Magic Street (26 page)

"And that's really starting to bother me," said Puck, rising to his feet. "What do you know about fairy circles?"

"It's how you do truly great magicks. You bring together a bunch of fairies and they form a circle and all of the power of all the fairies in the circle becomes part of the great thing you're trying to do."

"And you learned this where?" asked Yo Yo.

"The Blue Book of Fairy Tales," said Grand. "Or the Red one. Or whatever."

"Not in those books," said Puck.

"Stay on topic, Puckaroo," said Yo Yo.

"If I had any real power, she'd drop dead when she called me that," said Puck. Then he grinned at Yolanda. "Just kidding, darling."

"Fairy circle," said Ceese. "Grand's idea."

"It might work," said Yo Yo. "Except we don't know just how much of him he's put into his pony. If it's all there, except for the part that is Mack—then we could do it using a fairy circle made of mortals. But if part of him is here in this world, and part of him in Fairyland, that would be like lassoing a one-inch-thick snake with a lariat that won't get any skinnier than two inches in diameter."

"Will this be on the geometry test?" asked Mack.

"So to do a fairy circle in order to confine him long enough for us to get free, you have to find out where he is, exactly," said Ceese. "And in order to find out where he is, you need—let me guess—Mack, because he is Oberon. Sort of."

"That's right," said Yo Yo.

"Only Mack doesn't know it," said Ceese.

Puck suddenly had a moustache and twirled it. "Little does he know..." The moustache disappeared when everybody looked at him and nobody laughed.

"So how you going to get your counterword and your information out of a guy who doesn't actually know the things you think he knows?" asked Ceese.

"He's seventeen!" said Ceese.

"It's the time-honored tradition," said Grand. "Fairy queen needs to find out something from a mortal. She gets him into Fairyland, boffs his brains out, and then he just won't go away. Mortal stalks her until she takes pity on him and makes him forget."

"Blue Fairy Book or Red?" asked Mack.

"He's just making this up," said Puck.

"I'm a folklorist," said Grand. "Amateur. Started with slave narratives and slave magic beliefs.

Then I branched out. I never thought it was real."

"If you think this is real," said Puck.

"Shut the Puck up," said Yo Yo.

"Ha ha," said Puck. "Aren't we the class clown."

"But you've got to do it all at once," said Grand, "which is impossible. Because you can't use the fairy circle to bind him unless you two fairies are in control of it, and you can't get control of it till you're reunited with your imprisoned selves. And you can't be liberated until the fairy circle has distracted him."

"Plus I ain't sleeping with you," said Mack.

Both Puck and Yo Yo looked at him like he was crazy. "Everybody wants to sleep with her," said Puck.

"Not me," said Mack.

"Yes you do," said Yo Yo. "You think I don't know?"

"Oh, I want to," said Mack. "But I don't want to."

"Try English this time," said Puck.

"I want to sleep with her but I don't choose to sleep with her."

Yo Yo was on her feet in an instant. "Why not? What's wrong with me? I have never had a mortal turn me down!"

"Because I'm not sleeping with a girl I'm not married to," said Mack.

"Wow," said Ceese. "You don't hear that very much."

"Yeah, but I'm not sure how much of that is voluntary and how much is inadvertent."

Puck giggled and spoke to Mack. "So you want to get married?"

"She's already married," said Ceese.

"It doesn't matter," said Yo Yo.

"It does to me," said Mack.

"I mean, it doesn't matter that I'm married to Oberon. You are Oberon. So I could sleep with you right now."

"Oberon and you might be married, but I'm not Oberon," said Mack. "And we're not married."

Ceese tried to summarize it. "So this all comes down to, Mack gets it on with Yolanda White here, you find out what you need to know, then all the other stuff happens at once."

"That's it," said Yo Yo.

"Including a fairy circle," said Ceese.

"If the neighbors might be willing to cooperate."

"We form your fairy circle," said Grand, "will that make these horrible wishes stop?"

"It would give me and Puck the power we need, if there are enough of you."

"And we got to get all those people into this house?" asked Grand.

