Page 13 of A Witch in Notting Hill

Willow

“W illow, this is Minho and Lola. Minho and Lola, this is Willow.” Oliver gestured impatiently for us to shake hands, hug, do whatever we had to do to get the pleasantries out of the way so that we could get on with the show.

“Pleasure,” Minho said, shaking my hand with a firmness that did not match the goofy smile spreading across his face.

“I’m a hugger,” Lola said, pulling me in before I could protest. Not that I would have.

Something about her was so disarming there was a chance I made the first move and hugged her myself.

“Sorry, was that too much? People probably try to hug you all the time. I just didn’t want to do anything out of the ordinary for me, because Oliver said to be normal, so—”

Oliver cleared his throat, and Lola clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’m sure you’ve realized by now I don’t exactly have a ‘normal,’” she said.

“No one does.” I smiled. “It’s nice to meet you both. And thank you for doing this. I’m sure you have much better things to do today, and I know this is a lot to ask.”

“Nonsense,” Minho said. “I’ve been meaning to get back into this building anyway, and Lo never has anything going on.” Lola only shrugged. “Don’t let Oliver here convince you this is a burden.”

“No, no, he’s actually been really helpful.”

“Oliver Hadley has been helpful?” Lola asked. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same guy? Bad attitude, general disdain for anything fun and whimsical, impossibly nice hair that women love even though he—”

“Thank you, Lola,” Oliver cut in. “I’m standing right here. I think she knows which Oliver Hadley we’re talking about. And is it so hard to believe I’ve been helpful? It’s literally my job.”

Obviously it was his job, but for some reason hearing him say it felt like just missing the train. I hadn’t even been willing to admit it to myself, but this gut punch made it impossible to deny I’d been secretly hoping he’d been doing this because he wanted to, not because he felt an obligation.

But maybe the reality check was for the best.

“It’s just that we don’t actually think you like doing your job,” Lola said.

“I like my job just fine.”

“Yeah, we’re all convinced,” Minho said, and laughed, pulling a key fob out of his pocket and heading toward the door. “Are we ready, then?”

“You guys think I don’t like my job?” Oliver asked, apparently unable to move on.

“It’s not that,” Lola said, softening her tone. “We know you like the book part. But we also know you don’t like the magic part.”

“It’s not that I don’t like the magic part,” he clarified. “It’s that I don’t believe in the magic part.”

“There’s a difference?”

I was wondering the same myself, only I hadn’t the courage to ask. Thank god for Lola.

“Do we have to talk about this now?” Minho asked. “I’d like to get in and out of here before anyone starts asking questions.”

“Are we not allowed to be here?” I asked, suddenly worried I was about to get us all in trouble for trespassing.

“Technically we’re allowed to be in here, but it isn’t exactly encouraged. So I’d like to make this fast, if you don’t mind.”

“Which means you,” Oliver said, turning to me and pulling the brim of my hat so low it almost covered my eyes, “need to stay hidden. Last thing we need is a scene.” I slid my sunglasses onto my face and tucked my hair up into the back of the hat, and he nodded in approval.

“You two have gotten into quite the rhythm, haven’t you?” Lola asked.

“Not the time, Lo,” Oliver snapped. “Min, let’s do it.”

“Right.” Minho scanned his fob, and we all breathed a sigh of relief when the sensor turned green and the lock clicked open. “Act like you know what you’re doing.”

“Third floor, green door,” Lola repeated like a mantra, and we followed her with our heads down.

Fortunately, the first floor was bustling, which made it easy for us to blend in. Creatives of all ages shuffled around in Birkenstocks and trendy sneakers that were so ugly they were cool, wearing coveralls and chambray button-downs and acrylic glasses.

“What is this place?” I asked as we slipped unnoticed up the stone staircase that dominated the center of the room. It looked like if the Museum of Natural History had a baby with Mia Thermopolis’s apartment in The Princess Diaries .

“Kind of a hybrid coworking space and artists’ collective,” Minho explained, nodding to someone we passed on our way up.

“My company didn’t do too much by way of the design, since we were trying to preserve the historic integrity of the building.

Just reinforced the structure to bring it up to code. ”

“What did the building used to be?”

“Saw a couple different uses over the years. Churches, theater companies, art installations, auctions, that sort of thing. Been this collective for years now. Some locals rotate in and out and rent spaces, and others, like this”—he checked the paper in his hand—“Diane, I presume, have made themselves at home.”

We rounded landings on the second and third floors, lined with faded portraits and ripped newsletters and cigarette butts in the windows. How a place could be at once so charming and vaguely gritty I wasn’t sure, but something about it felt promising.

Diane’s door was, indeed, painted green and hanging haphazardly from the hinges, granting us a peek inside.

She sat in a ripped leather chair facing away from the door, her sleek gray bob a stark juxtaposition to the chaos around her.

Stacks of books, dripping taper candles, dishes filled with vintage jewelry—the occult proprietors were definitely cut from the same cloth.

