Work Text:
A sunny April day in 1930. Bell’s Farm. Every tree and rooftop is adorned with at least one twittering wild bird, the hedgerows are glowing with lime green leaf buds, wildflowers are creeping into every corner. In front of the barn, a small dark-haired boy is sitting atop a milk churn watching a team of farmhands fill his father’s Austin pickup with sacks of grain from the stores. One of them has given him a toffee to keep him quiet, so his teeth are glued together for the moment; but it reaches the end of its usefulness just as his father is reaching for the truck’s starting-handle.
“Daddy, I want to do it!” shouts the boy, alighting from his perch and dashing over as fast as his little legs can carry him.
“Alright, Jonathan,” sighs the farmer, “but you have to turn it quickly, don’t you? Can you do it very fast?”
“I can do it really fast!”
Farmer Bell lets Jonathan play with the starting-handle for a minute before taking his son’s small round hands in his chunky square ones and showing him how the job should be done. The boy giggles with delight as the engine begins its warm-up exercises, and chases his father round to the driver’s door.
“I want to come, Daddy!”
“No, you wait here with your mum. I’ve got some work to do at the mill. It won’t be very interesting for you.”
“I want to come please.” Jonathan folds his arms and scowls in the way that his father finds comically endearing.
“Oh alright, come on then! But you be good and don’t bother Mr. Colley, he’s not very well.”
The farmer hauls his son up into the passenger seat and sets off down the drive and out of the gate.
Jonathan never misses a chance to have an outing in the truck. He loves the sound of the engine, and how the countryside flashes by below. He’s fascinated by the levers and pedals and dials, and thinks his father must be very clever indeed to remember which does what. He feels like a prince as he waves to passing peasants on bicycles or horse-drawn carts.
“Daddy?” says the boy as they trundle down the lane.
“Yes, son?”
“What does it mean if someone lives over a broom?”
“Hm? Where’ve you heard that?”
“Mummy was talking to Mrs. Carraway once, she said Mr. Colley and Miss Miller live over a broom.”
“Well – Let’s not say anything about it, shall we?”
“Is it because Miss Miller is a witch? She has a flying broom? And she keeps it in the cellar? So they live over it?”
“Aah, yes, maybe that’s what she meant. Well done.”
“But if she has a magic broom, why does she go to town on Mr. Colley’s horse?”
“Maybe she’s worried she’ll fall off and hurt herself.”
“But why would –”
“That’s enough questions now, son.”
Jonathan tries folding his arms and scowling again, but his father is keeping his eyes on the road. He looks out of the window instead, up the hill to see the sails of the mill turning slowly in the light breeze.
“Daddy?” He tries again.
“What is it, my boy?”
“Why is Windy called Windy Miller when he’s Mr. Colley’s son? He should be called be called Windy Colley.”
“Miller is his mother’s name, isn’t it?”
“But if –”
“Let’s not worry too much about it, eh? That’s just how it is. Look, we’re here now. Remember not to bother Mr. Colley! He’s too tired to answer lots of questions.”
Augustus Colley, the old miller, is sitting outside in his rocking chair when Farmer Bell’s van pulls up. He is dressed in a threadbare farm smock, mushroom-coloured, which hangs from his bones in the same way as his pallid skin. He has been half-snoozing in the spring sunshine, but the sound of the engine and resulting scattering of the chickens that had been pecking around his feet has stirred him fully awake. He begins to stand up to greet his visitor, but his arms and legs are no longer reliable or fully under his command. He remains seated for the present.
“Morning, Gus!” the farmer calls across the yard, “Lovely day, isn’t it?”
“Yes, very nice. Warm for the time of year.” He has a dry, crumbly husk of a voice.
“How are you getting on?”
“Oh, you know. Mustn’t grumble. How are you?”
“Oh, not bad. I’ve brought Jonathan along, I hope you don’t mind.”
“No no, it’s nice to see him. Hello, Jonathan.”
“Hello, Mr. Colley!”
“And how old are you now?”
