When her free-spirited mother dies in a tragic accident, sixteen-year old Alexandra Lee is forced to leave her West Coast home and move in with a wealthy grandmother she's never known in Savannah, Georgia. By birth, Alex is a rightful if unwilling member of the Magnolia League - Savannah's long-standing debutante society. But white gloves and silk gowns are a far cry from the vintage T-shirts and torn jeans shorts she's used to.
Alex is the first in decades to question the Magnolia League's intentions, yet even she becomes entangled in its seductive world. The members enjoy youth, beauty, and power... but at what cost? As Alex discovers a pact between the Magnolias and the Buzzards, a legendary hoodoo family, she unearths secrets - some deadly - hidden beneath the glossy Southern veneer.
New York Times bestselling author Katie Crouch's poignant and humorous voice shines in this enchanting and mysterious story about girls growing up in a magical Southern city.
Release date:
May 3, 2011
Publisher:
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Print pages:
368
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You know what I hate? Sweet tea. Actually, I wouldn’t call it tea; I’d say it’s more of a syrup. Ninety-eight percent sugar, with a little water thrown in so you don’t totally shrivel up and die in this torturous heat. It makes you fat just to pick up a glass, and then leaves your teeth rotten after one sip. Leave it to the crazy citizens of Georgia to flip out over a drink like that.
Other things that aren’t so great? Georgia summers. Georgia boys. My grandmother’s rules. My entire new freakin’ life in Georgia.
I know, I know. I have a bad attitude right now. Reggie would say I’m being a buzzkill. And if I had a buzz to kill, he’d be right. So, please, don’t hate me—I mean, really, this sour, bitter Alex is a new thing. Back in California, I was always a hey-the-grass-is-green-right-here kind of girl. But I’m not in California. As you might have guessed from this pity party of mine, I’m in Georgia. Savannah, Georgia, to be exact.
I’ve been here for two weeks, living in my grandmother’s pre–Civil War, twenty-three-room mansion on Forsyth Park. She’s tiny, but the ceilings and doorways seem designed for giants. As for practicality… well, six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a gallery, a ballroom, and a carriage house—all for one lady. And the decor? It could be truly rad, but she’s pretty much gone with the doily look. Think Southern fussiness meets the Addams Family. I’ve seen funeral parlors cozier than this place.
According to my grandmother and her lawyer, I’m doomed to call Gaston Street home until I’m eighteen. I’m sixteen now, so I guess that means I’m here for two more years. I’m pretty sure that’s longer than a stiff jail sentence for dealing weed.
“Alexaaaaandria!”
I’m Alex. That’s what everyone but my grandmother calls me, so that’s my real name. But I can’t seem to get her to remember that.
“Alexaaaaandria! Are you up here?”
I am up here. Yup. I’m sitting on the railing of the upstairs porch, trying to get a little pot out of this pipe. It was the last present my boyfriend, Reggie, gave me, and I’m hoping that somehow it’ll make it feel like he’s here.
I hear her heels clicking around the rooms. I haven’t seen her in any shoes other than heels. Always in a designer outfit, always in heels. Don’t be fooled, though. My grandmother is a ninja with brass knuckles, dressed for a tea party.
“I’m out here,” I call.
The footsteps slow for a moment as she homes in on her target. Then the pace quickens as she comes in for the kill.
Rap-rap-rap-rap-rap-rap-RAP.
Here she is: my grandmother, Mrs. Dorothy Lawson (first dead husband) Lee (second dead husband, and my mom’s dad). By the way, Mr. Lee, I’ve just been informed, descended from the famous Confederate general. Not exactly a direct descendant, but a cousin’s cousin or something. It’s kind of crazy, because that’s my last name too.
She just goes by Miss Lee now. Doesn’t want me to call her Grandma, because it “ages” her. That’s cool with me. And truthfully, she does look pretty young to be a grandmother. Her dark, shiny hair (no gray in sight) is tied back, with some perfectly placed tendrils escaping around her oval face. There are a few laugh lines (not that I ever see her laugh) around her dark green eyes, but other than that, her face is pretty much as smooth as mine. She is what Big Jon would call “doll pretty”—meaning she looks so delicate that it seems you might break her if you shook her hand too hard.
