The Mill - Part 1

Time for another fairy tale. Again, this fairy tale is part of a collection I've self-published. I'll be revising the publication, so I won't link it right now, but maybe I'll edit it in later. In the meantime, please enjoy this, and if you like it, you may like my previous fairy tale also.

The old mill had stood there for at least one hundred years, maybe more. It depended on who you asked and how long they'd lived in the region. It stood attached to a one-room home whose only occupant was a young maiden named Alora. Small-framed and thin, it was the river that powered the millstone and made the flour. Not much, but enough to feed herself and sell to the bakers in town.

But none would befriend her or even speak to her in casual conversation unless they were strangers to any of the neighboring villages. The mill had a reputation for being haunted. Even when the woman was out it seemed to be producing flour, albeit in small quantities. The flour had a taste unlike any other, even if it came from the same wheat used by the other mills. It kept business going, but none wanted to venture to the mill, and many had their flour blessed by a priest before using it, and at least one baker routinely brought the flower he purchased from Alora to the church to be cleansed before even offering it for sale!

In time, the discovery of a silver vein some caverns nearby drew prospectors from near and far to the village, and the reputation of this delectable flour spread throughout the region until one day it landed on the plate of Prince George in the form of some zestful muffins. When he took a bite, he met with a taste so delicious he could barely describe it!

Calling his baker to him, he demanded to know the recipe.

“I baked it the way I always bake your muffins, Your Highness,” the baker said. “'Twas the flour that was different. I brought some from my son, who was working the mines in the west until last week. He said it was the best flour there was!”

The prince's curiosity was piqued. “Tell me where he bought this flour. I must meet the miller and learn his secret for our own mill!”

The baker fetched his son, who told Prince George of the village and its mysterious mill, and of the young woman and her supposedly bewitched goods.

“Superstition!” cried the prince. “There's a secret there, for sure. Local legends don't concern the Crown.”

With leave from his father and brothers, Prince George set off by himself for the peculiar village and its enigmatic mill. Far to the west he rode, encountering gossip and myth all centered on and emanating from the mysterious mill and the young woman who resides in it.

“You never see her by night. They say that's when she works her spells,” one old woman told him.

Another was pleased to answer his inquiries with, “The mill was once struck by lightning and it didn't even burn! Not a scratch! Not that anyone got that close to it, mind you. It is haunted, after all!”

When Prince George arrived at the village, he was taken aback. It appeared so ordinary! People went about their duties, sweeping the streets, chatting, and buying and selling goods. Without an escort, the prince himself looked quite ordinary. None in the village seemed to recognize him, and they were used to strangers passing through.

Stopping an old man, he asked, “Where is the mill that produces your town's tasteful flour?”

The man paused for a moment “That old mill is haunted, don't you know? If you just follow the river that runs by her – I'm sure you've crossed it on your way in – you'll find it. Or, if you're not afraid of being turned into a toad or something, you could wait until she comes and follow her.”

“Ah, your witch, or specter, or whatever you call her!” Prince George laughed.

“Don't take it lightly!” the man scolded. “She always comes on this day with her bag of flour to sell. Oh, but she doesn't deal in money, though. She just barters for fabric and thread and things.”

The whole village suddenly seemed to tense up and the prince thought his identity had been discovered. That moment passed very quickly, though, for he soon realized that all of their eyes were on the dirt road coming into the south side of town. It was bare, save for the lone figure of a woman slowly approaching.

To Prince George, she looked perfectly normal. Her dress was simple, her bonnet prettily adorning her gentle head. She was pushing a small wheelbarrow with what looked like a couple of sacks of flour. She wasn't translucent or ethereal in any way, but nor did she possess obvious warts, growths, or any of the other tell-tale signs of witches or witchcraft.

She strode into town, careful not to speak too much or make unnecessary eye contact as she passed through the streets, which now seemed cluttered with statues instead of people! Their bodies were still, children were shooed back indoors, and some were making the sign of the cross as she drew near.

“Good baker,” she said, her voice meek. “Can you spare any fresh vegetables for a sack or two of flour this week?”

The baker nodded, never speaking a word and never even looking at her. He merely eyed the flour and fetched a basket of vegetables for her.

Placing the basket in her wheelbarrow, she turned to leave from where she came when the prince suddenly stopped her. Startled, she looked up at him, meeting his gaze with her emerald green eyes. He was instantly smitten.

