A/N—I don't own The Children of the Lamp. P.B. Kerr owns everything.
This is set between the first and second books.
DJINN LIVE PRETTY MUCH FOREVER
Kensington Gardens was quiet. The park was deserted, abandoned, left behind like an empty crypt, pushed aside in favor of warm houses and crackling fireplaces. The roads were completely empty, stretching along in silence that remained unbroken. The statue of Peter Pan stood alone, arms stretched toward the sky, reaching for the second star to the right. Even he was silent, not speaking, merely fixing his eyes on the heavens, where the star that would lead him home sparkled and glimmered in the dark sky.
Inside Nimrod's pretty gabled house, things were just as still, but the air was different. It did not carry the peaceful desertedness that the park was filled with. The air in Nimrod's house was tense, joining the inhabitants with bated breath, waiting.
A soft rain began to fall, slapping against the pavement, pattering onto the metal Peter Pan, slipping down the windows, trickling into cracks and crevices, filling the quiet place with the sorrowful sound of rain.
It was raining the night that Ayesha bore a set of twins: a girl and a boy...
It was raining the night that, twelve years later, she left those same twins, taking ot the air on a swirling whirlwind...
It was raining the night that Mr. Godwin, overcome with sorrow, killed himself, to be found by the butler the next morning...
It was raining the night that Layla turned her back on her family, turning away her brother, never once looking back...
Every time it rained, Nimrod would curl up in the window seat of his room and wait. He would wait for the bad news, for the heartbreaking explanations that he wouldn't understand, and he tried not to scream.
When his mother had left, saying that she had to become the Blue Djinn...
"Why?"
"You can't understand, Nimrod. It's...it's complicated. But trust me. It has to be done."
"What did we do wrong, Mum? What did we do that made it where you don't want us?"
She had never answered. Just picked up her suitcase and conjured a whirlwind. He had run outside after her...
"Mother! Come back! I love you...don't leave..."
She hadn't looked back.
Since that night, the window seat had become Nimrod's haven. That first night, and many nights afterwards, he had curled up there, crying, staring out the window, waiting for her to come back. She never had.
Layla hadn't either, after she had turned him away.
The only person who had ever, ever, come back down that road was Groanin.
And now he was going to walk away too. He had his last wish, and now he would walk away, never turning back, just like everybody else.
He couldn't help it. He began to cry: he cried for his mother, who hadn't loved him and Layla enough to stay; he cried for his father, who had loved his mother so much, but hadn't been willing to stay for his children; he cried for the twins, who he had seen for the first time in years, who hadn't even know him; he cried for his sister, who had locked herself away after the events following their mother's leaving, who had hated him for not understanding, who hadn't wanted to explain, who had married a mundane and then turned her back on him, all because he didn't have the courage to do the same; he cried for Groanin, who, through over ten painful years, had been the only solid thing, the only person who was always there, in the same place, at the same time, every day, forever. He cried for himself—something he hadn't done since Layla's distancing herself from him. That night he had thrown himself onto the window seat and cried like a little child. And after he was done, he swore that he would never cry again: he would never let anyone hurt him again.
"Sir, I've brought you some tea. I thought on a rainy night like this, it would be a welcome comfort. Nothing warms the heart like good British tea, I say, nothing warms the heart like it."
Nimrod started, turning around to look at Groanin. He squinted, having difficulty focusing without his glasses through his tear-filled eyes. He pulled his glasses out of his pocket and put them on his nose.
Groanin put the tray down and stood uncomfortably in the room. He rarely came into Nimrod's room—in fact, Nimrod didn't think he could think of a time when Groanin had. It was common knowledge that his room was off-limits, as he said.
"Sir, is everything all right?" Groanin asked, and Nimrod realized that the tea had been a ploy to get into the room. "I heard—thought I heard—a sound and I wondered if you might be needing some help."
"Everything's quite fine," Nimrod said, and he realized that he just should have kept quiet. His voice was thick with tears, and he was sure that his eyes and nose were as red as his clothes.
"By help meaning perhaps a little company, sir," Groanin clarified. "And maybe some friendly advice."
Nimrod laughed shakily. The butler held firmly to the fact that he was six months older than the djinn.
"Sir, I also wanted to speak to you. About...about what happened in Egypt."
He had meant to be so strong, so composed, and to just let the butler go.
But he had meant to be like that with his mother, when, a few weeks before her leaving, he had guessed that she was not going stay. And just like then, he failed, and, feeling like a petulant, injured child, he turned away, burying his face in a fluffy pillow, and cried until he thought that his heart would break.
