls from her house. “You here to see me?”

“Gotta go,” I say. Sam kisses my cheek, and I hurry to Sina’s cottage.

“Should’ve known you’d be out here before too long,” she says when I enter. She hands me a cup of Swamp Brew. She must always keep some on the stove.

“Why?”

“New boyfriend, lots of history. You’re not the first Magnolia to darken my door over Thaddeus’s ass. Still, I thought you were different.”

“I am different!” I say. But she’s already walked inside.

I follow her into the dark room. It smells like cloves, cinnamon, lemon, and basil.

“Making a love spell for yourself, Sina?” I say, trying to get a rise out of her.

“Getting a jump on things,” she purrs in the dark. “The Christmas Ball is coming up. I know some Magnolia who can’t hold on to her man will be visiting me soon enough.”

“Working on anyone in particular yet?” I ask, trying to sound casual.

“Never conjure and tell.”

“Has someone been coming to you about Thaddeus?” I can’t help it. I have to know.

She laughs.

My face turns red. “Don’t laugh at me!”

“Listen, Baby Magnolia,” she says, suddenly serious. “I know every girl wants to be the only girl, but trust me when I say to you that no one is chasing him right now. Not with my help.”

I’m relieved.

“So, you sure you want to do this?”

“I wouldn’t have come if I wasn’t sure,” I say.

She cocks her head while she spreads a red cloth over the table. She studies me. “I can’t read you,” she says. “I’ve seen Magnolias come and I’ve seen them go, but you’re a strange little cricket. You talk about being different and doing things different, and then you come out here like all the rest, begging for things that you should be doing for yourself.”

“Look, if you think I’m like the rest of them, then you must be blind.”

“No, Baby Magnolia. You’re sitting right there saying the same things to me that those Magnolias have been saying to me for a long, long time.”

“How long, exactly?” I look around the room for any sign of what generation she might belong to.

“I was in your mother’s class,” she replies. “I dropped out.”

“So you’re thirty-six.”

“Thirty-six, sixteen, seventy, one hundred and eleven. See, unlike you precious Magnolias, I get to choose more than once. I can be whatever age I want.”

“Then why sixteen?”

“Sixteen’s pretty good, don’t you think?” Sina says, frowning as she measures a bit of oil into her dropper. “Gravity hasn’t raped your face yet. You still got a lot of energy and a fairly positive outlook. Seems to me all people want to do past sixteen is get back there. You heard the songs? The only thing you don’t have is money. But thanks to you tired old things, I have more than enough of that.”

“If you hate us so much, then why do you keep doing it? All that whining and complaining certainly doesn’t keep you from cashing our checks.”

“Listen to you,” she says with a sneer. “Who’s this us, anyway? You a Magnolia in your heart already?”

She leans over and sniffs me, then sits back, her eyes glowing yellow in the candlelight. “You know, I really liked your ma.”

“So, you knew her?”

“Of course. She was always here, hangin’ on my brother. All the girls were, but she was the only one who came out here from time to time. She was a whole basket of fun. Smart. You? Oh, you’re rotten through and through, ain’tcha?”

“I am not.” It drives me crazy that Sina knew my mother. What does she know?

“When you first came out here, you were going to change things. You wanted to make a difference. And now just smell yourself.”

“I do want to change things,” I say. “I do want to make a difference. I will make a difference. It’s just that… I want this first.”

She doesn’t even dignify this excuse with a response. Instead, she hands me the paper and pen. I write Thaddeus’s name nine times, then my own name over it five times.

“My poor brother,” she finally mutters. “He always trusts you whores. Never listens to me.”

“At that party at the Field,” I say, handing the paper back, “you said you were onto me. What did you mean?”

“I figured you were here to sit at the right hand of Miss Lee,” she says. “You would take over the League, the way she wants you to. Then I found out you had the rock, and I thought I had you wrong. Maybe you were here to kick up some dust, change things around. Or maybe you were just going to up and leave. Now I see you sitting here across the table from me like a greedy little fat girl in a skinny girl’s body, and I think that maybe you’re here to sit at your grandma’s right hand after all.”

“What is it about the necklace?” I ask.

She looks over her shoulder and then leans closer to me.

“It’s a powerful charm,” she whispers. “My daddy calls it a Fear Not to Walk Over Evil.”

“What does it do?”

“Sina!” a man’s voice barks from the door.

I jump in my chair and turn to see Doc Buzzard standing there, eyes blazing behind his blue sunglasses.

“Wrap up that girl’s things and get her home,” he says. “And not a word more.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“That necklace is the last thing you have of your mother’s,” he says. “Treat it with respect. It’s not some object for old ladies to gossip and buzz about.”

He looks pointedly at Sina when he says this. She wraps up the potion and hands it to me. “Remember, three drops. No more, no less.”

“How much do I owe you?”

“We’ll put it on the Magnolias’ tab,” Doc Buzzard snaps. “Now get on home, little girl. You’ve got no place being here without your grandmother. Trust me. Your own time will come.”