Magic Street

by Orson Scott Card

  Not Mack Street.

  But here, in her embrace, naked among the trees, he didn't care.

  Word and Rev Theo carried their whole PA system out into the street. Once this had been a thoroughfare, and these storefronts had been full of business and the streets full of people and cars, but now hardly anybody drove along here, and if some cop came up he'd see it wasn't a riot or a demonstration, it was church, it was religion. Nobody would interfere.

  Because the thing that possessed him wouldn't let them.

  It doesn't rule me. If it tries to turn this thing to evil, I won't let it. I'm still Word, the same man I've always been. I searched for God and this thing came instead, but that doesn't mean it wasn't also an answer to my prayers. Couldn't God have sent this to him? Given him this power in order to fulfil a mission from the Lord?

  Wasn't this what it felt like for Jesus, when the multitude came to listen to his word, and then he reached out and healed them, and gathered up their children and blessed them?

  "No collection today," Word said to Rev Theo.

  "You're joking, right?" said Rev Theo. "This ministry could use a shot of cash."

  "You can set up baskets by the door. Let them come up if they want to contribute. But it can't look like people are paying to get healed. Afterward, if they want to contribute. But nothing gets passed around."

  "That's just crazy," said Rev Theo.

  "Please," said Word. "Don't ask for it. Let them give it out of their own hearts."

  Rev Theo studied his face. "You think we'll get more that way, don't you?"

  "I have no idea," said Word.

  "Rev Theo, I know your ministry takes money. But money didn't buy what happened last night."

  "Money paid the rent on the roof under which it happened," said Rev Theo. "Money paid the light bill and paid for the benches and the doors and the locks on the doors that keep the vandals out.

  A lack of money tore my wife and me apart for a long time, and now that the Lord is bringing us back together, I got to pay for me and her to live decently. Don't despise money, Word."

  "I'm just afraid that... I don't know if it will ever happen again."

  "It happened last night and we had a collection, didn't we?" Rev Theo patted his shoulder. "But for you, tonight, we'll try it your way. A couple of deacons with bowls at the door, and those who want to walk up front and contribute, we won't refuse them. The others can do what they want."

  "Thanks," said Word.

  They lay entangled on soft grass, and still the sun shone overhead as though time had not passed, though it felt to Mack like infinite time, and it also felt like no time at all. It wasn't over because he still held her, and her heart still beat between her breasts as if it were his own heart, pumping his own blood. His hand rested there, and he never wanted to move.

  "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 ac
curate."

  "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.

  Chapter 21

  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.

  "Sixteen," she said. "But they tried him as an adult. Can't vote, but he can do time like a grownup!"

  "If he be black, they know he do it." A Jamaican accent.

  Word was at a loss. He also knew that a lot of blacks went to prison because they did do it, no matter what their mothers thought. But that wasn't a good thing to say to a grieving mother. Or to a crowd in the street that came for miracles and was already disappointed.

  "Brothers and sisters," said Word. "I wish I were a better preacher."

  What was he supposed to do, pretend that he grew up in South Central? What good would that do, to be a liar?

  "How can I know what to say to you? I was blessed in my childhood. My parents were happily married. They still are. My father's a professor. My mother's an administrator. I got the finest education. I grew up surrounded by books. We never knew what it was to be hungry. What do I know about the life your son had?

  "But Jesus knows about his life. Jesus grew up in a good family, too. A mother and father who worked hard and loved him and took care of him. Jesus kept the commandments and served God.

  And they took him out and crucified him cause they didn't like the things he said. You think Jesus doesn't know what it's like to be in jail for a crime you didn't commit? You think Mary didn't know what it's like to have them take your son away and put him on trial and all the people shouting,

  'Crucify him!'?

  "I'm not preaching here today because I know anything. I don't. I'm too young. My life's been too easy. I'm here today because Jesus knows. It's the good news of Jesus that I want to bring you."

  For a lot of them, that was good. They moved a little closer, then nodded, they murmured their assent.

  But for others, the ones coming to see something sensational, it was over. They started to walk away.

  Rev Theo spoke from behind him. "You doing fine, Word."

  Word turned gratefully to smile at him. That's when he saw Mack and Yolanda come out of the door of the church, between the two deacons watching over the collection bowls. He felt a stab of guilt over having performed what amounted to a sham marriage, just so they could hump like bunnies in the pastor's own office. What was he thinking? Even if Mack was somehow magically eighteen, he was still younger than she was. No way did he understand what he was doing, how he was being used. Magically and sexually and every other way.

