Page 3 of A Witch in Notting Hill

Armed with a baseball hat, the largest sunglasses I could find, and my unassuming gray sweat set, I grabbed my tote and Vera in the cat carrier—the nicest one I could find on the way there—and made my way to security. The heat in LA was becoming unbearable, and since it was the height of summer, it was no surprise everyone was racing to leave the city. Families and older couples and glamorous twentysomethings waited in security lines, checking and rechecking their bags for passports, wallets, designer sunglasses, heaps of technology, and beauty products poised to set off the security scanners.

And I stood paralyzed in the doorway, barely far enough into the airport to stop triggering the doors’ automatic sensor.

Before she was a cat, Vera used to assuage so many of my fears. That was one of the myriad reasons she was such a good manager. She helped me navigate crowds, helped me manage my fear of flying, helped me still my racing heart rate as we went through TSA because I did not, in fact, accidentally somehow have a weapon in my bag.

Only now, when I looked at her spark

ling yellow-green eyes peering back at me through the mesh of her carrier, I felt more anxious than ever.I’m so sorry,I mouthed for what must have been the billionth time in the last two hours.I’m going to get you out of this.

She nodded sagely, which I took as a sign she understood me. A small victory in the depths of this mess I’d created.

I had no idea what I was doing, but just that gentle nod strengthened my resolve. If there was ever a time to beat my anxiety, it was now. I took a deep breath and slipped into the PreCheck line, my boarding pass pulled up on my phone and mypassport in my hand long before anyone would ask for either. The quicker I could make it through, the better. Especially if the TSA agents didn’t say anything about who I was as they scanned my documents.

I shuffled up to the kiosk when it was my turn, sliding my passport through the opening in the plexiglass and hovering my boarding pass over the electronic scanner.Please don’t say anything, please don’t say anything.

“And for the cat, ma’am?”

This was... not what I expected him to say.

“For the cat?” I repeated. “I, um, oh, here,” I said, pulling up the last-minute Emotional Support Animal certificate in my email. Was this what he meant?

“Her veterinary documents,” he prompted, sounding so bored I wondered how he was even awake.

“Veterinary documents?” Apparently my confusion had rendered me unable to do anything but repeat his every word.

“Vaccination records, etcetera,” he droned, waving his hand like he couldn’t even be bothered to finish his sentence.

How could I not have thought of this? Surely I didn’t have veterinary documents, since Vera had never been to the vet, since she wasn’t even a real cat. Except in the eyes of this TSA agent, she was as real as could be, and I was standing there like an idiot, unmoving.

“Ma’am, if you don’t have the documentation, please step to the side,” he said with a sigh. “One of our agents will sort it out with you. Next.” He was already waving the family behind us up to the kiosk, and they were jostling me and Vera out of the way before we could even figure out where to go.

“Shit,” I whispered, trying to ignore the disapproving look in Vera’s eyes. At that moment, I was glad she was a cat. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle the wrath of human Vera at my having made such an idiotic mistake.

“Right this way, please,” another agent was saying, guiding me roughly by the elbow out of the PreCheck line and to a small room behind the ropes. “What seems to be the problem?” she asked once we were uncomfortably seated on plastic chairs under fluorescent lights that rivaled the sun.

As I explained my dilemma, letting her hear my voice quivering in the hope of garnering some sympathy, her face remained stone-cold. She nodded but said nothing. By the time I finished my sob story about needing to get to my sick grandmother in London and being unable to travel without my emotional support cat (semantics, creative liberties, whatever), I thought her eyes might have softened. Or, at the very least, she was no longer frowning.

With a heaving sigh, she jiggled the mouse on a desktop computer and said, “Let me see what I can do.”

After a few excruciating minutes of clicking around and mumbling to herself, she clapped her hands together. “Well, then,” she said. “All settled. You’ll just need to remove your hat and sunglasses for the photo for your temporary permit. Once it’s printed, you’re free to go. And I trust you won’t make this mistake again.”

“No, ma’am,” I said, eagerly removing my disguise for the photo and not even bothering to care about her scolding. I was so relieved to be able to travel with Vera, I forgot anything else that might have mattered.

Like putting my disguise back on when I returned to the security line with my permit in hand.

The whispers started low, like always, before gaining traction and snowballing into shouts of my name and camera clicks.

“Is that Willow James?”

“Willow!”

“Miss James, can we have a photo?”

“I wonder where she’s going.”

“Where’s her security?”

“When did she get a cat?”