The Magnolia League

21





After they go, I fall asleep so deeply that a fire engine parked and blaring in my room couldn’t wake me. No one gets me up for dinner, and I sleep through the night, rising confused and cotton-mouthed at four a.m.

The daze lasts for the next couple of weeks. I figure it’s the result of that hoodoo drink—it’s like there’s a film over my entire existence. However, as for the magic itself… again I’m beginning to think I dreamed the entire thing. Whenever I try to bring it up, the MGs switch the subject. Really, they’re just conducting business as usual, existing in their popular, pretty, self-involved, and slightly bitchy orbit. I thought Madison would broach the topic privately sometime, but all she does is shoulder chuck me and say, “Alex, remind me to introduce you to the wondrous world of conditioner later.”

The only person who notices anything different about me is Dex. At one of our lunches, Dex comments that I’ve been acting really weird.

“What’s up?” he asks, rooting through my backpack. (Josie’s been getting crazy with my lunches lately—doughnuts, fried pork, hush puppies—and Dex has been majorly benefiting.) “For a while now, you’ve been totally spaced. Someone slip some poison into your morning coffee?”

“Um…” I look at Dex. What if I were to fill him in on what my grandmother told me?

Well, Dex, I’m a little out of it because a couple of weeks ago I was kidnapped and forced to participate in a hoodoo ritual that cleansed my soul. Apparently, my family has a legacy of black magic. Like, curses and love potions. Oh, and guess what? The Maggots are in on it too!

No, that wouldn’t really fly. I mean, he’s cool and all, but I don’t know anyone who would listen to my story and then not send me directly to an insane asylum. Besides, Dex is the closest thing I have to a normal friend here…. I don’t know if I’m up for losing him yet.

“I’m just tired,” I say. “I’ve been having nightmares lately. That’s all.”

My grandmother hasn’t mentioned the big revelation either. I spend the next couple of weeks watching her closely, trying to figure out exactly how this new, strange information figures into the absorbing puzzle that is my grandmother’s existence. For instance, if her husband was so infatuated with her, where did he go? And could she really be almost seventy years old? And the main question in my mind: If being a Magnolia Leaguer is so wonderful, why did my mother run away?

My mother. That’s a whole other door to open. Supposedly, she knew all about this hoodoo arrangement… meaning she’d used the spells herself. But as much as I try to wrap my mind around this, I can’t remember her saying anything that would have indicated that she’d grown up privy to any sort of supernatural powers. Sure, she was obsessed with horticulture and tinctures, and I guess that fits in… but it seemed normal for an herbalist.

My only memory that seems to support this new insight into her past is from her thirtieth birthday. I was eleven years old. We had planned this huge party for her at the Main, with fire dancers and banjo players. Big Jon never said so, but I think he was a little in love with my mom, so this particular birthday got special treatment.

I remember I came into our cabin with a handful of flowers I’d picked from the Sanctuary. She was wearing a beautiful dress I had never seen before. It was green and silky and dipped down low in the back—much fancier than anything I’d ever seen. She had on long green gloves to match. When I came into the room, I stopped in surprise. She had lit candles everywhere and was burning some unfamiliar sweet incense. She was standing in front of the mirror, turning from side to side.

“Mom?” I said, a little scared. She seemed in a trance, almost. It took her a full minute to answer.

“Hi, honey,” she said, still staring at herself.

“You look pretty.”

“Thanks, sweetie.” Her eyes were a little bloodshot. I couldn’t help wondering if she’d been crying.

“What’s wrong?”

“My first wrinkle.”

“What?” She was being ridiculous. Her face was as smooth as polished stone. “No way.”

“Way,” she replied, smiling. She pointed to a barely discernible line between her eyebrows.

“Mom,” I said, “that’s not a wrinkle. It’s, like, a cat hair or something.”

“My mother never got even one,” she said. “She went to the Doctor first.”

“The doctor? Like the boob doctor?” We all used to laugh about the boob doctor. Once, a girl with boobs as round and firm as beach balls had come to the RC. In a particularly unwise moment, she told Billy she’d gone to the boob doctor. He also stretched out ladies’ faces and sucked fat off their bodies with a hose, she said. After she told us that, we’d go up to her and poke her boobs with our fingers. She left a week or so later.

“Not exactly,” my mother said. She stared some more. “If I had done what my mother said, I’d never have any wrinkles.”

“What, like use sunscreen?” My mom was always slathering me in thick, smelly sunblock. It was a drag.

“Sort of,” she said. She ran her finger over her face and then thoughtfully stroked the pendant around her neck. “I’d never have to age at all,” she said. I stared at her. She was definitely being weird. “Well, I guess there’s no turning back now.”

“Mom,” I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You look awesome.”

She turned around, smiling. “This dress is a little overkill, though, huh?”

“Maybe.”

She motioned for me to unzip her. “It’s something I had from a long time ago.”

