The Screaming Daughter of Veurne

It was in the twilight of an autumn evening that it began. Elisabeth, mother of a nine-year-old daughter, sat as always at her spinning wheel, with the windows closed against the cold wind from the sea. Her daughter Marieke lay on her straw mattress, the heavy blanket pulled over her, as children do when tired and seeking warmth.

But this was no ordinary sleep. Around midnight, a sound rose from Marieke’s mouth that froze Elisabeth to her very bones. It was no human voice — it was the cry of a cat, but no common cat. It was like the scream of something in mortal anguish, something that had entered that small body from outside. Elisabeth leapt from her chair and rushed to the child. Marieke lay with closed eyes, but from her throat came those horrible sounds without ceasing.

The mother shook her daughter. ‘Marieke! Marieke!’ she cried out. But the child did not wake. And the screaming continued. For hours, until dawn broke, that voice wailed — sometimes like a strangled cat, sometimes like a ghost wandering the night, sometimes like something that had no name and did not belong to this world.

The next morning, Marieke was awake and appeared as always — perhaps pale, but otherwise unmarked by the night. Elisabeth told her neighbors, women who lived on the same street and who always knew something of matters that lay outside the natural order. One of them, an old woman with grey locks and eyes that seemed to know all things, said: ‘This is no sickness of the body, mother. This is a curse. Someone has bewitched your child. Perhaps a woman who is jealous, or someone who wishes ill upon your family.’

Elisabeth felt fear swell in her chest. ‘But how can this have happened? What have I done that I should be cursed?’

The old woman shook her head slowly. ‘That you do not ask me. But I can tell you who can heal it. There is in Koksijde a pastor, a holy man of great knowledge and power. He has lifted many curses. He speaks with the world of angels in a language we do not understand. Go to him. Bring him your child.’

Elisabeth listened, and though she feared the journey on rough roads, she knew that nothing could be worse than enduring that night again.

The next day, mother and daughter prepared themselves for the journey to Koksijde. It was a journey of more than two hours on foot, along roads that were not always safe. Marieke seemed unaware of the fear her mother felt. They walked beneath grey clouds, the child’s hand in her mother’s, while the sea could be heard not far away, with its eternal roar carrying the sounds of the distant and unknown.

The church of Koksijde stood at the end of a stone road. The pastor — a man of middle years with grey at his temples and eyes full of compassion — stood waiting for them, as though he had sensed their coming before they arrived. He wore a long black robe that reached his feet, and about his neck hung a silver cross that glimmered in the light.

‘Mother,’ he said in a voice like sweet honey mixed with iron, ‘I know why you have come. This child carries something with her that is not of her. But follow me. We shall cast it out.’

The pastor led them into a chapel built against the church. There, many wax candles had been lit — so many that it seemed the very stars had come down. The pastor placed Marieke before the altar. He took water that he had blessed and sprinkled it upon her head while speaking words in Latin — words of power, of authority, of divine command. His voice grew in strength, and for the first time since it began, Elisabeth saw her daughter hesitate — not in pain, but in deliverance.

Slowly, as dawn banishes darkness, the foreign presence departed from Marieke’s body. The curse released its grip like the grasp of a dead hand. The child wept — tears of relief — and fell into her mother’s arms.

The pastor raised his hand and spoke: ‘It is finished. This child is now free. She shall endure no more nights of terror. Evil has no power over her body or spirit.’

Elisabeth took her daughter home, and never again, in all her days, did she hear that dreadful sound from Marieke’s mouth. For in that night, beneath the chant of a priest and by the light of holy candles, a child of Veurne was saved.