Page 4 of The Wishless Ones
He was, however, surprised by how fresh and new his anger felt each time Baba unleashed his own. It had been a slow and gradual burgeoning, for in the beginning, he would feel only relief thathewas the target of Baba’s wrath, and not Rohan. Men like Baba sometimes had the tendency to enact their ire on everything in their vicinity.
But lately, Jafar’s anger was much like his father’s: raw and inundating, a thrashing thing that rested dormant until he was thrown in here, the door locked from the outside as if he were a rabid animal, not a voice of reason Baba was too proud to hear.
Jafar sighed, leaning back against the cool wall. He understood that common sense was hard to come by, but did he have to be punished for having some?
He should have known the day would be terrible when he had seen his most loathed of dishes, but he’d been so focused on his scholarship. Eggplant was the tastiest of the vegetables, and it was his mother’s favorite. When he was young and spent his dawns running through the bazaar, angry merchants on his heels and Rohan’s small hand in his, he was almost always carrying an eggplant or three. For Mama.
Once Mama died, his appreciation for food died, too. He ate only to sustain himself. Not to taste, not to savor.
He blamed that on Baba, who had always despised him. Really, the only thing that had changed since Mama died was howsubtleBaba had become with his distaste until it culminated in violence.
The broom closet was small and unfurnished, not even a broom closet anymore.A Jafar closet,he thought. The only light slipped in from the crack beneath the door. He never felt like opening the dusty curtains in front of the closet’s tiny window and getting the grime on his hands. Jafar pressed his ear against the door, listening to the house carrying on as if nothing were amiss—not that his insolence was anything out of the ordinary. He held back a groan when a squawk rose above the bustle.
Even that wretched parrot had more of a voice than Jafar.
He regretted every second of its existence in their house. Every second since he had told Rohan thatactually, yes, a parrot would most certainly make an excellent gift for our father.
At the time, Jafar had been as excited as Rohan in the bazaar, though not for the same reason. Rohan had been thrilled to present their father with something so unique; Jafar could hardly wait for it to grate on their father’s nerves.
He was still waiting.
While Baba’s men gathered around for their meetings, wearing lavish ankle-length thobes and snooty expressions, the parrot sat on a pedestal, squawking every so often yet irritating no one aside from Jafar. Hearing everything. Sometimes repeating the things he heard in, eerily, the exact same voice. Baba tolerated that bird more than he tolerated Jafar. He probably even loved it more than he loved Jafar. He certainly never tried to control it.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jafar told himself, as if saying the words out loud would help.
Once his scholarship was approved, he would leave. More important, he would find an appreciation for his intellect, rather than scorn.
He knew he was worthy of apprenticing at the House of Wisdom. It was in the grand kingdom of Maghriz, ruled by a sultana with a doted-on prince, protected by an army and sprawling with cities. Maghriz was everything their little town in the middle of nowhere was not. The trip there was no small journey, either; he’d have to cross half the desert and a fairly large inlet. It would take days.
And it would be worth it.
The House of Wisdom accepted no more than seven novices per year. Each was tasked with gathering and recording history and facts and conjuring up ways of improving the future by using the past. Their compensation? A lifetime of knowledge at their fingertips. Every detail on the known world was housed within the walls of the House of Wisdom.
Jafar longed to walk through the shelves, to gulp down every word that he could. Mama would have wanted that for him. He knew that many details in her stories were outlandish lies, exaggerations to make the tales more exciting, but no story existed without a shred of truth. When she spoke of genies and golden scarabs, powerful gemstones and flying carpets, she also spoke of history, of magic.
Of alchemy. The thing that made it all attainable.
Rohan liked to accuse Jafar of not believing in Mama’s stories, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in genies and golden scarabs; he simply preferred other stories. Like the one Mama had told them about a pair of ruby-red gemstones that granted the power of possession to the one who possessed them. Anytime he spoke to Baba now, he liked to imagine Baba’s eyes glowing the same red that rubies did.
Jafar stared at the closed door trapping him inside like a genie waiting to be unleashed. He supposed he liked the idea of being in control far more than he liked the idea of a powerful genie who might be in control of him. It wasn’t as though he were greedy or desperate.
Control, Jafar had learned from his lifetime under Baba, was important. That and, well, Jafar didn’t trust anyone as much as he trusted himself. Rohan wouldn’t understand.
If he was being honest, there was another reason he was waiting on pins and needles for his scholarship’s approval. To apply, one had to prove they were worthy by providing either insight into the importance of recording knowledge and history or an invention that could improve life.
Jafar’s application was a compilation of ways he’d attempted to improve Baba’s business, including the hanging of damp reeds to prolong the life of perishable goods in transit and the installation of a looking glass in a transport rider’s line of sight so that they could see anyone approaching from behind. Baba might not have cared for Jafar’s innovations, but he would care if he knew Jafar had told others of them.
You think to tell the world about the little that you’ve done?Baba would likely say, not realizing the answer to his question was there in his belittling words and disparaging tone.You look to them for approval and love?
Oh, to be accepted! Jafar would finally receive validation for every slap he had received over the past however many years.
Another squawk jarred him from his thoughts, followed by the sound of men laughing boisterously at something Baba said. It was the grating kind of laugh that should only be reciprocated with a punch in the jaw. Jafar wasn’t much for physical altercations—overcoming someone with brute force required no real skill—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t wish for it. He forced his breathing to calm. Forced the steadily increasing anger in his veins to stop. He was a candle of rage and his wick was burning quick.
A square of parchment slipped under the door, zigzagging in the darkness, and then there was a quiet shuffling outside. Despite himself, Jafar smiled.
“You are aware that it’s too dark in this closet to read, right?” he asked.
The shuffling stopped.
