Weird Tales/Volume 11/Issue 2/The Curse of Alabad, and Ghinu and Aratza
"If she floats, she is a witch and must die."
THE pot simmered as the old woman stirred it with a wooden ladle. Light from the great, open fireplace showed deep wrinkles in her skin as she knelt to sprinkle herbs into the mixture. A parrot squatting on the sand-strewn floor croaked contentedly as it preened its feathers. Smoke filled the dim room.
"Ack, mijn kleintje," said the old woman, turning and speaking to the parrot, "a fine cure it will be for the child. A fine cure!"
"A fine cure!" echoed the parrot thickly, spreading its wings.
"But if the child dies, they will blame me. Already they say that I have magic. When last year I cured her child the wife of Arie Ver Veelen seemed afraid of me. She seemed afraid of me—dost hear, mijn kleintje?"
The parrot waddled away toward a dark comer in unconcern. The old woman went on mumbling to herself.
"And if again I cure the child, they will call me a witch. Only yesterday Johannes Kuyper would not meet me when I walked on the Claasland Road to Nayack. He went across a field so that he would not have to come near me. They are all afraid, mijn kleintje!"
The parrot's eyes glared unblinkingly out of the dark corner. Pushing a wisp of hair back under the white cap whose two starched points stood out stiffly over each ear, she turned again to stirring the mixture in the pot.
"Ach, and it was well I learned how to mix herbs and roots and juices from my mother's mother in Amsterdam! Many things she knew! And often have I been dokter to these stupid Dutchmen. But they are afraid of me, these good people. They think that I have magic because "
A door opened, letting a hint of twilight into the little shack, and a young man entered and seated himself beside a table. His eyes glistened in the firelight, but their stare was fixed and vacant.
"Ah, Hendrick, mijn zoon, you are come for supper!" said the old woman, without glancing around.
"Mijn moeder, mijn moeder, why did we come to Nieuw Nederlandt?" He buried his face in his hands, sobbing. "All day I have tried to find work at the harvest, but they do not want me, even for nothing. They back away from me when I come near them. Even Squire Yaupy De Vries sent me off, and said that I brought evil spirits."
The old woman sighed, and continued to stir the pot over the fire. The parrot, scrambling clumsily upon the table, rubbed its bill against the young man’s sleeve.
"I know. They say that I am a witch," muttered the woman, too low for him to hear. "For all that Hes Brummel does for them they say that she is a witch — because she lives with her half-wit son and her parrot; because she can cure children when they are ill. But little I know about magic. Only I know that once, in Amsterdam, when my mother’s mother was angry with a neighbor, she cursed him. The next day his son was drowned in the canal where he was playing with his little boats, and they said it was because she cursed him; because she called down on him the curse of Alabad and Ghinu and Aratza "
"The curse of Alabad and Ghinu and Aratza!" screamed the parrot, beating the table with its wings. "The curse of Alabad and Ghinu and "
The young man raised his head, startled.
"Hold, hold, mijn kleintje!" exclaimed the woman, dropping the ladle and reaching quickly for the excited parrot. "No curses here! Should the child die, Hes Brummel would be to blame. No death curses now!"
The joints of her knees cracked sharply as she straightened up. Reaching high up on a shelf, the old woman brought down a bottle and carefully brushed off the dust. Into it she poured a portion of the mixture which she had been stirring, and set the pot by the side of the fireplace to cool.
"I have made a cure for the sick child of Arie Ver Veelen," she said to her son, who had dumbly watched her every move. "I shall take it there before it gets too dark."
He continued to gaze at her vacantly while she pinned a shawl about her narrow shoulders. Picking up the bottle, she held it before the light of the fire, noting the color of its contents.
"A fine cure it will be," she crooned. "A fine cure!"
"A fine cure!" echoed the parrot.
The young man’s gaze followed her to the door, and returned to stare fixedly before him. The parrot hopped down from the table and went to a dark corner to preen its ruffled feathers and croak monotonously.
