Amanderella and the Haunted Mill Chapter 6

Suddenly, another high-pitched, warbling whistle drifted from the upper storey. It was followed by a series of rhythmic thumps—thump-scuff, thump-scuff—that sounded remarkably like something heavy being dragged across the floorboards.

The procession halted abruptly. Even Matilda the goose came to a dead stop, her neck stretching out long and low as she gave a hiss that would have intimidated a dragon. Mr Hobbins paled.

“That’s it. She won’t go a foot further. The goose has spoken.”

Amanderella, however, stepped forward, her eyes fixed on a cracked window on the second floor where a small cloud of flour dust had just puffed out into the morning air.

“Mr Paltry,” she said, extending a hand. “The key, if you please. And I suggest the rest of you remain here with Matilda. I should hate for any ‘unnecessary enthusiasm’ to interfere with the evidence.”

Mr Paltry fished the iron key from his pocket as if it were made of hot coals and dropped it into her palm. “Be careful, madam. If it… if it tries to whistle at you, remember what the blacksmith said.”

Amanderella tucked her notebook under her arm. “I have no intention of whistling, Mr Paltry. I have a spanner.”

Lady Honoria Pimm-Ducket sniffed. “Vicars may flee from draughts and shadows, but I trust you will behave with more sense.”

Amanderella raised an eyebrow. “The Vicar fled because something brushed his leg, I believe?”

Lady Honoria waved a dismissive hand. “Nonsense. He’d been at the churchyard cider again. The stuff ferments twice if you leave it near the compost heap. I warned him. Repeatedly. In any case, Vicars are ten a penny. I shall simply choose another. Preferably one who doesn’t shriek at flour.”

Mr Paltry made a small, strangled sound, but Amanderella merely inclined her head. “Very well. I shall begin my investigation at once. Alone.”

A collective gasp travelled around the group like a startled pigeon.

“Alone?” squeaked Mr Motethrifters, clutching his spectacles. “But the mill is… the mill.”

Mr Pottipans wrung his cap. “It’s been acting queer, madam. Ever since old Benrat Grister passed.”

Amanderella paused. “Benrat Grister?”

Mr Paltry nodded solemnly. “The last miller, madam. His family ran the mill from the day it was built. Knew every beam and bolt. Could tell the weather by the sound of the wheel. Could mend a gear with his eyes shut. A proper miller, he was.”

“And since he died,” added Mr Hobbins, stroking Matilda, “the place hasn’t been right. As if it misses him.”

Amanderella gave a small, thoughtful nod. “Buildings do not miss people, Mr Hobbins. But they can fall into disrepair when no one is maintaining them.”

Lady Honoria sniffed. “We discuss its maintenance regularly.”

“Indeed,” Amanderella said politely. “But discussion and action are not always close relatives.”

The Dowager bristled, but before she could marshal a retort, Amanderella lifted her lantern. “If you will excuse me, I should like to see the mill as soon as possible.”

Mr Paltry leapt to his feet. “Shall I accompany you, madam?”

“No,” Amanderella said gently. “I work best when I can observe without distraction. And without geese.”

Matilda honked, deeply offended.

Amanderella approached the door. It hung slightly askew, as though someone had forced it open recently. She made a mental note. Then, she stepped inside the mill, lantern held high, spanner tucked neatly under her arm. The door creaked shut behind her with a sound that would have sent the Preservation Society into a collective swoon.

Inside, the air smelled of flour dust, damp timber, and something else—something faintly metallic. It was full of the familiar chorus of neglected machinery: the tap of a loose paddle, the flutter of a forgotten canvas, the thin whistle of a bent chimney. Amanderella listened, nodded once, and stepped forward.

And immediately stopped.

Something new had been added. Something that did not belong in any mill, haunted or otherwise. A long length of twine stretched across the floor at ankle height, tied to a small brass hook on one side and a shallow metal tray on the other. The tray was filled with a suspiciously generous mound of flash-powder.

Amanderella sighed. “The Honourable Alimans Tringle-Slike,” she murmured, “has been here.”

She stepped neatly over the tripwire. A heavy bellows camera stood on a tripod nearby, its lens pointed dramatically at the main hopper. A handwritten label dangled from the shutter:

SPECTRAL MANIFESTATION CAPTURE POINT — DO NOT DISTURB (underlined three times)

Amanderella dusted flour from the label with the air of a woman who had disturbed it on purpose. She moved deeper into the mill. A cluster of glass tubes and velvet funnels had been arranged on a crate, connected by lengths of rubber hose. The entire contraption hummed faintly, though whether from design or despair was unclear. Another label read:

ECTOPLASM-COLLECTOR Mk II (Mk I exploded)

Amanderella picked up one of the velvet funnels, inspected it, and set it aside for later. “It may come in useful,” she thought.

She continued. The floorboards ahead were covered in chalk circles: large ones, small ones, overlapping ones, and one that appeared to be a diagram of a potato for reasons known only to Alimans Tringle-Slike. Each circle was labelled:

• PROTECTIVE BOUNDARY — DO NOT CROSS
• SECONDARY BOUNDARY — DO NOT CROSS
• TERTIARY BOUNDARY — CROSS ONLY IF POSSESSED

Amanderella stepped over all of them without hesitation. At the far end of the room, a tall, thin figure in a tweed coat was crouched behind a stack of flour sacks, muttering to himself and adjusting the angle of a velvet-lined butterfly net.

Amanderella cleared her throat.

The Honourable Alimans Tringle-Slike leapt a full foot into the air, dropped the net, and spun round with the expression of a man who had been caught trying to trap a ghost with haberdashery.

“Lady Gottsnobbler!” he squeaked. “You weren’t supposed to see this yet. I was about to lure the entity into Circle Three.”

Amanderella looked at Circle Three. It was the one shaped like a potato. “I see,” she said.

Alimans puffed out his chest. “I have reason to believe the spirit is attempting communication. I detected rhythmic thumps earlier.”

Amanderella inclined her head, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “I heard them too,” she said simply.

Alimans brightened. “Then you felt the presence?”

Amanderella stepped aside so he could see through the cracked shutter. The waterwheel turned steadily in the stream, and each time the warped paddle met the current it gave a small, sulky tap-scuff against the frame.

Tap-scuff. Tap-scuff.

She said nothing; she merely waited. Alimans stared at the wheel, his expression wobbling between revelation and disappointment.

“That is… remarkably similar to the rhythm I recorded,” he murmured.

Amanderella gave a small, thoughtful nod, as though the matter required further study. She lifted her lantern a little higher and approached the narrow wooden staircase. The first step groaned. The second sighed. The third muttered something that sounded faintly like “oh bother,” though that might have been the timber settling.

Amanderella paused only long enough to make a mental note of the angle of the warped tread, then continued upward with the steady confidence of someone who had climbed far worse staircases in far worse conditions. Soot-covered floorboards stretched before her like a black velvet carpet. She stepped onto them without hesitation. A perfect boot-print appeared.

Behind her, Alimans made a strangled noise. “You, you walked straight into the Apparitional Field!”

Amanderella examined the print with mild interest, as though it belonged to someone else entirely. “It seems to be functioning,” she said.

Alimans blinked. “Functioning?”

“Yes. It has captured a footprint.” She did not specify whose. “Now,” she said, “I should like to see the rest of the upper floor before I draw any conclusions.”

Alimans clutched his velvet-lined butterfly net. “Shall I accompany you?”

“No,” Amanderella said, with calm finality. “I prefer to observe without interruption.”

She did not add especially yours. She did not need to.