The Midwife - (Episode 1 of 4) - "The Welcome"

0:03 Kalaroga Shark Media. Hello and welcome to Ghost Scary Stories. This is The Midwife, Episode 1. The Welcome. The first thing I noticed about Coldbrook was the children. They were everywhere. Playing in yards, riding bikes down the main street, clustered on porches in the late afternoon sun. More children than you'd expect in a town this small. And all of them healthy, bright-eyed, well-behaved in a way that felt almost performative.

0:56 It's a good place to raise kids, Ben said, reading my expression. That's why I wanted to come back. I put my hand on my belly, felt the baby kick against my palm. Eight months along and counting. The pregnancy had been difficult. Anxiety, insomnia, two scares that sent us to the ER. And when Ben suggested spending my third trimester in his hometown, I'd agreed. His mother had passed three years ago. He wanted to be near something familiar when our daughter arrived. I understood that. I just hadn't expected Coldbrook to feel so... insular. We drove down Main Street past a hardware store, a diner, a library that looked like it hadn't been updated since 1975. People turned to watch our car. Not hostile. Curious. The way you'd

1:50 watch a new animal at the zoo. Everyone knows everyone here, Ben said. They're just wondering who the new face is. The new face, not faces. They already knew Ben. He'd grown up on these streets, played with these children's parents, been delivered by... There's Mrs Holloway's place. Ben pointed to a large Victorian house set back from the road, wraparound porch, garden bursting with late summer flowers. She'll want to meet you.

2:22 She delivered me, you know. Still remembers the exact time. 3.47am, screaming my head off. She's still practising. Forty years and counting. Never lost a mother. Never lost a baby. He smiled, that warm, bent smile that had made me fall in love with him. She's the reason I wanted to come back. There's no one I'd trust more with you and the baby.

2:50 I looked at the house as we passed. The curtains in an upstairs window twitched, as if someone had been watching. Waiting. Waiting. We settled into Ben's childhood home, a modest Cape Cod his mother had left him, empty since her death but maintained by a neighbour. Ben had arranged to have it cleaned, stocked with groceries, made ready for our arrival. It felt like stepping into a museum of his past. Photographs on every wall. Ben as a baby, a toddler, a gap-toothed kid in a baseball uniform. His parents at their wedding.

3:28 Family Christmas portraits spanning decades. I studied his baby pictures while he brought in our bags. Newborn Ben, wrinkled and red, cradled in his mother's arms. Something about the composition bothered me, though I couldn't say what. Susan Torres looked exhausted but radiant, the way new mothers do. The hospital room behind her was generic, institutional. That's the only one from the hospital, Ben said, appearing behind me. Mum said the nurses were too busy to take more. Small town hospital. Skeleton crew.

4:05 She looks tired. 36 hours of labour. Mrs Holloway said I was stubborn from the start. He kissed my cheek and went back to unpacking. I stared at the photograph a moment longer, trying to identify what felt wrong. The angle, maybe. The way Susan was holding the baby. Maybe. Tentative, almost surprised, like she was still learning how. Like she'd just been handed something she hadn't expected. I shook off the thought.

4:36 Pregnancy hormones. Everything felt ominous when you hadn't slept well in weeks. Mrs Holloway came to dinner that first night. Ben had invited her without asking me, something that would have annoyed me under normal circumstances, but I was too exhausted to object. I'd spent the afternoon napping and still felt wrung out, the baby pressing on my bladder, my back aching, my ankles swollen. She arrived at six with a casserole and a smile that seemed to take up her entire face. Rachel. She clasped my hands before I could offer them. Her grip was warm, firm, proprietary. I've heard so much about you, Ben's been talking my ear off for months. The brilliant marketing executive. The Chicago girl.

5:30 The woman who finally caught our Benjamin. It's nice to meet you, I managed. Let me look at you. She stepped back, still holding my hands, her eyes travelling down to my belly. Eight months. You're carrying beautifully. A girl, Ben said. That's what the ultrasound showed. Ultrasounds. She waved a hand dismissively. Machines. I can tell just by looking.

