Awkward is the only word to describe breakfast.
On one side of the table sits Henry. Having cereal with Henry is awkward because we spent the night in the same bed and because my mother knows Henry and I spent the night in the same bed. On the other side of the table sits my mother. Sharing a pot of coffee with my mother is awkward because I’m ninety-nine percent sure my father was in this very spot last night and because I’m ninety-nine percent sure my mother plans not to tell me my father was in this very spot last night.
We are as screwed up as any normal family.
“Do you know when the funeral will be?” my mother asks.
I drop my spoon. Of course there will be a funeral, and of course I’ll have to go. I sent Nate a text this morning asking about his mother. He answered immediately as if the phone were glued to his hand, which made me kick myself for not checking in with him sooner. His mother’s condition is still listed as critical. He didn’t mention a funeral for his father, and I didn’t think to ask.
I shake my head. I’ve never been to a funeral before. I didn’t even go to Jenny’s. I am no longer hungry.
“Does everyone do that open-casket thing?” I ask nervously.
My mother squeezes my shoulder. “I don’t think so, but even if they do, you can pay your respects without approaching the casket. It’s okay.”
“It is?” Henry asks, sounding as relieved as I feel, making me wonder if Jenny’s casket was open.
My mother smiles weakly. “Yes, especially for you kids. Just be there for your friend. That’s all that’s important.”
She returns the milk carton to the refrigerator and places her bowl in the dishwasher. She could use magic to clean up since Henry knows about us, but I can tell she’s not in the mood. As she refills her coffee mug, I notice a slip of paper peeking out of her back pocket. Henry, whose parents don’t allow sugary cereal in the house, has his head buried in his second bowl. Before my mother turns back around, I pickpocket her.
My chair scrapes against the floor as I excuse myself to get a tissue from the living room. Written across the front of the small, folded note is simply “Kalyssa.” Instantly I recognize the slant of the letters. It’s the same handwriting that was on the note, also addressed to my mother, that was waiting when Samara and I returned from Ms. Anne Wood’s house. I unfold the paper. “Always. But not forever.”
My hand grips the arm of the sofa. Those conflicting words wouldn’t make sense to most. Then again, most have not read my mother’s diary.
He was here. My father was here. And he’s been here before. Perhaps being an Afrit, he’s able to come and go as he pleases. How could he visit my mother and not me?
I close my eyelids against the tears begging to come. My fingers begin to curl into a fist, and the note crinkles.
Wait. My eyes snap open and focus on the handwriting once again. My father’s handwriting. My mother said whoever warned her about Ms. Wood was “someone with both our best interests at heart.” My father.
I have to trust there’s a reason, aside from my recent questionable secret-keeping abilities, why my mother and father haven’t let me see him. I have to trust that, in his own way, my father is doing everything he said he would. Infiltrating the Afrit. Loving my mother. Loving me.
When I return to the kitchen, my heart still beating fast, I down my coffee and hold out my mug. “More, please?” I say to my mother.
Risking the minute amount of energy it must require, I cause Henry’s spoon to slip from his hand. As he bends to the floor to retrieve it, I return the note to my mother’s back pocket.
Taking my coffee, I needle my mother to see what, if anything, she might reveal about last night. “Sleep okay?”
“Not really,” she says. “Samara came by. She was worried about you.”
So she’s not going to lie about that part.
“You two?” My mother is unable to conceal her slight grin.
I cut Henry off. “No, that dog was barking again. And you’re right, it’s definitely not Mrs. Pucher’s Pom-Pom.”
“Really?” she says. “I didn’t hear anything.”
So that part she’s going to lie about.
We have achieved stalemate. We’ll never know which one of us might have blinked first because it is at that moment that my bronze bangle breaks in two and falls in my half-eaten bowl of soggy cereal.
My mother rushes over. She wiggles the dish but doesn’t touch the bangle. “Azra, what did you do?”
“I was just sitting here!”
Her eyes narrow, and she takes my wrist. “Are you sure? Not even subconsciously?”
