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AT THE EDGE OF town, our collective nerves made us huddle together behind a big stone wall, just outside a ring of lantern light. “Who’s going first?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
“My eyes are going to stand out too much,” Asher complained, blinking his red eyes owlishly at the rest of us.
“You always do this.” I crossed my arms, irritated that his worries made me question my own decisions. Am I being foolish? Is this is a mistake? “You convince us to do something and then back out last minute.”
As expected, this made him dig in his heels. “I didn’t say I wasn’t going. I’ll just have to make sure they don’t see my eyes, that’s all.”
Training on humans was part of our Jinni discipline years. We all had a basic understanding of how to interact with them—whether the ones allowed into our world or the ones met through rare travel, such as joining the Jinni Guard. They occasionally ventured into the human world for their own secret purposes.
The thing about humans that always stuck out to me, though, was how incredibly little they knew about our culture. They had many wild tales based on the occasional rare sighting of a reckless Jinni or two. But the current royal family had made it a precedent over the last couple centuries to erase any memories of our more distinct differences. Such as our wide variety of eye colors.
My own eyes, though a paler blue than any normal human color, would be far less conspicuous.
“We all have a handicap we have to deal with,” I reminded him, pointing to my bare, sandaled legs. Those would stand out just as much in this town as his eyes. More actually, since they’d be much harder to hide.
Without another word, I strode past him into the perimeter of the town.
Alone.
Keeping to the shadows, I didn’t glance back until I’d walked past a dozen buildings and at least as many humans. At that point, as far as I could tell, everyone had gone their own way. I had until midnight for my experiment.
Anticipation made me walk faster, until I was practically running, dodging down one dark alley after the next, avoiding the humans.
The first non-human creature I stumbled upon in the dark shadows of a private alleyway was a dog. It ignored me, rummaging through some garbage. No other living soul was nearby to see.
Without another thought, I attempted shifting into the same form, leaning into the strange feeling of my body stretching to a breaking point before softening and settling into a new shape. This was a breed we didn’t have in Jinn, but the composition of the creature was the same: four legs on the ground, lengthier spine, and my nose extending away from my face as my jaws grew sharp canines. Once I’d seen it, it wasn’t too difficult to replicate. The whole transformation took only a few minutes.
Letting out a cheerful bark at the real dog, I silently laughed as it backed up with hackles raised. I took off, racing along the packed dirt between homes at full speed, enjoying the wind in my fur.
I dug in deeper, taking one alleyway after another. Back home, I’d only dared the smallest of creatures, ones that a Jinni wouldn’t look twice at. I reveled in this new form.
The downside of this creature, however, was the sense of smell. Some of these alleyways were full of human filth that overpowered my new nose.
Tentatively, I played with my Gift. Forced to feel my way through something that I should have been taught, it took multiple tries before I discovered how to block the nasal passage. Perfect.
Halfway down one alleyway, I drew up short, panting. There was a small human boy at the other end. Young. No more than a few years old.
My heart thudded heavily in my chest, and not from the exertion.
The boy blinked at me, then grinned.
He sees a dog, not a Jinni.
Even if he did recognize me, what could he do? He looked as if he could barely even speak. Fear faded and confidence slowly replaced it. Some part of me wanted him to see me—to see my Gift. My power.
That compulsive part of me that I’d let loose for the first time in months whispered, Do it. Show the human child. Who can he tell?
It’d stretch my abilities. In fact, it’d probably use up most of my strength.
I exulted in the challenge.
Shaping my fur into skin as I reformed my endoskeleton within, I shifted. It took far longer than the dog, as I’d never tried to emulate another person before—human or Jinni. I left the fine details of the little boy’s face for last, adding a smattering of freckles under newly brown eyes and overly-long straw colored hair.
His eyes had grown large as saucers by the time I finished the transformation, but he didn’t make a sound.
I took a testing step toward him, into the small ring of lamplight by the door.
The little boy’s lower lip began to tremble.
I attempted to copy him.
He stumbled back against the wall of the home and let out a wail that pierced the night.
The door of the house flung open, bathing me in light. “Naseem,” the woman cried, sweeping me up in her arms where I stood stunned.
My whole body tensed.
A human was touching me.
I wanted to make the same noises the child had at the awful sensation.
The real Naseem had cut off his cries when the door opened and met my gaze with shocked eyes as his mother whirled back inside, completely unaware, and shut the door between us.
