foot away, then leap on her. My mom screams and scratches at me, but I wrestle her down and pin the mojo on her sleeve. She pushes me away again. This time, my head hits the corner of the bed. It hurts so much that I see a white flash.
“Mom…”
The last thing I see is her lying on the bed.
I open my eyes after what feels like a few days, but when I look at my mom’s silver watch, I see that only half an hour has passed. I’m supposed to meet Thaddeus in six minutes! My mom is asleep on the bed, the mojo pinned to her sleeve. She finally looks peaceful, the way I remember her, and I know in my heart that I won’t be meeting Thaddeus anytime soon.
I creep back downstairs. “Sina?”
“She sleeping?” Sina’s voice comes from my right. I look over—she’s taken her normal form again. But she doesn’t look sixteen anymore. Her face is as weathered as an old boat shoe.
“You’ve got a deal,” I say.
“If you promise, then I need a blood shake. Hold still.” She leans forward and cuts a small slice in my wrist with a knife.
“Ow!”
Sina hisses at me, and then I feel her hot breath on my wrist as she takes the blood into a vial. “Go back on this bargain,” she says, “and you’ll hurt in ways you never thought possible.”
“I’m not walking away, Sina,” I say. “I’m here until this is finished.”
There’s silence.
“Sina?”
She’s gone. I don’t hear anyone in the house. I go upstairs and carefully place the watch and the pearls back in my mother’s dresser. Then I slip out of the room. I have to get back to the ball. I put on my dress again—it still looks okay. My hair is mussed, but I can pass that off as the result of a night of partying. I wrap a piece of silk around the oozing cut on my wrist, slide my feet into my old flip-flops, and run downstairs.
Out on the street, I look toward Forsyth Park. Thaddeus is certainly already there, waiting for me. I could go and explain but, really, what am I going to say to him? I can’t betray him twice in one night and still expect him to forgive me.
“I love you, Thaddeus,” I say out loud. It’s true too. I really do. But he can’t hear me and, besides, I’ve made my choice. I love my mother more.
“I love you,” Sybil says, hugging Hayes.
“I love you too,” Hayes says, hugging her grandmother back. Sybil had pulled Hayes into an upstairs powder room, and Hayes had a sneaking suspicion that she was about to be given the keys to a boat, or maybe the beach house. Except her dad wasn’t there, and he was always there whenever money was being spent. So what was it?
“I am so proud of you tonight,” Sybil says. “And that’s why it is so hard to talk to you about this matter, but you need to know. Honey, your friend Alex has crossed you.”
“Grandmother, it was my idea to walk the stairs like that,” Hayes says.
Sybil reaches out her hand and cups her granddaughter’s cheek. Such a trusting girl, always sticking up for her friends. The kind of girl who always winds up in trouble.
“Sweetness, this isn’t about walking the stairs. Have you ever told Alex about the troubles with Madison last year?”
“Of course.”
“We all know that Madison didn’t mean anything by it; she was just a silly little girl making poor choices. But Alex has put a love spell on your brother. And not just one, but two. He could die, Hayes.”
“Alex wouldn’t do that,” Hayes says. “She knows what happened the last time. She knows how dangerous it is.”
“You know I worry, and I keep track of your things,” Sybil says. “Thaddeus has been missing socks recently, and last week he was missing a shirt. I wasn’t going to kick up a fuss, but then I found this under his mattress.” She pulls out a piece of brown paper. On it, unmistakably in Alex’s handwriting, is Alex’s name written five times over Thaddeus’s name. “You know what that is,” Sybil says.
“But they’re breaking up. He tried to break up with her….”
“Maybe that’s what you thought,” Sybil says. “But her hold on him is strong.”
Just then Hayes’s phone buzzes. She fishes it out of her clutch and sees the missed call from Thaddeus. She listens to the voice mail: “Hayes, I don’t want