“Fair maiden, are you the one who lives at the mill that produces this exquisite flour?”

“I am she.”

Prince George held out his hand to her, displaying the royal insignia on his ring. “Please allow me to see your mill and learn the secret of this unmatched flour.”

The girl looked flustered and her face reddened with embarrassment. She stammered for a moment, searching for any excuse to take her leave, but none came. She nodded her head and beckoned the young man to follow her.

All eyes were now on the pair. In hushed voices, they speculated and gossiped with one another. From the church's doorstep, the priest muttered prayers for the young man.

“This village is rather odd, don't you think?” he asked as their feet left the cobblestone of the town and met the dirt road.

“Is it the town that's odd?” the woman asked. Her eyes were fixed on the familiar road and didn't dare look again at the prince by her side.

There were no more questions or any talk whatsoever as the pair left the well-trodden part of the road and moved to the little loose-soiled path that led only to the old mill. It took them straight to the river that ran alongside a dense forest, at the edge of which stood the old mill, its enormous waterwheel slowly being turned by the might of the flowing water as it seeped into the millpond.

The woman brought the prince through the front door of the noisy building. The prince never much cared for mills for the noise and the many obstacles in moving about them. A large, black pitwheel jutted out of the wall, rotating with the same slow rhythm of the waterwheel outside. It groaned as it rotated the wallower, spinning the vertical shaft like a cog in a clock.

In fact, that's exactly how Prince George saw it: mills were like giant clocks that people worked and sometimes lived in. Noisily, the giant cog atop the wallower, in turn, spun the stone nut that rotated the millstones on the floor above. All of them groaned and banged against each other, and this went on all hours of the day!

Seeing his displeasure, Alora thought she spied an opening. “Your Highness, as you can see, this mill is quite ordinary. If you’d like, I’ll just explain our process here and then you may leave. It’s really nothing out of the ordinary, I assure you.”

“Nonsense,” he replied, waving his hand dismissively. “I’ve traveled far to see this mill, and I can endure some discomfort for the chance to see your process. Show me the millstones and the grain.”

Alora’s eyes stung with the fearful tears she was fighting back, but she could still not refuse her prince. Turning towards a ladder, she led the prince to the upper floor where the two millstones were grinding up the grain. The sack of grain appeared to have been nailed to a chute at a downward angle, causing the grain to fall onto the bedstone where the runner would crush it.

“How extraordinary!” he exclaimed. “But what do you do when the bag runs out? That bag is far too small to still be so full after a trip to the village and back!”

Alora said nothing. She only wrung her sweating hands on her dress and grit her teeth. Prince George found it peculiar and looked back to the grain sack. As the grains of wheat trickled from the sack’s wide mouth, it never seemed to grow empty. The sack looked full always, the grain pouring out of it but never emptying.

“So, you are a witch as they say,” the prince declared, scarcely believing the words coming from his own mouth. He drew his sword hastily and backed toward the ladder that would return him to the lower floor.

Alora rushed to the bag of the wall, crawling frightfully upon the bags of flour stacked in the back. Prince George charged her, his sword held high above his head as his feet flew beneath him.

With a shriek, Alora leaped from her perch and rushed, sobbing, towards the edge of the loft. Gripping the banister tightly with her slender fingers, the prince came thrusting for her. With a scream and flinch, Alora jolted to the side. The prince missed both Alora and the banister, his foot colliding suddenly with the tip of the ladder. His body lurched forward and tumbled from the upper floor, smashing onto the wooden floors below.

When he came to, he found himself lying in a bed made of straw on the lower floor, his brain wracked by a pounding headache. The woman was kneeling beside him, her emerald eyes full of worry.

“I’m sorry you hurt yourself, my lord.” She produced a cool, damp rag from a small bucket and placed it on his forehead. “It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been so hasty and vicious. After all, I didn’t want to bring you here in the first place.”

Prince George grumbled. His head pounded, and his legs felt weak whenever he tried to shift them. Attempting to prop himself up on an elbow caused his head to swim with great pain, forcing him back down.

Alora continued to on, her voice hushed so as not to cause further pain to the poor prince. “Just so you know, I am not a witch. Those rumors are completely false. This mill is bewitched, though. I had no idea when I found it abandoned! You see, my parents were farmers. The Great Drought affected them badly and they were forced to sell a bunch of livestock just to get buy. They were driving them to market when something spooked them and a stampede broke out. My mother died instantly, and my father died in the night.

