My butt cheeks are numb from the amount of time I’ve been sitting in the wooden chair at the kitchen table waiting for my mother to return. When we first got back, there was a note addressed to “Kalyssa” affixed to the refrigerator door. Samara snatched it, read it, and tucked it into the pocket of the shirt she conjured for herself. She won’t tell me what it says or who it’s from. Her feet do the running her mouth usually does as she paces the kitchen.
Her nerves beget my nerves. Unable to stand it, I ask for the third time why we had to leave so quickly. As before, she refuses to look me in the eye let alone answer.
“At least tell me what you were both so afraid of,” I say.
This stops her, right in front of the stove, where she attempts to cover her reaction by filling a teapot with water and lighting the burner.
My mother, still in her swimsuit cover-up, pops into the doorway. “Not what,” she says, answering me, “who.”
Samara rushes to embrace her. Whispers too low for me to hear are exchanged, followed by a soft moan from Samara. She pecks my mother’s cheek, her hands holding the sides of my mother’s head almost as if she’s the only thing keeping her upright.
Finally, my mother settles into the chair next to me and says, “The Afrit.”
Clasping my hand around my silver bangle, I whisper, “Did they…? Were they somehow watching me?”
The baby girl, Anne Wood, the mind control, my mother having to fix my mistake, her and Samara finding out about my mistake, about Henry, so many claws dig into my heart at once, but the sharpest one is the thought that something might happen to Henry, that the Afrit might make something happen to Henry.
My mother grabs the leg of my chair and twists the whole thing so I’m facing her. “Henry? That’s what you’re most concerned about?”
Feeling like it shouldn’t be but unable to help it, tears spring to my eyes.
She leans forward and pulls me into her chest. “He’s going to be fine.”
My body slackens in her arms. “And the baby? Ms. Wood?”
She strokes my hair. “Safe, home, together.”
In this moment, I feel nothing but gratitude that my mother is a model Jinn.
When the smell of mint wafts over us, she lets me go. Samara places three mugs of tea on the table.
Enveloping the warm cup with my hands, I take a sip. “Ooh, sweet.”
Samara kisses the top of my head. “Is there any other way?”
My mother thanks Samara but doesn’t reach for her mug. Instead, from the side pocket on her cover-up, she extracts a bronze bangle—thicker, shinier, and more deeply carved than either my silver version or her gold one.
Apologizing in a voice weak with sadness, my mother asks for my wrist. She opens the bronze bangle, gently tugs my arm forward, and lowers my hand.
Fascination mingles with fear as the bangle clamps around my wrist and instantly seals any evidence of a hinge, clasp, or seam. The moment the bronze bangle secures itself, the silver one breaks in two and vanishes before either half gets the chance to land in my lap.
My mother slides her mug in front of her. “The answer to your earlier question is ‘no.’ The Afrit can’t watch you the way you’re thinking. But they do follow up on every candidate.”
Samara sits across from me. “Every assigned candidate. We do the practice ones.”
Afraid to move my wrist I ask, “What does follow up mean, exactly?”
“They check in on the human,” my mother says. “To make sure a wish was successfully granted and that no undue attention was garnered.”
Samara adds, “They can trace the energy of invoking the circulus to your bangle so they know when you grant the wish.”
And so they do act fast. Which means, I’m damn lucky that the Zoe Incident occurred with a practice candidate.
My mother glosses over exactly who alerted her to the mess I’d created (and how), simply saying it was someone doing her a favor, someone with both our best interests at heart.
Though it was too late to hide what I’d done, my mother’s goal of intervening was to fix my screwup before the Afrit had to step in and do so themselves. She figured this might lessen my punishment. Maybe it did and maybe it didn’t. All she knows is that by the time she successfully returned Ms. Wood to her home, using a spell to leave my wish candidate thinking she’d spent the afternoon having a vivid and bizarre dream, the bronze bangle was waiting for her, well, waiting for her to bring to me. She found it in the baby’s crib. A perverse teething toy.
“This,” my mother says, laying her hand on my forearm, “will prevent you from using your powers.”
“I … I can’t do magic anymore?” Faced with what I’ve hoped for my entire life, my urge to celebrate is tamped down by what I know of the Afrit. And surprisingly, by a twinge of disappointment.
My mother answers, “Yes and no. This will block your magic, except—”
“Except when I’m granting a wish.” I tentatively touch the bronze bangle. “They’ll let me access my powers for that?” I wedge my hands under my thighs to stop their trembling. “Seriously, I still have to grant wishes after what I did today? Is that … wise?”
Samara reaches across the table and gestures for me to do the same. She cocoons the clammy hand I extend with both of her warm ones. “Don’t you start doubting your abilities, Azra. Certainly, you can never again do what you did today. It was impulsive. It was wrong. But it was also a mistake, an unintentional mistake. Believe me, when I was your age, I knowingly did worse things that should have earned me one of those.”
“But times have changed,” my mother says in a strained voice.
“Yes.” Samara sighs. “Indeed, they have.”
