Page 9 of A Witch in Notting Hill

Oliver

T his woman was a handful. What the hell would I be googling? Ways for an old woman who believes she’s a witch to turn a cat she believes is her home nurse back into a person? I was sure that would yield loads of results.

She leaned over the counter while I applied filters to the search (“‘spell reversal’ + ‘cat to human’ + ‘accidental shape-shifting’”), and I tried not to be distracted by her scent.

Woodsy, slightly sweet, intoxicating. Vanilla.

A cashmere sweater. Or her hair, falling in loose red curls over the till.

Or the charming way she chewed on her thumbnail, brows furrowed as she watched me type.

“Who knew there was a whole database for books about magic?” she asked. “And that you could be so specific!”

“Everyone who owns an occult bookshop,” I said, trying not to smile when she glowered.

She wasn’t very good at it, but that made it even more effective.

“Right, let’s see.” Results began piling up, and I scrolled slowly, waiting for her to find something that stood out, because lord knows I was useless in that department.

“Wow.” She exhaled. “This is a lot.”

“Mm-hmm,” I agreed. “And your grandmother didn’t give you any more direction?”

She made a small sound, more to herself than to me, then shook her head. “No,” she said. “This is it.”

“This is a long way to come without really knowing what you’re looking for.”

“Don’t I know it.”

I kept scrolling, feeling strangely guilty for not being able to help her.

Without anyone else in the shop, she didn’t quite seem like the powerhouse I’d heard she was on-screen.

She spoke softly and her eyes were searching in a way that told me this might have been about more than helping her granny reverse a spell.

“What about this one?” I asked, hovering my cursor over Mr. York’s Shape-shifting Guidebook: 1896 Edition . “I reckon this might be good for your grandmother.”

She cocked her head to the side, assessing. “It’s, uh, too old, I think. She practices more... modern magic.”

Whatever the hell that meant.

I scrolled on, vowing not to make any more suggestions since I obviously had no idea what I was talking about.

“There,” she said, grabbing my wrist to stop me from scrolling. Her hand was so small it didn’t wrap all the way around, and its warmth sent a chill up my arm. “Click on that one.” She pointed to a title that read Rewind: A Manual for Counter Magic , and I opened the link in a new tab.

Rewind was apparently full of remedies for reversing accidental spells, with chapters sorted by time of day, season, emotion, sect of powers, geographical location, category of consequence—the list went on.

“There’s no way I couldn’t find the answer in there, right? It looks like it has everything.”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said, and shrugged.

“Where is it?”

I clicked around a few more times, feeling like I’d been doused with cold water when I came up empty. “How odd,” I mumbled, more to myself than to Willow, trying a few more searches, all of which told me the book had been out of print for the last few years.

“But it has to be somewhere,” she said. “Right? Otherwise it wouldn’t have come up in the database?”

“Is that how the database works?”

“Oliver,” she whined. The sound of my name in her mouth was intoxicating.

“Right, sorry. I’m sure it is somewhere. We just might have to do a bit of digging.”

“I can do the digging,” she said. “Just point me in the right direction.”

“I’m afraid it might not be so easy. The database tracks the inventory of all occult bookshops in the city, so if it was as easy as sending you to another shop, it would say so here.”

“So now what?”

When I turned to face her, she was closer than I’d realized.

Her hopeful eyes had just the slightest tinge of desperation, but it was enough.

Enough that suddenly I cared about this American celebrity who believed her grandmother was a witch.

Enough that I found when I said “we,” I didn’t mean the royal kind.

I was actively volunteering myself to find some ancient book of magic with a famous woman hiding from the paparazzi.

A beautiful famous woman, no less, whose smoky voice and deep brown eyes had been haunting me since I first saw her in my shop. What could go wrong?

“Now we find the book,” I said, as if it could possibly be that simple. “I have some contacts who might have some ideas, so I’ll get in touch and see where it takes us.”

She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, and I felt that same freezing sensation I’d felt when she touched my wrist. Was there a window open?

“Are you sure this isn’t something I could do on my own?” she asked. “I don’t want to take too much of your time. Surely you’re busy with the shop, and—”

“Do you want to help your gran or not?” She nodded. “And do you have any other ideas?” She shook her head. “Then we better get to work.”

“I’m going to need you to repeat yourself,” Minho said. “Slowly. Like you’re explaining this to a primary student. Who barely speaks English.”

“Should have paid attention the first time.” I downed the rest of my pint in one gulp, relishing the buzz building in the backs of my eyelids. “Because I’m not going to explain myself again.”

After Willow and I made a plan to be in touch once I heard from my mates at some other shops, I went directly to the pub to meet Minho and Lola.

I needed a pint more than I needed to share this information with either of them, but it was bound to come out eventually, so I figured it was best to just rip off the plaster.

“He’s become bloody best friends with Willow James, that’s what he said.” Lola was shouting so loud I was certain they could hear us on the other side of the river.

“That’s definitely not what I said.”

“It’s basically what you said,” she argued. “You’re planning to run around the city together looking for some old book for her witchy granny. What is that if not best friends?”

“My job.”

“You own a bookshop. You don’t have to help pretty American celebrities prance around the city to help dear old women, do you?”

