flax-golden tales

journey without a destination









I just needed to get away for a while.

The train wasn’t the cheapest option, or the most expensive for that matter, but it felt like the right choice.

Maybe it sounded romantic.

And it was the only mode of transportation that didn’t require a set destination. I paid the highest listed price at the station and no one asked any questions.

There aren’t that many stops anymore, now that we’re so far from the city. Long stretches of trees line the tracks, the scenery hasn’t changed much.

I keep telling myself I’ll disembark at the stop that feels right.

So far none of them have.

And I can’t help wondering, in the back of my mind, how far the train might take me.


Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.
About flax-golden tales.

cures for what ails








The sign on the door is so worn that if it bore a more elaborate description it might be rendered illegible, but because there is only a single word inscribed upon it, it remains discernible.

Cures, it says. No more than that.

A tinkling bell sounds the quietest of alerts when the door is opened or closed.

Inside, the shelf-lined walls are covered with jars and bottles, each clearly as old as the sign on the door, if not older. They are carefully organized and labeled, though some of the labels are fading or stained or torn.

Their contents can cure anything. Fevers of any type, colds of common and uncommon varieties, sleeplessness and restlessness, confusion and depression and allergies, broken limbs and broken hearts.

But the bottles hold only individual ingredients, they must be mixed to gain potency, carefully combined and measured to counter the ailment in question.

And though the mixologist has kind eyes and a secret-keeping heart, many customers find they cannot confess their needs aloud, leaving empty-handed while the tinkling bell echoes behind them.


Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.
About flax-golden tales.

the memory of birds









What is it? she asks, pressing her hand against the picture on the wall. I wonder how many other children have repeated the gesture before her, impressed that the paint has not yet worn away, though the wall is crumbling in other places.

What is it? she repeats, and in my distracted wonderings about the longevity of paint it takes me a moment to recall the name.

It’s a bird, I tell her, though the word sounds wrong as it escapes my lips—too harsh and short for the delicate lines of the painting—I am reasonably certain of it. I think there were different types of them but I decide the explanation is better left simplified.

Is it a real thing? she asks, her finger hovering over the black dot of an eye without touching.

It was, I say, still favoring simplicity.

So it was here Before and someone saw it and repeated it on the wall so other people would see it and remember when it was real? she asks.

Something like that, I say, but no one remembers the real ones anymore.

I’ll remember that it was real Before, she says, and she reaches up on tiptoe to trace the lines of its open wings before nodding to herself and taking my hand, leading me farther along the crumbling wall.


Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.
About flax-golden tales.

under-bridge heart







I keep my heart hidden, I always have. It never felt right to me to leave it exposed.

It took me quite a while to find the proper spot to leave it. I tried under-bed boxes and seasonal snow-burying, moving it from location to location for years.

Once I put it under the bridge, which was a difficult feat, I knew that I would leave it there.

I have been chided for this precaution, warned by everyone from street sweepers to nosy old ladies in supermarkets that hearts should be worn on sleeves or stylish hats so they may be easily spotted and courted.

I smile and nod and assure them I will take their advice into consideration.

But I have no plans to move my heart.

I am waiting for someone clever to figure out where it is, someone who will realize the under-bridge is accessible from the river.

Someone who wants my heart badly enough to brave the waters in order to claim it.


Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.
About flax-golden tales.

fragile vessels with invisible contents







It wasn’t a very difficult technique to learn, though it took a lot of practice. And also some trial and error and a very soapy sofa before I figured out that practicing outside made for easier failure cleanup.

There’s a trick to it, beyond getting the size right or launching them so the wind helps with the carrying.

I should have realized it sooner, but it’s almost counterintuitive.

You would think that the contents would have to be lighter than the bubble by necessity, but that’s not the way it works.

The vessels are fragile, but the wishes inside them need to be strong.

Strong wishes are heavy things.

But the stronger the wish, the longer they’ll stay afloat. Halfhearted, wistful wishes pop almost immediately.

A heavy wish, properly supported and contained, can float long enough to come true.


Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.
About flax-golden tales.

sunken ships and siren songs







They say the sea is filled with nothing but claw-snapping creatures and danger. That it should be avoided at all costs, that it is something to fear.

I can’t be certain, but I think they’re wrong. I have glimpsed gardens of coral through rippling waves, explored stately sunken ships in half-remembered dreams with seaweed tangled in my hair.

Even when I’m awake I hear the siren songs that no one else can discern, their ears too full of air to interpret the water sounds.

They tease me when I try to explain. Joke that my long-dead mother must have been a mermaid. Sometimes I wonder if it’s true.

I sit alone on the forbidden shore, drowning my longing in salt-tinged wine and listening to the songs in the waves as they fall against the rocks, begging me to come home.

Wishing I could drink myself to the bottom of the sea where I belong.


Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.
About flax-golden tales.

hotel story








It used to be the kind of place that bubbled with stories to the point of overflowing.

Guests could hardly keep up with the gossip.

Every night another happening.

Another scandal.

The things the walls in Room 419 might say if they could talk.

(The walls on the fourth floor are mute, a quality coveted by certain guests, though the light fixtures have been known to whisper.)

But that was back in the day, or the night, rather, it was always more story-filled at night.

Most of the rooms are empty now.

Storyless.

Waiting impatiently for new ones.


Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.
About flax-golden tales.

crucial communication







It is so much easier for me to express myself in writing. Spoken words always fail to make it past my tongue properly, wandering astray over my lips to the point where what I say is very rarely what I mean.

I mean what I write.

I think I write what I mean, most of the time.

Perhaps I should give up speaking.

Reserve the use of lips and tongue for tasting and other pursuits.

Carry around a pen to translate my heart and my mind instead.

I worry there would not be enough paper, and I would have to resort to inscribing my thoughts and feelings on other surfaces instead.

I might not be able to control myself when there comes a sentiment I simply must express, words howling over walls or doors, desperately needing to be read.

And I would live in constant fear of running out of ink.

Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.
About flax-golden tales.

guard pig







Every house on the street requires a protector, a fact that is bolded and italicized in all of the paperwork. Though if the reason is specified in there it’s been buried in small-font, legal-speak sentences and footnotes.

Each protector is different, I don’t think that’s a bolded rule, but I’m not certain and none of them are the same, standing or sitting or draped over front doors in their own particular fashion.

We moved in most recently, but our house is the oldest and it shows, the steps are worn and the brick has seen better days. The list of things to fix once there’s enough time and money just keeps getting longer.

Our protector came with the house. He’s seen better days, too, and for a while after we moved in I was kind of ashamed, since other houses have regal-looking lions or glimmering dragons curled around their entryways.

Until one of the neighbors (the lady with the golden-eyed owl perched by her own door) came over, bearing a welcoming platter of fruit tartlets individually wrapped in wax paper.

“You’re so lucky to have the pig,” she said as I let her in, and she looked so scared I didn’t dare ask why.

But after she left, I gave the pig a tartlet.


Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.
About flax-golden tales.

pushy ponies








It’s not the worst house-sitting job I’ve ever had, but it’s certainly not in my top five or anything, either.

This lady didn’t even have time to meet me, I just got the keys from the agency, but she left long, detailed, color-coded lists stuck to the refrigerator with instructions about Proper Care and Management of the Estate, which is really more of a cottage but if she wants to call it an Estate that’s fine with me, she’s paying me twice what I normally get.

The plants that have two pages of instructions all to themselves are cactuses, or is it cacti? They don’t need watering but it says to turn their pots thirty degrees counter-clockwise three times a day and to leave an orange for each one at night, and the oranges are always nothing but curling peels on the floor the next morning.

The ponies are the worst, though. This flock of miniature ponies done up like carousel-less carousel horses the way other people put little sweaters on small dogs. They refuse to stay in their corral and they can undo the latches anyway. They’re constantly begging for treats and they try to steal the oranges from the cacti-cactuses and I have to shoo them away.

I try to ignore them, but they kick me in the shins with their hooves when they don’t get what they want. And they bite.


Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.
About flax-golden tales.