“Good Shepherd,” she said, “it was Good Shepherd.” She got directory assistance. She named the city. She asked for the number for the Church of the Good Shepherd.

The phone was busy.

“Are you sure?” said Austin. “Are you sure it was our Good Shepherd?”

“The door. The bulkhead door. The parking lot fence. The wire windows over our Sunday school room. The sixes. It’s our church.” She punched Redial.

Grace said quietly, “I recognized it, too.”

Nana said, “What are you talking about? That most certainly was not our church.”

Still busy.

Macey was gasping in huge scoops, like shovelfuls of sand, and the air was not working, any more than sand would, and Austin said, “What did you see? I didn’t see it. Tell me.”

“Pink sneakers,” said Macey.

He felt himself thickening, like pudding, growing heavy and sluggish.

His mind flashed to Venita’s pink-sneakered foot on Isaiah’s chest.

He heard her farewell. Good night, sweet Prince, and flights of angels …

He saw the corpse on the sidewalk.

Everything had been black and gray and white: everything except the shoes on the feet of the body.

“No, Mace,” said Austin. “Probably lots of people with pink sneakers.”

“High-tops? Standing outside the Church of the Good Shepherd? On a school afternoon?”

Macey punched Redial again.

The line was busy.

The church phone stayed busy.

Grace called information for Reverend Warren’s number, but there were nine people named Warren. Grace wrote them down and left the paper on the counter, in case somebody else—not her—wanted to do something.

Austin called four and got the right number on the fifth.

Macey took the phone out of his hand. Austin did not protest. He had no idea what to say.

“Reverend Warren? This is Macey Clare. I’m the girl whose hair got burned the day we came to help paint, and I painted with Venita. Was that Venita on the sidewalk? On the news? It wasn’t Venita, was it?”

Macey wanted a calming minister’s voice, a voice of comfort and soothing quotes. But either Reverend Warren was out of comfort or he was not that kind of minister. “It was Venita,” he said sadly.

“No!” cried Macey, and she felt their hands on her: the hands of Nana and Papa and Grace and Austin, as if they wanted to take the phone away. She hunched into herself, shrugging off their hands, and stepped out of the circle, to be one with the phone.

“She stepped into the middle of a gang fight,” said Reverend Warren. He sounded desperately tired. Macey could not match this sagging voice with the big man she remembered. “Venita knew better,” said Reverend Warren. “But she was mad at them for shooting where there were so many little kids gathered, and she stormed out to yell at them. I guess she thought she could make them behave.”