My mother explains that the bronze bangle will release my magic when I utter the words that begin a wish-granting ritual. When I close the ritual, it will send my powers back into hibernation. If it’s not a wish I can grant in that moment, then each time I need to draw on my magic to accomplish a portion of the wish, I’m supposed to ask permission by saying “izza samhat.” We Jinn who prove to be less skilled, who require additional training, who violate the rules forfeit our silver bangles for this amped-up Big Brother bronze number.
Not fair.
Having my magic restricted should mean not granting wishes at all. Like failing a class and being kicked off the football team. Leave it to the Afrit to make it more like every pass, every catch, every tackle is being watched by an elite team of MVPs ready to pounce on the slightest misstep. I’m already perspiring at the thought of performing under such pressure.
Given all that I’ve done, all that I’ve lied about, I’m lacking the moral high ground to chastise my mother for not fully explaining what would happen if I botched a wish.
Still my lips flatten into a thin line. “You should have told me.”
My mother’s eyes widen. “Told you what, Azra?”
I spin the bronze bangle. “About this. About what this would mean.”
The last thing I expect is the end-of-the-world look on her face to morph into a smug, I-told-you-so grin.
She leans over and pats me on the head. “Thanks, kiddo.” She then holds her empty palm out to Samara. “Pay up.”
Samara frowns. “That’s not confirmation.”
“Fine,” my mother replies to Samara. To me, she says, “So you didn’t reach that part of the cantamen yet?”
That part? All my bluffing through my mother’s random pop quizzes is about to be for naught. “I guess not. I’m … I’m taking it kind of slow. Making sure I absorb fully before moving on.”
Samara exhales a huge sigh. “Thanks a lot, Azra.”
My mother laughs. “Do I know my daughter, or do I know my daughter?” She points at me. “Take that look on her face, right now. Confused, anxious, knowing she’s been caught in a lie but not knowing exactly how or which one. Isn’t that so, honey?”
“I … I don’t know,” I stammer.
Samara pushes her chair back. “Oh, give it up, Azra. You’re cooked. And now I owe your mother the finest bottle of wine in my cellar. A 1906 Bordeaux. Even she can’t conjure something that good. All my flirting with that twerp at the fancy rare wines store in Boston for nothing. He was going to put it up for auction. For auction. Can you imagine? Some rich blowhard would bid an obscene amount of money and put the damn thing under glass, displaying it like some fossil. Wine like that deserves to be enjoyed.”
“Oh, it will be,” my mother says.
Samara, trying to prove to my mother that I was taking all this Jinn stuff seriously, claimed that the only way I could be so talented so quickly was by having already read and internalized everything in the cantamen, spells included. My mother assured her I hadn’t even cracked the book open.
My own mother bet against me.
Apparently, the explanation of the bronze bangle as the first penalty for not properly granting a wish is on page two. All this time, through every stupid quiz, my mother knew I hadn’t been doing squat. And yet she sent me out there to do a wish, on a real candidate, by myself. This is all her fault.
“How could you let me go?” My anger flares. “How could you let me do an assignment if you knew I hadn’t prepared? If you knew my success with Mrs. Pucher was just a fluke?”
The screech of her chair against the floor precedes my mother standing over me. “How could I let you go? I, who had no idea you were embarking on this today? I, who would have never let you go if I did? I, who saw your very real finesse with Mrs. Pucher but still stressed the importance of research. Of fully linking with the human’s psyche? Both of which you ignored?”
“But I didn’t have time for research.” I pull the folded note card out of my pocket and toss it on the table. I flatten it with my hand. When I lift my palm, staring up at me is a 7.
A 7?
My mother taps the paper. “You had six more days. What you mean is you didn’t have time for research because you couldn’t wait to show Henry your powers in action, isn’t that right?”
“No, I…” My voice trembles. Did my nerves make me see things that weren’t there? No, no, no. It was a 1. I know it was. I could try to explain, but she’s never going to believe me. I whack my bangle against the table. “This … this … sucks.” The anger gone from my voice, all that remains is the fear.
“Yes, it does, for all of us. This doesn’t just affect you.” My mother bends so that her arms fall around my neck and her cheek rests next to mine. She whispers in my ear, “Scared?”
I nod as tears obscure my vision. I’m mourning the loss of my powers but also of my ability to be in denial. This bronze bangle makes the Afrit and their punishments, including tortura cavea, more than a tale my mother told me to make me behave. The Afrit are real. My need to stop behaving like a selfish jerk is real.
“Good,” she says. “Because if this were them finding out about Henry rather than a mishandled wish, you’d be gone. No probation. No second chance.” She swallows. “So don’t forget how this feels—ever.” She kisses my wet cheek. “And if it seems like you are, I’ll remind you because no matter how hard I may want to, I’ll never be able to forget.”
She stays that way, her body protectively wrapped around mine, until my shaking subsides.
Samara conjures a tissue and hands it to me. “Don’t worry, Azra. They don’t know about Henry, so you’re still a blunder or two away from your date with the guillotine.”
I blow my nose, laugh, and wince all at the same time.
