Title: I Wish
Author: E.B. Tatby
Publisher: Dream Tag
Pages: 329
Genre:
YA/Fantasy
Format: Kindle
Purchase at
AMAZON
All her life, sixteen-year-old Kenza Atlas has heard the stories, but
she never believed them. She never expected the allure of power or,
worse, how far the dark shadows could cast. Genies and wishing are for
fairy tales, not teenage girls, and especially not in Omaha.
But when a Moroccan jinn with undulating tattoos and mysterious black
eyes whisks her 500 years back in time, she witnesses the death of her
powerful ancestor and the gorgeous slave she loved. They sacrificed
themselves to escape the Caliph, a tyrant named Mazin.
And now he’s after Kenza.
He’s tracked her to her present time. Now she spends her days
stealing paranoid glances over her shoulder, obsessing over a slave who
died hundreds of years ago, and praying her family will survive.
For as long as I could remember, my dad would recite Moroccan
legends, filled with magical jinns who could manifest anytime, anywhere .
. . but I never believed his stories. I had attributed them—and all of
his other tales—to a hyped up imagination, ranked right up there with
fairy tales and
never-going-to-happen endings. I didn’t believe
that a living, breathing Prince Charming existed, or that any prince had
a kiss potent enough to awaken a comatose princess, and I didn’t
believe in jinns. Even if my dad’s animated retelling made beautiful and
devious genies sound exotic, I preferred realism, boring as it often
proved in Omaha.
That’s why I didn’t freak out when a soft breath trailed across my
shoulders. But when it happened again I spun around, eyes darting around
the room. Nothing was there except my bed, my desk with my
embarrassingly antiquated computer, a couple of posters on my lavender
walls, and the pile of dirty clothes by the closet. Still, to be safe, I
pushed on my door to make sure it was locked, and then sped from window
to window wiggling all the latches. Nothing looked out of place, but
something felt very wrong.
When a pungent smell permeated the room—worse than the rotten Easter
eggs I’d forgotten in my playhouse when I was five—I cupped my mouth,
trying my hardest not to puke. My dad had often described the putrid
smell that accompanied jinns, so this had to be my vivid imagination on
steroids. Not sure if the smell or my rising fear created the nausea, I
stood in front of the mirror and peered into my startled, dark-brown
eyes.
“Stop being ridiculous,” I whispered.
I blew out a puff of air to reassure myself that I was being silly.
But when a fleeting shadow floated past the mirror, I spun around,
gasping, and splayed my back against the wall. I shook my head several
times, but the apparition didn’t disappear.
“Who are you?” I exclaimed.
Wordlessly, she floated toward me, her long dress rippling
effortlessly, never touching the ground. I focused on the fact that she
was floating. I tried to analyze it, to make sense of it, but suddenly
she paused right in front of me, within reach. She wasn’t tall, but
compared to me—and the fact she was floating—she had to tip her head
down to look at me with her wide coal-black eyes. Her caramel-colored
heart-shaped face and bow-shaped lips certainly made her look Moroccan,
as I would, if I hadn’t inherited my mom’s light complexion and
smattering of freckles.
“I don’t believe in jinns,” I whispered, my voice quavering. “I’m imagining this. I
know I’m
imagining this, so don’t even think that you’re scaring me, because you
aren’t.” The spooky apparition tilted her head to one side but didn’t
budge. I drew in a sharp breath, clenched my fists.
When she locked her eyes on me, I studied what appeared to be
undulating henna tattoos casting lacy shadows over her skin . . . but I
couldn’t tell if they were
real tattoos or only an illusion. I
peered harder, noticed her ringlets of black hair sway from side-to-side
slowly like a mermaid’s would underwater; studied how her long sparkly
dress shimmered with a million stars from the night sky, emitting tiny
bursts of light all around my room.
I raised my eyes and stared hard into her eyes, intently wishing I
could burn the image—although stunning—from my mind by sheer will. I
tried to call for my dad, but nothing came out. I tried to move, but my
body wouldn’t cooperate. I drew another breath. “You can go now,” I
said, praying I sounded brave.
She stared into my eyes, willing me to “hear” her. No words were
spoken, but I heard an unfamiliar voice in my head. “It’s time,” she
communicated, “I’ve come to prepare you.”
My heart beat out messages:
Caution! Danger! Run! I sucked in a
breath, bolted for the door, unlocked it, wrapped my hand around the
knob, and gasped when it became clear that someone on the other side was
trying to get in.
“My Kenza, why are you not yet asleep?”
“Don’t come in, Dad,” I shouted, bracing myself against the door,
grinding my heels into the carpeted floor. He’d warned me for years that
one of his magic jinns might show up to pirate me off to Morocco. If he
saw this apparition, it would mean that he’d been right all along, and
that Mom and I had been wrong to make fun of his stories. More
importantly, if he saw the jinn, I wouldn’t be able to pretend that she
wasn’t real.
Not one to let me get away with anything, my dad pushed hard against
the door, sending me stumbling backwards, falling onto my bed. I glanced
furtively around the room. She was gone.
