"Dig," said Yo Yo.
"No! That's just—"
Yo Yo put a hand on his cheek. "For me."
Mack was amazed. The man's whole face and posture and everything changed. He was in love with her, right on the spot. Completely out of his mind crazy for her. Like a puppy dog.
"You want me to dig?" he said. "How deep?"
"Let's find Mr. McCallister's coffin," said Yo Yo.
And so they dug. That is, Mack and Grand dug, Grand wielding the pick to loosen things up, and Mack shoveling and then Grand joining in with the other shovel, working fast—Mack because he knew there wouldn't be much air in that coffin, and Grand because he was showing off for his new lady love.
"Yo Yo," said Mack, "you going to kill this man if he don't slow down."
"Grand," she said lazily, "take it a little slower. Don't want you getting a heart attack on me."
Grand Harrison grinned like a jack-o'-lantern and slowed down just a little.
And after a while they hit wood. They couldn't lift the lid until they cleared away the dirt the whole length and breadth of the coffin, and even when they'd done that, it took serious work with the crowbar to get the thing open. It wasn't a cheap coffin.
Yo Yo stood over the hole, looking down. "Open it," she said.
Mack lifted up and sure enough, inside the box was the rotted, desiccated corpse of Mr.
McCallister, its raggedy-sleeved arms wrapped around a wide-eyed Ophelia.
She looked dead.
"We too late," said Grand.
"No," said Yo Yo. "She's just terrified. Help her out. Lift her out. Get her breathing."
"Carry her to the SUV," said Yo Yo. "I can only keep the security guy away from here for so long before I wear out."
"Shouldn't we fill in the hole?" asked Mack.
"All that matters," said Yo Yo, "is that when they look into the coffin, they don't find an extra body."
Mack carried Ophelia McCallister to the SUV She was light as a pillow. He didn't know old people were so... empty. She clung to his neck and wept into his chest, but her sobs felt like the trembling of a tiny bird's wings and her arms around his neck were like a baby's hands, her grip was so weak.
"I couldn't breathe," she whispered between sobs. "I couldn't breathe. Thank you. Thank God."
Saved one, thought Mack. I actually saved one. So maybe I was shown those dreams for a reason. Maybe I'm not just Oberon's tool in this world.
Nadine Williams opened the door. A police officer was standing there. She knew immediately that something terrible had happened to Word. She had warned him about becoming a minister in such a godforsaken part of the city. They'll kill you. They have no respect for religion. And God won't protect you, you can count on that! When you trust in God, you're on your own.
And now a policeman was here to tell them that Word was dead.
She sucked in her breath and refused to cry. "Can I help you, Officer?"
"Mrs. Williams," said the policeman. "I'm Ceese Tucker. Is your husband here?"
"My husband? He's asleep. Or he was, till you rang the doorbell."
"I need to see him," said Ceese.
"You can tell me," said Nadine.
"Tell you what?" He looked genuinely puzzled.
"I thought... aren't you here about Word?"
"What about Word?" asked Ceese.
"He was preaching his first sermon tonight in that little church in that awful neighborhood and I thought... he's all right?"
Nadine would have continued arguing, but she felt Byron's hand on her shoulder.
"What is it, Ceese?" asked Byron.
"Professor Williams," said Ceese. "You remember Bag Man?"
"I want nothing further to do with him."
"I know that, sir," said Ceese. "I'm just telling you that the kind of thing that happens around that man, it's happening tonight to a lot of folks, and we have reason to think it might have happened to you."
Nadine looked at Byron, puzzled. Did he know what this young man was talking about?
"Nothing like that," said Byron.
"Did you have a dream tonight, sir?" asked Ceese.
"A dream?" said Nadine. "Are you the dream police?"
But Byron answered him. "I did."
"A powerful dream. About your poetry, sir."
Nadine peered at her husband's face and could see that yes, he had dreamed such a dream.
"But Byron, I didn't know you wrote poetry."
"Sir," said Ceese, "I think there's reason to be afraid that your dream has come true. In an unpleasant way."
"I've dreamed it before and it never..."
"Tonight is different," said Ceese. "For several other people that we know of."
Ceese's cellphone rang. "Excuse me for a moment, sir," said Ceese.
Byron stood there for a moment in the doorway, watching Ceese as he started talking on the phone. Nadine looked back and forth between them.
"So you got there in time," said Ceese into the phone. "She's okay?" He looked relieved.
Byron suddenly swung away from the door and trotted toward the "office"—the spare bedroom where the computer was always on.
When Ceese put away his cellphone he stepped into the house. "Do you know where your husband went?"
Ceese didn't ask if he could go back there, he just went, and Nadine didn't even protest. This was a very strange evening, and what she'd heard of the cellphone conversation led her to think that something very bad had almost happened to a girl named Sherita, and that would probably be Sherita Banks, that girl who had inherited her mother's hippopotamus thighs and buttocks at a tragically young age. Her parents had tried and tried to have a baby before they finally got Sherita. It just showed you that even the blessings in your life come with their own burdens. Like Word, with his sudden conversion to Christianity three years ago, and two failed attempts at divinity school, and now this dangerous, foolish attempt to become a preacher at a storefront church in a hellish neighborhood. All the hopes and dreams they both had for that beautiful boy, and this is what he was doing with his life.
But at least he hadn't become a policeman, like Ceese Tucker. How did his mother ever sleep nights? No matter how bad things were, somebody always had it worse.
Byron was sitting at the computer, his face buried in his hands.
Ceese walked around behind him and looked at the screen. Nadine followed him.
Byron had googled "Byron Williams poems" and the screen was showing the first seven of more than three thousand entries.
How could there be three thousand entries about Byron's poetry on the web, and she had never even known he wrote any?
Ceese leaned over and used the mouse to click on the first entry. A moment later, a website came up.
It was a review. "Now that the poems of Pepperdine Professor Byron Williams have been spread through the web like a virus, can anyone tell us whether this was the ultimate in vanity publication, or a cruel joke? Either way, we can all agree that Professor Williams deserves our deepest sympathy. Because it's doubtful any of his students can ever take him seriously again after reading these things."
"Oh my Lord," said Nadine. "Did you really write poetry and publish it on the web?"
"I didn't publish anything," whispered Byron Williams. "It was some hacker."
"No," said Ceese, and his voice was full of pity. "It was the deepest wish of your heart."
Chapter 18
WITCH
They gathered in Ophelia's house, where Mack and Grand helped her calm down.
"Somebody kidnapped me and put me down there." She shivered and sipped a little more tea.
"No," said Mack. "They didn't. It was your wish. To be with your husband."
"What you're talking about is magic. You should be old enough to know better."