“I’m nearly five!”
“You were nearly five the day after your fourth birthday, weren’t you?” says Farmer Bell, laughing.
“My birthday’s the twelfth of January. Grandma and Granddad came, and we had a big cake, and I got a toy tractor, and new shoes, and a paint box, and sweets!”
“Shh..!” says his father softly, slightly embarrassed on behalf of his considerably less wealthy associate, “There’s no need to show off.”
“He’s got plenty to say for himself, hasn’t he?” says Mr. Colley, smiling fondly at the boy.
“He certainly has,” replies the farmer. Again, he feels almost ashamed of his own pride; he can’t recall ever hearing the miller’s considerably older son utter a word.
“Right,” says Mr. Colley as he struggles to his feet, “I’ll get that lad of mine to stop the mill and give us a hand with these sacks.”
“Is he alright with the truck?” asks the farmer.
“Oh yes, he’s a lot better about them now. If the engine’s off, he’ll go right up to them. Oh, but I have to warn you – don’t mention bees.”
“Why’s that?”
“Just – don’t!”
As the miller hobbles off around the plane of the sails and through the doorway behind, Jonathan asks his father what this last exchange meant.
“It’s just that Windy used to be scared of trucks. Sounds like he’s scared of bees now.”
“Why’s he scared of things?” Jonathan asks, giggling.
“You shouldn’t laugh, it’s very sad about Windy. You see, he’s – not right. He’s got a bit missing, up here.” He taps the side of his head.
“But why does –”
“Shh! Don’t say anything. Here they come.”
Mr. Colley appears again at the door as the sails ease to a halt. He turns and beckons to his son, a gawky, spotty teenager with unruly blonde curls, and prompts him to wave to the visitors. Windy extends an arm high in the air and his gaze soars over the heads of the Bells as he waves hello. He is dressed very much like his father, but in vivid yellow and black as opposed to shades of beige. Immediately, he dashes to the truck and heaves the nearest sack onto his back.
“Come on, Windy,” says his father, limping along behind, “what do you say when you meet someone?”
“I waved?” He attempts to hurry to the granary, but feels the old man’s hand on his elbow, and freezes.
“Yes, what do we say next? I’ve told you enough times.”
“Um...” He drops the sack to the ground and makes a close study of it.
“Let him be, Gus!” calls Farmer Bell, “It’s alright, let’s just get this truck unloaded.”
“He needs to learn his manners while I’m still here to teach him.”
Windy shrinks away from his father’s scrutiny, but soon finds himself under assault from the farmer, who has decided to shake his hand vigorously whilst patting his shoulder.
“Good – morning – young – man!” he says, very slowly and clearly, “How – are – you – today?”
“I’m... I’m not too bad thank you, how are you?!” Windy gabbles, reciting the magic words to make this stop.
“Ha! Not bad, not bad.” Farmer Bell unhands the boy, and turns to his father. “There you go, Gus. He knows well enough.”
The miller scratches at his stubbly grey chin and sighs. His son is long past the age at which his unwillingness to engage in conversation, or even exchange pleasantries, could be excused by shyness; yet it seems a very strange way to choose to be disobedient. Even as a small child, he always preferred collecting pebbles or watching clouds drift by over playing with other children. Yes, some people are quiet and happy with their own company, but his boy takes it beyond the bounds of reason into – what? Rudeness? Attention-seeking? No, it’s definitely not deliberate. But that makes no sense, he’s a clever lad. He was always top of his class until his mother let him stop going to school. He could read and write and add up as well as the teacher, she explained, so why keep on dragging him there every morning when he could be making himself useful at the mill?
Maybe it’s her, she’s always treated him as if he’s special. Indulged him. Told him he doesn’t have to play with the other children if he doesn’t want to, made him brightly-coloured clothes, never made him confront his fear of motor vehicles, as if it was perfectly fine and normal. He sees things other don’t, she says. As if that’s a reasonable excuse.
“Can I..?” Windy says to his father, gesturing at the sack of grain and then at the granary.
