Jack and Djinn

by Amber Sweetapple

  “I was at home, after the wedding. I was pissed off and still half-drunk from the wedding. After you left, things were weird–don’t apologize, it’s not your fault. Mary doesn’t blame you, I promise. She wanted me to tell you that, actually, I just haven’t had a chance till now. She wants you to know that her wedding was wonderful, she just wished you could’ve stayed. That’s her way of saying don’t feel bad.”

  “She’s sweet.” Miriam couldn’t help feeling bad, but she kept it to herself.

  “Yeah she is,” Jack agreed. “Well, anyway, I might’ve kept drinking after I got home. I was never mad at you, Miriam. Okay? You hear me? I was hurt that you had to make that choice, and that you felt going with Ben was the only way to solve the problem. My family would’ve defended you, no matter what–”

  “But it’s not your family’s battle to fight, Jack. I know they would have kept fighting Ben, and you would’ve won, eventually. But too many of you would’ve gotten hurt in the process, and I–I just couldn’t let anyone else get hurt because of me. I’m not worth it.” She hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud. She knew how Jack would respond.

  “Miriam, don’t be stupid. You are worth it. You’re worth everything.” Jack lifted up on his elbow and stared down at her, his eyes intense. “Miriam, you have to hear me now, okay? This is important. You have to believe in yourself. I know, that sounds like a stupid self-motivational tape or something, but it’s true. If you don’t think you’re worth the best, neither will anyone else. It doesn’t matter if I think you’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met if you don’t think you’re worth anything. I can’t believe in you for the both of us, Miriam. I need you to believe in yourself. I need you to see the worth in yourself.”

  Miriam looked away from Jack, wanting to retreat behind her walls, but couldn’t. He was inside her walls. This was getting too close, too deep. Trusting Jack was fine, but letting him all the way in, to where her most secret doubts and fears were…that was too hard. “Jack…” she didn’t even know where to start, what to say. “It’s not that easy. You can’t just undo a lifetime of conditioning in one conversation. My mom never loved me, Jack. She never believed in me. My dad may have, but I lost him. And after that, any man I’ve ever been with has treated me the same–”

  “As a piece of meat,” interrupted Jack, “I know. And I know that I can’t just make you feel your worth just by saying so. Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘fake it till you make it?’ It’s like that. You have to start by telling yourself you have worth, even if you don’t believe it.”

  “That’s stupid, Jack. I’m not going to argue with myself–”

  Jack shook his head, “No, Miriam, that’s not what I meant. I’m not saying you have to try to convince yourself. That won’t work. You have to–”

  “Jack, listen,” Miriam cut him off. “If you believe in me, if you treat me like you have been, and keep telling me I’m worth it, eventually I’ll start believing it.” She wasn’t sure that was true, but she had to get him off this subject. It was making her insides churn. She wasn’t ready for that kind of vulnerability. Not yet.

  Jack nodded. “Okay, Miriam.” He wasn’t acquiescing, she didn’t think, just realizing that she wasn’t ready for this conversation yet.

  “You still haven’t told me how you found me.”

  “You know Gramps’ Second Sight?”

  Miriam nodded. “Yeah. He told me you have it too, but you don’t believe in it.”

  Jack laughed. “Yeah, he does say that to anyone who’ll listen. But I may believe him now. After I passed out, I had a dream. Or, at least I thought it was a dream. ‘You were there, and you, and you,’ “ Jack said in a strange, high-pitched, sing-song voice. Miriam looked at him blankly. “No? Wizard of Oz? Nothing? Okay, whatever. Anyway. I woke up, in the dream, still in my apartment, and I saw that painting of the candle flame, and there was something about it, like it was real.”

  Miriam had a strange look on her face. “What?” Jack asked.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” Miriam said. “When we were at your apartment that one time, I was looking at your paintings, and that one stood out to me. There was something….hypnotizing about it. I was staring at it, and the magic seemed to kind of reach out to the flame on the canvas, and it turned real. I swear it did. I could see it moving and flickering, and I could feel heat from it.”

