Seeker of the Four Winds: A Galatia Novel by C. D. Verhoff Page B

produce a bumper crop, in and out of season? We
would become the bread basket of the world, the new superpower in
town.”
    “I’m listening.”
    Bryce opened the washcloth to reveal a seed.
It looked like a black acorn, except its cap was shaped like a
stovepipe hat instead of a tiny beret. He handed it to me for a
feel.
    “A nice specimen,” I said, handing it
back.
    “Magic requires more preparation than the
charisma.” Bryce had an empty measuring cup. “But it’s just as
effective, and more importantly, it’s accessible to anyone with the
know-how.”
    He poured the various colored liquids into
the measuring cup, one at a time until the mixture turned into a
gritty brown liquid. The contents started to bubble, releasing the
scent of compost tainted with a faint sweet odor I couldn’t quite
place. Bryce wrapped the acorn in the washcloth, dipped the whole
thing in the measuring cup until most of the liquid was absorbed,
and then set it in a hole in the middle of the violets. He must
have dug it earlier in preparation for the demonstration. Covering
the bundle with dirt, he started speaking in a strange language,
making me feel uneasy.
    “Prethoa guntento. Halibura Ithisaroh.
Delinatha rejata. Harckomana delarot litheno.” My brother’s words
were guttural, but rhythmic, strangely hypnotic.
    “What language is that? What are you
saying?”
    “Shhhh!”
    I noticed the violets flatten to the ground
as if gravity had just gotten a whole lot stronger. The phenomenon
spread outward like a ripple in a pond. That’s when I saw a sprout
emerge from the place where the acorn had been planted. It grew
faster than anything touched by my charisma. Within a minute, the
seed had grown into a sapling taller than my head. In another
minute, its thin branches became as thick as my arm as they spread
out like a rose opening to a new day. Buds formed and unfurled into
triangular leaves the color of blue nightshade, with red veins
going through them. A tree, forty or fifty foot tall with a wide
canopy swaying in the wind, towered where there was only violets a
few minutes ago.
    It was a hauntingly beautiful tree with white
flowers dotted against deep blue leaves.
    “I-I can’t believe it,” I gasped. “But...I’m
the only one with that kind of charisma.”
    “It’s not charisma,” Bryce said proudly. “I
told you—it’s magic. Think of the possibilities.”
    “I’m trying to,” I confessed, stunned and
anxious, as if I’d not only discovered that the boogie man was
real, but that he was standing behind me, peering over my shoulder
and giving me instructions on mixing crullers. “But for the life of
me, I can’t comprehend what it means.”
    A flock of silky black birds with red eyes
came out of nowhere to land in the tree. They squawked in a
maddening frenzy, fighting with each other. Their loosened feathers
scattered to the wind and floated down around us like falling
ashes.
    “This isn’t right,” I said, feeling shaky and
queasy. “It’s, it’s, I dunno—unholy.”
    “It’s no different than what you do, Mike,”
Bryce said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were
jealous.”
    I shook my head in denial and that’s when I
noticed the violets on the ground had withered into black rotting
vegetation. The lovely tree with the chain of yellow flowers had
dried up into a gray corpse.
    “My, God, Bryce,” I accused, “in order for
this magic to work it required the life of another tree and an
entire meadow of flowers.”
    “Who cares?” Bryce replied. “The important
thing is that it worked just like the charisma.”
    “No, it didn’t. Charisma gives of itself to
make life. This magic stole life from other plants to give to
another. It’s not the same thing at all. It’s...it’s...it’s an
abomination.”
    “God, Mike, you never used to be so
holier-than-thou. You’ve been hanging around Red too long.”
    “I gotta get out of here,” I said, panicking.
Just when the world had