“If it was subconsciously, how would I know?”
My mother looks at Henry, who has pushed back his chair and is sitting with his mouth hanging open.
“They’ll come for her.” The words the man … my father … said last night pop into my head.
“Should Henry leave?” I ask. “Is this … dangerous?”’
My mother cannot rid her face of its stunned expression. “I don’t think so.”
“But you don’t know?” I stand up and point across the table. “Henry, go!”
He scrunches up his face, eyeing me as if I’m crazy. He doesn’t know what I now know about the Afrit. About my family.
“Seriously, Henry, now.”
My harsh tone works. He stands, but it’s too late. Something else is already happening. The bronze bangle vanishes into the cereal milk. I take my spoon and swirl it around the bowl.
“It’s gone,” Henry says. “How could it be gone?”
A silver bangle identical to the one I first received on my birthday materializes in the center of the table. It rolls toward me. I stop it with one finger before it spills into my lap. At my touch, it pops open at a very visible hinge.
“I’m guessing this is for me?” I know I don’t need it. My mother knows I don’t need it. But she doesn’t know I know. So I play along. “My probation is over, then?”
My mother shrugs, but seems unnerved. “Apparently so.”
I lay my forearm over the table and line up my wrist with the bangle. It hops up, encircles my wrist, and snaps shut. The hinge seals itself.
Henry claps his hands. “That was awesome.”
Eyes fixed on my wrist, my mother has still not said a word.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
She shrugs again. “Nothing, I guess. It’s just odd. I’ve never seen it happen. I heard about it from Nadia, but you know how she exaggerates. There’s usually a formal application process to have a bronze bangle removed. And it takes time, months, years even. It’s quite rare. You must have impressed them, Azra.”
She says this with sadness, and I know why. Impressing my paternal grandparents isn’t something either of us wants me doing. The question is, what do they know? What are they impressed by? My use of spells, my granting Nate a wish properly, or my ability to use magic while wearing the bronze bangle? After what I read last night, I’m certain they wouldn’t be rewarding me if it were the last one. They’d … come for me. But since they haven’t, the secret about me being an evolutionary anomaly seems safe—for now.
Henry moves closer and touches the bangle. I wince slightly, but he doesn’t notice.
“That’s great,” he says. “Now you’ll be able to visit me.” He gives my mother a sheepish grin. “That is, with your permission, Mrs. Nadira.”
“Visit?” I say, confused. I then realize what he means. “So New Hampshire’s happening?”
Henry rounds his shoulders. “Seems like it. It sucks, but it sucked worse yesterday. Do you know how many connections it takes to get from there to here on a bus?”
The hug from Henry and the fact that he’s already researched bus routes cannot take away the pit in my stomach. I feel like I’m waiting for that Jinn trick to kick in.
Maybe it already has. Maybe being an Afrit has its perks.
* * *
It’s been three days since the accident. Three days since I’ve seen Nate but two nights that we’ve spent together. On the phone. On this third day, I’m standing in a newly purchased bra and underwear (not a thong), ripping clothes off hangers. Though full of black, nothing in my closet seems appropriate for a funeral.
It’s been two days since I lowered my wrist into the silver bangle that I don’t need. Don’t need because apparently the inhibitor injection I received was a lemon. Or maybe because my father is an Afrit, his strong powers supersede or counter the effects. Doesn’t matter. With or without a bangle, I’m not using magic unless I absolutely have to. I don’t want to give my father’s family any more opportunities to discover my secret. Plus, if I don’t use magic, I figure I’ll be less likely to become one of them.
Maybe that’s not really a danger considering my bloodline is muddled. I’m half Jinn, half Afrit. A hybrid. Still, I’m not taking any chances.
It’s been one day since I made the decision to keep all the questions I have about the rebellion, about my mother’s diary, about my father to myself. For now, the answers I have—about my mother, who’d go to any lengths to protect me, and about my father, who’d risk his own life to ensure my safety—are enough. Always, but not forever. Enough for now, at least.
