Amanderella and the Haunted Mill Chapter 5

                         Chapter 5.

 

 

Trouble at the Mill.

 

Amanderella woke early, refreshed and entirely untroubled by the valley’s nocturnal whistling. The Crooked Lantern was already stirring; someone downstairs was banging pans with the enthusiasm of a man attempting to frighten off evil spirits through sheer noise.

She dressed neatly, polished her boots with a handkerchief, and performed a final inspection of her toolkit:

• Spanner — polished, reliable, capable of persuading stubborn machinery to behave.
• String — a generous length, because one never knew when something needed measuring, tying, or gently restraining.
• Emergency biscuits — two shortbreads wrapped in waxed paper. Amanderella checked them for structural integrity. They passed.

Satisfied, she descended the stairs. The second step groaned. The third muttered. The fourth sighed.

The landlord greeted her with a plate that could have fed a regiment.

“Breakfast, madam. The usual.”

Amanderella regarded the contents:

• two eggs,
• three rashers of bacon,
• a wedge of bread thick enough to be used as a doorstop,
• and a portion of porridge so dense it appeared to be contemplating sentience.

“Thank you,” she said, and ate every bite with quiet efficiency.

By the time she finished her tea, the Preservation Society had begun to gather outside.

The morning air was crisp, the valley washed in pale sunlight. Amanderella stepped out to find the Society assembled in a loose, anxious cluster.

They had come equipped.

Mr Motethrifters carried a pair of binoculars so powerful they could probably see into next week.

Mr Pottipans had brought a long-handled hoe “in case of subterranean shuffling”.

Captain Bluster‑Gore wore his old naval coat and carried a brass whistle, which he claimed was tuned to counteract malevolent frequencies.

Trubshaw Paltry  clutched a huge iron key to his chest. For once his bowler hat was firmly on his head.

Behind them stood Lady Honoria Pimm‑Ducket, dressed in uncompromising black silk, Majesty the dog at her heels. She carried a clipboard and an expression that suggested the morning had already disappointed her.

And bringing up the rear, as promised, was Mr Hobbins, leading Matilda the Goose, who waddled with the solemn dignity of a bishop processing to the altar.

Amanderella inclined her head. “Good morning.”

The Society chorused a nervous reply.

Lady Honoria sniffed. “We shall proceed in an orderly fashion. No running, no shouting, and no unnecessary enthusiasm.”

Captain Bluster‑Gore muttered, “Aye, m’lady. No enthusiasm.”

Majesty the dog barked.

The procession set off down the lane, a curious mixture of determination, superstition, and mild chaos. Villagers peered from behind curtains as they passed, whispering as though witnessing a royal parade or a funeral, uncertain which.

A few braver souls stepped out onto their doorsteps.

Mrs Dwindle, the baker’s wife, stood with her rolling pin held like a sceptre. “Mind yourselves!” she called. “The mill’s in a mood today, I can feel it in my pastry.”

Her husband, dusted head‑to‑toe in flour, muttered, “You feel everything in your pastry,” but she shushed him sharply as though the mill might overhear.

Old Mr Crumpley, the cobbler, paused mid‑polish on a boot and squinted at the procession. “Off to poke the mill, are you?” he called. “Don’t poke too hard. It pokes back.”

Amanderella gave him a polite nod. “I shall be gentle.”

A pair of schoolchildren, late for lessons, stopped to stare. One clutched a slate; the other clutched a toffee. Both gaped at Matilda the goose as though she were a visiting dignitary.

Matilda honked regally.

Further along, Mrs Blenkiniron the postmistress leaned out of her doorway, clutching a stack of letters to her chest. “If the mill collapses,” she warned, “the dust will get into the envelopes. And then where will we be?”

“Dusty,” said Mr Pottipans, which did not reassure her.

A milkman pushing his cart halted to let the procession pass. His horse, a placid creature named Buttercup, took one look at Captain Bluster‑Gore’s moustache and sidled nervously into a hedge.

“Sorry!” the milkman called. “She’s sensitive to naval officers.”

Captain Bluster‑Gore saluted gravely. “Quite understandable.”

Near the green, the blacksmith emerged from his forge wearing his garlic crown, hammer in hand. He watched the group with the solemnity of a man observing a ritual he did not entirely approve of.

