one who put Tamika Brown in a wheelchair. There was evil in this world, but right now, at this moment, it wasn't her.
It was the hatred he saw in the faces of his neighbors. It was the wolflike howling of their voices.
So he kept jogging down the hill until he was among them, pushing his way through them. Then he stood on the porch, shoving aside the men who were kicking at the door.
"Where's your burning cross!" he shouted. "You can't have a lynching without a burning cross!
Where are your white hoods? Come on, do this right! You gonna kill somebody without a trial, just because you're scared, then get the gear, wear the outfit, follow the recipe!"
"Why are you doing this?"
"She's a witch!" shouted a man. The others murmured their assent.
"So when LAPD shows up and wonders why there's a riot in Baldwin Hills and maybe even a lynching, you'll all explain that you had to burn a witch, is that your plan? That's what we'll see when they show your pictures on the evening news. Niggahs riot again but this time it's cause they all 'fraid of witches." He poured all the scorn he could muster into his words.
"Mack," said Ebby DeVries, "I'm scared."
"Of course you're scared," said Mack. "Ugly things happened here tonight. And it doesn't make sense, because what happened, it was magic. Evil. Just like you think. Just like poor old Curtis Brown tried to tell us all those years ago. He woke up and Tamika was swimming around inside his waterbed and he only just saved her life. Impossible! Couldn't happen! Like Deacon Landry. He never did nothing to Juanettia Post. He wished for it! That's all he did! Any of you men ever wish for a woman wasn't your wife? That was all it was, wishing. Then all of a sudden, just like Tamika in the waterbed, he's in the middle of church naked with Juanettia Post right when people start arriving for church."
"Choir practice," somebody corrected him.
"Tonight Grand Harrison and me, we dug up old Mr. McCallister's grave and opened his coffin and saved the life of Ophelia McCallister because she wished she could be with him and that same evil magic granted her damn wish."
There was a murmur through the crowd.
"And what about you? Why were you suddenly so sure you had to come attack Yolanda White? Who told you she was a witch?"
"Nobody had to tell us," said Lamar Weeks.
"That's right," said Mack. "You just knew. You woke up and you knew she was a witch and you had to go... do what? What were you going to do?"
"Get her," somebody said.
"Get her and do what?" demanded Mack.
They had no answer.
"Burn her alive? Was that the plan? Like they used to do when they lynched uppity niggahs in the South? String her up and light a fire under her? Don't you see? That same evil magic got into you and made you act like the most evil people you ever knew of. And you didn't even try to stop yourselves." He looked at Ebby. "Ebony DeVries, what you doing here?"
"Watching you save your loverbaby's life," she said bitterly.
"How do you know so much, Mack Street!" called out Ebony's father.
"Because that evil magic been doing ugly things to me my whole life. I been seeing your dreams - the deep dreams, the wishes of your heart. This whole neighborhood, I been seeing your darkest secrets in my dreams my whole life."
"And you telling us there's no such thing as witches?" said Lamar.
"I'm telling you that there is such a thing as evil, and tonight you are his slaves! Unless you stand up and say no to the devil."
"You say no to the devil!" shouted Lamar. "Get away from the door and let us through."
"Start by killing me, Lamar," said Mack. "Not the whole mob here, just you. Come up here and kill me. Do murder with your own hands. Show everybody how you're the enemy of evil. Kill a kid."
"Nobody going to kill you, Mack," said a woman.
"I been fighting off these dreams of yours for years, ever since I figured out how it worked. If I let the dream finish, then it might come true. So I'd make myself get out of those dreams of yours. I wouldn't let them finish. But tonight, our enemy started making his move. He forced the dreams through to the end. Ophelia McCallister wishing for her husband to be in her arms again. Sabrina