“Put the sacks away? Go on.”
Farmer Bell is a big strong man, and can just about manage a sack over each shoulder; Windy pulls them onto his back, like the shell of a tortoise. Mr. Colley knows he is too frail to even try to help, so he fetches a basket for Jonathan to collect some eggs in, then goes to put the kettle on. The quiet before the water boils is broken by a petulant little voice in the granary squealing, ‘No, no, that’s wheat, it’s for Tuesday, we can’t mix them up, these have to go here!’ and the farmer laughing, ‘I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say all at once.’ The old man sighs and shakes his head. He doesn’t have the strength to correct his son’s manners or apologise for him yet again, so he makes do with reassuring himself that it’s only his good-humoured old friend Farmer Bell who was on the receiving end of his son’s outburst. Why, why is he like this?
It all began in this very spot on an icy cold November evening nearly sixteen years earlier.
Relaxing after a long day at work, Mr. Colley sat in his circular home reading a newspaper by the light of an oil lamp. The fire was burning away cosily, the kettle was about to boil, the room was a little golden island of warmth amidst an ocean of sleet and gales and darkness. Still, the news was troubling; this war, that was supposed to be over before Christmas, only seemed to be intensifying with each passing day. His tired mind couldn’t quite piece everything together; places he’d never been, important people he’d never heard of, numbers he couldn’t imagine, all jumbled together into a great worrying mess.
The shopkeeper in the village was saying the other day that there might be a shortage of sugar before too long, if the situation continued much longer. Everyone he spoke to seemed to have a friend of a friend who’d joined the army. It all seemed to be creeping closer and closer to home.
And suddenly he recalled a scene from that morning that he hadn’t had time to analyse fully there and then; he’d been out on his horse and cart, going into the village to deliver some flour, and spotted a little group of men walking up the next hill, up towards the old castle. He couldn’t remember exactly, but they might have been dressed as soldiers. What would the army be doing in Camberwick Green?
Still, it wasn’t all that unusual for people to walk up to the old castle. There was a woman who’d been squatting there for two or three years, people would go to her to have their fortune told and to buy herbal remedies. There was even a little street rhyme about her:
Margaret-Rose Miller the witch
Can tell you if you’ll be rich
Meet your husband or wife
Live a long happy life
If you’re feeling unwell
Ask for her healing spell
For the change in your pocket
She’ll make a talisman locket
Margaret-Rose Miller the witch.
A sudden knock at the door disturbed him from his ruminations. It came so unexpectedly that his first thought was that a bucket or something had blown over in the yard; but then the knock came again. Certainly, none of his business associates would pay him a visit so late at night, even if they felt like turning out in this weather, and he didn’t have any family to speak of in the area. Those soldiers he saw earlier, they must have come to drag him off to war – but they wouldn’t want him, he was forty-seven years old. It was the young ones they came for, wasn’t it? No, it must be the mill itself. His great-great-great grandfather’s mill, his family’s pride and joy for a century and a half. They wanted it.
He couldn’t hand it over, not for anything. Without Colley’s Mill, there would be no Augustus Colley. He glanced around for something he could use as a weapon – the fire poker? The oil lamp? The chair?
“Mr. Colley?”
It was a woman’s voice. Very puzzled, he crossed the room and opened the door.
There stood Margaret-Rose Miller, sodden and shivering, with all her worldly goods wrapped in an equally wet bundle under one arm. She was a tall, strong woman, but her white hair and careworn face made her look much older than her forty-two years.
“Oh!” he said.
“I’m sorry for the intrusion, Mr. Colley, but I – do you mind if I come in?”
He wasn’t an educated man, but nor was he stupid. He knew that refusing help to a witch in need was never a good idea. And so, he let her inside. He poured her some tea, then hid himself away upstairs as she took off her wet clothes and slipped into one of his work smocks. He helped her hang her wet clothes on his drying rack, and offered her his favourite chair by the fire. He didn’t have much food in, but found her some bread and an apple.
“So, what brings you here this evening?” asked the miller at length.
