This house, this cursed house… It’s a hell.
That one cursed evening in the Belgian Kempen.
The sun was low and we were searching beds for the night, but there was no sign of any villages.
But suddenly, in the distance, a big building.
The Abbey of Postel, we knew. We brought our horses into a canter and when the sun set, we arrived at the chapel.
There was light behind the windows and it was dead silent, no monks singing or pious grumbling. Behind the chapel door golden chalices and silver chandeliers for the taking, hahaha! With this in mind we rammed the door! Not a person in sight…
On the altar the booty glistened. The candles were lit… Weird.
My men cracked the sacrificial block, and I emptied the altar.
And then suddenly, on my shoulder, a slender hand. I turned around and behind me, stood a young woman, her eyes burning. All of us saw her and the clanging stifeled. She seemed to float in her long white robe. Shortly I felt scared and she spoke to me:
“You, Hugo van den Loonsche Duynen, you’re desecrating this house here. Son, repent and don’t call the wrath of God upon you…”
But I, I conquered my fear, sneered her away with a scornful laugh and pushed her rough away. I called the men to leave and saw her dissolve into nothing…
A day later I arrived at my house. I was schocked: above on the facade stood her! The lady from the chapel! Her arms were waving, like they were rocking on the wind.
I heard her voice, like it was floating in my head: “Nowhere in your own home, nor wherever in the world, will you find peace and quiet, now that you have violated God’s home… Only when, when a noble person, with a clean conscience of a newborn child enters your house, will you find peace, in your home and in your heart…”
That spell, my gruwelling fate, has up until now not been broken… Enter with a clean soul, such that doom will fall upon this house, and my soul can rest, which I so desperately long for…