I meant. “I’m a bitch, but not that kind of bitch. Thaddeus likes you. He’s been coaching me on how to clean up Dex and make him behave himself, that’s all. If you want that kind of man stealer for a friend, then head back to Cali. The MGs don’t roll that way. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say weakly.
Hayes waves for the champagne, and I take two glasses. She and Madison are acting as though this is the funniest thing they’ve ever heard.
“Relax, Alex,” Hayes says. “Thaddeus will be here. Our mom will actually commit murder if he doesn’t show up. I’ll talk to him, cool him down. He’ll be fine.”
“Oh no, look who’s here,” Madison says, staring over my shoulder.
We turn and there’s Constance Taylor, standing awkwardly in the door, wearing a loose denim dress.
“A jean dress?” Madison mutters. “She’s actually wearing a jess? To a ball?”
My heart plummets even lower when she spots me and walks over.
“You all look…” She searches for the word. “Very appropriate. Alex, I need to speak with you privately.”
“She’s got a full schedule tonight,” Madison says.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, and I let Constance lead me to the powder room.
The powder room has a love seat, vanity tables, makeup mirrors—anything to hide the fact that this is a room where a woman might actually hitch up her dress and pee. Carson, that little monster who got the snakebite out at the Field, is leaning out the window smoking a cigarette. When she sees Constance and me, she stubs out her butt and swishes from the room.
“I work so hard to educate you kids,” Constance says. “And yet you all insist on doing the same dumb things over and over again.”
“Just because one of us smokes, it doesn’t mean the rest of us do,” I say. “Is this what you have to tell me? Smoking causes cancer?”
“I’m talking about the Magnolia League. You have to get out now.”
“Constance—I can call you Constance off campus, right?”
She nods.
“I hear you, okay? The Magnolia League is elitist and privileged, and it’s totally not fair that we have the advantages that we do. It’s like hogging the carpool lane of life, and it sucks for everyone else. I get that. But it’s really important to my grandmother that I be in it, and my friends are here, and it’s not as stuffy as it seems. And there’s some other stuff—”
“The hoodoo,” she says.
I’m too surprised to lie. “Who told you?”
“You all think you’re so unique and special. The Magnolia League has been around for more than fifty years. You kids are not the first to discover hoodoo and think you’ve found the solution to all of life’s problems.”
“Why do you even care?” I ask.
“How deeply are you involved?”
“Not too deeply,” I say. “Well, we did this big ritual to cleanse me of my ex-boyfriend.”
“At the Roost?”
“Yeah.”
“Anything else?”
“Some hair spells. And…” I’m hesitant to tell her. I don’t want to be fat again.
“What?”
“I’ve got a bird doppelgänger that eats all my food.”
She exhales with relief. “Those are relatively harmless.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“Listen, Alex. You’re the star of the show tonight, so we don’t have much time. Have you heard of a Blue Root?”
I shake my head.
“It’s a hex on someone to bring that person harm. If a Blue Root is on you, then you will die; the only question is how. There’s a Blue Root on the entire League. That’s the bargain they made: They can be queens of Savannah, but only Savannah. Your friends, Hayes and Madison? If they leave Savannah, they die.”
“But… my mother left.”
“She had this,” she says. “This is your ticket out of here.”
It takes me a second to realize she’s pointing to my necklace.
“This fugly thing?” I say. “Come on.”
“That fugly thing is more powerful than you can imagine. It protects the wearer from all harm.”
I want to laugh in her face, and then I remember what Sina said. “A Fear Not to Walk Over Evil,” I say.
“Who told you that?” she asks.
“Sina mentioned it.”
“You need to go. This place is poison. You’re a bright, intelligent girl, Alex. You can write your own ticket. I’m begging you: Walk out that door and go. Now. Tonight. Before it’s too late and you’re trapped here for the rest of your life.”
“But if I have the necklace, why should I worry?”
“How do you think your mother died?”
I shake my head, speechless. What could Constance possibly be talking about?
“She had the necklace. Then someone conjured it off her. I