Page 23 of A Witch in Notting Hill

Oliver

T he vulnerability of Willow’s seasickness left me shaken in ways I wasn’t willing to admit. The way she relaxed back into me when we made it to the lower deck, trusting my advice and letting me take care of her, filled me with a sense of pride I hadn’t felt in a long time.

I didn’t want to want to take care of her like this.

I hadn’t planned to feel a swell in my chest every time she looked to me for support, every time she let me take the lead.

She was seeing someone, she believed she was a witch, and she was going back to California in a few short months, and none of that made it okay for me to feel this way.

I needed to get this crush under control.

But then I remembered Lola saying that the guy Willow was seeing was a real dick, and I was back at square one: wanting to protect her, look out for her, even though I knew she didn’t need either. It didn’t stop me from wanting to be the one she could lean on.

Which, I knew, was insane.

I tried to snap myself out of it as we arrived at the Isle of Wight, focusing instead on my surroundings and our plans for the day and the welcome break from the heat of the city.

“Tell me we’re here,” Willow said from the back seat with her eyes pressed shut. “Are we here?”

“Indeed we are,” I said, likely as relieved as she was that she’d made it in one piece. It was touch-and-go there for a second, but fortunately she pulled through.

“Thank god,” she said. “Sorry for the drama.”

“Oh, please. That was nothing compared to the drama Lo’s capable of,” I said.

“He’s right. I’m more dramatic by nine o’clock in the morning than you’ve been this whole time you were fighting for your life.”

“See what I mean?” I said.

“I can’t even make fun. I really did feel like I was fighting for my life there for a second. I owe it to you for saving me,” she said, reaching up to the front seat to touch my shoulder. A fleeting, gentle touch I was certain I’d be feeling for the rest of the day.

“That’s what I’m here for,” I said, resisting the urge to turn around and check to see if the color was back in her face. Instead, I kept my gaze locked firmly out the window, watching the coastline turn into rolling hills as we crept closer to the farm.

I’d been to the Isle of Wight a handful of times as a child, but I hadn’t been back since, and this drive alone was making me wonder what took me so long.

As the cliffsides and wide beaches turned into sprawling green, stone cottages, and high streets that looked like they hadn’t aged a day in hundreds of years, I was reminded how silly it was to spend so much time cooped up in London when this was only a few hours’ drive away.

It wasn’t that I didn’t love Notting Hill.

It was a beautiful place and I was well aware how fortunate I was to call it home, but that didn’t mean I didn’t notice the gritty underbelly of the city, the increasing flocks of tourists, the sometimes never-ending monotonous drone of the workweek.

The isle seemed like a place where hardly anyone even worked, but instead spent their days browsing the markets, wandering the coastline, and tending their gardens.

And as far as I was concerned, there were far worse ways to live.

“Can you imagine living here?” Willow said, taking the words right out of my mouth.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Min said.

“You’ve all been here before?”

“Every person who lives in England came here as a kid,” Lola said. “It’s a popular holiday spot.”

“Puts our holiday spots to shame,” Willow said. “There’s so much character here.”

“Arguably too much, sometimes,” Min said with a laugh. “Wait until we get to the market. Everyone’s as old as the buildings themselves, and they’re all a bit mad.”

“In the fun way,” Lola added. “You’ve nothing to worry about. We’ll find that calamint in no time.”

I hoped she was right. I could see the tension return to Willow’s shoulders even as she marveled at the countryside, undoubtedly nervous we wouldn’t find what we came for. And as much as I wanted to be the comfort she needed, I, too, was vaguely nervous we wouldn’t find what we were looking for.

While I didn’t believe in any of this, it was obviously causing her a great deal of stress, and I wanted to be able to mitigate that.

Even if there was a perfectly logical explanation for why she seemed to believe a person was now a cat, she wasn’t interested in logic, and it wasn’t exactly my position to try to convince her otherwise.

My job was to help my customers find what they were looking for, and that was exactly what I was doing.

Whatever happened after that, well, that wasn’t my business anymore.

The farm stretched out before us in varying shades of green, dotted with pitched white tents, wooden farm stands, and a stone barn standing proudly at its center.

It was worlds away from London, and while I was mildly anxious about leaving the shop to Wesley for a full day, I couldn’t deny how good it felt to take a breath in the countryside.

“Right, well, this is it,” Min said as he put the car in park. “Are we ready?”

“No time like the present,” Lola said.

We climbed out of the car, and I gave in to the temptation to really look at Willow. Full bottom lip between her teeth, eyes wide. “You all right?” I asked.

“Cautiously optimistic.”

“Me too,” I said, surprised I actually meant it. “But I have a good feeling. Come on.” We both relaxed as she fell into step beside me, and the four of us made our way into the market.

It was more crowded than I’d anticipated, but that made it easier for Willow to blend in. Not that this was really the crowd that would notice her, anyway. It was mostly locals and the elderly, so I had a feeling she’d be pretty safe. Still, I’d keep my head on a swivel so she wouldn’t have to.

“Where do we even begin?” she asked, looking around like a deer in headlights.

“Looks like herbs are over there,” I said, nodding toward a row of stalls lining the left side of the market. “Let’s just start at the first one and make our way through?”

“Works for me,” she said.

So that was what we did. We wandered from stall to stall, browsing their offerings and inspecting every bed for signs of wood calamint. When we came up empty after the fifth stall and Willow’s shoulders started to sag, I had to take matters into my own hands.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said to a man running what looked to be the largest of the stalls. “D’you know where we can find wood calamint?”