  Speaking of being used...

  He felt the invisible hand reach up his spine and spread through the back of his head. It felt to him as if the hand was somehow connected to Mack. And as it touched him, Yolanda winked at him, as if she was aware of what was happening.

  He turned back around to face the congregation in the street. "Sister," he said, "your son in prison—what you don't know is that he did the murder he was convicted of. And he killed two other boys that you don't know about. And he's not sorry about it. His heart is like stone. He lies to you and tells you that he didn't do it, but the tears he sheds aren't remorse, they're because inside that prison he is fighting for his life against men much tougher and more dangerous than he is. And all the time that he's bowing before their brutal will, he's remembering how powerful he felt when he killed those boys and dreaming of the day when he can kill again."

  "Sister, I pray for your son. I pray that the Lord will turn his heart to repent. But most of all I pray for you. You have another son at home, sister. He's a good boy, but you don't even notice him because he's not the one in trouble. All the time you worry about the son in prison, but what about the son who obeys you and works hard at school and gets teased by other kids because he's a good student and all the time his brother's gang is trying to get him to join up. Where are you for that son?

  The prodigal is not ready to come home. Why don't you love the son you have?"

  "I love my boy! Don't tell me I don't love my boy!"

  "You have the power of healing in your hands, sister," said Word. "Go home and lay your hand upon your good son's brow. Touch his head and say, 'Thank you Jesus for this good boy,' and you will see how the Lord pours out his blessing upon you."

  "I didn't come here for you to tell me I'm a bad mother!" she shouted.

  "You came here for the miracle you want, but I'm telling you how to get the miracle you need.

  When that murderer repents and turns to Jesus, then you'll see a miracle in his life, too. But he won't get a miracle while you don't even have faith enough to do what the Lord tells you to do for your good son."

  A fiery young woman standing next to her yelled at him. "God supposed to bring comfort!"

  "God brings comfort to those who repent. But those who still love their sins and won't give them up, God doesn't bring comfort to them! He brings good news to them. He brings them a road map showing how to get out of hell. But there aren't any get-out-of-hell-free cards in the game of life, because life isn't a game! You can't change the rules just because you don't like the outcome! There's a path you have to walk. Jesus said I am the way. And you, sister, you so angry with me, I'll tell you right now, the Lord knows the pain of your heart. He knows about the baby you aborted when you were fourteen and how you dream a
bout that baby. And the Lord says, You are healed. The scars in your uterus are made into normal flesh and your womb will be able to bear a child. So go home to your husband and make the baby you both long for, because the Lord knows that you have repented and your sins are forgiven and your body is made whole."

  The woman sobbed once, then turned and ran toward the edge of the crowd.

  The people who had been wandering away were coming back now.

  He heard urgent whispers behind him, and he turned around again. Mack was lying on the ground, with one of the deacons bending over him. Yolanda didn't even seem to notice. She was watching Word intently.

  Word stepped away from the pulpit and asked Rev Theo what was happening.

  "Woman says her husband just fainted," said Rev Theo. "Go on with your ministry, we'll take care of the newlywed groom."

  Mack woke up to the sound of a short burst from a police siren. He tried to sit up and found one of the deacons trying to hold him down. "Got to get up," he said.

  "Don't worry, you not getting arrested today," the deacon said, smiling.

  "Let me up," Mack insisted, and he rolled over and got up on his hands and knees, then stood.

  Yolanda was there, but not watching him, and Mack turned to see what she was looking at.

  A police car was at the edge of the crowd, which was even larger than when Mack came out of the church onto the street.

  "Move out of the road," said a voice from the loudspeaker mounted on the roof of the car.

  "There is no permit for this assembly. Clear the street."

  Mack watched as Word stepped out from behind the pulpit and walked to the police car and laid his hand on the hood.

  The car's motor stopped.

  The cop turned the key and tried to start it, but the only sound was clicking.

  The two front doors opened and two black policemen stepped out of the car. "Step away from the car, Reverend," said the driver.

  "Son," said Word, "Jesus knows you didn't mean to do it. I tell you right now, he forgives you, and so does that boy you killed. He is happy in the arms of his Savior, and the Lord honors you as a good man and his true servant."

  The officer staggered and leaned against the car for a moment, then turned and leaned against the roof and hid his face in his hands and wept.