Chapter One


They had always said that Grandma had been quite the eccentric. Her two sons and two daughters never really quite knew what was going on in her head, and she often spoke in cryptic words. And I guess that was why I felt really connected to her; somehow we were always on the same wavelength. My days spent with her in her humble studio apartment were the best days of my childhood. She had taught me so many things. She taught me how to be myself, how to be confident and how to not to fear the unknown. She made me who I was now, an English Literature major with a passion for theatre and drama. So when the school’s administration clerk interrupted my college presentation, it was the very first time that I wished the ground would open up and swallow me. It wasn’t simply stage fright; no, I was not nervous at all. It was as though all the lights in the room had switched off and I was standing alone in a darkness that threatened to suck me in. I had rushed out of the classroom, faster than a starving student vitalized by the recess bell.

Grandma had left behind something for each of her children, and grandchildren. And out of all of us, I was the one who perhaps received the most generous inheritance, from her perspective at least. Her studio apartment was now under my name, and that was all I could have wanted from her given how close it was to college. However, being the antiquarian that she was, the entire apartment was cluttered with relics and vintage knickknacks that she had purchased and hoarded over the years. No one wanted them, and when anyone voiced the idea of trying to sell them away, I threw a huge tantrum (and made some grandiose speech about corrupting history through their greed and desecrating the remnants’ of Grandma’s identity). So what they perceived as rubbish and oddities, they swept it all to me together with the apartment.

I had just moved in two days ago, slowly taking my time to add my essence to the place, blending together with Grandma’s. At the same time, I went through the stuff Grandma had left behind. There was an antique vase that was supposedly the fertility vase of the Ndebele tribe, Chinese furniture from the Liao dynasty, Japanese kokeshi dolls and many pieces of cultures. But out of them all, my favourite was the Arabic tea set. Grandma always served me tea in those blue silver-inlaid cups. Holding one now in between my hands, I could almost feel her warm wiry fingers touching mine. Realizing that it was just an appropriate time to have some tea, which would go very well with the glazed donuts I'd bought after class and the copy of The Night Circus I was reading, I went to the kitchen to make my brew. In a few minutes, the aroma of tea leaves swaddled me. It felt so nostalgic and relaxing, like reliving a memory. I took the teapot, pristine for Grandma never ever used it for some reason, and opened it. Well, tried to open. The lid was stubborn and refused to budge, perhaps due to the age of the material. After some forceful coaxing, my fingers managed to pry the copper lid off. Tilting the kettle's spout above the teapot's opening, the boiling tea trickled down, bathing the vessel's interior walls. All of a sudden, a blast of hot air slammed into me, knocking the kettle out of my grip and I flew through the air and landed in a heap beside a couch. Stunned, ears ringing, I turned over and looked around.

A naked man lied on the floor of my apartment. As I gawked, he drew himself to sitting, his hands cupped against his eyes. When he dropped his hands, his eyes were wide like a deer in the headlights, and he looked as if he had been in someplace so dark for all his life, that light itself was a phenomenon unknown to him. He struggled to get to standing on his two feet, as though his legs had not been used for years. Tall, bronze and muscular, he was a picture of Adonis that came to life, standing right before my very eyes. His features were too flawless and too handsome, that it unnerved me, and he was completely oblivious to his nakedness.
When the Jinni came to, he was hit by the sudden light, and pain flooded through his being, which was the first anomaly he noticed. The second he realized that he was corporeal and in the form of a human, the Jinni felt a frosty chill covering his soul – he was mortal. Dazed before him was a woman who looked at him with both fear and wonder.

His right bicep burned with a numbing cold sensation, as feeling slowly made its way back into his body. He looked. Bound tightly around his skin were metallic cuffs. Metal. They were the bane of Jinnis, like silver was to vampires. Even in a mortal body, the touch of metal affected him. A buzzing gnawed at the back of his cranium like a migraine threatening to erupt and his skin itched terribly underneath the area that was in contact with the metal bonds.

Everything came back to him in a flash flood the instant he looked at his metal shackles. In one swift motion, the Jinni closed the distance between the woman and himself, grabbed her by the shoulders with force enough to lift her up and break her bones.

“Where is the wizard?” He growled, shaking her body with his vice-grip.

“I don't know who you are talking but,” she cried. “Please let go of me, you're hurting me!”

His fingers had become to heat up, and thin tendrils of smoke curled upwards from the woman's blouse from where they touched the fabric. He released her, and took a step back, surveying his surroundings and the situation he, no, the both of them were in.

"Who... Who are you?" The woman trembled. "No... What are you?"

"I'm..." For a long moment, the Jinni was lost for words. He knew who he was, he remembered the name given to him upon his creation, but it was not something that could be easily said... Especially to that of a mortal.