"No, dear no," said Yo Yo. "Mortals' wishes have no power in Fairyland. Especially not here in this passageway. No, the fairy circle has to be in the mortal world."

"But you're imprisoned in Fairyland," said Mack.

"Right," said Puck. "Why do you think we haven't already worked this out with some other neighborhood long ago?"

"You haven't worked it out with this neighborhood, either," said Ceese. "You got a long way to go before most of these folks willing to cross the street for Miz Yolanda."

"You haven't worked any of it out," said Mack. "Including the part where you sleep with me just to get information. It's like some bad World War One movie. What was that musical one with Julie Andrews and Rock Hudson?"

"Who are they?" asked Ceese.

see Mary Poppins do a striptease."

"I wouldn't mind," said Puck.

"I'm not going to lie with a woman I'm not married to," said Mack.

"That one heavy Bible-reading boy there," said Puck.

"Good for you, Mack Street," said Grand.

"Queen of the fairies wants to sleep with you," said Ceese, "and you saying no?"

"I'm saying, Marry me," said Mack.

"Whatever," said Yo Yo.

It infuriated Mack that she dismissed him so easily. "Marry me and mean it."

"I meant it the first time I married you," said Yo Yo impatiently. "Isn't that enough?"

"You never married me," said Mack. He got up and walked out the front door.

"Oh good," said Ceese. "Now how are we going to get home?"

"You don't need his help to get out, you boneheaded mortal," said Puck with a cheery smile.

"Only to get in."

"Why is that?" asked Grand.

"Because that's the world you come from," said Yo Yo. "The world of the street out there. It's where you belong. You can always go home."

"So does that mean Mack belongs in our world, too?" asked Ceese.

Yo Yo patted his hand. "You such a sweet boy, Ceese. Still looking out for your little Mack Street. That boy lives in both worlds. He lives in both worlds all the time."

"You mean when he's in Fairyland, he's walking around here, too?" said Ceese. "I'm surprised he wasn't hit by a car."

"I mean he casts a shadow in both worlds. He makes a footprint."

Puck snorted. "That boy barely is a footprint. Doesn't even make it up to shadow."

"He's more than a shadow," said Ceese. "He's the best kid in the world."

Ceese turned away from him and spoke to Yolanda. "I don't want him to marry you."

"Like I said, I don't care either way. I just got to know what's going on with my husband."

"I know a lot of people slept with a lot of other people and still don't know squat about any of them."

"Ceese,' said Yolanda. "Didn't you ever wonder why the Queen of the Fairies kept wanting to sleep with wandering minstrels and farmboys? In all those fairy tales?"

"Same reason white women always want to sleep with black men," said Ceese.

"Poor boy," said Yolanda. "When mortals hook up like that, they don't even know each other's bodies. It ain't even carnal knowledge. But when I hook up with somebody, I know everything, I see everything. I even know stuff they don't know they know. It's all mine. That's what I love."

"Oberon do that too?"

"He thinks he does, but he got no idea what-all I get from it. Truly knowing everything about another person—that takes me way higher than all that trembly screechy moany stuff mortal women get so excited about."

"But fairy men don't do that."

"Maybe they could, if they bothered to look into their partner the way I look into mine."

"Just seems to me," said Ceese, "you taking a lot from Mack and giving him pretty damn little."

"I'm a queen," said Yolanda. "What planet you been living on?"

"So, you going to spoil him for other women? You going to make it so he can't be happy with somebody like Ebony DeVries?"

Yolanda almost answered. Then she shook her head. "I won't keep him from anything he ever had a chance of having."

"Oh, you're all heart," said Ceese. "You're Miss Congeniality times ten."

"Cecil Tucker," she said, "I will never do anything that harms Mack Street. But I also can't give him any happiness that is out of his reach by nature."

"Nothing natural about any of you fairies."

"I don't like the way you said 'fairies,' " said Puck.

"And I don't give a flying Puck what you like," said Ceese.

"Hush," said Yolanda. "We need Ceese."

"What do you need me for?"

"Sometimes you got to have a giant."