“Give it my regards,” he said, jerking his chin toward the valley. “And if it whistles at you, whistle back. Shows you’re not intimidated.”

Amanderella inclined her head. “I shall bear that in mind.”

By the time they reached the edge of the village, a small crowd had gathered behind them, not following, exactly, but drifting along at a safe distance, as though hoping to witness something dramatic without being implicated in it.

Lady Honoria turned, fixed them with a stare, and they scattered like startled pigeons.

The procession continued.

The track toward the mill wound downwards, following the curve of the river. As the sounds of the village faded, the distant clinking of the smithy and the lowing of cows, the air grew cooler and smelled of wet stone and decaying leaves.

From somewhere ahead, muffled by the dense willow trees, came a sound. It was not a howl, nor a groan. It was a high, clear, and maddeningly rhythmic whistling. It sounded remarkably like someone trying to remember the chorus of a sea shanty but getting stuck on the third note.

“B-flat!” the Captain barked, though he immediately lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Just as I warned. It’s mocking us, madam!”

Lady Honoria Pimm‑Ducket turned her head with the slow, icy precision of a woman preparing to extinguish nonsense at its source.

“Captain,” she said, in a tone that could curdle milk, “if a derelict mill has taken to mocking you personally, I suggest you examine your conduct rather than its pitch.”

Captain Bluster‑Gore’s moustache wilted like a reprimanded sea creature.

Matilda the goose honked once, as if in agreement.

Majesty the dog barked in agreement with the goose.

And then the mill came into view.

It was, Amanderella thought, a building with an identity crisis.

The windmill sails rose from the roof like the ribs of a long‑forgotten giant. Once canvas‑clad, they were now bare wooden frames, weather‑bleached and skeletal. No wind, however determined, could persuade them to turn.

Below them, the waterwheel sagged in its cradle, half‑submerged in the river. Moss clung to its paddles like a green shawl. The current nudged it occasionally, producing a creak that sounded like a door complaining about its hinges.

Beside the wheel stood a tall brick chimney, sooty and cracked, a relic of the mill’s steam‑powered ambitions. A faint puff of dust drifted from its top, as though it were sighing in its sleep.

The building itself was a patchwork of eras, stone, timber, brick, each section added by someone with a different idea of what a mill ought to be.

The Society halted behind Amanderella, staring at the structure with a mixture of awe and dread.

A faint, persistent whistle drifted across the water.

Captain Bluster‑Gore stiffened. “There! B‑flat! I told you!”

Mr Pottipans clutched his hoe. “The sacks will be restless today. I can feel it in my kneecaps.”

Lady Honoria raised her lorgnette. “It looks… untidy.”

Amanderella stepped forward, taking in the details with a practised eye. The whistle sounded again, thin and insistent, threading through the gaps in the old woodwork.

But as she drew closer to the heavy oak door, the wind shifted.

It wasn't just the smell of wet stone and decaying leaves anymore. A new scent drifted out from the cracks in the threshold, a thick, rank, and thoroughly unwashed smell. It was heavy, like damp fur and old vegetable matter that had been left to ponder its own existence in a dark corner for far too long.

Mr Pottipans wrinkled his nose and retreated a step, clutching his hoe. “That’s not flour dust, madam. And it’s certainly not moles. Moles are earthy. This... this smells like a larder that’s given up the ghost.”

“It’s the smell of the abyss!” Alimans Tringle-Slike whispered, his high collar clicking as he shuddered. “Or at least, the smell of a very discouraged spirit.”

“It’s the smell of something that needs a good scrubbing,” Lady Honoria declared, though she pointedly applied a lavender-scented handkerchief to her nose.

Amanderella remained unmoved. She inhaled the scent, her mind already categorising it. It was pungent, certainly, and it had a wild, musk-like quality to it that didn't quite fit the "spectral" theory.

“It is a biological smell, gentlemen,” Amanderella said firmly. “And where there is biology, there is a physical presence. And where there is a physical presence, there is something I can poke with a spanner.”

Amanderella approached the door, toolkit in hand. The rank smell grew stronger, the whistling grew louder, and the mill waited.