Becoming Jinn

He points to my foot. “You’re bleeding. You must have hit a rock or a shell.”

 

 

Surprised, I look down and wipe the trail of blood off my ankle. “It’s okay. My mom can heal me later.”

 

Henry falls back. “What?” His hands rummage through his wet hair as if looking for something he lost. “Your mom … she can heal?”

 

Jenny, he’s thinking of Jenny.

 

My stomach drops. “Only fellow Jinn. Not humans. Not … Jenny.”

 

Moisture pools in Henry’s eyes. His lids shut tight, and he presses a finger on each to keep his contacts in place.

 

I reach for his hand. “I begged her to try, Henry. She just couldn’t. She doesn’t have that power. Magic … it can’t fix everything. I swear if there was any way, even a chance, she’d—”

 

He slides back. “I know. I know she would’ve.” His hands clutch the back of his neck as he hangs his head. “Same as I know it’s not her fault. I know because it’s mine.”

 

“Yours?” I stare at him. “You weren’t even there.”

 

“Which is why it’s my fault. I was supposed to be there.” His shoulders roll in, and his body starts to tremble. “My mom asked me to keep an eye on her. I was supposed to be at your house. I was supposed to be watching her. But I was building this stupid model airplane, and I had to hold this piece in place for ten minutes so it’d dry. I chose a model airplane over my sister. My sister, Azra.”

 

I move toward him, but he holds up one hand and wipes his eyes with the other.

 

“My mom’s always blamed me. She’s never actually said it, but it’s obvious. Do you know how hard my dad had to fight so she’d let me watch Lisa? Sometimes I-I-I still think she doesn’t trust me with her.”

 

It’s like a lasso is strangling my vocal cords. Even if I could make a sound, I have no idea what to say, so I simply throw my arms around him. At first, his body is hard, resisting, but soon he crumbles.

 

“I understand how my dad felt now,” he says quietly. “If we move away I feel like I’ll lose her. That’s why … why I always wanted … why I’m so glad I’ve got you back. It’s like having a piece of her.”

 

My heart pummels my chest. Henry and I don’t talk about Jenny. We don’t need to. We both understand how absence can define one’s presence.

 

I always thought my mother was the lucky one for having memories of my father, of my grandparents, of what life was like before. Maybe she was right not to call them up, not to share them, because, is it possible my memories of Jenny, Henry’s memories of Jenny, make it worse? Harder for us to move on?

 

All this time, Henry’s been blaming himself. I’ve been blaming magic. He latched on to Lisa, tried to latch on to me. I pushed him away, pushed Laila, my Zar sisters, my mother, pushed them all away. I thought being Jinn was holding me back from friends, from love, from family. But it wasn’t being Jinn. It was me. Just me.

 

Together on our rocky perch, our arms encircle not just each other but secrets—shared secrets, and shared burdens. They will always be between us. For better and for worse.

 

 

 

 

 

27

 

“Want to see the tent?” I ask Henry as he pulls his mom’s car into his driveway.

 

Our ride home from the beach was silent, save for the sounds of Drunken Toad. We said enough and yet not nearly enough on our black rock.

 

Circling around to the side of my house, I stretch to peek over the top of the fence, which has no gate as a way of discouraging outsiders from finding their way in. Taking over the backyard is the conjured tent my mother and I worked on all morning for tonight’s Zar gathering.

 

“Wait,” I say as Henry comes up behind me. The front corner of the tent glows a soft orange. Inside, a lit candle casts a shadow against the canvas wall. “Someone’s inside.”

 

“Your mom?”

 

“Probably. Still, she’d freak if I showed you now.”

 

“Okay, then.”

 

He turns to leave, and my hand rises, wanting to reach for him, to make him stay, to tell him how sorry I am that my mom couldn’t heal Jenny, that he has to stop blaming himself, that I kick myself every day for pushing him away, that I need him at the same time as I need Nate, and how sorry that makes me, but instead, I lower my arm to my side, say, “Okay,” and, with a weight in my chest, watch him cross the street.

 

I lean against the fence, taking a moment to clear my head. I expected tonight, my Zar initiation, to be the hardest part of today. Life sure likes its curveballs.

 

The lack of a gate and my inability to apport means I need to travel through the house to reach the backyard. As I near the tent, I begin to worry that curveballs, like bad things, aren’t satisfied with just one. Because the shadow on the wall is curled into a tight ball. And rocking back and forth.

 

I lift the entry flap. “Mom, what’s—” But it’s not my mother. It’s Yasmin.

 

She’s hunched on one of the couches my mother conjured this morning with her feet on the cushion, her arms around her legs, and her chin tucked to her knees. Her normally smooth black curls lay in twisted, matted clumps. No makeup, eyes puffy, she barely acknowledges me as I sit next to her.

 

Before I can ask the obligatory and yet pointless question, “Is everything all right?” she speaks.

 

“I saw you today.” Her eyes remain focused on the ivory taper candle on the table in front of her. “At the beach. I came early.”

 

“Why didn’t you—”

 

“Saw you with that boy, your neighbor,” she says over me. “He’s your friend’s brother, isn’t he? The girl who died.”

 

“Jenny.” My teeth clench. “You know her name is Jenny.”

 

“Was.”

 

Blood pounds in my ears and it’s like I’m under water again.

 

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