Page 3 of A Witch in Notting Hill

Willow

W hen we finally made it to Heathrow, we were both exhausted. Not just red-eye exhausted, but the kind of exhausted that comes with overstimulation and a general sense of panic that even the usual daily dose of antianxiety medication can’t fix.

Okay, maybe that was just me. Vera was asleep in her carrier, and I felt my jealousy like hunger pangs.

Or maybe those were hunger pangs. When was the last time we’d eaten? I’d been too stressed to eat on the flight and Vera had been sound asleep, so we missed every meal they’d tried to serve. And there was no way I was actually going to feed Vera cat food, was I?

I was contemplating whether that was appropriate or degrading when I saw the Pret A Manger logo in the distance, calling to me like an oasis in the desert. This really was the Queen’s Terminal.

By the time we were armed with sandwiches (cheddar and pickle for me, tuna for Vera) and cold brew (just me—I had to draw the line somewhere), I was ready to get my ass to Coven & Codex and find some answers.

Though the more I looked at Vera, who seemed to be getting cozier in the carrier by the minute, I was beginning to wonder whether she was equally desperate.

I couldn’t even remember the last time she went on vacation (despite my insistence), so I had to imagine there was something positive about getting the chance to lie down and do nothing for the foreseeable.

Or that was just something I was telling myself to feel better about the whole thing. Hard to say.

With my suitcase in one hand and Vera in the other, I made my way to the Underground.

The anonymity of a crowded train platform was so satisfying that I allowed myself to take a deep breath for the first time since LA, but I learned my lesson and remembered not to remove my hat or sunglasses, no matter how desperate I was to have a break from the disguise.

The last thing I needed on this adventure was for someone to recognize me.

Scratch that.

The last thing I needed on this adventure was for someone to recognize me and realize I was a witch.

And not even a good one.

Though society’s response to witchcraft was disbelieving at best and degrading at worst, so the headlines would likely have been more about how I “thought” I was a witch, and that might have been even worse.

There was no upside to this mess. Perhaps I needed a better disguise.

The famous disembodied voice reminded us to “mind the gap” as the Piccadilly line train pulled to a stop, and I felt farther from home than ever.

I’d traveled to dozens of countries over the years for work, England included on multiple occasions, and yet, as I shuffled with the masses onto the subway, I might as well have been on another planet entirely.

“Let’s hope this is quick,” I whispered to Vera. “Hotel, then bookstore, then back to LA before we know it.”

Drowsy as she was, she shot me a look that said, Stop talking to your cat on the Tube , and as always, she was right.

I didn’t need to draw any more attention to myself, and I was certain I looked insane.

So we both settled in for the ride, listening for our change at Hammersmith, counting the minutes until Notting Hill revealed herself.

And reveal herself she did. After a frenzied change at Hammersmith, we made it to Ladbroke Grove in one piece, and we were treated to quintessential London views on the short walk to the hotel: rows upon rows of pastel Victorian homes, red double-decker buses, cobbled sidewalks, expanses of heavy gray sky.

I couldn’t deny the magic of the city, even under this kind of stress. And not my chaotic kind of magic, either. The magnetic kind. The kind that made it impossible to believe life existed anywhere else.

We’d made it.

It was time for Operation Spell Reversal.