my mother cries. “Sam?” She looks at me and screams.
“Mom! Stop!”
“Who are you? What are you doing in my room?” She backs against the wall. “Why is everyone so late? The concert was years ago….”
My mom begins to sob. My mom. Here. Right now. I can touch her. She must be hurt, though. Some kind of head trauma. I race out of the room, heading for the phone in the front hall.
Heart pounding, I pick up the receiver, and my fingers are numb as they press the numbers 9-1-1.
The call disconnects. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice says.
I scream. Then I recognize the voice. “Sina!” I yell. “This isn’t the time to fool with me. My mother is alive!”
I hear Sina’s voice again. “She’s not. She looks alive, but she’s definitely not.”
“Where are you?” I shout into the darkness.
“Over here,” she says calmly.
I see a fuzzy shape crouched halfway up the wall. A shadow darker than the shadows around it.
“I don’t understand.” My words come out as a whine.
“If I want, I can be a boo hag,” she says. “I can slip my skin whenever I want. Tonight I decided I wanted to watch y’all at the fancy ball. Then I saw someone come out the window and run hell-bent for leather. ‘Who could that be?’ I said to myself. ‘Why, self,’ I said, ‘that appears to be Miss Dorothy Lee’s one and only granddaughter and the future of the Magnolia League. Now, what on earth is she doing running away from her big old soiree?’ So I followed you here, and I can’t say it hasn’t been interesting.”
“It’s not interesting, okay? My mom is really hurt! She needs help.”
“Your mother is dead.”
“But I just saw her.”
“You saw her spirit. Looks like your grandmother got between Louisa and her second burial, managed to trap her spirit somehow. She’s dead, but she can’t leave. No spirit could get out of that room. Not with those walls. We use haint blue to keep spirits out—looks like your grandmother uses it to do the opposite. Your grandmama may be mean, but she is smart.”
“What’s wrong with my mom?” I ask Sina. “She’s acting crazy.”
“That’s death. It messes you all up. You don’t have any sense of time. She thinks she’s your age again—and she’s terrified.”
“Sina, can you help me?”
“What are you offering?”
“I don’t know.” I feel frantic. I look at my watch. I have to meet Thaddeus in forty minutes. “What do you want?”
“I want something simple,” Sina replies. “I want an end to this bargain between the Magnolias and the Buzzards. I got other agendas. The problem is that only my daddy, Doc Buzzard, has the power to stand against your grandmama, and he would never do that.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“You’re the next in line for the mantle—your grandmother is grooming you to be next in command. Once you have it, you can shut down the League for good. So I’ll make you a deal: You cozy up to your grandmother and take over the League as soon as possible. I’ll learn how to free your mother.”
“How long will it take for you to figure it out?”
“Could be weeks, could be months. No more than a year. Maybe two. I’ll need to do some studying, some learning, some prying. In the meantime, I need you to burrow into the Magnolia League like a tick. And when the time comes, I’ll send your mother to her second burial, and you’ll take apart this League.”
“How do I know you’ll hold up your end?”
“Here,” she says, and a little purple bag, the size of my thumb, drops to the floor. “I made this out of the goofer dirt you brought me. Pin this to your mama’s shirt. It’ll bring her a little bit of comfort and let her get some rest.”
I pick it up warily and go upstairs. Inside the room, my mom cowers in the corner.
“Mom, it’s okay.” I rush to her side and put my hand on her shoulder. Her skin feels doughy.
“Get away!” she screams. My body hits the wall with a slap.
“Mom, quit it! Please!”
She growls like a dog.
Then I remember the book from the historical society. Okay, what the hell. I can try it.
“John the Conqueror,” I whisper.
“John the Conqueror,
John the Conqueror.”
I keep murmuring the words, moving slowly toward her. She watches me but doesn’t scream this time. It’s like talking to a wild animal.