Page 123 of Witch You Would
The gloves picked up the hat, then swept it forward as if an invisible magician had bowed. It angled up as if being placedon the magician’s head at a jaunty angle. The gloves and hat spun in a quick clockwise circle, and in a burst of sparks, vanishedinto 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’dpressure-cooked the part with my abuela at the last minute; I wasn’t sure whether he was impressed or just shocked. As lateas 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 offto 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 wewere hoping for, with a number of different casting skills represented. I would have liked a more cohesive sense of a narrativerather 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 theportion 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 tojail 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 maybelike our piñatas 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 suffereda 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 explainedthat it was going to produce a winter wonderland, blah blah blah—guess the ice queens decided to go all the way with theirvibe.
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 wasmarvel 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 likenone of them applied to Felicia and Charlotte’s spell. Gil had my shoulder in a tight grip, and I was holding on to his waistlike 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, surprisingme. 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 strangefor 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 tofilm. 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 thatK-dramaThe 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 wasgood, butPetals on a Cold Windhad 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.
