Eight thirty struck with me staring at a spot where the wall met the crown molding. I hadn’t shut my eyes for hours, even though they felt dry and scratchy. But every time I closed them, a picture of Faris kneeling on the grassy bank materialized before me. His eyes had been blank mirrors, blind to all the good he’d done. The anguish on his face only reflected all the people he’d been unable to save, like that poor old man. I pushed his image away, together with the memory of his sobbing widow. If I kept thinking of them I would go mad.
The study felt desolate and foreign without Faris. If I’d had a house to go to, I would have left in an instant. But my house was a pile of rubble, just like my heart.
Sitting still was no good. I bolted upright, dropping the cushion onto the Oriental rug. I picked it up, fluffed it and put it back where it belonged. I looked around for traces of glass from the shattered window but found none. Faris had made everything perfect again. Desperately, my eyes searched the room for something that was out of place and needed straightening. The room was pristine. I worried at a hangnail, shuddering at the speed with which my OCD traits had returned.
I have Dad, I told myself.
I’m not alone. Not the way I’d been the day Grandpa died.
So why do I feel so lonely?
Fighting a surge of depression and self-pity, I went to Faris’s desk and rearranged the books. I sat in the chair and aligned the front of the laptop with the edge of the desk, just how I liked it. Then I pushed it back, the way Faris had left it.
This wasn’t my home, and I didn’t want to be here if he wasn’t. I crossed my arms, rested them on top of the desk, put my face down and almost gave myself into tears again.
NO!
I straightened, a ramrod shooting down my spine. I couldn’t keep wallowing. I’d done it all afternoon already, even as Dad tried to console me to no avail. Again, I fought the self-pity that kept creeping like a rising tide ready to drown me.
I fought harder, inhaling and clenching my teeth. Crying had accomplished nothing.
Nothing.
And it wouldn’t accomplish anything as long as I sat here, replaying the same events over and over again and pondering of all the things we could have done differently. No amount of thinking and re-thinking would change what had happened.
There’s only one way to change things.
You have to stand and do something.
The world doesn’t move forward powered by the useless tears of those who lie on a sofa feeling sorry for themselves. The world needs doers. Not crybabies.
But what could I do? I was nobody. A barely nineteen-year-old girl without even a home to call her own. And what about all this? I looked around the room, thought about everything that Faris had left behind. This house, the old plantation home we’ve been working on remodeling, all those expensive cars in the garage, the countless credit cards, and the safe houses and fake documents Faris had mentioned.
Who did it all belong to with him gone?
I blinked, a thought tickling in the back of my brain. Could any of it help?
My gaze fell on the rose Faris had given me before leaving. It rested solitary on one of the coffee tables, still bright, beautiful, unchanged.
Hesitantly, I opened one of the desk drawers. It was empty. I opened a second one, a third. In the fourth one, I found a solitary, small envelope. I reached for it. My fingers shook slightly as I picked it up. It was small and fit in the palm of my hand, weightless, empty perhaps. I lifted the tiny flap, looked inside and found a folded strip of paper.
I held my breath as I read what Faris had written in his flowing style. A small smile crept to my lips in spite of the emptiness I felt inside.
It was a message only I could understand.
15
Faris
An army of Djinn. Akeelah wanted to create an army of Djinn?
This was worse than I had imagined. Much worse.
It took all I had to remain impassive, to deny her the satisfaction of seeing how much her insanity, her threats, her glee affected me.
She examined my face for a reaction, the way she’d been doing all night, and seemed disappointed when she saw none.
“An army?” I said, my voice perfectly leveled, though not without effort.
“Yes, that’s what I said.” Akeelah sat back down on her gaudy throne, looking peeved. Seeing me falter by the riverboat must have been satisfying for her. But she had no heart. What else could be expected?
“You are demented,” I said.
“By your standards, perhaps. By mine, what I’m trying to do makes perfect sense.”
I looked down one of the many rows of stacked wooden crates.
“And why would you call me something ugly like that?” a familiar voice asked behind me.
My shoulders tensed. Slowly, I turned back. Akeelah’s revolting shape was gone, replaced by a perfect replica of Marielle. She mocked me with a sickening, love-struck expression.
“You disgust me,” I said, struggling to keep my indifferent tone.
An angry, frustrated growl tore out of Akeelah’s borrowed lips. Suddenly, her body expanded outward and exploded into its customary shape. She towered over me, eyes flaring red, arms quaking. Power flowed out of her in strong waves, washing over me. Her magic couldn’t harm me, but it certainly made my insides roil.
I smiled a satisfied smile, knowing that she wanted to hurt me, but that her efforts were like those of a weak tide against a granite cliff.
“Your magic can’t hurt me, you demented creature. I am not Zet,” I spat.
My impudent demeanor enraged her further. I took a step back as she grew dim, the molecules that made up her physical form vibrating, threatening to come apart. Keeping her form should have required a trivial amount of concentration, but clearly she was out of control.
Anger was her weakness, I realized then.
She couldn’t keep it from overwhelming her, from turning her into a vessel of pure, unadulterated fury.
