One Word Too Many
Near Echt, in Limburg in the southeast of the Netherlands, people told of a headless woman who wandered by the ruins of Sleutje. In wartime, local people had killed her before she received the church’s forgiveness. Her ghost had sworn vengeance on the people of Echt.
Drikus was asleep there.
It was early spring. Perhaps the beer in Susteren had tasted good. At any rate, he was not bothered much by the cold when the sun disappeared. Even the three acorns that fell on his nose barely woke him. For a moment he wondered about acorns in spring. Then he snored on.
Wednesday and Friday were the most dangerous days to meet the woman. Fortunately, it was another day.
At midnight, Drikus woke from the heat.
A blue flame was burning. A cauldron came rattling through the air and hovered above it. It began to bubble. Then it began to stink.
Drikus sneezed.
Something rumbled overhead. A glowing carriage flew through the air, drawn by two black goats with bat wings. Drikus crawled behind a bush.
The woman stepped out, walked to the cauldron, and lifted the lid. Then she turned straight toward his hiding place.
She threw off her white cloak.
Where her head ought to have been, her neck ended. She held her head in her right hand. Blood dripped down, then seemed to crawl back up her body. It never stopped.
Drikus preferred to look at the cauldron.
That was a mistake.
“Heads,” she said. “From Echt.”
His legs trembled. She ordered him to listen and told him about three chests she had buried before her death, full of gold and jewels.
She gave him a birch twig to mark the spot. He was to return on Tuesday with a helper and new spades. They had to dig seven feet down, about two metres.
And keep silent.
One chest was for the poor, one for the church. The diggers could keep the third.
As long as the treasure remained underground, she could not stop wandering.
Then she vanished.
Drikus stuck the twig in the ground and ran to Echt. Finding a helper was not difficult. Hannes, his wife’s brother, seemed suitable.
“You mustn’t say a word.”
“Of course not.”
Waiting for Tuesday took an age. Drikus knew where he could become rich and still had to walk around poor. Every hour behaved as if there were no hurry.
When the day finally came, they set off with new spades. Their lips were already pressed together. It could do no harm to practise good behaviour early.
They found the twig. Drikus pulled it from the ground and began digging.
Earth aside. Deeper. Deeper still.
Seven feet, she had said. He kept count in his head. Hannes worked beside him. They were magnificently silent. Neither had ever experienced such a profitable silence.
A spade struck wood.
Hannes leapt up.
“Drikus! There’s the treasure!”
Money jingled beneath their feet.
The sound sank away. Deeper, farther, fainter, until there was nothing left to hear.
They had already reached the chest. Now the treasure had sunk so far that they could never dig it up.
The woman continued to wander near Echt.
Hannes had nothing else to say.