5:58 The way you're carrying. High and tight. That's a girl. Girls hold close to their mothers. Boys sprawl. She released my hands and swept past me into the house, leaving a faint scent of lavender and something else. Something antiseptic, buried beneath the flowers. Dinner was an interrogation disguised as small talk. Mrs Holloway asked about my job, my family, my plans for after the birth. Each question was delivered with a warm smile, a gentle tone, but I felt the weight behind them, the assessment. So you'll be taking maternity leave? Three months, maybe four if we can swing it.

6:46 And then back to work? That's the plan. Who'll watch the baby while you're working? Family nearby? Why? My sister's in Chicago. She's offered to help. And we'll find a nanny. Or daycare. Daycare. Mrs Holloway's smile didn't waver. But something in her eyes shifted. So young. They grow up so fast, don't they? Seems a shame to miss those early months.

7:14 Rachel's worked hard for her career, Ben said. We've talked about it. We'll make it work. Of course you will, dear. I'm sure you'll be wonderful parents. She turned to me. It's just that I've seen so many mothers struggle with the balance. The guilt of being away. The baby not bonding properly. The marriage suffering under the strain. We'll figure it out, I said, more sharply than I intended. Of course you will, she patted my hand. I didn't mean to pry. I just worry. Forty years of bringing babies into the world. You start to notice patterns. Which mothers thrive?

7:55 Which ones struggle? You want to help, but sometimes help isn't welcome. She smiled again. Warm, understanding. I felt cold. After dinner, while Ben walked Mrs Holloway to her car, I went to the bathroom. and sat on the edge of the tub, trying to slow my breathing. She was just an old woman, a concerned community member. Everything she'd said could be interpreted as kindness, intrusive, old-fashioned kindness, but kindness nonetheless. So why did I feel like I'd been evaluated, measured, found wanting? Through the bathroom window, I could hear their voices in the driveway. Couldn't make out the words. but the tone was warm, familial. Mrs Holloway laughed at something Ben said, and the sound carried through the night air

9:01 like wind chimes. When Ben came back inside, he was smiling. She likes you, he said. Does she? She said you're sharp, observant, she appreciates women who ask questions. He pulled me into a hug, his hand resting on my belly. I told you she was great. She's going to take such good care of you. I leaned into him. Let myself believe it.

9:28 I was so tired of being afraid. The next few days, I tried to settle in. Ben had taken two weeks off before the school year started to help me get acclimated. We walked the streets of Coldbrook together, visited the diner, met the neighbours. Everyone knew Ben. Everyone was delighted to meet me. Everyone asked about the baby. Mrs Holloway's delivering?

9:55 You're in good hands. She brought my Katie into the world. Best experience of my life. life. Forty years without losing one. Can you imagine? That woman's a saint. I smiled. I nodded. I played the role of grateful outsider, welcomed into this close-knit community. But I couldn't stop noticing things. The children, first.

10:21 Up close, the resemblance I'd noticed from the car was more pronounced. Kids from different families sharing the same jaw, the same nose, the same unusual shade of hazel eyes. Genetics, probably. Small towns. Limited gene pools. Everyone related to everyone eventually. But some of the combinations didn't make sense. The Thompson kids had dark hair and olive skin. Their parents were both fair and blonde. The Miller boy looked nothing like his siblings. Different build, different features, different everything. Adoption, Ben said when I mentioned it. The Millers couldn't have kids.

11:01 The Thompsons took in their nephews after a family tragedy. It happens. A lot of adoptions for such a small town. Mrs Holloway helps with that too. She knows everyone. When a family can't conceive, when a baby needs a home, she connects people. It's all very informal, but it works. Informal. No paperwork, no oversight, just Mrs Holloway deciding which babies went where. I filed the thought away, added it to the growing list of things that didn't quite fit. On the fourth day, I went to the town hall. I told Ben I wanted to see the local history archives, research for a marketing project, a way to keep my mind occupied. He was happy to have me engaged, to see me taking an interest in his hometown. What I

11:53 actually wanted was birth records. I found them in the basement, organised by year in manila folders that smelled of dust and age. Forty years of births in Coldbrook, all of them documented in the same careful handwriting. Mrs Holloway's handwriting. As the town's only midwife, she filed every birth certificate herself.