It lacked but a few minutes of complete darkness when Hes Brummel climbed the slope leading to Arie Ver Veelen’s house. The building was much more pretentious than her own shack of unpainted wood. Its
walls were of square blocks of red
sandstone crowned by the gambrel
roof with curved, sweeping eaves
characteristic of early Dutch colonial
houses. From behind the double
oaken door came the sound of a
woman singing a lullaby:
De varken en de boonjes,
De kaetjes en-------"
Hes Brummel knocked, and the lullaby stopped abruptly. The upper half of the door swung open. “I have brought some medicine— for the child. Maybe it will do as good as last year. Is he any better? ’’ “No, no better,” answered the woman in the doorway, taking the bottle and noticeably shrinking away. “All the day he has had a fever.” She shut the door without a word of thanks. Hes Brummel trudged down the hill into the darkness of the hollow where she dwelt. When she pushed open the door of her shack, Hendrick was sitting where she had left him, still gazing blankly at the fire, which had now been reduced to red embers. On a high shelf there was a sound of scratching and cooing, and of something hard and dry trickling down upon the floor. The son’s head turned and his eyes dreamily regarded the old woman, who looked upward at the shelf where the parrot had been scratching the contents of several small wooden boxes. Roots and herbs and strange dead things strewed the floor beneath the crouching bird upon the shelf. With a scream the old woman mounted a chair and dragged the parrot down. Holding it by its legs, she slapped it first on one side of the head and then on the other. The bird squawked in pain. Green feathers dropped upon the sanded whiteness of the floor. “Do not hurt the bird, Mother,” pleaded Hendrick, turning in his chair. The old woman ceased, one hand remaining upraised for another blow. She seemed astonished that her son should care what happened. The parrot flapped free and perched itself upon a narrow window-ledge. “I’ll teach that devil-bird to spill my roots and herbs!’’ she snarled, showing yellow teeth. Hendrick was not listening. He had returned to his occupation of staring blankly at the fire. The parrot glared evilly from the window. “The curse of Alabad and Ghinu and Aratza be upon thee!” shrieked the bird, clicking his bill. “The curse of Alabad and Ghinu and Aratza! The curse of-” The voice trailed off into a series of indistinguishable sounds. Hes Brummel stood regarding the bird for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders and threw some more wood on the fire.
Running footsteps were heard on the road that led past Hes Brummel’s shack. They came near, passed, and the sound was lost in the distance. A half-hour later came the crunch made by cart-wheels going in the opposite direction. Low voices were swallowed by the night. Lights gleamed in Auert Polhemus’ grist mill a mile down the Hackensack creek. A dozen Dutch farmers and their wives were gathered in the mill beneath the light of crude lanterns. They looked at each other and nodded their heads as Arie Ver Veelen spoke. ‘‘There is no doubt that this woman is a witch,” he was saying in Dutch. “Only tonight she came to my wife with some medicine for our sick child, and while my wife answered the door, the child died. He was not dead before Hes Brummel knocked. Last year she gave him some medicine that made him well, but tonight she bewitched little Joris so that he died.” The nodding heads became more emphatic. Auert Polhemus slapped his dusty breeches.
"She should be thrown into the mill-pond," he declared. "It is the old water test. If she floats, she is a witch, and must die. If she drowns she is innocent, and someone else has bewitched the child."
"Ja, ja!" came from the nodding circle. Several men rose without further instructions, took some rope which hung over a beam, and started up the creek toward Hes Brummel's. They were back before long, with Hes Brummel bound hand and foot.
The old woman hissed and snarled and spat, clawing at the men's faces with her bound hands. Men and women lined up along one edge of the pond, holding lanterns over the black surface. As Hes Brummel was thrust forward toward the brink, footsteps were heard, and two men scrambled down the opposite bank.
"What's going on here?" inquired one of them, an old man who supported himself by means of a gnarled One of Hes Brummel's captors scratched his head.
"Well, Squire Yaupy," he answered respectfully, "truth is we think old Hes Brummel here is a witch. We're just going to make sure by throwing her into the pond. If she floats she's a witch, and we'll take care of her afterward, but if she sinks she's all right and we won’t bother any more about it."
Squire Yaupy De Vries threw back his head and laughed. He slapped his companion on the back.
"That's one good way to decide it—eh, Jake?" he asked. "But I know a better way." He made his way carefully around the edge of the pond while the crowd waited in silence, but some of the women shook their heads ominously, as though they disapproved of any more lenient course of justice. "You, Auert," he continued, "go over to your house and get your family Bible. We shall see whether God outweighs the devil."
