Page 42 of A Witch in Notting Hill

“I haven’t been giving my magic the attention it deserves,” I confessed.

“And I’m sorry about that. I’m sure you’re disappointed.

I am, too. I’ve been making excuses, letting acting distract me, prioritizing that part of myself because I was ashamed of this one.

Not ashamed of being a witch, but ashamed I was never as good at it as you and Mom and Ivy.

But since I’ve been on this quest, testing the limits of my powers and pushing myself, I’ve realized I could have been doing this all along.

Hell, had I not hidden from it my whole life it probably wouldn’t have ended up always causing such a scene. ”

Slowly, so slowly I thought I might have been imagining it, snow began to fall. Soft, gentle flakes I couldn’t even feel with my palms turned toward the sky. But I could see them, white and puffy and impossibly delicate, floating to the ground.

“I know now that it needs nurturing. It needs practice and care and trust and a million other important things I haven’t been giving it because I’ve been afraid.

I shouldn’t have let it be on the back burner.

But you should know I don’t plan to do that anymore.

I’m going to honor our family and do the right thing and stop complaining that Ivy is better than I am at everything. ”

The bird made a soft sound, which I hoped was a laugh.

“And I messed up with Oliver,” I said, almost more to myself than to Granny Annie. When I didn’t say anything else for a while, the snow began to fall harder. Fat flakes collecting in my hair, on my eyelashes, the toes of my boots.

Even though I hadn’t lived here long, I knew it almost never snowed in London.

“I assumed it wouldn’t work out because nothing ever works out, but I didn’t even give it a chance.

I told lies to protect myself. I held him at arm’s length and still somehow had him right in the cross fire.

And now I’m the face of a cheating scandal for a relationship I was never even a part of.

” A sharp wind whipped my hair across my face, stinging my eyes.

“Okay, okay, you’re right. It isn’t the rumors I’m upset about.

I know better than that. It’s that I used them to drive a wedge between us.

And for what? So no one would get hurt?” The wind softened, and my hair settled. “So much for that idea.”

I closed my eyes and held my face to the sky, letting the snowflakes mingle with the tears on my cheeks. Granny always said if you were going to cry, it was best to do it outside. There was little that fresh air and Mother Nature couldn’t heal.

“It doesn’t make sense, Granny,” I continued.

“I hope this isn’t awkward to tell you, because if you actually do know everything then I guess you already know, but we slept together, and nothing malfunctioned.

I mean nothing . Well, other than whatever we’d been dancing around for the past five months.

But nothing exploded or caught on fire or anything.

How do you explain that? Every other time I’ve even gotten close to someone, Oliver included, something has gone awry.

And now, after we’d gotten as close as we possibly could have, nothing.

I don’t know what to make of that. I’ve turned it over in my mind a thousand times, and I’m at a loss. ”

The wind whistled another tune through the trees, but I wasn’t sure what to make of that, either. So I kept talking, wondering if it would make sense the more I spoke it into existence.

“And if nothing catastrophic happened that once, does it mean we might be so lucky again? Or does it mean the next time catastrophe might hit twice as hard?”

Silence. Come on, Granny. I can’t figure this part out on my own.

“I know you’d say it was worth the risk, but if it hurts this badly now, how badly is it going to hurt if we try and fail again?

And does it even matter? The solstice is only three weeks away, which means all I have left to do is convince a skeptic of the existence of magic and then I can perform the spell.

And the only skeptic I know at the moment is Oliver, and I think I’d be hard pressed to convince him to do anything.

Especially believe in magic. So I’m not sure where to go from here on that front, either. ”

The bird made another sound, and I opened my eyes to find it looking right back at me.

“I know I just said I was working on honing my magic, but this feels beyond a spell or a manifestation or a little moon water. But I can’t have come this far for nothing.”

I let my head fall back against the trunk, reeling from the physical pain radiating from my chest at how much I missed her. How much I could feel her with me now. How much I would have given anything to hear her voice.

Had it really been five months since I last listened to that voicemail? Since I last heard her husky laugh, her familiar timbre telling me—

I am the magic.

It didn’t have to be a spell or a manifestation or a little moon water. She’d been telling me this all my life, and most of the time I’d been too stubborn to listen. The same way I hadn’t even remembered she’d told me to find Coven & Codex until I went back and listened to the voicemail again.

I am the magic.

“You’re not saying I can change his mind without a spell, are you?” The bird fluttered out of the tree and landed right in front of me, stern eyes and tight wings. “Surely that’s a little conceited, even for us James women.” This time, the bird didn’t laugh. It only took a step closer.

“What if the magic is gone?” I asked, so quietly I could hardly even hear myself. Afraid to say the words loud enough that the universe might hear them. “What if I burned right through every ounce of magic we had together?”

There was the wind again. Cold, biting.

“Okay, I get it,” I said, laughing through my tears. “You never know until you try, right?” She’d always said that when we were nervous to try spells as kids, and she was always right. Even when we failed, we didn’t know until we tried.

It had been so long since I’d felt anything so deeply, and I let the waves of emotion roll over me, squeezing my chest and tingling my toes and reminding me I was alive and I had a big heart and that feeling and loving and trying were what the whole thing was all about.

“Thank you, Granny,” I said. “For everything.”

The bird flapped its wings hard, signaling an imminent takeoff, and I knew it was Granny telling me not to bother. She already knew.

“I love you,” I whispered. “A bushel and a peck.”

Even though she wasn’t there to finish, to whisper back, “And a hug around the neck,” I felt it all the time. Felt it in the sunrise and the snow and the warmth in my heart.

“And before I’m done communing with the dead,” I said as I got to my feet, wondering if any other spirits could hear me, “if you’re out there, Granduncle Arthur, might I just say leaving Coven and Codex to Oliver was the best decision you could have made.

Thank you for all you’ve done for me and my family and for Oliver. I’ll try my best to make it worth it.”