Becoming Jinn (36 page)

No, that's not right. The last thing I want to do is nothing—to stand here and do nothing when I have a chance to help Nate.

I move in front of him. “What, Nate? What do you wish for? Is there something, anything, that would make this even a little bit easier?”

Nate nods as tears return and spill down his cheeks. I grab his hand and pull him farther down the row until we are camouflaged between the pickup and the SUV next to it.

I focus on the bronze bangle but nothing in or on it changes as I begin the wish-granting ritual. After clearly enunciating all the incantations, I fix my gaze on Nate. The hurt in his eyes locks my heart in a vise. I force myself to continue, to fully connect with Nate's anima, to give his soul a home in mine.

The weight and the lightness of nature somehow course through my veins at the same time. It's … calming … peaceful. I am right where I'm supposed to be. Doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. It is the first time since becoming Jinn I have felt this way.

“I am now ready to grant you one wish.” I say the line that is required before adding more of my own. I need to do this right, for myself, for my mother, but mostly, for Nate. “Think before you answer. Search your heart and your mind for your deepest desire, the one thing you wish beyond all else, the one thing you need above all else to make your life better. Now, Nathan Reese, what is your one wish?”

The answer in the depths of his soul I feel in my own. He doesn't need to verbalize it but he does. In the trance-like state I've put him in, he says slowly, “I wish to be able to take care of Megan.”

Nate the protector. Of course this is his wish. He wants his father back. He wants his mother to get better. But he can't live without knowing his sister will be okay. And he needs to be the one to make that happen. Which means, I need to be the one to make that happen.

I'm about to begin the concluding incantations when Nate continues to speak.

“And I wish Azra will always be with me. She makes the hurt less.”

He's already made his one wish. So this second wish I cannot use magic to grant. Fortunately, this second wish I do not need to use magic to grant.

*   *   *

Thinking the day could not get any more surreal, I find myself sandwiched between Chelsea and Henry in the backseat being driven home from the hospital by one of Nate's lifeguard buddies. Nate's residual anima has me numb, figuratively and literally. I'm grateful for the warm bodies on either side of me.

The car stops in front of my house. Solemn nods are exchanged between those in the front seats and those in the back. Henry leans across me, smiles weakly at Chelsea, and steps out onto the curb.

I slide across the seat and reach for Henry's extended hand. Chelsea catches me by the elbow and breaks the silence that clung to the darkened interior for the duration of the ride.

“We should do something,” she says.

My confusion must show on my face, because she elaborates.

“Help out,” she says. “Do you cook? We could make something together. Something they could freeze. We, my mom and I, we did that when my uncle passed away last year. I can get some recipes from her. You could come over, or I could come back here, or—”

I pat Chelsea's knee. “Sure, that sounds … nice.”

“Yeah?” Chelsea's eyes widen.

“Yeah,” I say. “This is all new to me.”

Chelsea nods. “I'll get your number from Henry.”

I manage a slight smile and place my hand in Henry's. The car leaves us standing on the sidewalk. If the Afrit took my mother away, is that what I'd be left with? A freezer of baked ziti, banana bread, and enchiladas?

*   *   *

Using my keys, Henry unlocks the front door of my house. The noise draws my mother's attention. From upstairs, she calls down in a frantic voice, “I was about to use my locator spell to find you.”

She pauses on the landing. “Oh, Henry, I didn't know you were here. It's just … it's only you two, right?”

Henry nods. “Just us.”

Relieved, my mother continues down the stairs while I work my way up. We meet halfway, and I hug her, hard. She must feel me trembling because she says, “Azra, honey, what's wrong? What happened? Where's Nate? Did he take you both home?”

My eyes are so full of tears that I miss the next step. “I can't, Mom. Not now.”

“But honey, tell me—”

Henry clears his throat. “If it's all right, Mrs. Nadira, I can explain. Okay, Azra?”

Whether they see me nod my head in response or not doesn't matter. I keep going, heading for my room. I hear Henry say “accident” and then “horses” and “Nate” and shut my door to the rest.