“They want Pippin Fort,” said the witch, “so I’m out on my ear. Had to beg for them to let me collect my things.”
“The soldiers?”
“That’s right. They want to train recruits there. They’ll be all over my herb garden.”
“There’s some of my vegetable patch going spare, you’re welcome to grow your herbs there.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Colley. You’re very kind indeed. How can I thank you?”
“Oh, you don’t need to...” He looked away, towards the windowsill, where there sat a sepia print of a young woman with an equine face and long dark hair.
“There’s something you want very much, but I can see you’re afraid to ask.”
“Well, I heard... No, no...”
“Some little ache or pain I can help you with? A spell for good luck and prosperity, perhaps?”
“They say... they say you can...”
Seeing that he was struggling to articulate, the witch stood up and lifted the picture that he was staring at from its resting place. This is a portrait of his wife, Lucy Colley; the whole of Trumptonshire was shocked when she died in childbirth some thirteen years earlier, but that was a decade before Margaret-Rose Miller appeared on the scene.
“That’s my wife,” said the miller softly.
“Yes, I see that. She was very dear to you.”
“Can you... is it true that...” He gazed up at her with a child-like hopefulness.
“I can speak to her?”
“Can you do that?”
“I can’t promise, but I can try.”
She pressed her hand to the glass and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, tipped back her head, and exhaled again. He waited patiently.
“She’s around you often,” began the medium after some serious thought, “and she sees you – you blame yourself. She says you’ve mourned long enough, it’s time to stop punishing yourself. Does that make sense, Mr, Colley? She’s at peace, she wants you to be at peace too, but she knows that you aren’t. She knows how lonely you are here, you often think of her and how different it could have been. She wants you to be happy, that’s all she asks. And she’s showing me something – a watch. Why is she showing me a watch?”
“Her parents gave me a pocket watch as a wedding present!” He looked utterly gobsmacked.
“Aah, she wants you to remember her how she was on your wedding day. That’s how she looks in the hereafter, you see. And she’s showing me something else, it’s – it’s a baby.”
“...A boy, or a girl?”
“A boy.”
“No, our child was a girl.” He frowns, puzzled.
“Hm. Do you know someone who’s had a baby boy recently? Or who’s expecting?”
“Can’t think of anyone, no. Not recently.”
“Is your birthday coming up soon? Might she be wishing you a happy birthday?”
He shook his head.
“I can only tell you what she shows me, and it’s a baby boy. It could be a symbol, perhaps for the new year or a fresh start of some kind. Keep it in mind, she might be talking about something that hasn’t happened yet. I’m getting the name Ellen. Do you know anyone... wait, not Ellen. Eleanor?
“Eleanor! That was her grandma.”
“Yes, her grandma. They were very pleased to see each other. They’re together as a family, your wife, Grandma Eleanor, and your little daughter. Sometimes they come by just to make sure you’re alright, and – aah, she’s waving goodbye. It’s time for her to go back. She’s blowing kisses. She says it wasn’t your fault, it was her time to go. She – she’s gone. There. That’s all I can tell you.”
She opened her eyes, and put the photo back on the windowsill. The old man turned away, one hand over his eyes, and sighed deeply.
“It’s alright if you need to cry, Mr. Colley. A lot of people do. I won’t laugh at you or tell anyone; I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I did. None of this will leave this room.”
“Thank you. Thank you for...” and Augustus Colley broke down and wept. The witch knelt beside him and soothed him, then poured some more tea. As the fire burned low and the sleet bombarding the windows turned to snow, she tucked him into his bunk under the stairs. She put out the oil lamp before climbing in beside him.
“How could you have known..?” he whispered as he fell asleep, “You couldn’t have known. You couldn’t have.”
