Becoming Jinn (26 page)

“How could you let me go?” My anger flares. “How could you let me do an assignment if you knew I hadn't prepared? If you knew my success with Mrs. Pucher was just a fluke?”

The screech of her chair against the floor precedes my mother standing over me. “How could
I
let you go?
I
, who had no idea you were embarking on this today?
I
, who would have never let you go if I did?
I
, who saw your very real finesse with Mrs. Pucher but still stressed the importance of research. Of fully linking with the human's psyche? Both of which
you
ignored?”

“But I didn't have time for research.” I pull the folded note card out of my pocket and toss it on the table. I flatten it with my hand. When I lift my palm, staring up at me is a 7
.

A
7
?

My mother taps the paper. “You had six more days. What you mean is you didn't have time for research because you couldn't wait to show Henry your powers in action, isn't that right?”

“No, I…” My voice trembles. Did my nerves make me see things that weren't there? No, no, no. It was a 1. I know it was. I could try to explain, but she's never going to believe me. I whack my bangle against the table. “This … this … sucks.” The anger gone from my voice, all that remains is the fear.

“Yes, it does, for all of us. This doesn't just affect you.” My mother bends so that her arms fall around my neck and her cheek rests next to mine. She whispers in my ear, “Scared?”

I nod as tears obscure my vision. I'm mourning the loss of my powers but also of my ability to be in denial. This bronze bangle makes the Afrit and their punishments, including tortura cavea, more than a tale my mother told me to make me behave. The Afrit are real. My need to stop behaving like a selfish jerk is real.

“Good,” she says. “Because if this were them finding out about Henry rather than a mishandled wish, you'd be gone. No probation. No second chance.” She swallows. “So don't forget how this feels—ever.” She kisses my wet cheek. “And if it seems like you are, I'll remind you because no matter how hard I may want to, I'll never be able to forget.”

She stays that way, her body protectively wrapped around mine, until my shaking subsides.

Samara conjures a tissue and hands it to me. “Don't worry, Azra. They don't know about Henry, so you're still a blunder or two away from your date with the guillotine.”

I blow my nose, laugh, and wince all at the same time.

With a wink, Samara says, “Too soon?”

“Way too soon,” my mother says despite her weak smile. She rubs her tired eyes. “Tell me, Azra, you haven't let anyone else in on our little secret, have you?”

I assure her I haven't.

After she and Samara study each other, my mother asks Sam, “You're positive they don't know?”

Samara lifts the note that was on our refrigerator out of the pocket of her conjured shirt.

My mother reads it, and her eyes flutter shut. She holds it against her heart. She then locks eyes with Samara. “We could try to make him forget.”

Panic sets my heart racing.
She's going to take Henry from me.
She's going to use her spell to make him forget. Or … no, she's going to make
me
make him forget.

I roughly shake my head. “I won't do it. I won't use mind control on him.”

At my mention of mind control, both my mother and Samara unconsciously touch their foreheads. My mother then says, “No, no, of course not. I told you not to do it again, I'd never ask you to. Not that you can now, anyway.”

Right. I forgot. Funny how second nature using magic has become to me.

Leaning over the table, Samara evaluates me. Her lips curl up slightly. “You could though, right? If you weren't wearing that thing? You could do mind control?”

“
Sam
, maybe it's time for you to go. Azra and I still have a lot to talk about.”

Samara frowns at my mother. “Hold on, Kalyssa. Making Azra's candidate forget an afternoon is one thing. But we both know using a spell to make a human forget something this big won't be easy. It's not designed for that. Isn't that why Isa never tried it with Larry?”

Larry? A memory comes back to me. A pair of fur-covered hands pinching my cheeks, a gravely voice singing “
Azra-cadabra!
”

“Hairy Larry?” I ask. “Lalla Isa's old boyfriend?”

The fling Farrah's mom had with Hairy Larry lasted longer than any other relationship I know of between one of my mother's Zar sisters and a human. From when I was probably seven until just a couple of years ago.

