Page 15 of A Witch in Notting Hill

Willow

T his was only the beginning. How could I have been so stupid to think it’d be as easy as finding the book? I didn’t want to think Lola had jinxed it, but she might have jinxed it. Six tasks? To complete one spell?

When I was younger, even simple spells often had requirements for completion.

Small offerings, easy lessons to learn, that sort of thing.

Ivy and I didn’t mind; it kept us occupied, and we were excited to have experiences other kids weren’t having.

But as we got older and learned more advanced magic, we no longer had to cover the prerequisites.

But even in those early days, I’d never seen something this involved. The tasks were so daunting I could hardly process them one at a time, and instead I just stared at the open book like it was on fire. Just held it in my hands, wide-eyed, slack-jawed, speechless.

Time slowed, and I finally read the list.

Forage for Clinopodium menthifolium, grown locally. Prepare and consume locally in accordance with your preferences.

Conduct an Orientation spell with the Wharram Percy Pendulum. Use its direction as a guide.

Complete the Ritualistic Restoration Cleansing in a pond, lake, or slow-moving river to prepare the body for the Reversal.

Participate in a Full Moon Ceremony. Stay awake until the following sundown for maximum effect.

Commune with those who have passed on. They know more than any of us who remain in our mortal forms on Earth.

Convince a skeptic of the existence of magic. Use the experience to fortify your powers to effectively produce the Reversal.

“I’m sorry,” Lola said, “but does your gran have to do all of these things?”

All I could do was nod.

“Ritualistic cleansing?”

Nod.

“Chat to the dead?”

Nod.

“Saints alive,” Oliver said, exhaling. “‘Convince a skeptic’? How the hell is she meant to do that?”

“She’s got the time,” Minho said.

“What d’you mean?”

“Look, there,” he said, pointing a long finger at the fine print at the bottom of the page.

If the initial spell is cast on the summer solstice, the reversal must be cast on the winter solstice.

If the initial spell is cast on the winter solstice, the reversal must be cast on the summer solstice.

Regardless of seasonality, Reversal spell and all prerequisite tasks must be completed in the city in which the caster finds this text.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The winter solstice?

It was June, for god’s sake. That meant I couldn’t turn Vera back into a person until December ?

And I had to be in London to do it? My head was spinning.

And my palms were sweating and my throat was dry and my lungs were tight and my eyes were burning and I no longer knew which way was up.

It made sense, given the solstice was the catalyst for the spell in the first place—which I’d feared even at the time—but that didn’t make it any less shocking.

“Maybe you should sit down,” Lola said, resting her fingertips at my elbow and trying to guide me to the floor.

Instead, I slammed the book shut and walked slowly, calmly out of the room.

With the book still in my hands. And with the three of them at my back, whisper-shouting about how I couldn’t take the book out of the stacks.

Their voices broke over me like waves and I couldn’t stop my feet from carrying me out the door.

“God damn it,” I heard Oliver mutter from somewhere behind me as he jogged to my side. “Willow, come on,” he said. “Can’t you just take a photo for your gran? You don’t have to steal the whole book, do you?”

“I do,” I said, without adding any other information.

Mostly because I couldn’t quite explain why a photo wouldn’t suffice.

I knew I needed to be holding the book in my hands while I worked out how to conduct the spell, but I had no plans to reveal I would actually be the one doing the conducting, so I didn’t have much else to say.

Neither of us spoke for a moment until he dropped his head back and exhaled toward the ceiling. “Fine,” he said. “At least let me help. Here.” He held out his hand, and I gave him the book, watching with unabashed appreciation as he tucked it into his inside jacket pocket. “Cover me.”

“I thought you were covering me?”

Without another word he pulled me tight to his side, right up against where the book was bulging from his pocket. We shuffled arm in arm like that out of the section, past Basil at the desk, then out of the library and back in the direction of the Tube, much to the horror of Minho and Lola.

“Didn’t that bloke say he was going to look away?” Minho asked, out of breath from trying to keep up.

“If we took a photo,” Oliver said. “Not if we took the whole bloody book.”

“Stealing from the British Library has to be some kind of indictable offense around here.”

“I hope we never find out,” I said. “I didn’t mean to make you guys accessories to a crime. I just... I needed to get out of there.”

Lola held up her hands. “We’ve all been accessories to far worse crimes.”

“Speak for yourself,” Oliver said.

“Please, go to the pub,” I urged them. “Enjoy the rest of your night.”

“You aren’t coming with us?”

“This has become a bit more involved than I’d thought,” I said, “and I need to get this book to my grandmother.” And I need to get back to Vera, who is probably shredding the wallpaper in the hotel by now, even though this is all for her own good.

I should have been used to the lie by now, but talking about Granny Annie as if she were alive felt like swallowing glass, so I needed to get out of there before things got any worse.

“Tomorrow, then,” Lola insisted, squeezing my arm then following Min in the direction of the pub.

And while I wanted to resist, to untangle them from this mess, I had to admit it felt good to be invited to something as low-key as the pub. By someone who seemed genuinely interested in this journey.

