As You Wish

by Jackson Pearce

  I haven’t painted in days, I realize. Suddenly I miss the feeling of painting more than I knew until this moment, and the urge to grab for a brush sweeps over me like the need to eat or drink. But all of my paints are at school.

  I could go to the school; there are enough weekend activities that a door is always unlocked. Paint all evening. Skip the party tonight. Of course, it’s not what the new shiny Viola should do. But it would give me something to do all day rather than bite my lip over the fact that I can’t talk to Jinn or Lawrence.

  Yes. I’m going. I grab my mother’s car keys without asking, and a half hour later I slip into the school. My Expo paintings sit patiently, covered with ripped-up bedsheets. I yank the sheets off.

  I don’t like these. They’re just paintings. Pretty enough, but just paintings. They aren’t expressions or emotions…or me. I mean, they told us to paint landscapes, and I obeyed; I painted landscapes. Landscapes that belong on walls in living rooms, or above bedroom dressers. They don’t belong to me. They aren’t paintings that show the world who I am, what I am. I grab all five canvases from their easels, dropping them in a stack on a nearby table, and fill the easels with fresh, blank canvases—clean slates ready to be filled up.

  The Expo is in just a few days. I’m not talented enough to come up with something amazing in that amount of time. I’ve got no business starting from scratch this late. But the desire to fill the blank canvas with color tingles through my chest, down my arms, until it feels like it may explode from my fingertips. I reach for a brush and splash color across the whiteness.

  Hours pass, though I hardly notice. My hands are speckled in colors that match the bright sunset outside. The paintings are strange; something to do with me, Ollie, Lawrence, Aaron…something to do with Jinn. Something to do with studying pink hair and chain belts and French manicures, and how everything is a marker to show who you are, what you belong to. The emotions spill out onto the white until they don’t consume my head anymore, until I don’t care if the paintings are good or not.

  My cell phone rings, and my brush clatters to the concrete floor.

  “Hello?” I answer, rubbing my face, probably getting paint all over it.

  “Hey, beautiful,” Aaron’s voice says.

  Viola. My name is Viola.

  “Still want me to pick you up?”

  I look longingly at the painting; it’s not quite finished. “Actually…I’m working on a painting. I can’t go,” I say.

  Aaron sighs deeply. “But, baby, I just want to be with you tonight, you know? I love you.”

  “Yeah.” But only because I wished for it.

  “Can’t you work on the painting another day?”

  I can. I can do that. But I don’t want to; I want to paint now, while all the emotion is stirred up. Jinn would understand that. So would Lawrence. But I can leave. I sigh as guilt fills me. It’s my fault that he loves me, that he wants me there. It’s not his fault for not understanding me, or why I paint. I owe it to him.

  “Yes,” I reply, holding in a heavy sigh. “I’ll meet you at my house.”

  I try to look excited as I climb out of Aaron’s Jeep a half hour later. Boys rush to help Aaron with a cooler, and girls shout for me to join their tiny circle of pretty people. But I can stand the gossip for only so long before I migrate away from them, grateful to see that the backyard is almost empty, save for a few couples making out and a lone girl in a tiny flower garden.

  It’s a dark, cloudless night, and the moon is only a tiny sliver in the sky. The house is set far enough out that the nearest streetlights are just specks in the distance, and with so few of the house’s lights on, the stars look especially brilliant. I sigh, gazing at them, then hear a sob from the girl in the flower garden. I raise my eyebrows and take several steps toward the girl while the nearest makeout pair moves away from her.

  “Hello?” I call out. The girl doesn’t answer, just gives another small sob. I step closer, through the garden’s soft soil. The headlights of an arriving car shine across the girl’s tearstained face. Her skin is dull and her eyes are empty, but she reminds me of someone….

  I throw a hand to my mouth.

  I think it’s Ollie—no, I know it’s Ollie—but this isn’t…this isn’t her. This isn’t the girl I know, disheveled and weeping in the grass. Her skin is dull, her eyes look as though they’re aching, and she chokes on a sob before laying her head to the ground in what looks like defeat.

  My wish wasn’t supposed to hurt anybody. I sink to my knees beside the girl, who hardly seems to notice I’m here.

  It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.