My mother starts to speak, but Samara cuts her off. “Lalla Isa's old human boyfriend who knew about her.” She places her hands on her voluptuous hips. “And us.”

The ball of fear in the pit of my stomach begins to unravel. Relief mixes with a sense of betrayal for what's been drilled into me my entire life. “But what about the whole ‘telling a human being is the worst thing a Jinn can do' thing?”

“It is,” they both say.

“If the Afrit find out, that's it, Azra,” my mother says.

“It really is a life sentence,” Samara adds, the two of them playing off each other like a perfectly timed duet.

“It's reckless,” my mother says. “It puts us all in jeopardy. Which is why the punishment is so severe.”

“And why it's a risk few take,” Samara says. As she stands and faces my mother, the dynamics of the conversation seem to shift. Less between them and me and more between the two of them. “Still, Jinn slip, purposely and not. It's happened before, and it's bound to happen again.”

My mother purses her lips as she leans against the counter behind her. “Sam's right about the spell. Making someone forget requires a delicate touch.”

Samara keeps her eyes focused on my mother. “And it's dangerous. It doesn't even appear in the majority of cantamens. Of the Jinn who do have the spell, most won't ever use it.”

“Shouldn't,” my mother says.

“Isa wouldn't,” Samara says. “She refused. Rightfully so.”

So I'm guessing erasing memories of a house-blazing after-prom party is on par with wiping away one afternoon? Were they joking then? Or are they just trying to scare me now so I don't use the spell to, oh, I don't know, make Henry forget he ever met Chelsea?

“But they broke up,” I say, deciding not to ask about the party. If I ask, they'll know I eavesdropped, which will make it harder to do again. “How did Lalla Isa know he wouldn't tell?”

Samara's deep laugh reverberates off the cabinets. “The three cars and the mansion in South Beach. Plus, if he opened his mouth she's got that fake video of him with a hooker.” Samara looks at me. “He's a state senator. The hooker is your Lalla Jada in disguise but the ruse never went far enough for him to figure that out.”

“Blackmail,” I say. “Would have thought that'd work the other way around.”

My mother shakes her head. “Security, perhaps, not blackmail. Because Sam knows full well the real reason he keeps Isa's secret is because he loved her. He still does.”

Samara loops around to my side of the table and lifts me out of the chair. “How long has your little loverboy known?”

“He's not my—” I stop, thinking maybe this, combined with my Scarlett O'Hara plan, will actually help my cause. “Weeks.”

“Weeks?” my mother repeats.

Samara nudges my chin upward. “You trust him?”

“As much as I trust you, Lalla Sam.” Looking at my mother, I add, “He swore on Lisa's life, Mom.”

She tears up as I say this. Samara goes to her, gently wrapping her arm around my mother's shoulder. “Let her have him, Kal. Who knows? Maybe things won't always be this way.”

A chill runs through me as Samara hugs me good-bye. I cling to her, waiting for the comfort her apricot-scented embraces always provide to come. But it doesn't. All that's there is the fruity smell.

Apparently, my magic isn't the only thing this bronze contraption can take away.

 

25

The noxious odor causes my eyes to water. I'm mopping up sewage from an overflowed toilet, humming this new song I just heard on the radio. Even the putrid smell doesn't make me want to return to the stale air of my bedroom that I've been stuck breathing in for the past week.

My mother grounded me, forbidding me from leaving the house for all purposes, including work. Today's my first day back, thanks to Nate. Somehow he made sure I had a job to return to. That they gave my snack bar shifts to the new girl and saddled me with bathroom attendant duties doesn't even matter.

Wringing out the mop, I force back bile. Okay, so it matters a little.

Still, I'm here. Nate's working. Henry said he'd stop by. Even seeing Chelsea can't bother me today.

Back at the desk at the front of the women's restrooms, I strip off my two pairs of gloves and kick off the work boots I borrowed from Ranger Teddy's office. I agreed to clean up the mess, but there was no way I was wading through that cesspool in flip-flops. I text Henry my locale and stare out the tiny holes in the screen door, waiting for him to arrive.

