I nod and apologize again.
She sighs. “Well, if the worst thing is that Elyse gets a wonderful surprise and the speech therapist gets a big bonus, then no harm done.” She starts pacing again. “As for Zoe, I’m worried you didn’t fully connect with her. Maybe because you didn’t try hard enough. Are you still blocking yourself, Azra? You can’t do that once you receive your assignments. Did Hana explain…”
Her silk slippers barely make a sound as she paces back and forth in front of me, but each silent footfall still judges me. She’s talking and pivoting and talking and pivoting and finally I succumb to everything that’s happened today. Tears creep into my eyes. I look away, but not fast enough.
“Oh, honey.” My mother’s feet stop, and her body is instantly at my side. “I’m … I’m being too hard on you. I’m sorry, kiddo. I’m just worried. But the purpose of all this is so you can learn. So I can teach you. I was expecting…”
I know what she was expecting. She was expecting me to be her.
“Nothing, absolutely nothing.” She strokes my upper arm. “It was sweet. What you did for Lisa. Jenny would have been so proud.”
That’s it. The levee holding back my tears breaks.
My mother wipes my damp cheeks with the edge of her thumb. “All I’m trying to do is to help you to realize there was probably a reason why Zoe wanted to be tall.”
“There was.” I suck back the moisture clogging my nostrils. “She wanted to be a better basketball player.”
My mother nods gently. “Sure, but why?”
“Because her brother is.”
“Warm.” She smiles and rolls her hand. “And so…”
“It’d make him happy.”
“Warmer. But what else?”
“It’d make her happy.”
My mother wraps her arms around herself and exaggerates a shiver.
Her trying to make this easier for me is only making it—all of it—harder. Eyes down, I pick lint off the couch. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Here,” she says, patiently, “think about it this way. Zoe wanted to be tall to be a better basketball player, but I’ll bet you the last piece of ice cream cake that it goes deeper than that. Maybe she only wants to be a star basketball player because she feels insecure, especially compared to her brother. Maybe she thinks she doesn’t live up to his or even her parents’ expectations.”
Something I happen to know a little bit about.
Moving closer, she sweeps my hair off my face. “That’s what you should have strived to uncover. If she was insecure or had low self-esteem, you could have helped. The changes you might have made would go way beyond basketball. It’s not enough to simply recite the circulus. All that does is provide the link; you’re the one who controls how deep you go. And you have to go all the way, no matter how hard it may be. That’s what you’ll be expected to do when you have official candidates.” She forces me to meet her eyes. “Humans are rarely attuned to the things they really want. And most of the time, what they want isn’t actually what they need. It’s your job to figure that out.”
“But why? Why do we bother helping them?”
“Because we can. And because we have to. You know the deal. Our powers only continue so long as we use at least a portion of them for the greater good.”
“So we stop granting wishes, stop helping the humans, and our magic disappears? What’s so bad about that?”
And how fast can that happen, anyway? Can I bribe someone so it’s fast enough that no one ever has to know about Henry?
“What’s so bad about that is eventually we disappear too. The Jinn will cease to exist.”
I snort. “A little dramatic, Mom.”
“If only it were.” She raises her eyebrows. “You know we can’t have children with humans?” Without waiting for an answer, she continues, “Well, nature also made sure our powers are entwined with our ability to bear children with Jinn. Once we stop using our powers to grant wishes, our magic will fade, and eventually that’ll be it. We’ll be gone.”
“Nice blackmail.”
“More like insurance.”
This really is some messed up species. “But with Zoe? How can you be so sure that wasn’t her real wish? Frankly, I’m not sure she goes all that deep.”
“Experience.” She pushes herself off the couch. “Which you’ll learn. But only if you open yourself up to all this. Otherwise, you’ll never do this to the full extent of your abilities.” She starts walking backward toward the kitchen. “Now about that bet. Since we’ll never truly know which one of us is right about Zoe…”
As soon as her hand hits the freezer door, I app right next to her. And so we sit at the kitchen table with two spoons and the last piece of cake still in its box. I’m a living cliché, having my cake and eating it too. Because Henry knows, my mother doesn’t, and I’m not in a subterranean jail cell. I just wish I could pass on the topping of guilt.
Letting the ice cream on my spoon melt, I say, “How can you be so sure my abilities have a fuller extent?”
“You’re my daughter, for one.” She winks. “And because I saw what you were able to do with Mrs. Pucher. That’s what you’re going for, Azra. It means you’re accessing your strongest powers. The more closed off you are, the less magic you can access. The more open, the more content, the more—”
“Angry?” Like when I heated up the water in Henry’s pool. “Afraid?” Like when I cooled down the water in Henry’s pool.
My mother plunges her spoon into the icing-rich back of the cake. “Yes, those emotions work too. But once you fully embrace all this, there’s an inner peace that will allow you to fully connect with the human’s anima, accomplish the highest levels of magic, perform the most complex spells—”
I steal my own icing-loaded spoonful. “Be the Afrit’s poster Jinn?” Or another model Jinn like my mom? “No thanks.”