“Um, Az, what now?” Henry says from behind me.
My feet won’t budge. The baby’s shrieking prevents me from being able to think. All I want to do is app myself home and forget this ever happened. All of it. Everything. This is why I’ve dreaded this moment my entire life. Because this, this howling child, is the perfect symbol of what being Jinn is really like. It’s not heating up swimming pools, it’s not making backyard fires, it’s not fun with mind control. It’s being responsible for people’s lives. It’s making colossal mistakes that ruin people’s lives.
Gently but firmly pushing me aside, Henry enters the room. “Shh, it’s okay, little one,” he says to the baby in a soft, comforting voice. Lifting it—her, as the PJs with pink flowers on them reveal—from the crib, he rocks her tenderly and, despite his two beers, carefully. “Everything’s going to be just fine. Isn’t it, Azra? Azra?”
My instinct was to app us away. Henry’s instinct was to console the little girl. Maybe it’s a good thing my life as a Jinn won’t afford me a normal family and friends. Clearly, I am anything but normal.
“Now,” Henry says, his voice still dripping with warmth, “if Auntie Azra can move her tush and go retrieve your mommy from her probably much-needed but poorly timed getaway, all will be right with the world.”
Duh. Henry’s not a Jinn, his brain’s muddled by alcohol, and still he’s more rational than I am. Because he’s less afraid. Samara was right about me being more likely to get myself into trouble than the others.
“Anytime now,” Henry says.
Though the baby has quieted down, I ask with a trembling voice, “You’ll be okay here, alone?”
“This is not my first rodeo. Lisa was a screamer. Me, I’m a light sleeper, unlike my parents.”
Henry’s love and protectiveness of his sister goes back to when she was this little. Lucky kid.
“Now, go,” he instructs.
“Right.” I desperately want Henry to come with me, to calm me like he’s calming the little girl. What if my mind control was a fluke? How do I stop Ms. Wood from freaking out? Calling the police?
Stop it, Azra. You have to do this. Yourself.
Or not.
Before I can depart the nursery, my mother appears, hair dripping, beach cover-up sticking to her wet bathing suit, feet caked with sand.
“Mom!” I cry, way too distracted to have had a shot at sensing her imminent arrival.
Her already furrowed brow and tense lips chisel deeper grooves into her face when she sees Henry. “Oh, Azra, how could—”
“I can explain. Henry’s just … But how did you…? Why are you…?”
My mother violently shakes her head. “We don’t have time.” She expertly extracts the baby from Henry’s arms, whispers to the little girl, and settles her into the crib without waking her. In a controlled but insistent voice, she says, “Now, Henry, I trust you can get home yourself?”
Tentatively nodding, Henry’s even more shocked and speechless when Samara, wearing a string bikini top and a full-length sarong around her waist, materializes in the doorway.
“Oh, Azra, how could—” Samara says when she sees Henry.
“No time, Sam.” My mother cuts her off. “Henry’s leaving. Now.”
“But he’s helping me, Mom. I’ve … I’ve got this under control.”
The sleeping baby must be the only thing keeping my mother’s voice at a reasonable volume. “Control, Azra, really? You have no idea how out of control this is about to become.” She glares at Henry. “And you’re not moving, why?”
Cheeks flushed, Henry mumbles a “Sorry” and squeezes past Samara, whose serious face is so out of character, it’s almost what scares me the most.
With Henry gone, my mother ushers Samara and I into the hall, pulling the nursery door halfway closed behind her. She turns to Samara. “How long?”
“Minutes, a half hour at most,” Samara says.
After a deep breath, my mother takes charge. “Azra, tell me exactly what you did and how you did it. As abridged as you can make it.”
Swallowing my million questions as to how she knew I was doing this, why we have so little time, and what happens if we run out, I offer the abbreviated version of how I screwed up granting Ms. Anne Wood’s wish. “I’d never have taken her there if I knew about the baby.”
“But you didn’t know because you didn’t do any research, did you?” If she were a snake, she’d be spitting venom. “No mother’s anima would have allowed her to leave her child. Did you even bother to enter her psyche?” My mother briefly closes her eyes. “Later. Let’s move on. What I don’t understand is how you got her to Hawaii without her questioning it. Oh, please, no, don’t tell me you’re now just announcing to the world that you’re a genie?”
“No, no, of course, not. Henry was a mistake. I—”
“Not now,” she interrupts. “Oddly enough, that’s the least of our concerns at the moment. Tell me about the candidate.”
“Well, I was going to do it the right way, I was going to fake a contest and everything, but when the mind control started working, I just kind of went with it.”
Samara backs up and leans against the wall. “Mind control? Azra, you mean reading her mind?”
“No,” I say, “well, yes, I was reading her mind, and then, all of a sudden, she was thinking what I was thinking. I figured it was a way to get her to accept the contest without having to actually make up a contest. Why didn’t you guys ever tell me about being able to do that? It’s so much easier. I don’t get why we wouldn’t always grant wishes that way.”
My mother’s clearly ticked off. “Since when have you been studying spells?”
“Spells? I haven’t. Not a one.”
My mother’s and Samara’s moods shift into such an alarmed state, I expect the baby to feel the tension and begin wailing again. Fear consumes their eyes as the two evaluate each other.