erin's emporium of discount dreams & well-worn wonders

character reading

“Are you sure you really want to know your future?” he asks as I dig through my bag in search of appropriate amounts of loose change for the rather mundane looking machine hanging on the wall.

“No,” I answer honestly. “But I’m curious and it’s cheap.”

“That’s because it’s just a trick to steal your money.”

The coins make a hollow clicking noise as they fall through the machine, followed by something like gears turning though nothing moves, and then a small piece of paper like a faded business card falls into my hand.

Someone close will betray you.

“Well, it won’t be me,” he says, reading over my shoulder.

I flip the card over to see if it has anything else to say.

He is a liar, it tells me. He already has.

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

clandestine coffee

Suburban witches meet in secret. Or as secret as suburbia allows, with its nosy neighbors and their curious, narrow-eyed stares. Jokes are made about broom closets, but it is easier this way.

No Sabbat circles on soccer fields. They turn the wheel of the year in living rooms and basements, under the guise of book clubs or knitting groups. (Though they do have a proper book club that meets on alternate Tuesdays, and several of them knit.)

In October, post-trick-or-treating, when sugar-sated children are tucked in bed, they wander through the veil-thin night in ironically worn pointy hats. Using disguises to be themselves.

Though circles and spells are kept at home, concealed behind closed plastic window blinds.

Punctuated by spice cake and candy, gossip and mugs of coffee.

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

witness to the crime

They took countless precautions, accounted for every possible variation. Everything was meticulously plotted down to the last detail and after that they even waited until the weather was absolutely perfect. Clear and bright, with no wind to carry screams and convenient rain forecasted for the evening to wash any remaining evidence away.

Everything went according to plan, so smoothly that there were jokes made about the ease of the thing, that perhaps they over-planned. There were no mistakes, no missteps. The crime was carried out so quickly that there was not a single scream left hanging in the air by the lack of wind.

Of course, they also thought there were no witnesses, but the pigeon saw everything. No one saw the pigeon, as the pigeon was not an accounted-for variation in the weeks and months of planning.

Pigeons have no loyalties, and they keep no secrets. Before the rain came every bird in the city knew what had happened, their own plans already formulating.

glitter never fades

She was warned, so many times. Cautioned in soft-spoken admonishments and harsh annoyed cries.

It is dangerous to play with such permanent things. Temporary matters make better playthings, providing no long-term damage.

But she was always an impulsive child.

The easily popped soap bubbles held no appeal, nor did water-soluble paints or erasable markers.

Only glitter served her purposes. Shiny, shimmering glitter that sticks and holds and never, ever lets go.

Now she is older and wiser and more conservative in her glitter usage, when she dares use it at all.

It makes one cautious, having a past permanently dusted with sparkling regrets.
 

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

borne back ceaselessly into the past

I chose this hotel because it has author themed rooms, though which author you end up with is a matter of luck. To my delight we end up in the Fitzgerald room. There’s even a worn paperback of The Great Gatsby on the table by the bed, sitting next to a green-glass lamp.

I say something about the green light and he just stares at me.

“What are you talking about?” he asks after the pause has gone on too long.

“Gatsby,” I say, holding up the book.

“Isn’t that one of those boring books they try to force you to read in high school?” he asks. It’s more dismissal than question, he’s already turned his attention to the rest of the room.

“Boats against the current,” I murmur to myself as he tries to figure out the buttons on the television.

It is in this moment that I realize we’re not going to last.

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

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.

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

deceptively simple demands with deadly consequences

They told me it would ask questions but it doesn’t. Questions would involve question marks, these are demands.

They are fairly simple demands, which is good, since the only way to answer is with the blocks: carved wooden blocks like children’s toys, each with a single letter emblazoned on one side.

Your name, it demands.

I look through the blocks, already starting to feel familiar beneath my fingers, but there aren’t enough. There’s only one A, and no Zs.

I spell out “No” but that doesn’t satisfy it.

Your name.

I wonder what will happen if I lie.

They warned me not to lie.

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

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.

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

an embrace made of stars

He asked me what I missed, most of all.

I was almost asleep so he had to repeat the question.

I told him truthfully that I didn’t know, the thought lost to dreams within a matter of minutes.

He asked me again the next night when I was more awake so I considered it for a while and I couldn’t think of anything and I told him so.

I thought that would be the end of it, but he asked again and again, every evening in that pre-sleep quiet, letting it become part of our nightly routine. But while I could have listed a litany of things I missed, none seemed worthy of that most-missed title.

And one night I knew, surprised that I hadn’t thought of it before.

“I miss the stars,” I told him, looking up at the empty darkness above.

He only nodded, in agreement or approval or some combination of the two, and held my hand while we fell asleep like he always does.

I woke to find myself enveloped in an early-morning night sky, stars hand-drawn on bare ground and walls, each one bright and warm and glowing.

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

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.

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