  “I believe you. And that makes all the more sense, now. I think something about your magic connects us. Maybe because you’ve used it on me so much? I don’t know. If you used your magic on the painting, maybe there was still some left on it, residual magic, you know? Well, in the dream, the flame turned real, like you said, and then the flame left the canvas entirely, as weird as that sounds. But it gets weirder. Then it started to change shapes, started to look like a woman…like you do, when you’re all…” Jack waved his hands vaguely, searching for the right words, “made out of fire. Or whatever that is. The point is, the candle flame from the painting turned into you. It was you. I knew it, somehow. You floated out the window and beckoned me. There was this…rope, of magic. I don’t know how to describe it. It was made out of little golden specks, like glowing dust, and it was coming from my chest and went to you, in the dream. And you flew away, pulling me with you. I followed you, and then I woke up. But when I woke up, I was on a rooftop in the middle of downtown Detroit. I knew, in my gut, that you were in trouble. During the dream, I’d seen you, somehow, like…the real you, the non-dream you. I had to find you. I guess I tapped into Gramps’ Second Sight or something, because I was suddenly able to see that magical connection again, in real life, awake.”

  Miriam was intrigued. “Can you see it now?”

  Jack tilted his head, thinking. He didn’t see it, but he felt a presence in his mind, something waiting to be grasped. He closed his eyes and visualized Miriam surrounded by the glow of magic; he sought for the presence in his mind and found it, felt it like a skin covering him, like a veil between realities. Jack imagined himself grabbing the veil and pulling it away to reveal the world around him without filters.

  When he opened his eyes, Miriam was still a woman, but he could see fire rushing just beneath the surface of her skin, flooding her body in place of blood. There was also the magic, present in the room like a third person, exuding from Miriam in pulsing waves, even just sitting still and not drawing on it or using it. The magic was a roiling cloud, darting around Miriam’s body like a golden-glowing ghost, not random motions, but the movement of something almost alive, animal-like, the way a bird swoops and soars, or a dragonfly buzzing and darting. As if it sensed Jack looking at it, the luminous cloud narrowed and congealed, reached for Jack like a tendril, a finger gently seeking him. It found him, wrapped around him, pushed through his chest, sending chills running down his spine, coiled around his arm and tangled in his fingers like a serpent. Jack lifted his hand, turned it this way and that, watching the magic playing with him, rushing around his torso and then through him, darting through the back of his head and out the front, causing Jack to spasm and laugh. Miriam was watching him, curious.

  “Can you see this?” he asked, voice filled with wonder.

  “See what?”

  Jack reached out and took her hand in his, hoping the contact would let her see what he saw. “See it now?”

  “No,” Miriam said, frustrated.

  “Close your eyes,” Jack instructed. “Now, picture us as we are right now. Then, imagine there’s a curtain in front of your eyes, and it’s stopping you from seeing the world as it really is. If you can move the curtain, you’ll see the magic.”

  Miriam was silent, her eyes closed, and he could feel her concentrating. “I don’t feel anything,” she said.

  “Use your magic,” Jack suggested. “Use your magic to see your magic. Sounds ridiculous, but try it.”

  Miriam shook her head, a hesitant negative. “I’m afraid to. Every time I use my magic, something gets destroyed. The magic does what it wants. Wh
en I use it on purpose, it’s always destructive.”

  Jack seemed stumped for a moment. Then he said, “But maybe it’s just that you weren’t being specific enough. You’re a genie…a djinn. Everything I’ve ever heard about those legends say that you have to be specific, or the wish would turn against you. Maybe you’re being too vague.”

  “I can’t use my magic on myself. It doesn’t work that way. And I don’t think it’s wishes, exactly.”

  “Okay, well we can work on terminology another time. For now, we have to find out how you can use your magic without blowing up sports stadiums.” Jack was teasing her, but he was serious as well. “Just try. Be specific about what you want the magic to do.”

