The Haunted Mill

The Haunted Mill


Prologue

This story takes place in the dark days, when kings ruled over europe and uncounted lords battled for supremacy in the lands.
The late Middle Ages in europe.
It was a time of misery, fear and death. Everywhere a man could found this three things. The Black Death and other plagues swept over the land, emerging from the fever-infested and foul cities in the south and the east. Or so the people thought. While the lords and kings fight useless wars and intrigued against each other, the common people suffered. There wasn’t enough food and while the kings and lords dined in great halls, hunted in their own woods, the people outside the castles were always hungry and without any money. They sowed their small, dry fields and desperately hoped something would sprout from their hard work every day.
Could someone have found true love in those days? And could love achieve a dominant position in dark times like that at all? And what is true love after all?
A dark time can create a dark love. You’ll see it.


Chapter 1 – The Haunted Mill

The Mill stood on a small stream at the brink of a great forest that stretched many miles to the east. It was an old building, long destroyed by a heavy storm. There wasn’t a wheel on the mossy wall, only a few decayed timber beams lay forgotten in the high gras beside the stream. Long ago the miller, his wife and her two sons died from the Black Death and many days after that no one dared to sleep within these walls. “The Mill is haunted” the people in the nearest village muttered to every stranger who came to the tavern.
But twenty years later a impecunious farmer and his wife found the mill in the shadow of the great oak tree which stretched his branched over the sunken roof and the little wooden shack beside the old mill.
Henry and his wife Sara fled from the war and conflict in the south to this place at the border, where the tax collectors and soldiers of the king were rarely seen. They searched for a nice and quiet place where they could raise the baby which grew in Saras belly for almost seven months.
It was a wonder for them when Sara became pregnant. Nearly five years the pair has tried without any success. She was 29 years old and that was almost too old in these times to raise a child properly. But they were glad about the news and moved from the greater villages in the south to the lonely towns and steadings in the far north of the land.
With nothing but their clothes, a knapsack on Henry’s back and a small bag with seeds and a shovel they came to the small town. Strangers weren’t seen here very often and the people weren’t very friendly to them, as they came to the small tavern in the middle of the town.
“We searched for a place to live”, Henry said to the owner of the tavern behind the old and yellowed counter. “My wife is pregnant, and we fled from the wartorn lands in the south. I was once a farmer. We mean no harm to your people here, we only want a nice place to plant something and raise our child.”
The old man behind the counter watched Henry carefully for a few seconds, than his eyes observed the pregnant Sara for a while.
“There is no place in this town for you, farmer”, he said in a sullen voice. “We have our own problems here. Go to any other village to the east behind the woods or back to the south.”
There were two other men in the tavern, one of them an old man in shabby leather clothes with mud on the underside of his boots. On the table beside him there was a longbow and a rusty knife. It seemed that he was a hunter or maybe a deserter from the armies in the south. He stood up und walked over to Henry and Sara.
The man reeked of animals, beer and sweat. Henry’s pose was very tense, as he inspected the man carefully. He didn’t missed the glare in his eyes, as the bastard ogled the body of his pregnant wife. But he said nothing. It was not the first man who did this. So long as it was only the eyes, not the hands, Henry wouldn’t do anything.
“Hello, good folks. I’m Jacob. Two Miles to the west, near the forest there is an old mill”, the man said. His breath stank of rotten teeth and beer. “No one lives there. I think you could live in the old house and perhaps plant something on the old field nearby.”
Henry thought about it. They have wandered enough. And the baby was on the way. Perhaps, they could look at this old house…

*

The Mill was old, that was clear. There were holes in the roof, and the sunken walls were mossy and green. Some broken tools, a rusty hark and a old spade projected out of the sprawling gras. The place has something sinister about it, with the large, dark forest looming behind the decayed house and the little, purling stream.
Sara grabbed Henry’s arm, while Jacob stood a few feet away and chewed some stinking herb with his yellow, teeth.