Remembering the Miller’s Daughter by Steph Lay
The old sails were nearly all broken, splintered vanes stretching their off-white bones high up into the blue of another perfect summer dawn. I walked this way every so often, my usual route taking me past the disused windmill and down across the bridge towards the canal. I don’t know what it was that made me stop and take a seat on the bench that day, perhaps I just wanted a peaceful moment to myself before the shove and hassle of routine took hold. The air was delightfully cool, the June heat yet to build and I sat quietly, letting my eyes wander over the mismatched old bricks, the heavy millstone propped up by the front door, worn from who knew how many grinding rotations over the years.
The lower windows were grimy, their panes heavily barred to guard against intruders but as I squinted up towards the top, I was sure I saw a flicker of something white moving behind the topmost window. I blinked—no-one should be up there, surely? I remembered when the local museum used to run open days and families would dutifully pay the entry fee and shepherd their noisy children inside, guide them up the steps inside to peer at the rusty machinery and learn all about the olden days. I thought those tours had stopped long ago, the rotting floorboards too rickety to bear the risky weight of visitors, but maybe they were about to start up again, and I was watching someone dusting away cobwebs and setting out chairs? No, weeds grew thickly up against the front door, and a padlock and chain held it firmly shut, but there was definitely something moving behind the window… I could see an indistinct shape, like someone hunched low.
I was just about to go and look closer, but froze in place when a groaning, splintering creak filled the air. The refreshing cool of the morning had turned bitterly cold, and I shivered as I stood stock still, trying to place the sound. Those tattered old sails! They’d started to move, just a fraction at first but picking up speed as I watched, a graceful rotation that dipped and swooped round and round. The figure in the window had straightened now, and a face looked down at me, blurry and unclear, hand pressed flat against the glass. The sails moaned, and from somewhere inside, tortured metal shrieked as long-stilled machinery began to crank back into life. It felt as though the noise was building to a crescendo when abruptly, the topmost sail swiped across the window, and everything stopped. The morning warmed up again, birdsong filling the air. The window was empty again now, the vanes perfectly still, but I could see something new, just in front of the door. On shaking legs, I went over to look. A mound of off-white powder. I carefully tested it with a finger—it was flour. Freshly-milled, fragrantly redolent of grain and still, very slightly, warm to the touch.
© Stephanie Lay, May 2024