Page 30 of A Witch in Notting Hill

“I’m sorry,” Lola said, “but does your gran have to do all of these things?”

All I could do was nod.

“Ritualistic cleansing?”

Nod.

“Chat to the dead?”

Nod.

“Saints alive,” Oliver said, exhaling. “‘Convince a skeptic’? How the hell is she meant to do that?”

“She’s got the time,” Minho said.

“What d’you mean?”

“Look, there,” he said, pointing a long finger at the fine print at the bottom of the page.

If the initial spell is cast on the summer solstice, the reversal must be cast on the winter solstice. If the initial spell is cast on the winter solstice, the reversal must be cast on the summer solstice. Regardless of seasonality, Reversal spell and all prerequisite tasks must be completed in the city in which the caster finds this text.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Thewintersolstice? It was June, for god’s sake. That meant I couldn’t turn Vera back into a person untilDecember? And I had to be inLondonto do it? My head was spinning. And my palms were sweating and my throat was dry and my lungs were tight and my eyes were burning and I no longer knew which way was up.

It made sense, given the solstice was the catalyst for the spell in the first place—which I’d feared even at the time—but that didn’t make it any less shocking.

“Maybe you should sit down,” Lola said, resting her fingertips at my elbow and trying to guide me to the floor. Instead, I slammed the book shut and walked slowly, calmly out of the room. With the book still in my hands. And with the three of them at my back, whisper-shouting about how I couldn’t take the book out of the stacks. Their voices broke over me like waves and I couldn’t stop my feet from carrying me out the door.

“God damn it,” I heard Oliver mutter from somewhere behind me as he jogged to my side. “Willow, come on,” he said. “Can’t you just take a photo for your gran? You don’t have to steal the whole book, do you?”

“I do,” I said, without adding any other information. Mostly because I couldn’t quite explain why a photo wouldn’t suffice. I knew I needed to be holding the book in my hands while I worked out how to conduct the spell, but I had no plans to revealIwould actually be the one doing the conducting, so I didn’t have much else to say.

Neither of us spoke for a moment until he dropped his head back and exhaled toward the ceiling. “Fine,” he said. “At least let me help. Here.” He held out his hand, and I gave him the book, watching with unabashed appreciation as he tucked it into his inside jacket pocket. “Cover me.”

“I thought you were covering me?”

Without another word he pulled me tight to his side, right up against where the book was bulging from his pocket. We shuffled arm in arm like that out of the section, past Basil at the desk, then out of the library and back in the direction of the Tube, much to the horror of Minho and Lola.

“Didn’t that bloke say he was going to look away?” Minho asked, out of breath from trying to keep up.

“If we took a photo,” Oliver said. “Not if we took the whole bloody book.”

“Stealing from the British Library has to be some kind of indictable offense around here.”

“I hope we never find out,” I said. “I didn’t mean to make you guys accessories to a crime. I just... I needed to get out of there.”

Lola held up her hands. “We’ve all been accessories to far worse crimes.”

“Speak for yourself,” Oliver said.

“Please, go to the pub,” I urged them. “Enjoy the rest of your night.”

“You aren’t coming with us?”

“This has become a bit more involved than I’d thought,” I said, “and I need to get this book to my grandmother.”And I need to get back to Vera, who is probably shredding the wallpaper in the hotel by now, even though this is all for her own good.

I should have been used to the lie by now, but talking about Granny Annie as if she were alive felt like swallowing glass, so I needed to get out of there before things got any worse.