Magic Street (29 page)

For that matter, am I?

Nobody should have that kind of power, to make someone want what they didn't want, or feel what they didn't feel.

Now that so many people were aware of the perverse way magic was invading their neighborhood, Mack and Yo Yo and Ceese had help.

They were too late to stop Nathaniel Brady from waking up in midair, having dreamed that he was flying. But Ceese phoned to waken his parents, who found Nathaniel lying on the driveway, suffering from a severe concussion and several broken bones. The paramedics assured them that he would not have wakened on his own and probably would have been dead by the time anybody found him in the morning. "What, did he think he was Superman?" asked a paramedic.

And when Dwight Majors found himself in the midst of making love to Kim Hiatt, Miz Smitcher was at the Hiatts' door and was able to calm everybody down and reassure them that it wasn't rape.

It took more than a little tearful conversation before it emerged that it wasn't Dwight who had been wishing for Kim—Dwight was happily married. It was Kim whose wish brought her high school flame to her as he was making love to his wife. In fact, it was Michelle Majors who took the most persuading, even though she had seen her husband simply vanish.

Madeline Tucker was able to borrow a really huge brassiere from Estelle Woener so that thirteen-year-old Felicia Danes could deal with the enormous breasts she had grown during the night.

Grand Harrison and Ophelia McCallister helped soothe a hysterical Andre and Monique Simpson after they found the desiccated corpse of their six-month-dead baby between them in their bed.

"We knew about the wishes last night," said Andre, when he could talk. "We tried not to wish for our baby to be with us."

"I don't think you can tell yourself what to wish, deep down," said Ophelia. "Because I didn't wish to be with my husband, not consciously. I thought I was waiting to see him again in heaven."

Aaron Graves, Alonzo's little brother, was returned by the firefighters who found him in his pajamas, straddling a firehose at the top of a crane that was working on saving the top story of a four-story apartment building.

And Mack performed CPR on Denise Johnston until she revived. He wouldn't tell her who had wished her dead, or why.

It was after eleven at night before all the wishes had been dealt with, as much as possible, and about seventy adults were gathered in front of Yolanda White's house. This time they weren't a mob.

They were frightened—more than ever—but Mack and Yolanda and Ceese had the only explanation that fit all the facts, and they were disposed to listen.

"It's going to go on like this," said Yolanda. "Night after night. Every time Oberon, bless his heart, uses his power in this world, your wishes are going to be set loose to break hearts and cause havoc."

"But we don't wish for these things," Ophelia McCallister insisted.

"Your wishes get twisted. And you can't stop them. They're already stored up."

Mack was grateful that she didn't explain exactly where they were stored.

"So we can't do anything?" demanded Myron Graves. "Both my boys tonight—we're lucky social services didn't come and take them away because we're negligent parents and don't watch them at night."

"Why is it happening now?" asked Denise Johnston. "And can the same wish be granted again? I have a right to know who's wishing death on me."

"No, you don't," said Mack sharply. "The person who had that wish never would have acted on it. It was malice but not murder. And I don't think it'll happen again to anybody. Except maybe for the little kids, because they didn't understand their danger so they still wish for the same things."

A lot of people wanted to know who it was, but Yolanda refused to tell. "He doesn't know that Oberon is using him as a tool. He's a good man and it would tear him apart to know what's happening. And it wouldn't change a thing because Oberon will get his way, as long as he's imprisoned and has to work through a pony here in your world."

"It's a horse?" asked Miz Smitcher.

"He rides a human being like a pony. His power is irresistible."

"So we can't stop him," said Grand.

"Not by talking to the poor tool he's using. But yes, I think we can stop him. And by 'we' I mean all of us. All of you."

They promised that they were willing.

"Oh, you're willing now," said Yolanda. "We'll see what you think when I tell you how it's got to go."

"What can we do anyway?" said Romaine Tyler. "I'll do anything if it can undo the damage that's been done."

"It can't undo real things. Magic things, yes, they'll fade. But the injury to your father, that was caused by a real I-beam falling on him."

"Then why can't my wish be granted before you stop all the wishing?" said Romaine. "Because every moment of my life I wish I had never wished my stupid wish."

"How can we bury our baby again?" said Andre Simpson. "How can we explain even having his body?"

"We'll work it out," said Yolanda. "But first we got to stop any more of these damned wishes being granted. Or are any of you curious to see how tomorrow night's wishes turn out?"

Nobody was.

"I don't have the power to stop him, not by myself. I've never been as powerful as he is anyway, and I've spent the last few centuries with my soul divided from my wanderer."

"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.

She walked around the circle then, kissing each of them firmly but brusquely on the lips.

Mack watched from the brow of the hill, and as she made the circle he said to Ceese, "You see it? You see how each one she kissed, they got a little spark of light above their heads?"

"No, I don't," said Ceese.

"Well, it's there."

"What I been thinking," said Ceese, "is how to get the LAPD to back off long enough for this fairy circle to do its job."

"Think of anything?"

"It's coming to me," said Ceese.

"You as scared as I am?" asked Mack.

"If I had brains enough to get scared, would I be a cop?"

"I don't want Miz Smitcher to get hurt. Or your mom. Or any of them."

"You didn't bring danger to this neighborhood," said Ceese. "You part of the solution, man, not the cause of the problem."

"I feel them inside me," Mack said. "All their dreams. All so... wistful. And hungry. Or angry.

And filled with love. So mixed up."

"When all this is done," said Ceese, "maybe they'll all have their own dreams back again, and you'll be free of them. Free to be just Mack Street again."