Rachel Yoder Reads "The Promise"

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3:23This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker. I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at The New Yorker. On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Rachel Yoder read her story The Promise, which appears in the August 10, 2026 issue of the magazine. Yoder is the author of the novel Night Bitch, which was published in 2021. A finalist for the Penn Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction, it was adapted for the screen in 2024. Now here's Rachel Yoder.

4:00The Promise From the kitchen table, it was all sunlight and haze. Through the sliding glass door, the morning mist burned off the green waves of corn. A low, red veal barn, far beyond, marked the place where the land rose up, then turned to trees. The girl named Bertie diligently spooned Raisin Bran into her mouth, cold milk dribbling down her chin, and, against her will, thought of her visit to the veal barn the day before, the tug of the calf's tongue on the mauve nipple of the bottle, the white formula sloshing inside. After breakfast, she had a stomachache and sat by the living room window, watching cars pass at irregular intervals, listening for the growl of motors as they approached, roared, faded away.

4:56She went to the cupboard next to the brick fireplace and tapped each wrinkled storybook spine. She rubbed the beige carpet threads with her fingers as she looked at the pictures of a bird, a dog, a loud machine. Are you my mother? The story kept asking. The day before, she had fed a calf with her much older cousin Angie, a beautiful girl who smiled when she said sad things and was engaged to be married when the leaves turned red. That was how she'd put it to Bertie, as she showed her how to hold the bottle against the calf's tugs. Angie lived on the family farm, just down the hill from their aunt's and grandmother's place where Bertie was staying.

5:39The veal barn had a smell Bertie had never smelled anywhere else, antiseptic, then sweet like a flower and rotten like manure. It reminded her of being in a clean hospital where everyone was dying or already dead, though she'd never been in such a place. Bertie had found the calves darling, so darling her chest hurt. She liked to rub the rough swirls of hair between their eyes. They tried to lick her wrist when she did this. Their noses and the inside of their ears and their long tongue muscles were delightfully pink, the color of a crayon. Each baby wore a collar with a chain and had a messy bed of straw.

6:23Once Bertie and her cousin were back outside, the air hung green and full. She had to walk all the way around the cornfield and along Market Avenue, up the hill, to get back to her aunt's place. She would have preferred to go home to our mother and father, but they weren't there. At the fireplace's dark mouth sat a small black iron, heavy as a bowling ball, impossibly heavy. She touched the chain metal curtain gathered at the fireplace's edges, and her fingers came away soot black. She rubbed them on her skirt, ruining its pretty. She picked up an empty ostrich egg, put one eye to the small hole on one end, then quickly set the shell back down, repulsed.

7:12After the living room, Bertie wandered to the dining room, where she was cast into an underwater light, the sun sifting through the plants arranged by the long window. A white lace cloth covered the dining table, and a stiff piece of plastic covered the lace. She climbed onto a chair and reached for the bowl at the center of the table. She took the cluster of purple grapes from it, touched each sticky plastic fruit, then took the two yellow banana in her hands and bit it gently, enough to leave a few small marks. She knocked it lightly against the table to hear the hollow inside. In the kitchen, her Aunt Rebecca kneaded dough on the floured counter.

8:00Rachel Yoder:Bertie sat at the little table by the sliding glass door and watched her work the dough forward and back, her shirt sleeves rolled above her elbows, an apron covering her denim skirt. Rebecca wore her simple weekday covering over her hair, which had been pulled back in a ponytail, then braided and pinned up on the back of her head. On Sundays, she wore the lacy covering the girl preferred, but put her hair in a simple bun, because that was more godly. Rebecca asked a question in Pennsylvania Dutch, then laughed and tried again. Bertie, do you want some bread? Well, of course she wanted some bread.

8:41Her aunt gave her a warm piece with margarine melting at the center. For goodness sake, Bertie, wash your hands, and it's better not to mess with the fireplace. place. Rebecca unfolded a little metal stool for her and placed it in front of the kitchen sink.

