by Katie French
“If wish-granting Djinn are possible, why not witches and voodoo?” he always said. Too bad I was too old to buy his Djinn stories—even if he swore by them.
Ignoring the twist in my gut, I walked to the entrance, clicked a padlock through the metal-grate doors, then turned on my iPod and began restocking and organizing. I started with the rosebushes, moving them from a wheelbarrow onto a shelf. Their stems brimmed with lovely pink buds, rolled tightly into petal cocoons.
After I set down the last pot, I dusted my hands and looked up to check my work. My heart knocked against my chest, and my eyes grew wide with a double take. What the … ?
Every single rosebud had bloomed!
I looked around, the hairs in the back of my neck standing on end. I hadn’t imagined the closed buds, had I? I tried to remember and decided that I must have. There was no way they had opened that fast. No freakin’ way.
One of the flowers glimmered with water from the mister, its pink petals vibrant and stunningly beautiful. I reached out and, grabbing one of the stems, leaned in, inhaling. An intoxicating sweetness filled my senses. My head swam.
“Ow!” I exclaimed, snatching my hand back. A thorn. I pulled it out. A drop of blood beaded up. I sucked my fingertip, and—as my mouth filled with a nauseating, coppery taste—the shelves, the plants, the gargoyles, everything started to spin. The large, leathery leaves of the black magic plants swayed to the rhythm of the music in my earbuds. Their tall stalks leaned into each other, their leaves touching like kissing couples.
My heart thumped faster. I shook my head and squeezed my eyes.
Not there. Not there.
I opened my eyes. Everything snapped back into place.
Shit!
I swallowed. A cold breeze in August? Insta-bloom roses and romantic plants?
Double shit!
Grandpa’s wish-granting Djinn entered my mind again. Twice in one day? That couldn’t be good, could it? Maybe my blood sugar was low. Yeah, that had to be it. Low blood sugar could cause hallucinations, right?
The sound of a ceramic pot crashing to the ground slipped through the music and brought me back to the moment. I spun around and took out the earbuds.
“G-Grandpa?”
No response.
“Grandpa, is that you?”
“I’m fine,” he said from behind the tool shed.
I exhaled and felt my heart slow down a touch. “You need help?” I circled the shed. “Grandpa! Are you all right?” I rushed to his side.
He was leaning on the wall, face strained as he dabbed a red bandana on his wrinkled forehead. Beads of sweat shone on his bald head. Big decorative pots lay at his feet.
“What in the world?! Were you stacking those?” I demanded.
“Don’t make a fuss. It’s just the heat.” He swatted my hand away.
“Well, go inside and cool off, you stubborn old man.”
Normally, Grandpa Arthur would have argued, but this time, he shuffled obediently toward the office. I rushed ahead to open the door. The old window unit hummed and rattled, but it managed to cool the place down some ten or twelve degrees. He collapsed on an old vinyl chair by the desk and swiveled to face the AC.
Old pictures of his earlier years hung in dusty frames, alongside a collection of colorful Mardi Gras masks. The place needed a good cleaning, but he’d warned me to keep my hands off his property. For a moment, I eyed the old army trunk that rested next to the rusty file cabinet. I was reminded of Grandpa’s Djinn story. Yet again.
Shaking my head, I took a bottle of water out of our small fridge. “Drink this.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Grandpa unscrewed the top and drank big gulps.
“Why don’t you let Javier help you?”
“Don’t you have somewhere to be? Someone else to pester?”
The redness in his face subsided. I relaxed a little and checked my watch. “Yeah, I need to take a shower.”
“Then go. Shoo!” He made sweeping motions with his hand, picked up a clipboard and started reviewing orders.
God, he needed to take it easy, but the man just didn’t know how. I was about to remind him about the doctor’s orders when Javier walked in.
“I’m done in the back. Anythin’ more before I go?” Javier asked in a singsong Spanish accent, his tan face gleaming with sweat.
“No,” Grandpa said.
“Yes,” I said.
Javier laughed and ran a hand through his brown hair. “Miss Mariella, you tell me what needs doin’.”
“Bah, outranked in my own place!” Grandpa huffed and went back to his clipboard.
“Terco,” I told Javier, hitching my thumb toward my stubborn Grandpa.
Javier stifled a giggle. I beamed. The Spanish lessons seemed to be paying off. Hell, maybe my dreams of becoming a linguist and traveling had a chance of coming true one day. New Orleans was fine, but I wanted to see the world. Although, for now, I needed to help Grandpa with the nursery. Even if my friends were getting on with their lives, going off to college, it wasn’t my time. Not yet.
“Could you finish stacking the ceramic pots by the shed?” I asked Javier.
“I was almost done,” Grandpa mumbled, eyes on his piece of paper.
“Yes, Miss Mariella. No problem,” Javier said.
“Thank you. You’re a star. And Javier,” I added, “just call me Marielle.”
“Maybe tomorrow, Señorita,” Javier laughed at his own joke and left.
I shook my head, then glared at Grandpa.
He ticked orders off with a yellow pencil and made a big show of ignoring me. “Hmm, I like your revisions. I think you may be ready to run this place.”
“Then take a day off here and there.”
“I said may.” He emphasized with air quotes.
I put my hands on my hips and gave him an angry look. He returned it right back as if saying, “You’re not the boss of me, young lady.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine,” he huffed.
“I’m going to shower.”
“You do that.”
