The Rice Field Directory

The house stood at the edge of a drained rice field, its concrete foundation a recent scar on land that had once been a patchwork of paddies. Now it was just another subdivision, but the soil beneath the new lawns still held memories of the war that had churned it decades ago. Marta had been hired to keep the house clean for the new owners, a young couple who were rarely home. They were kind, the husband especially, a quiet man named Leo who gave her a key and told her to make herself at home.

It started on her third night. She was sleeping in the maid’s quarters, a small room at the back of the house, when a soft, fluting voice called her name. “Marta…” It was not a whisper, but a clear, high note, like a child’s call across a field. She sat up, heart hammering, but the room was empty. She thought it might be the neighbors’ child, but the walls were thick, and no one else was near. She told Leo the next morning, and he laughed, saying she must have been dreaming.

Over the next weeks, the call came more often. Sometimes it was just her name, other times it was a string of syllables she didn’t recognize, but they sounded like a name, a name she couldn’t place. She began to dread the night, sleeping with the light on, but the voice followed her even into her dreams. She tried to ignore it, but it grew more insistent, and one night, she felt a cold hand brushing her hair. She screamed, but when she turned, there was nothing.

Desperate, she decided to ask the neighbors, an old widow named Mrs. Hidalgo who had lived there since before the subdivision was built. Mrs. Hidalgo’s eyes widened when Marta described the voice and the touch. “You must not answer,” she said, her voice trembling. “There are things that cling to this land. During the war, many were buried here, not all of them soldiers. One in particular, a young woman, was left in the field. Some say she calls for the family she never had.” Marta felt a chill run down her spine.

She wanted to leave, but she needed the money, and Leo and his wife were kind. She began to carry a small crucifix and a bag of herbs, but the voice grew bolder. One night, it called not from the darkness, but from the kitchen, in the shape of a small, hunched figure standing at the stove, its back to her. Marta’s breath caught. The figure turned slowly, revealing a face that was featureless, smooth like an egg, but with a gaping mouth that opened wider and wider, and from it came the call: “Marta…”

She fled to Leo’s room, babbling, but he only sighed, attributing it to stress. He gave her a sleeping pill, and she woke the next morning with scratches on her arm, three parallel lines, as if from nails. She showed them to Leo, who finally looked concerned. He inspected the room, found nothing, but agreed to let her stay with his in-laws for a while. She packed her things, but as she reached for her coat, she heard the voice again, now clear as day: “Don’t go, Marta. You’re the first to hear me.”

She turned, and the figure was right behind her. Its face was no longer featureless; it was her own face, smiling at her with a too-wide grin. “You see now,” the thing said with Marta’s voice. Marta tried to scream, but nothing came out. She ran out of the house, into the street, and she kept running until she reached the main road. She never returned.

Leo later found her bag, the contents scattered, and a scrap of paper with an address in the old rice field, a place long abandoned. He asked around, and an old timer told him that during the war, a woman had been left to die in that field, her unborn child taken from her. She had been called Marta, too. Leo realized, with horror, that the maid had been named for the ghost that still roamed, and he had hired her without knowing. He went to the field that night, at the spot the paper indicated, and he saw a small mound of earth, and on it, a child’s handprint, fresh.

He sold the house at a loss and moved away, but the sound of a child’s voice calling “Leo” echoed behind him even as he drove out of the subdivision. In the rearview mirror, he saw a small figure standing at the edge of the field, waving. He never told anyone else, but sometimes, at night, he still hears that voice, clear and high, calling from the dust of the first house. The new owners, a couple with a young daughter, moved in a month later. Within a week, the girl started sleepwalking toward the field, and she always whispered the same name: “Marta.” They dismissed it as a game, but every night, she would wake up screaming, saying that a little lady was calling her to the rice field, and there was something she had left behind.

One evening, the father, drawn by curiosity, dug in the spot where his daughter pointed. He found old bones, small, and a rusted locket. Inside the locket was a photograph of a woman, young and smiling, and a name engraved on the back: “Marta Valdez.” He felt a cold touch on his shoulder, and a voice, barely audible, whispered, “Thank you.” He turned, and he saw a fleeting shape, but it was gone. The stories soon spread, but the new owners refused to leave, planting flowers over the spot. Yet still, at night, the voice calls out, echoing across the drained field, a name that belongs to the dead, searching for a living breath.

The last time I heard the story, it had become a local legend, a cautionary tale about hiring maids for houses built on old battlefields. And if you ever drive by that subdivision at night, with your windows down, you might just hear a soft, fluting voice, calling “Marta… Marta…” and if you are wise, you will roll up your windows and press the accelerator, because that voice is not calling for you—it is calling for its own, and it will not rest until it finds a body to wear again.

Leo, now old, still lives with his wife in a distant city. He never speaks of it, but his daughter once asked him why he always clasped a small metal locket at night. He simply smiled and said, “An old debt.” And if you look closely, you might see the outline of a woman standing behind him in family photos, her face half-visible, but her smile too wide, and her eyes not quite human. The call, it seems, travels far—a simple name, a haunting refrain, a bridge between the living and the dead, all rooted in a forgotten rice field.

And so, heed the warning: when you build on old ground, you must not expect to be alone. The land remembers, and it waits, patiently, for name to be called, and answered.

But perhaps, in the end, it is not the ghost that haunts us, but the stories we carry, and the guilt of those who knew and said nothing.

I know, because my father told me.

And it is true.

nThank you, and goodnight. Do not leave your windows open.