Goddess help us.
Another sob burst from Jonesy’s lips. She pressed a quivering hand over her mouth a moment too late. “He stole my girls and stacked my class with boys who’ve never acted a day in their lives. I’ve been begging for masculine-presenting people for years and now I’ve got a windfall. A windfall! Good Goddess, I’m going to have to get rights forNewsies.”
Embry patted her shoulder. “Slow down, there’s no reason to change your plans just yet.”
Jonesy’s gaze raised, incredulous, furious. “We can’t doInto the Woodswith two girls! Sure, I’ve got my Witch”—here she motioned to Embry—“and my Little Red Riding Hood”—and now to Ames—“but the cast is half and half. We could get creative with the gender roles in casting, of course, but it’s a musical and it isfar too muchto hope a half dozen of these boys can carry a tune.”
Jonesy was going to make the head Witch of Raven’s Head intotheWitch in the show? That was more than Embry could’ve even imagined—how tongue in cheek and—
“Newsiesis a musical, too,” Ames pointed out gently (for her).
“Oh, no, itis. Maybe if they’reallsinging and dancing, it’ll sound okay?” Jonesy was the picture of downtrodden. It was as if she’d been tackled by the football team instead of infiltrated by them. “Why would he do this to me? Julius Heston knows my budget and how I already blew it on the rights and don’t get me started on the costumes—”
“Don’t change a thing; we’re going fix this, Jonesy.”
If anyone was good at solving problems, it was Embry Woodcross.
The teacher raised her eyes but didn’t seem emboldened byEmbry’s confidence. “That’s sweet, but even the most talented of witches cannot magically make it all go back to how it used to be.” She grimaced. “And as much as I wish that man an everlasting hemorrhoid, there’s nothing I can do.”
A witch like Embry could technically give Heston an everlasting hemorrhoid, but she wouldn’t need to. “We’ll just balance out class enrollment if you give us a few days—no magic time travel needed.”
Jonesy sighed. “I appreciate that, but it’ll take me a week to get Martinelli to sign off on emergency funding to purchase a new show, which means casting will be in two weeks instead of one and that only gives us a month before opening night. I just don’t think we have the time.”
“We do. Just give us until the end of the week.”
Embry and Ames both nodded confidently, hands on hips, ready to get shit done.
They weren’t acting, though Jonesy had taught them well over the past few semesters. They were seniors, prefects, and popular. If anyone at this school could change the entire makeup of a class in just a couple of days, they could.
And Jonesy, bless her, knew it.
“Okay.” Jonesy shook out the sleeves of her adorably hippie-ish dress and pushed back her shoulders until she was standing tall again against the stage apron. “I suppose we could start by introducing the football team to the wide world of theater and go from there.”
Embry nodded, hoping her enthusiasm was revitalizing Jonesy’s internal empathic core. “Maybe they’ll surprise us in a good way.”
Jonesy smiled weakly as the girls returned to their seats in the very front row of the theater. “I don’t want any more surprises today if that’s not it.”
As if on cue, because it was that sort of day, a surprise walked into the theater.
Rye Knighton.
Jogging down the center aisle, artfully destroyed tennis shoes drumming on the onyx carpet, his customary button-up cuffed to the elbows and undone, a graphic tee from his massive collection layered beneath. He flashed both an apologetic smile and a brand-new lanyard.
“Sorry I’m late, Jonesy,” he called as he approached. “Guest pass shenanigans.”
“Oh, Goddess, really? They should know who you are! It’s only been three months since graduation!” Jonesy exclaimed, then pulled Rye in for a quick hug, because that’s just how she was. “I’m so glad you’re here. I needed some good news!”
Rye’s smile fell into true concern as he asked gently, “What’s going on?”
Jonesy immediately launched into a low-toned, hand-waving explanation of her very sudden and terrible enrollment problems.
“So, should I know who that is?” Alistair asked the front row group in a whisper. “Other than another guy when we already have about ten too many of those?”
Sometimes for a person who could literally look into the future, Alistair was really terrible at remembering anything he’d learned in the past.
“Ryszard Knighton,” Ames stated flatly. Rye’s big brother act was not her favorite because she did, in fact, already have three big brothers and didn’t need another, especially in her coven away from home. “He’s the broody beanbag next door.”
Alistair’s brows pinched. “That man is not from Miami.”
