A Different Kind of Birth in Tilley Bend
The chill of October had begun to settle around the corners of the small one-room cabin as I walked over to tend the fireplace. The scent of black gum bark and ginger hung heavy in the air as I removed the kettle from the hook, adding more hot water to the clay mug of herbs on the table. I prayed a silent prayer that the woman who lay in labor on the bed would be undisturbed just a little while longer. I needed to be able to treat her pain without the prying eyes of those who didn’t understand how that was done.
I jumped when Prudence howled as another contraction descended on her, the sweat on her forehead glistening in the dim light. I brought her the mug, lifting my skirts to kneel at her side. Helping her to a sitting position, I adjusted the feather pillows behind her back.
“Another sip,” I encouraged, as she tucked her chin, her trembling lips meeting the edge of the clay vessel. I brushed the damp hair from her brow. “You’re almost there. You're doing well.”
She squeezed my hand firmly, her teeth clenching through another wave of pain. She drew her knees to her chest. She was turning the corner now. I rose, preparing a basin of warm water, submerging several cloths.
Prudence had told me when I’d checked on her this morning that she felt her time was fast approaching. She hadn’t felt the baby kick all morning, so she was sure he would be coming any time. At least, she’d hoped.
My stomach sank. With that kind of report, my past experiences made me fearful that might not be the case.
I pleaded with whatever God might be listening to me, that my suspicions weren’t correct. That soon I’d be able to do what was expected of me and deliver a warm, healthy baby boy to the son and daughter-in-law of Pastor Stanley. The survival of this little one might finally be enough to rid me of this town’s wary glances and conspiratorial whispers.
"She’s just like them."
"I saw her burying the afterbirth."
"She just knows things she shouldn’t."
"She has to be responsible for those little ones we lost last winter."
It was an easy accusation to make. Benjamin and I were the new folks in town, after all. We’d barely been here for 18 months, and I could already feel the tension growing every Sunday morning. With every evening walk we took, the stares grew colder, as the shadows grew thinner.
My mother descended from the Creek tribe that had inhabited this region for centuries. She had trained me in the ways of tending the childbed since I was old enough to go along with her and help. Now, I had been brought to Fannin County for just that purpose. It was where she had been brought up, before my father had taken us away to North Carolina when they married.
The day we returned, it was announced in church that I would be attending the births. Benjamin had smiled at me with a pride I hadn’t seen on his face since our wedding day, a year before. But that smile had begun to fade as of late, when the deacons of the church had whispered caution to him to keep close watch over my comings and goings. Now, it felt like I was losing the only person who knew who I really was.
Last night I’d spent the last few hours of evening light, sitting at our kitchen table, tearfully turning over three little bundles of cloth in my hands. Each was tied with a red thread and contained different things—a tiny lock of hair, a smear of afterbirth, a tiny bit of dried umbilical stump.
All from the ones I couldn’t save.
The ones whose passing I knew they all blamed me for.
We couldn’t get the first one turned in the belly in time. The mother had waited too long to call for me, and her baby came feet first. Neither of them survived.
Another was born weak and wouldn’t feed. He passed two days later.
The last was born sleeping.
I remembered the pain that lanced through my chest with every loss. Pain that I’d always carry with me. The promise of new life, of hope, taken away in an instant.
Benjamin just stood in the doorway staring. In place of my doting husband was now a man who gave me only his silence. He’d warned me after church last Sunday in the sharpest tone I’d ever heard him take with me.
“No more of this nonsense, Sarah. The threads, the dolls, the herbs. Be done with it!”
Now, worry knitted his brows as he sighed, shaking his head and turning to go to bed. I grew fearful he'd soon wash his hands of me. But I knew what I had to do. And these women needed me.
“Please, Sarah,” he’d pleaded, pressing a chaste kiss on my forehead before turning over to sleep last night. “Do what you must to help Prudence through her labors, but nothing more. We must tread with caution until we are known here. The Lord gives us wisdom in his holy word far beyond what earthly concoctions we can conjure. Pray. Let it be known you are a child of God.”
The wooden bed creaked as he shifted his weight to his right side. I lay on my back, staring at the rugged rafters of our cabin ceiling.
But prayers were never enough to save the little ones who were born silent.
The holy Word mentioned nothing of remedies for childbed fever.
Nothing to ease the pains of unrelenting contractions, or how to mend a severe tear from a baby who’d descended too quickly. Or what to do when a malpositioned infant meant certain death for the poor soul carrying it.
Eve’s punishment must indeed carry on, it seemed.
For two years, the town’s women had gone into labor without a midwife at their side. The last of them had been hanged. Two sisters they’d accused of being witches.
One right after the other.
Elizabeth first. Then Mary, when it was said that Elizabeth’s spirit possessed her body.
Not that anyone dared to speak their names anymore.
But I knew better.
Mama had taught me to read before she died, and Papa never missed bringing home a Sunday paper. I’d read about this kind of thing happening up North and over in Europe. They weren’t burning witches. . .they were burning women.
They weren’t burned for being evil. They were burned for being different. Hard to predict. And effective in their methods, even when the deacons and churchgoers’ prayers didn’t quite reach the ears of the Lord.
