The Magnolia League

11





Early Saturday evening, the sky over Buzzard’s Roost shimmers in the late-summer heat. Sina presses a wet cloth to the back of her neck. Some of the houses out here have air-conditioning, but she’s never liked the feel of recycled air. No, she lives with the windows open, in winter, summer, even hurricane season. The air is filled with the buzzing of crickets and the smells of wood smoke, cloves, and bacon. On the table, the edge of the newspaper lifts and falls to the rhythm of the ceiling fan. A bee, trapped between the window screen and the shade, ricochets feverishly back and forth.

Sina opens the doors of her floor-to-ceiling apothecary’s cabinet. She taps the side of her face as she thinks a moment; finally, she extracts a large cloth and several jars. She lays a heavy green cape on the ironing board and plugs in the iron. Bloo, the Buzzards’ dog, whimpers at the hiss as Sina runs it over the cloth. He was bitten by a snake the previous year, and though Sam got to him in time to treat the bite, the dog has never forgotten it. The Buzzards all know, of course, that the incident was a hex put out by their rivals on St. Catherines Island. Sina had wanted to take revenge on their two cats, but her brother, Sam—ever the peace seeker—wouldn’t allow it.

While Sam is the most knowledgeable of Doc’s children about the history and intricacies of hoodoo, Sina is the practitioner with the most natural talent. No one can mix a mojo bag like she can. She takes great pleasure in preparing for a ritual, loves the meditative feel of it. Yet she is aware of voices invading her peaceful bubble this afternoon. Her little cousins are fighting in the courtyard. For hours, they’ve been playing on an old twin-size mattress that Sam has rigged up with ropes to hang from the branch of a large oak tree. It’s the only spot of shade in the common garden, so everyone in the family spends hours there reading, gossiping, or sneaking naps. The swing is in high demand in the summer, but out of fear that the old branch may snap, Sam has limited the weight load to two hundred pounds. Presently there are three boys and four girls jumping on and off it, trying to negotiate swing time.

“You’ve been on it for an hour!”

“No I haven’t!”

“You have!”

“Haven’t!”

“Ow!” screams Little Callie, the next-to-youngest and the brattiest by far.

Sina sighs, puts down the iron, and walks to the window to investigate.

“Ahh!” Little Callie cries. “Plat-eye! Plat-eye!” She begins to convulse uncontrollably.

Sina shakes her head. When she was growing up, Buzzard kids were kept from practicing hoodoo until they were at least fifteen. Lately, Doc’s been starting them a lot earlier. Sina’s not sure why this is, but it’s definitely a bad idea in her book.

“L.S.! You know Doc didn’t ordain that. Fix her! Now!”

She doesn’t have to wonder who pulled the plat-eye root. Little Snake, Doc Buzzard’s single direct grandson, is the only one with the brains and finesse to conjure it so quickly. She looks at the poor girl, who is shaking uncontrollably at the vision only she can see—most likely a large gray shapeless form hovering five feet above the ground, snarling and reeking of the dead.

“But I—”

Sina thrusts a flask through the window. “Get that plat-eye some whiskey and dispel it. Then give her a turn on that swing. Now.”

After throwing a pebble defiantly at Sina’s cottage, Little Snake reluctantly turns to his cousin.


“Powers, powers, powers,

let her be.

Oh John the Conqueror,

the trouble was only me.”


He pours the whiskey on the ground near where Little Callie is lying. Immediately, the girl stops twitching. She hops up and scuttles to the mattress. L.S. cuts an evil look at his aunt and slips down the path to the woods.

“Off to do no good,” Sina says aloud. Humming to herself, she meticulously measures out exact portions from the glass jars of frankincense, clove powder, archangel herb, bayberry root chips, goofer dirt, cinnamon powder, and a special white powder in a bottle-green jar.

The goofer dirt—gathered from new graves—is especially precious. The fresher it is, the more effective. Often she asks the Magnolias to pay for their side spells in goofer. They’re often at funerals of the most influential people in town, so it’s close to no effort for the ladies to slip a bit of cemetery dirt into their fancy little purses.

Sina takes three cones of incense from a plastic container labeled Money Draw and lights it. Then she blends her ingredients in a coffee grinder and puts half the mixture in a green flannel bag. She sews the bag shut and then carefully sprinkles it with nine drops from a vial labeled Prosperity.

“Hey,” Sam says, coming in the door. Sina nods but doesn’t answer. She puts some of the powder into a green saucer and lights it on fire with a long match.

“Prosperity Oil?”

Sina nods.

“Who for?”

“That Mary Oglethorpe.” Sina snorts. “Guess she’s broke again.”

“Man. The treasurer, no less.”

“Woman has a problem. Serious.”

“I was just in her garden. House looks pretty run-down. She must be in a bad way.”

“Well, this should help. If not, I’ll cook up a lottery charm.”

“Maybe some Irish moss tea?”

“Oh, smart. If I only knew where it was…” Sina goes back to her cabinet and begins to rifle through the hundreds of bottles and vials.