“I had no idea how to manage farmhands or anything, so I sold the farm and traveled north to find better prospects. Perhaps I’d become a nun or something - I’d lived a rather sheltered life, knowing only my parents, grandparents, and my chores, and had no idea how the world outside worked. I found this little mill on the way and decided it wouldn’t hurt to stay here for a time. It was abandoned, you know. Still, it seemed to be in tip-top shape.

“My grandfather was a miller, and since I spent so much time with him as a child, I knew a bit about how to go about it. You see, he was getting on in years, so instead of learning the farm, I stayed with my grandfather until he died - flu, I think - and then moved back in with my parents full-time. I thought I could get it going just enough to make some bread. Mills are easy to run, after all. The river and machinery do most of the work, and I was very hungry.”

Prince George again grumbled. Curses, witches, magic, haunted mills - these were all things that were just superstitions to him at the day’s start. Now that it was staring him in the face, he found himself filled with new doubts of a different kind. Who, or what, could he really trust? Was Alora a witch, feigning ignorance, or outright lying?

“I found some grain stored away and decided to use some just to test that the equipment still worked as well as it looked. I expected it to be rotten or infested with mice, but it was in surprisingly perfect condition! I half wondered if the mill was truly abandoned, but since there were zero signs of anyone living there, I figured it had only been recently deserted.

“The first sign that something amiss actually came when I started to pour it onto the bedstone. The bag wasn’t getting any lighter! No matter how much you pour, it simply never empties! And the flour it produced was of a quality and taste I’d never before experienced! I’m not boasting that I had any varied experiences prior, mind you, but this was still something beyond my wildest imaginings! It was sweet without any sugar, light but weighty, if that makes any sense.”

With his head pounding, very little made any sense to the prince. It hurt to think, so he was content to allow the little miller woman prattle on.

Her voice shaking, she continued, “I sat down to eat the small loaf of bread I’d baked and was enjoying the taste when an apparition appeared before me. It claimed to be the spiritual residue of the previous owner’s wife. She’d been burned for the crime of witchcraft, and readily admitted her guilt! She called me a trespasser - although I’d say witchcraft is a far worse crime than even intentionally trespassing - and cast a spell on me.”

Her eyes welled up with tears, and for once the prince was moved by her story. It was more than just the tears that made his heart soften, it was her body language. Her shoulders began to shake, her tears pouring from her eyes like an eruption. Her hangs had stopped wringing her dress and were now just balled up into fists. It was the image of sheer hopelessness and despair that moved Prince George.

“By night, I take the form of an owl,” she cried. “Because of it, I cannot leave the mill. I can’t explain my situation to anyone! The witch, or whatever was left of her, that did this did it only to spite me for entering her husband’s mill, and now I cannot leave it even if I want to!”

Fear instantly gripped Prince George. The mill was cursed. The woman who entered it was now cursed, too. “Am I to join you in this wretched existence?!” the prince demanded, his voice rising beyond was his head could tolerate at the moment.

Alora’s head jolted up, looking the incensed prince square in the eyes. His were cold like stone beneath his angered brow, hers wet as a fountain beneath her eyebrows, raised in shock.

“No, my lord,” Alora replied as politely as she could. “The witch promised that none would suffer unless he chose to of his own free will, and the flour I sell has no ill-effects on anyone, or my livelihood would dry up.”

“What, pray tell, would make someone want to suffer along with you?” Prince George sneered.

“That’s how the spell is broken. If one wishes to break the spell, he must first take a five-year-long vow of silence. As he lives silently, his body will prematurely grow withered and old. If he lasts the entire five years, his vitality will be restored and the spell broken.”

Before she could continue, she gave a small cry of alarm. Her balled-up fingers stretched into the tip of wings, the rest of the woman’s body shrinking up in the form of an owl, her once soft green eyes now the large, piercing stare of a large owl. The creature’s head seemed to hang in shame and fright, but the prince himself was equally appalled.

Jumping to his feet, his pounding head blurring his vision, he staggered as quickly as he could from the mill.

That's it for part 1. I don't want this to get too long or you'll be sitting here, reading for an hour! I'll put up the next part soon.