A Jinni's Love Story

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“Well, we have met a family who says they let go of a cat just a week ago. They said it was beginning to become a burden having so many pet animals in the house. Believe me, if they would have known she was a jinniyah they never would have tried to get rid of her.”

“Rewind, Jer. You said ‘if they would have known.’ Does that mean they didn’t really know what she was? They haven’t seen her shift into human.”

“That could be,” Jeremy said, “or it could be something else. It could be that she doesn’t know how to shift into human.”

“ARE YOU CRAZY?!” Sidiro stormed, almost dropping the phone that he held in his hand. “All jinni know how to shift. Everybody knows that.”

“You could be wrong there, Sid. I mean, if she knows how to shift, then she would have done so by now. She would have walked out of your house before you could even stop her. But try to see clearly. She hasn’t shifted in your place, not once. Otherwise you would have felt some seep of her magic. Sid, what if she was deliberately born in animal form?”

“Why would a jinniyah want to bear its young in animal form?”

There was a long pause, followed by a frustrated sigh.

“Beats me,” Jeremy concluded, “but I think she needs to shift as soon as possible.

The earlier you teach her how to shift the better.”

“Me?” Sid accused. “Why do I have to teach her how to shift?”

“Because she already trusts you, stupid. And besides, what are the kids at the park gonna say when they see me pull a wild animal out of my hat instead of a rabbit?”

There was a clatter on the other end of the line. It seemed like Jeremy had handed over the phone to someone else. Or that someone else rather, had pried the phone out of Jer’s hand. After the noise stopped, a familiar female voice took charge of the conversation. “Sid?”

“Aisha? What are you doing at Jer’s house? And this early in the morning?”

A Jinni's Love Story

All the stories on this site are copyrighted and may not be printed, quoted or reproduced without the permission of the author

The cat had wide ochre eyes and delicate white whiskers. She also had wide ears that twitched this way and that. Her bushy tail swished above the mattress, like that of a little girl’s pendulous ponytail that swings when she’s skipping. She devoured her biscuit breakfast with as much finesse as she could, though it was easy to tell that she’d been hungry for a while. After she devoured one biscuit, she immediately pawed out another one from the bag and nibbled until the crumbs scattered about her. Then she lapped up the crumbs, leaving the coverlet spotless.

“I bet you won’t be able to walk after you eat that much!” Sidiro joked. The exasperated cat looked at him, and then resumed her meal in silence.

It was strange. The jaguarondi seemed to understand what he was saying, but did little to nothing to acknowledge that she just heard. And why wasn’t she shifting? Surely she knew he could be trusted by now. Maybe…

The phone on the bedside table rang, causing the cat to stare wide-eyed at the contraption, before darting to her feet and to the corner of the room. In all of Sidiro’s life he had never seen a cat cower because of a phone before. This animal seemed to be afraid of almost everything, from doors to phones to kind people. But then again, she was a jinniyah. And she may not be well adapted to the human world yet.

Sidiro moved to the edge of the bed. “It’s all right, cubby. It’s just a phone, see? Can’t harm you or anything else.”

The caller ID identified Jeremy as the reason for this early morning disturbance.

“Hey Sid, how’s it going?”

“Nothing wrong here,” Sidiro said. “Just a cat with a biscuit addiction.”

“Speaking of that cat, Aisha and I hunted about downtown yesterday.”

“Did you find anything?” Sidiro strode to the front of his mirror and tried his best to hand-comb his short hair.

 

A Jinni's Love Story

All the stories on this site are copyrighted and may not be printed, quoted or reproduced without the permission of the author

“You think she knows how to shift, Sid?” Jeremy asked.

“From the looks of it,” Sidiro replied while scratching behind the animal’s ear, “I think she was born a cat. She seems more comfortable in this form she’s in now.”

Sidiro held the cat in his arms as he walked out the park. He had one hand below the feline’s body and another stroking the side that was turned up to him. She was light… and soft. He continued talking to her in a droning voice, trying to distract her from the honking cars and the squealing children on the street. When they were standing just in front of his house, the cat purred contentedly. And by the time that Sid had opened his bedroom door and turned up the coverlet, she was sound asleep.

His panicky housemate

The mattress dented as Sidiro turned on his side of the bed. He lifted his sleepladen eyelids and yawned. He stretched his arms, but he was not able to extend them to their full length because that was when he noticed the lump of fur looking at him.

The cat was staring at him with a look that he thought was curious and doubting. For a moment, Sidiro just lay there and stared back at her. When he finally sat up and scratched the back of his head, the cat bent her head to the left as she continued to observe him, one ear perked up in interest.

“I can’t say you haven’t greeted me good morning,” he said. “I think you already beat me to it.”

The cat blinked, then uncrossed its front paws and sat on its haunches.

“You up for breakfast?”

