"Whatever that means," murmured Miz Smitcher to Mack.
"Here's what has to happen. My soul has to be freed from its captivity and rejoined to me.
When that happens, in that very moment, the way these things are intertwined, it means that Oberon will be freed from his captivity. But his wanderer is gone, too, and he'll be hungry to rejoin it. He'll come first to Fairyland, and then he'll seek a passage through to this world."
"Kill him? What part of the word 'immortal' don't you understand?" said Yolanda. "No, my poor husband Oberon is dangerous right now, but it's because he isn't really himself. I wish you could have known him back in the day. He was glorious then, full of light. People thought of him as a god, and he deserved it. But over the centuries he got bored and started playing pranks to amuse himself, and after a while they stopped being funny and started being mean. He competed with Puck to see which one could be more vicious, and when Puck refused to go on because they were starting to hurt people, Oberon enslaved him and made him continue to play."
"Who are you people?" said Miz Smitcher. "What gives you the right?"
"That's how I felt," said Yolanda. "What gives us the right? Nothing! That's why I imprisoned my husband in the first place. Who else had the power to do it? But during his captivity he deliberately removed from himself every shred of goodness. Everything I ever loved about him, he cast out of himself and became a terrible thing. A monster."
"And you're going to let him loose?" asked Grand.
"He's going to get loose one way or the other," said Yolanda. "He's been storing up power, and his wanderer is controlling a young man that he's going to propel to power in our world. Right now the boy's own virtue is still shaping his actions, but as Oberon puts more and more power in him, he'll crush the goodness of that boy and the world will be ruled by a being more cruel than Hitler or Stalin or Saddam. That's what will happen if we do nothing—not to mention all the destruction in this neighborhood when all those wishes come true."
"How did he choose this neighborhood?" asked Andre. "What did we do?"
"If something bad coming, of course it happens to the niggahs," said Dwight Majors.
"You got no reason to be so bitter," said Miz Smitcher. "You wasn't even alive during Jim Crow."
"Just cause you had it worse don't mean I got to like what happens now," said Dwight.
"Maybe it was just the fact that he found that drainpipe," said Yolanda, "or it might be something more than that. Maybe your wishes drew him. Maybe black people in America are more passionate, have stronger wishes. And maybe he was drawn to Baldwin Hills because this is a neighborhood where black people actually believe they can make their wishes come true."
"You still haven't told us what you expect us to do," said Ophelia.
"I need you to form a fairy circle," she said.
Byron Williams laughed aloud. "We're supposed to dance in the meadow at dawn? Only one problem—we aren't fairies."
"You're forgetting who I am," said Yolanda. "If it's my circle, joined to me, then it's a fairy
"So we all join hands and sing 'Ring Around the Rosie'?" asked Byron skeptically.
"Long as it ain't 'Eeny Meeny Minie Moe,' " said Moses Jones.
"We form the circle here, now," said Yolanda. "I touch you all, and a part of me is in you. Then, later on, you form the circle again in a different place, and even though this body won't be with you, I'll still be connected to you, and as you dance, your power will flow into me so I can capture him and imprison him again."
"Of course we'll all do it," said Grand impatiently.
"There's no of course about it," said Yolanda. "Before you decide, let's find out where the final circle is going to be. Mack... in Fairyland, there should be a place of standing stones. They might be fine columns, or they might look like boulders, or something in between."
Mack nodded. "I've been there."
"Do you know where it is in this world?"
"Oh, yeah. Ceese and me both know. Cause I wrote a message there for Puck, and it showed up in the real world."
"Both worlds are real enough," said Yolanda. "And that one's realer than this one."
"You want to know where the connection is?" asked Mack. "It's where Avenue of the Stars crosses Olympic. Right on that bridge."
"Then that's where the fairy circle needs to form up at dawn," said Yolanda. "Exactly at dawn."
"Whoa," said Ceese. "That's not going to work."
"Why not?" asked Yolanda.
"Century City's got security. You suddenly get seventy black people there, forming a circle that blocks Avenue of the Stars, with no parade permit, and they're going to call LAPD down on us so fast—"
"The circle doesn't have to be in place for very long," said Yolanda.
"How long?"
"Depends on how fast Oberon flies when he gets loose. And how fast you can run."
"Me?" asked Ceese.
"You ain't in that circle, I can tell you that," said Yolanda. "Nor Mack. I got other work for the two of you."
"Oh, you'll see plenty," said Yolanda. "And you'll absolutely know when it's over. Whichever way it turns out."
"So you might not win?" asked Grand.
"If it was easy, I wouldn't need you-all's help."
"Is it dangerous?" asked Moses Jones.
"Oh, shut up, you girly-man," said Madeline Tucker.
"Yes, it's dangerous," said Yolanda.
"Could we, like, die?" asked Kim Hiatt.
"You're mortals," said Yolanda. "Hasn't it dawned on you that you're going to die someday, no matter what?"
That was such a stupid thing to say. Mack looked at Ceese for help.
Ceese stepped in front of her. "It's dangerous," he said firmly. "But not as dangerous as not stopping him. Yes, you're putting your lives at risk. But if you don't do it, then the wishes he releases in the months and years to come will put your families at risk. And what he does with his pony—his slave—that will put the whole human race at risk. So we're the army. We're the special forces. If we succeed in our mission, then the whole world is safe and they won't even know the battle was fought.
And if we fail, then those of us who die are merely the first of many, many thousands. We're like the people on that airplane that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11 instead of blowing up the Capitol."
"They all dead," pointed out Grand.
"And they was trapped in a plane," said Willie Joe Danes. "They had no choice."
"They had the choice to sit there and do nothing and let even more people die," said Ceese. "We got the same choice. But that's why Yolanda White here wanted to make sure you understood just what's at stake, before you agree to be in the fairy circle. Because whoever's in it, they can't change their minds and run away. You got to see it through. And no shame if you say you can't do it! No shame in that! Just be truthful with yourself."
Fifteen minutes later, only five of the adults from Baldwin Hills had left, and a dozen more had arrived, so there were seventy-seven now who would form the circle. Some were young adults, some were quite old. Yolanda assured them that physical strength didn't matter. "It's the fire in your hearts that I need," she said. "That good old mob spirit you showed last night."
Mack and Ceese, who would not be part of the circle, watched as Yolanda led the volunteers to the open ground around the drainpipe and had them join hands in a huge circle. She stood at the drainpipe, watching them, assessing them. Then she slowly began to walk around the drainpipe, pointing at each person in turn. Without taking a step or moving in any way, each person was slid an inch or two until they were all exactly the same distance from the drainpipe and exactly the same distance from each other.