Was it just her imagination, or was she losing her fear of the Verses? Reading on, she found "Psalm 37:12-15".
The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming. The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation. Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.
Below the reference, she read:
Nám daap tosedás kue...gem ën'úrbas dukanésh qa ïsh sun. Vifedku ed dizas qaba reha. Dúorb qa ga islhem uv ikodab?
***
COVID-19. Everywhere she looked, someone was writing about it. A vaccine had just been released and the question of supply had come up. On the one hand, the government was so gung ho about this vaccine that mandates were being proposed and even implemented. Take the jab or lose your job. That was the choice she was staring in the face. On the other hand, some believed that there would not be enough doses to inoculate everyone, so the question was being asked: who should get first claim on the vaccine? Enter the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion bureaucracy.
Partly in the explicit service of "equity", it was being suggested that first claim should be given to "minorities", meaning she would be the last in line and if they happened to run out before they got to her, well, she would just have to die of the disease and thereby decrease the surplus population. There were already too many people in the Earth and her people in particular had been responsible for So Much Evil, so her death would be not merely acceptable but Justice.
The malice was unmistakable. It was right out in the open, like a raised middle finger. If she had trusted the vaccine and wanted it, that would have been a mortal insult and she supposed that it still was...but she didn't. She didn't want the vaccine, didn't trust it, and trusted the people who were peddling it even less, so she found herself chuckling instead. Racism was working in her favor...by accident.
No! You may not drink the Kool-Aid, you good-for-nothing swine! No cyanide for you!
Here it was: proof positive that anger made you stupid. As funny as this was for her, though, this could still be bad news for the rest of her household. Black women could expect to be put on the fast track and again, she trusted neither the vaccine itself nor the genocidal quacks behind it. Another candy house, another oven.
***
If she could have seen her own face right now, she was certain that it would have made perfect meme material. Amusement for herself and fear for her family, improbably fused into one twitching, disbelieving grin with furrowed eyebrows. Should she laugh or cry? Her body didn't know, so it tried to do both. She had never known naked racism to spark such a weird combination of emotions before. Did her long-deceased black forebears have similar moments of strange levity among their memories? Probably, a part of her whispered.
Formerly curious, she was now fascinated, and not strictly with the seemingly arcane mechanics of the text. Now she was genuinely interested in Lazarus himself, as a person. She was beginning to feel like she knew him and these latest visions had shown her that he wasn't a one-string guitar. Though he had shown her plenty of pain, he was starting to show her other things too. These entries were beginning to show an equally rich vein of tenderness, sacrificial love, and ursine protectiveness for his budding black family. The girl and the candy house really brought that out.
She supposed that she shouldn't be surprised, but that little girl looked an awful lot like Grandma. Was that what Iris looked like as a preschooler? Too cute! No wonder he adored her! And there was no question at all about that. The papa bear energy she felt in that vision had been so exquisitely intense that it practically governed her heartbeat. Watching little Iris start running toward the woman had felt like getting vivisected with an icicle and fight-or-flight mode had immediately kicked in. Adrenaline had shot through her arteries like liquid fire and only when she had reached home had it begun to wear off.
He may not have been the kind of ally that she instinctively craved, but there was no denying his valor and heart as a guardian when the rubber met the road and his vigilance...that was top-notch. That man could spot a false friend from three miles off. Who else could have seen through that woman so quickly? None of her teachers or professors, that much was certain. They prided themselves vocally on being able to see through smokescreens and discern hidden power structures, but they had clearly overlooked Jim Jones and with a body count of 900-plus, that was a lethal blunder if not a damning sin of omission. Old Lazarus, on the other hand, had just as clearly known all about him and been on the alert for such threats from Day One.
From beyond the grave, he had somehow found a way to warn her and for that she was thankful. No matter what strange magic he may have employed in the writing of this book, she was certain that he had been intent to the point of obsession on doing precisely that. If her understanding of magic in general was correct, focused intent was a universally required element of any spell. She looked forward to learning more about his tender side, but for now her head was full. Any more such adventures before bed and she might miss something important.