"I don't even have a gun yet," said Ceese.
"Then why you worried about whether you can shoot a panther?"
"Thinking ahead."
Mack took him by the hand and dragged him to the edge of the patio. But the cement didn't turn to brick under their feet, and when they stepped off into the grass they squished rotting oranges, which was fine for Ceese, wearing shoes as he was, but pretty icky for Mack, whose feet were bare.
"I guess I don't have permission to enter Fairyland," said Ceese.
"Then why were you able to get into the house?"
"Maybe halfway is as far as I can go."
"No, let's try getting you in sideways."
They tried crossing the patio with Ceese's eyes closed, and with Ceese walking backward, but there was no woods and no brick path and finally it occurred to Mack that maybe the problem wasn't Ceese.
Where Puck had turned small and slender and green-clad, Ceese had changed in an entirely different way. It was as if the house had shrunk behind him. Ceese was at least twice as tall as the house, and he looked massively strong, with hands that could crush boulders.
Now I know where all those stories about giants come from, thought Mack. Giants are just regular people, when they come into Fairyland.
Except Ceese can't get in. And what about me? I'm regular people, and I'm just the same size I always am.
"Mack!"
The voice was faint and small, and for a moment Mack thought it was Ceese calling him. But no, Ceese was looking off in another direction and anyway, a man that big couldn't possibly make a sound that thin and high.
Mack looked around him there in the woods, and finally found what he was looking for. Down among the fallen leaves, the grass, the moss, the mushrooms, with butterflies soaring overhead, was Puck. Not the big man with the rasta do, but the slender green-clad fairy he had glimpsed last evening on the porch of Skinny House.
He looked dead. Though he must have been alive a moment ago to call to him. Maybe it took the last of his strength. Maybe his last breath.
Puck was bloody, and his wings were torn. His chest looked crushed. One leg was bent at a terrible angle where there wasn't supposed to be a knee.
Mack gently scooped him up and started carrying him toward the house.
Trouble was, Puck grew larger in his hands. Heavier. More like his human Rastafarian self. Too big for Mack to carry safely.
At first he tried to carry him over his shoulder, but that worked for only a few steps before Mack collapsed under the weight of him. Then he got his hands under the man's armpits and dragged him. But it was hard work. His shoes kept snagging on stones and roots. Mack's heart was beating so fast he could hear it pounding in his ears. He had to stop and rest. And in the meantime, he knew Puck was still bleeding and probably dying even deader with every jostle and every minute of delay.
If only Ceese could enter the forest of Fairyland, he could pick Puck up like a baby and carry him.
And then it dawned on Mack why it was Ceese couldn't get in.
"What?"
"Mr. Christmas is in there, hurt bad, and I can't drag him out."
"Well I can't get in."
"I think maybe the reason you can't is that the passageway into Fairyland isn't tall enough for you."
"I'm not all that tall," said Ceese.
"In Fairyland you are. I saw you from inside the woods, and you're a giant, Ceese."
Ceese laughed at that—he wasn't all that tall a man, just average—but soon he was doing as Mack suggested, crawling on hands and knees while holding on to Mack's ankle and looking off to the side, and whether all of that was needed or it was just the crawling, he made it onto the brick path—which was no pleasure, on his knees like that—and then onto the mossy path.
"Open your eyes," said Mack.
Ceese did, and he truly was a giant, looking down at Mack like he was a Cabbage Patch doll.
And there, two strides away, was a grown black man in a rasta do, just like Mack described him.
"How come I'm a full-grown giant and he's not a tiny fairy, this far into the woods?"
"How do you know you're full-grown?" asked Mack.
He didn't, and he wasn't. In the two strides it took him to reach Mr. Christmas, Ceese grew so tall that his head was in the branches of the trees and he had to kneel back down just to see the path.
He scooped up Mr. Christmas just the way Mack had done and then, a few steps later, he had shrunk enough he had to set him down again and carry him in a fireman's carry. By the time they got to the back door, with Mack holding the screen open so Ceese could get inside, the man was so heavy and huge that Ceese was panting and staggering.
But he remembered how it felt to be so huge, and he kind of liked it.
Now the house was full of furniture again. Ceese took this in stride and laid Mr. Christmas out on the sofa. Now he was able to check his vital signs. "He's got a pulse. I don't suppose there's a phone."
"I wouldn't count on it," said Mack.
"Let's get him outside then, out to the street where somebody can see us, and try to get him to a hospital."
"I was hoping his own magic could heal him."
Mack helped Ceese get him up onto his back again, the old man's arms dangling over Ceese's shoulders. "Get the door open, Mack, and then run out into the street and flag somebody down."
Mack obeyed. First car that came was a nice big one, driven by Professor Williams from up the hill. He pulled right over when Mack flagged him.
"We got a man needs to get to the hospital!"
"I'm not that kind of a doctor," said Professor Williams. "I'm a doctor of literature."
"You the driver of a big car," said Mack, "and you can get this man to the hospital."
By now, Ceese had staggered to the curb, so he was visible.
"That man looks hurt," said Professor Williams.
"That be my guess, too," said Mack.
"He'll bleed all over my upholstery."
"That going to stop you from helping a man in need?" asked Mack.
Professor Williams was embarrassed. "No, of course not." A moment later, he had the back door open and then helped Ceese get the man into the car without dropping him or banging his head against the door or the car roof. It wasn't easy.
And at the end, when Mr. Christmas was laid out on the seat, Professor Williams took a good long look at his face. "Bag Man," he whispered.
"You know this guy?" said Ceese.
Professor Williams handed his keys to Ceese. "You take my car to the hospital. I'll walk back home and get my son Word to drive me to work."
"You sure you trust me with a car this nice?" said Ceese.
Professor Williams looked from Mr. Christmas to Mack and then back to Ceese. "I'm never riding in a car with that man again," he said. "If you're determined to save his life, then go, I won't stop you."
"I just hope I can get to the hospital in time. Unless you got a siren in your car."
Professor Williams gave a bitter little laugh. "I have a feeling you'll have green lights all the way, son."
Mr. Christmas didn't wake up at all, not on the way to the hospital, and not when the orderlies came out and hauled him out of the car and laid him on a gurney and rolled him into the emergency room.
That caused some raised eyebrows, and when they signed Mr. Christmas in as a John Doe, Ceese turned to Mack and said, "You watch, they'll have a cop coming by here to ask us if we the ones who beat this man up."
"Why would they do that?"
"Take a look at the color of your skin."
Mack grinned. "This just a suntan, Ceese. You know I spend all day outdoors in the summer."
"What I'm saying, Mack, is, let's go home. Let's not be here when the cop shows up."
"I can't do that," said Mack.
Ceese shook his head. "What is this man to you?"
"He's the man in Skinny House," said Mack. "He's the man who led me into—"
"Don't say it."
"Don't say what?"
Ceese lowered his voice. "Fairyland. Makes you sound two years old."