And they all reminded me of Granny Annie.

“Who’s going in?” Minho whispered.

“Me,” Oliver and I said at the same time.

“You’ve done enough,” I assured him. “Let me handle this one.”

“Let’s do it together,” he said, releasing the knot of anxiety at the base of my throat. “I met her at an auction last year and we got on. Well, we got on enough, anyway.”

“That doesn’t sound promising.”

“What happened to trust?”

“You trust this wanker?” Lola whispered to Willow.

“Can’t you two go wait outside?” Oliver asked, though it sounded like more of a demand. “Min, thank you for your help. And, Lo, thank you for your, er, moral support. Now let us get to it before we all get kicked out, will you?”

“Fine, fine,” Lola said, raising her hands in surrender. “Let’s go, Min. Let these two have their moment.”

“No one is having a moment—”

“Oliver, stop taking the bait,” Minho said, shaking his head as he followed Lola down the stairs in the direction of the front door.

“Ready?” I asked, trying to ignore how adamantly he’d insisted we weren’t having a moment. Which we weren’t. But why was he so desperate to convince them? And if he really was, why was he standing so close?

“Let’s.” He rapped twice on the door high over my head, careful not to knock it off the hinges entirely.

“Diane Hughes?” he asked. “It’s Oliver Hadley, from Coven and Codex?

We met at the Occult Premier Oxford last year.

Bromley sent me—well, my friend and me—and we’re hoping you have some information about Rewind: A Manual for Counter Magic ? ”

The door swung open so quickly I was pretty sure I gasped out loud. She stood with one hand on her hip and the other tapping her fingertips against deep purple lips, studying the two of us from behind wire-framed glasses.

“Arthur’s nephew?” she asked. “Shop in Notting Hill?”

“The very one.”

“And who is this?” She turned her gaze to me, and I swallowed hard.

“This is Willow,” Oliver said. “An old friend from, er, childhood.”

“Ah,” she said, but it didn’t seem like she believed him.

I couldn’t tell if it mattered. What I could tell, however, was that the pitch of her voice sounded exactly like my grandmother’s, and I was suddenly overwhelmed by how much I missed her.

How much I wished she was here to help me get out of this.

And how desperately sad I felt that she wasn’t.

In the months since she’d passed I’d returned to a sense of normalcy, and I was generally able to keep the tears at bay when I wasn’t in the comfort of my apartment.

My flat . But there were times I was bombarded with an unshakable longing.

It wasn’t grief, necessarily. She was an old woman who’d lived a beautiful life and she’d accepted it was her time to go, but that didn’t stop me from missing her down to my bones.

And now was one of those times.

Tears pooled in the corners of my eyes in that kind of unstoppable way I hadn’t felt more than a handful of times since I was a kid, and I knew there was no saving myself from the embarrassment of crying in front of near strangers who were going out of their way trying to help me.

“Are you all right?” Diane asked, squinting her eyes like getting a closer look would help her figure out what inappropriate emotion I might have been experiencing.

“Fine, fine,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Why d’you look like you’re about to cry, then?” Oliver asked, his expression noticeably more concerned than Diane’s.

“I’ll just... If you’ll excuse me..

. I’ll just wait in the hall if that’s all right,” I mumbled before hustling out the door and into the hall, where I attempted a few deep, steadying breaths.

With my back against the wall, I lowered myself to the ground, dropping my head onto my knees and breathing in the pattern I practiced with my therapist. Inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

“Willow?” Oliver asked after who knew how long. “Is everything all right?”

What was I supposed to say? He’d know I was lying if I said yes, but I couldn’t go telling him my grandmother—the very woman for whom we were supposedly finding this book—was dead, could I?

“Just, um, a bit overwhelmed,” I said. “Sorry.”

“No need to apologize.”

I waited to see if he would say anything else, but all he did was slide down the wall beside me into the same position on the floor. Wordless, but even more of a presence as a result.

“I just want to find the book, you know? To do the right thing, reverse the spell.”

“You say that like you have something to prove.”

“Are all Englishmen this perceptive? Or just the bookish kind?”

“Just the bookish kind.” He smiled. “We’re a rare breed. Speaking of which...” He pulled a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and waved it in front of me, smiling when I grabbed it from him.

“What’s this?”

“Our next stop.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“That should be my line.”

“Oliver, I can’t let you do this. I’ll take it from here,” I said. I wasn’t totally lying when I said I was overwhelmed. This was becoming a lot, grandmother or no grandmother.

“It’s not only me you have to contend with now,” he said. “You think Minho and Lola aren’t going to jump at the chance to make another stop? Those two are bored to death. They’re dying for something interesting to do.”

“We can hear you,” Lola called from the bottom of the stairs, making me laugh long enough for the tears to subside.

“Last stop,” he said. “She’s certain it’s there.” He got to his feet and held out his hand, warm and rough and twice the size of mine, helping me off the floor without a trace of judgment.

“Then what are we waiting for?”