a dream?”
“Sorry,” Hayes says.
“Well, what else do you guys use the spells for?”
My grandmother smiles. “Let’s see. Love, beauty… oh! Youth. Each Magnolia is able to conjure herself once at an age that she’ll stay until she dies. So I’ll be thirty-eight right up until my funeral.”
“Oh.” Now, that explains a lot.
“And money spells,” my grandmother continues. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but none of the Magnolia women are in want of funds.”
“I did notice. I thought you were just rich people who happened to hang together.”
“Oh no,” my grandmother says. “We are rich because we—how do you put it—‘hang together.’ Many of the Magnolias’ families were ruined during the Depression. Doc’s spells put an end to that.”
“The Depression?” I say. “Miss Lee, I just can’t believe you’re old enough to remember the Depression.”
“Let’s just say hoodoo keeps me looking much younger than my years,” my grandmother says.
“Well, if the doctor’s so great at spells, why was he living in a shack? Why didn’t he use the magic to make some cash for himself?”
“Hoodoo doctors almost never use spells for their own purposes,” Hayes says. “Their business is to sell the spells to other people. The Buzzards have strict rules about using the magic for themselves.”
“Why?”
“People don’t go looking for magic if they’re happy,” Madison says. “I think the theory is, with all of that power at their disposal, the dark side can take over.”
“The Buzzards have plenty of money now, though,” my grandmother adds. “The Magnolias pay them well to provide us with the spells we need.”
Suddenly, my head starts spinning. Hang on! I want to yell. But it’s all literally just too crazy for words. I get up and walk to the tall window, which is draped with velvet curtains. “I’m sorry,” I say. “This is just a lot to take in.”
“It’s nuts,” Hayes says. “I know. But once you digest a little, I think you’ll realize that it’s also pretty awesome. I mean, Alex, pretty much any problem you have—hoodoo can fix it. We’ll never run out of money. We’ll always be pretty. And we can get any guy we want.”
“What about bigger problems? World peace? The environmental crisis?”
“Those you’ll have to work on yourself, Gandhi,” Madison says. “The Buzzards can’t do everything.”
“I don’t know. It sounds too easy,” I say, looking out the window. “The Magnolias pay the Buzzards money, and they give us spells?”
“That’s the basic arrangement,” my grandmother says.
“Maybe I’ll call Sam tomorrow. I don’t think I’m getting all of this. He’s so cool. He can help explain—”
“Absolutely not,” my grandmother states, her voice slicing through the air. “You are not to fraternize with the Buzzards.”
“Why? You did. Isn’t that how this whole thing started in the first place?”
“All spells purchased go through me,” my grandmother says. “That way things don’t get out of control.”
“Out of control? Meaning…”
“Alex, let’s call it a day, shall we?” my grandmother says. “We don’t want you to break out into unsightly hives.” She rises. “Girls?”
The MGs gather their bags.
“See you tomorrow, Alex,” Hayes says.
“Just wait, Alex,” Madison whispers before she goes. “I know this is all a lot to take in, but you’ll see. Before you know it, everything is going to change.”
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