WEDDING

All day people called and came by Rev Theo's church, wanting to know if the stories they were hearing were true. Rev Theo assured them that last night they were truly blessed by God, and yes, it was through the vessel of Word Williams, his associate pastor. If anyone noticed that "associate pastor" was a promotion, they didn't mention it.

Those who wanted to talk to Word, however, were disappointed. Word spent the morning and much of the afternoon in seclusion. From time to time, Rev Theo would knock on the door of his own office, but Word would answer, "Can I have just a little longer, sir?"

Rev Theo was telling everybody that Word was spending the day in prayer, and it was true that from time to time he prayed. But mostly he was reading scripture and trying to sort things out in his mind.

There was no denying that the gift he had received last night did good things for people. He was given knowledge he shouldn't have had; the words just flowed into his mind and he spoke them. And the healings, the saved life, those were real and definitely good.

But countering it all was the feeling of having something enter him. The Holy Spirit was supposed to be a feeling of joy, exaltation. Not like someone inserting a cold and creepy hand into the back of your head and down your spine. Like a worm insinuating itself in your flesh.

It felt like being possessed by a devil. Not that Word had ever had such a thing happen before.

But how else could it feel? Or like having some alien creature get inside your nervous system and take over your body.

Only here he was, praying, reading the Bible, all those things that were supposed to make devils uncomfortable, and nothing was happening. At the same time, didn't he still feel it down his spine? A

kind of thickness at the back of his head? An extra little hitch in his shoulders when he moved his arms? Or was that all his imagination?

Does the Spirit of God feel like a passenger? Does it ride you like a pony?

A pony. Word thought back to when he was a little kid and somebody had a pony ride at their birthday party. For some reason the pony decided Word was a pushover. Or maybe the pony was just done for the day. Whatever the reason, it took off out of the front yard and started off down Cloverdale, right at the steepest part. Went right past the Williamses' house and the pony's owner was yelling for him to stop, but Word had no idea how to control the pony. He kept kicking it and telling it to stop, but it just went faster, and it was scary because the road was so steep. Finally the horse scraped him off on a street sign, knocking him to the street.

Or was that what his rider wanted him to think? Had that memory been inserted in his mind like those things he said yesterday?

How could he explain to people that it wasn't him, and it might not even have been God?

The New Testament had those stories about Jesus' enemies saying, "He casts out devils by the power of the prince of devils." But the whole point of the stories is that it was stupid to think that good works could come from evil sources.

But common sense said that if you were evil and wanted to insinuate yourself into a community, you'd come on as really nice and helpful. What community wouldn't welcome a healer?

He shook his head. Why am I resisting this? Isn't it what I dreamed of? There's a congregation that will look to me now to show them the will of God. To bring them his healing blessing. How can I disappoint them?

But if this is some kind of poison, some trick, then how can I continue to deceive them?

Another knock on the door.

"Please," said Word. "I'm not done."

To Word's surprise, it wasn't Rev Theo. "Word, it's me, Mack Street."

Mack Street—the one who had known about dreams. Why didn't Word think of him before?

He might have the answers Word needed.

When he got up and let Mack in, though, Mack wasn't alone. He had a woman with him. And when Mack said her name, Yolanda White, Word remembered. The motorcycle-riding bimbo who was getting all the old farts in the neighborhood so upset because she didn't have the right dignity. And here she was with Mack showing her off as proudly as if he had just invented her.

He had all the earmarks of young love. Trouble was, she didn't. She just regarded him calmly and steadily as he invited them to sit down.

Mack came to the point pretty quickly. "We want to get married."

"I'm not licensed yet," said Word. "You got to talk to Rev Theo."

"That's the point," said Mack. "We don't have a lot of time. And even though I'm underage on the books, I'm not really. I've spent at least a whole year wandering in Fairyland while only a few hours passed here in this world."

"Maybe as much as two years."

Word tried to make sense of that one. And failed. "So you're saying that somehow you're really over eighteen but not in a way you could prove to the authorities."

