My mother stares at me, tense lines still drawn on her face.
“What?” I ask, gulping down air. “I know I almost messed up with the cloaking enchantment, but the rest of it was good, wasn’t it?”
My mother rests her hand on my trembling knee. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
When I explain about hearing Phyllis’s thoughts, my mother’s hand shoots up to cover her mouth.
I groan. “Was that not allowed?” If I’m going to have to actually read that entire cantamen, it’s going to be a really long summer.
“No, no, it’s fine. It’s just—”
“Just what?”
My mother looks at Mrs. Pucher and then back at me. “It’s just … unusual to be able to read the mind of someone whose physical presence you’re not in.”
Whew. I didn’t violate some cardinal Jinn rule. “But Phyllis was on the phone. Same thing, right?”
Though her expression is strange, my mother nods slowly. “It must be. Because the ability to read human minds outside the wish-granting ritual is rare. If it even exists at all. Most think it’s extinct, simply gone from our species.”
Seriously, sometimes it feels like I’ll never be able to please her. How can I be expected to compete with her reputation as the model Jinn?
“But I was in the middle of the ritual. I was granting a wish.”
She shakes the worry lines from her face. “You were, weren’t you?” She claps her hands together. “You did, didn’t you? Granted a wish. My little baby Jinn.”
“Mom.” I’m desperate for sugar. “Can we go home now? There’s still chocolate cake, isn’t there?”
My mother pecks the top of my head. While she makes our good-byes to an elated if somewhat disoriented Mrs. Pucher, I go outside for some fresh air, feeling my legs wobble underneath me as I fight back the torrent of emotions still swirling my insides.
I circle to the back of the house and find Mrs. Pucher’s vegetable garden. Sorry doesn’t describe it. I steady myself against the weathered trellis a potato vine is unsuccessfully trying to climb. Full of weeds, squirrel-dug holes, and spindly tomato plants, it looks far beyond anything fertilizer can help. I move closer and concentrate on the dandelion field strangling the rosemary and chives. In an instant, my powers clear it.
My energy slowly returns as I use my magic to fix up the garden, even turning most of the tiny yellow flowers on the tomato plants into green orbs of fruit. It’s more fun than I would have thought. Besides, Mrs. Pucher used to babysit for me. She wiped my bottom—without the help of magic. Even granting her greatest wish isn’t enough to make up for having to do that.
Her greatest wish.
I grab hold of a bamboo tomato stake and take a deep breath. I granted someone’s wish. And not just any wish. A wish for family.
Maybe this won’t be as bad as I thought.
When my mother comes up behind me, slipping her arm around my waist to guide me across the lawn and back to our house, I lean into her, grateful for the support.
“It really was okay, then?” I ask tentatively.
She smiles a kid-on-Christmas-morning smile. “More than okay. Next time, though, if you open yourself up a bit more, your magic will demand less energy.”
I nod, happy this is her only real criticism. I may not be my mother, but perhaps I’m just talented enough to coast my way through this, to fake it straight through to retirement. Whenever that is. We work until the Afrit tell us not to.
My mother and I are at our front door when Henry crosses to our side of the street. He lifts his chin instead of waving because his hands are full of gardening supplies.
Did Mrs. Pucher say Henry checked out the garden just yesterday?
“Come inside, Azra,” my mother says. “You need to rest.”
I should tell my mother about my magical green thumb. But that will erase all the goodwill I just built up by successfully granting Mrs. Pucher’s wish. She might even make me quit my job at the beach before it begins so I’ll spend time studying the stupid cantamen.
Mrs. Pucher was probably exaggerating. How closely could Henry have studied her garden anyway? Surely teenage boys have way more important things on their mind than bottom rot.
11
A damp, gray mist clung to the shoreline for my entire first week behind the snack bar. Yesterday’s flip of the calendar ushered in July and, with it, the sun. Just in time. As my white shorts make painfully clear, my legs need a tan.
I leave myself ample time to bike to the beach and arrive early. The weathered wood shack that serves as the concession stand creaks as I prop my new bicycle against it. The overly complicated twenty-four-speed contraption is a birthday present from my mother’s Zar sisters. The irony of giving me an external method of transport now that I have my own internal one isn’t lost on me.
With time before my shift begins, I follow the arched wooden path over the dunes. I sweep my fingertips along the tall grass that rustles on either side, feeling the air crisp with each step. When I arrive at the last plank, I kick off my sneakers. It’s low tide. The beach spreads out before me, empty, quiet, calm. This is my favorite time of day in my favorite place.
If it were up to me, we’d open our front door to this. But the location of our home, like so much else, is not up to me. My mother says a flashy house at the beach would raise more questions than it’s worth. Draw too much attention—the worst thing for a Jinn. Funny, I gather the attention my mother garners by being drop-dead gorgeous has yet to cause a problem.
I walk the wide expanse of open beach down to the water. The frigid Massachusetts waves reach for my toes.
I can’t resist. I inch forward and let the icy ripples surround my feet.