This Grimoire Belongs to Miss Cleo Jackson

By: Elis Montgomery

1700 words

This Grimoire Belongs to: MiSS Cleo JAcKson

DEAR GRIMOR

Mom said I had magic appatood for frend making. I did it so fast and good. She said a witch rites it down. I am a witch. Billie is not a witch but maybe. She is not scared when I say poshuns.

Resipy for poshun frend making. Will work best on Billie.

Here you need

apple joos box 6
feather from the park where you met Billie
the fluffy stuff like cloud on ground (dad said is a tree seed but looks like not)
gravel from playgron where you did the zip with Billie and fell and cry
a litle paint

To do making

1.         Get the stuf
2.         Get caldron
3.         Put stuf in caldron
5.         Ask mom for spoon
6.         Stir it up
7.         Put fingr in
8.         Find wall
9.         Fingr paint you and Billie on wall
10.       You did it

The poshun works cus TODAY I ask Billie to be my best frend. Billie said yes.

SCIENCE EXPERIMENT by Cleo Age 9

Question: Was the potion I made in kindergarten real magic?

Hypothesis: Billie will be my friend no matter what because of the potion.

Procedure: Stop talking to Billie for 1 week.

Results: Billie is MAD!!!

Conclusion: I need to make a new potion.

Acknowledgements: Thank you Mom for teaching me the magic flame so I can make the potion again and keep it cooking forever.

New ingredients:

acorn hats!!!
purple sparkle crown Billie made for your birthday
2 bluebells like Billie’s eyes
eyelash from when you were rubbing your eyes, and Billie said make a wish, and you wished that Mom and Dad would be okay

Also potion is now tittled: THE FOREVER POTION OF FRIENDSHIP

Mom keeps bugging me to open this up again, like she thinks it’ll help me cope or something. I guess no one told her she doesn’t get to have opinions. Basically I opened this but not because she said, and I’m only writing in here as a joke. But I’ve added stuff, so whatever.

1 Converse shoe charm necklace that says “Best”
2 tubes of lipstick stolen from your mother, cleansed under the light of a full moon
ashes of the Ancient Rome partner paper of doom
1 tuft of stuffing from the bear Billie gave you when the divorce was finally a thing

And the steps are kind of important so here.

Light a candle, bone-white as Billie’s closet AKA the backdrop for your music videos
Meditate on how you’ll die before anyone EVER sees the music videos
Slowly add the new ingredients to the cauldron, stir like it’s a competition
After it’s steeped awhile, take your “Best” necklace out and wear it so you still match her “Friend”
Ladle some potion into a heart flask from Urban Outfitters and keep it close (obviously don’t drink it)
When people ask what’s in the flask, pretend you’re 17 and look chill

!!! important update

ingredients

her acceptance letter to literal Cambridge
she did not tell you she was applying to literal Cambridge
what the fuck are you going to do without your best friend who’s halfway across the world in literal Cambridge

instructions

pray?

Grimoire – excuse my absence. Blame forty overlong reading lists and probably that many parties (the novelty wore off by second year). The new recipe includes:

1 tbsp. pencil shavings
10 pkg. instant noodles
1 exorbitant phone bill from when you thought you were calling on Wi-Fi
1 chocolate hedgehog from the box Billie sent you in advance of Dad’s nuptials
roundtrip plane tickets
polaroid of you, Billie, and her roommate Mia on the London Eye

Not all the lessons I’m learning revolve around ornithology. A selection:

Little me was right: a spelled flame can keep going forever, but you have to tend to it. If the flicker dulls, perform time zone math, and schedule a call with your best friend.
Sometimes the scent will change. The potion will evolve, need different things, and you’ll have to adapt. Turns out your twenties are all about adapting.
Under NO circumstances shall you add tequila to the potion. At some point you’re going to think it’s a great idea and I’ll tell you right now you’re going to be wrong.

A Three-Step Guide to Potion-Making on Your Best Friend’s Big Day

Step One: Immerse a set of plane tickets along with your invitation to the wedding of Billie Iverson and Mia Kim, already damp with happy tears.

Step Two: Instill one drop of the lemon-lavender perfume you gave Billie, spritzed above the high collar of her powder blue gown before she walked down the aisle.

Step Three: Douse 1 Hobnob, Mia’s favourite, because you just got a best-friend-in-law.

Dearest Grimoire, an update.

Please add:

1 tiny UK flag, to thank England for giving Billie back, and lending Mia
1 pistachio macaron, from the baby shower that made you forget your every fear about turning thirty
1 tsp. tears, from when they told you what his name would be
1 tag from “The Godson” onesie you got little Theo

And simmer so softly.