“What is wrong with you, Kenza?” Dad spread his feet apart, placed one hand on each hip, and glowered. “I am waiting . . .”
My heart was still thundering, but I wanted time to figure this out
on my own. So I did what I typically did when my parents confronted me: I
said whatever popped into my head to throw him off. “So what if I’m
still awake. Why does it matter so much to you?”
“It matters because you should be in bed. You have school tomorrow . . . and it’s your
sixteenth birthday, so the sooner you go to sleep, the sooner it will come, my Moon.”
“A birthday I don’t even get to celebrate thanks to you and Mom,” I
said, affecting what they called my “obnoxious teenage attitude.”
“Let’s not dig up old bones,” he said.
First of all, my being grounded was not “old bones.” They’d grounded
me only days prior. And secondly, my dad was always translating lame
Moroccan expressions into English. I used to find them funny, but now
they only irritated me, mostly because they were irrelevant. The one he
chose tonight, however, made me shiver . . . because it seemed spookily
relevant.
True to his roots, Dad bent over at his waist and waved his hands in a
rolling motion toward my bed, inviting me to grant his wish by settling
in to sleep. “Please, My Moon, it is time for slumber. Your father is
willing you to obey his wishes.”
Because my heart had not yet quieted, I didn’t have the will to fight
him. I switched the lamp to its lowest setting, crawled underneath my
blankets, and tugged them up to my neck—silently praying that, should it
be necessary, burrowing my entire body underneath them would blot out a
repeat performance.
No more jinns.
Dad sat just south of my toes on the bed. “Something’s not right,” he
said. He wrinkled his forehead and squinted his eyes, as if he were
scrutinizing me—or my aura. I often felt like a specimen my parents were
trying to mentally dissect.
“What are you talking about?” I said, sounding disgruntled, mostly because I felt too exhausted to dream up a lie.
He pursed his lips, scratched his chin. “Oh right, I forget. I am not
supposed to care about my precious daughter . . . unless she needs
money or a ride or something that her father can buy for her. This is
the life of an American teenager. In Morocco—”
“Dad, stop,” I said, raising one hand and waving it, as if I were
truly surrendering. “I’m not a kid anymore. I don’t need coddling.
Sometimes it’s just a weird mood, okay? And staying up a little later
than usual isn’t going to kill me.” Milliseconds later, a crack of
lightning sounded in the distance. I felt my whole body tense, and
thrust my head deeper under my covers.
“Ah, you are worried about the storm, yeah?” He turned to look at the
window, unaware I had tightly shut the blinds. “Even though it rains
almost as often as it snows in Omaha, you’ve always had trouble sleeping
during a storm.”
“You can’t blame the rain, Dad. It’s not doing it on purpose.”
His face brightened. “Why don’t I tell you a story?”
“Can you tell me about Jamila of Diab?” I asked.
“You always liked that one best,” he said, patting my shin, smiling.
“How about I tell you a new story? It is also about our ancestors, but
not so far back as your precious Jamila of Diab.”
I closed my eyes and grinned. I was willing to try anything to take
my mind off a twisted hallucination. Besides, saying “no” to my dad was
fruitless. He’d always shown his love by reciting bedtime stories, and I
rarely allowed him this privilege anymore.
“Back when I was a little boy, growing up in the high mountains of
Fez, my grandfather used to recite the legends of our ancestors,” he
said. “At bedtime, on rainy nights like this, my grandfather would sit
on a rug, sheltered by only an old-fashioned desert tent, and all of his
grandchildren would compete for a chance to sit on a corner of his long
white robe, honored to be in his presence.”
I turned my cocooned body on its side. My dad had always been a great
storyteller, a dying tradition in Morocco . . . or so he told me. When I
was little, his stories had often transported my imagination from the
confines of Nebraska to foreign lands. Tonight, I welcomed the chance to
envision an exotic land, something so far away it would banish all
thoughts of the apparition. “Just don’t throw in jinns,” I said.
“This is not a story about jinns; it is the story of your heritage,
and the power that has passed from generation to generation, and now to
you.”
“Okay, great,” I mumbled, settling deeper into my bed.
My dad cleared his throat. “The city of Fez is a magical place in
Morocco, but you know this, right my Moon? In Morocco, everything is
splendidly beautiful: the colors, the smells, the merchants selling
their wares in the square.”
I drew in a slow, deep breath. “The story, Dad?”
“Ah, yes, I was born in Fez, a great city in North Africa. Do you know what that makes you?” he asked.
“Half American, half Moroccan?” I answered quietly, without even opening an eye. We’d done this drill a thousand times.
“Half American, half mysterious,” he clarified. Dad loved feeling
exotic and mysterious and in Omaha he was both. “I was born in Fez, and
so was your grandfather, and his father before him, all the way back to
the time when the Tribe of Diab reigned.”
“Dad,” I interrupted, popping my head out for one second, “that’s the
Tribe of Wolves, right?” He’d told me this story many times before, but
my mind was transitioning from wakefulness to sleep—and remained a
little traumatized.