“Alexandria, it smells like a skunk daaaiiied up here.” She has one of those Southern accents that manages, despite the region’s reputation for hospitality, to be completely disapproving and unfriendly all the time.
“It’s the herb,” I say.
“The what?”
“It’s pot. I’m smoking pot.”
My grandmother puts one hand on her hip and points a surprisingly young-looking finger at me with the other. All available body parts seem to drip with jewels.
“Are you trying to per-tuuuuhhb me, Alexandria?”
“Sort of.”
“Well, if you’re goin’ to smoke, at least smoke tobacco. I’ve got stock in Philip Morris, which means, since you are the sole heir to my estate, you do too. Anyway. Pahhh-lease dress. Your Magnolia sisters will be here this afternoon. I’ve arranged for two girls from your debutante class to come over shortly after my meeting.”
“I am dressed.”
“Alexandria, you are wearin’ rags.”
“I’m wearing shorts. And this is vintage. Look: the Grateful Dead, Greek Theatre, 1985. Arguably the Dead’s sickest show ever. This shirt’s probably worth, like, fifty bucks.”
“Please, Alexandria.”
“Miss Lee, what they see is what they get.”
My grandmother narrows her eyes. When she does that, they look black. It’s a very frightening effect, as if the pupils have taken over.
“All right,” she says. “If that’s how you’d like to play this.”
“Play what?”
“Oh, you’ll see eventually, Alexandria. I’ll call you when they’re here.”
Her footsteps click down the hall and, as if by magic, suddenly disappear.
Magnolia League Meeting, Number 417
Mrs. Lee presiding
Refreshments: Mrs. Buchanan
“So? What do we know about her?”
“Well, she looks just like her mother.”
“That’s a good start. Louisa was a lovely girl.”
“But there’s something wrong with her hair.”
The Magnolia League meeting room is dark and cool, despite the scorching August heat outside. The League occupies a trim brick building on Habersham Street. It was built in 1826 by Isaiah Davenport, and in 1864—when General Sherman attempted to make it the headquarters of his godless occupation—he was met on the front steps by eighty-five-year-old Matilda “Marmy” Davenport, who said, “I just washed my floors, and no damn Yankee is going to scuff them up unless it’s over my dead body.” After that she took out a gun and shot herself. (Her pistol still hangs in the front hall as a testament to the decisiveness of Savannah women.)
As is the custom for the monthly meeting of the officers of the Magnolia League, the ladies, save Miss Lee, have arrived promptly at four o’clock. After handing their bags and parcels to the caretaker, Lucius, they gather around the long, carved mahogany table. A pitcher of sweet tea sits on the sideboard next to a large red velvet cake prepared by Mrs. Julie Buchanan. No one understands exactly why she attempted to make something as complicated as a red velvet cake, but a Magnolia Leaguer would rather die than bad-mouth a sister’s cooking. There is plenty of tea to wash it down and, really, at least she didn’t try to pass off store-bought as her own.
Lucius is as old as Methuselah. He can no longer cope with some of the heavier packages, and Lord help him if anything falls on the floor. But he is trusted, and that is worth its weight in gold, flexibility be damned. The monthly meeting of the Magnolia League is the tent-pole event around which Savannah’s most influential women organize their calendars. All of Savannah’s business and politics pass through there, whether officially or not, and while the Savannah Morning News would never dream of being so tacky as to ask after the meetings, that free weekly paper once tried to send a well-dressed spy to infiltrate. Lucius doused her with pepper spray that he kept on hand for vicious dogs, and to this day, six years later, he still brags proudly that the Savannah police hadn’t dared to arrest him.
