17-year-old witch Ellie Flores attends high school in Beverly Hills, California. Although Ellie is a direct descendent of witches, she promised to stay away from witchcraft after her mother swore off magic years ago. But when her best friend Riley g...
Riley and I look over towards the tapping sound coming from my window. As expected, Kyle is on the other side of the glass staring back at us. I run over to my window to open it.
"Hey guys! What's up?" He says as he jumps down from the window onto the floor. Before I can say anything, his eyes land on the open spell book laying on the floor infront of Riley.
"Ellie! I told you to call me over if you cast any spells," he playfully scolds me.
"Don't worry, Kyle. I wouldn't think of casting my first spell without you." I tease back. It's true though. We kinda made a pact when we were younger to stick together. We called ourselves the modern day Bonnie and Clyde. He's always been by my side when I'd get myself in trouble and vice versa. Partly because it was fun having a buddy to rebel with, but also we looked out for each other.
Kyle sits down on the floor next to Riley and I. "A love potion?!" His eyes grow wide when he sees the title of the page we're on.
Riley and I look at eachother, then back to Kyle. "I was thinking about trying it." I reply.
"Let me guess, this has something to do with Logan, doesn't it?" Kyle asks.
Riley and I stare back at him with blank expressions, not saying a word. He already knows the answer.
Kyle shrugs, "Whatever. I'm down with anything. Let's have a look at this so-called love potion."
One thing I've always admired about Kyle is his willingness to try new things, even if it sounds silly. He's incredibly open-minded and always thinks outside of the box. He's also very intelligent, as many homeschoolers are. He's great at decoding ancient writing as well, a skill that will be helpful as we attempt to interpret this ancient spell book.
"I don't really know what any of this means," I admit. "Like, what is catmint? Some of these ingredients I haven't heard of before."
He nods his head as he takes a look at the page, "Catmint, I believe, is an older name for catnip. Otherwise, it looks like some of these things your mom probably has somewhere in her kitchen. The rest should be pretty easy to get."
"Okay, so what do we need?" Riley asks with a pen in hand and a notepad ready.
"Looks like it's only nine ingredients. Maybe that's why they call it 'Love Potion Number Nine'? We need dried rose petals, a bit of yarrow, root of iris, dried mint, several raspberry leaves, a handful of lavender buds, a pinch of cinnamon, coriander seeds and a pinch of catnip."
"Okay, we can probably find cinnamon in the kitchen pantry. We can check outside in the garden too. Mom probably has some of those things growing out there."
"Great! So after we have the ingredients ready, what do we do next?" Riley eagerly asks.
Kyle takes a moment to interpret the directions to the recipe. "It says to mix ingredients together and store in a glass jar until ready to use. Under a full moon, burn the mixture in a stone bowl with a photo of the one you admire. Just before the fire dies, the flame will turn a bright pink. If the spell is successful, the fire will leave behind silver ashes. Once the silver ashes are cool to touch, they can be stored in a small jar or locket for safe keeping."
I rush over to my book bag and pull out my planner and open the calendar. "According to this calendar, the next full moon is tomorrow night." I feel excitement build in my chest.
"Do you think we have time to get everything we need by tomorrow night?" Riley asks.
"With the three of us, it shouldn't be a problem," Kyle replies.
"Okay. Let's do it!" Riley squeals.
For the rest of the afternoon, Riley, Kyle and I hunt out the ingredients for the potions recipe. Luckily, we are able to find cinnamon in my moms kitchen pantry, but that's about it.
We head out to my mothers garden hoping to source the rest of the ingredients from it. We hit the jackpot there. We find the raspberry leaves, rose petals, coriander, mint leaves, root of iris, yarrow, lavender, and even catnip. I can't believe we were able to find nearly every ingredient in my moms garden.
My mom always took pride in her plants. She was always out tending to them, pulling up weeds and admiring the blooms. The neighbors always comment about my mother having the greenest thumb in Beverly Hills. It's probably true, she can make anything grow. I wonder for a moment if moms gardens for reasons other than landscaping. She swore off magic though, so I brush that thought away quickly.
After we have all of our supplies ready, we head back up to my room, and spread the ingredients out on my desk. I realize mom would become suspicious if she saw everything ready to go, so we decide to hide everything in a sachet until tomorrow.
"Okay, can you two meet me here tomorrow night, say 10:00? We can walk to the park from here. That should give us an hour to set everything up."
"That works for me!" Riley says, beaming back at me, as she picks up her book bag
"I'll see ya then!" Kyle says, as he turns towards the window to leave. Riley heads home shortly after.
I wrap up the sachet of herbs and tuck it away out of sight before my mom gets home. My stomach fills with butterflies at the thought of casting my first spell. I can't believe I'm doing this!
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