Becoming Jinn (28 page)

“It's not just stuff with you either,” Henry says. “My parents. Lisa. A lot's happened since we last talked.”

“Like what?”

He shrugs.

“Tell me.” I put my hand on his forearm, and he tenses.

No. Because you'll want to try to fix it. And you can't.

“Henry, forget my magic. Just talk to me like you don't know I'm the great, all-powerful Oz. Because I'm not. At least not right now.”

Mind-reading aside, of course.

Henry creases his forehead, eyeing me like he knows something's not quite right. My words hit too close to his thoughts. Still, he off-loads everything that's been going on while I've been under house arrest. And before that. Why didn't he tell me sooner? Or had he been trying to? By following me, by saying he was stressed, by having that second beer?

Did me, my magic, and I push his problems to the back burner? Or did he use us as an excuse to push his problems to the back burner?

His voice lowers to a hair above a whisper as he explains his parents have been fighting more than usual lately. Lisa's been upset, acting out.

“She's peeing her bed,” Henry says. “She hasn't done that in years.”

Of course Henry's the one changing her sheets.

In one long breath, Henry then says, “My mom's sick of having to work two jobs and says my father's exhausted all possibilities for work around here so she wants us to move in with her folks in New Hampshire and rent our house so they can make their mortgage payments again and my father's furious with her, saying he'll never leave and never let strangers sleep in his house.”

My heart beats so fast it makes me dizzy. “So you're not going?”

Henry picks at a cuticle. “I don't know. My mom says she's still leaving. She's going to take Lisa and just go without my dad.”

“And you?” Henry can't move to New Hampshire. He just can't.

“She says it's my choice. I can stay with my dad or go with her and Lisa.”

Breathe, Azra, breathe.
“So what are you going to do?”

“I don't know.” Henry drops his head into his hands. He rubs his face roughly. When he reemerges, his cheeks and eyes are red. “Because there's only one reason to go and only one reason to stay.”

He doesn't have to say it. Even if I couldn't read his thoughts I'd know what both those reasons are. The only reason to go is to be with Lisa. And the only reason to stay is to be with me.

 

26

“Stop the moping,” Henry says. “It's not a done deal or anything.”

It's my day off, and Henry and I are walking to the far end of the beach. We stroll down the path over the dunes and wind our way through the overpopulated swathe of beach dominated by families. Loaded down with toddlers, toys, and tents, moms and dads plop themselves on minuscule patches of sandy real estate rather than haul themselves any farther down the beach.

Amid this first wave of beachgoers sit the lifeguards. Including Nate.

In the week since Henry first told me about New Hampshire, my feelings about my probation have vacillated between love and hate. And that line is not just fine, it's dotted, it zigzags, and it occasionally stabs me square in the chest.

I wave to Nate and my bangle shimmies down my wrist. On the love side of the line is how freeing it is to be relieved of the temptation and the pressure of using magic. My probation has turned being Jinn into a job. I'll clock in, grant a wish, and clock out. Strangely, my bronze bangle has made me feel more like a normal HIT than ever before.

Henry hops over two boys buried up to their necks in the sand. “Don't make a big thing out of it yet. My dad's track record is far from encouraging.”

Mr. Carwyn has two job interviews within easy driving distance of Henry's grandparents' house, so his mom, dad, and Lisa are staying in New Hampshire for a few days. The only reason Henry was allowed to stay behind is so he can let in the real-estate agent who needs to assess the property and determine a fair price for renters and for … for buyers. And that's what makes me scurry on over to the hate side of my probation line.

Because if I had my powers, maybe I could help his family and Henry wouldn't have to leave. Though, in truth, from the way things sound, what's been going on inside the walls of Henry's house may take more than magic to solve.

At the very least though, if Henry does have to ditch civilization to go live free or die in the woods of New Hampshire, having my magic back would mean I could app there to visit him.

“It's not fair,” I say as we transition into the stretch of beach home to the second category of beachgoers: couples and surreptitiously day-drinking teens whose respective intolerance for screaming children and desire for privacy outweigh the ten-minute trek to the restrooms.

