THE MILLER'S SONG

The children were buried under the footbridge. That’s what the entire town always said. But Leila said there’d never been a footbridge, though how she would know Owen wasn’t sure. Her dad barely ever let her out of the house, let alone into the forest and past Miller’s Creek. Today was different. Today, Owen had sneaked out with Leila and Ben just past midnight, torches in hand, lighting their way as well as their breath that seemed to linger a few paces ahead of them, as if a thread they’d placed to find their way.

‘I’m so hungry, I could sleep,’ Ben said.

‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ Leila said with a shake of the head.

Ben said a lot of things that didn’t make sense. He’d also said there’d never been any children. That the stories were made up by adults to keep kids away from Miller’s Creek.

‘It’s the Baba Yaga what’ll get you,’ he’d say.

Owen had no clue what a baba or a yaga was.

They entered the woods just before dawn, as the light of the sun was beginning to lick the skies and turn them pink and as the cold stopped biting and rather nibbled at your nose and earlobes. But not warm enough that they stopped seeing their breath thick and heavy before them and not warm enough that their fingertips stopped burning.

For a while after they entered the woods, Owen could not help but feel that perhaps they hadn’t so much entered the forest, but rather the belly of a beast. The trees were imposing, all as giants, their bark darkened as if charged, with warped indents that looked like faces. They looked like sentinels of Lucifer come to protect his kingdom.

‘Should we go back?’ Ben asked.

‘We’re already in trouble. What's the point of going back without finding what we came looking for?’ Leila replied.

Leila and Ben were forever bickering. Owen was forever listening to their bickering. They reminded him of his parents. His parents had ended up getting a divorce. He hadn’t really known what divorce was until it happened. He hoped Leila and Ben didn’t end up getting a divorce. That would make him sad.

After a while, the soldier-like trees opened up a path broad enough they could walk side by side. Ben took this opportunity to tell them everything he knew about the murders. He said there had been four children. No. It had been five. Actually, no. It’d definitely been three.

Ben often found it difficult to remember things lately. He also said it had been the man who owned the mill. No. It hadn't been the man who owned the mill. It had been the Baba Yaga. The Witch. No, she wasn’t a witch… she was an entity.

‘What’s an entity?’ Leila asked, rolling her eyes.

‘Dad always said it is something that is. But isn't. That was. But wasn’t. That will forever be… and never will be.’

‘That doesn’t make any sense!’ Leila replied. ‘I heard people hear them calling from the water. Perhaps we should head to the lake under the footbridge.’

‘You said there wasn’t a footbridge,’ Ben countered.

‘I don’t remember saying that.’

Owen remembered her saying that.

They continued in silence for most of the morning. Only stopping to share an apple they’d found half eaten. They’d forgotten to bring any snacks. Perhaps because they were so hungry and cold, it tasted like the most delicious thing they’d ever had, maggots and all.

They walked past the old miller sitting on his front porch, smoking a pipe. He was whistling a tune Owen didn’t know. As they drew closer, he took the pipe from his mouth and began to sing:

I wish the wind may never cease,
Nor flashes in the flood,
Till my three sons come home to me,
In earthly flesh and blood.

They hurried past. The miller seemed too caught up in his song to notice them.

‘There!’ Leila said. ‘The footbridge!’

Ben’s face brightened. ‘See? I told you.’

But it seemed they weren’t the only ones curious to find the bodies. Atop the bridge a dozen or so people had gathered. People stood in small groups, speaking quietly. A woman in a green coat held a bunch of flowers with both hands. Near her, a man unfolded a camping chair for someone who looked as if she needed to sit down.

Owen stopped. He knew the woman in the chair.

It was Ben’s mother. She had her head bowed, and for a moment he thought she might be ill. He turned to Ben, his brow furrowed with confusion. Owen opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Leila touched Owen’s sleeve. Her father was standing a little farther away, beside the man with the chair. Owen had met him often enough to recognise the way he stood, with his hands buried in his coat pockets. Today he looked smaller than Owen remembered.

'Maybe they finally found them,' Ben whispered.

No one answered. Owen could see more people now as they shifted around one another: a neighbour from his street, the woman who ran the corner shop, a boy from the year above them at school. He looked towards the centre of the clearing, but the crowd blocked his view.

Then Owen’s mother stepped out from among them.

She wiped her face with the sleeve of her cardigan. Owen had seen her wear it that morning. Or had it been that morning? He looked back towards the mill, though he could no longer see it through the trees. He remembered walking past the old man’s porch before, with Ben and Leila beside him. The man had been singing then, too. Owen remembered reaching the footbridge. He remembered turning because the song had followed them, growing louder, and seeing the miller standing over them. The cock doth craw, the day doth daw, the man had sung.

Before Owen could stop himself, he sang the next line. “The channerin worm doth chide.”

Owen’s mother turned towards the bridge. Ben’s mother was crying in the chair; Leila’s father had put a hand over his eyes. As the people around them moved aside, Owen saw his mother lay a wreath beside three photographs at the foot of the bridge: Ben’s, Leila’s and his own.