  Jinn. Jinn, help. Please.

  eighteen

  Jinn

  A ROLL OF thunder rattles through the park, startling the ducks that I was trying to coax toward me. I look up expectantly, but no raindrops fall. I sigh and sit back in the cool grass to wait. Again. For the fourth day in a row.

  This is normal, no matter how boring it is, I remind myself. This is how it should be while I wait for my master to wish—sitting alone. It’s good that I asked for the press. I’ve been repeating that to myself all day, because I know that if I let the lingering doubt in my head speak up, I’ll crumble. It’s easier to stay bitter—to think of Viola yelling at me, of the days I’ve lost, of Caliban. To ignore the fact that two people know me—that two people, until Tuesday, considered me their friend. I suppose one of the two still does.

  Lawrence. I showed myself to him. I involved him, and now he might be used to press Viola. She’d wish to help him, to save him. Another bolt of jealousy rushes through me. Viola and Lawrence would wish to save each other. Would they do the same for me? Would anyone?

  That’s for mortals. See what being here has done to you?

  But I still should warn Lawrence, as I remember the time he called me “friend.” Plus, I’m incredibly bored and I haven’t had a conversation with anyone in days. I’m already in so much trouble with the Ancients when I get back, what’s one more offense? I vanish from the park. Lawrence yells and trips over a baseball bat when I appear in his bedroom.

  “You could warn me,” he mutters, rubbing his knee where it crashed into the carpet.

  “Sorry, I forgot,” I answer, trying to hide how much of a relief it is for someone to see me again. Lawrence rolls his eyes and pulls himself up into his computer chair.

  “It’s good to see you, though, really. As long as…don’t tell me she’s made another wish?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “No…no. That’s not why I’m here. We haven’t…I mean, she hasn’t called for me in days.”

  “Me either. She usually can’t hold a grudge, but I’m starting to wonder. She’s going to a party tonight, so I’m not going since…it’s awkward. But if you want to watch Family Guy reruns with me, you’re more than welcome.”

  The offer is tempting, but I hesitate. “Actually, that’s not why I’m here.” How do I explain that I might have requested to have him hurt? “Viola is going to wish soon,” I say slowly.

  Lawrence raises an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “It’s for the better, I mean. Two more wishes and I go back home. And besides, she has Aaron now; she doesn’t need a jinn following her around.”

  Lawrence laughs and sits back down on the edge of his bed. “Yeah, she may say she loves Aaron, but she looks at you the way she used to look at me,” Lawrence says with a sad sort of smile. “You know, before I became a raging homosexual.” Lawrence grins, but I can’t even smile back because my head is suddenly too full.

  She looks at me the way she used to look at him. The person she loved.

  No one has ever looked at me that way. Something inside me pulses, and I turn away from Lawrence as a warm feeling rushes from my head to my fingertips.

  No. No. Relationships are for mortals.

  I turn back to Lawrence and shake my head. “A bird and a fish might love each other, but where could they live?”

  “I don’t know, an underwater bir
dcage?” Lawrence replies.

  I sigh and put my head in my hand.

  Lawrence stands, folding his arms. “Jinn, is something wrong—”

  “I asked for a press,” I say as fast as I can. Don’t look at Lawrence.

  “You asked for a what?”

  I focus on the old baseball trophies behind Lawrence’s head. “Whenever there’s a concern about a master not wishing, the ifrit get involved. They press a person to wish—put the person in a situation that he or she will need to wish some way out of. It’s not always that pretty, but the ifrit really are trying to do good. It’s their job, helping earthbound jinn escape. I asked them to press Viola.”

  “You asked them to hurt—” Lawrence’s voice raises, his eyes wide and panicky.

  “No!” I snap. Who does Lawrence think I am? “I got the ifrit’s word that he wouldn’t press Viola directly, that he won’t hurt her. It’s for the best, Lawrence. There are rules in Caliban, protocol that the Ancients enforce and we have to follow while earthbound. This isn’t my world—”

  “But she’s your friend! You have to warn her! What’s wrong with you?” Lawrence shouts, stepping closer to me with each word.

  I open my mouth to speak again, but freeze.

  Viola.