"And she'd have trouble coming up with a birth certificate," said Mack. "So what we want is a kind of unofficial marriage. As far as the government is concerned, no marriage at all. But in the eyes of God, a real one. That's as much as I need."

"That would be great," said Word. "I'm a minister for so short a time I only gave my first sermon last night, and already I'm being asked to break the law."

"But we're not asking for a legally binding marriage. More like those ceremonies they do for gay couples. No legal force, but all the same words as a church marriage."

"Still, this is for Rev Theo."

"No," said Mack. "It's you. Only you. Can't be anybody else."

"Why is that?"

"Because of... because you were with me. Three years ago. When you saw how that old man got healed."

There it was. The very miracle that had gotten Word started on his quest for religious enlightenment.

"Why would that matter, when it comes to marriage?" asked Word.

"Because I'm... she's..."

"Mack," said Yolanda White, "we don't need to do this. I can see Brother Word here doesn't want to do it."

"I want to do whatever will please God," said Word. "Tell me."

"The thing is," said Mack, "she's already married."

"That would probably stop Rev Theo from doing it," said Word. "Thing is, it would stop me, too."

"But the person she's married to is me."

Word wondered if he was crazy. All those years wandering around the neighborhood in a daze.

The invisible hand that had been inserted down Word's spine shifted and shivered and Word wriggled in his seat.

"Got hemorrhoids?" asked Yolanda. She grinned at him.

What an appalling woman. "No," said Word.

"I was joking," said Yolanda. "Don't any of you people have a sense of humor?"

"You people?" echoed Word, incredulous at such a racist remark coming from a black woman.

"Word," said Mack, "by 'you people' she means 'mortals.' She's... uh... she's a fairy."

Word felt a trembling in his spine. "Lady, I salute thee," said Word. He had no idea why he had said it. His mouth no longer belonged to him.

She looked at him steadily. Warily. "I also wish thee good health, sir."

"So you've found somebody you love better than me?" Word said.

He covered his mouth. Why would he have said such a thing?

"Baby," said Yolanda, "I love everybody better than you."

The invisible hand let go of his spine. "I'll perform your wedding," said Word. This time the words were his own. "As long as you don't try to assert it in court."

"Well, I wouldn't dream of asserting my wedding. All right if I attend it?"

"Wouldn't have it any other way," said Word. And then more words came unbidden to his lips:

"O Titania, dosvidanya."

"Cute," said Yolanda. "Now we're Russian?"

"What are you doing, Word?" asked Mack. "You two know each other?"

"Only as I know the soul of every wanton woman," said Word's mouth.

"I'm the one wantin' to get married," said Mack. "She's just... willing."

Word swallowed hard, trying to resist saying any words that came to him from his possessor.

But his mouth belonged to him again. "I'll do it," he said. "When?"

"Right now?" asked Mack.

"Want witnesses?" asked Word.

"Yes," said Mack.

"No," said Yolanda.

"How about a compromise?" said Word. "Let's bring in Rev Theo."

"Won't he try to stop us?" asked Mack.

"Not today," said Word. "Today I have carte blanche."

"Oooh," said Yolanda. "Another language."

Word stepped to the door and called out to Rev Theo.

"Thanks for letting me back into my office today," said Theo with a wink. "Glad to see you being so respectful to your mother," he said to Mack.

Mack looked around. "This isn't my mother, sir. This is the woman I'm going to marry."

Rev Theo looked back and forth between them. "I think there's an age disparity, my children.

Plus you look too young, son."

"That's why we want Word to marry us," said Mack. "Because he doesn't have any authority.

So it's not really a marriage."

"So why bother doing it."

"Because she needs to sleep with me," said Mack.

"More than they need to know," murmured Yolanda.

Word didn't think it was funny, and yet a laugh came unbidden to his throat. A deep, hearty laugh, and it went on and on.

"There's more than one way to possess a changeling, my love," said Yolanda. This really confused Rev Theo, since she said it to Word.

"Word," said Rev Theo, "have you and this woman been carrying on?"

"Just met for the first time," said Word. "We only wanted you as a witness to this extralegal wedding. You need to be a witness that I didn't promise them it would be binding."

