“Hm!” said Goldie softly. Her hand rose to smooth her hair, gathered high on her head in a silver-blond bun.
Xavier was glaring at Eden with eyes that burned hot as coals. She narrowed hers right back at him.
“I’m sorry, may I be excused?”
The air between them seemed to vibrate. Even the candles flickered in fear.
“If you’re finished,” Xavier said evenly. “Rinse your dishes in the kitchen.”
She flipped her braid, squared her shoulders, and marched out.
She meant to go straight to her room, but instead, after scraping rice and bits of sausage from her bowl into the garbage, she wandered into the living room. In the corner was a very large marble globe with pale green seas and bronze landmasses. It was six feet in diameter and mounted in a solid gold stand, and it stood on a platform elevated two steps above the floor.
As if drawn by a magnetic force, she ascended the steps to the platform and found herself tracing the nations’ outlines. She ran a finger round the robust curve of western Africa, then down the snaky tail of Chile. Once she retired and could roam the earth freely, she thought, she’d walk along the coast of every continent. How long would that take? she wondered. Longer than granting 999 wishes? Would a mortal’s lifetime be long enough?
The globe was enchanted by the same magic that made the lamp work. When the genie was summoned, it revealed her location. As soon as she disappeared from the lamp—but not a moment before—a gold peg moved to the place where she’d been summoned.
She turned the globe to where the gold peg was affixed to a point in southeast Australia. When the lamp was rubbed again, it would move to the new location where she’d been summoned. After noting its placement, Xavier would advance to his study to observe the granting through the gleaming telescope. Through its lens, he was able to see and hear everything that happened in the lamp’s proximity. While she was on Earth, as long as the lamp was near, she could never escape his gaze.
“Do you remember the origin of the word genie?” Startled, Eden spun to see Xavier. She hadn’t heard him enter, but there he was, straight-backed but at ease in a scarlet armchair across the room. One leg was crossed over the other in a wide authoritative manner. He had a way of making furniture look like it would be incomplete without him.
“Of course.” Eden’s voice fell flat and weak in the space between them. With one powerful hand he motioned for her to elaborate. “Genie is the English term for the Arabic word jinn. It’s derived from the root j-n-n, which means to hide or conceal.”
“That’s correct. From the same root, j-n-n, Jannah is the Islamic conception of paradise, directly translated as ‘garden.’” His eyes searched hers. “I like to think of our home as a paradise. Our own little paradise, where nothing can hurt us.”
Eden turned back to the globe and gave it a gentle shove, sending it slowly spinning.
“I know,” Xavier said, “that sometimes you feel stifled in the lamp. You think you’d like to get out and explore. Try a different life. Run away, if you could.”
Eden kept her back to him. Her eyes ran rapidly over Africa. She felt like the walls were inching inward.
“But darling, I promise you: it doesn’t get better than this. Don’t you see? You have a life mortals can only dream of.”
Eden’s toes clenched inside her satin slippers.
“When you visit Earth, you see it at its best. Your wishers are having their fantasies granted. They’re warm and happy. You don’t see them when they’re hurting each other. You don’t see war or poverty or disease. But those ugly, terrible things are part of the world too.”
But to her, his words were meaningless. She knew deep in her heart that Earth was beautiful and ripe with the promise of adventure.
She whipped round to face him.
“What if it’s worth all that to me? When did I ever get to choose?”
A shadow of surprise flashed across Xavier’s face.
“You didn’t,” he said. “And for that, you don’t know how lucky you are.”
Eden spent the rest of the evening in her room. She supposed Xavier and Goldie thought she was writing the report, but of course that wasn’t true.
Her mind was racing as if powered by a steam engine. She couldn’t stop wondering about the alumni she’d never heard from. If all the genies had been as grateful and well behaved as she’d been told, why didn’t they communicate with the lamp?
Was it possible that Xavier and Goldie were lying? Maybe the other alumni did send messages. Maybe, for some reason, the lamp’s masters just didn’t want Eden to see them.
She kicked off her covers. If there were messages from the other alumni, they’d be filed in the drawers in the study. Surely she’d find answers in those drawers, if she could only explore them.
Of course, she wasn’t allowed to enter the study alone. And yet, none of the lamp’s doors had locks. Xavier said he didn’t believe in them, which seemed strange, since he had no problem keeping her locked up in the lamp. So there had never been anything keeping her out of the study except the rule.
She thought about the report again. Maybe it was time to stop letting Xavier’s rules hold her back.
Hours earlier, silence had filled the lamp like water in a glass. The last time the clocks had chimed, they’d struck two. It was safe to assume that Xavier and Goldie were long asleep.
Before she could lose her nerve, she sprang lithely from her bed.
Sneaking downstairs didn’t prove to be difficult. The lamp’s darkness cloaked her in secrecy and ushered her along. When she reached the study, she held her breath, gripped the gold doorknob, and gave it a push. When it opened obligingly, she slipped in and closed the door behind her. It was almost suspiciously simple.
She snapped her fingers to light a candle on Xavier’s desk, then one on Goldie’s. Together, the flames provided just enough light to give her her bearings.
