A Tale of Two Tricksters Read online

  A Tale of Two Tricksters

  By Debbie Newcomb

  To Kiran. Without you, this book never would have gotten published.

  Long ago, back when magical creatures roamed the world as freely as humans do today, the djinns were to be avoided at all costs. They tended to live in the deserts and enjoyed tricking anyone they came across, including other djinns. They threw everything into chaos simply because they could. With unlimited power, no morals, and a love of trickery, there was nothing else to be expected. Then, King Solomon became able to trap these djinns in bottles. He placed a seal on each one that would not allow the djinn to escape. As punishment for their crimes, whenever one of these bottled djinns was found by a human, the djinn had to grant three wishes. However, no binding is perfect, and if the third wish was not used to put the djinn back into the bottle, then it could once again rampage across the land.

  Our story begins with one such bottle, and the djinn inside. King Solomon had thrown this bottle into the ocean after trapping the djinn inside, and it was soon eaten by a fish, which was then eaten by a larger fish. After many years in the ocean, the bottle came up in a net, but when the fish were being moved, the bottle rolled away and no one noticed it. Through a series of forgetful people and animals, the djinn began her journey around the world, all without ever being released.

  **

  Leah snapped her mind back to the present as the cashier repeated her total. “Right,” Leah said, handing over her credit card. It didn’t really matter how much it was. None of it mattered. Woodenly, Leah took her food to her seat and willed herself to eat it. To stay in the present instead of flashing back to the doctor’s office. Forcefully, Leah took a bite, determined to fuel her body. This body that couldn’t support another body.

  Eventually, Leah gave up trying to eat more and threw away what was left. There was a park across the road, and it was a good place to be alone. She hadn’t told her husband yet. Not that they didn’t know already, but it felt so certain hearing the doctor tell her. So unchangeable.

  Her mind on autopilot, Leah walked one of her favorite paths to the pond. It was just chilly enough that no one else wanted to go this far into the park, and Leah sat down on a bench, grateful for the solitude. Then, without warning, it came over her again that she could never have a baby, and Leah started sobbing. It wasn’t like she hadn’t guessed something was wrong, but she hadn’t thought she’d be infertile.

  “Infertile,” Leah thought. “I sound like a farmer talking about a tract of land.” She looked down at the edge of the pond and noticed a bottle bobbing against the bank. Annoyed at the litter ruining her perfect spot, Leah stepped forward and pulled it out. She grabbed a few napkins from her purse to dry it off and wipe off some of the gunk. Part of her noticed it was pretty, but the rest wasn’t paying attention. Leah began to roll the bottle between her hands.

  “I wish,” she said, then trailed off. “I wish I could birth a little girl, who would love me and who I could love.” Leah sighed, knowing this could never happen. Her husband had suggested adoption already, and it was a good idea. It really was, but Leah had hoped to carry their own child first. Now she would never have the chance. She spent awhile longer, staring at the pond and rolling the bottle in her hands, enjoying the uneven texture of it. Finally, Leah stood up and put the bottle in her purse. She took out her phone and dialed her husband’s number. She started walking back to her car.

  “Hello,” she replied. She listened, trying not to cry again. “Exactly,” she replied. “I know, but it’s still kind of a shock.” She listened, and then smiled. “Thank you, honey. I’ll be home soon, okay?” She smiled a little. “I love you too.” Then she hung up and got in the car.

  **

  About three months after that day, Leah started to notice that her clothes were getting tight and she’d missed her period a few times. She didn’t think much of it for a few more weeks until she noticed that she had missed her period yet again. Then, trying not to hope but being unable not to, Leah grabbed two pregnancy tests out of the cabinet and tested herself. It was the longest wait of her life, but both of them came up positive.

  Leah couldn’t contain herself. She ran out to the living room. “Mark!” she yelled, holding the two white sticks. “I’m pregnant!”

  For a moment, Mark just started at her. Then, he began to smile as widely as she was. “That’s great!” he said. He stood up and gave her a hug, which she fiercely returned. “What do we do?”

