Mysterious locations #2. Barley mills

That day Takumi had arrived home early. Sachie had already finished cleaning and was busy tending the garden. She thought that in April she would be able to plant flowers and medicinal herbs. As she worked, she was making plans. She wanted to plant some sunflowers, herbs that could be used for infusions, and of course her favourite flowers: gardenias. Upon hearing her husband arrive, Sachie stood up, tried to clean her hands, and went to greet him.

“Where’s Sumire?” asked Takumi once he kissed his wife.

“I don’t know” answered Sachie with a smile. “I am sure that she’s in the forest searching for a ghost.”

“It means that we can have a time for us” whispered Takumi near the ear of his wife. 

She blushed and hid her face with her hands. He saw it. On Sachie's right arm was an open wound, surrounded by dirt and grass. Takumi gently took his wife's hand and pointed out the wound.

“Now I know where your daughter gets the idea of hiding wounds.” Said Takumi.

Sachie broke free from her husband's grip and tried to say something to excuse her injury. Takumi just looked at her in silence, then he took his wife inside to wash the wound and let her apply medicine herself.

“Is it better this way, doctor?” Asked Sachie once the wound was clean.

“It’s better, my fair patient.” Answered Takumi with a smile.

Wanting for some intimacy with his wife, he approached and embrace her. Takumi was about to kiss her, but some noises here were heard outside the house.

“Mom!” Shouted Sumire while she got near her house.

Takumi laughed because the causality that his daughter arrived home in just the worst moment. Of all days, Sumire decided to arrive early that day. 

“Mom! Where are you?” Again, Sumire shouted while searching for her mother at the garden.  The door of the kitchen opened and Sumire saw her parents standing very. “Dad! What are you doing?

“I was waiting for my daughter to come home so I could play with her,”  answered Takumi with an accomplice laugh for Sachie.

Takumi broke away from the embrace and went to see his daughter. She looked excited, happy. Sachie also laughed a little.

“You won’t believe what I saw today!” Said Sumire in a high pitch voice. “I saw a carriage that was moving without horses!”

“A carriage that did not use horses?” Takumi repeated not understanding what his daughter meant. “Maybe it was a rickshaw.”

“No, dad!” explain Sumire. “It wasn’t being pulled neither with a horse or a person. It was moving on its own. Like… like… like a train! But I couldn't figure out where the coal scuttle was supposed to be.

Sachie placed her hand on her daughter's forehead. Nothing. No signal of a fever. Her arm was improving. 

“There was a wheel on one of the seats. I saw the elegant person moving it in a strange way. Also strange smoke was comming from behind.” Explain Sumire. Her parents made a strange face. Neither both of them were believing in her daughter’s words. 

"Don't you believe me?" Sumire asked, her face full with anguish.

"Of course we believe you!" Takumi replied, not wanting to disappoint his daughter. "A few days ago, a neighbor said he saw Yuki Onna." 

Sumire wasn't sure she believed her father. But she reaffirmed that she had seen it, that she wasn't imagining things. Takumi then had an idea.

“Why don’t you write in your notebook?” Sumire saw her father. She didn’t know how to react to the idea. “It will be for your homework. You can create a story with that carriage. This way, a record is kept of what you saw.”

“It’s a great idea” commented Sumire. At the same time she was reluctant to do it. She couldn't just write about that topic alone. It lacked something more interesting. “Dad, can we go to that abandoned mill tomorrow?"

“The mill?” Asked Takumi upon hearing the proposal. Sachie was confused by the suggestion. "Why do you want to go there?"

Sachie sighed. She was lamenting that her daughter can’t stay home only for a day. And now she wanted to go far away. Too much far for a girl of her age.

“I have to write an essay for school. Going to the mill I’ll have an idea for something interesting. It is always interesting to go to a mysterious place. If I can combine it with the carriage without horses I can make a popular story.

“Don’t worry, dear” said Takumi to Sachie. “I’ll go with her. I can take care of her.”

“That worries me more” commented Sachie before giving permission for the stroll.

The next day, Sunday, the morning began with the same daily routine. Sumire, exited because she will be going to play with her father, woke up the couple before dawn. She wanted to hurry, even imagined, seeing the horseless carriage again so his father could see it too.

After eating breakfast, Sumire and her father went to the mill. For a while, they walked past other huts, meeting and greeting people and even stopping Takumi only to talk.

This made the little girl impatient, as she wanted to arrive as soon as possible, explore the place, and discover what she began to call anomalies. They walked for about another 30 minutes. The landscape changed, the air became lighter, fresher; the winter wind seemed to be bringing that air down from the mountains.

After turning onto the path, Sumire stopped when she saw the wooden mill, which was already grayish from the damp. The roof, if it could be called that, was made of straw, and what remained of it was being eaten away by moss.

After turning onto the path, Sumire stopped when she saw the wooden mill, which was already gray from the damp. The roof, if it could be called that, was made of straw, and what remained of it was being eaten away by moss.

"Dad, look over there!" she said, pointing to the large wooden wheel, which was jammed with dry branches, motionless in the river.

Sumire went closer to see it better. Takumi stopped her when he saw that she wanted to climb the wheel. Unable to do what she wanted, Sumire decided to look inside the mill. There was no door. What she saw inside continued to amaze her.

The smell of dust and dirt was pungent. Sumire wanted to see what was inside, finding from heavy, broken millstones to rusty iron tools, which Takumi recognized as sickles, shovels, and even broken bamboo sieves.

“Be careful, Sumire” said Takumi to her daughter while he stopped to enter. “Please, do not make another step.”

While Takumi observed the rotting planks, pondering the damage to the place, Sumire followed a massive crack that split the structure's main beam. For her, this was irrefutable proof: the gods attacked first, launching attacks from the clouds because the mill, as its wheel turned, was robbing them of the rhythm of the days.

"Look around you, Sumire," Takumi remarked, pointing to the green shoots fracturing the porch. "Nature here made a mess."

Sumire nodded slowly; in her mind, her father's words took on a great, epic dimension. This wasn't natural growth; it was an invasion. Those thick, twisted roots had managed to lift one of the heavy millstones from the ground.

They were the spirits, forest yōkai, who had emerged from the mud in the dark of night to destroy everything, jamming the gears with their vine-like bodies and dragging the iron deep into the earth.

Sumire looked down at a rusty sickle lying half-buried in the mud, right where Takumi had warned her not to touch. While looking down at a rusty sickle lying half-buried in the mud, right where Takumi had warned her not to touch, she understood everything.

She was finally getting it. The fight must have been incredible. The farmers had wielded those sickles and plows in a desperate stand, fighting hand-to-hand to keep the wheel turning. But the heavens had sent an attack impossible to dodge.  The people, those farmers from past years had lost the battle. They had abandoned their weapons into the mud and flee.

"It's time to go home," Takumi said, breaking the silence. "There's nothing useful here."

Sumire glanced one last time at the mill. Reality had distorted before her eyes: the dry stream was a receding river, the moss was the banner of the spirits' victory, and the mill, a defeated fortress guarding the balance of the forest. The girl smiled, delighted.