Page 51 of Witch You Would

Everything turned misty, dissolving and drifting into the air like bubbles in champagne, only colorful and glittering and

glowing faintly. The fog slowly disappeared into the hat like my abuela had, until the only things left were the gloves, the

hat, and the spotlight.

The gloves picked up the hat, then swept it forward as if an invisible magician had bowed. It angled up as if being placed

on the magician’s head at a jaunty angle. The gloves and hat spun in a quick clockwise circle, and in a burst of sparks, vanished

into thin air. The spotlight remained for another moment, then went dark, turned off by some unseen, ghostly stagehand.

Total silence. I swallowed, hoping my hearing hadn’t been affected by the magic.

“Does this complete your spell?” Syd asked finally.

“Yes,” I croaked. We’d done it. Everything had worked, exactly as we’d intended.

“Presto!” Gil said. He grabbed both my hands and pulled me into our dance, his eyes serious even though his mouth was laughing.

I laughed, too. This was nothing like our first dances, awkward and fake when we were still stumbling and figuring each other out.

It wasn’t like the one when we nailed our bracelet spell, after I’d found out who Gil was and everything had seemed to finally click.

Now, all our layers were peeled back, all our secrets and fears exposed, all our hopes shared, our future waiting for us no matter what happened now.

It felt like another promise, and I promised, too, spinning in his arms and exploding away from him at the end, then coming back for a hug that was probably inappropriate.

I didn’t care. I loved him, and he loved me, and in that moment, our love was more important than the show or winning.

The judges started their questions about our intentions and methods. Hugh’s eyebrows went all the way up when he heard we’d

pressure-cooked the part with my abuela at the last minute; I wasn’t sure whether he was impressed or just shocked. As late

as it was, they didn’t cut any of it short, though Doris was quieter than usual. I wondered if she’d been told to back off

to try to make things seem fair.

Finally they finished and went to the corner to talk. Gil wrapped his arm around my shoulder. I snuggled against his side.

We waited. We were way past chihuahuas for nervousness comparisons. We’d gone out the other side of nervous and into calm.

A million years or probably like ten minutes later, the judges came back.

“This was a nice homage to a vaudevillian-style magic show,” Fabienne said. “Certainly the kind of celebratory spectacle we

were hoping for, with a number of different casting skills represented. I would have liked a more cohesive sense of a narrative

rather than simply movement from one element to the next.”

Not totally nice, but not too bad?

Doris sounded like she was reciting something she’d been told to say. “A lovely performative spell. I especially enjoyed the

portion at the end where you incorporated your memories of your grandmother as the magician’s assistant, Penelope. Well done.”

Yeah, I’ll bet she liked seeing an old woman being happy when she was such a miserable prune. I wondered if she would go to

jail after all this.

If Hugh’s eyes could shoot lasers, Gil and I would both be little piles of ash the way he was staring at us.

Finally he said, “It was certainly representative of both your aesthetics and backgrounds, and incorporated some fine technical work, including a risky method that paid off. But I agree that overall it wanted a better flow between components, and a more cogent incorporation of your pressure-cooked portion into the whole.”

Gil and I thanked them all. He retrieved the hat and we went back to our station. I felt deflated as an old balloon, or maybe

like our pinatas after they’d exploded.

Now we had to see how our work compared to Felicia and Charlotte’s. Would we win because the other team once again suffered

a failure? Possibly, given Felicia’s fight with Charlotte over the reagents. But I’d told her how to fix it, and if that worked,

it would be all about whether they’d done a better job than us.

Their spell container was a crystal lattice arrangement that suggested some kind of fractal emanation. Charlotte explained

that it was going to produce a winter wonderland, blah blah blah—guess the ice queens decided to go all the way with their

vibe.

As soon as the spell started, I knew we were going to lose.

It was everything ours wasn’t. Beautiful, graceful, an expanding piece of magic that started with a perfectly rendered snowfall.

Ice trees and flowers sprouted from the snow-blanketed ground; icicles dripped down to hang from glistening branches, tinkling in a chilly breeze.

The tinkling became sleigh bells, and then a tiny sleigh pulled by bunnies drove through, a pair of blue fairies inside.

There was a whole fairy dance, with ice-skating and snowflake crafting and so many other things I could barely keep track of.

Everything felt choreographed, fluid, one thing leading to the next, and when it all finally disappeared back into the lattice, all I could do was marvel at how far I had to go if I ever wanted to truly compete at this level.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was overreacting. The judges’ comments on our spell were fresh in my brain, and it seemed like

none of them applied to Felicia and Charlotte’s spell. Gil had my shoulder in a tight grip, and I was holding on to his waist

like I’d fall over if I didn’t. I probably would; it was late, and I was totally wiped.