I don't want to hear it again. The younger parking lot attendants found the stash of warm beer and filled their bellies. They wandered away from the bonfire and started messing with the horses at the farm near the entrance to the beach. One of the preteen boys crawled through the wooden post-and-rail fence and opened first the barn door and then the fence gate. Chasing the horses, they pushed the scared animals into the dark street just as Nate's parents were coming around the bend.

Yanking my down comforter over my bare legs, I inhale. The lilacs are strong tonight. The flowers should be long gone, their season usually confined to the spring. But they're my favorite. My mother's magic keeps the blooms lasting all summer so I can fall asleep breathing in the familiar scent, the scent I associate with the comfort and safety of home.

I inhale over and over again. But the increasingly deep and long breaths I take bring only the strong, fruity fragrance. This day that has stripped so much from me takes one more thing.

 

35

The barking dog ruins my plan to sleep through the night. For which I am grateful. My dreams quickly morphed into nightmares that only retreated with my waking up. Before I fell asleep I would have said nothing could be worse than reality, but my subconscious mind combined with Nate's grieving residual anima had other ideas.

I tug on my comforter, but it doesn't budge. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see what's holding it up. Or down.

Curled like a cat at the foot of my bed is Henry. Even tucked as compactly as he is with his chin and knees greeting each other at his belly button, he's still too tall to fit horizontally across the full-size mattress. The sight of him makes me want to laugh as much as cry. I'm betting it wasn't all that difficult for him to convince my mother to allow him to stay with me. Though he'll be sore tomorrow if he sleeps the entire night in this position, I know he won't say a word. I don't deserve him. If I tell him about Jenny, that likely won't be a problem. How could he ever forgive me? But can I really not tell him? Can I really keep this a secret from him?

Yes, I can. And I will. And this, above all else, lets me know I really have become a Jinn.

Unable to look at the framed photo of me, Jenny, and Laila, I place it facedown on my nightstand. I ease out of bed and fold my end of the blanket over Henry. My bonfire clothes smell faintly of smoke. I check to make sure Henry's asleep before I change into jeans and a light sweater.

It's very late, or really early, depending on how you look at it. Though my stomach growls, I feel guilty for thinking about something as trivial as food. It seems a betrayal to Nate to think anything but sad thoughts. To think of anything but granting his wish. I'm fortunate that I can do more to help Nate and his family than bake a crumb cake.

I lift the cantamen and a notebook off my desk. My bedroom door squeaks as I open it, but Henry remains in his little ball. I slip through and gently close the door behind me. Across the hall, my mother's bedroom door stands wide open. I start down the stairs and catch a few words spoken in her hushed voice. Light from the kitchen filters into the living room.

I lower myself onto a step and crouch behind the railing. It's a familiar stakeout position. Eavesdropping on my mother and one of her Zar sisters, usually Lalla Sam, who'd apport here for late-night gossiping was a staple of my childhood. The railing did a better job of concealing me back then.

“Maybe the Nadiras are cursed,” Samara says.

“Sam, that's not helping,” my mother says.

“Well, really, Kalyssa, who has this much bad luck?”

My mother sighs. “That poor boy, that poor family.”

My stomach churns, rejecting even the thought of food.

Part of me wants to rush down the stairs and ask for help granting Nate's wish. But a bigger part stops me. Because
I
have to figure it out. Not my mother or Samara. Because it really is intimate, granting a human's wish. My connection to Nate's anima went so deep—it's still so deep—that I'm consumed by the need to protect it, to protect him and his wish, to be the only one privy to what's in his soul. I've finally done this to the best of my abilities, just like my mother's been trying to teach me to do. Just as we Jinn were meant to do.

All well and good, but my suddenly gooey center doesn't do squat for actually helping me grant the freakin' wish. This will require logistics, planning … like I should have done with Ms. Wood. Mrs. Pucher, Zoe, Lisa, all those wishes were easier because they could be granted in the moment.