"You could say that I am a Jinni... I believe that is the mortal reference for my kind."

The woman's eyes widened as she processed his words.

"Only a wizard can do this," he gestured to the iron bands around his arm. "A powerful wizard who knows about Jinnis."

"And I need to find them."
Jinnis exist. A real Jinni was standing before me, something that I could not unsee no matter how many times my eyes blinked. The pain I felt made it clear that nothing was a dream; everything was very, very real. Any other day, I would have laughed that Jinnis were just part of fantasy, things you'd read in novels. But all the events that happened recently has led me to believe that perhaps reality and fantasy have their grey areas, and intertwined closer than we expect them to.

"I don't know anything about wizards... But I'll try my best to help."

"First things first, we need to get you clothes. You can't be walking around like that."

The Jinni snorted. I went to a box containing my old clothes, that I had no idea whether to throw or sell, and pulled out anything that could possibly fit a lean buff man. He came out of the toilet later, now clad in a loose V-cut blouse and tight women's leggings that threatened to tear at the seams. I would need to buy men’s wear, for god knows how long he’d be staying here.

"Secondly, you need to have a name."

That made the Jinni pause.

"My name..."

"I'm sure you have one. What do they call you?"

"My true name... Is something that can only be expressed in the tongue of the Jinnis..."

"I guess we'll have to think of something that's more... Human." It wasn't the adjective I was looking but it was suitable. After all, the Jinni's name would probably be too complex for human pronunciation.

"Well, what do you propose, human?"

It took me a while but I had it on my tongue quickly.

"Asif." As a fantasy geek, jinnis were definitely something I've read about and I took the name of one from Cornelia Funke's Dragon Rider.

Asif said nothing nor did he seem to have any strong opposition to the name.

"Well now that that's settled. I’m going out. Make yourself comfortable. Just try not to touch anything.” Didn’t want him to set the place on fire, or worse.

Asif merely raised his brows as I walked out of the apartment, plopped his weight down on a small couch, and appeared to gaze off into deep thought.

While shopping at the nearest mall, my thoughts were all focused on the jinni who had just invaded my life. So many questions ran through my mind. What was I to do? How was I going to help this jinni? And how long? There was no way I could support two people, and I had no idea what Jinnis ate, if they even did. There was also a tinge of selfishness. I was half-tempted to ask him if he was able to bring back the dead, or had similar powers. But given the state he was in, he probably had no wish-granting magic nor was it appropriate of me. Gosh, Grandma, was this your way of haunting me from the grave?

Perhaps that was why she never used the teapot. Could she have known all the time? How did she even know?
There was a loud knock on the door, and the Jinni heard someone cough from the other side. It sounded feminine but it wasn’t the girl; she would’ve no need to knock. He slowly got up from the couch, and walked to the door, hesitant to turn the knob. Knuckles rapped sharply against the door, this time with more haste (and was that a tinge of irritation he sensed), as if the person knew he was just there. The instant he opened the door, a petite lady in emerald green greeted him, “Hello, I have a letter for the owner of this house.” He could not help but feel that the petite lady knew something about him, the way her sapphire eyes bore into him and uncovered his true nature.

Lying, he confirmed that he was the letter’s recipient and hurriedly closed the door (he swore she winked at him through the closing gap), the envelope held awkwardly between his fingers the way a person would hold a piece of used tissue. Unsure of what to do with the letter, Asif returned to the couch, the texture of paper feeling all so foreign and unnerving against his skin.
“I’m back,” I announced as I walked through the doorway, exhaling as I liberated my arms of the shopping bags I had lugged all the way. I admit that I may have gotten carried away on my miniature spree, but who could blame me?

Asif cleared his throat as soon as he saw me.

“This arrived for you.” An envelope in hand, he strode from the couch to me in huge steps, and almost shoved the letter into my face, like he desperately wanted to be rid of it.

The envelope had a wax seal with an insignia I had never seen before, and strangely lacked a stamp. Breaking the seal, I pulled a thin sheet of paper. Or should I say papyrus, for it was so old and seemingly fragile that a small gust of wind could just reduce it to shreds. My eyes quickly skimmed over the words, but within moments, the reading slowed and my heart sped up instead. Blood drummed against my temples, as I re-read the writing over and over again, processing each word and sentence.

After a while, I looked up at Asif, who was seated, trying not to stare at me.

“Who sent this?”

“Some lady.”

“Did she say where she was from?”

“Nope,” the Jinni added. “She looked strange though; something felt off about her.”

When I didn’t answer, he probed, “What does it say? Does it have anything about me?”

I did not have to say a word, for my face answered his questions.