Orson Card - Magic Street

"Did you get what you needed?" he asked her.

"Mm-hmm," she said.

"And me," said Mack. "Did I get what I needed?"

"You got what he needed," she said. "You were already perfect."

More silence. More birdsong in the trees. More petals from blossoms falling, as if in this glen it happened to be spring.

"Yo Yo," he said.

"Mm?"

"Why aren't you small."

She giggled. "What?"

"When Puck came to Fairyland he turned small. Tiny. Why didn't you?"

"Because I'm holding you," she said. "I'm joined to you. You keep me from shrinking. As surely as if my soul were freed from that jar you put me in."

"I didn't—"

"So if you were whole, you wouldn't be small."

"When I go wandering in the world, I go out like this. Wearing another body. Because mortals really couldn't bear to see me as I truly am. I'm very—"

"Beautiful."

"I'm too perfect to be seen by mortal eyes. It's not vanity, it's just the truth. So I go out incomplete, and while that's happening, the part that stays behind is like what you saw in the jar.

Dazzling, but very small. And when the part of me that's in your world tries to come back wearing this mortal body, then that body becomes small, too. Unless I have power like the power stored in you to keep me whole."

"So you're taking power from the dreams of my neighbors."

"Their wishes. Yes."

"Then you—we—we're like parasites."

"No," said Yo Yo. "We're like artists. They don't make food, they don't make shelter. You can't wear a painting, you can't eat a poem, you can't put a song over your head to shelter you from wind and rain. But we feed them, don't we, because we love the picture and the poem and the song. Like we feed children, who also don't earn their place."

"We feed children because of what they can become."

"And mortals feed me on their dreams because only I, and others like me, have the power to make their dreams come true."

"Right, like Puck does."

"If I had my right power, and Puck too, I could keep him tame. His pranks would be nothing more than that. Not these monstrous things that Oberon is taking delight in."

"How do you do it? How can you collect a wish and turn it into—something in the real world?"

"Don't you understand? Wishes are the true elements underlying all the universe. Mortal scientists study the laws, the rules, the way the dominoes fall. But we can see underneath it all to the flow of wishes and desires. The tiny wishes of the smallest particles. The vast, complicated, contradictory wishes of human beings. If mortals had the power to see the flows, the streams of desire, if they could bend them the way we can, then they would constantly be at war with each other.

They stay at peace only because they have no idea of what power is possible."

"And why do you stay at peace?" asked Mack.

"Haven't you been paying attention? We're not at peace. We are at war. Only there are no more than a few thousand of us, and only a handful of us have great power. The kind of power that would be dangerous. We have rules of our own, too. And one of the greatest is, we don't mess with your world too much. Petty things. Entertainment. Like setting down a piece of paper, letting an ant crawl on it, and then moving him a few feet away. Watch him scurry. But we don't stamp on the anthill. We don't burn it."

"That's what he will do, if he can break free."

"Creating me, that was the first step."

"And riding that poor boy Word like a pony, that was the second," said Yo Yo.

"What's the third step?" asked Mack.

"What we just did," she said.

"What? We set him free?"

"We broke the shell of the egg, so to speak. Not that he was really in an egg. But you and I were uniting. A part of him with a part of me. It opens the door for him."

"So when you were doing all this in front of Word—"

"I knew he wouldn't stop us because it sets him free now, instead of waiting until he can form a fairy circle out of Word's new converts. It would have taken enormous power to break the chains we put on him. But by marrying us, another way was opened up. It'll still be a day or two. We have time."

"Time for what?"

"To get ready for him. To put him back down, only this time deeper. And this time without me and Puck being locked in jars in Fairyland."

"Can't he figure out that that's your plan?"

"Oh, he expects tricks. We've been at this a long time. What he doesn't expect is... power. For us to have real power."

"And where are you getting that from?"

"You," said Yo Yo. "You and all your friends. Your whole life, you've been gathering power without even knowing it. You're going to use it now to help us put him back down into the underworld."

"But I'm part of him. You're going to ask me to imprison myself."

"Yes."

"Why should I do that? Why would he let me do that?" discarded really is. He doesn't realize that it's the most powerful part of himself."

"What you mean is, you hope so."

"Well, yes, if you want to be accurate."

"And you might be wrong."

"Wouldn't that be a disappointment."

"And I might end up..."

"Being swallowed up in him again."

"And you might end up..."

"Locked away forever. Not just the part of me he already has in prison. This part too. I would be sad. And so would the mortal world. Because what then would stop him? His own goodness suppressed, and me not there to balance him from the outside."

"So the whole future of the world is at stake, all because we did this, and you didn't even tell me what I was risking."

"Of course I didn't," she said. "You wouldn't have done it."

"Damn right."

"But it has to be done."

"We put everybody at risk of something terrible. We don't have the right."

"That's virtue talking. The virtuous part of me agrees with you. But the practical part of me says, We'll be virtuous after we beat the son of a bitch."

"And if we fail?"

"The virtuous part of me will feel really bad for a long, long time."

"Well, now I can see why he fell in love with you."

"What about you, Mack. Are you in love with me?"

He kissed her. "No," he said. "I'll never know who I might have loved. But he's in love with you."

She held him tighter. "Let's go back to reality now, Mack Street."

"No need to walk. Besides, we need to pick up our clothes."

And just like that, as she held him close, they were no longer on the grass in Fairyland, they were in Rev Theo's office in a storefront church in LA, stark naked with their clothes spread out underneath them, and they could hear Word's voice in the street outside.

FAIRY CIRCLE Word began to preach, expecting to have words given to him like last night. But it didn't happen.

He fumbled for a moment. Paused. Tried to remember the sermon he actually wrote for yesterday.

"I'm not good at this," he said. "And I think a lot of you came here hoping that you'd see something miraculous. But I... it's not something I control. I can pray for God's help for you. And I can teach you the words of the Lord. So you can live a better life. Do the things that lead to happiness. Love the Lord with all your heart, might, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself."

"Can you pray for my boy in prison?" called out a woman. "He didn't do it!"

"I can, Sister," said Word. "I will."

"Well is he going to get out?" she demanded.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't even know if letting him out would be the will of God. It's God's will we have to follow here. Maybe your son has things he needs to learn in prison."

A couple of men in the congregation laughed bitterly. "Learn lots of good things in prison," one of them said.

"How old is your son?" asked Word.