The League is tiny and exclusive, a fortress of etiquette and calm in the hectic modern world, and its ramparts are manned by the Senior Four: Dorothy Lee, the president and founder; Sybil McPhillips, the League vice president and wife of the Honorable Tom McPhillips, Georgia state senator; Mary Oglethorpe, treasurer; and Khaki Pettit, who, despite having a wide variety of opinions on all subjects, has never had any interest in an office and therefore does not hold one. These are the key members of the League, and their places at the table are marked with name cards. The other members—the daughters and granddaughters of the Senior Four who have already “come out” into society at debutante balls—sit wherever they can. Despite the fact that outside this building they are business owners, doctors, wives of bank presidents, and well-known philanthropists, on Habersham Street they are nothing more, or less, than Magnolias. Within that context, first there are the Senior Four, and then there is everyone else.
Before Mrs. Dorothy Lee arrives, the gossip is a free-for-all. Today’s topic: Alexandria Lee.
“It’s matted.”
“No, it’s locked.”
“Her hair is locked?”
“Dreadlocked. That’s what Hayes calls it.”
“Deadlocked?”
“Lucy, darling, are you deaf?”
“Well, it does look like something died in there.”
“And have you seen her clothes? All that girl’s taste is in her mouth.”
“Bless her heart, she’s young.”
“So is Hayes, and—”
“They can’t all look like your granddaughter, Sybil.”
Sybil’s granddaughter, Hayes, was generally accepted as the very model of a modern junior Magnolia League member, and her grandmother couldn’t help agreeing. Hayes is practically perfect in every way except for a slight overbite, and Sybil plans on having that fixed for the girl’s graduation present, or maybe even her Sweet Seventeen. The only serious problem with Hayes, as far as Sybil is concerned, is her gratuitous boyfriend, whom Sybil refers to only as “That One.”
“Bless her heart, she is chubby.”
“That can be fixed. Is she on the up-and-up?”
“She smokes hashish.”
“It’s marijuana, honey.”
“That’s how they do in California.”
“Well, it’s not how we do down hee-ah.”
“Not unless you’re one of those scags on River Street, anyway.”
Just then there is the sound of expensive heels pattering the hard oak floor. The ladies immediately hush as Miss Lee sweeps into the room. She regards them briefly, pours herself a large glass of sweet tea, and sits at the head of the table.
“Hello, Miss Lee,” the ladies say in a chorus.
“Good afternoon, girls.” Miss Lee regards them for a moment and smiles. She removes her purple silk jacket, stretches her thin, pale arm forward, and takes a tiny key off her charm bracelet. As the other Magnolia League members watch carefully, she uses it to open the ornate box in front of her, and then lifts from it a gold necklace with a dangling ivory pendant that is intricately carved in the shape of a magnolia. A sigh of envy fills the room as Dorothy grandly places it around her slender neck.
“Meeting to order.”
“Order!” the ladies chorus enthusiastically.
“Now, what were y’all talking about in here?”
“Your granddaughter,” Sybil says flatly.
Miss Lee raises her eyebrows. “Well, don’t let me stop you.”
“Dorothy, she is such a healthy, healthy girl, bless her heart, but do you really think we can get her ready in time for the Christmas Ball?” Mary Oglethorpe asks.
“Whatever do you mean, Mary?”
“We don’t want to offend you, Dorothy,” Sybil chimes in. “But the girl is a wild child, and we can’t have her tarnishing the image that our young people, and my Hayes in particular, have worked so hard to maintain.”
Miss Lee’s eyes wrinkle at the corners as if she is about to laugh.
“Sybil, honey. Don’t be daft, now. She’s a little rough around the edges, but that’s what sisterhood is all about. I’m sure Madison and Hayes will have her polished up in no time.”
“This isn’t a game, Dorothy. If she doesn’t take, there are consequences.”
“I’m well aware of the consequences,” Miss Lee snaps. “I don’t need you reminding me. My daughter was a victim of those consequences, and if you think I’ve forgotten what happened to her, then you’re a damn fool.”
Silence falls over the room.
“Does she even want to be a Magnolia?” Mary asks.
“Good Lord almighty, Mary, she is sixteen years old. She doesn’t know what she wants,” Miss Lee says. “But it’s not a matter of want. She is a Magnolia, and she will sit next to me at this table come hell or high water.”
