Page 60 of A Witch in Notting Hill

“Well, then. Let’s go find that pendulum,” I said.

The museum was on the opposite side of the city, and we sat with our shoulders and thighs pressed together for the entire length of the Tube ride. Even as people filtered out, we didn’t move.

Not until a group of women stared at Willow for a second too long, and she turned in to me to keep her face hidden. Before I could think better of it, I twirled a lock of her hair, letting my hand linger in front of her face for long enough that the women put down their phones and looked away.

I knew I was pushing it. Knew I probably could have just stood in front of her or pulled her hat a little lower. But I was losing my grip on whatever it was that kept me in check all these years, and every time she leaned into my touch, I lost it even more.

“That was close,” she whispered when the women got off the train.

“I told you I got you.”

Lola scoffed on the other side of me, and I pretended not to notice.

She stayed close when we got to our stop and wove through the crowds and out onto the street, closer still as we wandered in the direction of the museum.

London’s east side was more crowded than the west. Grittier. Younger and edgier and more likely to know Willow. She had a sun hat with a wide brim on today, despite the dense clouds hanging in the sky. Ridiculous as she looked, it was a sound disguise. We just had to get in and out of the museum and back to Notting Hill before anyone looked too close.

“How have I never been here before?” Min asked, staring up at the building in awe. “I’ve read about it, but I’ve never thought to come see it in person.Thisis what I’ve been missing?”

The museum was an architectural wonder, I’d give him that. Like something out of a storybook, it was hard to believe the building could hold itself up. All sloping rooftops and rogue turrets and random bursts of modern styles that had to have been later additions. It was like Strega Nona had moved in with Bill Gates.

Bizarre.

“What the hell is this place?” Lola asked. “Who built this?”

“Omari Mbatha,” Minho said, reverent. “Something about the juxtaposition is supposed to mirror the oddities inside. I read an article about it years ago.”

“Hopefully one of those oddities is the pendulum,” Willow said.

“Only one way to find out.”

The inside was even more obscure than the outside. All sorts of witchy shit around every corner, crystals and mirrors and books and cloaks and floor-to-ceiling plaques and stained glass. A winding staircase dominated one side of the room, a glass elevator on the other.

“Where do we reckon the pendulum is?” I asked, looking around without moving my feet. I got a weird feeling in there.And the quicker we found the pendulum, the quicker we could get out.

“Upstairs, definitely,” Willow said.

“How do you know?”

“Just do.” She shrugged. “Gut feeling.”

That made me feel even weirder. Was shethatintuitive? And if she was right, what else did she know based on agut feeling?

We climbed the staircase in a single-file line, running our hands along the ornate banister and looking over the edge at the museum below. I couldn’t tell if the dull electric current I felt in my fingertips was because of this strange museum or because I was only a step behind Willow and could just smell a faint trace of her shampoo, but either way, I was ready to leave before I got zapped.

“Told ya,” Willow said as soon as we got to the top of the stairs, bounding around a corner and into a room with none other than a pendulum hanging in a glass box nearly as tall as Willow herself.

“This is it?” Minho asked, walking a slow circle around the box.

“It is,” she said. “I’ve been reading up on it all week. Sometime in the sixteenth century, when Wharram Percy was largely deserted, the pendulum was found in the ruins of an old family estate. In pristine condition. Untouched by whatever natural or unnatural forces turned the estate to ruins in the first place. It was apparently in a box like this, just swinging there. When the travelers who found it asked for a guide and it swung violently to the east, they followed, which eventually led to a new settlement that flourished for centuries after. They’d been looking for a safe place to land, and, well, the pendulum led them to their village, I guess.”

We looked at her in a collective trance for longer than was necessary, at least on my end. I’d never been one for a historylesson on witchcraft before, despite my profession, but the cadence of her voice made me wish the story didn’t have an ending. I could have listened to her talk about this stupid pendulum for the rest of my life and never complained.

“Wow,” Min said eventually. “And is that what we’re meant to do today? Ask it for directions?”

“In a sense,” Willow said. “It hasn’t swung like that for just anyone since—hence the need for the Orientation spell. But if it works, it should point in the direction of the next task.”

“The cleansing?” Lola asked.