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the sheep know all your secrets

“They seem expensive,” I said to the pink-haired girl running the booth who looked like she should be somewhere other than a craft show, or at least selling something more punk than small fuzzy sheep.

“They’re actually on sale today,” she told me. “Normally they’re thirteen but I knocked them down to nine since it’s the last day and there are so many left.”

“Still seems high for a sheep that doesn’t do anything.”

“Oh, they do something,” she said, half-giggling and tucking her hair behind her ear while she leaned closer to explain. “Each sheep knows a secret, that’s why I have to paint each mouth with a little x, so they won’t tell until after they’re paid for.”

“What kind of secrets?” I asked, even though I was pretty sure she was either joking or flirting with me or both.

“Some of them know those deep dark past secrets you think no one else knows and others know future stuff like the name of your one true love or the day of the month your life will change, things like that but each one is different.”

I bought six sheep including the one that was staring at me because I only had enough cash for six and I still thought she was just flirting with me since she tucked her pink hair behind her ear three different times while she was wrapping them, but she turned me down when I asked if she wanted to get a cup of coffee or something.

Once I got home and figured out how to get the sheep to tell me their secrets, I wished I’d bought more of them.

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

waiting for the light

I moved my chair so I can see the lamppost through the window.

I know I would probably be able to see the light from anywhere in the room if the lamp were lit, but I like having a direct view. It makes me feel more secure, somehow, to be able to glance up from a book and see it, stalwart. Still dark.

It’s really quite clever, a lamp that only lights when you’re near.

Now I can’t stop checking it, even though it’s been dark for so long.

If it turns on again, I don’t want to miss it.

In case someday, somehow, you come back.

I’ll have a warning.

I just hope it will give me enough time to run.

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

advanced security

There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of magical cabinets kept within the vault. Since locks and spells can be broken, those who require more than the standard security measures are forced to be creative.

One of the most legendary cabinets is guarded by a passel of enchanted pigs.

Three of these pigs sing loudly and off-key when anyone approaches the cabinet. Another bites toes. Two pigs ask riddles that are mostly calculus-based, though each has both an obvious answer that is, in fact, wrong and a more complex correct solution. Pigs of the flying variety swoop down from the rafters like bats and strike with their hooves.

Were these individual challenges, they might be surmountable.

But all of the pigs attack simultaneously.

No one actually knows what obscure secrets or priceless treasures are kept within that particular cabinet, because its original owner is long dead and no one else has yet been able to overcome the pigs.

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

luck

I don’t believe in luck anymore.

Bad or good.

I used to believe in pennies and four-leaf clovers and horseshoes and rabbit feet, spilt salt and broken mirrors and Friday the 13ths.

I even kept a jar of Luck on a shelf to save for a day when I needed it most, though in retrospect I probably should have found a bottle that distinguished itself as the good sort.

It worked, in a way, which was impressive considering how little I paid for it.

But I changed my mind.

It’s not that simple. It’s all tied up in choices and chances and paths taken regardless of what kinds of cats cross them. Luck can only get you so far, good or bad.

Though I still believe fortune favors the bold, no matter what they keep in their jars.

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

heart’s desire

They say if you capture a golden deer it has to grant your heart’s desire.

I figured therefore they’d be pretty difficult to catch, so when one started hanging around my backyard I devised all manner of clever traps but I ended up offering it a sugar cube and making conversation. Apparently that counts as capturing.

I wasn’t sure if I’d need a cage or at least a rope for technicality’s sake but it explained (between sugar cube crunches) that as soon as it was on my property it was within my bounds to ask. I said that didn’t really sound like capturing and the deer shrugged and said capturing its attention works better than physically capturing anyway. Then it licked the sticky sugar residue off of my fingers. Its tongue was surprisingly soft.

I asked if it could really grant my heart’s desire, just to clarify, because I wanted to be absolutely certain, and it nodded.

But it said that it could tell I didn’t know what my heart most desired, so it couldn’t grant anything right then and it was sorry about that because I seemed nice.

Then the golden deer asked me politely for another sugar cube and suggested I spend more time with my heart.

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

a year of you

This year required a lot of bottles. I’m not sure how many, I didn’t count. More than last year, but I didn’t know you last year, which still seems strange.

I needed a very large one for tears cried. More than most years, but the whispered adorations bottle is almost as substantial, and I’ve never needed a whole bottle for unexpected moments of bliss before. It balances, I think.

It was a multitude of bottles sort of year, varied in shape and size and contents.

Now they’re all sealed and catalogued, ready to be stored on their shelf.

I have plenty of empty ones for whatever next year will bring.

I wonder how many of them you’ll be in.

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

holiday cheer of the reluctant variety

I despise the holidays, consumerism and plastered-on merriment wrapped in festive ribbons and shoved down my throat before I’ve even taken my Hallowe’en costume off.

Every day a sale and fighting to find the best deals and the biggest tree and Santa Claus on soda cans, though I suppose that one is proper historical tradition by now and not just seasonal marketing.

Still, once it gets down to the dark days of December, there’s that something in the chill air. Something quiet during the longest nights of the year.

With twinkling lights on strings.

And eggnog lattes.

Hot chocolate and candy canes and that horribly intoxicating evergreen tree scent that’s practically mind-altering and the damned Vince Guaraldi Trio and their perfect Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack.

And a well-timed snowfall.

It makes it difficult to Bah Humbug.

Dammit.

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

beautiful uncertainties

“Why do you do that?” he asks me, while I’m rinsing off my brushes.

“Why do I do what?”

“Why do you write things you don’t believe on the tables?”

“I believe some of them,” I say after a moment, watching the blue and red paint-tinged water circle the drain in almost-purple swirls.

“You don’t believe that one,” he says, balancing a tray full of empty teacups on one hand so he can point at the still-damp letters.

find the beauty and adventure in uncertainty and you will be free

“I’d like to.” I can’t look him in the eye so I focus on my paintbrushes instead before adding “Maybe someone will read it and think whoever wrote it must have believed it and that will help them believe it, too.”

“I wish you’d just believe it yourself,” he says.

When I look up he’s already taken his teacups and walked away.

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

the way home

I am tiring of paths that lead to walls.

I know each wall will have a door, but they’re difficult to find and even more difficult to open, and it takes up so much time.

They’re roadblocks. Pathblocks, since there are no proper roads.

Sometimes it feels like I’m looking for a place that doesn’t exist.

Or if it does, it doesn’t want to be found.

At least, not yet.

I wonder how long I should keep going.

I wonder if I have a choice.

I wonder if I’ll recognize it when I get there.

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

to help you see the whole truth

I didn’t really question my mental state until giant owls started talking to me.

Well, a giant owl.

One is probably enough for sanity-doubting.

Though I wasn’t even all that surprised when he showed up.

I thought “oh, it’s come to this” and that was that.

And really, it’s nice to have the company.

I keep wondering what it means, why he’s here. If I’ve finally lost it or it’s some sort of divine sign or a combination of the two.

He sits on my couch and drinks all my beer and tells me things I already know.

Which is its own kind of wisdom, I suppose.

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