Still visibly trembling, she turned and walked away. From the looks of it, she was fighting her rage, trying to solidify her seven-foot frame. She stopped. Her eyes scanned the warehouse. That’s when I noticed her jeweled throne was gone. She’d lost control of her magic.
I gave a dry, humorless laugh. “It seems your little tantrum has dethroned you.”
She seemed ready to blast me with her furious red-eyed stare.
“It’s quite appropriate, really,” I continued. “You don’t need a throne, in spite of whatever you’ve been planning. I have no idea how you and my brother thought to carry out such a ludicrous scheme, but you’re mistaken if you think I possess the knowledge to aid you. I assure you . . . I do not.” I made a point of holding her gaze, of giving her no reason to doubt me. It wasn’t easy. Lying was never one of my skills.
Particles still quivering, Akeelah walked back in my direction, her every footfall thudding against the concrete floor like a giant’s. Her steps resonated through the warehouse, leaving imprints on the floor. Puffs of dust rose from the broken ground. There was no reason for her theatrics, but it seemed the task was helping her regain her focus.
“You lie,” Akeelah growled into my face.
“It’s the truth.”
“More than a witness, you were a victim. Like Zet, you went through the torture and the transformation from human to Djinn. You heard the spell and know what is needed to make it work.” Her words echoed through the vast building, leaving a strange emptiness behind.
I scoffed. “Do you even listen to yourself? Yes, there was a spell, but all I remember is the torture part. Forgive me if I was too busy dying in agony.”
“You lie,” she repeated, her eyes flaring a deeper red. “Zet remembered.”
“Did he?” I had no doubt Zet remembered too, but I had to plant doubt in Akeelah’s mind. It was the first step to make her relent. “And you believed him?” I let out a puff of air and rolled my eyes.
Akeelah said nothing, seeming inst
ead to concentrate on controlling her anger.
“You did believe him,” I said in a mocking tone. “And when did he assure you he would do this for you? Before or after he asked you for more time to take his revenge on me?” I shook my head with incredulity. “I’ve always heard true Djinn aren’t very bright. I suppose now I have proof.”
“You will help me make my army, Faris.” The words hissed through her teeth, each syllable channeling her gargantuan rage. “You may claim you don’t know, and maybe that’s true. But if you want that miserable girl of yours to become an old woman one day, you will spend the rest of her days helping me recreate the process that was used on you.”
My jaw tightened, my anger almost matching hers. Every time she threatened Marielle, I itched for the power to extinguish this creature out of existence.
“Just what I thought,” she said as I bit my tongue. “If you’re telling the truth—which I highly doubt—it’s fine. We have all the time in the world to put the spell together from whatever scraps you can remember. We’ll give it our best effort. Best of all, we’ll enjoy each failure, since every filthy human we can’t transform into a Djinn will be one vermin less to worry about.”
16
Marielle
Over your heart guard the seed
My first gift, my everlasting gift
It is the key to what little I have to give
-Faris
I read the note over and over, slowly slipping a finger under the gold chain that now hung around my neck. How could I have missed the way Faris pointedly stared at the pendant as he gave me the rose? He might have planted the message in the desk then, and the flower trick had been a ruse to use magic and hide it from Akeelah.
I pulled on the pendant and tugged it from under my shirt. Placing it on my palm, I examined it closely. I had worn it since the day Faris took me to Oak Alley Plantation on our first date, and still—every time I looked at it—I marveled at its beauty and perfection.
The golden acorn looked as close to the real thing as it possibly could. And if I hadn’t seen Faris pick it up from the ground and use magic to turn it into a beautiful golden pendant, I could very well believe the oak tree itself had made it that way.
I read the note again. It said the acorn was a key, but to what? I looked around the room, puzzling over the possibilities. I stood, walked to the large windows and closed a small gap between the drapes, still pondering. After turning off all the lamps except for one, I considered the study.
To my right, floor to ceiling bookshelves held Faris’s growing book collection. I got a knot in my throat remembering his delight as he opened the packages he received in the mail every day. In the morning, he would sit by the computer and order a few books. By the time they’d arrived, he’d read all the ones he’d ordered the previous day and was ready for more.
I took a long, steadying breath as my heart shrank in pain at the memory. I couldn’t fall to pieces again. I had a riddle to solve.
A key to what? A key to what?
I looked around the room again.
The Ansel Adams photograph caught my attention. Faris was always looking at it, his thoughts lost in the whites, blacks and grays of the beautiful mountainous landscape. With hesitant steps, I approached the picture. Biting the inside of my cheek, I grasped the frame and lifted it from its hook.
As I lowered it to the floor, my suspicions were confirmed. The photograph hid a safe. I took a step closer for a better look. Where a dial or keypad should have been, there was an acorn-shaped indentation!
Heart speeding, I pulled the necklace over my head and held the pendant between my thumb and index finger. I aimed it carefully and pressed it firmly into the tiny slot. Nothing happened.
If it’s a key, maybe I should . . . I turned the acorn to the right and a clank signaled the deactivation of the lock mechanism.