‘Love’ may have been too strong a word for the state of mutual dependence that quickly grew between the pair, but no-one could deny that they flourished under each other’s care. Every market day for those first few months, when Mr. Colley took his horse and cart to collect grain from his suppliers, Miss Miller would ride with him. He would take a detour and drop her off in Trumpton, where she would ply her trade under the town clock until he came to collect her at four o’clock. With so many sons and husbands away fighting the war, business was good; There was money for new clothes, for good food, for a fence to keep the chickens out of the vegetable patch. Neither of them had ever lived so well as they did that winter.
But as spring approached, a change came over Miss Miller. A strange sickness that she could ease with one of her herbal remedies but would be right back again the next day, and an all-consuming tiredness that left her unable to work. Day after day, week after week.
“If you ask me,” said one of Mr. Colley’s suppliers as they were loading the cart one morning, “That woman’s got you for a fool. I know you trust her Gus, but just think about it.”
“Oh? How so?” said the miller indignantly.
“Well! What’s she done – she did a couple of months’ work, then she decided she was going to sit in your house and eat your food and – I’m sorry, but someone needs to tell you. How long has this tummy bug of hers gone on for now? A month? Two months?”
Mr. Colley scowled and looked away as he debated whether or not to tell the farmer what was really going on. He could feel several wells of anger bubbling up inside himself, and wasn’t entirely sure that he was capable of making a wise decision.
“I know, I ought to just mind my own business,” said the farmer as he heaved the last sack onto the cart, “but have a think about it. What kind of illness...”
“She’s not ill! She’s not!”
“That’s right, Gus. You see now?”
“It’s a child. She’s going to have a baby!”
“You what?” said the farmer, not altogether sure whether to laugh or cry, “No! No, she’s too old.”
“A witch is never too old.”
The farmer sighed and shook his head in despair as Mr. Colley clambered up into his seat and took up the horse’s reins. But sure enough, as the vivid colours of the Summer decayed into the muted tones of September, a baby appeared at the mill. And, as foretold, it was a boy.
This child’s name was Augustus Colley Miller; a very long and grand name for such a small person, so he was known as Gusty for short. When exactly ‘Gusty’ became ‘Windy’, no-one can now remember; nor who it was that first noticed that the synonym made a convenient play on words when used in conjunction with his surname. But it was certainly little Windy who sat between his parents on the cart, aged four, attentively listening as his mother sang a little ditty to keep him amused:
Riding along on the horse and cart,
The clippety-cloppety horse and cart;
We collect the corn
Early in the morn,
And deliver the flour
At a later hour.
Yes, we fill this cart,
The miller’s cart,
The clippety-cloppety horse and cart.
And the boy grew up, quickly in some ways and slowly in others, but always by his own rules, into the young man who is currently creeping up the stairs than curve up the wall of the room. These steps lead to a hatch in the ceiling that opens into the workings of the mill.
“Windy, where are you going?” Mr. Colley calls to his son, as he pours the tea.
“To finish my work.”
The father sighs in exasperation. The boy must understand that this is all part of the job he’s always been so keen to do, and yet he’ll do anything to wriggle out of it. Why? Why?
Ten seconds tick by as Mr. Colley weighs up his options. Windy, paused on the stairs, begins to knead his knuckles together. Another ten seconds. He presses his fingertips to his collarbone, into the hollow behind, feels how his skin stretches over the tendons of his neck and into the smooth depressions in between. The familiar landscape is a soothing alternative to the uncertain and possibly dangerous situation he seems to have found himself in.
“Just... just carry the tea for me.” sighs the old man eventually.
“Can I have cider, please?”
“Tea!”
Windy startles at his father’s sharp tone. The need to press his knuckles together again is great and urgent, but not as great and urgent as the need to stop his father from using that terrible voice; a catastrophic event in itself. He dashes down the stairs and picks up the tea-tray as soon as he regains his presence of mind.
