The Birth Ghost

Granny Wang is the midwife beyond the town, steady of hand and tighter of tongue, having caught babies all her life.

That night the rain was heavy, thunder crashing one bolt after another on the tiles like someone stamping outside. The Zhang family's new bride was in a hard labor; a young servant came through the rain to fetch her. Granny Wang threw on her reed cape and went; the mud path was slick, and at the gate she heard the bride screaming from the depths of her throat, each cry more hoarse than the last, as if something had her by the neck.

She entered and lit her usual bean-oil lamp. The bride lay in the inner room on an old reed mat, beneath her a dark red spread, the blood-light making the flame waver. Granny Wang had hot water boiled and her hands washed; just as she was about to begin, three soft knocks sounded at the outer door.

"Who?" she called.

A woman's voice answered, soft, with a country lilt: "I am from Old Zhou's at the west end—an old neighbor. Hearing the Zhangs have a new child, I came to offer congratulations and beg a bowl of hot soup to warm myself."

Granny Wang meant to ignore her, but the voice was so earnest, and the bride's face was paper-white with cold sweat, perhaps failing from the long labor, so she filled half a gourd of hot rice soup and opened the door to hand it out. The door opened and a cold wind wrapped in rain-stink rushed in; the lamp flame ducked. She looked up: a woman stood there in a bleached blue cloth jacket, her face hidden behind the lamplight, features unclear, only her hands visible—too white, black earth packed under the nails, fingertips ice-cold; when she took the bowl they brushed Granny Wang's wrist and made her start.

The woman took the soup, murmured thanks, but did not leave; she stood under the eaves and drank slowly, sip by sip, her eyes on the inner room.

Granny Wang closed the door. Looking back at the bride, a strange thing: the woman who had been thrashing and screaming fell suddenly quiet, her gaze fixed on that square of lamplight by the door, her mouth slowly curving as if seeing someone dearly loved. Soon the child came—a boy, crying loud. But the bride's hand loosened; the hand that had clutched Granny Wang's sleeve went cold, her eyes still open, her lips whispering, "She has come to fetch me."

And the blood spread, no matter how they pressed.

Granny Wang cried for help; opening the door again, the eaves were empty, the bowl set on the step, the soup untouched, a layer of black earth settled in the bottom.

Later she learned: three years before, a bride had also died in this room—also a hard labor, also a rainy night, also mid-delivery when a "old neighbor" came begging hot soup. That bride was Zhou Wan, daughter of Old Zhou's at the west end.

From then Granny Wang never again handed soup to anyone at a birthing-room door. Yet strangely, on every night a town woman labors in blood-light, she dreams of a blue-jacketed woman at her own gate, softly begging a bowl of hot soup. Once she truly heard the knocking—three soft taps—and dared not open, only said through the door, "No soup; go back." The door was silent a long while, then a very soft voice drifted in: "An old neighbor must have something hot to drink."

At dawn she opened the door; on the step sat an empty bowl, a layer of black earth in the bottom, identical to the one she had handed out years before.

The Midnight Record: on the night of blood-light, the old neighbor at the door never came to congratulate; she was only cold, wanting something hot, and one more to keep her company below.