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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