Page 26 of A Witch in Notting Hill

Oliver

“I ’m telling you, the faster you drink it, the easier it is,” Minho said, handing Willow the cup of calamint tea. “Just shoot it. Down the hatch.”

Willow’s eyes darted to Lola and me, and all we could do was nod encouragingly. “Quicker you get this done, the quicker we get back to the city and on to the next task,” I said. That was what she wanted, right? Better to keep our eyes on the prize.

Especially after last night, where for a blip in time, it felt like our eyes were everywhere but the prize. Or maybe on a different prize altogether. Best not to dwell on either.

“Count me down,” she said.

“Three, two—” She tossed her head back and swallowed the entire cup of tea in one impressive gulp. All this, the past twenty-four hours, the travel, the bed-and-breakfast, just for one singular gulp of tea. I hoped it was worth it.

“Good girl,” I said. “How’d it taste?”

“Delicious.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Grandma Dae would be proud,” Min said, trying not to laugh when Willow hiccupped.

“So, that’s it?” Lola asked.

“That’s it.” Willow shrugged. “Sorry it was kind of anticlimactic. I guess it won’t be in the long run, but right now... that’s it.” I hated the hint of apology that laced her tone.

“No bother,” I said. “We aren’t here for excitement. We’re here for the list, and now we can check that off. Well done, you.” Her smile eclipsed her apology, and I felt something in my chest loosen.

“Are we ready to head back, then?” Min asked.

Willow dropped her head back and blew out a hard breath. “Someone just knock me out for the ferry ride. I beg.”

“The drama,” I teased, and she snapped her head in my direction.

“At least now I know who to throw up on.”

“Looks like whatever moment you two were having in the middle of the night didn’t translate to the morning, did it?” Lola said.

“What moment? What’d I miss?” Min asked.

“Just these two chatting each other up in the middle of the night and keeping me awake,” Lola said.

“No one was chatting anyone up,” I said, shooting her a look. “Get your shit. We have a ferry to catch.”

“None of us have any shit, remember?”

“Any votes to throw Lola overboard?”

“If I go down, I’m taking you down with me,” she said.

“Good. Then we won’t have to listen to your bickering.

Car’s leaving in five. Be in it or I’m leaving the lot of you here.

” Min was out the door before we could argue, which was for the best. Lola was quick to follow, leaving Willow and I at the back of the pack, alone, once again. By design, I was starting to presume.

As far as Lola’s went, there were far worse schemes.

“Promise if anyone’s going overboard, it’s me,” she said. “I don’t know if I can handle that again.”

“Stick with me and you’ll be just fine.”

I led her out of the bed-and-breakfast with a hand on her lower back, relishing the way she relaxed into my touch.

Every time I tried to remind myself she was seeing someone, I remembered Lo saying he was a dick, and I remembered Willow brushing it off every chance she got, minimizing it, sweeping it under the rug, whispering to me in the middle of the night, and I found it harder and harder to keep my distance.

The ferry ride back was much like the ferry ride there, only this time we at least knew what to expect.

Willow and I made a beeline for our spot, and this time she did the breathing techniques with less panic, letting me gather her long hair and hold it off the nape of her neck.

She didn’t wince at the intimacy of the moment.

Didn’t shy away from my touch. Let me run my fingers from her scalp to her ends to soothe her, let me hold her hair wrapped around my fist so she could get some air, without so much as bothering to open her eyes.

Her vulnerability with me was the highest compliment.

For someone like Willow, someone always in the public eye, someone hiding out here from anyone who might recognize her, desperate not to be seen, to let her guard down, letting me take care of her even for the short ferry ride felt like nothing short of a miracle.

When we got back to the city and made plans to find the Wharram Percy Pendulum in a few weeks when the four of us next shared a free weekend day, I found myself disappointed I wouldn’t see her in between.

Strangely satisfied by the quest and already wishing there was more of it.

Even if it was meaningless. That didn’t mean everything that was happening along the way was, too.

But it wasn’t like I could ask to see her before we looked for the pendulum.

I could flirt with her, sure, but I couldn’t go asking her out.