“My little escape artist,” the woman clucked as she moved toward a stove, bouncing me on her hip in a way that made my head hurt. I tried amidst the jiggling to get a sense of the small human home. There were two other children playing a game on one of the beds, and a stove took up the nearest wall. “Want to help me clean up dinner?” she asked, turning her face toward mine.
I panicked. Not only was I in the clutches of a human, but she was about to discover the truth any moment because I couldn’t answer—the human child had never spoken! Even if I’d had practice in shifting my own vocal cords to match someone else’s, I had nothing to match!
“What’s wrong, Naseem?” The woman’s forehead wrinkled, and she stopped the horrible bouncing to focus all her attention on me.
Not knowing what else to do, I burrowed my face in her scratchy blouse and hid.
A hand patted my head, comforting. Through my fear, I noticed it wasn’t slimy like the stories said at all; her skin was warm and dry, like my own, though a bit rougher. Nothing like the rumors had said. That knowledge didn’t make the danger any less though.
“Don’t worry, Naseem,” she said, going back to that unbearable bouncing. “Your baba will be home soon.”
What’s a baba? I wondered, but I didn’t dare lift my head and expose myself to more questions.
This had been a huge mistake.
I never should’ve agreed to come.
What if I don’t make it home? The humans would discover me soon and cook me in a stew. Or trap me in a cage to entertain them. Already the woman’s arms had begun to feel like steel bars. Or maybe they’d just end my life immediately.
When she set me on a bed, I didn’t hesitate to crawl under the itchy blanket and close my eyes, refusing to open them until her footsteps shuffled back toward the stove.
Long minutes passed.
I agonized over how to escape, still struggling to form a plan or even a coherent thought, when the wooden door swung open and a human man stepped inside, holding the real Naseem. “Look who I found outside again,” he said, chuckling.
No!
Panicking, I flung the blanket over my head and shifted into the smallest creature I could think of, tinier than anything I’d ever attempted before—a flea.
If I hadn’t already been smaller than usual, I wouldn’t have been able to shift fast enough. But by the time the woman stepped up to the bed and flung back the covers, I’d burrowed into the thin straw mattress and was already halfway to the other side.
“What kind of Jinni magic—” the wife grumbled to her husband.
I stopped listening.
Crawling out from the bottom of the mattress, where a thin piece of straw poked through, I dropped into the darkness beneath the bed. There, I shifted into the one shape besides my own that was most familiar and would take the least amount of energy: the green lizard.
All that mattered right now was escape.
Crawling painstakingly around the furniture along the edges of the room, I managed to remain unseen until I was a short distance from the door.
Little eyes caught on me from across the room. That troublemaker Naseem had spotted me. As I slunk along the wall underneath the wooden table, he raised one chubby finger, pointing wordlessly in my direction.
Before anyone could follow his gaze, I ducked behind the table leg and shifted back into the tiny flea, hopping frantically toward the door. I slipped through the crack at the base.
Outside in the dark, I wanted to sob, but my flea form wasn’t capable.
All this shifting had left me beyond exhausted.
Starving.
I struggled to return to my own form.
After so many shifts in such a short span of time, it took far longer than normal.
This had never happened before.
As long minutes passed, I feared I’d be stuck in this half-shifted form, vulnerable and exposed.
Aching, stretching, and shuddering through the changes, I pushed myself harder until finally I could wipe a tear from my own cheek.
Sobs broke free.
I stumbled away from the home into an alley where I dropped to my knees, shaking from how close I’d come to being discovered.
Then, I forced myself to stop crying.
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.
Drew a slow breath in.
Then another.
Years with my father had taught me to keep my emotions in check until it was safe, though I’d never been tested like this before.
Dragging myself to my sandaled feet, I nearly broke down again at the thought of trying to cross the entire town without discovery. I just wanted to go home. To never see or think of a human again.
A wave of dizziness hit me.
Leaning against the back of the house in the dark, I listened carefully for any sounds of approach while I tried to catch my breath and refocus my thoughts.
So many changes in a row and at such speed had sapped my strength to the point that my muscles trembled. I needed food and rest. As soon as possible.
Traveling was out of the question. So was changing into the dog form or any other. I couldn’t shift in this condition. I could hardly think past my hunger.
What an awful night.
I needed time to regain my strength.
Time I didn’t have.
I could only hope the others would return home without me... Because I didn’t know what I would do if they came looking.