Page 101 of A Witch in Notting Hill

Maybe I was the one who needed to commune with the dead.

Holy shit. I need to commune with the dead.

I shot back the rest of my whiskey in one burning gulp, then ran downstairs and into the shop to find Uncle Arthur’s ledger. The ledger I’d completely forgotten about after I took over, stashed under the desk with his other personal effects that had been left behind, things I figured I’d pass along to another family member at some point. The ledger that was more like a diary than any kind of business operation.

No matter how many nights I spent closing the shop alone, no matter how many times I left something down here and had to run back long after the city had gone to sleep, I’d never gotten used to how unsettling this place was in the dark. It wasn’t that I minded, necessarily. Just that I’d noticed.

It was then the building really acted its age. The pipes whined, the lights flickered, the floorboards creaked as the place settled, dust drifted from books and shelves onto the floor even when I wasn’t walking past. Uncle Arthur always said there was so much life within these walls, and times like these I knew exactly what he meant.

And for him, hisentirelife was within these walls. Coven & Codex was everything to him, and if I let myself dwell on how it wasn’t everything tome, the guilt would eat me alive.

As a gay man during his time, he relied heavily on this community for acceptance and understanding, especially because he got neither from his family. So he made a family of his own. Back then, the customers weren’t tourists or secondary school kids looking to get out of the house and cause trouble. They were real, proper believers. People who didn’t judge or ask questions or exclude anyone because of their beliefs. They were people who wanted a world that was better than the one they were living in, so they took matters into their own hands.

Uncle Arthur would have been ashamed of me had he seen how far I’d drifted from those values. How much I’d fallen into my father’s trap and left any shred of magic—sorcery or otherwise—behind.

I loved the shop. It was a part of me, and I couldn’t imagine a life without it. But I didn’t believe in the shop the way he had—didn’t believe in anything the way he had, to be fair—and this might have been exactly the wake-up call I needed to change that.

The ledger was dusty from years of sitting beneath the till, and I brushed the cover clean to discover Uncle Arthur’s initials engraved in the corner. Classy.

I cracked it open, smoothing my hands over the worn pages covered in his chicken scratch. It always was the creative types who had the worst penmanship, wasn’t it?

My eyes skimmed the contents of the first few pages, which appeared to be the only part of the ledger in which he actually attempted to log anything remotely related to the business. By the looks of it, this was where he kept track of the unique volumes he was searching for and where he found them. There were contacts for people I assumed to be other sellers in the industry, illegible titles with strikethroughs and stamps that read “out of print.”

The more pages I turned, the more it dissolved into mayhem. Phone numbers scribbled in corners with notes likeLa Douce, Friday 11p. A smudge of lipstick, cigarette ashes, pressed flowers, and gin labels. Like the ledger somehow became at once a business log and a living scrapbook. It made me wonder about the people who’d been inside these walls. Whether they all believed in magic or just simply believed in the community.

Though for Uncle Arthur, it wouldn’t have mattered. Believing in anything would have been enough.

I poured another whiskey from my secret stash beneath the counter and slowed down, taking the time to try to decipher his scribbling. To find something that might make sense to me. Might make sense of my circumstances. Of what I wanted. Of what I didn’t want to want.

The notes that weren’t in his handwriting were even harder to read, but they felt important. Notes from the others who came and went through the shop. Honestly, I hadn’t seen the shop mean that much to anyone in a long time. Until Willow, anyway.

Most of his notes were plans, and the subsequent notes about the plans. Like:Soho tonite. Meeting S for late dinner.

And then three days later:S still here. No signs of leaving. Not asking, either. Chuffed for the company.

Or:Reading at National Gallery with P.

Update: Reading was mediocre. P was delightful.

Or:Tarot at Jo’s.

Don’t remember the cards, but her partner makes a lovely spritz. Must ask for recipe. Or invite myself back for another one of hers.

The more I skimmed, the more I found his entries were more about people than magic or the city, every time. And no one loved magic or London more than Uncle Arthur. But still, he seemed to love the people more.

Somewhere in the summer of 1960, an inky scribble caught my eye. I hadn’t known what I was looking for, but that changed the moment I found it.

Met quite a fine American today. Anise. Lovely thing. Single mum. Hope she will return.

I scanned the next few pages, suddenly desperate for more information. That couldn’t have been Willow’s gran, could it? Surely there were plenty of single American mums visiting the shop. With plant names.

It seemed weeks went by without another mention, and just when I started to get discouraged, I found her again.

Anise is back. I’ve invited her for tea.

I turned page after page, following their story like a gripping thriller.

Reminder: find the collector’s edition ofHealing and Hygge. Surprise her with it when she comes back.