“You know what's not fair?” Henry says. “You being a total tease.”

My neck spins like I'm possessed. With the amount of time Henry's been spending with Chelsea, I figured we were past whatever may or may not have been going on between us because of boy-girl, Nate-Chelsea drama.

“I mean,” he says, smirking, “you can't even shape-shift.”

That book. That stupid encyclopedia of spirits book. He checked the monstrous tome, half the size of my cantamen, out of the library again and keeps taunting me with supposed Jinn facts. Many cultures, especially in the Middle East and Africa, believe in spirits called
djinn
who, like angels, are supposedly part of a community of intermediary spirits who run the world, each having a specific function and dominion.

“Isn't granting wishes enough?” I say. “I need to be able to turn into a rabbit or something?”

“Dog. Or snake, mostly, according to the book.”

“And the book is always right.”

Henry peers over his sunglasses at me. “Do I need to remind you it was spot-on with how to summon the djinn? Entice them with their favorite gifts of sweets and alcohol and you can get them to do everything from guard your house to chase away your bad luck. Then again, I've been feeding you wine-soaked marshmallows in those s'mores, but so far my luck hasn't changed.”

“Hilarious.” I bump into a thick, tattooed arm carrying a guitar. “Now do I need to remind you what it said about us hating crowds?” I grasp onto the rash guard shirt he's wearing, which happens to be the last item I conjured before my probation, and let him lead us through the bustling boat town.

This third and final group of beachgoers sees beer-bellied dads anchoring their floating vessels and spending the afternoon off-loading and then reloading what appears to be the entire contents of a small house (standing grills, full-height tables and chairs, coolers the size of a five-year-old).

Henry guides me around a nearly invisible fishing line. “Hating crowds and the cold, a given. But that thing about feeding you salt provoking you? That I had to learn the hard way.”

I forgot about the salt thing. Grains of truth actually do seem to lurk in most of what Henry read in that book. Who influenced who will forever be a mystery.

Approaching the estuary where the ocean meets the river, we arrive at the empty span of beach home to a cornucopia of large black rocks. During high tide, they disappear. It being low tide, I weave through until I reach the widest one.

I climb up and sprawl out. “Earlier you could walk right by and never know these were here.” Seaweed and unidentifiable slime creep through the cracks and dampen the backs of my arms and legs. “If something can't be seen by the naked eye, does that mean it ceases to exist?”

My powers, my father, my Henry.

Henry groans.

Eyes closed, I'm waiting for him to join me when all of a sudden a wave of frigid water washes over my legs. My body jerks upright. Not a wave. A Henry. Having dove under the water, he now stands above me, his feet planted on either side of my torso. My cries only fuel his torment. He balls up the fabric of his long-sleeved tee and wrings it out, dripping ice-cold saltwater onto my stomach.

I slap at his ankles and scoot back. He takes off his wet shirt and drops it on my head. “The all-powerful Jinn's afraid of a little water?”

“I can't help it if my species is more advanced than your primitive one. Our roots are in the desert. We know better than to risk frostbite by frolicking in glacial waters.”

Henry shakes water from his hair as he sits down next to me. “The desert? Thought you said the rest of the Jinn make their home underground. Like worms.”

I punch his bare shoulder. I'm wearing a tankini top and boy shorts over my bathing suit bottoms. In all the time we've been hanging out, this is as close as we've ever been with this little clothing on—aside from the time I apped myself into Henry's closet to find him wearing only a towel, and then, not even that.

Whatever Henry's been doing with Chelsea and whatever I've been doing with Nate has remained undefined. Or at least Nate and I have yet to label ourselves. It's possible Henry and Chelsea have slapped a name tag on their relationship and neglected to mention it.

Henry's finally started wearing the contacts I conjured for him while I still had my silver bangle. And he's gotten a haircut since the last time I saw him. Maybe this new attention to personal grooming is a sign of his budding relationship. The next time I see Henry and Chelsea together, I might very well find a white rectangular sticker on their collective forehead saying, “Hi, my name is Dating.”