My mother allowed him a single, brief visit during my imprisonment. She kicked things off by securing his eternal promise to never reveal our secret. Something in the way she muttered under her breath and kneaded her hands when Henry repeated the exact sentence she demanded (“I shall never utter, write, or think a word about the Jinn world in anyone's presence other than a member of the Nadira family.”) makes me wonder if she wasn't sealing his vow with some sort of spell.

Even though her decision not to erase Henry's memory came less out of the goodness of her heart and more out of her fear that Sam was right about the spell not being powerful enough, I was grateful. I not only endured but agreed with her lecture on how irresponsible my behavior has been, how the infringement on my freedom is a result of me not taking things seriously, and how I need to be conscious of the fact that my actions have a ripple effect on others.

The last part stung. Seeing that baby all alone, knowing I was the one responsible, confirmed every fear I've ever had about being Jinn. Granting wishes in real life is nothing like in the movies or on TV. These are real people who want real things that I have no real idea how to give them—at least without hurting them, someone else, or, apparently, myself.

Henry's convinced if he hadn't followed me, none of this would've happened. While I have my doubts about that, I'm pretty sure the fact that he blames himself played a role in my mother's decision. As did my renewed dedication to the cantamen.

The codex and I spent the week of my grounding together. We may not know all of each other's secrets, but we are certainly on a first-name basis.

And, it turns out, a description of the bronze bangle does indeed lie on the second page, but it offers no details beyond what my mother told me. How to get the probation lifted? What kinds of mistakes might ramp me up to the next level of punishment? What that next level might be? Nothing. Despite flipping through the book every day of my grounding, I couldn't find another reference. Figures that my Jinn ancestors would think it was cute not to include an index. There's not even a table of contents.
Isn't that funny?
Um, no. Not at all.

The haphazard way the cantamen is organized means there's no sense in trying to read it as a straight narrative, starting on page one and following sequentially to page whatever (apparently my ancestors also believed page numbers were superfluous). Over the years, newer generations of my Jinn family magically inserted their own pages ahead of those of previous generations, sometimes smack in the middle of a spell or a Jinn's personal history. There's even an entire section in the middle left entirely blank. The thing is less user-friendly than a software manual.

If I didn't think tapping Henry to upgrade the relic to the digital age would send my mother's blood pressure skyrocketing, I'd have asked him. Because studying the cantamen appears to be as worthwhile as my mother said it would be. The nuts and bolts of wishes my family has granted are documented in such detail that if only I didn't have to slog through recipes for sugar cookies and reviews of the best beaches in Mexico, I just might be on my way to becoming a model Jinn (minus the whole exposing us to humans thing).

Nature laughs at the thought, sending a stream of sun through the open restroom window that reflects off my bronze bangle and blinds me. I cover the shiny metal with my hand. If I still had my powers I could have used them to clean up this disgusting mess. That's what I get for being so cocky, so flippant, so superior to all of this. Poetic justice indeed.

I'm more scared than I've admitted to my mother that the Afrit will be evaluating my magic so closely. Before my probation, I'm not sure I believed tortura cavea was real. Now, well, the Afrit not only have my attention but my full benefit of the doubt. The question is, how many chances do I get before they take me away from everyone I care about? My mother. Henry. Lisa. Laila. Samara. My Zar sisters (most of my Zar sisters). And Nate. Don't forget Nate.

Maybe the Afrit should rethink their rules about keeping Jinn separated from our families and discouraging attachments to humans, because the more I gain the more I have to lose.

Afrit, I am humbled. Can you give me my life back?
Who would have thought I'd actually be asking for my trusty silver bangle? Or that it would equate to me having a life?

Cheap toilet paper scratches my chin as I retrieve a tall stack from the supply closet and carry it to the long line of stalls. A knock on the screen door makes me pivot, and the rolls tumble to the ground. At least the floor's clean, having been freshly mopped by me.