So the wedding proceeded, with Word twisting around the words of the standard ceremony to reflect their real situation. He specifically denied having any authority. And when he said the part about does anybody know any reason these two should not get married, he added, "I mean, besides me."

Rev Theo raised his hand. "Well, there you go," said Word. "It's a tie. Two of us think this is a

"Man and wife," said Mack. "Say 'man and wife.' "

It sounded like Mack was quoting. "Is that from something?" asked Word.

"Princess Bride," said Mack. Then he felt stupid for having made a joke during his wedding.

But then, they were treating the wedding as a joke. Everybody but him.

"I thought I recognized it," said Word. And, obediently, he cut to the chase, asking them whether, and they answered that they did, and then he pronounced them man and wife in the eyes of God but definitely not the eyes of the law. "Which means it's still having sex with a minor," he pointed out to Yolanda.

"Planning to tell on me?" she asked him. "Let's tell everybody."

"I'm just asking that you not do it right here in front of me."

"You have my word," she said. Then winked. A punster. How swell. "Of course, you'll have to cooperate by leaving the room."

She turned to Rev Theo, who still looked more than a little appalled at what had just happened inside his office. "Don't you two have work to do now?" she asked. Then she touched his shoulder.

"Yes—my associate pastor here, Word Williams, needs to prepare another sermon for tonight."

"So you don't mind if we stay and consummate our marriage vows here in your office?"

"What?" said Mack.

"We don't have a lot of time, and there isn't a decent motel within easy walking distance," she explained.

"Why, that's no problem," said Rev Theo. "Just don't spill anything on my couch." And with that, Rev Theo smiled, winked at Mack, and left the room.

Word couldn't understand why Rev Theo would act like that. These people had just asked him if they could have sex in his office and he didn't bat an eye. "Who are you?" he asked Yolanda.

She smiled at him. "The part of you that knows, doesn't need to be told, and the part of you that needs to be told, doesn't need to know."

Mack walked to the window and looked out onto the shabby street, where people were already lined up for the evening's service. "I don't think we'll need this room, so don't worry, Word."

"What do you mean?" Yolanda asked him.

Mack turned around with tears in his eyes. "This is nothing to you," he said to her. "But it's everything to me."

"It is very important, but I'm not."

"You're the only man I've ever married. Partly."

"I don't remember you ever loving me," said Mack. "And you sure as hell don't love me now."

"But I do," said Yolanda. "I love you with all my heart."

"Why don't I believe you?"

"Because you have a very limited view of things," said Yolanda. "And, at this particular moment, so do I. What I'm wondering is, are you planning to let your limited view make my limited view permanent?"

"What's going on here?" asked Word.

Yolanda turned to him and shook her head. "Word, the part of you that doesn't understand doesn't need to know, and—"

"Oh, shut up," said Word, and he left the room. Whatever they were doing in there was none of his business. If it didn't bother Rev Theo, it didn't bother him.

There was magic in this. And Yolanda seemed to know all about the change in him. Talking about a part of him this and a part of him that.

Whatever possessed him was not God. It was more like Bag Man. It was about babies being born after a one-hour pregnancy. It was about an old man reaching out to be healed by a fourteen-year-old boy who had no idea what he was doing. It was about his father finding all his poems spread all over the internet and getting reviewed scornfully—the old man was almost catatonic, refusing to go to the office, and Mother was staying with him all day because she was afraid he might kill himself.

It was about magic and evil and not Jesus' healing power.

Yet the people who were blessed last night were truly blessed. There was no trick in it. Not like what happened in Baldwin Hills.

The rumors were flying all over the neighborhood about Ophelia McCallister in her husband's grave and Sherita Banks being transported to a gang bang. And Sabrina Chum had a hideous fast-growing cancer removed from her nose. The doctors said that if it hadn't been discovered till morning, it would have spread so far through her nose that the whole thing would have had to be removed. And Madeline Tucker was spreading around what Ceese told her—that Mack Street saw these people's dreams and knew that something bad was happening and saved them.