As You Wish (12 page)

WHEN I VANISH
from the flower garden, the music and the scent of alcohol are replaced with the cool silence of Holly Park. One swing is swaying back and forth slightly. In a blink, the ifrit comes into view sitting on the swing. His bronze eyes flicker up to me like firelight, and he stands. I'm angry, so angry that I can feel the emotion coursing through me, like my blood has turned to poison.

“You requested it, my friend.”

“I take the request back. Leave her alone,” I growl.

“Hey.” The ifrit raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Come on now. You wanted this—”

“Stay away from her!” I shout. My voice echoes across the empty park.

I requested it. I requested the press. But that doesn't mean I can't fight for her now.

The ifrit rises from the swing slowly. I'm tall, but the ifrit is slightly taller—after all, he's a full-grown adult now. We stare hard at each other.

“You're acting human,” the ifrit says testily.

“I don't care,” I hiss. “Stay away from her.”

“Why? Because you think she's keeping you around as her friend? You're her slave. And eventually, she'll wish, and you'll be sent back to Caliban with months, maybe even years taken off your life—and nothing to show for it but a collection of nights spent in a park because she throws you out of her house when she's got no need for you.”

I don't care anymore. It's worth it. Even if she never speaks to me again because of the press, she's worth it. She makes me a
person
, not just a wish granter. I never realized how unfulfilling life as a wish granter was until I had something more. Till I had
the piece I didn't know I was missing.

“It doesn't matter,” I snap. “I shouldn't have asked you to press her. With her, it's not like most mortals. She's not like that.”

“They're
all
like that. Greedy, aging, desperate, selfish. It's what they are, just as we are what we are.”

My mind clouds over, and I'm shaking with something like frustration or rage or pain. Wood chips grind beneath my knees. My hand makes contact with skin, and pain ricochets through my arm. The next thing I'm aware of is the ifrit, pinned to the ground beneath me.

I hit him. I hit a fellow jinn.

I freeze, stunned as I comprehend what I've just done. I hardly even feel it when the ifrit pushes me off. The ifrit scrambles to stand, eyes wide. He touches his lower lip tenderly, and inhales in shock when he realizes he's bleeding.

No one bleeds in Caliban.

“You hit me,” the ifrit murmurs. I grimace and haul myself up from the dirt.

“I can't believe you hit me,” the ifrit says, eyes widening even farther. Finally his surprise dissipates to anger. “What's wrong with you?”

“She's not like that,” I grumble aloud, running a hand through my hair nervously. I hit an ifrit. I've never even heard of someone hitting an ifrit. But he deserved it. I deserve it, really. I was the one who asked for the press.

“You hit a fellow jinn? Over a human girl? What has this girl done to you?” the ifrit says, finally wiping the blood from his mouth with the hem of his tunic. “You're coming back to Caliban. One way or another, I won't let a human ruin you like this. First you break all three protocols, now this. Do you realize how much trouble you're already in with the Ancients? The mortal girl doesn't matter!”

I breathe in sharply. The mortal girl doesn't matter? No, my friend. She does matter.

“Please,” I say aloud. I raise my eyes and meet the ifrit's gaze. “Please don't hurt her. Stop the press. I'll deal with the Ancients when I get back; I'll leave you out of it. But stop the press.”

The ifrit looks astounded that I would make a request after punching him—I can't blame him. He shakes his head, like he's staring at a stranger, someone he thinks he might have known in the past. It's a long time before he speaks.

“You can't take back a request for a press. You know that. The Ancients would never allow it, and I can't hide that sort of thing from them. And I wouldn't take it back even if it was possible. You need to get out of here. You think you're happy, right? You're not. You're just confused. Get her to wish, get her to forget you—for your own sake,” the ifrit finishes. He wipes his lip again and disappears.

I gasp when he vanishes, like I'm surfacing for air, and lean back against the oak tree. My fingertips tremble slightly. He's right. Of course he's right. She's going to forget me. The connection between a master and a jinn has to be severed at some point. Nothing changes that. It's like I'm being punished.

No—I
am
being punished.

This is why Caliban was a punishment. I realize it now—it's a beautiful, perfect world of nothingness. No connection, no longing, no…love. A world we're trapped in until we're
needed here, a world we're condemned to while everyone we might care about forgets us. I stare at the stars again.
Please let her forgive me for all this before she forgets me.