He knows all too well that a ‘friendly chat’ is a no-win situation. Sneaking off to get some work done was a good enough excuse once, but now it seems his father is wise to that ruse. Sitting quietly watching the grass ripple in the breeze was acceptable once of a day, but now he’s growing up he has to say things. And that ‘saying things’ business, that’s just trap after trap. All that rigmarole of ‘How are you?’ and ‘Isn’t it a nice day?’ to slog through before anyone can get to any meaningful exchange of information or discussion of interesting things, such as bees. Even when he thinks he knows all the correct answers, they sometimes throw in a trick question; the answer to ‘How are you?’ may be ‘Not too bad thank you, how are you?’ but is that also the answer to, for example, ‘Are you alright?’ or ‘Is life treating you well?’ or does a different question require a different answer? He also learned recently that it’s not enough to just answer the questions, he must also ask something. Something personal, but not too personal; something related to the topic in hand, but not something that has already been discussed; Something that could never possible be misconstrued as insulting or condescending or sarcastic or cheeky or... anything, really. And nothing about bees.
How do they do it? Why do they do it? Is it just a more cerebral version of those games he was expected to enjoy as a child, like football or tig, where big groups of people just run about following some set of rules purely for the purpose of deciding who is best at following the rules? Don’t they just want to come to the point, so they can get back to whatever it is they’d rather be doing, or talking about bees?
Doesn’t it bother them at all?
He balances the tea-tray on an upturned bucket in the yard, in front of his father’s rocking chair, and pulls up another bucket to use as a stool. He wonders whether to call Farmer Bell over; it seems like the kind of thing that his father would want him to do, and yet he has very little faith in his own ability to project his voice across the yard to where the man is standing watching as his son searches for eggs under the bushes. And – is it ‘Farmer Bell’ or ‘Mr. Bell’? Or would it be preferable to use his first name? There’s so much to go wrong. Try as he might to make some sort of noise, his mouth remains defiantly shut. Tension begins to rise. He looks to the sky; the answer does not lie there, but at least there are some nice clouds drifting by.
Luckily, the farmer happens to look round and notice that Windy is serving drinks.
“Aah, tea time, is it? That’s what I like to see. Which one’s mine?”
The very relieved boy hands him a cup, and takes one for himself. By this time Mr. Colley has also joined them, and Jonathan is heaving a bucket full of eggs across the yard. The tea is poured. The farmer begins to tell the miller about a football match he saw recently. Jonathan begins a close study of the side of Windy’s head; Windy himself is oblivious to this, as he has spotted a bee crawling over a dandelion not five feet away. He watches, entranced, as it digs through the vivid yellow petals with its mechanical-looking legs, tiny points of light gleaming in its eyes, downy yellow body flexing as it fills its miniscule saddlebags with pollen, the profoundly perfect buzz as it balances itself against the breeze, the sound that sends a warm quiver down his spine and into his fingers and toes, soothing every nerve and –
“Stop staring,” says a voice on the peripheral of his consciousness, “it’s not very nice.”
He glances up, unsure whether this was aimed at himself. ‘Staring’ is one of many flaws that his father has tried to coax out of him, with limited success; but it’s Jonathan who responds.
“But Daddy, he’s not bald!”
“Of course he’s not bald, he’s too young. Only old men go bald. Now, drink your tea and be a good boy. We’ll go home soon.”
Windy decides that this conversation does not require a response from him, and goes back to watching his bee. Mr. Colley and Mr. Bell exchange bemused glances. The questions that small children come out with, eh?
“You said he was, though!” Jonathan insists.
“No I didn’t, son.”
“You did, you said he had a bit missing here!”
Silence. Jonathan taps the side of his head, grinning. His father puts down his cup carefully.
“Well?” says Mr. Colley to Mr. Bell.
“Jonathan, that’s not a nice thing to say.”
“That’s what you said, Daddy.”
“Get in the van.”
“You said –”
“Jonathan!” says the farmer, voice rising, “I told you to get in the van!”
The boy, shocked at his father’s anger, dashes to the van and clambers up into the passenger seat as fast as he can.
“Gus, I am – I am so sorry.”
“That’s what you tell him, is it?” says the enraged miller, “that’s what you tell him? About my son?!”
“It’s not just me who – look, I’m sorry. That’s all I can say, I’m sorry. Are we still friends?”
