Circle of Jinn (11 page)

But the holes—left by my father, left by Jenny, left by the Afrit who forced us to lose so much of our lives together—are still there.

The difference is, I'm ready to fill them.

I load on the pita chips and plop an extra scoop of hummus on the mosaic-tiled plate because we are now three.

 

11

When I wake up, it's like nothing has changed. The lilac bush under my window fills my room with the same sweet, floral scent. My wardrobe spills from my closet in the same boring black, white, and gray color scheme. The framed picture of Jenny and me kneeling on the grass with the tiny Laila standing on our backs sits in the same spot on my nightstand.

My entire world has changed, but nothing in this room shows it.

With the tingle of pins and needles down my spine, Zak apps into my bedroom.

There, that's better.

He rests on the end of my bed. He's wearing the same clothes he arrived in that first day.

“Mom doing your laundry?” I ask.

When I went to bed last night, the two of them were still on the couch. I've had days alone with Zak. My mother deserved some private time with him—and he with her. I heard them talking, softly, until I fell asleep. In a house that's normally silent once I burrow under my down comforter, it was strange. And nice.

Zak fiddles with the silver beads around his neck. “Considering I'm not supposed to be here, I can't exactly return in human garb.”

“Return?” I say in an innocent voice. “You're not staying here? There's plenty of bedrooms. Mom and I can butch one up for you if they're too girly.” I give a nervous laugh. “Which reminds me, where have you been staying, anyway?”

“Azra.” Zak inches closer to me. “Sister. It's time. I have to go home.”

I draw my white comforter up around my shoulders. “But this is your home.”

“It was my home. Maybe it will be again. But at the moment, this is not my home.”

“But don't you want to get to know Mom?”

Don't you want to get to know me?

Zak sighs. “More than anything. I don't want to leave either of you, but I must. Father and I have no way of communicating while I am here. He had to lower the shield that blocks apporting between the worlds save for those who can shape-shift so I could come through, but he couldn't leave it down. Someone would find out. We agreed on a single day that he would lower it again.”

“Today.”

“Neither of us believed my mission here would take this long. He padded my time so I could get to know you, even if it wasn't supposed to be as your brother.” He gives me a devilish smile. “It is a good thing he tacked on the extra, is it not?”

I punch him in the arm.

“
Rahmah
!” he cries.

My heart swims all the way up to my throat. This is how my mother must have felt every time my father returned. This must be how it was every time she faced him, waiting for him to make her forget again.

“But we just got you back,” I say.

Zak finds the outline of my fingers under the comforter and presses his hand on top of my own. “I will always come back, Sister. This will be for now, but not forever.”

He pushes up the sleeve of his tunic. An intricate tattoo of curled lines and shapes marks his upper arm. I study it further. It's not lines and shapes. I tilt my head. It's a collection of letters. Letters that form words. Tattooed onto Zak's arm are the words “Always. But not forever.”

They are the words our father said to our mother before he left for Janna—before both he and Zak left for Janna. I read them in my mother's diary.

“Always. I'll love you both always
.” He said this to my mother while I was still cocooned in her belly. “
This will be for now, but not forever.”

I lean in and trace the letters with one finger. As I inch back, Zak traps my finger, then my hand, and then me, drawing me into his arms.

“I told you it wouldn't be the last time we saw each other,” Zak says. “And neither will this.”

*   *   *

We spent the day at the beach as a family. Me, Zak, and my mother. With our picnic basket, our red-and-white-checked blanket, our Frisbee throwing, and our kite flying, I'm pretty sure the waves were crashing to the beat of “Kumbaya.” It makes me glad it was Nate's day off.

Now, as Zak and I sit on the front steps, the sun hangs low in the sky. My mother's upstairs in her bedroom writing a letter for Zak to bring to our father. She asked me to do the same. But I don't want to waste a single moment Zak and I have left together.

Suddenly, Zak stands. “There's something I have to do before I go. It won't take long.”

Apparently my brother doesn't feel the same as I do.