  “I need to call my doctor. I’ll have ultrasounds, and vitamins, and I get to enjoy being fat.” Leah was grinning so widely her face hurt.

  “Oh yes,” Mark said, his smile dimming a little. “We’ll need to make sure everything’s okay.”

  Leah nodded, suddenly sober. Just because she was pregnant didn’t mean she would stay that way. Or that she could safely be pregnant. “I’ll call the doctor tomorrow,” Leah said. “We’ll go in and they’ll tell us that everything is okay, and we’ll have a beautiful baby girl.”

  “A girl?” Mark asked. “What do we do if it’s a boy?”

  Leah flushed. She hadn’t realized she’d given the baby a gender already. “I just feel like it’s a girl,” she said and shrugged.

  Mark laughed. “Well, either way. We’ll have a beautiful baby.” He kissed her. “And I’ll cook for you tonight.”

  Leah laughed. “This is big news!” Mark had grown up with his mother cooking every meal and eventually, she had taught him how to cook. Mark rarely did these days because they could afford to go out to eat, and he didn’t like doing all of the meal prep, but Leah thought his cooking tasted better than what they could order in a restaurant.

  Mark laughed, rolling up his sleeves. “It’s very big news. I have the feeling I’ll be cooking a lot more now.”

  “We’ll see what kind of cravings I get,” Leah replied, giddy. “I’ve heard some pregnant women like pickles and ice cream.”

  Mark made a face. “Don’t become one of them.”

  “I can’t help it if I do,” Leah said, teasing him.

  “I can tell you I won’t cook that for you,” Mark said with a straight face.

  Leah laughed. “Well, I’d better sit down. I don’t want to overdo it, after all.”

  Mark shook his head and laughed. “We can’t have that.” He gave her a kiss, then he went into the kitchen to start working on dinner. Leah leaned back into the couch and smiled. At last!

  **

  The doctors couldn’t explain it, but Leah had a normal, healthy pregnancy with a normal, healthy child at the end of it. Jennifer Marie was born a day before her due date, but at a good weight and with no problems.

  “I told you it was a girl,” Leah reminded Mark.

  Mark laughed. “Yes, you did,” he said.

  Neither of them thought anything of the bottle Leah had brought home from the park and had ended up putting in their basement. Even if they had, they wouldn’t have known the bottle was now empty.

  Even from the beginning, it was clear that Jennifer preferred Leah over Mark. She would be quieter for Leah, burp better, and eat better. Eventually, they just accepted it and Leah ended up doing more of the hands-on parenting while Mark took care of other things. As they interacted with her, Mark spoke Mandarin to Jennifer while Leah spoke English. It was important to both of them that Jenn learn both languages.

  As she grew up, Jennifer’s strong personality became more pronounced. She used to speak Mandarin to Mark and English to Leah, but one day she switched. When both Leah and Mark replied in the language Jennifer had used without missing a beat, Jenn went back to the way it had been, clearly annoyed.

  She loved hiding things in the house and then pretending like she h
adn’t. Her pranks started small, but gradually escalated. One day, Mark found himself yelling at her for balancing a bucket of water over a door she knew he was about to walk through. Jennifer was unrepentant, and Mark realized he had to send her to her room so he could calm down.

  After Mark told Leah the story, she waited a few minutes, and then knocked on Jennifer’s door.

  “May I come in?” Leah asked.

  “Just a minute,” Jennifer said. Leah heard things being rearranged and was grateful Mark hadn’t tried to come talk to their daughter instead. “Okay,” Jennifer said.

  Leah opened the door and shut it gently behind her. She sat down on the bed. “Jennifer, it’s mean to play tricks like that.”

  “I know,” Jennifer said. “Daddy told me.”

  “He was right,” Leah replied.

  Jennifer looked defiantly at the floor.

  “I’m disappointed in you,” Leah said after a moment.