With a wink, Samara says, “Too soon?”
“Way too soon,” my mother says despite her weak smile. She rubs her tired eyes. “Tell me, Azra, you haven’t let anyone else in on our little secret, have you?”
I assure her I haven’t.
After she and Samara study each other, my mother asks Sam, “You’re positive they don’t know?”
Samara lifts the note that was on our refrigerator out of the pocket of her conjured shirt.
My mother reads it, and her eyes flutter shut. She holds it against her heart. She then locks eyes with Samara. “We could try to make him forget.”
Panic sets my heart racing. She’s going to take Henry from me. She’s going to use her spell to make him forget. Or … no, she’s going to make me make him forget.
I roughly shake my head. “I won’t do it. I won’t use mind control on him.”
At my mention of mind control, both my mother and Samara unconsciously touch their foreheads. My mother then says, “No, no, of course not. I told you not to do it again, I’d never ask you to. Not that you can now, anyway.”
Right. I forgot. Funny how second nature using magic has become to me.
Leaning over the table, Samara evaluates me. Her lips curl up slightly. “You could though, right? If you weren’t wearing that thing? You could do mind control?”
“Sam, maybe it’s time for you to go. Azra and I still have a lot to talk about.”
Samara frowns at my mother. “Hold on, Kalyssa. Making Azra’s candidate forget an afternoon is one thing. But we both know using a spell to make a human forget something this big won’t be easy. It’s not designed for that. Isn’t that why Isa never tried it with Larry?”
Larry? A memory comes back to me. A pair of fur-covered hands pinching my cheeks, a gravely voice singing “Azra-cadabra!”
“Hairy Larry?” I ask. “Lalla Isa’s old boyfriend?”
The fling Farrah’s mom had with Hairy Larry lasted longer than any other relationship I know of between one of my mother’s Zar sisters and a human. From when I was probably seven until just a couple of years ago.
My mother starts to speak, but Samara cuts her off. “Lalla Isa’s old human boyfriend who knew about her.” She places her hands on her voluptuous hips. “And us.”
The ball of fear in the pit of my stomach begins to unravel. Relief mixes with a sense of betrayal for what’s been drilled into me my entire life. “But what about the whole ‘telling a human being is the worst thing a Jinn can do’ thing?”
“It is,” they both say.
“If the Afrit find out, that’s it, Azra,” my mother says.
“It really is a life sentence,” Samara adds, the two of them playing off each other like a perfectly timed duet.
“It’s reckless,” my mother says. “It puts us all in jeopardy. Which is why the punishment is so severe.”
“And why it’s a risk few take,” Samara says. As she stands and faces my mother, the dynamics of the conversation seem to shift. Less between them and me and more between the two of them. “Still, Jinn slip, purposely and not. It’s happened before, and it’s bound to happen again.”
My mother purses her lips as she leans against the counter behind her. “Sam’s right about the spell. Making someone forget requires a delicate touch.”
Samara keeps her eyes focused on my mother. “And it’s dangerous. It doesn’t even appear in the majority of cantamens. Of the Jinn who do have the spell, most won’t ever use it.”
“Shouldn’t,” my mother says.
“Isa wouldn’t,” Samara says. “She refused. Rightfully so.”
So I’m guessing erasing memories of a house-blazing after-prom party is on par with wiping away one afternoon? Were they joking then? Or are they just trying to scare me now so I don’t use the spell to, oh, I don’t know, make Henry forget he ever met Chelsea?
“But they broke up,” I say, deciding not to ask about the party. If I ask, they’ll know I eavesdropped, which will make it harder to do again. “How did Lalla Isa know he wouldn’t tell?”
Samara’s deep laugh reverberates off the cabinets. “The three cars and the mansion in South Beach. Plus, if he opened his mouth she’s got that fake video of him with a hooker.” Samara looks at me. “He’s a state senator. The hooker is your Lalla Jada in disguise but the ruse never went far enough for him to figure that out.”
“Blackmail,” I say. “Would have thought that’d work the other way around.”
My mother shakes her head. “Security, perhaps, not blackmail. Because Sam knows full well the real reason he keeps Isa’s secret is because he loved her. He still does.”
Samara loops around to my side of the table and lifts me out of the chair. “How long has your little loverboy known?”
“He’s not my—” I stop, thinking maybe this, combined with my Scarlett O’Hara plan, will actually help my cause. “Weeks.”
“Weeks?” my mother repeats.
Samara nudges my chin upward. “You trust him?”
“As much as I trust you, Lalla Sam.” Looking at my mother, I add, “He swore on Lisa’s life, Mom.”
She tears up as I say this. Samara goes to her, gently wrapping her arm around my mother’s shoulder. “Let her have him, Kal. Who knows? Maybe things won’t always be this way.”
A chill runs through me as Samara hugs me good-bye. I cling to her, waiting for the comfort her apricot-scented embraces always provide to come. But it doesn’t. All that’s there is the fruity smell.
Apparently, my magic isn’t the only thing this bronze contraption can take away.