“What?” I say. “I'll come with you.”

“I can't tell you, and you can't come with me.”

I start to protest when he puts up his hand.

“For the love of Janna, please don't,” he says. “Just trust me. Father's going to stuff me like a leg of lamb when he finds out I told you as much as I did. Can you please not add more balsam to my pyre?”

I nod reluctantly.

“Now that's a good little Jinn,” he says as he enters the house.

“Don't you mean Afrit?”

“We're all the same, Sister.” And with a wink, he disappears.

My brother's more forgiving than I, just like Henry. And my brother's leaving, just like Henry.

At least I'll have another couple of days before Henry's gone, which is good. Dropping the A-bomb that is Zak shouldn't be done via text.

Neither should the embarrassing silly-faced emoticon I'm currently sending to Nate, but I can't help myself. I've never lived with anyone other than my mom. It's only been a day, but already I miss Goldie's Nutella-laced oatmeal, George's cursing at the Red Sox, and Megan's breathing beside me at night. And Nate. I miss Nate. The way he'd sit at the end of the couch, tickling my feet while I read, the way he'd lean in when I checked my phone for a reply from Laila, and the way he'd wrap his hand around mine and we'd both know we weren't alone.

For a fleeting second, I thought Zak would help fill the hole left by the Reeses and the Carwyns. But once again, the Afrit's desires come before mine.

Across the street, the front door of the Carwyns' home opens and out comes Chelsea. Her car was parked in the driveway this morning and doesn't appear to have moved all day. Since both of Henry's parents already started their new jobs, he's been finishing the move solo. With Chelsea's continuing help, it seems. So more like solo-ish.

She waves but barely meets my eyes as she scurries to her car. She leaves the top up as she backs out and drives away. I don't get a beep, let alone a beepity beep beep.

I tuck my phone in my pocket and walk across the street. I knock before I let myself in.

“Henry?” I call as I enter the living room. The empty living room. There's an ache in my chest as I survey the Carwyns' home, the place I knew every inch of when Jenny was alive.

But now the crack in the wall where Henry shot a plastic arrow at Jenny's head when we were seven is gone, covered by spackle and a new coat of mocha paint. I wonder who chose the shade, Chelsea or Henry?

The carpet on the stairs still flaunts its age, though my hand skims over a fresh layer of glossy white on the railing. I pause before the second-to-last step, afraid it won't creak in the center. I put my foot down.

It does.

I breathe a sigh of relief as Henry pokes his head out of his bedroom door, one down from the room that used to be Jenny's, then Lisa's, and will now belong to a complete stranger.

“Hey,” Henry says.

I follow him into his bedroom. Gone are the guitar he hasn't gotten around to learning how to play, the map of the world, the model AT-AT. No desk, no red footlocker at the end of his bed. The only thing in the room is a mattress on the floor. Home to a pile of crumpled sheets.

“Weird, isn't it?” Henry says, running his hand through his gelled hair. “Seeing the place like this? I'm not sure what's worse. This or the storage unit jammed with everything that's supposed to be here. My mom wanted to leave it all. Let the renters trash it and every bad memory she associates with this place.”

“And your dad wanted to take it all.” Henry's dad being unable to leave the house he believes is his last connection to Jenny is why the Carwyns are moving. His dad refused to relocate to New York and lost his job.

Henry nods. “Even the blinds. So now it all sits in limbo—nowhere.”

Like us?

I sigh. “Life is compromise, after all.”

Henry grins. He knows as well as I do that this is my mother's favorite saying.

As he gestures for me to sit on the bed, he notices the mess of sheets and flings the top one up toward the pillows. Is this where he and Chelsea spent the entire day? What could they have possibly been doing in this room where there's not even a chair to—

Oh. No. Really?
Oh …

I levitate a pillow and sit cross-legged on it a good distance away from the bed.

Henry drops onto the mattress across from me.

Neither of us says a word.

I shift on the pillow and use my powers to snag another. The instant it floats up from the mattress, something falls down.