Standing between the bookshelves that ascended higher than her eyes could see, she surveyed the room. It was her first time alone in the study. Dark and deserted, it seemed even larger than usual.
Her eyes combed the sky-high shelves, taking in rows upon rows of dusty volumes. Her gaze followed the ladders leaning against them from the floor to the top of the lamp. She examined Xavier’s and Goldie’s desks, and the empty leather chairs behind them. Between them, the silver telescope balanced gracefully on three slim legs.
Long before she’d started granting, she’d learned about the restrictions of the telescope’s power. In Granting for Genies, she’d nearly combusted with excitement when Goldie had told her they could see all the way to Earth through the telescope. It was the best news she’d ever heard.
“I want to look!” she’d demanded. So Goldie had taken her down to the study. Hearing them, Xavier came out from the kitchen and joined them. Goldie lowered the telescope to her eye level. Ravenous for a view of the world she spent her days studying, she’d peered in expectantly.
But in an instant, her hopes fell like a popped balloon.
“It’s not working!” she’d cried in dismay.
“Of course it’s working,” Goldie had said. “But the lamp is buried right now. There’s nothing to see.”
“That isn’t fair!”
“Life isn’t fair,” Xavier had said matter-of-factly, and then Goldie led her back upstairs to finish lessons.
Since she couldn’t go in the study alone, she’d never had a chance to try it again. But of course, it was safe to assume that if she hadn’t been summoned, it was still buried. There’d be nothing to see.
But since she was here, why not try it anyway?
She moved to the delicate instrument and stood on her toes to reach the eye level where Xavier had left it. She couldn’t risk them noticing it had been adjusted.
She leaned in, expecting nothing but darkness. But instead, she saw light—and heard voices.
Alarmed, she backed away.
She frowned. She hadn’t bee
n summoned. The lamp should be buried underground.
She placed her eye on the telescope again.
This time, she saw the backs of mortals sitting in rows of chairs. Men and women, dressed sharply in suits. There had to be hundreds of them. And at the front, a white-haired man in a suit and tie stood behind a podium and spoke to the crowd.
The telescope’s powers enabled her to hear, as well as see, the scene. The man at the podium was speaking about global warming.
She stepped back again. It seemed that someone sitting in the crowd, attending this event, was holding the lamp. Had this person found it but not yet rubbed it?
Suddenly, the study clock struck three. She nearly jumped out of her nightgown.
Time was limited—especially if the lamp was about to be rubbed. She needed to stay on task. She turned her attention to the drawers on the wall behind the desks.
Each drawer was as large as an oven you could cook a turkey in. She tiptoed to them, selected one randomly, and tugged its handle. It sprang toward her on tracks so slippery they might have been coated with grease, and crashed to the ground. She closed her eyes and bit her lip, hoping against all hope that her masters hadn’t heard from their bedroom upstairs.
She rushed to replace the heavy drawer, but the grooves on the bottom wouldn’t fit on the tracks properly. Blowing a stray piece of hair out of her face, she kneeled in front of it.
She was so focused on fitting the drawer back in that she almost didn’t notice the patch of gold wall showing through the space it had occupied. Across it was a curved silver bar that stretched about a foot wide.
Eden set the drawer gently on the floor and leaned forward to peer through the hole. Above the silver bar was another silver bar, and above that a third. She twisted her neck to look upward. The silver bars continued as far as she could see, one above another. She squinted, trying to make out how high they ascended. At a certain point, at least a story above, it looked like the wall curved outward at a pronounced angle.
She sank back on her heels. No other part of the lamp had a ladder built into the wall, and nowhere else did the wall curve so dramatically. What was back there, hidden behind the drawers?
She gripped the handle of the drawer above. This time she pulled it with just enough force so that it rolled gently from its tracks into her arms. Cradling it like it was made of porcelain, she set it on the floor with only the slightest hint of sound.
Next she removed the drawer below. The cavity she’d created was large enough to squeeze through.
Her arms, head, hips, and legs slipped through the opening, and her feet and hands found silver bars to cling to. With her elbows and knees out wide and her body pressed close to the wall, she scaled the slender ladder rungs. Considering that most days she couldn’t make it across the kitchen without creating a mess, she had to marvel at how smoothly things were going. But she kept her focus on what was ahead—or, rather, above. She couldn’t see what was coming, so she trusted her hands to find each new rung.
About twenty rungs up, she reached the point where the wall curved sharply outward. Three rungs later, the ladder ended. The wall had curved to a nearly horizontal plane. Gripping the gold surface with her fingertips, she crawled forward.
As she slithered ahead, she realized the space she was crawling through was gradually decreasing in diameter. Like an electric shock it struck her: she was inside the spout of the lamp. As many times as she’d seen her home from the outside during grantings, she’d never stopped to wonder why no part of the lamp’s interior resembled the spout. Her heart started racing. At the end of the spout was a hole. That meant an opening to the world.
With new zeal she crawled faster. The circumference of the space shrank until it cradled her like a cocoon. At last she found herself face-to-face with the lamp’s only opening.
She stared at it in disbelief, heart pounding like a racehorse’s hooves. The hole at the end of the spout was about the size of her outstretched hand. Through it was thick, murky darkness.
