Magic Leaves

 

Nickel Novel

Title: Little, Clay Crock

A small, clay Crock is insignificant when empty, but if unique items are placed inside on the darkest night, they become magical.

Magnus Bolger, a hermit, and novice gardener, enjoyed watching his plants grow, and it was for that very reason why he wanted a tree, . . . a lemon tree.

Magnus removed one seed from the lemon he bought that day and planted it in a small pot. He anxiously checked the pot every morning, and after two weeks his patience was rewarded. The seed had finally started to grow. Two days later, it stood a few inches tall, but there was an oddity; something he had never seen before. It had three leaves instead of two. All his plants always started with two leaves, but never three.

Along with being a novice gardener, he was also a curious dabbler of the unnatural world and suspected the three leaves might be magical.

 

He nurtured the three-leaf lemon plant with great care, though expectedly, as it grew, the three leaves started to wither, and were being replaced with new leaves. He decided when the leaves fell, he would put them in a special place.

 

“But where, but where, but where, shall I put them,” Magnus repeated fretfully. “Three magical leaves must be kept in a proper vessel!”  

 

He meticulously watched and waited, and on the darkest night, the leaves naturally fell. Magnus gathered them up and carefully placed them in a small, clay crock and set it on the night-stand next to his bed.

 

Over the years, the lemon tree grew tall and strong and provided Magnus with a large bounty of lemons. But on one warm summer’s night, while Magnus rested beneath the lemon tree, as he often did, he heard a faint whisper floating in the air.

 

“Three leaves, three wishes, three leaves, three wishes, three leaves, three wishes.”

 

At first, he was frightened, a bit baffled, and positively, perplexed. But then he remembered what he had forgotten . . . the three leaves in the crock!

 

Suddenly, there was another whisper.

 

“On the darkest night, let fly the leaves on a southerly breeze, and three wishes will be granted to thee.”

 

Overwhelmed with excitement, Magnus hurried inside and retrieved the little, clay crock. He raced back outside, carefully removed the lid, and ever so gently poured into the palm of his hand the brittle, tiny leaves.   

 

Magnus did not have to think long on what his three wishes would be.

 

Standing next to the lemon tree, he waited anxiously for a breeze. A moment later, he felt a soft, warm breeze upon his brow. He immediately released the leaves and spoke his first wish.

 

“I wish I can forever watch my plants and the lemon tree grow.”

 

However, his eagerness to speak the wish caused him to forget the whisper he had heard.

 

The breeze was from the west, and it was not the darkest night.

Instantly, Magnus became the lemon tree. But despite his mistake, his wish was, . . . to a certain extent, granted.

Magnus, now a lemon tree, ultimately grew old and died, but the lemons from the tree had seeds and many new trees emerged. A so, a small part of him forever existed in each new lemon tree, thus allowing him to perpetually watch them grow, which was the intent of his wish.

 

 

A hasty wish will yield the objective, but an imprecise outcome may befall upon thee.

j/k