Page 7 of Witch You Would

Hands shaking, I texted Emelia while my stomach tried to escape through my belly button.

Me: I GOT FIRED OMFG

Eme: NO SHE DIDNT

Eme: what a raging come ping a

Eme: comepinga, stfu autocorrect

Me: lolsob

Eme: do you need money?

Me: not yet

Eme: you can sleep in my bathtub

Eme: like a sad mermaid

Eme: I’ll get you some shells for your boobs

Me: conch shells lol

Eme: more like snail shells

I snort-laughed while continuing to freak out. I could multitask. Then a worse thought occurred to me: I couldn’t drop off

the store keys for two weeks because I was stuck here.

A movie played in my brain: Ofelia can’t find some random item; Ofelia calls the cops and blames me; a SWAT team dramatically

blows open a wall in the warehouse, rushes in, tackles me, and cuffs me while everyone screams; my mom cries on TV about how

I’d always been a failure, especially compared to my sister, but she didn’t know I was desperate enough to turn to a life

of crime; Rosy tries to bring me an escape spell hidden inside a pastelito—

Me: ffffffffff

Me: I have to turn in my work keys but they’re at my house

Eme: I’ll take care of it

Me: excuse me how

Eme: I have my ways

Me: you’re going to ask Cari to break in

Eme: ding ding ding

Our cousin Carina had like twelve jobs, all side hustles. She was also our family fixer, always running around Miami to help someone out. Most importantly for this situation, she had a locksmith kit.

Me: they’re on a hook by the front door

Me: make sure she locks up again after

Eme: duh not her first time

Me: okay they’re taking my phone in a minute gotta go

Eme sent me a GIF of a cartoon otter saying, “You got this!” and it made me feel a little better.

I tried to figure out what else I needed to do before I was cut off. Tell Rosy? No, she’d want to talk; I texted her a dancing

girl emoji. Call Ofelia and beg for my job? That wouldn’t work unless I did it in person, and if she said no, then I’d have

no job and no Cast Judgment to win. Maybe if I explained where I was, I could convince her the show would be great free publicity for the store? Except

she’d never be able to keep it a secret, and the lawyer ninjas would take me out.

Another thought smacked me. Gil. I needed to email him before Ofelia did.

Why hadn’t I ever told him my actual name? Why hadn’t I asked him out? I made a constipated hippo noise and tried to open the store email.

I was locked out.

Ofelia had once bricked her computer by downloading enough malware to destroy reality, but she’d managed to change the email

password three seconds after firing me. How?

Rachel called, “Five minutes!” before vanishing again.

Five minutes? It took forever to mic me and Felicia. I guessed cotton shirts weren’t abominations in the ears of the sound

gods.

I opened my personal email and started a new one to Gil. Thankfully I remembered his email address. My brain slipped into

some anxiety flow state as I typed faster than I ever had in my life. I barely even knew what I was saying. I think I told

him I was going out of town and begged him to wait for me, like this was some period movie where I was going to war and he

would be left behind, staring out the window as a single tear rolled down his cheek and sad violins played.

I hit send before I could edit. When would I get my phone back? What if my email went to spam and he never saw it?

Why did I care more about this than getting fired?

A reply appeared. No way. Too fast. I opened it and my stomach sank to my feet.

An auto-reply. Apparently Gil was actually going out of town instead of pretending like me, and he would only be checking

emails periodically. I almost hit my forehead with my phone, except that would mess up my makeup, so I just shook it and growled.

I was fired, I would probably never talk to Gil again, and—

Stop it, Penelope! Breathe. I couldn’t be distracted right now. We weren’t starting the actual spell-casting until tomorrow, but I needed to make a good first impression on Charlotte Sharp. There was no way she’d think I was a cool, competent caster if I was twitching like I’d had a venti espresso.

“Time’s up,” Rachel announced. “Please place any phones, tablets, computers, and similar devices in the box.”

Little Manny put a large metal bin on the floor, and we all surrendered our electronics. Rachel closed the lid, locked it,

and muttered an incantation. Glowing blue sigils floated about an inch from the sides and top for a few seconds before sinking

into the surface with a silent rush of energy and a whiff of sulfur.

No turning back now.

“Okay, we’re good.” Rachel tapped her tablet and gestured at the door. “Let’s get you to the set.”

We followed her like ducklings—or a rubber duck, in my case.

