Legend 24 – The Pumpkin from Hell

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In Moorwinkel, they tell of a pumpkin that doesn't grow, but waits. Every ten years, on the night before All Saints' Day, it rolls over the cobblestones without a hand, stops in front of the old bakehouse, and raises the stem like an index finger. Then a face is drawn into the bowl: eyes like glowing coals, teeth like knives. He smiles, and his smile is a cut. A soul, he whispers, and won't be silent until he has one. Ten years ago, he took Anne Ruten, who walked with bright steps; in the morning, her apron stood neatly folded, and two seeds gleamed like pupils. In the tenth autumn, Hannes Bleek stood guard at the bridge. He wore debts like other hats and couldn't take them off. His child coughed, his wife pulled the dough until it became transparent. "When the pumpkin comes," Hannes boasted in the inn, "I'll give it my hat." During the night, fog crept from the river. Something began to roll, first dull, then scratching, then bright, as if knives were singing on stone. The pumpkin stopped, raised its stem, and showed its cut smile. A soul, it said. Hannes raised the lantern; the flame receded. "Which one?" he asked, but the answer was cold as wet stone: The one you owe me. Hannes saw a bright furrow above the pumpkin's left eye, as if a boot had once struck it. Memories stirred within him: the harvest, tiredness, anger, a small, deformed pumpkin in the path; his kick; Anne, who picked him up afterward and stroked him like a child. Hannes understood that hell has a memory. "Take me," he begged. "Not you," the pumpkin replied. "You owe me something that can speak. Bring me what remembers you." Hannes asked for a reprieve until the final bell. The pumpkin nodded, for hellish things love contracts. He woke the village, fetched the priest and old Merten, who was drying herbs in the bricks. "Hell eats that which has no name," she said. "Give guilt a tongue." Hannes laid the old boot he had kicked with on the table in the bakehouse, tied red thread around it, and placed milk and ashes next door. When the dead bell tolled, the pumpkin came. Hannes spoke. He named every harshness, every refused piece of bread, every laugh that belittled others. With every word, his voice grew thinner, but true. The boot cracked, as if something lifeless remembered. The milk curdled. The ashes lifted like breath. "A soul," the pumpkin demanded again, but his voice sounded as if something were pulling at it. Then Hannes said, "Take mine, but in return, take the word I leave here. From now on, come every ten years and no longer demand bodies, but confessions.