The Mill That Ground Ashes

Listen to the hail beating on the thatch. As if someone were flinging bones by the handful. You, reader, who since evening have been asking for something more frightening, something that gets right under the skin, sit over there, where the shadow is thickest. Set your mead aside. This thing was told to me by an old miller from down by the Buh, when the spring flood washed away the bridge and he sat with us for three days.

He was a quiet man, his hands in flour and wood shavings, and he smelled of rye and of a damp weir. He told of one mill in a remote backwater where he had been called to mend the millstones. The place was silent, the water dark, and the willows along the bank leaned over as if listening to something under their roots. The miller lived there alone, because the owners were afraid to spend the night by the water - though why, they would not say.

The first two days he spent shaping new gear wheels. But on the third night he woke to a sound. The mill was working. Not creaking in the wind, not groaning with its old boards, but grinding, truly grinding: a crunch, a hum, the heavy rasp of stone on stone. As if someone unseen were pouring grain into the hopper and patiently waiting for flour. Only he himself, that very evening, had taken off the belt and disengaged the stones, to let the wood rest.

He leapt up, threw on his coat and went to the mill. The air inside was icy, and it reeked of river silt, of wet stone, and of something ancient, as if the water had carried here not a smell but someone else's memory. Moonlight seeped through the gaps between the boards in thin white strips and lay on the floor like cuts. Inside, the millstones were turning - slowly, but relentlessly. The stones grated, though between them there was no grain, no feed at all.

What fell from under the stones was not flour but a fine grey dust. The miller stepped closer. The dust smelled not of rye but of old wet earth, and of something faintly sweet, like lilies long withered. He wanted to stop the wheel, but the mill-house door suddenly shut by itself. In the darkness he heard something heavy and wet crawling out from under the floor, straight out of the water hatch.

It was slick, and when it moved there came a sound as of someone running long fingers over the wet boards. The miller froze, pressed against the wall. Something crept up to the millstones. The grating changed. Now the stone was grinding not dust but something moist, with a soft crunching. And then out of the darkness came a whisper, quiet as the gurgling of water. It spoke no words, only breathed out someone else's frightened breath, as if somebody were begging to be saved.

The miller froze, pressed against the wall. Something crept up to the millstones. The grating changed. Now the stone was grinding not dust but something moist, with a soft crunching. And then out of the darkness came a whisper, quiet as the gurgling of water. It spoke no words, only breathed out someone else's frightened breath, as if somebody were begging to be saved.

The miller never again mended mills on still water. And I will tell you this: if some night you hear a wheel creaking far away, though there is no wind, do not go to the window to look. But tell me now - are you quite certain that no one is standing behind that door in the dark, waiting for us all to fall asleep?