Page 42 of Potion Sickness

“Tiffany has been running complex social campaigns in this town since the eighth grade. She got Jenny Calloway voted off the prom committee with a rumor that she had a third eye —like an actual one — under her bangs, remember? The woman is not an amateur.”

“No, Hannah, I don’t remember who got voted off the prom committee, and I can’t believe you do.”

“I was on the prom committee, Mari. Some wounds don’t heal.”

Lily arrives at the table with an apple sword in each hand.

“I’m dying,” she announces, and collapses atop a stool.

“Not on the stool, Lil. People sit there.”

“Dead people don’t care where they are.” She lies there, apple swords crossed over her chest, one eye open to check that her audience is paying attention.

“She saw another video,” Emma says from the floor, without looking up.

“This one had a FLIP,” Lily says, abandoning death to sit up. “The guy did a flip and THEN he died. Can I do a flip off the stage tonight?”

“No.”

“A small flip?”

“A small flip is still a flip. No flips.”

“Ms. Pelham did a flip off the stage.”

“Ms. Pelham tripped, and we’re lucky she wasn’t hurt.”

“It looked like a flip.”

“Ms. Pelham is one misstep away from a nursing home. She absolutely did not do a flip.”

Lily accepts this defeat and returns to her apple swords.

“Annabel says croak tonics taste like old pennies,” Addie offers. “She taught me. They share a base with heart philters, except heart philters are sweet on top of the pennies and croak tonics are bitter. If Pru had tasted it, she would’ve known.”

“Pru might not have drunk it at all,” I say.

“That’s lucky.”

“We have too many threads and too few hands, Marigold,” Englebert says.

“I know.”

“You need to talk to Tiffany.”

“I know.”

“Not at rehearsal,” Hannah says. “You need to go to the salon.”

I look at her.

“Get your hair done,” she says. “Book an appointment. She said it herself, right? People tell their hairdresser things they don’t tell their lawyer. Maybe it goes both ways. Get in her chair and let her tell you things.”

“I’m not going to Tiffany’s salon.”

“Why not?”

“Because the last time I was in Tiffany’s salon I was sixteen and her mother told me my hair was ‘a lot’ and then gave me bangs that made me look like a sheepdog for six months.”