Becoming Jinn (10 page)

Hana says, “We'll text you, then?”

It's likely the brief pause before my “sure,” that elicits the snort from Yasmin. She then drops the bottle of absinthe into her bag. “We're done here. Time to go, my little Jinnies.” A perfect imitation of the Wicked Witch of the West.

With promises of being in touch soon, a flurry of arms encircle me and Laila before Hana, Mina, and Farrah disappear.

Yasmin stays behind. “I forgot my coat.”

Laila looks back and forth between us. “I'll get it?” she half says, half asks.

Once Laila slips into the house, Yasmin opens the garage door with her powers and gestures across the street. “That's always been easier for you, hasn't it? Being friends with the humans?”

All that happened last night, all that's happened this morning, I'm at a loss for words. Thankfully, I'm pretty sure this is a rhetorical question.

“But you should know,” Yasmin says, “my Zar is open to you. You just have to be open to it.”

My
Zar?

“But we come first.” She plays with her mother's ring. “I realize now that's the lesson my mother was trying to teach me all this time. She wouldn't let me be friends with humans.” She drills her beautiful gold eyes into mine. “And yours shouldn't have either.”

My heart twists, and I'm not sixteen, I'm not a full Jinn with all the powers that come with it. I'm ten, back in my room, listening to Yasmin mock my pain over losing Jenny.

*   *   *

After everyone is gone, the effects of the shredder my heart's just been rammed through must show on my face, because my mother agrees to let us have the birthday cake we didn't get to eat last night for breakfast. The slice with the “16” goes to Laila. Not surprisingly, it's always been her favorite number. My mom gets the “Az,” and Samara gets the “ra.”

I stare at the exclamation point on top of my piece. Maybe eating such excitement will help me feel it.

Samara pushes herself back from the table. “Let's go, Laila, before we leave the birthday girl with only crumbs for leftovers.” As she hugs me good-bye, she touches the infinity pendant around my neck. “What a nice idea Laila had.”

I'm going to be sick. Again.

“What's with the long face, doll?” Samara says. “Was this all really so traumatic?”

Yes, and no. Laila and I made a pact to keep Yasmin's cat burglary a secret from our mothers. Laila thought we should tell, but the look on Yasmin's face when Laila called for my magical help made me push for giving her a pass. A pass I now regret.

“No, it was great,” I force myself to say. I try to draw on that exclamation point in my belly but can tell from the look on my mother's face it's not working.

Laila places her arm around my shoulder. “Come on, Az, the Zar sisterhood is tradition. We have to stick together.”

“Indeed.” Samara grabs my mother's hand and twirls her around. “Look at us. Don't doubt what the Zar bond can give you. After all, we're all we've got.”

That's not true. The locket proves it.

“
Here
,” I say. “We're all we've got
here
.”

Silence. Complete silence. We don't talk about this. We don't talk about how, for the past fifteen years, the Afrit have forbid all but us mothers and daughters from living among humans. We don't mention how it feels to be separated from the rest of our families and every other Jinn who isn't integral to granting wishes. We don't waste a single breath discussing what this means for my generation of Jinn, the first to never know our fathers, our grandfathers, our grandmothers, to live under the harshest reforms, to be subject to the whims of the Afrit.

For centuries, granting wishes has formed the core of our society and taken precedence above all else.

But retired female Jinn still have their powers. So do male Jinn, though they haven't granted wishes in decades. When the order came, why did they all just go? Why did we let them all just go? Why is travel between the two worlds prohibited? Why do we let the Afrit—a council of but twelve Jinn—dictate so much about our lives? Aren't they an
elected
council?

The ballot competition must be beyond pitiful if these Jinn keep winning.

All of this runs through my head, but none of it spills from my lips. It already has. Many times. And the answer is always the same: “to protect us from being exposed.” My mother has refused to give another answer. Samara has refused to give another answer. But there must
be
another answer.

Today's times may be different from my mother's, but not different enough to require such drastic changes to our world. I nudge Laila's shoulder. Clearly destined to be the model Jinn of our circle, she intervenes, but only to make peace.

