The Seven Kings of Jinn

“I’ll come to your party, babe.” Mel winked at her. “Give me a private showing sometime and I might even buy you a present.”

“Watch it.” Charlie whipped his head around at him, his dark eyes glittering with fury. “Don’t talk to her.”

“Hey—”

“Just shut it.” Charlie pinned him in place with a look of warning that would have made a smarter man pee in his pants. Ari shivered, unsettled, even though her old friend was only defending her. Charlie glanced back at her, the anger still etched in his features. “Of course I’ll be there,” he told her. “I’ll see you Friday.”

Not wanting to leave him, Ari jerked her head in the direction of the parking lot. “Do you want to have lunch with me?”

He shook his head, his features losing expression again. “Go back to school, Ari, I’ll see you later.”

Feeling that familiar ache in her chest, Ari nodded and spun around, hurrying out of the clearing, wishing like hell her car wasn’t in the garage and she could just go home.

She stopped on the hot asphalt, staring blankly at the Ohio plates of the Buick Lacrosse Rachel’s parents had bought her as a graduation gift. I can go home. I am going home. Ari turned and strode toward the gate. It was a half-hour walk; it was nothing. She could do with the exercise.

“Ari!”

Closing her eyes in disbelief, Ari huffed and slowly turned around to see Rachel running across the lot toward her. “Rache.”

“Where are you going?”

“For a walk.”

“Were you going home?”

“I thought about it.”

Rachel shook her head, her eyes narrowing. “He bummed you out again.”

“It’s not his fault.”

“Stop making excuses for him. And you’re not going home.” Rachel tugged on her arm, dragging her back toward the school.

“You’re not the boss of me,” Ari grunted, tripping on her flip-flops.

“I am not letting Charlie ruin graduation for you. You think I don’t know why you’ve been so sullen and quiet every time we mention college and graduation? It’s Charlie! It’s always Charlie. You’re going to have to leave him to swim in his self-destructive soup and, frankly, I think it’s a good thing. He is such a loser. You are so much better than that.”

“Hey!” Ari yanked her arm away and shot her best friend a look so livid it was amazing waves of burning smoke didn’t start weeping from Rachel’s body. “You don’t get to call him that. He’s been through hell and I’m sorry if he isn’t perfect, but he’s my friend, and I don’t abandon my friends.”

Holding her hands up in a surrender gesture, Rachel nodded, her eyes wide. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called him that.”

Ari shook her head, sighing heavily. “Whatever. Let’s just get you back to the cafeteria before A.J. eats whatever you left on your tray.”

Her eyes almost popped out of her head. “My Snickers!”

Ari gave a bark of annoyed laughter, watching Rachel lope up the concrete stairs two at a time. Watching her friend, who knew herself inside out, Ari wished she was more like Rachel… or that she had more time, at least; time to discover who she was supposed to be before college.

For once, Ari was glad to step into the airy house she called home, waving behind her to Rachel, who drove her back and forth to school while her car was in the garage. She shut the door, dropped her bag and pulled off her light summer jacket. She hung it up on the coat peg on the wall, using the label to loop it securely. When it slid up and off, falling to the ground, Ari groaned and bent down to pick it up. She secured it again and strolled toward the kitchen, only to hear the pinging of the metal buttons hitting the wooden floor. Exhaling heavily, she spun back on her heel and picked it back up, jamming the jacket down on the peg.

Her poltergeist was such a pain in the ass.

“I’m not in the mood, Ms. Maggie!” she called out, scanning the hall.

Two years ago, after her 16th birthday actually, a poltergeist took up residence in her house. When she tried to tell her dad about furniture moving, an invisible person using her laptop, books taken down from the shelf and left around and open, he’d told her to stop being childish. For the last four or five years he’d been gone a lot, traveling the country and wining and dining doctors and hospital execs as a pharmaceutical sales rep. Her dad was good at his job and she never wanted for anything — except maybe for more time with him. Anyway, her theory about the poltergeist didn’t really hit home until they got into an argument one day a year and a half ago. He’d raised his voice at her because she made the mistake of whining about him being gone so much and a book flew off a shelf and cracked him across the head. He hadn’t imagined it and was now sufficiently freaked out by their house. Ari had stopped whining at her dad in the hopes the situation would make him want to be home more and had gotten used to the company of the poltergeist. She was pretty sure the poltergeist was a woman because she seemed to take offence to sexist, anti-feminist jokes. Sure, she was mischievous, like with the whole jacket thing, but once Ari told her to stop doing something, she would. Ari had named her Ms. Maggie after the dog her dad had bought when she was eight and then promptly gotten rid of when he realized how much work it involved for him.