"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."
Chapter 20
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?