As a practiced politician herself, Sybil is able to keep her expression as pleasant and serene as a day on the lake. But underneath the table, she clenches her fists so hard that her knuckles turn white and her nails dig into her palms.
“Believe you me,” Miss Lee continues, “as her grandmother, I’d like nothing more than to let Alexandria go right on back to California. The girl rides a bicycle all over town, her hair is ugly enough to haunt a nine-room house, and she’d argue with a wall. But you know as well as I do, ladies, that Alexandria Lee doesn’t have a choice. We all made our bed decades ago. And now, just like the rest of us, she’s got to lie in it.”
So, the obvious: I did not grow up in a mansion on Forsyth Park in Savannah, Georgia. My childhood was more of an Allman Brothers song than a Southern princess storybook. I was born in Mendocino, California, in the back of a VW bus, and my mom was a pretty Deadhead named Louisa Lee. She looked a lot like my grandmother, actually. Same high cheekbones, green eyes, shiny brown hair, and tawny skin. But she was healthier-looking than Miss Lee is. More exotic. The kind of beautiful woman you see on a trail with a backpack on, hiking with her dog.
Me, I’m shorter and rounder than both of them. I have the same eyes, but my hair, when it’s not dreaded, is a complete frizz fest, and my skin is nowhere near the creamy alabaster color of theirs. Plus, I put on ten pounds if I even look at a grilled cheese sandwich. My mom used to say that I’m “voluptuous.” I’m just hoping it’s prolonged baby fat.
Most likely I take after my dad, whom I’ve never met but who is someone—or something—called “Wolf Man.” The only thing Mom ever said about him was that he was good with the herb and a real hit with the ladies—probably in the parking lots of Phish shows. Whatever.
I’ve never missed having a father. That’s because I grew up on Rain Catcher Farms, a communal organic farm north of Mendocino, and that place is always crawling with people. Some of them come in for the harvest, but others, like my mom and me, stay for years. And I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to stay forever. It’s awesome. I’m a big reader, and I don’t use words lightly, so when I say awesome, I mean that the place, when seen, elicits true awe because of its beauty. The farm is in a small, lush valley, with gold-and-green mountains on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. Everyone eats and hangs out in the Main, a pretty, old carriage barn filled with books and plants and hammocks; beyond the gate, a mile-long white-gravel road leads to a stretch of pristine, wild beach.
Mom and I lived in a cabin in a grove of redwoods near the Sanctuary, the root garden she created. She was the RC’s root doctor. People came from all around for Rain Catcher tinctures, and our products contributed a nice amount of money for the commune. Her garden, a lush, quiet, magical spot, was hidden from the world by a high wooden fence. It was the sweetest place anyone could imagine. The walls were covered with vines and flowers so thick they were woven together, like pretty knots of unkempt hair. Inside you were only allowed to talk in a whisper, as it was her theory that plants grow better in the quiet. She was always saying that the ground is alive—that one must work with Mother Earth and not just use what she has to offer. Sometimes Mom would simply sit under the trees, listening to the leaves rustle. “They’re whispering to me,” she’d say. To her, the life cycle of plants stood for the connection between the living and the dead.
As soon as I was old enough to crawl, I started working in the RC fields. Instead of Sesame Street songs, I learned the ins and outs of how to grow organic broccoli, kale, potatoes, beets, even bananas—basically anything that comes out of the ground. As I got older, Mom let me participate in what she called her “rituals.” Mostly, these were homeopathic medicines and treatments. For instance, did you know that red-onion root is a sure cure for early colds? Or that gingerroot tea will make your period come if it’s, as my mother would say, “stuck”? We’d make soaps and tinctures and tonics to heal anything from fevers to warts to depression. My mother’s fingertips were always stained green. She smelled of grass and cloves.
She had other remedies, too, that seemed to require more than just herbs and berries. For instance, when I was seven I developed a terrible wheeze. We went all the way to a doctor in San Francisco, who said I had asthma and gave us a bag full of inhalers and pills. I remember that when we came back, my mother put the bag on the kitchen table in our cabin and looked at it a long time. Then she picked up a knife and led me outside by the hand and had me stand next to a young eucalyptus tree. She took the knife, put it over my head, and cut a hole in the tree that was even with my hairline. After that, she cut a lock of my hair and put it in the hole. She closed her eyes and began mumbling and singing, rubbing the rough stone she always wore around her neck. As soon as I grew taller than that hole, my asthma disappeared.
