The Baltic Sea Witch: Thriller

By Jonas Herlin

The Baltic Sea Witch: Thriller

by Jonas Herlin

 

 

A curse is said to lie on Havenstein Castle near Wismar since that ominous night in 1829 when an alleged witch was burned alive by enraged peasants. Sandra Düpree, a reporter from Hamburg, wants to write a home story about the current owner of Havenstein Castle, a former actress. Will the curse hit her, too? Mysterious deaths accumulate and puzzle...

• Language: English
• Publisher: BEKKERpublishing
• Release date: Jan 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215778418

Book preview

1

Havenstein Castle near Wismar, Anno 1829...

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The soft light of the fire made the shadows dance on their faces. As if spellbound and still full of fear, they looked at what they had accomplished. A mixture of fear and cruelty flashed in their eyes.

Let Havenstein Castle Burn!

Down with the witch!

Burn her, the she-devil!

Blazing flames lit up that moonless, cloudy night of 1829. Like the red tongues of a many-headed demon, they licked out of the windows of Havenstein Castle, an old country house built of solid stone near Wismar. The gray masonry, somewhat intimidating to any onlooker, would undoubtedly survive this fire ...

But the interior inevitably burned out completely.

A mob of angry peasants from the surrounding area, armed with pitchforks and scythes, stood at a reverent distance. Sporadically, those barbarically cruel shouts still rang out, but most of those present had now fallen silent.

The heat beat against them.

She deserved it, the witch! shouted one of the crowd in a raspy, husky voice.

And a woman muttered to herself with a grim, anger-distorted face: Kolami shall atone. Atone for everything she has done to us. My stillborn child ... She did not speak further, but leaned on the shoulder of her husband, a red-haired, broad-shouldered fellow with blue eyes, who held a scythe in his left hand.

Eerie screams were heard from the gray walls of the country house and made the peasants shudder.

She is not dead yet, whispered one of them, and fear sounded in his voice. And who knows if she will not haunt us beyond her end, that Indian she-devil!

None of the dead have returned yet, murmured another.

At that moment, a darkly dressed man with grayish hair and a stern, penetrating gaze emerged from the crowd. He carried a Bible under his arm, but his face was as distorted as the grimace of a pagan idol.

The pastor, murmured the crowd.

Pastor Martin!

Look.

Pastor Martin raised his hand with the Bible in it, and at the same moment the chatter of the crowd died away.

God gave me the gift of recognizing Satan in his many masks! the pastor then shouted, his eyes shining fanatically. He pointed to the burning country house.

We have all been under the spell of the evil that came to this region in the form of the Indian witch! Many of us have felt her influence in our own bodies... Think of the crop failures and the plagues that have taken away your livestock. But now it will be over! The evil perishes in the fire, and George Havenstein, who brought the evil here, must now pay for it! But this is nothing but the justice of the Lord!

A murmur of agreement arose among those present before it gave way to an astonished murmur that spread through the crowd in no time at all.

The people involuntarily backed away a bit, while deep wrinkles appeared on the pastor's forehead.

He, too, now turned to the gray walls of Havenstein Castle. Like an umbrella, he put his hand protectively over his eyes.

Pastor Martin was startled.

His mouth half opened in horror, and he too involuntarily took a step back.

At one of the windows the figure of a woman could be seen.

She was trapped in the sea of flames. There was no way out for her.

Kolami, Martin whispered.

Then he perceived a movement. The next moment, something hard and metallic flew through the air and landed on the ground about ten steps in front of the pastor. Martin briefly lowered his gaze.

In the glow of the fire, he saw a bangle set with three red rubies that seemed to sparkle peculiarly.

I curse you! a woman's voice, distorted by hatred and pain, cried out from the sea of flames. I curse you! Forever my vengeance will haunt you! You and this land!

A shuddering scream followed, which almost made everyone's blood freeze in their veins.

She really is a witch, one of the men could be heard saying. The flames should have consumed her long ago.

Let's go!

Yes, who knows what else this she-devil will conjure up for us.

The amount has already become smaller.

People moved away from the burning mansion with shudders and eyes widened in fear.

Only one made the completely opposite move. And that was Pastor Martin.

Carefully, almost groping, he walked toward the gray masonry.

Some of the peasants stopped and watched him half in admiration, half in disbelief.

My God, he really fears neither death nor the devil, murmured someone among them.

Shuddering screams rang out from the flames.

Sweat stood on the pastor's forehead and fear crept up his spine like a cold slippery hand before he finally reached his destination.

The bracelet.

While the screams died away and were swallowed by the crackling of the fire, Martin bent down. His fingers touched the bracelet with the peculiarly sparkling rubies, and he picked it up with a determined movement ...

Martin saw the strange symbols engraved on the bangle.

Magical symbols, it went shivering through his head. And at the same moment he felt a strange power that this bracelet radiated. A tingling sensation emanated from it and ran up his arm. It quickly became so intense that Martin cried out in pain.

A strange green and white glow now surrounded the bracelet. It was so bright that Pastor Martin had to close his eyes. A murmur went through the crowd.

But Martin was not ready to let go of the bracelet.

With a grim face, he held it. An artifact of evil, he thought.

He would have to watch over it and guard it so that it did not fall into the wrong hands!

The luminous aura that had formed around the bangle then faded more and more.

The pain subsided, and Pastor Martin's arm felt almost numb. He spun around and saw dozens of pairs of eyes focused on him.

Pastor Martin raised the bracelet as if in triumph.

The evil in Havenstein Castle is defeated, he then announced in a solemn tone. His voice, however, was slightly brittle. And in the eyes of the men and women around him, he saw doubt and disbelief.

2

For quite a distance, the road led directly along the Baltic Sea in the direction of Wismar.

Dramatic mountains of clouds had towered over the sea. The sun shone between them and its light made the water glitter in an almost magical way.

It took no more than a quarter of an hour, then the sun had sunk. And where there had just been the glittering Baltic Sea, there was now only billowing mist and a dark, indefinable something.

We turned off the main road, got onto a small side road and then onto an even smaller road.

Somewhere around here must be this Havenstein Castle, Sandra, I heard Jim Rönckendorff say, sitting in the passenger seat of my cherry red 190 Mercedes, trying to study a map by the meager light of a small flashlight. Jim Rönckendorff was my photographer. My name is Sandra Düpree and I am a reporter for the Hamburg Express Nachrichten.

Jim Rönckendorff yawned.

As mentioned before, we were on our way in the direction of Wismar. The last stretch was the most difficult, because we were looking for a remote country house that was currently the residence of the aging film and television diva Gina Karven. Originally from Mecklenburg, Gina Karven had fled to the West, made a career first in West Germany, then in France, Italy and finally in Hollywood, and now wanted to retire in her old home.

The Hamburg Express Nachrichten, the