Please.

She calls for me.

I vanish and reappear in her bedroom.

“You left,” she says. I nod. Viola's hair is wet, her eyes tired. She looks prettier now than she does when she's trying not to be invisible.

“You hurt me.”

I nod again and press my lips together. I think,
Yell.
Somehow, it'd be easier if she just yelled. I drop into the armchair, head in my hands.

“I think we're always looking for new pieces,” Viola says quietly.

What?

She continues, “I was looking for Lawrence, then for something to replace Lawrence, then for Aaron…maybe that's the real truth about being broken. We're always whole, we're just looking to add on to ourselves, to be
more
whole. And then
when a piece leaves, it's broken away. But we aren't left any less whole than we were to begin with….”

“But feeling broken—” I begin, the words tight in my throat. I'm grateful that Viola cuts me off.

“Is horrible. Painful,” she finishes. “But then, when you aren't expecting it, new pieces appear and suddenly…they're attached.” Her eyes rise to meet mine. “And you end up more whole than you were before.” She moves closer to the chair I'm sitting in. “You knew me all along—knew Viola, not some crazy incarnation of myself as the old me or the shiny new me or the invisible me. You saw the part of me that was already whole.” Viola looks away and smiles—sadly—but she smiles.

I'm forgiven. Relief rushes through me like warm water. Somehow, I'm forgiven.

“Can you ask the ifrit to stop?” Viola asks, her voice soft.

“No. And even if I could, he wouldn't. He's just doing his job. Trying to save me. He'll keep pressing until you make a third wish and I go back.”

“If I wish, then I forget you,” she murmurs.

“I know,” I answer.

But I won't forget you. Jinn don't forget.

Viola is silent. I feel like I should say something, but what could be said?

“You're bleeding.”

“What?”

“You're bleeding,” Viola repeats, and points at my arm. My shirt is torn and my skin is scratched from the scuffle with the ifrit.

“Oh. I'm fine. I…I got in a fight with the ifrit that pressed you,” I explain, blushing despite myself.

“Did you win?” she asks.

“Honestly, I think the winner was the pile of wood chips we fell into.”

Viola laughs—what a relief, to hear her laugh—and stands up. She sorts through a dresser drawer for a moment before pulling out a different shirt.

“It's Lawrence's. You can wear it if you want.”

I nod and stand, and we meet in the center of the bedroom. She brushes her hair back as she hands me the shirt, but when I lay my hand on it, she doesn't let go. Neither of us moves or
breathes; it's as if we're frozen by the black fabric between us. My thoughts blur together.

“Sorry,” Viola says briskly, and pulls away from the fabric, her cheeks turning carnation pink. I exhale and try to avoid her eyes as she sits back down.

“I'll go clean this up,” I say, motioning toward my arm. I step into the bathroom, closing the door behind me and leaning against it for a moment.

She's mortal. But I don't care.

I turn on the water and haphazardly splash it onto my arm, pausing to admire the bleeding. By the time I emerge in Lawrence's clothing, Viola has cut the lights off and is in bed, though I can tell she's still awake. I sit down in the armchair and look at the stars, visible through the split in her curtains.

“You're supposed to be able to wish on stars, you know,” Viola says.

“Does it work?” I ask, turning to face her.

“Not really. But we do it anyway,” she answers. “There's nothing like that in Caliban?”

“Not really. There are no stars in Caliban. We're not
supposed to tell you about our world, you know,” I grin and look up at the stars again. “We're not supposed to do any of this. Whatever this is. I'm not supposed to think of you as anything but a master.”

I shouldn't have said it. I shouldn't have said it. Why did I say it? The words slipped out like they were nothing, but the confession causes both me and Viola to look down. A strange feeling swoops around my heart and makes me both dizzy and scared.

“And what do you think of me as?” Viola asks delicately.

Tell her.
But do I even know how? I don't think I have the words to use.

“I…you're…my friend,” I say.

Moron.

“Oh,” she says, and her voice is rimmed in disappointment. Viola brushes her hair from her face and draws her knees to her chest. She inhales deeply. “Stay.”

My head snaps up at the word. She's changed, aged, and the beauty of it makes me smile.

“I'll wait till you fall asleep,” I say.

“No. Stay with me,” she says, and suddenly I realize she doesn't mean for the night. I rub my forehead so she doesn't see, burning in my eyes, the longing I feel.

