flax-golden

the cat and the fiddle

I was tasked with finding that cat who could play the fiddle because the band needed a proper fiddle player and the sheep were lousy at anything but percussion (including running their own errands). I asked around at pubs and shoppes and fairy markets and several questionable sources pointed me in the same direction but when I got there I only found the cow.

I asked if she had really jumped over the moon and she said yes but technically it was a moon and not the moon.

She told me that tale-tellers are prone to hyperbole, especially when rhyming.

I asked after the cat, hoping that part wasn’t also a rhyme-necessitated exaggeration. I explained how I was searching for a fiddle player and she told me the cat did indeed play the fiddle once but she gave it up, something about no longer finding the instrument challenging. The last the cow had heard was that the cat was studying the harpsichord, or at least that’s what the little dog said.

I told her that was a shame as I had been sent in search of a fiddle player and not a harpsichordist, and thanked her for saving me the trouble of looking further. She told me the cat always declined invitations to join bands anyway because the fiddle thing had given her a bit of a reputation and she preferred to be free to follow her muse.

Then the cow added in a whisper that the dish really did run away with the spoon but the fork was the only one who didn’t see that coming and he’s still in therapy.

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

not how love works

I’ve been told it’s important to always be nice.

But nice can be dangerous.

It puts me in places I don’t want to be.

I don’t know how to get out of them and still be a nice girl.

He gives me flowers and demands which he mistakes for endearments.

I try to explain to him.

To make him realize that this is not how love works.

He doesn’t listen.

I don’t think he even understands.

I don’t know what will happen if I stop being nice.

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

seagull 

I hadn’t seen any birds at all for so long that at first the dark spot on the blue sky was a puzzlement. My eyes couldn’t sort out what it was until it came close enough that the birdness was undeniable.

I think he’s a seagull. That would make sense.

I expected him to fly away, but he’s stayed with me. I worry that he might be better off if he kept going, though I am glad for the company.

He cries, but most of the time the wind carries the sound away. Not that I would understand what he’s trying to tell me even if I could hear him properly.

He circles my boat, but he never tries to land on it. He looks at me forlornly, as though he suspects, like I do, that there is no more land to be found.

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

the tiny maybe-witches down the street

My mother says they’re the biggest gossips in the neighborhood but I don’t think that makes much sense. They’re both too small to be the biggest anything.

They sit in the window together on tiny chairs and drink their tea and talk a lot.

They’re like miniature versions of the kind of ladies my father sometimes calls cat ladies but they don’t have a cat. (I think that’s because a cat would probably eat them.)

My sister says they’re witches. I’m not sure, because they wear flowered dresses and they don’t have pointy hats, but they might be in disguise.

I’ve been told to stay away from them but if I walk by their window I say hello. They call me “dearie” and ask me about things that I don’t understand how they know about because I haven’t told anyone, so I don’t always admit everything but I try to be polite.

They give me lemon cakes smaller than my fingernail that taste like icing-covered sunshine and always make me feel better than I did before.

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

penguin investigative services

There’s a penguin in the shrubbery staring at my neighbor’s house.

He’s still there when I go to get the mail, so I walk over to see what he’s up to.

He freezes and looks shifty-eyed for a moment and it seems like he might run away but he doesn’t. I think he snuffs out a cigarette on the ground before I reach him but I can’t tell for sure.

I ask what he’s doing.

Classified, the penguin says, with an apologetic shrug.

When I start to walk away he asks me if I’ve seen anything suspicious, which I haven’t. He seems disappointed but he gives me his card and asks me to contact him if I do and then he warns me not to talk to tigers and leaves.

The card says “P.I.” and contacting him involves leaving a pie to cool in a south-facing window, so I don’t think much of it and make a mental note to ask my neighbor if he knows anything about the penguin next time I see him.

The tiger knocks on my door just after dark but I don’t answer, and as soon as he gives up and stalks off I start baking.

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

worldbuilding assistance

I get nervous when it’s time for a new world, even though I’ve been assisting for more worlds than I can count.

I try to be prepared, though it’s mostly about keeping things organized.

My favorite part is assembling all the colors. Every color I can possibly provide, arranged from deepest darks to lightest lights, as I haven’t yet managed a system to determine which ones will be needed in advance.

I sweep the floor, twice if there’s enough time.

Sometimes I try to scrub the remains of the last world from the walls, but the walls are hard to clean and they never seem to mind, they say it’s nice to have remnants of the worlds that have come before priming the canvas.

I suppose they have a point, but I like to tidy things as much as I can before the messiness starts.

New worlds are always messy at the beginning.

But they usually figure themselves out.

I’ve only needed to use the extinguisher once.

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