Cantamen clutched to my chest, I retreat to my mother's room and stretch out on her bed. I lie on my stomach and pull one of her pillows toward me. A splash of red appears. Red leather. Underneath the pillow is my mother's diary. An uncapped pen sticks out from in between pages near the end, pages that are still blank.

My mother said she used a spell to hide the writing on those seemingly empty pages of the cantamen. The diary must be masked by the same spell. As I leaf through the codex, I keep my eyes open for both a way to grant Nate's wish and a spell to reveal the hidden ink. I find the spell first, thanks to a huge drawing of a pair of purple eyeglasses.

I touch the title next to the drawing: “Make the Seen Unseen.” The spell that follows has it all: rhyme, foreign words, magic gobbledygook. Now all I need is a talisman. This I do not have. But my mother does. And I know what it is.

When my mother appeared at Ms. Wood's house, she was wearing her emerald signet ring. She doesn't wear it often. I always thought it was because it was large and a bit showy, but I now suspect there's another reason. The ring is her talisman. She needed it that day in order to use spells to fix my mess. Since Yasmin's been wearing and using Raina's ring, I'm pretty sure my mother's talisman will work for me.

When I found out about the car accident, my priorities shifted. But as I near my mother's jewelry box to search for her ring, my suspicions about my
A
pendant and what it means if they are true rise up again.

Stopping a few feet short of my mother's dresser, I focus on the jewelry box and the emerald ring resting inside. The lid opens, and the ring lifts, levitates, and moves toward me. I extend my middle finger, letting the emerald slide down. It's a perfect fit.

I walk to the dresser to return the ring to where my powers found it and dig the duplicate
A
pendant out of the bottom drawer. Either I'm wrong about all this, or everything that happened earlier distracted my mother from finding a new hiding place.

Holding the
A
in one hand, I step back until I'm in the exact same position I was in moments ago. Though I'm doing exactly what I did the first time, the jewelry box doesn't open and the ring doesn't float my way. Still focused, I drop the heavier
A
pendant to the floor. The emerald ring flies at me so fast I need to duck to avoid it colliding with my forehead.

Damn, I was right.
I was right.
The magic running through my Jinn blood doesn't need a bangle to unleash it. When I turned sixteen, my mother must have replaced the
A
pendant that she spelled to block my magic with the lighter one I'm now wearing. Her smooth actions allowed me to continue believing the lie: that because of my scar I needed a bangle to release my powers. Now I'm sixteen. I'm allowed to use magic. Why not tell me the truth? What is she afraid of? What should I be afraid of?

The fact that Samara's here stops me from confronting my mother. I kept Henry a secret from Laila because I didn't want to put her in danger. Knowing what I now know about the Afrit, I wouldn't be surprised if my mother has been doing the same thing with Sam. I've waited sixteen years to learn the truth, another day means nothing to me. But to Nate, whose deepest desire is to take care of Megan, another day must mean everything.

This is when it hits me that I should have done something to grant at least a portion of Nate's wish in the moment. How could I allow him to leave the parking lot without somehow letting him know that he already has all he needs to take care of his sister?

Logistics, legalities, that's what came into my mind when he said “take care of.” But those words encompass much more. So much more, my lungs seize and I fall onto the end of the bed. Nate lost his father tonight. His mother is hurt, bad. His deepest desire is to know that his sister will be okay.

And I have no idea what I'm doing.

When Jenny died, all I wanted to do was stop being Jinn. But tonight, all I want to do is be a model Jinn. I have to do this. I have to do this
right
.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try not to crumble under the massive weight on my chest.

My skin prickles and a purring fills my ears. Smooth, warm hands rest on my cheeks.

“Oh, Azra, honey, what is it?”

Hana. Red hair tied into a loose bun on top of her head, a white goopy mask covering her face, toothbrush clutched in her hand.

“What…?” I blink. Twice. “What are you doing here?”

Hana shoves her toothbrush in the pocket of her pajama pants. “You tell me. I expected to find you staked or something.”