I wrung out another cloth and pressed it to Prudence’s forehead. Creaking boards on the front porch caught my attention and pulled me from my straying thoughts.
“Who’s there?” I called out. I wondered if John, Prudence’s husband, had come to check on her progress. He’d be anxious to welcome their fifth child. A boy—as everyone was certain it would be.
Prudence had reported a relatively easy pregnancy, and she was carrying low, so I’d have to agree. A suspicion I’d confirmed by spinning a needle suspended on a string above her belly. She’d grinned widely as the needle swung to and fro—back and forth, suggesting a little boy was on the way. She swore to never speak of the needle and thread, if I’d only give her some sense of certainty that she’d finally be able to give John the son he’d been praying for.
Now I wondered if there was indeed a God, and if he did disapprove of the ancient and steadfast ways that our mothers and mother’s mothers had taught them to safely bear little souls into this world. I reached into the back of my mind for some forgotten prayer, but the words wouldn’t come to my mind.
Prudence inhaled sharply as her labor pains intensified, the contractions coming closer and closer together. There was only silence from the porch now.
“Who’s there?” I called out, a bit louder.
The door creaked open. But I was sure I’d latched it.
A woman in a long white dress stood in the doorway, her spectral form almost completely translucent. The hinges scraped against the wood, and moonlight poured into the entry as the door opened fully.
I was frozen in place, Prudence’s weakening grip still holding my palm.
The specter opened her mouth as if to speak, but only the howling of the wind escaped her lips. The bottom part of her jaw hinged in place and hung slack, her neck curving unnaturally to the left. In the moonlight, I could see the faint scar of rope burn scoring the flesh near the lace of her collar.
Prudence howled again, seemingly unaware of the woman in the doorway, her eyes clamped tightly shut.
The figure pointed through the window of the cabin. She was trying to signal something to me. The large cedar tree in the clearing behind Prudence and John’s home.
“Bury it”, the wind seemed to howl, spoken through chilled and unmoving lips.
Just then, Prudence’s grip tightened, and I could feel her body’s primal reflexes take hold as she bore down with all her might. A few moments later, I could see the head crowning. Another three breaths and the baby's shoulders slid from her body, followed by a pelvis and tiny feet.
A boy.
I held his little body in the blankets, my own teeth chattering with both fear and adrenaline, blinking back tears and swallowing my terror.
Silence.
I rubbed the blankets across the baby’s body, trying to stir him.
I whispered another prayer.
This time, to my mother.
To her mother’s mother.
To them.
Then, a cry pierced the night air, faint and watery at first, and soon, a healthy wail. Tears poured down both Prudence's face and mine. I dried the baby off and placed him on her chest.
I delivered the afterbirth and placed it in a small bowl by the foot of the bed as I cut and tied the cord. Turning to the door, I was met with only darkness and moonlight, now hidden behind a cloud.
Another set of footsteps, and then there was John, tapping lightly on the open door frame. He removed his hat and pressed it reverently to his chest, stepping quietly into the cabin. I smiled at him, standing and wiping my hands on my apron.
“Congratulations. You’re the father of a healthy baby boy,” I told him. He wasted no time in falling to his knees by Prudence’s side, pressing a kiss to her cheek and doing the same to his new son, who was now eagerly feeding at his mother’s chest.
Three days passed, and when the afterbirth had dried, I wrapped it in a linen cloth and buried it beneath the tall cedar. The wind blew cold, a chill creeping up my spine as my eyes caught a West-facing grave marker on the other side of the tree.
Elizabeth.
She’d come to make sure what had happened to her wouldn’t happen to me as well. To ensure I’d know that I could trust myself, my mother’s wisdom, the old ways.
And to know that there was truth to the healing practices that had been passed down to me, even if those ways had cost her own life. I knew people always needed someone to blame—and it was easy to do when you were different. Now, I wasn’t so sure that it wasn’t her who had taught the old ways to my own mother.
That was the end of the deaths.
John and Prudence’s son went on to live a happy and healthy, full life, as did the other ten children who were born in the village that year.
I never had any children of my own. It would seem that fate would have it that I’d only deliver them for others.
But they were all mine, in a way.
And I spent the rest of my long years doing everything in my power to make sure they arrived in this world safe and healthy. In part, thanks to the ghost of Tilley Bend, who always kept watch from beneath that mighty cedar.
The End
To read more about the real Appalachian folklore that inspired this story, you can follow the links here:
The Witch of Tilley Bend: Haunting Legends, Cursed Bloodlines, and Ghostly Whispers of North Georgia: https://www.optophobiacreations.com/blog/tilley-bend-witch​
Paranormal South: Blue Ridge Witch Haunting of Tilley Bend Church: https://paranormalsouth.wordpress.com/2017/11/21/blue-ridge-witch-haunting-of-tilley-bend-church/​
Is This Graveyard and Church Haunted? The Tale of Tilley Bend:
​https://wanderluster21.wordpress.com/2017/09/28/is-this-graveyard-and-church-haunted-the-tale-of-tilley-bend/​
Historic Rural Churches of Georgia: https://www.hrcga.org/church/tilley-bend-baptist/​
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