The Stubble Field

My grandmother told me this story, and it’s haunted me ever since. She was never one for tall tales, but she swore every word was true. It happened in the autumn of 1927, when she was expecting her first child, my uncle. They lived in a small farming community, miles from any real town, and help was hard to come by.

Grandma had been feeling poorly all week, a heaviness in her limbs and a constant ache in her back. The local midwife was away visiting her sister, and the nearest doctor was a day’s ride. In desperation, she sent word to a woman known only as ‘Old Marta’, who lived on the edge of the county. Marta was a healer of sorts, someone people turned to for bone-setting and herbal remedies. She wasn’t well-liked, but she was effective.

Marta arrived at dusk, a wizened figure wrapped in a shawl that smelled of dried herbs and something else, something faintly metallic. She didn’t speak much, just grunted as she set down her worn leather bag. Grandma offered her tea, but Marta waved it away. ‘Let’s see the baby,’ she rasped, her voice like stones grinding together.

Grandma lay on the bed, and Marta’s hands, cold and papery, pressed against her swollen belly. She moved them in slow, deliberate circles, humming a tune that Grandma didn’t recognize. After a while, Marta stopped and her eyes widened. ‘There’s something wrong,’ she said. ‘The child is turned wrong, and there’s a shadow over it.’

She unpacked her bag, revealing vials of dark liquids, bundles of dried roots, and a curious object: a small, crudely carved figure of a woman, her belly distended. Marta lit a candle and began to chant, not in the local language, but in a tongue that made Grandma’s skin crawl. She placed the figurine on Grandma’s belly and pressed down, hard. A sharp pain shot through Grandma, and she cried out, but Marta silenced her with a glare.

Then Marta produced a small, rusted knife. ‘To cut the shadow,’ she said, and before Grandma could protest, she made a tiny cut on her belly, just above the navel. A single drop of blood welled up, and Marta caught it on a piece of cloth, muttering all the while. She then dabbed a foul-smelling oil on the wound and began to knead Grandma’s belly with a strength that belied her frail frame. Grandma felt something shift, a sensation like a fish turning in water, and then a sudden release.

After what seemed like hours, Marta sat back, sweating. ‘There,’ she said. ‘The child is turned right, and the shadow is gone.’ She pointed to the figurine, which now had a crack running down its face. ‘Bury it in the field, far from the house, before dawn. And don’t look back.’

Grandma, exhausted and frightened, did as she was told. She wrapped the figurine in a scrap of cloth and walked out to the far edge of the cornfield, where the stubble lay dry and brittle. She dug a shallow hole, placed the figurine inside, and covered it. She felt a chill as she turned to leave, and despite her fear, she glanced back. In the dim moonlight, she saw a small, dark shape standing among the stalks, watching her. She ran back to the house and didn’t sleep that night.

My uncle was born a month later, healthy and strong, but with a curious birthmark on his back, a small, crescent-shaped patch of darker skin. Grandma never told him the story, but she kept the memory of that night like a splinter under her skin. Years later, when she was old and her mind wandered, she would sometimes whisper about the ‘stubble field’ and the shadow that waited there, and how she had paid a price for her son’s life—a debt she feared would one day be collected. To the end of her days, she never set foot in that field again, and she always kept a small pouch of salt in her pocket, ‘just in case’.