Fabienne balanced praise and criticism. Doris loved their spell. Hugh... also balanced praise and criticism, surprising

me. He thought it was “somewhat derivative and emotionally cold.”

Little Manny brought us snacks to keep us alive through the last part of filming. He whispered that Isaac had already left,

because I guess he had more important things to do than his job. Just like Ofelia used to, and wow, it still felt strange

for that chapter of my life to be over.

This one would be, too, any minute now.

As if I’d summoned them with that thought, the judges finished their point arguing and let Rachel know they were ready to

film. Tori started calling out orders, still calm. Liam rechecked our mics and Nate gave us a double thumbs-up.

This was it.

I squeezed Gil hard enough for his bones to creak.

Syd rocked back and forth on their feet, grinning. “I haven’t been this excited for a finale since I got obsessed with that

K-drama The King’s Personal Guard . Have you seen it?”

I shook my head, and so did Gil. Charlotte glared at them instead of responding. To my immense shock, Felicia said, “It was

good, but Petals on a Cold Wind had a better ending.”

“That one was a slow burn to a bonfire, wasn’t it?” Syd agreed. They bantered about their favorites as Gil and I traded looks.

“Who knew she had a heart at all?” Gil whispered.

“Only for K-drama, apparently,” I replied.

Tori waved a pen at us. “Places, people. Penelope, Leandro, let’s take the hugging down a notch. Give me confident, apprehensive,

smiling, whatever feels right.”

Hugging Gil felt right, but I settled for hand-holding. We could hug later.

Syd sipped some lemon water, shook themself like a wet dog, then stared into the camera. The slate clacked.

“Our judges,” Syd said, “have cast their final judgment of this competition on our remaining teams. Felicia and Charlotte,

Penelope and Leandro, it’s been amazing to have you all here with us and to see your fabulous spells. No matter what happens

now, I know you all have spectacular magical futures ahead of you.”

I smiled. I had job and apartment hunting ahead of me, but maybe with Gil helping, it wouldn’t be so bad.

“This was a difficult decision for the judges.”

Was it, though?

“They considered the teams’ performances not only in this round, but in all the prior rounds as well.”

Ouch. We’d barely managed to keep from being cut in every other round, it felt like, and probably would have lost sooner if

not for the sabotage. The points couldn’t possibly even out for us.

Well, at least our pinatas were awesome.

“Without further ado, the winner of our Spellebrity edition of Cast Judgment is...” Syd paused, making eye contact with all of us individually. I had a death grip on Gil’s hand. My lungs stopped

working. Could someone die from suspense? Literally? I would be the first if Syd didn’t—

“Felicia and Charlotte! Congratulations, ladies.”

Apparently I did still have air in my lungs, because it all left in a big whoosh.

I’d known we probably wouldn’t win, but I guess I’d still had some tiny hope that maybe .

. . But no. It was over. The judges clustered around the winners, shaking hands and smiling.

They couldn’t hear my dreams crashing to the floor.

Gil pulled me into a hug, and we stood there for I don’t know how long. Tori would probably make us do something in a minute,

join the celebratory cluster or whatever, but until that happened, I enjoyed how safe and comforting it felt to be held.

And then Gil said, “I know your abuela would be so proud of you right now.”

You know what? She would. She really, really would. She would have been proud of me just for being on the show in the first

place. She would have called everyone whose number she kept in her little phone book, pages of handwritten names, to gossip

about me. She would have told the neighbors, the people in her knitting club, the checkout person at the grocery store. She

would have bragged anytime she could find a way to insert it into a conversation.

But honestly, she had been proud that I worked as a spell technician. She’d been proud that I studied magical theory in college.

Even when I’d burned down her fucking kitchen, she’d been proud that I had tried to do something difficult. How had I memory-holed

all of that? How had I gotten so sucked into feeling like a failure that I’d ignored everything I’d ever done right?

“Your grandfather must be so proud of you, too,” I told him.

Gil grinned. “He is, actually. And...” He leaned in to whisper in my ear. “He can’t wait to meet you.”

My face went up in flames. He’d already talked to his grandfather about me? Before I could ask, Syd came up to us, smiling in that slightly embarrassed way that said they knew this was awkward for us.

“Penelope and Leandro, you were amazing,” Syd said gently, laying a hand on my shoulder.

“Yeah,” I said. “We were. We are.”

“We will be,” Gil said.

“Presto,” I agreed.

We’d won each other, I thought as I hugged him. That was all the magic we needed.