She swings her purse in front of her stomach, pulls out a piece of ribbon, and pushes it into my hand. “Here. For luck. And rest up. Tomorrow's a big day. I'm so jealous!” Laila waves good-bye as Samara hooks an arm around her daughter's waist and makes them both disappear.

Luck? Tomorrow? She must think that's when my job starts, but my first day behind the snack bar at the beach isn't for a couple more days.

Though most kids in school have had jobs for years, my mother wouldn't let me work until this summer. Apparently sixteen is quite the loaded age, bringing with it enough maturity to dole out hot dogs and wishes.

I fall into the couch and hug a sequined throw pillow to my chest. “I didn't know Laila wanted a summer job.” Between the residual alcohol and the residual Yasmin, it's a good thing I don't have to start work yet. I turn to my mother. “How long do Jinn hangovers last, exactly?”

The double entendre doesn't register until the words have left my lips.

My mother gives an empathetic smile. “How about I make you feel better?”

She lays one palm on my forehead and the other on my stomach. With her eyes closed, she whispers an incantation I recognize as a healing one. The instant she removes her hands, my lingering headache and nausea are gone.

“Better?” she asks.

I nod, tentatively, wary of what made her change her mind about healing me.

She gathers her hair into a bun, using a long strand to keep it in place. I've tried, but can't do it with my own. Guess I'm sticking with the elastic and the ponytail.

“Good. Because today…” She takes both of my hands and swings my arms. “Today, we get to practice. Your first wish-granting ritual is tomorrow! Fun, right?”

Wrong.

My mother continues, “Your powers are so advanced that the Afrit think you're ready for your first candidate.”

Damn, has this stupid bangle actually ratted me out? Or was it my mother?

“This is a good thing. Your talent is being recognized. You're being rewarded.”

“Whoopee.” My queasiness makes a comeback. Rewarded for all my misbehavior. Is that really the lesson I should be learning?

I open my clenched palm. The silver glistening in my hand isn't a ribbon. It's a piece of Christmas tree tinsel. Surely it's
the
piece of Christmas tree tinsel. The one Laila fashioned our pretend bangles out of when we were ten.

Maybe it's too late. Maybe being rewarded for my misbehavior is a lesson I've already learned.

 

10

My mother has chosen for me. This is the first thing I'm annoyed about. She has chosen Mrs. Pucher. This is the second thing I'm annoyed about.

What does Mrs. Pucher need? She's probably just going to wish for another yappy Pomeranian. If I didn't live next door to the mutt, I'd never believe something so little could be so loud.

At least she didn't choose the crazy old lady on the other side of us. And I mean literally crazy. As sorry as I feel for Mrs. Seyfreth, the way she silently paces her backyard decked out in high heels, a full-length lace dress, and a camel-colored fur coat creeps me out. I'm certain my powers aren't advanced enough to rewire whatever's wrong with her brain.

I don't want to waste a choice on either one of our next-door neighbors because I only get three. All any Jinn gets is three. While we have few restrictions on using our powers for our own personal magic, we are forbidden from granting wishes for humans unless they are officially assigned to us by the Afrit. The only exception are those humans chosen to serve as guinea pigs. Like in a teaching hospital, newbie Jinn learn by doing. In an effort to make it easier for us to get the hang of this wish-granting thing, we are permitted to choose our first three candidates.

Or in my case, my mother is permitted to choose.

Whoever my great-great grandmother times a hundred was had it way easier. Unlike when humans believed in spirits, magic, and the unknown, today, changing someone's life overnight risks exposure. We need to research and learn all we can about our candidates in order to grant their wishes in a way that won't attract attention, that won't reveal our magic. My unlucky generation of Jinn is granting wishes in an age when every human with a cell phone, which is essentially every human, holds the ability to out us in the palm of their hand.

This, my mother claims, is why she chose Mrs. Pucher. Since I've lived next door to her my entire life, I should know her well. She even babysat for me a few times when I was little. My mother rationalizes that this connection means I'll be more relaxed, more at ease, and more able to focus solely on my magic.