  Her call rips through my head like a scream that causes my mouth to dry and my palms to sweat. A press. It must be a press. My stomach lurches. It’s for the better, remember? He promised not to hurt her. It’s for the better, I chant to myself, but the sick feeling intensifies. How could I? What have I done? She’s my friend.

  The words leave my mouth in a whisper. “She’s calling for me.”

  “She’s at Aaron’s party. I’ll meet you there,” Lawrence says, grabbing his car keys off his desk. I nod as the world blurs and I vanish.

  I expect to arrive in the center of a party like the one before Viola’s first wish—red cups everywhere, music thumping, Aaron draped with girls like they’re human ivy. Instead, I appear in a starlit garden. Music from the house in front of it thumps dully through the walls, and there’s a hum of conversation that’s almost hidden by the chirps of crickets. Viola is kneeling by a bed of tulips and hydrangeas, her head turned away. She doesn’t even realize I’m behind her. Before I can speak, a voice cuts me off.

  “I tried to talk to him, he told me to fuck off. What did I do? I don’t understand. We were supposed to be forever,” the voice weeps from between rows of canna lilies. The speaker is…no.

  It’s Ollie. But not the beautiful, mysterious, and bright Ollie that I remember from last week.

  This Ollie has mascara streaming down her cheeks. Her eyes are glassy and red from crying, and her face is ugly with grief. Her clothes look different on her—she looks like a lost little girl in her mother’s hand-me-downs. A thunderhead rolls in front of the moon and throws Ollie’s and Viola’s faces into shadow.

  “Master,” I say, choking out the title instead of her name.

  Remember, it’s easier when she’s just your master, when she’s not “Viola.” Protocol. Viola turns to me, her face twisted in misery. I want to call her name, so, so badly. And I want her to say mine. I breathe in.

  “Viola. Please,” she begs, and her voice is trembling. Suddenly nothing else matters—the ifrit, Caliban, aging. How could I have thought any of that truly mattered? I don’t know what to do—reach toward her? Stand quietly? Keep speaking, stay silent? What can I do to stop her pain?

  Suddenly my body knows what to do even though my head doesn’t. I drop to my knees beside her and put a hand on top of hers as the clouds start to drip. Movement from behind the rosebushes catches my eye—it’s the ifrit. His silk tunic reflects the lights from the house, and he folds his arms, giving me a long, perplexed gaze. I leave my hand firmly on Viola’s and look away from him.

  “It’s my fault she’s like this. I ruined Ollie. Look at her,” Viola murmurs as Ollie buries her head in her hands. The white artist’s palette tattoo on her back looks faded and sickly. A clap of thunder bangs in the distance. People who were partying outside rush into the house, and the music gets louder.

  “I don’t understand,” Ollie weeps. “I feel so…so…”

  “Broken,” Viola whispers. She sits back and puts her head in her hands. “What have I done?”

  I respond grimly, “You made a wish.”

  And I asked for a press.

  “But I never wanted to hurt Ollie. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just wanted to feel whole again. But I don’t, even though I belong now.” The rain begins to transform from a light sprinkle to a hard summer rain. There’s no rain in Caliban, either. Water falls on Viola’s eyelashes, mixing in with her tears.

  “Can I take it back? Wish to undo the first wish?” Viola asks.

  “No. No, you can’t,” I breathe. “You can’t unwish something.”

  Viola’s gaze falls to Ollie again.

  “I have to make it right,” she says fearfully. “What do I have to do?” she asks, looking back at me.

  Viola doesn’t really want to know—her question hardly pulls at me. Probably because she already knows what she has to do. She just needs to hear it, to know there’s no other way.

  “You’d have to wish again,” I say, then look away. A feeling I don’t know grips me as the words leave my mouth, some sort of writhing between my stomach and my heart. The ifrit gives me a stern look and vanishes. Viola inhales deeply and doesn’t speak for several moments.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally says firmly. Can she read me the way I read her? Does she know how badly I don’t want her to wish? Her voice drops to a whisper. “I have to.”

  “I understand,” I answer. He’s a great ifrit. It was a good press. And it’s my own fault that she wished, that I’m losing her for a world of stillness and solidarity. I stand. I don’t want to do this. I want to be anything but a wish granter at this moment.