Especially when Min was out of town for two weeks for a work thing and Lo had a wedding next weekend and I couldn’t even make it a group thing.

So we parted ways at Notting Hill Gate, and I started the countdown to the bloody Wharram Percy Pendulum search.

As expected, six weeks without Willow felt like three years. I was distracted in the shop, giving shit recommendations and losing track of inventory, and I couldn’t seem to get my head back on straight. Nor was I trying terribly hard, which was equally concerning.

But when the day came that we planned to meet and the bells above the door announced her arrival to the shop, everything slotted into place.

“Hi,” she said, a slow smile spreading across her face. Was she equally happy to see me?

“Hi.” I leaned my forearms on the counter, desperate to be closer to her. “You look well. How’ve you been?”

“Fine, thanks.” Another perfect smile. “Eager to get the show on the road today. I’ve just been cooped up in the flat for the past few weeks.”

“You’re always welcome to hang out here, you know.

” This was news to me, too, even as the worlds tumbled out of my mouth.

Might as well double down. “There’s quite a nice lounge space in the back, perfect for reading or whatever.

Out of view of the customers. And you can always come in when we’re closed to. .. browse.”

Had Lola or Min been here to hear me offer this, they would have wound me up for weeks.

They knew I wasn’t keen on any more social interaction than was necessary, and I hardly even let them in the lounge.

And opening and closing times, with my headphones and my cleaning routines and the silence in the shop, were sacred. Until now.

“That would be really nice,” she said, sounding equally surprised. “But I couldn’t possibly impose.”

“Hardly an imposition when there’s an invitation, yeah?”

“You make a good point there, Hadley.”

“So I’ve been told.”

She leaned on the counter across from me, and had Lola and Min not walked in exactly then, there was no telling what might have come out of my mouth next.

“Are we ready to get this party started?” Lola asked, throwing her arms in the air and doing a weird little shimmy.

“If you call looking for an old pendulum a party, then I guess,” I said.

“Everything’s a party if you have the right attitude.”

“I’m not sure I have the right attitude.”

“We know,” she said. “Willow does, though. Right, Willow?”

“I guess so?” She laughed, and even Lola seemed charmed.

“I’ll take it,” Lo said. “What’s the plan?”

“So, the pendulum was originally found in Wharram Percy, obviously,” I said, “but thankfully it’s in the city now, so we don’t have to make another trip into the countryside.

At least not today. I made a few calls last week and it seems to be in the East London Museum Obscura, so I reckon we go have a look? ”

“Can you, er, cast a spell if it’s in a museum?” Min asked.

“So long as it’s hanging freely, should be fine,” Willow said. “And so long as nobody’s looking.”

“You can’t cast a spell if anyone’s looking?” Lola asked.

“Definitely not,” Willow said. “It’s, uh, it’s an old family thing.

Can’t prove the existence of magic with magic, either.

My grandmother didn’t want me to have to prove myself to anyone when I was a kid, so she made it nearly impossible to do magic if someone was watching, especially if I was trying to make a point, or if anyone was looking for evidence, et cetera, et cetera.

Blessing then, but a curse now.” All three of us stared at her, slack-jawed to varying degrees.

“So how are you supposed to do the last item on the list?” Lola asked. “How can you convince anyone magic exists when you can’t actually show them magic exists?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Willow sighed. “Trying to just take it one thing at a time.”

“Well, then. Let’s go find that pendulum,” I said.

The museum was on the opposite side of the city, and we sat with our shoulders and thighs pressed together for the entire length of the Tube ride. Even as people filtered out, we didn’t move.

Not until a group of women stared at Willow for a second too long, and she turned in to me to keep her face hidden. Before I could think better of it, I twirled a lock of her hair, letting my hand linger in front of her face for long enough that the women put down their phones and looked away.

I knew I was pushing it. Knew I probably could have just stood in front of her or pulled her hat a little lower. But I was losing my grip on whatever it was that kept me in check all these years, and every time she leaned into my touch, I lost it even more.

“That was close,” she whispered when the women got off the train.

“I told you I got you.”

Lola scoffed on the other side of me, and I pretended not to notice.