In LA, everyone’s version of magic was green-juice cleanses and holistic healing and homeopathic remedies in place of modern medicine.

People didn’t believe in the occult, but they worshipped at the altars of celebrities and plastic surgeons and anyone with a good tan and straight teeth and a daily Pilates routine.

Here, with the exception of Oliver, far more people seemed to believe magic was possible. Judging by the size of the section in the British Library, people had been believing in the occult for thousands of years. And if this many people believed these spells worked, then maybe I could, too.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Oliver asked, holding me at arm’s length and lowering his head to make eye contact. “You ran out of there like the whole lot was on fire.”

I sighed, resisting the urge to bury my face in my hands.

Though I suspected if I wasn’t looking at him then it was possible the sparking in my chest would stop, and I definitely wouldn’t complain about that.

“I was so overwhelmed by finally finding the book, and then the list, and all I have to do to reverse the spell, and I just—”

“All you have to do? I thought it was all your gran had to do?”

Shit. “Oh, it is! It’s just... I have to get the book back to her and then help her with the tasks, and you know how it goes, and that’s a lot of work, so—”

“Is all of this actually for your gran?” He dropped his arms and took a step back, like I’d burned him. Though the sparking was so common by now that I probably had.

“What?” I asked, though I’d heard him perfectly fine; I just needed to buy myself time. Only my plan backfired, because hearing him repeat the question a second time stung more than the first.

“Is this actually for your gran? Or is it for you?”

“Can’t it be one and the same?” I asked in a last-ditch attempt to save face.

“Willow.” He exhaled, running his hands through his hair and looking away just long enough for me to see the firm, unhappy set of his jaw. “All of this can’t really be for you , can it?”

“Why couldn’t it be?” I didn’t want to confess, but I wasn’t about to let him stand there and make me feel bad about witchcraft, either.

Just because he didn’t believe in it didn’t mean it didn’t exist. We all had things we didn’t believe in, but it wasn’t up to us to decide what was real for someone else, and I wasn’t about to let him try.

“You seem... I don’t know. Smarter than that.”

I scoffed so loud a pigeon flew from its spot at our feet.

How had this taken such a turn? Sure, I hadn’t wanted to tell Oliver the truth, but that was because I knew he didn’t believe in magic and didn’t want to have to explain myself, not because I thought he was going to turn around and be a dick about it.

“So you think witchcraft is stupid?” I asked.

“You run an occult bookshop, and not only do you not believe in your products, but you think the people who do aren’t smart? ”

“I’m not saying I think you’re stupid,” he said, raising his hands and immediately dropping them again. “I’m just saying I didn’t think you’d buy into all this nonsense.”

“Nonsense? This is how you make a living, Oliver, in case you’d forgotten. And just because it doesn’t make sense to you doesn’t mean it’s nonsense. Maybe you aren’t as smart as you think you are if you can’t understand that.”

I hadn’t meant to come to blows outside King’s Cross Station, but I couldn’t just let him talk down on such a fundamental piece of my identity. I could deal with his cynicism, but I couldn’t deal with his condescension.

But at the same time, as soon as the words left my mouth I realized they sounded a whole lot like I know you are but what am I?

, which brought me right back to my childhood days of my malfunctioning powers and trying to explain away every weird thing that happened to me so that the neighborhood kids would stop looking at me like I was growing a second head.

I wanted to be proud of this part of my identity, not burdened by it.

And I’d be damned if he made me feel that way.

Even if up until this moment he’d been a gentleman.

A charming—if edgy—intelligent, considerate gentleman.

One who was passionate about books and secretly loved helping people even if he pretended he didn’t.

And one who was so impossibly handsome every time he looked at me with those green-gray eyes, my bones turned to liquid.

It didn’t matter much anymore. Not that it ever should have mattered in the first place.

“It’s hardly just a belief system so much as it’s science,” he said. “The universe has laws and rules and things, you know? I’m not saying I don’t believe in it because I’m trying to be an arsehole. I’m saying I don’t believe in it because it would be impossible.”

There were so many questions I wanted to ask. I wanted to know how he could possibly think that when we hardly knew the first thing about the capabilities of the universe. How he could even remotely assume everything that ever happened abided by those “laws” and “rules.”

Instead, I said, “Right.”

“That’s all?”

“I’m not going to argue with you here outside the Tube station. We hardly know each other. And I don’t need you to believe in any of it. All I needed was your help finding the book, for which I’m grateful, by the way, but now we can go our separate ways.”

“And you’re going to complete the list on your own?”

“It’s not like you’re going to help me, is it?” Silence. “That’s what I thought. Have a great rest of the night, Oliver.”

Before he could say another word, rude or otherwise, I disappeared down the stairs and into the throngs of the Underground. Just me and the stolen book and the impossible list and a lump in my throat and six months laid out ahead of me before I could even give this thing a shot.

I couldn’t remember all the circles of hell, but this had to be one of them.