The days after Anna's speech at the church were restless ones — the kind of days when windows stayed shut, whispers stuck to porches like wet laundry, and every knock at the door made hearts jump.
But sometimes the truth won't stay quiet, no matter how many times it's told to hush.
---
Mabel Turner lived at the edge of the colored quarters, in a leaning shotgun house with a patched roof and a garden she coaxed greens from even when the soil was stingy. She'd kept her mouth shut for weeks — fear tucked tight in her apron pocket alongside the grocery list and the scrap of folded Bible verse she read every night before bed.
But that Sunday, she'd heard Anna's voice — strong in a way that reminded Mabel of her own mother, who'd once spit at a deputy's boots for trying to drag her brother away. Now Mabel lay awake on her creaking mattress, hearing Anna's words in the wind that rattled her walls.
If you saw somethin', say it. If you heard somethin', tell it.
She had seen something. She'd seen two white boys running from the ditch that afternoon — boys who weren't from her side of the tracks. She'd told herself she didn't see it right. That it wouldn't matter if she did. But now, lying in the dark with her husband's soft snore beside her, she knew the lie she'd been living was worse than the truth she was hiding.
---
The next morning, she went to the Raya house just after dawn, before the mill whistle blew. She knocked so soft Anna almost didn't hear it over the sound of Amie asking for cornbread.
When Anna opened the door, Mabel's voice came out in a rush — half whisper, half confession.
"I seen 'em. I seen two white boys runnin'. I ain't say nothin' 'fore. I was scared, Anna. I was so scared."
Anna pulled her inside so fast the door rattled. She pressed Mabel's hands between hers, eyes wide and shining with something sharp and bright.
"You sure, Mabel? You sure you can say this to a lawyer — to a judge?"
Mabel nodded, though her lips trembled. "I know what I saw. They wasn't no colored boys. They was white. Tall one and a short one. Runnin' like dogs from that ditch."
Anna's hands squeezed hers so tight Mabel winced. But she didn't pull away.
---
Elijah arrived within the hour. He sat across from Mabel at the kitchen table, his notepad balanced on his knee, his pen scratching every word.
"You know they'll come for you when you speak this out loud, Mrs. Turner," he said gently.
Mabel's chin lifted. "They already come for us every day, Mr. Carter. Just 'cause we quiet don't mean we safe. I'm done bein' quiet."
---
But that night, the danger Mabel knew was coming came faster than she feared.
Sheriff Hammond stood at her garden fence after dark, boots sinking in the soft rows of spring greens. Three deputies behind him. He didn't knock. He didn't shout. He just let the sound of his spit hitting the dirt carry his message.
"Seems you got a big mouth all of a sudden, Mabel," he called, voice lazy as a dog in the sun. "Be a shame if that garden of yours caught a fire. Or that pretty boy of yours got lost on his walk to school."
Inside, Mabel pressed her hand over her son's mouth, felt his small chest rise and fall like a baby bird's wings. She mouthed a prayer to the shadows on her ceiling.
Outside, the sheriff flicked his matchstick into the damp dirt and turned away.
---
At the Raya house, Elijah paced under the oil lamp's flicker when Caleb told him what the deputies had done.
"They won't stop," Caleb said, voice flat. "They don't care who they hurt long as they shut folks up."
Elijah's jaw tightened, but his eyes stayed clear. "Then we don't let them shut up," he said. "One voice cracks the door. Next, we kick it open."
Anna pressed her hand to the table, steady as stone. "Mabel ain't standin' alone. Neither are we."
---
And in his cell that night, Ikrist dreamed again — this time not of shadows and ropes, but of voices like his mama's, like Mabel's, whispering truth through the bars.