“It’s not me you need to say sorry to, is it?”
Farmer Bell turns to Windy. The boy was alerted by the raised voices and has been observing from the sidelines, his main concern being when he might be allowed to disappear. His fingertips have begun pressing themselves into his collarbone again, as they often do during worrisome moments. But now he finds himself called upon to diffuse the situation.
“Well – don’t worry,” he ventures, “I’m not upset. I know a lot of people think that about me, but as long as...” he falters, looking to his father for some sort of signal that he’s making a success of his de-escalation, but the old man just shakes his head. He admits defeat with a shrug.
“I’ll just go!” says the farmer, already turning away.
“I think you’d better!” replies the miller.
“I’ll... I’ll see you next week.”
“He sees things others don’t!” the old man calls from his chair, almost crying with impotent rage; but Farmer Bell doesn’t reply. He hurriedly winds up his truck’s starting handle and leaps into the driver’s seat, berating his son loudly as he speeds away down the hill.
Mr. Colley lies back in his seat and takes some deep breaths. Who is to blame for this? It’s so hard to think straight when everything hurts, when you’re so tired all over that just sitting up straight in a chair is an effort. When you only have a limited time to make everything right.
Windy, who has been curled with his hands over his ears against the noise of the engine, unfurls himself.
“He didn’t finish his tea,” he says.
“You drink it then.”
“But – he put sugar in it!”
“I’ll drink it then, if it bothers you so much.”
Windy passes the cup and watches as his father slowly finishes the tea. The heated exchange has made him even more anxious to get back to his milling; He begins his hand-wringing again, inclining his head to one side and then the other as he selects he words, builds up some trust in his own voice, decides if this is the right moment, or this, or even this, to ask –
“...Can I finish my work now?”
“Don’t you care what he said about you? What he tells his son about you?”
“No.” Windy shrugs, puzzled as to why this matters more than the last couple of sacks of corn, still waiting upstairs.
“You don’t care, then.”
“No. They weren’t nasty about it.”
“Windy... Windy. You know I’m not going to get better, don’t you? You understand that? I won’t be able to help you much longer. How are you going to run the mill yourself?”
“I already do the milling and the accounts and read the post and –”
“No, no. I mean, are you going to speak to people?”
“I suppose I’ll have to.”
“Nobody’s going to want to do business with you if you don’t have a chat and offer them a drink. Look at you, I’m trying to talk to you now and you’re not even facing me.”
“Sorry. I’m listening though.”
“This is why they think there’s something wrong with you. You’re fourteen, and you can’t even... Oh, what’s the use. Go on. Get your work finished. You never listen anyway. You don’t care about anyone but yourself, do you. Go on!”
The boy seizes his chance and makes a dash for the relative safety of the mill, where he quickly empties the remaining sacks of grain and then slumps to the floor, where he loses himself if the movement of the machinery. Once the sails are singing their whirring and clunking verse again, setting a rhythm for the inner workings to create and destroy intricate patterns of wedges in their negative spaces and graceful arcs of flour to cascade from beneath the millstones, he can begin to review the morning’s events. The exchange of sharp words, the barrage of criticism, the deeply terrifying reminder of his father’s impending demise – the full emotional responses play themselves out in his mind from start to finish, a storm of feeling that rages internally for several minutes before blowing over, leaving the air a little fresher. The flour is ground.
With the sacks filled and stacked in the granary a good couple of hours before they are due to be collected, his father snoozing in his chair and no sign of his mother coming up the road, Windy decides to have a little walk to the bottom of the hill. He is still feeling shaken, and can’t face the thought of his father waking and beginning another onslaught of questions and personal comments.
He starts off behind the mill and goes through a sturdy wooden gate in a dry stone wall. This wall was constructed by his four-greats grandfather in 1768 to mark the boundary of a roughly circular piece of land purchased for the purpose of building the mill. This stretch now topped by a flight fence to prevent the chickens from entering the kitchen garden beyond, where his mother’s herbs and vegetables grow between a grid of stone-paved paths. This land was bought by his three-greats grandmother in 1792, who reputedly found the land at the top of the hill too rocky to cultivate.