“Yes, diab means wolf. I heard firsthand about their unrivaled magic. My grandfather met Aisha Kandisha himself.”
“Aisha Kan-what?” I asked.
He pointed his finger upwards. “Aisha Kandisha is a very famous jinn
in Fez. I never told you about her before because you were too young,
but now it is time you should know. She uses her powers to destroy
families, but she couldn’t cause a grain of harm to ours, even though
she tried.”
I propped myself up on my elbow, opened my eyes. “I thought we agreed that you weren’t going to throw in jinns.”
He crossed his arms. “This isn’t about jinns, Kenza. It’s about the
Tribe of Diab and the fact that we carry their bloodline. Now why don’t
you lie down and relax? Let yourself get lost in the story.”
I settled back into my bed, jerking the covers up and over my head.
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “One day, my grandfather went into
the fields to help a young boy tend to his family’s sheep. My
grandfather—your great-grandfather—was a teenager then; I can’t remember
his exact age, but he was older than the other boy. After a long day of
work—and he was a hard worker, like you—they stopped to rest alongside a
stream. According to my grandfather, the most beautiful woman he’d ever
seen approached them. She had coal black eyes, an enchanting smile, and
rings with sparkling jewels on every finger. She called herself Aisha
Kandisha.
“She offered them hot couscous—a treat out in the fields—which they
should have refused, but were too weak to pass up. When they finished
eating, they thanked Aisha Kandisha for her fine hospitality and
prepared to leave. Not long down the road, she reappeared, as if by a
puff of smoke, and would not let them pass. Her intentions were not
good.”
“Here we go again,” I said, elucidating a strong dose of sarcasm.
“What do I do with you, my Moon? Oh never mind . . . I cannot take
the doubting American attitude out of you, so I might as well not try . .
. now, where was I . . . oh, yes. Aisha Kandisha reached out to touch
my grandfather and then suddenly drew back. ‘You have the blood of the
Tribe of Diab,’ she told him. ‘They are very powerful and dangerous.
Even I cannot penetrate the protection that has been placed upon you.’ ”
I lowered my covers, peered at my dad. “That doesn’t make any sense.
You’ve told me many times that the Tribe of Diab was evil. Why would
they want to
protect your grandfather?”
“Most of them
were evil,” he clarified, “but not all. You are not evil, and I am not, and we are both from that line.”
I felt chills run up my spine. “So did Aisha Kandisha leave them alone after that?”
“Not without first laying her hands on the younger boy. It nearly
broke my grandfather’s heart to return him to the village. The boy never
regained his speech, and he forever stared off into the distance . . .
like one of your modern-day zombies.”
“So what happened?” I asked.
“When my grandfather told the villagers who did this to his
companion, they informed him that Aisha Kandisha was a female jinn,” he
said.
Secretly, I decided to turn my mind off in protest. When I’d said “no jinns” I’d meant
no jinns . . .
“She used dark magic to seek out men,” he continued, “no matter their
age, and enslave them as her husband until the day they died.” He shook
his finger at me. “That is why you must watch out for jinns around
rivers and streams. They prefer the flowing water. They drain its energy
and use it to enhance their powers . . . ”
Even though I hadn’t heard this story before, I had crossed the
line to sleep, his voice fading into the background. I seemed to be
dreaming when the mysterious jinn I’d seen earlier reappeared, floating
in front of me, holding out her lacy hand.
“Come with me, Kenza” she communicated. “It is time to learn what you must know to survive your future.”
I sat up and looked straight into her mesmerizing eyes. “I know that I’m dreaming, okay, and I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Do not be frightened,” she said, her voice echoing through my mind,
as softly as a gentle breeze. “This is not a dream, and you must come
with me. We must go now so you can return before your morning comes.”
I didn’t remember climbing out of bed, but I suddenly realized the
jinn and I were alone in a stark white room, surrounded by nothing. She
reached a graceful hand up and swiped the air, as if clearing a fogged
window. I could see myself lying on my bed, my head still resting
quietly on the pillow. I watched my dad pat me affectionately before
leaving my bedroom. I turned to the apparition, feeling completely
freaked out. Her face morphed before me, as if she were attempting to
smile, which made her feel less threatening than before, almost
peaceful.
“Your physical body will remain in your bed, but the real you is coming with me,” she explained. “I must show you something.”
“Do I have a choice?” I’d seen
A Christmas Carol a hundred times so astral travel wasn’t exactly foreign to me.
“I must show you things that will affect your destiny,” she said, her
voice sounding melodic, alluring. “We will not be long there, and then I
shall return you.”
I glanced around. The view of my room had completely vanished, and we
were alone in the white room. “Where is here?” I asked, shrugging.
“Exactly,” she replied, winking at me.
“I want you to promise me that I can return whenever I want . . . and I mean back to
my house, to
my room. Can you promise me that?”
“Of course, you can return at any time,” she replied, “but, once you see him, you won’t want to rush back so quickly.”