Page 74 of Bewitched By the Djinn
She nods. “So you thought about it.”
“Yes,” I answer without thinking. Wait. “No!”
She laughs.
I groan. “I am not having this conversation with you. I need to go check in on Jackie.”
Mimi’s laughter follows me up the stairs.
Jackie is in her room, curled up in the chair in the corner with a book.
Her complexion isn’t as ghostly pale as before, but lavender shadows pop out like bruises underneath her eyes.
“Hey, you.” I cross over and perch on the arm of the chair, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. “How are you feeling?”
She sets the book face down in her lap. “Better, I think? I was worried about you and Bennet, that something bad might happen to you.”
Great. My sleepless anxiety is rubbing off on her. “We’re fine.”
“That’s what Mimi said. Kevin said if something happened to you, he would know.”
“He’s probably right. I would haunt all of you for eternity.”
She smiles.
“Have you been doing the exercises Bennet taught you?”
She nods. “Yes, and I did my schoolwork and I’ve been eating all my food and drinking lots of water.”
I lift my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay.”
“You found his sister?”
“Yes.”
Her face brightens. “So you can stay home now? It’s over?”
“No. Bennet and I are still connected.” I give her a much abbreviated, much sanitized version of events.
When I finish, she watches me with dark eyes, so similar to my own. “Is he your boyfriend now?”
My hands flap and I stand. “Are you and Mimi in on this together?”
She lets out a peal of laughter.
I try to hold on to some righteous anger, but she hasn’t laughed like this since Mom and Dad disappeared.
My heart clenches in my chest. I bend over and kiss the top of her head. “Keep reading your book, munchkin. I’m going to check on Bennet, make sure Kevin isn’t traumatizing him with more reality shows.”
I make my way up the stairs, stopping by my room to grab fresh clothes.
Up in the office, Bennet is over by the bookshelves. He opens a small wooden box, sniffs the contents, then sets it back down.
Kevin is in the corner where an old chest sits open, rifling through shoe boxes of stones and leather pouches filled with dried herbs.
“Any luck?”
“We found labradorite and black obsidian,” Bennet says.
