golden heartstring - stories inspired by 'folklore'

chapter three: the distance is ours

based on 'epiphany' and 'the lakes'

Some would say that the more stories go around about you, the more immortal you are. People don't remember facts, or truths. They aren't interested in curtains being pulled or doors being opened. They want the keyholes, the picked locks, the shattered windows. They want the silhouettes on the front porch in the middle of the night, the hints of music that clash through silence as swollen as distance. They want haunted, abandoned. They want stories. Ugly ones, pretty ones, false ones, corrupted ones. They want to be compelled like a queen's gambit can compel an entire game of chess.

They don't even remember names. Only stories.

The house of whirlwinds and rainstorms offered stories galore. It had done so for centuries, for ages and decades and eras and eons. It had offered stories for countless of lightyears and legions of constellations. No one knew exactly what to believe, because no one knew exactly what was true – and there's so much to believe about what we don't know. A scorned socialite, a broken-hearted assassin, more war tragedies than even the history records could handle, love stories you could only dream up in that fascinating realm between sleep and dreams. No one knew, and the house would never tell.

But as much as people guessed they knew about the wealthy woman with a face like Marie Antoinette's, or about the female killer that had once vowed to never break, not even for herself, or about the lovers that clashed in every galaxy... they never could fill the void of mystery surrounding the woman currently living in the house with answers.

Some said she didn't exist, that she was but a shadow, a memory, a vinyl stuck on the same note, a creature of the universe of what-if and if-only built by her predecessors. Some said she was a whisper of what had been and what would never be. Others declared that she was some kind of firefly, determined not to get captured and burn in captivity. They only caught glimpses of her after the sun had set, when she sat on the porch studying the stars with what seemed like an either very old or very provisional telescope. Her face shadowed by the damp gleam of fairy lights and lanterns. Some said that made her a dream, a myth, something you could never prove but believed in with your entire being. No one knew her name – not that it mattered, anyway, just like it didn't matter what color her hair was, or what shape her eyes, or what kind of drawing the freckles and birthmarks on her face and arms made out to be. People had their own version of her, and the truth wasn't a part of that.

She kept her distance. They called her the girl that had built an entire universe out of distance, the girl that could disappear into the distance if she chose to – and she did, or at least it seemed like she did at every occasion. She didn't live up to the reputation of legends and fairytales the house had created for itself. She wouldn't go down in history books. They would never talk about her in hushed whispers during boring church lectures. There wouldn't be any rumors flying around about her in school hallways and town squares. You see, people only want to indulge in what they know. And they knew nothing – just like she wanted it.

She knew all about the sagas of the house she lived in, but she wasn't a story herself.

Until that one day in the year that was dominated by so many headlights that the puppet masters of fate didn't have eye for heartstrings making headlines.

Until that one day when someone approached her front porch.

Until that one day when she told that someone her name.

Until that one day that made the stars blink in disbelief because they had been too busy plotting masterpieces and ceasefires with fate to see that something was about to change.