  Miriam took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and delved down inside herself. She felt the magic there, a constant presence now, a familiar sensation of waiting power, but it was slippery, elusive. Miriam calmed her frustration, imagined herself to have mental fingers, grasped the magic with a firm grip, and when she did so, she felt something invisible pop inside her and suddenly she was holding a writhing snake of burnished gold, glowing with power and struggling in her grip. It didn’t want to be held, didn’t want to be controlled. It had had freedom for too long, doing what it liked. Miriam felt its presence, nearly sentient, definitely alive, if not in the organic sense then in some way Miriam couldn’t quite describe even to herself. The magic was a thing, a being. It was part of her, it dwelt within her, but it wasn’t synonymous with her identity; it was separate somehow. It wasn’t supposed to be, she didn’t think, and that was the problem. Miriam held the serpent of magic in a tighter grip, watching it thrash furiously, seeking escape. If it were to have a voice, it would be shrieking. It had never known control, so it was bucking like a mustang trying to shake off the unfamiliar bridle.

  Miriam felt the fire within her, as well, the heat poised beneath her skin, guttering in her belly. As she thought of the fire, she realized she felt herself to be broken up into three distinct parts: the magic, the fire, and the person. They should all be one, a single entity. Until then, she would never have control.

  Miriam pulled up the fire, called on it and drew it to herself, built it higher, let it rise up inside her like a flood of flames. When it reached critical mass, Miriam seized it and held it, now trying to keep under control both the fire seeking vent and the serpent of magic seeking escape. She needed both, for they were both part of her, both present and tangled up into her identity. She was not just Miriam, any longer. She wasn’t just a cocktail waitress, she was something else, something greater. She was flame, and magic; she was heat, and power. These elements within her, they weren’t meant to be disparate creatures; they were supposed to be braided strands of a single entity.

  Using every ounce of her mental strength, every shred of control that she could summon, Miriam wrapped the fire and the magic together, tangled one around the other, forcing them to her will, joining them so they formed a helix around the core of her soul. They resisted, straining against her, but she refused them freedom. The fire burned her and the magic bit her, sending pain bubbling throughout her, so intense she wanted to cry out, but couldn’t. She was unaware of anything around her, jerked out of reality, out of time and space. There was no Miriam, no Jack, no Ben, no past or present, only the struggle of wills, all of it internal. The fire was threatening to burst her alight, to spread from within to devour all at that stood beyond her; the fire was her anger personified, her anger at Ben, anger at her mother for failing to love her and for abandoning her, even anger at her father for leaving her too soon. That last thread of anger, at her father, that was the most potent, burning the hottest within her, and she hadn’t even known it was there until she tried to identify the nature of her own anger.

  It was always there, she knew, a pooled ocean of it inside her, usually buried beneath a mountain of fear. The fear fed the anger, in a strange way, Miriam realized. She hated being afraid, and she’d spent so long fearing Nick, fearing Ben, fearing herself. She was afraid of what would happen if she let her anger out. But now, she’d found out. She’d let her anger out, and she’d killed Ben with it; she was no longer afraid of herself. She knew what she could do, and she knew she could control it. She had to, or it would break free whenever it wanted and destroy everything around her.

  The magic was a different story. It was an alien within her, in a way. She’d just realized it was there, though it had always been inside her. Maybe it had been hiding, or waiting. She didn’t know which, but now that she had it in her grasp, she wasn’t going to let it free. She’d felt pain before, and she could take it. The fire burning her insides was a familiar feeling, not exactly pain, but distraction. She absorbed the pain, let it percolate throughout her, pushing her adrenaline into full flood. The biting of the magic-serpent was a different pain, a new kind of agony, like venom spreading in her blood. Miriam saw the stain spreading, and she dipped herself into it, tasted it, felt it, allowed herself to fully experience the cold, stinging touch of magic; she took that as well and consumed it, let it spread, let it mingle with the flames. Together, the flame and the magic became something new, the flames changing color, becoming even more intense, turning from yellow and orange to blue and purple and red, shifting and morphing and coiling about itself like a serpent eating its tail in a constant ouroboros. The flames formed a veil across her mind, dancing like an aurora borealis across her internal vision, and Miriam felt the power within growing, deepening from a pool into an ocean, a bottomless void filled with energy waiting to be used, needing to be given expression.