Chelsea's niceness toward me continues. Since I've been hanging out with Nate so much, I know I should be happy that Henry has someone to be with too. I tell myself I would be happy if only that someone was someone other than Chelsea. I tell myself, but I'm no stranger to lies, white or otherwise.

Henry leans back on his elbows. “Janna's really underground?”

“Sounds bizarre, I know.” I remember how I felt hearing this for the first time. “When my mom told me, I didn't believe her. I thought it was like when parents tell their kid that the dog went to go live on a farm. Like a metaphor or something. But now, well, I understand that a little dirt and rock are no match for magic. If you're an Afrit or on their good side, it's a game of name your paradise.” I jut my chin toward the water's edge. “Crystal clear ocean and pure white sand? Check. Tropical jungle with secluded tree house? You got it. Opulent castle wallpapered in gold? No problem.”

“Have to admit, sounds cool.”

“Except if you're on their bad side,” I say before it registers that I didn't want him to know this part. Ever since I received the bronze bangle, he's been treating me like something breakable. If I tell him more, he's going to seal me in a bubble. Not to mention, I'm pretty sure keeping Henry's sense of wonder at me being Jinn intact has been helping to keep my resentment at bay.

He sits up. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Doesn't sound like nothing.”

I concentrate on picking fluorescent green goo off the back of my calves. I'm starting to better understand my mother not telling me things. Because sharing secrets can be as much of a burden as keeping them.

“Azra.” Henry nudges my chin to force me to meet his now, predictably, worried eyes.

“It's not a big deal, really. It's just that the jail I was telling you about? If I … if a Jinn messes up? Supposedly it's less tiny cells and orange jumpsuits and more pitch-black caves and dungeons full of rats.”

He cocks his head.

“They take your greatest fear and make you live it.”

Before his jaw falls into his lap, I add, “Don't worry, mine will just be a pantry stocked with nothing but salt-cured meat and fish.”

Henry flips his sunglasses to the top of his head. “It's not a joke, Azra.”

“Well, it was, just maybe not a good one.”

He stands up and crosses his arms over his chest. “I thought you were taking this more seriously.”

I rise to my feet to look him in the eye. “I am.” I spin my bronze bangle. “This makes sure I am.” My lip chooses this moment to quiver, and I bite down. Hard.

“It's okay to be afraid, Az.”

As I turn to watch the incoming tide, I'm overwhelmed with a sinking feeling. A flash of someone saying the same words in this exact same place skips through my head so quickly I can't grab hold. It's followed by an image of my mother, younger, tanned, and smiling, kneeling on the sand, facing the water. Facing me in the water. Her look so loving, so intensely happy, I can't place it.

Instinctively, I jump off the rock. My feet move toward the ocean, and my body goes farther, deeper in, hoping my mind will follow and let me reclaim this memory, this figment of my imagination, whatever it is. Without me realizing it, my feet no longer reach the sandy bottom and my body is so numb, I start to descend. But Henry's there to pull me back up.

He wraps his arm around my waist and propels me out of the water so fast it feels like apporting. But it's just plain, old, normal brawn that sets me back down on the toasty black rock baked by the sun.

My teeth clank against one another. “N-n-n-need to w-w-w-arm u-p-p-p.”

He reaches for his shirt, which is still drenched. Dropping it, he crouches in front of me and places a hand on each of my upper arms. He rubs until the friction stops my teeth from chattering.

“What was that?” he asks, freaked out.

“Not really sure.”

He points to my foot. “You're bleeding. You must have hit a rock or a shell.”

Surprised, I look down and wipe the trail of blood off my ankle. “It's okay. My mom can heal me later.”

Henry falls back. “What?” His hands rummage through his wet hair as if looking for something he lost. “Your mom … she can heal?”

Jenny, he's thinking of Jenny.

My stomach drops. “Only fellow Jinn. Not humans. Not … Jenny.”