Poe Dupont was barely five-four in heels, but he was a giant onstage. I sat in the back of the Hope High auditorium after school the next day, waiting for Reg and Poe to finish rehearsals so we could walk to All Hours together. I had planned to use the time to prepare for tomorrow’s French exam, but the study guide sat forgotten on the seat next to me as Poe pulled me in with a presence that filled the auditorium.

Most of the cast had quit for the day, and just Poe remained onstage, delivering A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s famous final monologue to an audience of three: Reg, the director, and me.

He had to get through it only once clean before we could leave, but he kept starting and stopping.

“It just doesn’t feel like the rest of the script,” he called from the stage. “It’s not coming out the same.”

The director—I was pretty sure he was the drama coach, choir teacher, and maybe even the bandleader—stood to reply. “It’s meant to feel different. Remember, in this moment, you are not Puck, the mischievous fairy, but Poe, the humble player.”

I could hear Poe’s smirk, even if I couldn’t see it from my seat in the back. “Well, therein lies the problem, sir. I’ve been accused of being both mischievous and a fairy, but never humble.”

The director laughed in response, then gestured at Reg, who hopped up to join Poe onstage.

“Perhaps a duet, just for rehearsal,” the director said.

There was a soft moment, where Poe and Reg turned to each other, lost to the audience, to all but each other, and I felt a painful twinge. I wanted Reg to be happy, and if I could have picked the thing to make him happy, I would have picked him a Poe . . . but at what cost?

Fortunately, we had just written our appeal to the Elder Seat that morning, otherwise I might’ve been worried about him changing his mind, wishing to stay a little longer, maybe even forever. Reg had tried to convince me to wait, that it was too soon for a direct appeal, but watching him now onstage, so comfortable in his human skin, I was glad I’d insisted. Our message was already on its way to the council. It had no clan sponsor to carry it, but I hoped we’d struck just the right tone of reverence and desperation. At the very least, they might give us an audience just for the fun of watching us squirm in person.

There was a quiet pause onstage, broken by the opening line of Poe’s monologue, and any tension I was feeling released, unwinding with the soft power of his voice.

“‘If we shadows have offended, think but this, and all is mended, that you have but slumbered here while these visions did appear.’”