The Fireballs of Houthalen

Scarcely two weeks had passed since the old chapel of Houthalen was reopened after renovation. The chapel, built in the fifteenth century, was a small white building perched on a slight hill at the border of Houthalen and the neighbouring villages. No one could remember who had built it, but everyone knew one thing: it was holy ground.

On the night of the first full moon after its opening, the appearances began. A shepherd boy was the first to see it: a yellow glowing orb, large as a fist, drifting slowly above the heath. It did not remain still; it twisted, it danced like a spark upon the wind, as though the thing were alive. The boy screamed and fled toward the village.

’I saw it!’ he gasped to his mother. ’On the heath! A fireball! Large and yellow and terrible!’ His mother pulled him close and said: ’Hush now, hush. It is nothing. It is only the moon reflecting in the grass.’

But that same night, two other farmers also witnessed something. And the night after, more still. The fireballs were not seen merely once — night after night they appeared, always near the same spot beside the chapel, always spinning and dancing through the darkness.

In Houthalen, nearly everyone worked in or around the coal mine. It was brutally hard work, deep beneath the earth, in darkness and silence, where one could hear only the breathing of one’s fellow workers. The mines had been open now for more than two decades, and hundreds of men descended into them each day.

Jef was one of them. He was twenty years old, strong and serious, with hands already blackened by coal despite his youth. His father had been a miner before him, and his father before that. The mine was inheritance in Jef’s family.

One evening, after a long day in the mine, Jef walked back to the village with his companions. The sky had darkened; the first stars were visible. That was when he saw it — near the chapel, a bright yellow orb, drifting forward in the darkness.

’Look!’ cried one of his friends. ’A fireball!’ The others seized his arm. ’Jef, do not look upon it! They say that if you gaze at it, you will follow it, and then you shall be lost!’

But Jef stood still. He stared at the fireball, which now seemed to move directly toward him. And instead of feeling fear, he remembered something his grandmother had once told him when he was young.

Jef’s grandmother was old and wise and had told many stories during the long winter evenings. She had spoken of many things: of ghosts, of trees, of water, of the spirits of the earth. But Jef remembered especially one tale, which she had repeated with great emphasis.

’If ever thou dost see a fireball,’ she had said, her eyes grave and dark, ’thou must not flee. That is the worst thing thou couldst do, for then it shall follow thee forever. Nay, thou must stand firm and call to it. Thou must speak to it and ask what it wishes. For the fireballs are not wicked — they are lost and lonely, and they seek someone who will listen to them.’

Those words had etched themselves upon Jef’s heart like a sacred commandment. Now, as the fireball approached and his friends screamed in panic about him, he straightened himself and spoke aloud to the mysterious light.

’What dost thou want of me?’ he cried out, his voice steady despite his youth. ’Why dost thou follow me?’

The fireball halted. It turned slowly in the air, as though the thing were alive and thinking. And then — miraculously — it began to speak.

’I am grateful that thou hearest me,’ said the light, and the voice was ancient and mournful. ’For two hundred years have I wandered here, night after night, and no one would listen to me. No one would speak with me.’

The voice then told a tale. The fireball was once a man — a surveyor, a man of importance who determined the boundaries between lands. He was honest and just, until the day when three wealthy farmers gave him money to move a strip of grassland twenty feet from one boundary to another.

’I did it,’ said the spirit. ’For coin. I moved the boundary markers. A poor man lost his land; a rich man gained it. I could not sleep after that day. Every night I felt guilt heavy upon my chest. Then I died, and I could not rest, for my sin was not forgiven.’

Jef felt pity for the spirit. ’What may I do to help thee?’ he asked.

’Tell the village what I have done,’ said the spirit. ’Say to the mayor that he must restore the boundary to where it ought to be. Say that the poor man must receive his land. And say that the stolen land must be repaid with interest to his heirs.’

Jef gave his promise. The fireball grew slowly paler, until it disappeared entirely. And Jef felt how the spirit could at last find peace.

The next day Jef spoke with the mayor. The village listened. The land was restored, the heirs received what was rightfully theirs. And never again, from that night forward, did the fireballs appear above the heath of Houthalen. The spirit had found rest at last.