12:18 I started with Ben's year, 1987. Found his birthday. November 15th. The certificate was there. Benjamin Howard Torres, born to Howard and Susan Torres, at 3.47am at Coldbrook General Hospital. But something was wrong. The form had a section for the mother's medical history, previous pregnancies, complications, standard information for any birth certificate. Susan Torres's entry read, Previous pregnancies, two. Outcomes, two miscarriages. Notes, high-risk pregnancy. Bed rest recommended. Two miscarriages, high-risk pregnancy. But in the photograph at Ben's house, the only photograph from the hospital, Susan Torres looked healthy. Tired, yes, but not like a woman who'd been on bed rest.

13:16 And more importantly, she looked surprised. like she hadn't expected to be holding a baby at all. I pulled another folder. 1986. Looked for any record of Susan Torres's miscarriages. Nothing. I checked 1985. 1984. Nothing. No record of Susan Torres ever being pregnant before Ben. Maybe the records were incomplete. Maybe miscarriages weren't documented the same way. Maybe I was reading too much into a faded form and a 35-year-old photograph.

13:53 Or maybe the birth certificate was lying. I kept digging. I pulled folders at random, looked for patterns, found them. 1989. A baby boy born to a 16-year-old mother. The child's records disappeared after three months. No death certificate. No adoption filing. Just... gone. 1994. 1994. Twin girls born to a woman with a history of emotional instability. One twin stayed with the mother. The other was listed as stillborn, but there was no death certificate, no burial record, nothing to prove the second baby had ever existed. 2003. A healthy baby girl born to a single mother who left town two weeks after the birth.

14:42 The mother's forwarding address was blank. The baby's records ended the day the mother left. I found a dozen cases like this. Babies who vanished from the paperwork. Mothers who left town suddenly, silently, never to return. Adoptions that had no formal documentation. Children who appeared in families that had no record of pregnancy. All of them delivered by Mrs Holloway.

15:11 All of them signed in her careful, elegant hand. I sat in that basement until the light through the small windows turned orange, then grey. I photographed everything with my phone. My hands were shaking so badly, half the pictures were blurred. It didn't prove anything. Not really. Records get lost. Paperwork gets mishandled. Small-town bureaucracy is messy by nature. But I knew.

15:40 Somewhere deep in my gut, below the place where my daughter kicked and turned, I knew something was wrong. I just couldn't prove it yet. That night, I showed Ben the birth certificate. Look at this. I pointed to the medical history section. It says your mother had two miscarriages before you, but there's no record of them anywhere. I checked.

16:04 He frowned at the paper. So the records are incomplete. Mom mentioned she had trouble before me. It's not exactly something she'd want documented everywhere. But look at her signature. Look at the handwriting. It's Mrs Holloway's. She files all the birth certificates. Ben, there's no record of your mother ever being pregnant before you. Nothing in 85, nothing in 84.

16:30 If she had two miscarriages, where's the documentation? Where are the hospital records? Rachel. He set the paper down. His voice was gentle but strained. What are you suggesting? I don't know. I just... something doesn't feel right. He took my hands, looked into my eyes. You've been anxious this whole pregnancy. You've been seeing threats everywhere. The food we eat, the air we breathe, the hospital where we were going to deliver. That's why we came here. To get away from the anxiety. To be somewhere safe. I'm not anxious about this. I'm concerned. I'm concerned. You're eight months pregnant and exhausted, and you spent all day in a dusty basement looking for something to worry about. That's anxiety, Rachel.

17:25 That's what it looks like. I pulled my hands away. Don't do that. Don't dismiss me. I'm not dismissing you. I'm worried about you. He gestured at the photographs on my phone, the birth certificate on the table. This is obsessive. This is you finding patterns that aren't there. Mrs. Holloway has been delivering babies for 40 years. She delivered me.

17:52 If something was wrong, don't you think someone would have noticed by now? Maybe no one wanted to notice. What does that mean? I don't know. I was crying now, and I hated it. Hated the way pregnancy made me leak emotions at the worst possible moments. I don't know what it means. I just know something is wrong. and you're not listening to me. He put his arms around me, held me while I cried. I let him because I was tired and scared, and I wanted so badly to believe I was wrong. It's going to be okay, he murmured into my hair. We're going to have this baby, and everything is going to be fine. Mrs. Holloway is going to take care of us. You'll see. I said nothing.

18:43 I just held on to him, and felt our daughter move inside me. And through the window, across the street, I saw the curtain in Mrs Holloway's upstairs room twitch. She was watching. She was always watching.