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Aisha
put a finger in front of her lips, telling them to keep silent. Unfortunately
they weren’t
quiet enough. The moment that Aisha opened the gate
to the cage, the cat startled
awake and cowered. In fact, it shook so violently that Sidiro thought the poor animal alone
could break the cage by just shaking.
“So, what do
you think?” Aisha asked, trying unsuccessfully to
draw the cat forward with
a piece of biscuit. “I feel a weird tingling whenever I’m near her. Sort of
like the tingle I
feel when one of you comes near me. Is she something like you?”
“I think,” Jeremy said, “that she is one. Though I’m not sure if
she even knows it. Sid? What about you?”
The moment
Sidiro traded gazes with the animal, he felt a weird tingling vibration. It was sort
of like the tingle he could feel when Jeremy
was close by, but not quite. This kind of
tingle started from his lips and went down all the way to his toes, sort of
like he’d been kissed
by a sudden bolt of electricity. This was really weird. This had never happened
with any other jinni before, not even his brother. But he was sure that,
despite the
different kind of tingle, he was standing in front of a jinniyah, a female of
his kind.
“What animal
is she?” Sid asked, taking a step
closer and standing in front of the cage, the
opening of which was directly leveled with his shoulders. From this angle and with his big
body blocking the light, all he could see was a pair of amber eyes that glowed in
the darkness.
“A
jaguarondi or otter cat,” Aisha replied, giving up
on the biscuit trick.
“Ja-gua-ron-di?
Otter cat’s easier to pronounce. Where did you find her again?”
“She was
inside a plastic bag. In a dumpster behind the fast food junction that my cousin works
in. When I took her out, she tried to get away from me. But it was obvious she was
starving. She could barely run away. Even lift a paw to scratch me. I took her home, but she wouldn’t eat anything I gave her.”
