Page 18 of A Witch in Notting Hill

“But it isn’t too early in the morning for you to go sweat your ass off in some fancy yoga studio?”

“Speaking of which, I’m almost there, so get to the point.”

“Vera’s a cat,” I blurted. Silence. “Okay, now that that’s out of the way—”

“Did you say acat?”

“Yes, but I’ll explain.” I told the story as fast as I could under the guise of wanting her to get to her yoga class on time but really wanting to gloss over the part where I totally fucked up. Older sisters, however, are genetically predisposed to home in on precisely where you totally fucked up, so I don’t even know why I bothered trying. Her DNA wasn’t going to let me get away with it, so I didn’t have much of a choice but to accept my fate.

“Wills, how did this even happen?” she asked, and I could practically see her rubbing the space between her brows like she could somehow massage my failures out of her frontal lobe.

“If I knew how it happened I would have fixed it by now,” I said. “That’s the whole problem. Were you listening?”

“Truthfully, it was hard to listen to anything after ‘Vera’s a cat.’”

“Can you just say something supportive anyway? Pretend you listened and pretend I’m not the worst witch our family has ever seen and pretend you have something supportive to say.”

“You are not the worst witch our family has ever seen,” she said, more matter-of-fact than compassionate, but I had to take what I could get. “Aunt Clare is the worst witch our family has ever seen.” Okay, I couldn’t argue with that. To this day, none of us were sure Aunt Clare hadeverconducted a spell correctly. And any time we thought she did, we’d later find frog ears on her dog or vines growing from her showerhead or gibberish on the local news.

“And I don’t have to pretend to support you,” Ivy continued. “I always support you. I just wish you were more careful.”

“It’s not like I tried to make this happen,” I said.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry.” She always did this. When she sensed I was getting upset, she immediately backpedaled. That was also in her DNA, I supposed. It was what made her a good sister. She could get under my skin, but she hated to see me upset.

Growing up, and even now, it was like I had all the sensitivity for the both of us. She was practical, logical, sensible. And I was chaotic, emotional, creative. It was what made us good at our jobs. And what made her a better witch.

I didn’t even mind that she was a better witch. I just minded that I was abadwitch. But true to form, Ivy snapped me out of my pity party before it really kicked off and ruined my day.

“Listen, Wills. You’ve got to dig deep here, okay? You do your best magic when you’re in touch with yourself. And it sounds like you’re outside, so that’s already a good start. You havewhat it takes. You wouldn’t have been able to cast the spell in the first place if you didn’t. You just have to find it, which starts with believing it’s in you. You aren’t a bad witch, Willow. You’re brilliant. The only thing you fail at is believing in yourself. So get your shit together, okay? Get Vera talking, then get your ass out and about in the city to find that book or whatever you need to turn her back into a person, then come home. And maybe choose a flight with a layover in New York. My class is about to start, so I have to go in. Call me later if you need anything. I love you.”

Before I could even thank her and tell her I loved her back, the line was dead. But I got exactly what I came for. She might have sounded like she was all business, but her words carried more warmth than she even knew. Ivy had been my compass since we were kids, despite our differences, and I knew she was always right (even if I spent half our childhood telling her the exact opposite).

It was time for a Main Character Moment. The kind when the heroine stares out at a river with the wind in her hair and her face turned toward the sun, some vaguely familiar nineties song plays in the background, and the audience’s eyes well up as she comes back to herself.

And it would have been cinematic, had Oliver not interrupted just as the soundtrack in my head was reaching its climax.

“Don’t think too hard,” he said, leaning on the railing beside me. “It’s just a river.”

I dug my elbow into his side, trying not to laugh when he did. “Some of us actually have something going on up here,” I said, tapping my temple.

“Care to share with the class?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” I gestured around, though the truth was, there was more going on in my head than I was willing to admit. I was thinking about Vera, sure, and my sister and howI was going to handle this mess, but I was also thinking about the undeniable flutter in my chest at the sight of Oliver. At the sound of his deep voice and his melodic accent and the size of his watch on his wrist and the easy way he leaned on the railing.

A crush was thelastthing I needed right now. For a million reasons. I needed to focus on the task at hand and keep my magic under control and save Vera andnotrun the risk of having a single feeling for anyone whatsoever. That was a surefire way to make things worse, and I could not afford to make things worse. I could barely afford for things to be this bad.

“Nothing about what goes on in your head is obvious,” he said. His tone was calm, collected, measured, but it didn’t take away from the weight of his words. If anything, it only made them heavier. Was he just talking about what we were doing here, or was there more he wanted to know? And couldn’t I say exactly the same about him?

“Well, in this case, I’m ready to find this book and reverse the spell and be done with the whole thing,” I said, hoping that cleared things up.

“Isn’t your gran reversing the spell?”

Had I seriously already almost slipped up? I’d been distracted by—what, his forearms? And forgotten the lie? Ivy was right. I needed to get my shit together. And fast.

“Yes, of course,” I said. “I’m just getting her the resources. But she’s impatient, so.”

“Say no more.” He stretched out his arm in the direction of the book market, but his face told me he had a plan.