The edges of her lips curl. “Let him see you in that.” She winks and is the spitting image of her mother. “Now, are we going swimming or not?”
I flop back into my lounger. Henry’s backyard has been my private sanctuary. I’m not sure I want to enter in broad daylight. And I’m positive I don’t want to enter while wearing this.
She touches her infinity necklace. “If so, we should take these off so they don’t get tarnished.”
I’m still wearing my matching necklace. And I still haven’t returned Laila’s locket. I fiddle with my bikini top again.
Laila leans over and tightens the knot in the strings of my halter. Her fingertips trace the circular scar at the nape of my neck. “Yours is so tiny.” She turns around and points to her scar. “Mine’s like a dime.”
Her inhibitor scar makes mine look like a pinprick. Before we are even a week old, the Afrit apport into our human world to inject us with a compound that blocks our magic until we are old enough (apparently sixteen) to handle our powers. The bangles cancel out the injection and release our magic. In reality, today, it’s not so much magic that runs through our Jinn blood but the obstruction of magic. Makes sense, I guess. Can’t have baby-fat-legged toddler Jinn waddling around conjuring stuffed animals on the playground.
At least a human playground. I finger my scar. “Think the males are injected too?”
Laila nods. “My mom said they are. But she could have been lying to make me feel better about having to wait. Seems silly to block their magic in Janna.”
The Afrit’s theory that keeping our numbers among the humans low reduces the risk of exposure means all nonessential genie personnel live in Janna. Since males don’t grant wishes, this includes the boys. All the boys. Including Lalla Nadia’s son.
I sit up straighter. “Does Hana ever talk about it?”
Laila mutters a “what?” but her eyes are closed. Purposely? I can’t tell.
Lalla Nadia gave birth to a boy before she had Hana. She’s the only Jinn in my mother’s Zar with another child. Something else we don’t talk about. Along with how my generation of Jinn is the last to be conceived naturally. And how there won’t be any photographs of my little Jinn’s father in any lockets in my house because I won’t even know who my little Jinn’s father is.
The Afrit’s mix of science, nature, and magic has revolutionized Jinn procreation, allowing them to keep male and female Jinn apart and still propagate the species. When the Afrit decide it’s time, whether I’m ready or not, my DNA will be merged with that of a male Jinn of the Afrit’s choosing. Following the Afrit’s “one in, one out” rule, after I give birth to a girl, my mother will transition into Janna, where she’ll live with the rest of the Jinn who no longer grant wishes. Where she’ll live with my father. If she wants to, that is.
“Three to one,” I say.
“Hmm,” Laila moans, settling deeper into her lounge chair.
“Three girls for every one boy.” Since they now control the process, the Afrit ensure we pop out more females than males. “That’s the ratio, right?”
Laila mutters an “uh-huh.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
Flipping her palms to expose the underside of her arms to the sun, Laila says, “What?”
I swing my feet to the ground. “That the odds are at least some of us will have a boy.” A boy who will be taken away.
Though her eyes narrow the tiniest bit, Laila responds as a model Jinn should. “But they’ll be raised with their families in Janna. And we’ll see them one day.”
One day? She can’t really believe that’s good enough.
“Is that how you feel about—” I bite my lip, stopping myself from saying, “meeting our fathers,” knowing we don’t talk about this. But why don’t we talk about this? Or is it just my mother and I who don’t talk about this?
The way my throat threatens to close makes me change the end of my sentence. “About having a boyfriend for the first time too? I mean, we’ll be older than our mothers.”
Laila laughs. “Oh, you can have boyfriends here. Human ones. Multiple human ones if you’re like Mina. Just so long as you don’t get too—”
“Attached.” I sigh.
“And you pretend not to know how to be a Jinn.”
I skim the bottom of my foot against the perfectly manicured blades of grass and, for the millionth time, check my phone for texts from … from … anyone. Right, Azra.
“How can you be so Zen about it, Laila?”
She shifts in her seat and fiddles with her sunglasses.
“Laila…”
She whips off the shades. “What do you want me to say, Azra? Focusing on what we can’t have takes away from what we can have. What we do have. Like our Zar sisters? If you just tried a bit more, you wouldn’t have to be asking me what Hana does or doesn’t talk about. I know you’ve always been jealous of humans, but it goes both ways. If they knew, most of them would give up what we give up and more to have our powers.”
Maybe. At least at first. But considering how many human wishes revolve around love, loss, and family, I’m not sure that’s true in the long run. Laila must know that. If she didn’t, then the locket with her father’s picture wouldn’t have been so important to her. The idea of her parents being in love wouldn’t be so special.
“Besides,” she says, replacing her giant aviators. “We have so much to do until then, we won’t even have time to think about it.”
Laila picking up her magazine shuts down the conversation, proving she’s as skilled in pretending as the rest of us.
As I reach for my copy of Zeitoun, I wonder just how long she’s been waiting for an opening to talk to me like this. I’m about to settle back into my chair when I see movement across from us. “Don’t get spooked, but she’s back.”
Laila jerks upright. “That squirrel? The one as big as Henry’s cat?” She whirls her head around.