I waited for her to explain, but she had that forbidding look on her face that warned me not to ask any more. She hung up the dress and put on her jeans and a tie-dyed top. Then we went to the party together.

Remembering all of it—my mother’s life and death—puts me in a sad mood. In fact, during the entire first two weeks of October, I’m in a bit of a funk. Finally, after passing the locked door to her room for the thousandth time, I decide to try once more to break in.

This time I move a lot more quickly—I don’t want anyone catching me. I hop over the railing and leap to the balcony without a moment’s hesitation. From my back pocket I take the file I’d nabbed for my previous attempt, and I jimmy the window in a matter of seconds. Pretty impressive, actually. You’d think I was a professional cat burglar or something.

I somersault through the window, landing on the floor with a loud thump. Dust rises around me in a soft cloud, which then dissipates. The room is completely dark. Cautiously, I crack open the curtains of one window. As light fills the room, I sit down with a soft gasp.

She’s here. My mother, I mean. Not literally, of course. But her presence is everywhere. The room smells like cloves and baby powder. A cold feeling begins to well up in my throat. I forgot about how much she loved baby powder. If I hadn’t come in here, that memory would be gone. What else of her am I losing? What else have I forgotten?

My grandmother, apparently, hasn’t touched a thing since my mother left. It makes me even sadder: We share this horrible loss, but we’re never able to break down the wall between us enough to talk about it. For one thing, I should thank her for leaving this room so intact. Because Louisa Lee is everywhere—the place is like a museum to her life. The room smells like the dried flowers she used to love; the bed is covered in a simple cotton coverlet that she must have picked out; the dresser is draped in an Indian tapestry, the same kind she used to throw over old furniture in our cabin. The room is painted the same shade of blue as the Buzzards’ walls and gates—haint blue.

I creep over to her bookshelf and stare at the framed photos of my mom when she was younger. In one picture, she is wearing the white dress my grandmother showed me. In another, she’s on the beach, in cutoff jeans and a bathing-suit top, her arm around another girl. When I lean in closer, I see that her friend is Constance Taylor, who looks pretty tough even as a teen.

Weird. They were friends?

Suddenly I hear a sound. “Mom?” I whisper. “Mom, are you here?”

My heart hammers in my chest. It would be so amazing if she were here. I close my eyes, wishing with everything I have that when I open them, she’ll be here, smiling at me. But when I look around, I’m still alone.

I tiptoe to my mom’s closet. It’s spilling over with old sundresses, jeans, and ratty sandals. I run my fingers through the clothes, gritting my teeth at the acute feeling of loss. There are pieces of my mother here—strands of her hair, traces of the vanilla oil she put on her wrists. But she is gone forever. And that’s the part no one understands: this tidal wave of sadness I face every morning when I wake up knowing I’ll never see her again. Just when I think I’m doing okay, I’m faced with another wall of sorrow.

Wiping away my tears, I reach for the glittering object I see at the back of the closet. It’s her white debutante gown. My grandmother must have returned it to its rightful place, in my mother’s closet. I hold up the gown, then lay it carefully on the bed. Without even thinking, I start to strip off my clothes.

The dress is supertight, of course. My mom was way skinnier than I am. I’ve never been into clothes, but this dress is exquisite. It comes in tight at the waist and then flows in a column to the floor. I don’t look great in it, of course… nothing like the way my mother looked, or how Hayes would. Still, it’s the girliest I’ve looked in a very long time.

Suddenly, Josie’s voice jolts me into reality. “Alex!” she calls. “Where are you?”

Crap.

“Alex!” I can hear her footsteps coming up the stairs. No way do I have time to change. I grab my clothes, hitch up the dress, and climb out the window. Once I’m safely in the hallway again, I hurry to the top of the stairs. To my surprise, I spot someone looking up at me. The blond figure is outlined against the black-and-white marble squares of the grand hallway floor.

“Thaddeus?” I blurt.

Crap. Why am I wearing this stupid dress? Do I have time to change? I step backward, but my foot lands squarely on Jezebel’s paw.

“Yeeeeeoooow!”

Crap, crap, crap.

“Hi,” Thaddeus says, his face a mixture of amusement and annoyance. Reluctantly, I shuffle back into his line of vision and head down the stairs.

“Nice dress.” He’s leaning against the banister.

“It was my mom’s,” I say. “I know, I look stupid.”

“No, you don’t,” he says. “I mean, you look okay. It’s just that the hair doesn’t really match the outfit.”

We look at each other for a moment.

“You want to go for a walk?” he says.

“Yeah, okay. Hang on—I’ll change.”

I bolt to my room, shed the dress, and throw on my normal uniform—jeans and a vintage tee. I look briefly in the mirror. A bit of dirt from the windowsill is on my hands and cheek.

I rub it off furiously and run downstairs, trying my hardest to look like I don’t care at all that the hottest guy in school has randomly dropped by to visit me.

“Better,” he says. “Shall we?”

He opens the door and steps into the sunlight, leaving me nothing to do but follow.