Page 5 of A Witch in Notting Hill

Scratch that.

The last thing I needed on this adventure was for someone to recognize meandrealize 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, andyet, 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.

Chapter 4

Oliver

When I’d inherited Coven & Codex from my granduncle, I’d been informed I’d be inheriting more than just an occult bookstore in Notting Hill (that I wasn’t allowed to sell, under any circumstances, no matter how prime the real estate was). His barrister apparently subscribed to the same belief system he did, and she believed his stories of spirits between these walls. Informed me that this was a place where “thingshappened.”

As far as I was concerned, the only “things” that “happened” were hordes of tourists wandering in, running their fingers over spines without reading titles, picking up candles by the lids and dropping them on the floor, and asking me questions aboutHarry Potter.

Anything else was a result of Uncle Arthur’s old age and lack of upkeep of the place: flickering lights, drafty windows, groaning floorboards, whistling pipes. All to be expected in an old build that hadn’t been properly cared for in years.

Otherwise, nothing else “happened.” Day in and out, I stood behind the mahogany desk, manually conducting transactionswith a two-hundred-year-old till despite the computer that sat on the desktop, or I wandered through the stacks reorganizing the books that seemed to move themselves around the store, or I managed inventory and hunted down unique selections that customers requested and were willing to pay a lot of money for.

Which is exactly what I was doing this morning when I first noticed her.

A petite woman with auburn hair, a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, and a floor-length trench coat in the middle of the summer, whispering to what looked like a designer picnic basket hooked over her arm. Between the basket and the wide-eyed look she was trying to hide, it was all veryWe’re not in Kansas anymore, and I had no interest in being her Glinda.

I tried to look away, to refocus on the archives I had pulled up on the computer, but her whispering was painfully distracting. Soft but frantic. Melodic. Familiar.

“I’m trying,” she was saying. “It’s going to take time. Just hang on.”

Who was she talking to? And had I actually heard her voice before?

Realizing immediately that would have been impossible and that I likely needed to get out more, I shook my head and returned to my work. Just another tourist. And whatever the whispering was about, I didn’t want to know.

I clicked through the digital archives of A Witch in Time and Hexed, two other local shops, trying to find a first-edition copy ofUnHearthed: Tea, Herbs, and Natural Mysticismfor Mr. Blackburn. He was a repeat customer, and most of the time his books were easy to find—I suspected he just didn’t have the energy to try to find them. Though if I had the amount of money he did, I’d be paying someone else to do it, too.

I’d only made it through a few more pages before my attention was once again ripped from my desk—this time bya loud crack in the Fables and Folklore room. While it wasn’t exactly a library, you’d think in a bookstore you’d at least be able to find a singular moment of peace.

Suppressing the melodramatic sigh climbing up my throat, I made my way through the maze of shelves to the back. Uncle Arthur’s last wishes also specified that I did not rearrange the store, no matter how little sense the layout made to me. He’d insisted the books were organized in a way that they would find their owners, as opposed to the other way around.The store speaks to people, he’d always said.So long as they are willing to listen.

I’d tried to be willing to listen. Really, I had. For the sake of the business, if nothing else. But I was either terrible at it or Uncle Arthur was messing with me, because I hadn’t been able to find a bloody thing in here since I was a kid.

The Fables and Folklore room was at the back of the shop, behind Celestial Craft, around the corner from a display of incense and tarot cards and lunar calendars, and through a warped archway so low I had to duck underneath it (a lesson I learned the hard way). It only took a second of fumbling for the light switch and a crunching under my feet to realize what the sound had been—an exploded lightbulb. They flickered often, but exploded? Never. Even if they were from some long-forgotten era that left them hanging exposed from the cracking ceiling.

The only light left in the room came from a small stained-glass window, painting the space in jewel-toned shards. It would have been beautiful had I not had a massive safety concern on my hands. And just as I was thanking some higher power that the lightbulb hadn’t exploded on a customer, her voice cut through the silence.