“Aye, it’s wood calamint yer after, is it?” He scratched his jaw. “You’ve come to the right place, but you’ve come at the wrong time, I’m afraid. We’ve had so much rain this year it’s been a bit of a faff to grow the bloody thing, and I reckon most of us have sold it by now.”

“Ah, come on, mate,” I said. “Someone’s got to have it here, no?” There was no way we came all the way over here for nothing.

“You could try that bloke down the end there,” he said, pointing toward a stall on the outskirts of the market. “He’s got some rare shite. Might have a bit of calamint in there yet.”

“Thank you,” Willow said, shaking his hand with both of hers. His scowl instantly dissolved into a gentle smile, the wrinkles between his eyes softened, and he bowed his head.

“A pleasure, dear. Tell him Ewan sent ya if he gives you a hard time. And if he doesn’t have what yer looking for, do come back and I’ll sort you right out.”

As we shuffled away from his booth and in the direction of his mate, Lola bumped Willow with her hip. “Maybe you should be in charge,” she said. “You’re way more charming than Oliver.”

“I’m standing right here.”

“Well aware,” Lola said.

Willow laughed. “It isn’t a contest,” she said. “I just want to get the job done.”

“I know you aren’t exactly keen on showing your face around the city, but it isn’t a bad idea out here. People like your face. Obviously,” I said.

Willow tutted. “Don’t be silly. It has nothing to do with my face. He was a nice guy.”

“Maybe he just didn’t like your face,” Min said, nodding at me.

I was relieved for a change in subject, even if it was at my expense.

I knew Willow didn’t like to get her way because she was famous, and it seemed she liked getting her way because she was beautiful even less.

I made a mental note to tell Lola later not to push it.

“Then he has terrible taste,” I said. “Let’s see what this other bloke has to say.”

Had Ewan not directed us to this stall, I wasn’t sure we would have even known it was part of the market.

It didn’t have the same pomp and circumstance of the others: no signage, no tent, no A-frame out front.

Just a boy who looked no older than fifteen sitting behind a wooden table stacked with bundles of herbs.

“Are we sure this is our guy?” Minho asked, tilting his head to the side as he studied him.

“Only one way to find out,” Willow said, approaching the stand. “Hi.” She smiled, but he hardly looked up from his book. “We’re looking for wood calamint? Ewan sent us over, said you might still have some.”

“Doubt it, but can look for ya,” he said, though he still hadn’t moved.

“Only if it isn’t too much trouble.” This woman knew what she was doing, and it was working. When he finally lifted his gaze to her, he dropped his book in his lap and pushed his sloppy hair out of his eyes.

“Bloody hell,” he said, his voice gruffer than I’d expected for a kid his age. “Are you Willow James?”

Willow opened and closed her mouth but said nothing.

I could tell she hadn’t expected this. Perhaps we should have, given he was a good forty years younger than everyone else here, but being on the isle felt like going back in time, and it was almost hard to believe this kid had even seen a film, let alone one Willow was in.

“She gets that all the time,” I said. “Don’t you, Gem?”

“I do,” she said. “But I’m afraid I’m just a doppelganger.”

“I could have sworn you were her,” he said, eyes narrowed in disbelief.

“If only. Mind if we—”

“Can we take a photo anyway to send to my mates? I bet they’d fall for it.”

Even his mates knew who she was? Jesus. “Listen, we’re just here for the herbs,” I said, stepping between Willow and the kid.

“Aye, all right,” he said, raising his hands and shrinking back behind his table.

I wasn’t often intimidating and rarely used my height to my advantage, but I didn’t like the way he was looking at her and knew she was too polite (or maybe too heavily media trained) to deny him the photo, especially when he had something we needed, so I figured I’d be the bad guy on her behalf. “The calamint then, is it?”

“Please,” she said, her wide smile offsetting my frown.

“Now tell me,” he said as he pushed herbs around with his gloved hands, “d’you plan on growing it or eating it?”

“Uh, steeping it in a tea?” she said.

“Right, then it’ll need to be soaked in cold water overnight first,” he said, pulling a thick bunch from a pot. “To remove the toxins and that.”

“Toxins?”

“Just yer standard,” he said. “We don’t use pesticides or anything, but we do treat some of our herbs there with chemicals to prolong their lifetime and protect them from insects and that. Just a good overnight soak’ll do the trick.”

An overnight soak.

Undoubtedly, all four of us were on exactly the same page. The instructions in the spell said to “prepare and consume locally.” Meaning Willow couldn’t take them back to London. Meaning we either had to drive back and forth or—

“We’re going to have to spend the night,” she said, turning to face the three of us. I didn’t think it was possible for her eyes to get any wider, but she was full of surprises. “Unless we drive back and forth, but—”

“All in favor of spending the night?” Minho asked, raising his hand.

This was not in the cards. I had shit to do at the shop, none of us had anything packed, and I feared we would be hard-pressed to find a hotel in the area.

But when Lola’s hand shot up, followed by Willow’s, albeit much slower, I realized I was outnumbered.

“That’s three to one,” Lola said. “Get on board, Hadley.”

“I’ll find us a hotel.” I sighed. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to help Willow. It was just that I wasn’t exactly the spontaneous type, and this definitely wasn’t part of the plan. Besides, the last thing I needed was to be spending the night in the same place as Willow James.