The Saturday Choir

The summer I turned twenty-two, my first husband, Dale, and I parked our new white mobile home on the back lot of his family’s farm, two hundred yards from the main house where his mother, Ruth, lived. The farm was scrubland and old oak, and the nearest neighbor was a half-mile down the gravel road. It was the kind of quiet that makes you hear your own heartbeat.

But every Saturday morning, without fail, I woke to the sound of women’s voices and children’s laughter. It was as if a whole congregation had set up camp just beyond our front door. The voices were bright and clear, carrying on conversations, but the words dissolved into static when I tried to catch them. The children giggled and shrieked in play. I would lie motionless, my heart pounding, convinced that someone had driven out to visit Ruth and had stopped by to say hello. But when I pulled back the curtain, the gravel was empty. No cars. No people. Just the swaying grass and the crows on the fence.

The first few times, I chalked it up to my imagination. Dale’s sister, Megan, lived in a trailer two hundred yards to our east, and I figured I was hearing her weekend visitors. But one Saturday, I saw Megan drive off alone at seven in the morning, and the voices started at nine. I put on my robe, stepped outside into the cool air, and walked around our trailer. Nothing. The voices continued, louder than ever, coming from no direction at all. I remember standing in the gravel, shivering, trying to make out words. I thought I heard a woman say ‘Martha’ and a child shout ‘catch me!’ But it was like hearing through water. I never found a source.

I told Dale about it that evening over canned stew. He didn’t look up from his plate. ‘Sound carries from the hill, that’s all. There’s a new family over the ridge, they got a bunch of kids.’ But I knew the hill was over a mile away, and no sound carried that far, that clear, without wind. Still, I let it go, because the voices were harmless—just laughter and chatter. But then the thuds started.

The first thud came at 3:17 AM, according to the clock on the nightstand. It was not a knock on the door, not a branch scraping. It was a deep, solid THUD, directly under the bed, as if something heavy had been dropped in the crawlspace. The waterbed quivered, sending waves across the mattress. I sat up, gasping, but Dale slept on. I got on my knees and pressed my ear to the floor. Nothing but the hum of the fan.

I checked under the trailer the next day. The crawlspace was enclosed with skirting, but I saw no gaps, no holes. I found a broken doll, its porcelain face cracked, lying in the grass near the foundation. It wasn’t mine—I had no daughter. I pitched it into the burn barrel.

The thuds continued, once a week, always in the dead of night. Each time, the waterbed jumped, and the water sloshed violently, almost spilling over the edges. Dale would grunt and roll over, mumbling ‘the water pump,’ but I knew better. One night, the thud was so powerful it rattled the dishes in the kitchen. I flicked on the lamp, and the bulb flickered. In the mirror above the dresser, I saw a blur of motion—just for a second, a dark shape, like a child’s silhouette, darting across the reflection. But when I turned, the room was empty.

I became obsessed with the voices. On Saturdays, I didn’t get up. I lay in bed, eyes closed, trying to separate the sounds. There were two women, I decided—one high, one low. And at least three children. They were always happy. But there was something wrong beneath the joy. The laughter was too shrill. The chatter too fast. And once, I heard a woman say, ‘She can hear us now,’ and another replied, ‘Soon she’ll understand.’ I opened my eyes to a silent room, but the words clung to me like cobwebs.

That evening, I asked Dale about the property’s history. He shrugged, ‘It was my grandfather’s farm. He used to let a church group camp here in the summers, back in the 60s. They had a revival tent right where we parked.’ He said it so casually, like it was nothing. But I felt a coal of dread ignite inside me. ‘A church group?’ I asked. ‘What happened to them?’ Dale looked at me, his face unreadable in the dim light. ‘They left, I guess. The tent was struck down one night. Some say the group broke apart after a scandal. Don’t know the details.’

The thuds stopped for two weeks. I thought maybe it was over. But then, one Saturday, I woke with a jolt at 8 AM. The voices were louder than ever, and for the first time, I could understand them. They were singing a hymn—’Amazing Grace’—but the lyrics were wrong. They sang, ‘That saved a wretch like me,’ then laughter, then ‘She’s still in bed, the lazy one.’ I threw off the covers and ran to the window. The yard was empty, but the song continued, echoing off the tin roof of the trailer. I saw a child’s handprint on the glass, small and perfect, then it vanished as if wiped away.

I began to leave offerings. I don’t know why. I placed a bowl of milk on the step, a child’s toy I bought at the dollar store, a small loaf of bread. The voices grew softer, but the thuds returned, now in the basement—though we had no basement, just the crawlspace. I could hear scraping, as if something was digging under the floor. I called the county office to ask about the property. A tired clerk told me, ‘No record of a church group ever being there. You sure you have the right place?’

I started to lose weight. Dale noticed. He said, ‘You’re hearing things. Maybe you need a doctor.’ But I wasn’t sick. The voices were real. One afternoon, I was sitting in the kitchen, drinking iced tea, when the window over the sink flew open, though there was no wind. I went to shut it, and I saw a little girl standing at the edge of the oak grove, wearing a white dress. She was translucent, and her face was gray. She pointed at me, then at the ground, then she was gone. When I looked down, there was a mound of fresh-turned earth by the trailer’s foundation.

Dale found me digging that evening. I was on my hands and knees, clawing at the hard soil, crying. He pulled me up. ‘What in God’s name are you doing?’ I couldn’t explain. I just knew I had to open the earth. He dragged me inside and locked the door. I spent the night pressing my ear to the floor, listening to the scrape-scrape-scrape under the waterbed.

The next Saturday, the voices were at full volume. They were right under the bed. I knelt down and put my ear to the linoleum. I heard the women clearly: ‘She’s the one. She’ll finish it.’ The children giggled. I started trembling. Then the thud came, so hard the waterbed nearly flipped. And I heard a child’s voice, close, almost at my ear: ‘Underneath is where we live. Join us.’

I fled the trailer. Dale found me sitting in the gravel, hugging my knees, rocking. He called a neighbor to take me to town. I stayed with my sister for a month. Dale didn’t argue. He said we’d sell the trailer, move south. I believed him. But in the motel bed that night, I heard the voices again, soft but clear, coming from the air conditioner: ‘We’ll always be here. This is our home.’

I never went back. Dale packed our things and we moved to the city. But every Saturday, at 9 AM, I wake to the sound of women and children chattering, laughing, just outside my window. No matter how high I climb, how many locks I put on the door, they’re there. Last Saturday, I heard a child say, ‘She’s found a new place.’ And a woman replied, ‘Good. We’ll set up the tent again.’

I haven’t told anyone. Dale thinks I’m getting better. But I know the voices are real. And they’re always planning something. They’re always waiting. And one day, they’ll find a way to make me understand—underneath everything, they’re still there. And they want to be heard. It’s me they want. It’s my voice they want to join their choir.