“Because they’ll think you’re vain? Or be jealous?” My mother laughs. “Believe me, they’ve been jealous all along. Yesterday, even I would have sworn you couldn’t look any more beautiful.” She smiles. “But I’d have been wrong.”
Despite or maybe because of what I’ve seen in the mirror, I dismiss her compliment. It’s actually my mother who has the capacity to stun. I’ve spent fifteen, no, sixteen years looking at her, and her beauty still catches me by surprise.
She returns her attention to her pastry bag and with a gentle squeeze pipes the second “a” of my name in gold icing. Azra. The letters shimmer atop the chocolate-frosted cake. I know from previous birthdays how sugary the combination is, but nothing’s too sweet for us. Salt, we are sensitive to, but the amount of sugar we eat would incite comas in humans.
She underlines my name with a squiggle of gold. Then she pipes that loaded “16” underneath. The exclamation mark she adds causes me to use my long fingernails to scratch at the skin underneath my bangle.
“So,” my mother says, “just in case your stubbornness kept you under the covers for the better part of the day, I scheduled the party for tonight.”
The groan that escapes my lips is a reflex. She knows I don’t want this party because she knows I don’t want this birthday.
At least the guest list is short. It’s not like I have any friends from school. Having to hide who we are from humans means our social circle consists solely of fellow Jinn.
My mother wanted to invite all five of the female Jinn who make up her Zar, the lifelong friends she calls her “sisters,” and their daughters, who, once we all reach sixteen, will officially make up mine. But I negotiated her down to just Samara, my mother’s best friend, and her daughter, Laila, whom my mother has been desperate for me to make my best friend since we were born. They’re the closest I have to a family.
My mother then makes me promise to be good, like I’m turning six instead of sixteen.
“I’d appreciate it if you could dial down the attitude for the party,” she says. “Laila hasn’t turned yet. Let her be excited, okay?”
She sinks sixteen candles into the smooth icing, and I promise to try. But I know it’s a promise I won’t be able to keep. The only way I could is if the wish I make when I blow those candles out comes true and this band magically falls off my wrist. But I know better. Birthday candles, eyelashes, shooting stars, that’s not how wishes are granted. Being selected by the Afrit, that’s what makes wishing so.
Even if I don’t get a birthday wish, I should be able to spend the day however I want, wherever I want. Sun, sand, and a book. Maybe mussels for lunch. Considering we live less than ten minutes from a four-mile-long sandy shoreline, that’s a wish even a newbie genie like myself could easily grant.
“If the party isn’t until later,” I say, “we can spend the whole day at the beach, right?”
“We could,” my mother says, “but I think we need to start practicing.”
The perfectly decorated cake leaps from the counter, beelining for my head. My instinct to duck kicks in a second after my instinct to throw my hands in the air. The cake freezes, hovering three feet above the hand-painted Moroccan tile floor.
I walk a circle around it, amazed not that the mass of chocolate is floating but that I’m the one making it float. Unlike the magic I’ve been doing upstairs in my room, this just happened. It was automatic. Something engaged even before my brain could.
I admit it. Having powers doesn’t suck. If only they didn’t come with being told when and how to use them.
“Who needs practice?” I say with confidence, despite the quiver in my hands.
Crumbs fly and chocolate icing splatters the dark cherry cabinets as the cake plummets to the floor. The three-second rule doesn’t even get a chance to be applied, for the cake reassembles in perfect form in less time than it takes to blink.
My mother smiles and places her hands on her curvy hips. “Practice? Certainly not me.”
No, my mother doesn’t need practice. She’s been doing magic since before I was born. Since the day she turned sixteen, probably even earlier. The rules were different back then.
I wipe the single leftover dollop of brown off the kitchen table. As I suck the icing from my finger, my heart pounds. I have no idea how I summoned the magic that suspended the cake in midair or if I can do it again. I’m as curious as I am terrified to find out.
3
“Now, Azra, now!”
At this moment, my mother is the one terrified. With good reason.
Flames from the inferno I ignited lick the shelf above the fireplace, threatening to consume her collection of Russian nesting dolls.
“Concentrate like I showed you!” My mother springs back from the stone hearth as a flickering yellow flame paws at her foot. “Like you did before.” She positions herself behind her favorite pumpkin-colored armchair, more willing to sacrifice it than her hand-beaded slippers. “With the cake.”
“I am,” I grumble, even though I’m not. We’ve been at it all morning. My mother’s aggressive agenda has taken the magic right out of these lessons. Memorizing the periodic table was more fun than this.
Her worried eyes dart toward the mantelpiece, and the rosy-cheeked Russians dance over our heads, landing safely on the couch.
“This isn’t working,” I say, upending the empty bucket in my hand. I release my grip, and the metal pail falls to the floor with a hollow clank. The drops of water I’ve managed to conjure are less than the amount of saliva I could summon sans magic. “How about we compromise and I turn the faucet on with my mind?”
An ember hurtles past the hearth and lands on the antique Turkish prayer rug. My mother stamps it out and shakes her head. “Come on, Azra. Dig deeper than your surface instincts. This isn’t hard.”
“For you.” The frustration in my voice just slips out.
And an admonishment stabs right back.