Holding my breath, I twisted the safe’s polished handle and pulled the door open. A large leather briefcase waited inside. I pulled it out and—after placing it on the sofa—closed the safe and replaced the picture frame. Satisfied that things looked the way I’d found them, I turned my attention back on the briefcase. I sat next to it and placed it on my lap, wiping sweaty hands on my jeans. The security lock required a word as its combination. Another smile crossed my lips, because I knew exactly what word I should use.
I turned the five dials to the letters: B-O-U-N-D.
There was a satisfying click when I pressed the release button.
Unsure of what to expect, I peered inside. A chill tiptoed across my shoulders at the first thing I saw.
The stone!
I hadn’t seen it since the night we’d fought Zet and cursed him into it. Gingerly, I picked it up and quickly set it aside, shuddering at the idea of Zet breaking free and causing havoc again. He was supposed to remain trapped until he found it in his heart to forgive his brother. Or until the end of time. I hoped for the latter. But there were no guarantees the spell I’d come up with couldn’t be broken by some unforeseen loophole. So I guess it was our responsibility to keep it hidden, though the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, where no one could get to it, seemed more appropriate to me.
I shifted my attention to the rest of the contents. My jaw fell open at the sight: stacks of travelers checks, passports, driver’s licenses, credit cards and several rings full of keys in different shapes and sizes.
Bewildered, I picked up one of the small stacks of passports and removed the rubber band that held them together. The first one read “República de Honduras” on the cover. I opened it and marveled at the photograph inside. It was me, but I’d never posed for it. My Honduran name was Carolina Villanueva.
The next passport in the stack was for Faris. It was also Honduran and indicated his name was Gabriel Romero. I stared into Faris’s dark eyes in the photograph. They were so intense that, for a second, I imagined he was right there with me.
I pressed a finger to the corner of my eye, trying to repress the threatening tears. If I hadn’t been such an angry idiot, I would be with Faris right now in some exotic island off the coast of Honduras, where diving was heavenly and the white sand clung to my back as Faris lowered me down for a kiss to finally make love to me.
Or I could have been in—I flipped through the passports—Brazil as Lorena Conceição, Germany as Anelie Himmel, Italy as Clarissa Dioli, Spain as Sol Palomo, New Zealand as Lily Kingsdown, Argentina as Alejandra Roffo, or any of fifteen other countries and names. Instead, I had ruined everything, had sent Faris right into the hands of that monster.
Argh, stop it!
I couldn’t fix what I’d done with regrets. The best I could do was learn from my mistakes, so I would never make the same ones again. I made a silent promise to act like a rational adult from now on, not like a temperamental toddler.
Rational thoughts had to prevail over raw emotions.
After placing all the passports back in order, I turned back to the briefcase. I didn’t want to look anymore for fear of falling apart, but I had to. This new me needed to push aside fear in order to act.
The next thing to catch my attention was an iPhone. I didn’t expect it to come on when I pressed the home button, but it did. And, to my surprise, the battery indicator read 100%. I frowned at it. Magical phone? No password was required, so I perused around. I checked the calendar first, but it was empty. Next, I tapped on the camera and gasped. There were several photos of me, ones I’d never posed for, just like the passport pictures.
In one image, I sat on the swing at the old plantation house the first day we’d visited. In another, I wore a green gown and stood under the tree canopy at Oak Alley Plantation. A more recent photo showed me sitting on a bench by the Riverwalk, feeding a flock of gray pigeons.
Every single image depicted a special moment I’d shared with Faris. Moments I would never forget, and apparently, neither would he. Not if he’d held these perfect images in his memory and had used magic to transfer them into the camera.
I flicked a finger across the screen, hoping to find pictures of Faris. There were none. The only photos I had of him were a few blurry ones taken with my phone. The thought made me extremely sad. What if I never saw him again? Were those grainy images and the passport pictures the only reminders I would have left?
I pressed the home button to leave the photos and my sad thoughts behind. Instead, I pulled up the “Notes” application. It filled the screen with the digital image of a yellow pad. I froze when I was greeted by a single note titled “My Dear Marielle.” I held my breath as I noticed the date and time. The message had been created right after the explosion. I was right. Faris had used the rose trick as a distraction so Akeelah wouldn’t notice the stray bit of magic he’d used to leave this message behind.
I took a deep breath and, after opening the note, I read.
My dear Marielle:
I want to start by asking for your forgiveness. I hate to part from you and cause you pain. But I see much clearer now and finally realize this is something I must do.
Akeelah would pursue us forever to get what she wants. We would never find peace, and I don’t want that for you. I want your happiness and safety above all else.
I have tried to figure out her purpose and have imagined many terrible scenarios. She’s a monster with a deep disregard for human life, so whatever she’s after can’t be good for anyone. I had tried to ignore that, tried to believe the threat would not spread beyond us, but I was wrong and selfish.
So, whatever evil she’s after, it falls upon me to stop her. I don’t know if I shall succeed, but it is my duty to at least try. Maybe I can convince her to abandon her scheme. If that fails, I might be able to discover an obstacle, a trap, a weakness, anything that may help thwart her.
One Wish Away: Djinn Empire Complete Series Page 36