“It's not possible. It's not what I am,” I say hoarsely. “The no-mermaid rule, remember?”

The streetlamp outside flickers and dies. We're cast into darkness with only faint blue moonlight silhouetting Viola, who is still clutching her knees in a very little-girlish way.

“What else will he do to press me?”

“Anything. He can't hurt
you
directly, because he gave me his word. But he'll probably get to you through Lawrence, since he knows you care about him.”

Viola sighs. “I don't even care about the wish,” she says in a shaky voice. “All the wishes to be whole that I thought I needed, I don't. Not now. I just don't want you to go.”

Perhaps it's because it's dark and it's easier when you don't have to see someone's face, or perhaps it's because I finally snap when her voice sounds tiny and sad, but I sweep from my chair to the bed in one motion. I put a hand on Viola's forearm tentatively—what am I supposed to do? I want to make it right.
Viola unfolds and falls toward me. I'm so startled I almost sit motionless, mannequin-like, but at the last moment I react. I wrap my arms into her fall and hold her close to my chest, until I can feel her heart beating against me. We sit in silence.

What are you doing?
I ask myself, but the question is overwhelmed by another inner voice that doesn't speak so much as pulse a feeling of rightness. I've held female jinn close, yes, but I've never had this feeling of not being able to hold someone close enough. I drop my head to the back of her neck and inhale the scent of her skin.

She's a human.

I don't care.

Viola is silent, her head buried against my chest as she breathes deeply. Her hair smells like coconut, and I can feel the calluses on her hands from holding a paintbrush. I can even feel her changing, and I pull her closer to make the feeling stronger.

Moments pass. Neither of us says anything because there seems to be nothing to say. Viola's breathing changes, slows, quiets, and she drifts to sleep. I don't want to move, afraid I'll
wake her and she'll pull away, so I hold her for a moment longer. I wonder if this is what sleep on Earth always feels like—soft and delicate, like baby's breath flowers. It looks so different from how sleep feels in Caliban. It's almost four in the morning by the time I finally move her from me, laying her head back on her pillow and sweeping a quilt over her.

I rise, thinking I'll go sit in the armchair until she wakes…but no. Instead, I lie down beside her. I can't sleep on Earth, I know, but it doesn't really matter. I stare at the ceiling and listen to her breathe until the sun rises.

WHEN I WAKE
up, my skin tingles where Jinn's arms were wrapped around me, like someone is drawing tiny spirals on my skin. Wait…that didn't happen.

No, that did happen. Jinn held me like…I can't think of a word that fits, but a warm, comfortable feeling swells up inside me, and I feel even more whole than I did last night, in his arms. I finally open my eyes and realize Jinn is lying beside me, facing the opposite wall so I can only see thick, curly black hair that looks as soft as spun silk. I'm afraid to speak or move, scared that if I wake him he'll shy away, and I'll blush, and we'll talk about how what happened last night should never happen again.

“I can feel it when you wake up, you know.” Jinn's voice surprises me. I feel my face turn red, and I sigh. My hands itch with the desire to touch him again, for him to touch me, but neither of us moves. We lay, me beneath the blankets, him on top of them, connected by fibers of fabric that ricochet energy between us.

Just
touch
him.

My cell phone rings. The energy is ripped apart like torn paper as I kick the blankets off and dart across the room, stumbling when I realize my left foot is asleep. Jinn stands, running a hand through his hair and then collapsing into the armchair as I answer.

“Hey, baby,” a voice says. It's Aaron. He sounds tired and not totally sobered up yet.

“Hi,” I answer, turning my back toward Jinn and dropping my voice.

“You left early last night. You missed it—Audrey got wasted, it was hilarious.” I can tell by the tone of his voice that he's doing that cocky grin thing.

“Yeah…sorry.”

“We're still on for a movie or whatever this afternoon, right?”

I stop. I turn and look hesitantly at Jinn. The dark pools of his eyes flicker up at me.

“I can't,” I say. Jinn's eyes soften and he smiles at me. “I can't. I have plans.”

“Come on….” His voice is sly and smooth, like he's coaxing a wild animal.

“I have to go—I'll call you later,” I say, and before he can speak again, I flip my phone shut.

“After wishing for him, you turn him down?” Jinn asks. His hair is bed-tousled and falls in front of his eyes.