Because right now I have higher priorities: Nate, Laila, Henry, and Yasmin. Yes, Yasmin. She must feel utterly alone without Raina. She doesn’t have any human friends. She’s clearly threatened by me and my role in our Zar, and the rest of our sisters don’t know the truth about her mother. Ironic as it is, that the two of us know means we share a secret all our own. I might be the only one who can help her through this.
I give up on my closet and check my e-mail for the millionth time. The only new message is from Farrah, whose string of exclamation points follows Mina’s winky smiley face, the latest in the thread started by Hana congratulating me on getting my silver bangle back. Nothing from Laila. Even though, for the past three days, I’ve been sending photos of the silver tinsel to her. Levitating in front of the framed picture of me, her, and Jenny, in my hair, dangling from my ear, around my pinky toe, between my front teeth, the locales keep getting weirder. Still, not a single response.
Last night, I finally got up the nerve to app to her house to deliver Mr. Gemp. I left it outside the back door, the photo of all six of us rolled inside along with another from the night of our initiation. Not wanting to pressure her, I waited, even apping in and out a few times, hoping she’d sense me and come out on her own. Too soon, I guess. That’s okay. I’m pretty sure one trait I’ve inherited from the Afrit is persistence.
As I dash across the hall to find something in my mother’s closet to wear to the funeral, I’m caught by my, at least currently, third priority.
“Henry!” I cover myself with my hands as I fly into my mother’s bedroom. I poke my head out from behind the door. “Don’t you knock?”
“I did. Your mother let me in.” He grins. “Thank you, Mom.”
It’s the first time I’ve laughed in days. It feels good and bad, right and wrong, all at the same time.
“I’m going to miss you,” I say suddenly.
Summer’s coming to an end. The school year will be starting soon. For the first time in years, it was something I was looking forward to. I’d be starting off with a best friend and a boyfriend. Now, the best friend will be gone, and the boyfriend, if that’s what Nate will even become anymore, will be dealing with a tragic loss, afraid that his mother’s injures might make that two.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” Henry says. “You’ll be there for Nate and not have to worry about me.”
“No, it’s not for the best. How could you even think that?”
Henry’s jaw drops as I say this, and I realize his words weren’t spoken out loud. I read his mind without knowing I was doing so.
“Holy sh—” he starts.
“Shh!” I grab Henry’s hand and drag him into my mother’s bedroom. “Don’t say anything. And turn around. All the way.”
I hurry to my mother’s closet and push back the hangers.
“Azra! How could you not tell me you can read my mind!”
“I said ‘Shh!’” I look back to find him staring at me. “And I also said, ‘turn around!’”
Long-sleeved wrap dress or suit with the pencil skirt? Dress. I don’t want to be fussing with tucking anything in.
“For how long?” he says. “And how come you didn’t tell me? Can you read minds other than mine? It’s not just me, right? What … what else have you heard?”
I pop my head through the opening of the dress and wrestle it down. In front of the mirror, I adjust the neckline. I’ve been keeping my long hair down lately. I figure enough time has passed that no one remembers my shorter cut. If they do, whatever, I’ll say it’s hair extensions.
“See,” I say, “this is why I didn’t tell you. I haven’t told anyone, not even my mother. It’s just easier this way.” I smooth the fabric over my hips. “You can turn around now.”
Henry stuffs his hands in his front pockets. He’s wearing the pants whose pleats I erased.
“They look good on you,” I say.
“Yeah?” He looks down. “Something seemed different when I put them on, but I guess it’s just your mending.”
“Uh-huh.” I hide my smile. “Must be.”
“But Azra, seriously, don’t go reading my mind without warning me. That’s not cool.”
I roll my eyes. “I didn’t mean to. I’m still getting the hang of it. Believe me, I don’t want to be reading teenage boys’ thoughts any more than you all want me reading them.” He blushes as I face him. “Well?”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Henry? Is it okay?”
Still nothing.
“Will you please answer me?” I whine.
“I am,” he says.
You look like the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.
“Stop that,” I say, feeling my own cheeks burn. “And thanks.”