Off to the right is a gate leading to a paddock in which the family horse is kept, purchased by his great-grandfather in 1848 and always used for the purpose of keeping livestock, but the boy takes the path straight ahead. This leads into the orchard, where the trees shower their blossom like confetti. This land had been acquired by his great-great grandfather in 1820, although none of the trees seem to be more than about fifty years old. Windy finds it frustrating that the story of what it originally was and how it came to be an orchard hasn’t been passed down the generations, although he can’t explain why this bothers him in any rational way. He pauses here to watch several bees that are looping and spiralling amongst the puffs of blossom, mostly white-tailed bumblebees with a couple of early red-tailed blacks and one that could possibly be a tawny mining bee, although it’s hard to tell from this distance. How utterly fascinating they are! If only he could be allowed his own hive. Such beautiful little things. And the noise they make..! Perfect in every way. How can no-one else understand?
His destination lies over the far fence, at the bottom of the hill. This last field came into his grandfather’s possession in 1871, and had once been marshland; but old Granddad Colley had done a lot of hard work digging out a duckpond at the bottom end, which drained the land enough to build a barn at the top. One side of the pond graduates to mud and then to grass, but the other is held up by a sturdy mesh of beech and oak tree roots. Between the trees, a billowing quilt of celandines and wood anemones welcome our hero to his rest. A natural hollow forms a cradle, a mossy tangle of roots a pillow. This is where he comes at times like these; the swirling of the leaves and flowers, the birdsong, the solitude, all combine to produce a soothing balm to his burned mind.
This is where his mother finds him, three hours later, fast asleep.
She settles herself against a tree ten feet away, her carpet bag and incongruously contemporary cloche hat beside her and her Victorian style dress and shawl spread like a dark pool around her. She rummages in the bag for some knitting to get on with as she waits for her son to awaken. It’s only twenty minutes or so before he begins to stir.
“Had a good sleep?” she asks, as he flexes his neck and begins to sit up.
“Yes, thank you. Did you?”
“I’ve not been to sleep!” she says, chuckling a little, “I’ve just got back from town.”
“...Oh.” He feels that there ought to be some kind of stock response to this question, but can’t quite remember what it is.
“Your dad told me about this morning.”
“What about this morning?”
“About what Farmer Bell and his boy said about you.”
“Oh, that.” Windy lies back amongst the wildflowers and gazes up at the leaves.
“I calmed him down. He’s not going to keep pestering you.” She sighs, and looks down at her knitting. “He started going on about you being an changeling again. I told him there’s nothing that enrages the faerie folk like accusing them of things like that; he shut up then. You’d think he’d want to leave us with some good memories, but no, he just seems to be using up the last of his strength making you be how he wants you to be. He doesn’t even listen to me like he used to.”
“Maybe he’s falling into despair.”
“I think you’re right.”
“Maybe I am a changeling. Maybe that’s why I can never do anything right.”
“On the contrary Windy, you do everything right all the time. Unfortunately, everyone else does things wrong at least half the time. Remember at school, that fool of a teacher used to punish you for reading better than she did? Saying you were ‘showing off’ and ‘too full of yourself’? and your classmates wouldn’t give you any peace?”
“I remember.”
“Hmm, speaking of reading – I brought you something. Don’t let your dad see.”
The boy sits up to watch, wide-eyed, as his mother opens her carpet bag and lifts out a grubby brown book with a bee embossed on the front. His hands and heart flutter a little as she passes it to him, and he carefully opens the cover.
Bees and Beekeeping: A beginner’s guide to all aspects of apiculture for both pleasure and profit.
“Oh –thank you!” Windy says in a gasp, clutching the book to his chest.
“Come on,” says the witch, getting to her feet, “I’m ready for my dinner. Hide that book in my bag, you can have a read of it when your dad’s gone to bed. Time to go back indoors.”
So he follows her back up the hill, and home.