Page 2 of Witch You Would

five had been announced, but I only cared about one: Charlotte Sharp.

Charlotte was the owner of Athame Arts, an artisanal spell company with stores in New York, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles...

She was rich, and famous, and talented, and she had started in a tiny shop, like me.

In my fantasies, after we won, she’d offer me a job. I’d humbly accept, and we’d jump into a fancy convertible spelled not

to ruin our perfect hairstyles as we rode into the sunset. Though, technically, riding into the sunset in Miami meant driving

into the Everglades to get eaten by gators... No! Bad Penelope. No catastrophizing. No gators, only good hair.

It had taken bribes, begging, and straight-up lying to get two weeks off work for filming and promo. Even if I lost in round

one, I had to stay in a hotel with the other contestants until the whole thing was over, for NDA reasons or something. I wanted

to tell Rosy so bad, but she lived on chisme; she’d never keep it to herself, and then the lawyer ninjas would attack.

The only person I trusted with the secret was my sister Emelia, who’d signed her own NDA.

She was my emergency contact and alibi. Our cover story: spa retreat at a cabin on some Georgia mountain with no internet.

Eme had also helped me forward my number to her phone somehow so she could cover for me, but that hadn’t started yet.

My cell played a demonic growl, popping my thought bubbles. Someone had emailed the work account, which I’d set up on my phone

with an alert because Ofelia wouldn’t let me use the computer in her office.

I checked the preview and a cloud of glittery pink hearts floated around my head like foggy butterflies.

“I know that look,” Rosy said. “You got a G-mail!”

“Maybe.” Totally.

The “G” was Gil—Gilberto Contreras. He ran a blog called Doctor Witch , where he helped people with spell problems and shared recipes that actually worked. We’d been emailing for months. It started

with him asking whether Espinosa’s carried a specific beetle wing, but every store had run out, including ours. I called around

and found some up in Lauderhill, and he was super grateful. Out of curiosity, I clicked the link in his auto-signature and

read a few of his posts. Good stuff! Then I found his picture and my soul left my body. So, so hot.

When my soul returned, I noticed a mistake in one of his recipes: lemon balm instead of lemon verbena in a garden-enhancing

spell. Because this was the internet and not an actual hot guy standing in front of me, I pointed out the oopsie, joked about

how people would end up with mellow bees instead of perky flowers, and suggested he add a pinch of espresso—a trick of my

abuela’s. Then I spent hours obsessively checking for a reply, worried I’d been rude or weird.

But he tried my suggestion, and it worked, and he thanked me for saving everyone from an attack of pollen smugglers. We went from occasionally trading ideas to chatting multiple times a week about magical theory and personal stuff, and my smol insta-crush reached embarrassingly epic levels.

This email had a cute pinup-style picture of a witch, her skirt blown up by the wind, showing her legs. The caption: “Widdershins

implies the existence of widderankles and widderknees.” Under that he wrote, “Deasil are the jokes!” I snort-laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Rosy asked. I showed her, and she shook her head. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s a spell thing,” I explained. “Widdershins is counterclockwise and deasil is clockwise.”

“You two are such nerds.” Rosy pointed a spoon at me. “One day I’m going to steal your phone and ask him out for you.”

“You won’t.”

“I should, since you’re a giant chicken.”

She wasn’t wrong. But at some point, I’d realized an important thing: I’d never actually introduced myself to Gil. I’d left

the store auto-signature at the bottom of the email and kept hitting reply. For months .

I’d told him really personal stuff. Stories about brewing potions with my abuela when she picked me and my sister up from

school, or my mom making me pull weeds for hours in the hot sun as punishment for mediocre grades, or my dad coaching my Little

League team and putting me in the outfield because I couldn’t catch. I hadn’t told him my most painful memory, the one that

still gave me nightmares and panic attacks, but I’d showed him a lot of my scars.

And the whole time, he’d thought I was my boss.

I was too embarrassed to say anything now. It would be so easy! By the way, my name is Penelope and I’m not old enough to be your mom. But I couldn’t do it.

Still, I kept the emails going. So what if I was only imagining he was flirting with me when he sent stuff like this witch

pinup? I enjoyed my daydreams about him magically appearing at the store to ask me out.

It was never going to happen. He hadn’t even hinted about meeting, unless you counted asking about places I liked to hang

out. He didn’t call the store or ask for my number. He probably had a girlfriend, or boyfriend, or nonbinary love of his life.

And if he really was lusting after the picture of my boss posted on the website, I’d be a huge disappointment.

Rosy plopped a foam cup in front of me. “Do you need to get back to your asshole?”

I made a fart noise with my mouth and put away my phone.

“At least you’re going on vacation.” She wiped the counter. “I still can’t believe the vieja podrida gave you two weeks off.”

“Yeah, it’s gonna be great!” And that didn’t sound fakey at all. Wow.

I grabbed my cortadito and waved goodbye to Rosy. Daydreams over. Time to deal with reality.

The door chimes tinkled when I stepped into the store. Unless the customer was hiding behind a shelf, he’d left. Ofelia had

either talked some sense into him, or caved and gave him exactly what he wanted. I wasn’t going to bet myself anything this

time; I wasn’t a sucker.

“Is that you, Penny?” Ofelia called.

“Yes.”

“Come to my office.”

I put my cortadito on the counter, grabbed my notebook, and went to the back of the store.

