Circle of Jinn Read Online Free

right, since what I really should be doing is practicing. Despite all my trying over the past two days, I haven’t gotten Mrs. Pucher’s beloved Pom-Pom to do so much as fetch a tennis ball. Aren’t dogs supposed to want to do that?
    If I don’t figure out how to get the mangy thing to follow one of my telepathic commands soon, I’ll be cramming my lanky sixteen-year-old body behind a seventh-grade desk next to Megan instead of an eleventh-grade one.
    It’s not like I want to fry any furry creatures’ brains (not even Pom-Pom’s), but practicing mind control on animals is better than hot-wiring a human’s brain without having any clue what I’m doing. And so I practice with squirrels, birds, and Pom-Pom. More accurately, I fail with squirrels, birds, and Pom-Pom. And no, I’m not even sure this power works on nonhuman critters.
    I sigh and haul myself out of the Adirondack. I force myself to try to get Pom-Pom to stop gnawing on the hose for five minutes before I give up and walk across the street to Henry’s house. Well, halfway across the street. Because that’s as far as I can go without my spleen being sucked through my belly button.
    Standing in the middle of the road, I hear a thunk and see Henry dragging a round lump of a black garbage bag to the curb.
    We haven’t seen each other since the day of the funeral. He looks up and our eyes meet. My muscles pull taut like a rubber band, but the tension releases as soon as his dimples appear. He drops the bag and rushes to the middle of the street, where the hug that appears imminent dies abruptly.
    â€œI’m here for you, Azra, always.”
    That’s what Henry said after I finished telling him how I was going to have to use mind control on Nate and Megan and risk hurting them, maybe even hurting myself. He dug the heels of the dress shoes I had magically shined into the patch of dirt under the swing to come to a complete stop.
    â€œYou know that, don’t you?”
    That’s what he said after he grasped the metal chains above my head with one hand. He turned me toward him and tugged, gently closing the gap between us. The plastic seats met with a soft tap.
    â€œI need for you to know that.”
    That’s what he said as his light green eyes bored into mine, chilling me like a gust of wind in a snowstorm, but then his thumb was on my cheek, his breath was on my neck, his lips were on my forehead, and I was whisked inside to a crackling fire, and that’s what I felt, warm and safe and home, and that’s what I was thinking and that’s where I wanted to be in that moment, home, my home, away from all the pain and hurt and tears and wishes to be granted and then … all of that was gone.
    Because he was kissing me. I no longer knew where I was, let alone where I wanted to be.
    Henry pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and I shove my hands into my back pockets, casually shifting my weight from one foot to the other to hide my nerves.
    â€œMegan at Mrs. Pucher’s?” he asks.
    I nod, pushing past the memory to match his nonchalant tone. “So you do read my texts. You just don’t reply.”
    â€œI replied.”
    â€œThree times. In ten days.”
    He flicks the top of his head toward his house. “Things have been busy with the move. Back and forth. We’re doing it ourselves.”
    Because they couldn’t afford movers, which is why they’re defecting to New Hampshire to live with Henry’s grandparents in the first place. After more than six months of being unemployed, his father finally found a job near where Mrs. Carwyn’s mother and father live. So even though it’s Henry’s last year of high school—he and Nate are both a year older and incoming seniors—he’s … leaving.
    â€œSo,” he says. “How is…? How are…? You okay?”
    This is not my Henry. He’s being so distant.