“No one is prancing. And yes, I do. The website literally says I will help people find and procure old titles and shit.”

“But this is Willow James, mate,” Minho said. “She isn’t just ‘people.’”

“It’s not like the website has a clause that says I can help everyone but celebrities, does it?

Besides, she came in right as I was closing because she wanted to have a look around without anyone else in the shop, so I don’t think she’s keen on people knowing who she is or what she’s doing here.

Which means you two aren’t going to go telling anyone about this, yeah? ”

Two nods that said “obviously.” Thank god we were at least on the same page about that.

“So you also have to be her bodyguard?”

“Are my words translating into some other language in your ears, Lo? Because you’re hearing something completely different from what I’m saying, and I’d like to put an end to this miscommunication before someone overhears you and we’re on the front page of some tabloid.”

“Lighten up, will you? Aren’t you even the least bit excited about this?”

“Excited about tearing this city apart to find some old book about magic that doesn’t exist? Proper chuffed, if I’m honest.”

The truth was, part of me was a bit chuffed.

Not that I’d ever admit it to Lola and Minho.

But I didn’t mind the idea of spending more time with Willow.

And perhaps I wasn’t even ready to admit this to myself, but I didn’t mind the idea of acting as her bodyguard, either.

Her fake smile when she was spotted by those girls in the shop tightened a knot in my chest, and the pleading in her voice when she showed up at closing time tonight only pulled harder at the strings.

I wasn’t sure what it took for her to be here alone looking for something for her gran, but if I could protect her at all while she was doing it, well, then I’d have done my job.

Or maybe more than my job. But hadn’t we already established that I didn’t much care about semantics?

“All the good shit happens to you,” Minho said. “And you don’t even want it.”

“Again, this is my job,” I reminded them. “And you make like five times what I do, and Lo has a cooler job than either of us, so I wouldn’t exactly say all the good shit happens to me.”

“Can you admit it’s at least a little exciting? Like, you don’t go to these lengths for your other customers.”

“My other customers haven’t asked me to go to these lengths.”

“But would you if they did?”

No. “Yes.”

“I give up,” Lola said, throwing her hands up then dropping them in her lap. “When you’re ready to be honest about your feelings on the whole matter, let us know.”

“I’m sure you’ll be here waiting.”

“With bated breath.”

“Another round?” Minho asked, already signaling the bartender. Thank god someone understood the assignment.

Though I couldn’t quite blame Lola.

Usually, I would pride myself on being an intuitive person.

It came with the territory of owning a bookshop, even if I didn’t believe in what I was selling.

I could still read people, make accurate assumptions about who they were and what they were looking for, find it before they even knew the answers themselves.

That was the real magic of the bookshop.

But not Willow. For someone famous, someone seemingly so open and vulnerable, I couldn’t read her past the first page. And I’d be damned if that wasn’t the exact reason I’d keep coming back for more.

Besides, it really was my job.

Lola and Minho dropped the subject for the next round, sinking into our usual pub banter instead: football, Lola’s newest video game designs, Minho’s newest two-day relationship, Netflix’s newest horror docuseries.

Despite our endless group texts, we still always found something to chat about, and it had been that way since uni.

We’d lived across the hall from each other, Min and I as roommates and Lo with a girl we hadn’t seen or heard from since first year, and it didn’t take long for us to realize how much we had in common.

We bonded over many late nights playing Mario Kart , eating frozen pizza, commiserating about women, and secretly caring way too much about our marks.

One Christmas, when Lola couldn’t afford to fly home to her family in Spain and I wasn’t celebrating because I’m Jewish, so I’m never celebrating, Minho invited us to spend the holiday at his parents’ house in Hitchin, and we’ve been family ever since.

And as great as it was to have found this kind of friendship in one another, it meant nothing was off-limits and it was impossible to keep secrets. For better or worse, or whatever. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when we came back around to Willow as we paid the tab.

“At least tell us your plan,” Minho said. “When do you start the search?”

“Tomorrow,” I confessed. “She’s trying to spend as little time in the city as possible, I guess so that she can get back to her gran or her movies or whatever, and Wesley has been asking for more hours, so he can hold down the shop for the afternoon.

” I typically hated leaving the shop during business hours, but even I had to admit, Wesley was getting good.

And I wasn’t exactly interested in working overtime to help Willow, so this would have to suffice.

“Where are you going?” Lola asked. “My boss is out of the office tomorrow, so I can sneak away to give you a hand.”

“What help would I need from you?” I laughed. “Last I checked she wasn’t designing a video game or listening to Gracie Abrams or making sourdough, so—”

“Rude,” she said, swatting my arm.

“You just want to meet her.”

“Obviously.”

“If Lola gets to go then I get to go,” Minho said.

“This isn’t a group activity. So unless either of you have become an expert in occult books and reversal spells for fake magic overnight, I don’t want to hear it. She’s supposed to be hiding from fans, remember?”

“We aren’t fans , Oliver. We’re your friends .”

“At least promise if you do anything really exciting we’ll get to come along.”

“I’m not sure what could possibly be exciting about looking for an old book, but sure. If suddenly this becomes a proper treasure hunt, I’ll be sure to extend the invite.”