Henry reaches for it, but my magic's faster and it's in my hand in an instant. I open my palm to find an earring. Pale blue, pink, green, and yellow stones dangle from the silver chandelier earring. One half of the pair Chelsea bought at the mall.

We spring up at the exact same moment.

“Azra, wait,” Henry says. “I can explain.”

“We were in the same health class, Henry. I think I've got a pretty good handle on all this.” I race for the door but a whirlwind of sensations overwhelms me and I plant my hand on the doorjamb to steady myself. “They're … they're all coming,” I stammer out.

“All? Who all?”

“Yasmin and Samara and … and I think Laila.”

Samara's deep sexy laugh echoes through the empty house for a split second before it zaps out and we hear it through the open window of Henry's bedroom.

They must have been about to apport into the house when they sensed Henry's human presence and rerouted to the front door. But why would they app here? They couldn't have all misjudged so much that they'd arrive here instead of our house across the street.

The doorbell rings.

“Were you expecting someone?” I ask.

Henry's puzzled face becomes even more confused. “No. And what just happened?”

A triple rap on the door downstairs precedes Samara's “Hello? Mr. and Mrs. Carwyn?”

My “What the—” and Henry's “Is that—” collide the same way our bodies do as we hurl ourselves out of his room and to the staircase landing.

Standing below us, outlined against the coffee walls, are Lalla Samara, Yasmin, and Laila. And more suitcases than I can count.

“Well, isn't this a lovely surprise,” Samara says, giving me a wink.

 

12

“What are you doing here?” I ask, glued to the landing upon seeing Laila again. After running into each other at the mall, she's finally started responding to my texts. Though mostly fishing for information about Zak.

Yasmin places her hands on her curvy hips. “Nice to see you too, Azra.”

Her lips parted, Laila seems incapable of making the decision to speak. Samara's mouth moves at its usual warp speed, commenting on everything from the large picture window to the dated but functional kitchen to the screened-in porch behind it.

“Charming, simply charming.” Samara glides back across the small living room. “This will do nicely.” She pauses to peer into the wood-burning fireplace. “Perfect for our purposes.”

Henry brushes past me down the stairs. “You're Mrs. Nelson?”

“
Mizz
, darling. Ms. Malak,” Samara replies. “Or better yet, simply Sam, dear Henry, since the cat's out of the bag. So much for my nom de plume.”

“That's for books,” I say.

“Really?” Sam asks skeptically.

“Pretty sure.”

“Well, now that's a shame. It's got such flair.” Her golden waves float down her back as she shrugs and faces Henry. “Hope you don't mind us dropping by. We wanted to take some measurements.”

“Measurements?” I ask, following Henry to the first floor. “For what?”

Samara surveys the room. “Well, now that I'm here, I'm thinking a cozy love seat over there and a fluffy armchair somewhere over here and, oh, maybe even a pouf or two. What do you think, Laila?”

Laila crosses her arms in front of her D-cup chest. “Oh, now I get a say?”

I move deeper into the room. The apricot aroma that has accompanied Samara as long as I can remember greets me as I stand in front of her. “You're moving in? Here?” I turn toward Henry. “But the renters—”

Yasmin huffs. “We
are
the renters. All that time in the sun around your hunky lifeguard fry one too many brain cells, Azra?”

“Way to stereotype, Yasmin. My hunky life—I mean, my lifeguard—I mean, Nate isn't dumb.”

Laila realizes she's smiling and sucks in her cheeks to stop.

With a rumbling laugh, Samara circles around to Henry and drapes an arm around his shoulder. Like my mother, but unlike my Zar sisters, Sam knows that Henry's in on our Jinn secret. “This will always be your home, Henry, dear. We're honored to keep”—she twists him to face me—“
all
that you leave behind safe while you're away.” She looks from him to me and back again before guiding him toward the stairs. “But in the meantime, would you be a love and show me and Yasmin upstairs so we can choose our bedrooms?”

“Perfect.” Laila snorts. “Because why should I get a choice in anything?”