Shouldering my backpack, I stomped toward the small bathroom in the back of “the shack”, as we liked to call the shabby, prefab office.
I turned on the old shower and endured its sputtering, lukewarm water. Since Grandma Eloise died when I was twelve, everything had started going to shit: Grandpa’s health, the house, but especially the business. I’d been helping around the clock all summer, but it hadn’t seemed to make a difference. The stress was getting to Grandpa, too. I couldn’t abandon him. Postponing college for a year was a small sacrifice compared to saving his livelihood.
I leaned my head on the fiberglass wall, letting water slide down my back. To my surprise, the temperature evened out to perfection. Thanking my lucky stars for the rare treat, I closed my eyes and groaned as warm water hit my tired shoulders. The shower sputtered, feeling like expert fingers on my back. I quivered. Heat built up in my chest and rose to my face. My breath caught. The kneading sensation traveled upward, igniting something desperate inside of me. I bit my lower lip, enjoying it.
Suddenly, the touch grew heavier and something wrapped around my neck. My eyes sprang open. Heart lodged in my throat, I whirled, expecting who knows what, but there was nothing. Panic crept up within me. I shut the water off and wrapped myself in a towel.
Strike three.
Okay, something weird was definitely going on. The heaviness in the air and my stomach couldn’t be lying. Either Grandpa’s view of the supernatural was true or he’d finally driven me crazy. My meager weekly salary was on the latter.
Damn Grandpa and his Djinn stories!
Ignoring my pounding heart and the distinct possibility that I needed a shrink, I rubbed my head with the towel. My dark hair shone under the fluorescent light, drying quickly into loose curls. I was about to slip into my dress when a loud thump startled me.
“Señorita Mariella! Señorita Mariella! Hurry, is your Grandpa!”
COMPL
ETE SERIES NOW AVAILABLE
ALSO AVAILABLE IN A DISCOUNTED BOX SET WITH 3 BONUS STORIES
About the Author - Ingrid Seymour
Ingrid Seymour is a USA Today Bestselling young adult author. When she’s not writing books, she spends her time working as a software engineer, cooking exotic recipes, hanging out with her family and working out. She writes young adult in a variety of genres, including Sci-Fi, urban fantasy, romance, paranormal and horror.
Her favorite outings involve a trip to the library or bookstore where she immediately gravitates toward the YA section. She’s an avid reader and fangirl of many amazing books. Potterhead, anyone? She is a dreamer and a fighter who believes perseverance and hard work can make dreams come true.
Visit her online and get a free book at:
http://www.ingriseymour.com
About the Author - Katie French
Katie French is an author of Young Adult sci fi romance. Her book, The Breeders, has had over 100,000 downloads and counting and was a semi-finalist in the 2014 Kindle Book Awards. She also has a kids series starting with Portia Parrots and the Great Kitten Rescue for ages 5-9.
She works as a high school English teacher, a job that she loves even when it exhausts her. In her free time, she writes manically, reads great books, and takes care of her three beautiful and crazy children. She aspires to spend as much time in yoga pants as possible.
You can join her mailing list at www.katiefrenchbooks.com and receive TWO FREE full-length novels.
Contact her at [email protected].
Also by Ingrid Seymour
Djinn Empire
One Wish Away
Two Hearts Asunder
Three Words Promised
[The Discounted Box Set]
The Morphid Chronicles
Keeper
Ripper
The Jeweled Goddess
Godmaker
Also by Katie French
THE BREEDERS SERIES:
The Breeders
The Believers
The Benders
The Brothers
The Barriers
The Butchers
The Breeders Stories
Monster Island:
A Young Adult Mystery Thriller
FIND THEM ALL HERE.
Acknowledgments
From Ingrid—
First of all, I want to thank my amazing co-author and friend Katie French. It is a blast having her as a writing partner. I thought co-authoring would be hard, but with Katie, it has been a total delight. You know we must be twin souls to be able to feed off each other’s creativity so easily and come up with this fun, adventure-filled book.I love it and can’t wait to see what else we concoct together. As a matter of fact, the magic is already happening in book 2, Nebulous. Hell yeah!
Oh, the cover! That beautiful cover! I must thank Ruxandra Tedorica for her creativity and for working with Katie and I. It’s hard enough to create a cover one author loves, much harder to please two. But Rux did it. Mulțumesc!
Bret, you’re next. Thank you for EVERYTHING. You have a big, giving heart, and I’m lucky to call you my friend. Thank you for the immeasurable support, for being my sounding board when I need one, for putting up with me. Anyways, you’re the best.
And lastly, but firstly (yeah, I just made that a thing) thanks to my family, ARC team, and readers. My books get written and published because of your unending support. This journey is a blast into space and I’m way out of orbit.
From Katie—
I never know what to say in these. Do people really read them? Who knows. But what I do know is I’m immeasurably grateful for Ingrid and what we’ve made together. I’ve wanted to co-author with something for a long time, but the prospect was scary. How could I trust someone to partner with me and my weird ideas? How would that even work? Somehow Ingrid and I found each other and its been amazing. Writing is such a solitary activity that just having her there to bounce things off of has taught me so much. I’m really grateful for her friendship, great ideas and hard work.
Thanks, also, to those who’ve helped make this happen. My awesome beta readers and street team are the best in the world. And my family always puts up with me disappearing to write. I love them for that forever.
And to you, the readers. I really like you guys. Like, a lot. Now go out and buy book two, ya crazy animals.