Grimoire: I’m learning how much love a heart can hold. In addition to a preservative herbal mixture, please infuse the following.

Billie’s letter, in all capitals, after you told her about Lucas, gentleman caller
2 tbsp. sparkling cranberry juice, from the picnic during which he secured Billie and Mia’s approval, back in your park
purple sparkle crown Billie made you when you got tenure
1 red ribbon, from your surprise 40th, with all those beaming faces (how is Theo this big already?)

As you brew, light your oil burner, and warm the amber resin Billie gifted you, calling it a “household deodorizer”. Inhale the scents you, in your witchhood, know foster love and luck.

A Floriography by Miss Cleo Jackson, Sage

Peony (promise) — for your godson’s engagement
Orchid (beauty) — for his wife, glowing
Rosemary (remembrance) — for their angel baby
Magnolia (long-awaited joy) — for their rainbow baby
Yellow poppies (congratulations) — for Billie and Mia, calling each other “Grandma” in the delivery room and touching tiny baby girl toes

Add a petal of each, to fortify.

A Senior Witch’s Tips for the Best Brew

Age, if you’ve been blessed with the option. Keep the potion cooking. Sometimes you’ll need to turn the heat down, let it bubble gently in the background while you tend to more pressing tinctures, like the one for your grief, and hers.* Your health, and hers.**
Always keep the recipe. If not in a grimoire, then in the hollowed-out book you stuffed with doodles from math class; birthday cards with no white space left; missives written in cursive, because you can’t clutch a holo-message to your chest.
Don’t have children and grandchildren, or do. You’ll pass on the recipe either way. It’s been cooking all these years; the people around you can’t help but smell it. Share in moderation. Always keep enough for yourself.

*add rosemary for remembrance once more, a sprig for each of your parents
**add borage oil, for your joints; add lavender, for her relaxation once treatment starts

Add magnolia, for Theo’s second rainbow baby, and her Billie-blue eyes.

Add the lilies Billie gave you when you interred Lucas’s ashes. Add a bookmark, to hold your place.

Ingredients

1 Hobnob, Mia’s favourite, to say goodbye
The casserole leftovers you can’t get Billie to eat
Black cottonwood seed, from the first walk you got her to go on, after
Mint leaves from your garden, because you can only brew her so much tea

Instructions

Do what you can

When Theo gives you Billie’s “Friend” charm, see that it’s just as tarnished as your “Best.” Cradle both necklaces in a weathered palm. Realize you can’t tell where one bronzed chain ends and the other begins.

Add them to the cauldron, unpolished. Let them be evidence of what you’ve weathered together.

Still keep it brewing. You have to keep the flame alive. If nothing else, the potion can last.

Grimoire, every time I catch sight of you, it’s a revelation. You’re still here. You’re in the bookshelf, on my desk, tucked into the couch cushions. But there’s no mischievous brownie to blame for moving you around. It’s me. I’ve been leaving you places. I pick you up, intending to write. But then.

We held the celebration of life in her garden, all of us wearing her blue. The grandchildren toddled by the foxgloves during the readings. Afterwards, Theo led me up to Billie’s study.

To see her cauldron.

She must’ve had a travel version stuffed somewhere because there was no way you were getting that thing on a plane. Larger than mine, even. Cast iron. The fire had gone out, of course, but when you stoke a spelled flame that long, it goes slow.

Steam still wafted up. I leaned in and felt the lingering warmth. Smelled the apple juice, the lemon-lavender, the mint.

I lowered my palm to Billie’s own potion of everlasting friendship. Warm as the milk you’d give a baby. Behind me, Theo graciously withdrew.

These old bones got down on the floor to sit by the cauldron. To spend a little more time with you, Billie.

Ingredients

Speeches from a dozen dear friends and a son that would’ve brought you the moon
Poems that rhyme “Bubbe” with “love you”, tripping out of the mouths of grandchildren
A thousand hugs, more smiles
The letters. Oh, the letters
The luck I had to find you so early in life, and to keep you so long
The blessing that was you tending to it too, always
Maybe one more feather, one left by a nighthawk in a park where two little girls met

Instructions

Find a friend that will love you back just as fiercely
Hold on tight

Originally published in For a Friend by Lucent Dreaming, August 2024

Elis Montgomery is a speculative fiction writer from Vancouver, Canada. She is a member of SFWA and Codex. When she’s not writing, she’s usually hanging upside down in an aerial arts class or a murky cave. Find her there or on Bluesky @elismontgomery.