Oleda

Margaret sat wringing her hands in mute appeal as she tried once again to make the Reverend understand her situation. "Nothing would please me more Reverend, but the girl can't help it, she sees what she sees. "Now Sister Johnson, I know the girl is peculiar, but she can't go around telling God fearing people she can see into their future. It isn't right it's the work of the devil, surely you can understand that?

 "But Reverend she's trying to help people how can that be devil's work?" "Truth is the only time she says anything is when something can be done to stop things, bad things from happening. She don't mean no harm." Reverend Jones took her hands in his soothing her. Now sister Johnson I don't mean to be harsh and I see I've upset you that was never my intention, I just need you to see how imperative it is that she not run afoul of the Lord and his wisdom."

 Upstairs, Oleda sat cross legged on the floor by her bedroom door. She knew it was rude to eavesdrop, but she had to hear what the Reverend was saying. With the door cracked just so she could listen in without being seen.

 She shifted resting her back against the wall her heart beating a mile a minute. He wanted her to stop warning people. Why couldn't he just leave well enough alone?

Momma was telling the truth she didn't mean no harm and every time she told someone what she seen they took her words to heart and changed their futures for the better. She thought of Russell Lee and the Conyers boy, they were the exception, she'd told them not to go to Rosewood, darn near begged them but they hadn't listened and now it was too late they were both dead.

  She closed her eyes as the vision washed over her again, this time she saw what had been kept from her the first time. They were hanging from a tree blood oozing through their clothes their faces battered and beaten. Only way she knew it was Russell and Roy was the first part of the vision she seen a few nights past.

She'd seen them heading to Wauchula  and seen the men come out of the trees and yank them kicking and screaming into the woods, before they set about beating them so bad not even their mamas could recognize them anymore, then they'd strung them up and set them on fire. The screams oh lord the screams she put her hands over her ears as if  that could block the sound out  and began to tremble as tears welled up and overflowed.

She could see the faces of a dozen or more white men the look in their eyes now triumphant. As they watched the nigra's burn one hollered ooooh look at him shrivel.  Another worked up a mouth full of chaw and spit it at them not that this last indignity mattered much.

Oleda opened her eyes she had tried so hard to stop it, so hard. She'd run after them all week trying over and over again to warn them, but the news from Ocoee  and even up in Perry was enough to make most colored men mighty mad and she knew deep in her heart they weren't gonna listen.

Worst of all them dying was only the beginning......

How could she just say nothing when she'd seen what she had, the angry mobs churches burning and all those people dying even that nice Carrier woman her mother had sat next too in church, none of it and all of it making sense, even though the times was different. Some things wasn't even going to happen for another three years. So how was one eight year old girl going to save all those people?

She put her hands together and began to pray just as another vision overtook her, they were coming more often now and lasting longer. She let herself see what was to come, it was better then the headache that came when she tried not to.

This time another was man hanging from a tree his lifeless body mangled from a beating so severe it looked as if they beat the bones out of him. His face what was left of it, contorted in agony, clutched in his left hand was a tiny bible, she watched as his body twitched one last time and it fell to the ground flipping the cover open revealing the inscription inside, To Reverend Jones from Oleda Johnson, Merry Christmas. She fainted