Customers weren’t allowed into this area. Too ugly. Bare concrete floors, good for drawing arcane circles with chalk. Ceilings:

more concrete. Walls: believe it or not, also concrete. Basic bathroom to the right, cleaned by yours truly. Workshop and

storage to the left, featuring a gas stove and oven, a scarred wooden table covered in spell-casting tools, shelves of reagents,

and boxes of stuff I hadn’t restocked in the front yet. Big roll-up door on the far wall, broken since always.

Happy memories of my abuela’s kitchen ghosted through my mind. Watching the sun stream through the colored glass blocks of

the door to the backyard. Sticking toothpicks into an avocado seed and resting it on the rim of a glass jar filled with a

growth potion. Sitting at the table, kicking my feet under the flower-print plastic tablecloth while I ground herbs with a

mortar and pestle. Climbing onto the counter to reach jars on high shelves. Feeling the rush of magic as I whispered an incantation

and pushed my energy and will into the contents of a steaming cauldron. Turning the dial on her old-fashioned timer and watching

it tick, tick, until it buzzed.

Ofelia had fooled me for a while, but I knew perfectly well now that she wasn’t my abuela, and this place was nothing like

that kitchen.

Past the bathroom, the door to Ofelia’s office stood open. The room was just big enough to hold her desk, a chair, and a fancy

antique cabinet full of impressive-looking magic stuff arranged like display candy at a movie theater. Her desk was covered

in papers, which I was not allowed to touch, and which she loved to accuse me of touching.

Ofelia peered over the bright red glasses sitting on the end of her nose as she two-finger-typed something on her ancient computer. After a few minutes of letting me squirm and choke on her flowery perfume, she sighed real big and took off her glasses, glaring at me with watery blue eyes.

“Penny, Penny,” she said. “What am I going to do with you?”

Did I mention I hated being called Penny?

“I need you to make the counterspell for that customer,” she continued. “He’ll pick it up as soon as it’s finished.”

“Okay,” I said, opening my notebook. “I’m going to need—”

“Use whatever will work. But the cost will come out of your pay.”

I put the notebook down and struggled to control my face. “I didn’t mess up his hair. He cast his own spell, and he used a

broken duskywing butterfly wing, which we didn’t sell him. This isn’t my fault.”

Ofelia leaned forward, her leather chair creaking. “Can you look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t give him the wrong blend

of herbs?”

If she already thought I was a liar, why would eye contact matter? I looked directly at her pupils and said, “I didn’t mess

up his reagents. I always triple-check what I’m blending. I make sure nothing is stale or mislabeled. I measure twice so we

don’t give too much or too little. I’m extremely careful.”

I didn’t want anyone to get hurt because I’d made a mistake. Never again.

She stared at me, lips pressed together in a red line, then slid her glasses back on and returned her attention to the computer.

“Get to work on that counterspell,” Ofelia said. “I left the original instructions out for you.”

I stood up, clenching my notebook so hard, the spiral wire dug into my palm. I was halfway out the door when she stopped me.

“Before you go,” she added, “I know you asked for time off, but under the circumstances, I think you’d better reschedule your

little trip with your sister. Hmm?”

I did my best impression of a fish. “I can’t. It’s tomorrow.”

“This job doesn’t come with vacation time, and you’ve called in sick more than usual in the past few months. I was being generous

because you’ve worked here for so long, but today’s incident tells me you take this position for granted.”

I worked at least ten hours a day, every single day except Mondays. I almost always came to work sick, and I hadn’t taken

vacation time in seven years—except for three Cast Judgment auditions and interviews that couldn’t be scheduled on Mondays.

I didn’t take the blame for the customer’s problem, and now she was yanking my leash.

“We agreed on this weeks ago,” I said. “I can’t cancel the day before.”

Ofelia looked at me over the top of her glasses. “If you’re not here tomorrow, I may have to make some hard decisions. I hope

we understand each other.” She turned away, pretending I was already gone.

I leaned against the wooden table in the casting area.

Was she threatening to fire me? Seriously?

I ran this damn store while she had brunch mimosas with her friends.

Tracking inventory, ordering stock, casting spells, helping people with technical questions, answering phones and emails .

. . I had even started making extra money doing spell demonstrations at the library branch in the shopping center.

The only thing Ofelia did was double-check the accounting stuff and make the bank deposits, because she was paranoid that I might steal money from her.

What if she wasn’t bluffing, though? She had a bad temper. If I lost my job, my life would explode like hair fireworks. I

had an associate’s degree in magical theory, which meant I was competing with a bazillion other people for any entry-level

position that didn’t require a PhD and ten years of experience. Working at Espinosa’s was as close as I would ever get to

my dream job unless a miracle happened.

Cast Judgment might be that miracle.

If I won, I’d have $100,000 to live on, and I could work on my abuela’s spellbook.

If I won. A big “if.”

My parents and I almost never talked, but I could hear their voices in my head, especially my mom’s: Remember when we told you not to stay in Miami for college? Look how that turned out. Don’t risk your job. Don’t make the

same mistake again, thinking you’re better than you are.

I was a spell technician-slash-salesgirl at a magic supply shop. End of story.

Unless it was just the beginning.

I’d made it on the show, hadn’t I? Beaten thousands of people in the audition process? That had to mean something. Forget

my parents: my abuela wouldn’t want me to give up now.

I had to take this chance, or I’d regret it forever.

First, I had to make the counterspell for Sparkles. I put out the bell with the “Ring for Service” sign on the counter and

made sure the anti-theft freezer charms were all in place on the shelves. Then I tied on an apron, put on my safety glasses,

and started assembling and checking my reagents.

When I remembered to drink my coffee, it was already cold.