  Jennifer whipped around to look at her. “Why?” Jennifer sounded so hurt that it was hard for Leah not to react.

  “Because you did a mean thing to someone who loves you, and you could have hurt him. Then you made it worse by not telling him you’re sorry.”

  Jennifer struggled to say something for a moment, and then looked back down at the floor.

  Leah shook her head. “I’d like you to stay in here and think about this until you can tell Daddy that you’re sorry and mean it.”

  Jennifer said nothing.

  After a moment, Leah got up and quietly closed the door behind her.

  It took far longer than Leah thought it would, but Jennifer did come out of her room to tell Mark that she was sorry, and she did seem to mean it.

  “I accept your apology,” Mark said. “Please don’t do that again.”

  Jennifer nodded gravely.

  After that, her pranks moved more to the other kids at school, or the teachers. Leah got to know the principal of Jennifer’s school really well. Leah was sure they didn’t hear about all of the lies Jennifer told, but it was hard to know what all she told the other children. The teachers learned to double check anything Jenn told them. One of Jenn’s favorite tricks was to suddenly start speaking Mandarin in class and pretend like she didn’t understand English. This stopped when her third-grade teacher, who had spent a few years teaching English in China, replied back effortlessly in Mandarin. Jennifer stared at her teacher open-mouthed, and she never tried that trick again.

  Leah was the most worried when they went to visit her brother, Daryl. He and his wife Starla lived on a farm. They had three kids, Hank, Donna, and Reina, and Starla was pregnant again. Hank was pretty unflappable, for a kid, but Jenn had played some nasty tricks on Donna and Reina. Leah had talked to her pretty strongly about it and, after awhile, they either stopped, or Leah stopped hearing about the pranks.

  Despite the pranks, Leah and Mark tried to set up time with all three of them, or just a parent and Jenn to go do something. One of these trips took Leah and Jennifer to the museum. There was a new exhibit on the ancient Middle East, and Leah thought it would be educational. Jennifer thought it would be boring, but she was wrong. Jennifer was transfixed by all the pictures of what people used to look like and the relics archeologists had found. To her, it all looked so familiar, like that was where she should be. These were the people she should be tricking. The people in those pictures resonated with her more than her friends in school.

  Leah crouched down and looked at her daughter. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

  Jennifer hadn’t realized she was crying. She shook her head and hugged her mom. Leah, confused, hugged her back. The people in the pictures were telling her she didn’t belong, but Jennifer knew she did. She was supposed to be here with her mom. She told herself this fiercely, but it only helped a little. Although she managed to push that feeling to the back of her mind after they left the museum, Jennifer never really forgot it.

  Around junior high school, Jenn, as she now called herself, cut down how often she played a trick on her classmates, and she began to make some friends that lasted more than a week. She still had some of these friends by high school, but Jenn could never shake that feeling from the museum that she didn’t belong, even when she was in a group. When one of the girls chose to pass to her at soccer practice, or when one of the other flutists joked with her during rehearsal it made her feel better. For awhile, anyway.

  It was almost worse for Jenn when they went out to Uncle Daryl’s farm. Daryl and his wife, Starla, had a whole other level of communication. They had to be able to talk with just a look, since they ended up with five kids underfoot. Jenn had gotten to hold George and Perdita when they were babies. Both of them had seemed so tiny, yet so heavy. They completely trusted Jenn to keep holding them up and supporting their heads just like she was told. Part of Jenn wanted to mess it up, but most of her was too much in awe of these small humans. Everyone fit in so well in that house and Jenn both loved and hated it, but either way she was stuck with it. It seemed like since her parents weren’t going to have any other kids, they wanted Jenn to get the experience of siblings by spending time with her cousins. Jenn wasn’t sure what having a brother or sister was supposed to be like, but if it was like a visit to her cousins’ house, she’d pass.

  Around senior year, everyone was excited about which college they were going to. Jenn got accepted to the university in town, University of Eden Parkway, and that’s where she chose to go. She was surprised by how many other people chose to go there as well. “I thought everyone else wanted to leave,” she said to Julie, one of the clarinetists who was going to the local community college.

