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And he sighed the ancient words that were a dark promise. He said them all around to the others in the field under the whip, ". . . buba yali . . . buba tambi. . . . " There was a great outcryin'. The bent backs straighted up. Old and young who were called slaves and could fly joined hands. Say like they would ring-sing. But they didn't shuffle in a circle. They didn't sing. They rose on the air. They flew in a flock that was black against the heavenly blue. Black crows or black shadows. It didn't matter, they went so high. Way above the plantation, way over the slavery land. Say they flew away to Free-dom. —Virginia Hamilton, The People Could Fly Anna Perry woke one night shaking in terror from the dream she had just had. She sat up and shook her husband, Tom, awake, 'There's going to be trouble in our family!" Their daughter Lila was in grave danger. The mother and two sisters of Lila's young husband had been in the dream, the three women standing before Anna with unsmiling faces. The older woman had wordlessly held something out, and Anna had reached out her hand to take it. But when she saw what it was she dropped it with a scream; it was pure evil given form in a living creature. Something small, something black, something furry—"like a black chick." A sure sign, she knew, that the women meant their daughter harm. Perhaps if they called quickly to warn her it would not be too late to do something! But Lila did not heed her parents' advice. There was to be a party in a few days to celebrate the first anniversary of the marriage, and of course she had to invite her husband's family. "Besides," she told her mother, "the Bible tells us to forgive." Two weeks later pretty young Lila was dead—killed, so her mother believed, by sorcery. The Bible does say to forgive, said Anna, but it also says to watch as well as pray. (Tucson, Arizona; 1971) Another sign was received by Sister Erma Alien, Tom and Anna's evangelist neighbor, after she learned that her mother was lying near death in a California hospital. Erma's first thought was that she must leave at once, and she frantically went through her purse to see if 39 3 as well as Pray The Bible Says Watch 40 The Bible Says Watch as well as Pray she had the money to go; she did not. The tiny income she received from disability barely allowed her to pay bills and, as close as it was to the end of the month, she simply did not have the $13.85 required for the bus ticket. Nor was she successful in her efforts to borrow the money from any of her acquaintances; everyone else in the neighborhood was poor, too. She would have to get a job, then, although according to "the rules" she was not supposed to work. The fact that she might lose her disability money seemed unimportant when compared to the need of seeing her mother once more. There would be no problem finding something to do for the time it would take to save up for the ticket—but would her mother live that long? She decided to take it to the Lord. She did not ask that her mother be healed; that was in His hands. What she did ask was that He let the sick woman live until she could get there to say goodbye. And could He please send a sign that the request had been granted? But one should give if expecting to receive and Sister Erma pondered what she might do; certainly there was no money for candles or incense or the like. Then it came to her: She could offer the gift of a 24-hour fast and prayer vigil! She fell on her knees by the bed and, staring at the window, began to pray aloud. The hours passed and it was the dark just before dawn when the sign came: The window began to glow with a beautiful and unearthly blue light. 'Thank you, Jesus!" Her mother would live until she could reach her side. (Tucson, Arizona; 1971) A third sign took place in a Louisiana city. Several women sat in the anteroom of Prophetess Mother Mary, exchanging stories about how her advice had helped them in the past. But...

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