She stayed close when we got to our stop and wove through the crowds and out onto the street, closer still as we wandered in the direction of the museum.

London’s east side was more crowded than the west. Grittier.

Younger and edgier and more likely to know Willow.

She had a sun hat with a wide brim on today, despite the dense clouds hanging in the sky.

Ridiculous as she looked, it was a sound disguise.

We just had to get in and out of the museum and back to Notting Hill before anyone looked too close.

“How have I never been here before?” Min asked, staring up at the building in awe. “I’ve read about it, but I’ve never thought to come see it in person. This is what I’ve been missing?”

The museum was an architectural wonder, I’d give him that.

Like something out of a storybook, it was hard to believe the building could hold itself up.

All sloping rooftops and rogue turrets and random bursts of modern styles that had to have been later additions.

It was like Strega Nona had moved in with Bill Gates.

Bizarre.

“What the hell is this place?” Lola asked. “Who built this?”

“Omari Mbatha,” Minho said, reverent. “Something about the juxtaposition is supposed to mirror the oddities inside. I read an article about it years ago.”

“Hopefully one of those oddities is the pendulum,” Willow said.

“Only one way to find out.”

The inside was even more obscure than the outside. All sorts of witchy shit around every corner, crystals and mirrors and books and cloaks and floor-to-ceiling plaques and stained glass. A winding staircase dominated one side of the room, a glass elevator on the other.

“Where do we reckon the pendulum is?” I asked, looking around without moving my feet. I got a weird feeling in there. And the quicker we found the pendulum, the quicker we could get out.

“Upstairs, definitely,” Willow said.

“How do you know?”

“Just do.” She shrugged. “Gut feeling.”

That made me feel even weirder. Was she that intuitive? And if she was right, what else did she know based on a gut feeling ?

We climbed the staircase in a single-file line, running our hands along the ornate banister and looking over the edge at the museum below.

I couldn’t tell if the dull electric current I felt in my fingertips was because of this strange museum or because I was only a step behind Willow and could just smell a faint trace of her shampoo, but either way, I was ready to leave before I got zapped.

“Told ya,” Willow said as soon as we got to the top of the stairs, bounding around a corner and into a room with none other than a pendulum hanging in a glass box nearly as tall as Willow herself.

“This is it?” Minho asked, walking a slow circle around the box.

“It is,” she said. “I’ve been reading up on it all week.

Sometime in the sixteenth century, when Wharram Percy was largely deserted, the pendulum was found in the ruins of an old family estate.

In pristine condition. Untouched by whatever natural or unnatural forces turned the estate to ruins in the first place.

It was apparently in a box like this, just swinging there.

When the travelers who found it asked for a guide and it swung violently to the east, they followed, which eventually led to a new settlement that flourished for centuries after.

They’d been looking for a safe place to land, and, well, the pendulum led them to their village, I guess. ”

We looked at her in a collective trance for longer than was necessary, at least on my end.

I’d never been one for a history lesson on witchcraft before, despite my profession, but the cadence of her voice made me wish the story didn’t have an ending.

I could have listened to her talk about this stupid pendulum for the rest of my life and never complained.

“Wow,” Min said eventually. “And is that what we’re meant to do today? Ask it for directions?”

“In a sense,” Willow said. “It hasn’t swung like that for just anyone since—hence the need for the Orientation spell. But if it works, it should point in the direction of the next task.”

“The cleansing?” Lola asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Should tell us which direction the current should flow. Or where the sun should be at the time of the ritual.”

“Go on, then,” I said, hating the buzzing in my chest and the conflict I felt hearing Willow talk about witchcraft like it was factual. “You’re going to be grand,” I added, so she didn’t think I was rushing her because I was a dick.

“Hope so,” she said, and exhaled. “Well, if you guys will just...”

“Right, right, sorry. You’re meant to be alone,” Lola remembered, ushering the two of us out of the room. “What if someone else comes up?”

“I’ll make sure they don’t,” I said. “We all will. Willow, we’ll be at the top of the stairs whenever you’re... done?”

“Thanks,” she said, still staring at the pendulum as we left the room. Whatever the hell she was planning on doing, I really hoped it worked.