  Miriam opened her eyes. Jack was pressed flat against the far wall, holding his arms in front of his face as if to shield his eyes. She looked down and saw that she had assumed the fire-form, the flames no longer mere natural bonfire flames, but flickering bolts of many-colored lightning, dancing with ethereal grace, blazing into nova brightness and subsiding.

  She reached for Jack, took his hand, watched him tentatively allow her to touch him, recoiling at first, and then with confidence as he realized the magic was protecting him still. She smiled at Jack, kissed his lips, felt the surge of passion take the place of flames. She wanted nothing so much, right then, as to be alone with him, to hold him, sleep in his arms, kiss him as he woke and let him show her what love really was.

  Soon, but not yet. Not here. Something held Miriam back, still. They were in Nadira’s apartment, and that was a large part of the hesitation; she didn’t want making love to Jack to just happen, one thing leading to another as had happened in the past with others. Jack was different. He deserved more. She wanted to be with him intentionally, when the moment was perfect.

  She wanted to say this to him, but the words stuck. Jack placed a finger across her lips, pulled her next to him, his chest against her back, curled together, his arm across her belly, his breath on her neck.

  Chapter 19: Now

  Carson was at The Old Shillelagh, a gin and tonic in hand, the case on his mind. It was always on his mind. He thought about it all the time now, eating, driving, showering. It was turning into an obsession, almost. There was so much to it, so many factors to consider.

  He was skirting around the edges of the most crucial element, the manner of Ben’s death. It just wasn’t natural. No matter which way he looked at it, there just was no rational explanation that made any damn sense to him. He’d spoken to an expert on burn patterns and had been informed that for a human to have been so thoroughly consumed as Ben’s was, the fire would have had to be more than just a casual, accidental blaze. There was no evidence of accelerant anywhere on the scene or the body. Just…nothing. Only the body. He didn’t get it. It didn’t make any sense. With a body that burned, there should’ve been evidence of fire, evidence of the extreme, destructive heat. The only way it could have been destroyed any further was if it had been cremated. But no, there wasn’t any such evidence. And no matter where he looked, no Miriam. He’d gone back to her apartment and Jack’s, with no luck, he’d gone
to Jack’s parents’, to his grandpa’s….

  Neither Jack nor Miriam were anywhere to be found.

  Carson sighed in frustration, slammed his drink back and crashed the glass onto the bar, cracking the glass.

  “Bad day?” Leila asked. She was stacking pint glasses, highballs and shot glasses into a dishwasher behind the bar.

  “Sorry,” Carson said. “Bad case. I can’t crack it. It just…doesn’t make any sense. I’ve looked into every angle, thought of every possibility, but it still just…doesn’t add up.”

  Leila shrugged. “Well, sometimes, we overlook the most obvious answers simply because they’re so obvious. I don’t know if that works the same way in your line of work, detecting and all that, but it’s what I’ve noticed.”

  Detecting. Carson laughed at that. “No, that’s often how it is in cases. This one is different. There is no obvious answer. It just seems…impossible.”

  “If it happened then it’s not impossible, right? I mean, you just don’t know how it happened. I don’t even know anything about this case, and you probably can’t tell me, but when people say something is impossible they usually mean they just can’t accept the actual answer.”

  Carson had no response to that. It was true, and logical, it just…didn’t help him. What was the answer that was impossible? His mind just didn’t work outside the boundaries of possibility. Imagination wasn’t his strong suit. Leila had hit on his problem exactly, he just couldn’t make himself think of impossible scenarios. Everything he even approached sounded ludicrous and silly. Maybe Ben had spontaneously combusted? Miriam had attacked him with a flamethrower? Yeah, right. What else made people burn? Carson’s mind kept feeding him the logical solutions that he already gone through a hundred, thousand times.

  He paid his tab, forcing himself to leave before he ended up drunk again. He liked Leila, and he didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of her any more than he already had, the last time he had seen her.