“Call Lawrence,” I say as I toss Jinn my phone. “I'm getting dressed.”

“Yes, master,” he says. I whirl back around, but see that he's grinning mockingly at me. I toss a stuffed cat at him and slip into the bathroom.

 

“So, what you're saying is, he'll use me to press Vi, like he used Ollie?” Lawrence asks a few hours later as we sit in the
greenhouse at Lawrence's place. I look away, but Jinn gives a serious nod.

“Yes, I think so. You're closest to Viola. He'll use you to get to her. I don't know how—he's good at what he does, it could be anything.”

“I'm sorry, Lawr—” I begin desperately, but Lawrence holds up a hand to stop me.

“Don't be. If I can handle coming out to you, Vi, I can handle anything this ifrit can throw at me. Don't wish for me. I don't want you to forget Jinn over me.”

Jinn interjects, “It's not that simple, Lawrence. You could get hurt. Physical presses are the most common—”

“What's the alternative, though? She wishes now, when nothing's going on?”

“Well, no, but—” Jinn tries to explain.

“Then leave it. If it gets bad, fine, she wishes me out of it. But not early.”

“Lawrence—” I protest again.

“Viola,
stop
,” Lawrence replies. He meets my eyes and shakes his head. “Vi, I've always wanted you to be happy. That's why
it was so hard for me to tell you…to break up with you. So even though it didn't work out with me, I'm not going to get in the way of you being happy again. I'll be fine. If it gets bad, wish for me—but not until it gets bad,” he finishes, giving Jinn a firm glance.

I want to speak, but only air escapes my lips—what words are appropriate now? Lawrence reaches forward to touch my hand briefly. At the same moment, Jinn places a soft hand on my shoulder. A broad grin spreads on Lawrence's face as he looks from Jinn's palm to my eyes.

“You should stay near me,” Jinn tells Lawrence. “He's less likely to press if I'm around. Too big a risk that I'll interfere or break protocol again by trying to help without Viola using a wish.”

“All right. But I'm not sitting in this greenhouse waiting for some angry jinn to make me cry in a rose garden. Let's go somewhere. I'll drive,” Lawrence says.

A half hour later we're at the mall, where a traveling carnival has unloaded in the parking lot. It's crowded, despite the fact that the roller coaster looks like it's held together with glue
and one of the “rides” is a slide. Little kids with sticky pink cotton candy mouths run around us, and harried mothers look bitter over spending their Sunday counting handfuls of tokens. Lights race around the borders of ride canopies and glint off the sparkly paint of the Ferris wheel, which stretches into the overcast sky. The entire situation seems to make Jinn nervous.

“I can't figure out where they're running to so I can move,” he gripes as a small child almost darts right into him.

“So just be visible,” Lawrence replies.

“You and Viola are used to seeing me now. You don't realize how unlike a human I look.”

He has a good point. His eyes look even more animal-like than usual when the ride lights flicker off them. As we pass the merry-go-round, I glance at our reflections in the gold-framed mirrors that line the center. Even though Jinn walks invisibly just a step behind me and Lawrence, in his place there's a strange and very faint glow in the mirror, a glow you'd never notice were you not looking for it among the dappled plastic horses.

“Do you really think any of these people are looking that closely, Jinn?” Lawrence says.

He has a good point. The mothers are far too occupied reining in their children, the ride operators too interested in convincing the children to ride, and the children too intent on winning stuffed animals. We come to a stop in front of a calliope that's set away from the rides. It plays a charming song that's almost lost to the speakers elsewhere blasting out the local radio station.

“It's a huge breach of the second protocol. Showing myself just to Lawrence is one thing, but to an entire carnival…,” Jinn says, his voice wary as he avoids my eyes.

“What if I order you to do it?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. Jinn looks at me.

“Well, I can't really disobey my master,” he replies with a sort of smirk.

“I hope you don't think this ‘master' thing is going to start working with everyone.” Lawrence nudges me playfully. I laugh and am about to turn to Jinn when I see Lawrence's eyes stray very briefly to a boy in the crowd. It's not the first time I've caught him looking at a guy, but it's the first time that I don't care. How could I, when Jinn's eyes are locked on mine?

“Let them see you,” I say quietly, looking up at Jinn with a smile. He nods and touches my hand briefly. We step away from the calliope, into the light, with Jinn in full view. The merry-go-round ahead reflects all three of us, a hundred times over.