“That may have been true,” I said yesterday when we were role-playing as seventy-five-year-old Mrs. Pucher, the easy wishee, and newly sixteen-year-old Azra, the frustrated genie, “if I wasn't still ticked off that her new dog was yapping away, ruining my birthday plans to go back to sleep.”

My mother hesitated. “New dog? I'm pretty sure she only has Pom-Pom. Are you positive you heard something? You didn't actually see anything, did you?”

“No, but I heard barking. And it didn't sound like Pom-Pom.”

“Well, that's good,” my mother said with relief.

I wrinkled my nose at her.

“I mean,” she said, “good that if there's another dog, it's probably not right next door.”

If that new dog doesn't belong to Mrs. Pucher, then picking her was a mistake. She doesn't love anything more than her Pom-Pom. My bet's on her using the one wish she gets to clone him.

After practicing late into the night, my mother let me sleep in this morning. I'm supposed to be using my remaining time to read through the cantamen and further prepare myself for granting my first wish.

For centuries, the cantamen's main goal has been to guide and inspire new Jinn as they hone their magic. Part rulebook, part spell book, part history book, part memoir, part diary, the pages and pages of entries are a hodgepodge of information. Each family maintains its own cantamen, building on and adding to it as rules are enacted, as practices change, as new members are born, as someone invents a self-proclaimed unparalleled recipe for fudge they feel the need to share.

Passed down from generation to generation, each Jinn in my family has recorded the wishes they've been asked and how they went about granting them. In detail—minute detail.

Reading that entire tome before I grant Mrs. Pucher's wish is a feat I cannot accomplish. What I can accomplish is altering my concession-stand uniform.

When I was hired last week, the manager gave me two beige polo shirts with the beach conservation's logo stitched on the left pocket. Like all my tops, the tees now skim my belly button. I concentrate the same way I did when my mother was teaching me to light my first fire. The beige fabric extends. I slip it over my head to test it. The hem has moved the perfect amount. And it's even all the way around. Who needs to study the cantamen?

The only requirement for the bottom half of my uniform is the color. I can wear pants, shorts, even a skirt, so long as they're khaki or white. I pull on the white jeans I bought for my first day. They are now cropped pants. About to lengthen them, I channel my inner Hana and fashion them into shorts.

So what if I'm a bit chilly on the cooler days? Even I can admit my long legs look killer in these. Maybe even murderous enough that a cute lifeguard will notice.

Right, Azra.
“
A
” cute lifeguard? Not “
the
” cute lifeguard?
The one doing timed sprints up and down the beach while you were lying to Ranger Teddy about your knowledge of deep fryers?

I spin around in front of the mirror, more excited for drizzling cheese sauce on nachos than any normal teenager would be.

“Azra, it's time,” my mother calls from downstairs.

My excitement fizzles out. Moving as slowly as I can, I change out of my uniform. I'm hit by the tiniest pang of regret at not flipping through the cantamen. Who knows? Maybe I could have found a loophole.

*   *   *

Mrs. Pucher disappears into her kitchen to make a third pot of tea. My mother stares at me from the flowered armchair next to the grandfather clock—the clock that has ticked for a full hour. I haven't been able to muster the courage to begin the wish-granting ritual.

Though my mother walked me through this at least ten times yesterday and once more before leaving the house, my palms are sweating so much I'm afraid I might short out the bangle.

“Can't I just do the stupid dog?” I whisper to my mother.

She picks a wad of white fur off her denim skirt. “You can do this, Azra.” Checking to make sure Mrs. Pucher's back is turned, she dumps the contents of her teacup in the fern. “No pressure, really, but do you think you might do it soon? I can't stomach much more of this stuff.”

I could say it serves her right for choosing Mrs. Pucher, but I know how hard it is to swallow the old lady's bitter, barely sweetened Earl Grey. I bowed out after half a cup, claiming too much caffeine might give me a migraine.