Suddenly a whoosh of wind flew forcefully in her face. Closing her eyes, she pulled back. What was happening?
She opened her eyes, and there he was—crouching right before her in the spout, directly in front of the open hole. Even in the dark, there was no mistaking his face.
She gasped. “Where did you come from?”
“Eden.” Xavier’s voice was sharp and urgent. He was just as shocked as she was.
“Where were you?” she cried. Her voice shook when she spoke. She realized her hands were trembling, too.
He took a deep breath. “Eden, I’ll explain. Let’s go back down—”
“Explain now!” She felt like a bubble in her chest had popped and was filling her lungs with hot liquid. “Did you just come into the lamp through that hole?”
He was wearing a suit like the men in the room she’d seen.
“You were just on Earth, weren’t you? In that conference I saw through the telescope.”
He paused. “I was attending the UN Climate Summit in New York City.”
He’d been sitting there amongst them. On Earth. In New York City. The thought was too absurd to comprehend.
“But—how? Is that where the lamp will be found next?”
“No. By now, it could be anywhere on Earth.”
“Is that hole the way out of the lamp?”
“It is,” he said carefully. “Now, will you come with me?” He took her hand and edged around her. “Follow me down the ladder, and then we can talk.”
Her mind buzzed like a swarm of honeybees. As he guided her toward the ladder, she tried to pin down thoughts, but they flew away too quickly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded. She pulled her hand away from his. “Why wouldn’t you tell me?”
He rubbed his face with his hand.
Eden felt heat on her cheeks and realized she was crying. “Do you just come and go as you please? How often do you go there?”
He swallowed. “I only leave because I have to. I have to bring back knowledge in order to keep your lessons current and relevant. New developments in technology, art, science. Can you imagine what would happen if we didn’t have new information? For thousands of years? We’d be obsolete.”
“But why don’t you bring me with you?” she cried. “When you know I want to go?”
“Only one of us can leave the lamp at once,” he said gently. “It won’t allow more than that.”
“You lied to me!” Every ounce of her body hummed with the sting of his betrayal.
“It wouldn’t be right for you to go. You’re not meant to roam among them.”
“But you do it!”
“Only because I have to!” Xavier’s eyes implored her. “If I could, I’d spend every minute in here with you and Goldie. Eden, the world is a dangerous place. Not to say it doesn’t have its merits—it does. But there’s also cruelty, death, pain. Things the lamp protects us from.” His voice dropped. “Things I don’t want you to see.”
His words were no good to her. He didn’t understand she wanted more than paradise.
“You’re from a long, sacred line of genies,” he went on. “Each one of you is graceful, brilliant, and terribly beautiful. You only grace mortals with your presence when you’re granting. You brighten that cruel world when you’re there.”
“Well, you know what?” she said. “The world’s not getting brightened by me anymore.”
Xavier’s eyebrows jumped to attention.
“I’m sick of living by these stupid rules,” she said. “I’m sick of being something I never wanted to be.”
“Don’t—”
Her voice rose over his. “I’m not writing that stupid report, and I’m not granting any more wishes.”
“Eden,” he said firmly, “come with me. We’ll sit down and talk about this.” He tried to take her hand again, but it was too late for that.
“I quit!” she declared.
Fires lit in his eyes. “You can’t quit!
Young lady, you come with me right now!”
“Watch me!” Moving fast, Eden turned, pushed her body into the tight cocoon, and dove headfirst into the darkness. Somehow the small hole swallowed her up, and in an instant that delicious sensation of shuttling at supersonic speed was upon her and inside her. She heard Xavier’s yell echoing behind her as if through a long tunnel, but before he could stop her she was out of the lamp.
Earth welcomed Eden with a kick in the head. Her first sensation was the impact of a bare foot straight between her eyes.
“What in the—what?” she heard a female voice say.
She opened her eyes, then immediately snapped them shut. The sunlight was excruciating for her lamp-sheltered vision.
She blinked, and gritty particles fell from her lashes. She shook her head, and more fell free. They covered her face; she even spat some from her mouth. But when she tried to lift her hands to wipe them off, she found they were stuck in place by her sides.
Of course, she thought. She’d climbed out of the spout before a mortal had discovered the lamp. Since it had been submerged underground, so, now, was she. Her body was totally buried, with only her head exposed. Her chin hadn’t even cleared the surface.
Squinting, she could make out a girl squatting in front of her. She looked to be around Eden’s age. She had shoulder-length brown hair with thick bangs, and she wore black sunglasses.
“Sorry I kicked you in the head,” the girl said. “I mean, I guess. You can’t really blame me. Your hair’s the same color as the sand.”
Sand. That must be what was all over her face. At least, with any luck, it would be less dense than dirt. She began to wriggle her hands toward the surface.
“What are you doing, anyway?”
Dazedly, Eden sized up her surroundings. All around her was sand, and above her—ahh. A clear blue sky, with not a trace of a cloud. She was on Earth, that much was certain. But where?
“Where am I?” she asked weakly.
The girl frowned. “Mission Beach?”
A beach! A thrill ran through her, all the way to her deep-buried toes.
Eden's Wish Page 4