She kept many of the recipes secret. She wouldn’t say why exactly, but I guess that some of the effects were too powerful for just any old person to be able to access. Nor would she ever tell anyone where she had learned these skills. All sorts of theories floated around the RC—that she’d studied in China and had a PhD in botany, for example. But whenever anyone asked how she knew so much, she would answer only with a dazzling, mysterious smile.
My mom died almost one year ago. When I found out about the accident, we were playing Hacky Sack—me, my friend Billy, and some college girl. The RC always has college kids who come for the summer, and they all kind of blend together, but this one I remember perfectly. She was a hippie, and she was trying to play the game with her shirt off.
“She’s like her own personal volleyball court,” Billy said. Billy could be really obnoxious. He loved to pinch my fat, and he made fun of anyone he could. Still, I’ll always be grateful to him for making us all laugh just then, because that’s about the best thing I can think of to be doing when you get news like I got that day.
I didn’t know right away, of course. But I knew to stop laughing. Something was really, really wrong. Wendy, Big Jon’s daughter, came up to us looking scared and interrupted our game.
“Alex,” she said, “Big Jon needs you at the Main. The cops are here.”
I thought someone had narced on us. See, the RC is known for its holistically grown organic produce and herbal tinctures. But to be straight, it’s also a pot farm—just a few plants, but enough to make Big Jon, the owner, some money, and definitely enough to make everyone nervous when helicopters fly overhead.
My mom and I didn’t have anything to do with that. Still, along with everyone else, I knew about the shady agriculture at the RC, and I was thoroughly trained in just-in-case-the-feds-come scenarios.
“Plants?” I was going to say. “What plants?” I’m pretty good at keeping a straight face, so as I walked into the Main behind Wendy, I was silently practicing what to tell the police. But it turned out that wasn’t what they were there for at all.
Big Jon was crying. He’s a big, jolly Santa Claus kind of guy, so this behavior was pretty alarming. When he saw me, he pointed to his favorite easy chair, which no one gets to sit in, ever.
“Alex,” he said, “I’m afraid I got a bad trip for you. I’m so sorry. Go ahead, sweetheart. Sit on down.”
Even thinking as hard as I can about that afternoon, I can’t remember exactly what those policemen said. Instead, I have only little details and phrases. For instance, I remember that one officer had a birthmark on his forehead in the shape of a crescent moon and that the other had cheeks as shiny as waxed apples. I remember trying to make sense of the words themselves, because the whole story wasn’t working for me. “Orr Springs Road.” (Ore? I thought. Like gold?) “Hairpin turn.” (Mom uses barrettes, not hairpins.) “Instant death.” (Instant coffee?) “Wouldn’t have felt a thing.” (Huh, that’s what I hear happens on a good LSD trip.) It took a couple of days for me to fully comprehend that my mother’s old VW bus went off Orr Springs Road while she was driving back from the hardware store in Ukiah. She had driven away and wasn’t coming back.
My mom’s dead. It’s a pretty horrifying thing to have to tell people. And yet I have to say it all the time. When I do, reactions vary. Some people want to give me a hug, which I usually refuse. Other people simply change the subject.
I wish there were better words so that I could explain everything about her in a sentence. Because if I just say, “Yeah, she’s dead,” you won’t get to hear about how cool her shiny brown braids were, or how all the guys stared at her even though she was a mom, or how she smelled like coconuts, or how she loved to sing but had the voice of a wounded badger. You’ll never know how she planned secret meetings for us in the Sanctuary, with the eucalyptus trees bending in the wind and sighing overhead. How she would tell me ghost stories about the mysterious, unnamed town she came from, or how we’d sit for hours chatting at our daily teatime, or how she taught me to make a sleep potion from valerian root and chamo. . .
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