The warehouse part of the building somehow managed to be enormous and claustrophobic at the same time. Fluorescent lights

hung from bare concrete ceilings twenty feet above me, outshone by an array of sun-bright LED panels on stands. A fancy camera

mounted on a crane thing loomed to one side like a long-necked metal dinosaur. There were carts with mystery gadgets covered

in dials and buttons and switches, cables snaking across the floor in every direction, and plastic bins and latched cases

for equipment. It smelled like sawdust, paint, and a hint of body spray.

In the middle of the open space rose a giant room with high walls and double doors but no ceiling. Cables poked out of small

holes in the insulated drywall, some leading to power strips and extension cords, others to a tower of blinking lights and

TV screens in front of fancy ergonomic chairs. Unlike the quieter office area, here people rushed around, setting things up,

moving them, muttering into walkie-talkies or collar mics. It felt like I’d stumbled into a beehive and I had to watch out

or get stung.

Rachel led us through the double doors in the room-in-a-room, where we immediately hit another wall that branched into a hallway going left and right. We went left, turned a corner, and came to a stop.

In front of us, the Cast Judgment set waited in all its magic-making glory. The white walls were covered in stylized runes, sigils, mandalas, and other symbols

that looked impressive but were magically inert. A giant silver pentacle gleamed on the floor, the prep stations arranged

in two rows behind it, plus one in the back center. Stainless steel countertops and tables gleamed above brightly colored

cabinets and shelves, one color per contestant—or in this case, per team. Each station also had its own wooden table, chalk-painted

floor area, fridge with freezer, and fancy six-burner gas range with oven, way nicer than the one I used in the store.

Oh, right. I was fired. The delicate flower of my good mood withered.

“Amazing,” Amy breathed.

“This is so... wow,” Quentin said. “It’s one thing to see it on TV, ya know?”

“For real,” Dylan agreed.

Felicia looked bored.

Rachel walked to the other end of the room and muttered arguments into her collar mic that ended with her stabbing her tablet

with her finger like it had offended her.

“Schedule change,” Rachel told us. “We’re doing solo and pair interviews after lunch, pairs first. Host and judge intros and

partner assignments now. Camera guys are on their way to get everything set up, then Isaac and Tori will take over.”

A bald bear of a man strolled in carrying a complicated-looking camera on his shoulder.

He wiggled his fingers at us, put the camera down, and waited.

Another camera person ducked behind a wheeled tripod thing near the entrance, and I think there was one more in the back of the room somewhere.

Lights were turned on and off. The camera on the crane swung into position overhead.

Everything suddenly went quiet as a storm blew in. Isaac Knight, the showrunner. His brown hair was rumpled like he’d been

running his hands through it, and his goatee was starting to take over the rest of his face and neck. Like most of the PAs,

he wore jeans and a hoodie, but unlike them he’d paid extra for designer logos. He couldn’t have been much taller than me,

but his vibes filled the room as he looked around. Chisme online said some people called him Isaac Nightmare because he was

hard to work with. I couldn’t imagine he was much worse than Ofelia and some customers I’d had; maybe I needed to imagine

harder. He focused on me and the rest of the contestants, and it was like looking into the black eyes of a shark.

“You five,” he said, pointing in our direction. “Stand next to your stations so I can see how you look.”

We hadn’t been told which stations were ours, so none of us moved.

A lady in a black turtleneck and jeans with an asymmetrical brown bob spoke up. “Amy, you’re red. Quentin, orange. Felicia,

yellow. Dylan, green, and Penelope, blue.”

We scrambled past each other, almost colliding. Then we all stared expectantly at Isaac.

Isaac frowned. At me. What did I do?

“Tori, why isn’t she team yellow?” Isaac asked. “She’s wearing yellow.”

“She’s also wearing red and orange,” Tori of the turtleneck said slowly, picking each word like it was a melon at the grocery store. “Do you want wardrobe to—”

“No, just switch them around,” Isaac said, flapping his hand. “Isn’t her celebrity wearing yellow, too? It works. Matchy-matchy.”

My pulse sped up. I tried to remember if I’d ever seen Charlotte wearing yellow.

“Okay,” Tori said. “But Felicia is wearing pink.”

“And her celebrity is wearing blue. Swap them.”

Tori tapped something into her tablet as Felicia and I traded places. Now I was in the back left and she was center back.

I swallowed spit and tried not to fidget.

“Everybody look eager and excited,” Isaac said. “Nate, give me medium and close shots of each of them.”

He turned and walked out. I kept swallowing. How was my mouth so dry? Look excited, he’d said. I put on my retail smile. The

auditions had been stressful, but this was a whole other level.