  Viola doesn’t look at me, but rather at Ollie, whose hands and clothes are muddy and whose face is swollen from tears. She reaches out and puts a hand on Ollie’s arm.

  “I wish for Ollie to be okay,” she says breathily, closing her eyes as she does so. She doesn’t look at me—I’m glad, because I know my face is contorted into a horrible grimace. I fight it, even though I know there’s no point—the wish pulls at me like a strong wave. I wait until the last moment to grant it, until the wave feeling rushes over me so strongly that I feel I might drown. Finally, I wrap one arm over my stomach, the other against my back and bow slowly.

  To Viola. To my master. How could I hurt her? What have I done?

  “As you wish.”

  nineteen

  Viola

  I LOOK INTO Jinn’s eyes as the words leave his mouth. He looks at me differently than Aaron does. As if I could have any hair color, be any size, be sick or healthy, be fat, skinny, or dying, and he would still look at me the same way. The rain makes his golden skin seem slick and polished, and he looks less human than he ever has before. He rises from the bow and breaks eye contact with me to stare into the sky.

  “It doesn’t rain in Caliban,” he says, letting raindrops splash onto his face. I follow his gaze to the clouds, then remember Ollie. My eyes dart to the bushes where Ollie was, dirty and weeping. She’s gone. A bright, apple-colored laugh resounds through the garden from somewhere in the house. I look inside.

  Ollie is sitting on the kitchen counter, framed by the window’s pink curtains. Her hair falls in perfectly tousled curls, and her teeth are shiny and white. Her skin is back to its honey color, and when she turns around, I see the white tattoo on her back, as shimmery as ever. Boys surround her, and she smiles at them, then hops off the counter and vanishes from my line of sight.

  “It worked,” I say softly. Jinn looks away from the sky, droplets of rain rolling down his cheeks, like tears.

  “Yes.” He inhales and talks quickly, in a voice too casual to be genuinely so. “I covered up the memory of Aaron leaving her. I can’t erase memories, not really…. Ji
nn magic isn’t that strong—”

  “I’m sorry,” I interrupt him, voice breathless.

  “Don’t be,” Jinn answers, staring at the wet grass. “It’s my fault.” His jaw is tight, and there’s a hurt look in his eyes. I watch him carefully through the increasing rain, longing to read his desires as he reads mine.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, searching his face. It’s not your fault. It’s my fault.

  Jinn pauses and rubs his face with his hand. “Viola…Ollie was a press. I asked another jinn to get you to wish. I was confused. I was jealous. I didn’t understand. I thought I had to get home; I thought I needed you to wish.”

  My breath quavers in my throat as water runs off my hair and down my back. He did what to me?

  “I don’t understand,” I whisper.

  Jinn bites his lip, then launches into an explanation: ifrit, pressing, time, wishes, Caliban. The words run together like the scent of liquor and smoke from the house. He wanted to leave. He wanted me to wish so he could leave. The knowledge twists into me like a knife; he said he liked being here. I thought he liked being with me. I thought he didn’t want to leave anymore. I force myself to swallow.

  “I asked him not to hurt you, so he made Ollie hurt over the breakup with Aaron, just to get to you. It’s my fault. I’m so sorry, Viola,” Jinn says loudly, to be heard over the sound of the rainstorm.

  Jinn did this. And he did it intentionally. I can’t find my voice, and I can barely see; everything is blurred and obscured by the raindrops. Everything but Jinn. He’s breathing deeply and gazing into my eyes as he speaks. His voice is rough and low, and his fingers twitch as if he’s longing to reach toward me. I take a step away from him and fold my arms over my waist. A clap of thunder erupts overhead.

  I finally find words. “I would have…you want to go. You wanted me to hurt so you could…,” I trail off as a flash of lightning illuminates the garden. I shiver, though I’m not certain it’s from the cold.

  “No, Viola, please. It was a mistake. I was scared because…” He looks down. “Because I’m beginning to feel like I’m broken without you. Like something about me, about who and what I am, is going to be gone if I leave you. With you, I’m not just a wish granter. And I’m not supposed to feel that. A wish granter is what I am. I’m not a mortal, but I…it’s almost like I wish I was one.” He says the words with a look of confusion on his face, and I can’t help wondering if he’s ever had a wish before.