Sidiro got up, finally stretched his arms over his head and swung them around to loosen his muscles. Next tried to coax his kitty out of the bed, but she kept looking daggers at the door, as if it was something evil. He gave up on trying to lead her to the kitchen a while later, and instead brought his own bowl of cereal and a pack of biscuits into the bedroom. As he spooned the cereal to his mouth, he kept stealing glances at the animal beside him.

 

A Jinni's Love Story

All the stories on this site are copyrighted and may not be printed, quoted or reproduced without the permission of the author

Sidiro peered into the cage again, trying to get a feel of the animal. Yup, she was scared. Sidiro took a deep breath and let it out, trying to muster a gentle face. But inside he was seething. Who would be that cruel? Wrapping up a live animal like it was yesterday’s garbage? She was so thin that he estimated she weighed little more than a cub. “Hey there, cubby. How are you doing?”

Sidiro thought he heard a whimper. He stretched out one hand inside of the cage and opened his palm. “Hi there. I’m Sidiro. Would you like to come out?” 

Still no reply. However, he noticed that the silhouette had stopped shaking.

“Hey that’s good,” Jeremy whispered. “Whatever it is you’re doing Sid, keep at it. I think she’s listening.”

Sid resumed his sweet-talking, hoping that the jinniyah understood English. “Do you understand me? I’d really like it if you’d come out into the light. That way I can see you close up. Don’t worry, I won’t bite. I just wanna meet you.” Then, as if somebody had put the thought in his mind, he said “I promise I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

The cat had in the meantime come closer. Eventually Sid could see the gray face, then the front paws and then the whole body, as if she had materialized from shadow. She was beautiful! Her coat was dove gray instead of dull, sprinkled with short hairs of blue. Her bushy tail swished on the cage floor and her slender body emanated the magic that was part of her.

The moment Sidiro looked into the cat’s eyes, his breath caught in his throat. The cat looked at him as if she could read his soul, as if she did trust him. If their roles were switched, his normal reaction to an invading human would have been to withdraw. The cat didn’t seem to share that reaction. In fact, he found it amazing that it – she had decided to trust him. He could do nothing, even move, as the cat resumed her approach and eventually rubbed her side to his forearm.

“Well, what do you know?” Aisha whispered. “I think she likes you, Sid. You think you could take her for a while? Normally I’d contact the department about an endangered species found in the dumpster, but she’s not an ordinary animal.”

A Jinni's Love Story

All the stories on this site are copyrighted and may not be printed, quoted or reproduced without the permission of the author

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.”     

A Jinni's Love Story

All the stories on this site are copyrighted and may not be printed, quoted or reproduced without the permission of the author

His unexpected pet

“Okay Aisha, what have you got?” Sidiro barreled into the clinic, followed by Jeremy who was just putting on his jacket. The pair would have come to the clinic earlier, but they were detained by Jeremy’s many little fans, all ready to witness his ever ready street magic acts. Little did they know that Jeremy was using a bit of his real magic during his performances.

Jeremy could whip up a fresh bouquet of roses from his front pocket, or even release a flock of multi-colored pigeons from the back of his coat. Sid had seen him do those tricks, and more. In conclusion, Jeremy was just as powerful as the jinniyan princes of the maggickal realm. However, the realm that they called their other home, appealed to neither of them. It was especially distant from Jeremy, whose smart and attractive girlfriend appealed more than anything that other realm could offer. Aisha looked up from her work table and gestured for the two to come closer. The young vet planted a kiss on Jeremy’s cheek, but that did nothing to hide the concern that was framed behind her round-rimmed glasses. “Follow me, boys.”

She rounded the work table and took out a chain of keys from the pocket of her white lab coat. The biggest of the keys, as Sid and Jer already knew, allowed access to the back room where all the injured animals were temporarily kept. The smaller keys were those that unlocked the several cages inside the said room. There were two levels of cages. The bigger cages below the smaller ones housed the four-legged larger animals. The smaller ones above were used for holding pets.

Sidiro and his cousin followed closely, making sure not to make too much noise lest they disturb any of the sleeping animals. Aisha groped for the on-switch that activated the lights. When she found and clicked it, the glass globe above them glowed. The amount of light wasn’t too bright – more of a soft orange – so that it wouldn’t startle the resting creatures.

Not all the cages were occupied, though. From what Sid could see, there were only three animals inside. The young lamb that had a limp in one front leg was in the lower cage nearest the door. In the upper right cage close to the lamb, a puppy – owned by one of the kids who visited the zoo regularly – had been given a vaccine shot and was to be picked up later in the afternoon. The third animal, however, was kept in the cage at the end of the column, and was almost invisible because the light wasn’t strong enough to illuminate the whole of the room. From what Sid could make of its silhouette, the animal looked like a big domestic cat, about twenty-two inches long.