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A quote: “No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected.” ~~ Julius Caesar
I’ll start with a story …
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The last time I saw Hawking Springs (pop. 1204) was through the back window of the bus as I left for college in 1975. Who knew fifty years later I’d be living in Miss Ethel’s postage-sized bungalow on the north edge of town.
The town has grown to a whopping 3,027, boasting a new credit union along Main. Our teen hangout, Don’s Donuts, rebuilt into a drive-thru espresso shop. The local garden club still keeps the sidewalk planters blooming.
I peddle through town on a fat-tired beach cruiser. South of town it quickly thins out to wide fields and parcels of dense trees. Nothing has changed out here, I even spot the old McMurtha place in the distance, half-burnt Victorian always threatening to fall.
I pull up next to a hulking tree at the crumbled driveway. I remember this mailbox embedded as much in 75 as now. How …? We all had stories – heard or made up – Broken hearts, suicide, arson. And this mailbox? Write a note and a few days later, get an answer.
That was one tradition that stayed true. No one ever fessed up about writing answers.
I grab a notepad from my backpack and scribble, “Hi, legion! Are you still there?” slipping it in the slot.
I feel silly at my own cheekiness on my ride home. But it, excuse the expression, haunts me and I pedaled back a few days after.
I’m surprised at how easy I can open the box and suspicious of the note inside. Not my bright white paper, but a thin, yellowed sheet with ornate, black-ink handwriting.
“We are fine, dear Coreen. Join us soon. Ethel is with us.”
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license
Cameron says: I’m surprised to see the old mailbox in the tree. We used to leave letters there like a time capsule just like our parents did. I’ve been gone for a few years and this was one of the things still left behind from the renovations the town was going through.
“Oh, they tried to remove it,” mom said. “The entire town turned out against them and the lawyer that represented us pointed to some clause that kept ‘historically important items’ untouched.”
I went there early the next morning. Just like everyone else in town, I had a key for the mailbox. The original owner was a mystery but no one in the town complained.
The key slid in easily. No rust or debris to be found. I look at the letters and to my surprise, I actually find one addressed to me. And it looks like my writing. I place the other letters back and open this one. There were only a few lines on the paper.
They passed peacefully. They love you and know that they will see you again some day.
The words are painful to read but somehow, I know my wife and son are all right.
We call them fairy mailboxes. You’ll find them embedded in a tree, often on the edge of town — or where the edge of town was twenty or thirty years ago.
The Fair Folk are shy people, and even here in the New World they prefer to keep to themselves in their hills and howes, unlike the magical peoples who accompanied the Chinese and Japanese people in settling the West Coast. But if you know how to approach them with respect, they will answer difficult questions and offer advice.
I almost didn’t dare open this one. Would the local elvenkind decide that I’d been presumptuous in my question, leave me a snub or some unpleasant prank?
But equally I couldn’t delay forever. Somehow the Fair Folk kept watch over these places, and would know if their missives were ignored.
Screwing up all the courage I could manage, I opened the mailbox to find a single sheet of cream-colored paper, carefully folded into a shape that suggested an envelope.
Heart pounding against my ribs, I pulled it out and unfolded it. The response was brief: “Do not fear. All will come together in its proper time.”
Not an easy response to receive, and probably not as reassuring as its writer intended. To the Fair Folk, we are as ephemeral as mayflies, as the morning dew. So they cannot understand why the future should be such a source of ill-ease to us.
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