Several of the people caught the idea and nodded in approval. Others either shook their heads the other way or looked blank. Auert Polhemus was back in a moment lugging the Bible by an iron chain attached to it. It was an enormous book, iron-bound, with wooden covers. Hes Brummel, still struggling, was pushed ahead of the crowd back into the mill, the two pans of the great flour-scales were dusted carefully, and the Bible was laid on one of them.
"If the woman you say is a witch is outweighed by the Bible," said Squire Yaupy, "she is a witch beyond any doubt. On the other hand, if she outweighs the Bible, she shall go free. Auert, will you look to the balance?"
Auert stepped forward, and Hes Brummel's slight form was lowered slowly into the opposite pan of the scales. The balance wavered for a moment, and then the Bible shot upward. The miller was evidently puzzled.
"She's heavier," he at length decided, while a murmur of disapproval came from the farmers.
"Then how can she be a witch?" argued the squire, turning to the assembly. "She outweighs even the word of God."
Heads continued to shake, but the squire took no notice of them. At a nod from him Hes Brummel's captors loosed her bonds. Feeling herself free, the old woman darted to the door and turned to glare at her persecutors.
"The curse of Alabad and Ghinu and Aratza be upon thee!" she spat, as she retreated into the darkness.
"See that? See that, Squire?" asked one excited woman. "Only a witch can curse like that! Some of us'll hear from that curse, we will!"
THE life of the scattered community went on peacefully for several days. Arie Ver Veelen's child was buried in the little plot of ground which the settlers had set off for a cemetery. Hes Brummel's half-wit son continued to roam aimlessly around, but the old woman did not show herself. Along the creek Polhemus' grist-mill clattered daily, and the sound of the great wooden hammer beating cloth in Pye's fulling-mill could be heard for some distance. Oxen and carts passed on the rutty road.
One drab morning when the sun was overcast, Roelof Pye came running breathlessly up the slope to Arie Ver Veelen's house. Grietje, Ver Veelen's wife, was busy in the kitchen with the midday meal. Roelof clattered through the house and confronted her, his breath coming fast and his face pale.
"Your little Katrina!" he gasped. "She was playing in the mill and she fell under the hammer—under the big, heavy hammer that beats the cloth. She was crushed, and she lies there now, all bloody"
The woman fell to the floor in a heap, sobbing.
"My little Katrina! Mijn schoon lammetje! First was Joris, and now Katrina. Mijn liefste kind!" She rocked back and forth in agony.
Pye lingered for a moment, and then, seeing that he could do nothing further, walked slowly back toward his mill. On the way he met two of his men carrying the little girl's body, crushed beyond recognition, back to her home. The woman's wailing could still be heard.
The news spread quickly over the settlement. Daily tasks were abandoned and men and women gathered in little groups, looking ominously toward Hes Brummel's shack. Today, however, no smoke issued from its chimney. Hendrick had not been seen all morning. They wondered if the old witch had not departed, now that her work of revenge was done. The murmuring grew louder as the handfuls of settlers merged into one large group moving toward the unpainted wooden building in the hollow.
They gathered around the door, but no one had the courage to be first to enter. Nothing could be heard from within. Suddenly Arie Ver Veelen, a wild look in his eyes, dashed toward the door and shattered the latch. He stood for a moment blinking in the semi-darkness of the hut. Other men followed and looked over his shoulder.
As their eyes became accustomed to the dimly lighted interior they saw, huddled in the ashes of the fireplace, in a pool of blood, the recumbent figure of Hes Brummel with the parrot perched jauntily on her head. An open red wound from ear to ear showed where her throat had been cut. On the opposite side of the room, crouched in a corner, Hendrick laughed softly and insanely, caressing a gleaming knife.
Ver Veelen turned to run from the horrible scene, and stumbled into the men behind him. He was panting with fright.
"The curse of Alabad and Ghinu and Aratza be upon thee!" shrieked the parrot from the mangled body of its mistress. "The curse of Alabad and Ghinu"
The bird's chattering sank to a muffled croaking as it preened its feathers. Not one of the crowd had remained within earshot.