  Julie shrugged. “Not everyone wants to, and not everyone can.”

  Jenn opened her mouth to say something about where Julie was going, but one of the percussionists picked that moment to start practicing his solo, and Jenn let it drop.

  It seemed like it took forever and yet no time at all until the end of the summer when Jenn moved into her dorm room. There were so many new people who didn’t know she would trick them. Jenn had a great freshman year. Leah had made Jenn see the importance of good grades well before this, so Jenn made the honor roll both semesters, but she had her fun as well. In one class, she managed to trick all of the students and the professor into adding a paper to the syllabus. He had been so confused that he couldn’t find the assignment, but in the end, he had taken their papers and graded them anyway. Emma was in that class, and she knew Jenn had made the paper up, but both of them were easily able to write it, so they became friends. Chuck and Helen, who were also freshmen, also started hanging out with them, and the three of them were Jenn’s friends throughout her first year, although they hardly ever believed what she said. Even when she tried to set up a love triangle, none of them believed her, although later Jenn wondered if Chuck and Helen had hooked up anyway.

  After her first semester, Jenn had discovered the college of business. Her parents had said she should be a lawyer with how she bent the rules, but Jenn didn’t want to argue on behalf of one person in court. Jenn decided on a major in General Management, and she really enjoyed most of the classes. It was fun to argue with a professor over a technicality and prove them wrong.

  Eventually, Jenn’s freshman year at college drew to a close and even the graduating seniors left. Campus town seemed even emptier this summer than it had in years before. Jenn started going out by herself a lot at night. Sometimes, she would hang out with friends from high school, but it was almost easier to be alone. One night, when she was in campus town looking for tumbleweeds, Jenn noticed the Velvet Tango Lounge. She hadn’t gone there before because it was underground and didn’t look like a good dancing bar. However, now that it was the summer, none of the bars were good for dancing because there was no one there to dance with. Jenn also wasn’t wearing heels, because there was no one to impress, so she made her way easily down the narrow stairs to the door of the bar.

  The bouncer asked for her ID and Jenn calmly hande
d over her fake. She hadn’t been caught yet and, after a brief look, the bouncer handed it back to her.

  Jenn hadn’t been sure what to expect, but it was not what she saw. Despite its dingy appearance outside, the inside of the bar was elegant and made Jenn think twice about paying for her own drink. The lighting was dim, but Jenn could still see the paintings on the walls, real paintings not prints. The bar was in the middle of the room and it was the brightest thing, with gleaming wood, and mirrors behind the bottles in the middle. There was a jazz combo in the corner, playing smooth music. All in all, Jenn couldn’t believe this bar survived in a campus town, but it was decently full for the summer.

  She wandered to the bar and sat down. The bartender handed her a menu. “Let me know if you have any questions,” he said, before walking away again.

  Puzzled, Jenn opened the menu to find it was only for drinks, with a small blurb about the painting on the front of the menu. “What kind of place is this?” she wondered.

  As she flipped through the menu, Jenn noticed a man sauntering over to her. She had played this game many times before, and Jenn tried not to smile. At least he was good looking. He had blond hair that fell away from his side part, a full beard that still seemed suave, and a dazzling smile. Jenn wondered what kind of tactic he’d use to pick her up.

  “Need a little help with that menu?” he asked, sitting next to her. His voice was also smooth and sent a little thrill up Jenn’s spine. He’d played this game before, too.

  “Is this just for the drinks?” Jenn asked, playing herself down.

  The man smiled. “It is. First time here?”

  “Oh yes,” Jenn said, making her eyes a little wider.

  “I thought so,” the man replied. “I’m Luke.”

  “Jenn,” Jenn replied, shaking his hand. When they touched, something passed between them. It was strange, but small enough that Jenn could pretend she hadn’t felt it. She didn’t want anything from him except a free drink. Anything further and this would get too complicated.