The girl steps onto the bridge. The stone is worn smooth underfoot, the dark stream hurrying beneath the arch — faster than it looks from above, the water dark and purposeful. Mist thickens as she crosses, the mill sharpening from grey shapes into solid detail: weathered timber, mossy stonework, the great wheel suspended still and dripping. The counting voice grows clearer — a murmur just below language, more rhythm than words, with the unhurried quality of someone who has been at it a long time. She reaches the mill's low door, iron-banded oak, its handle worn bright from use. The crow perches on the peaked gable above, watching. She cannot hear the fox anywhere behind her. Then the counting stops. A silence settles like sediment — deliberate, alert. Whatever is inside the mill now knows she is standing at its door.