“Well, I thought I’d tell you—I saw her today.”

Sina doesn’t answer.

“The new holder of the mantle.”

“I get who you mean.”

“She’s funny,” he says. “Smart. Though she has no idea what’s going on. Miss Lee’s still got her in the dark.”

“Big surprise,” Sina mutters. “Damn! Maybe I’m out of moss.”

“Callie!” Sam yells into the courtyard. The little girl rolls off the swinging mattress and comes to the window. “Go’n down to Grandaddy’s house and get some Irish moss.”

Callie nods and runs down the path.

“I think you’ll like her,” Sam continues.

“I don’t like any of them,” Sina says. “Waste of time—half century’s worth. Look at me. I’m cooking up a ritual for an idiot who can’t control her credit card. You think this is what our ancestors had in mind?”

Sam sighs and helps himself to some fresh chamomile flower tea. Sina’s tea is always better than anyone else’s; his sister is wildly talented at ferreting out the best herbs and roots. As usual, Sam skips the sweetener. Like the rest of his family, he has a powerful reaction to sugar because of his father’s doings. The Buzzards draw their power from their conjure bird—known locally as the turkey vulture—and Doc fully expects to come back as one. A few years earlier, it was a trend in the Low Country to kill the birds with traps set with poisoned sugar. The buzzards began dying in droves, so to protect his family and himself, Doc Buzzard put a root on everyone at the Roost. So far it’s shielded them from harm, but now everyone in the clan becomes violently ill at the taste of anything sweet.

“Can I ask you a question?” Sam says.

“Not if it has to do with the Magnolias. I’m done with that topic for the day.”

“Come on.”

“What?”

“How powerful is a buzzard’s rock?”

Just then, through the window, another, older voice drifts in. It’s their cousin, singing a hymn: “Oh Lord, oh do Lord, oh do remember me…”

“Lucretia!” Sina yells. “Ain’t nowhere near Sunday yet! Put my iPod on! Alicia Keys!”

The singing stops and is replaced by Sina’s favorite music. With her long limbs, queenly cheekbones, and light brown—almost golden—eyes, Sina is the most beautiful woman in the Buzzard family, if not in all of Georgia. “Lord Jesus, I am sorry, but can we have one church-free day around here?” Sina—whose name is short for the Yoruba name Adasina—plops down in her carved wooden rocking chair and crosses her slender ankles.

“Well? The buzzard’s rock?” Sam asks again.

“Nothing more powerful,” she says of the stone. “You know what they call it. A Fear Not to Walk Over Evil. ’Course, I’ve never managed to get a good one. Almost paralyzed myself trying once.”

No charm, of course, is easy to create, but the buzzard’s rock is particularly difficult—and cruel—to procure. You must find a female buzzard who has laid eggs, and then wait until she leaves her nest. Once the nest is empty, you climb to the roost—usually about sixty feet up a dead pine tree—and steal the egg. Then comes the grisly part: killing the embryo with a long pin and returning the egg to the nest. When the buzzard comes back, she will sit on her egg for a day or so. But since buzzards can intuit death before any other creature, the bird soon realizes that the embryo is dead. Being attracted to death, she finds a sharp rock to crack the egg and look at the corpse. It is this rock, charged with anger and sorrow, that all root doctors seek—but almost never find.

“That buzzard’s rock you had worked better than any root I’ve ever made,” Sina says.

“Well, Alex has it now,” Sam says. “She’s got the one I gave Louisa.”

Sina stops rocking.

“How’d that li’l chigger get it?” she cries. “She steal it?”

“Alex said it fell off her mother’s neck.”

“What kind of fool would lose something that valuable? It must have been right before she—” Seeing the look on Sam’s face, Sina bites her tongue. “I don’t trust this story. With that rock, she can do pretty much anything. How well you know this Alex? You know she’s not a cheat?”

Sam shrugs. “I like her. But I’m not sure of anything.”

“Uncle! Here you go!” Callie tosses the packet of moss through the window. Sina rises to pick up the package. She inspects the gooey, moldy leaves in the light.

“All right. This ought to keep Miss Mary out of debtors’ prison,” she says, gently putting the moss into a small tin container.

“Let’s hope so. It’s the last Miss Lee is allowing her. Guess she wants to teach a lesson.”

Sina whistles. “That woman best be careful she don’t cause an insurrection.”

“Long as they pay their bills, it’s not our problem.”

“True.” Sina gathers her purse, the new green mojo bag, and the jar of moss. She pauses and then smiles craftily at her brother. “Well, I’ve got to go to town now, anyway. You know what? I think I might just check in on Miss Alex and her new friends.”

Sam frowns, puzzled. “I thought you didn’t care about her.”

“I don’t,” Sina says, heading for the door. “But I care a hell of a lot about that buzzard’s rock.” Waggling her fingers at her brother, she leaves, tossing a handful of salt at the children as she passes. They roll over on the mattress swing, laughing, to thank her for the good luck.