8:58Rachel Yoder:As Bertie ate her bread at the table, she watched her grandmother carry a blue bucket from the shed to the garden, where she and Bertie's other aunt, Miriam, worked in worshipful ways, bowing down to weed in their flapping skirts. Miriam wore a navy blue task jacket to ward off the loose chill of the morning. Grandma's white cardigan bloomed like a daisy against the green. Bertie tried to understand her grandmother's beige shoes, stiff with a thick sole. Her grandmother left them on a little rug outside the door when she came in from her work. Bertie was still sitting at the table with just a few crumbs on her plate.

9:42Rachel Yoder:The sun was high in the sky now, and despite Miriam's smile as she slid the glass door open, the girl's chest was full of crying. Her parents had gone to Indiana to visit old friends, other Mennonites they'd volunteered with in Africa. Her older brother and sister were staying with classmates, but she was still so small. It had been easier to leave her with her aunts and grandma at the house on Market Avenue than to take her on the long drive. Tomorrow, a Tuesday, was the first day of second grade. The kitchen smelled of coffee and yeast. Grandma sat opposite the girl with her back to the sliding glass door.

10:26She smiled and

10:28Rachel Yoder:brushed Bertie's hand with her fingertips as the aunts talked and laughed. Grandma spoke, something the girl couldn't understand. The phone on the wall rang, and Rebecca snatched the receiver, then pulled the curly cord down the steps to the basement and shut the door. A battery-powered radio on the counter played tinny gospel songs. The girl grew heavy, heavier. Her head tipped toward the table. Her lips turned. Then Rebecca was there with bits of tissue stuck up her nose. Bertie laughed, but didn't feel happy. The day went on and on. Before long, a little carved cuckoo emerged from the open door of its house on the wall and sang five times.

11:17Rachel Yoder:In the hallway off the kitchen, Miriam pulled a box of games from a high closet shelf. Bertie sat on the cool linoleum, half in the closet and half in the hall. Red, red, blue, yellow, green Red, red, blue, yellow, blue A buzzer bleated She played again The woman's talk in the kitchen rose and fell like a song A purple melancholy settled into the shadows on the hallway floor The backs of her legs stuck to the linoleum And when she pulled away, her skin sliced with pain Before long, the night would be there After dinner, Rebecca split open a melon from the garden. She scooped the furry seeds from inside the orange flesh.

12:06The chunks of fruit were warm and sweet, like cough syrup. The girl sucked on the fruit, and when she finally bit down, juice leaked onto her chin.

12:17Rachel Yoder:She wiped it with her hands, and then her fingers stuck together. When she pulled her fingers apart, she saw dirt gathered in the hollows between them. While the girl had a bath, Miriam readied for bed. At the bathroom mirror, she pulled three teeth attached to glinting metal parts from her mouth and scrubbed them with her toothbrush. She turned to the girl. well what do you think she said smiling a little her front teeth were gone she covered her mouth with one hand now laughing from the horror of it she placed one of her partials in the girl's soft small palm careful with it little bird she said the girl touched the yellowed thing attached to wires it was a part of miriam that was already dead birdie placed the tooth on the edge of the tub and moved white bubbles around in the water, then pushed her face into the bubbles and further down.

13:19Rachel Yoder:Before Bertie went upstairs to bed, she stood in the doorway of her grandmother's small bedroom. Her grandmother sat on the single bed as Rebecca undid the back of her dress. Come see the scar where they cut her breast away, Rebecca said. The girl shrank. There's nothing to be scared of, Rebecca insisted, tugging at her mother's dress. Bertie shook her head. Don't make her if she doesn't want to, Grandma said quietly. Rebecca's hands stilled, and the girl stared at her grandmother, wide-eyed. Her long, white hair, normally collected in a bun, trailed down past her shoulders in smooth, pale waves.

14:04It was the most beautiful thing the girl had ever seen. It was another era, or even the end of it. Bertie didn't want to get older.

14:16Rachel Yoder:She liked being small, except when she was scared. She stayed in Miriam's bedroom because this was the aunt she belonged to. Before, when her father was small, he had belonged to Miriam too. There were a dozen kids altogether, and Miriam was the third oldest girl. The eldest girl, Ruth, had raised the middles. The second oldest girl, Rebecca, did the cooking, and Miriam raised the little ones, Bertie's father included. This had happened in the farmhouse down the hill, where Angie now lived, along with Uncle Abe and Aunt Martha and a trio of her brothers. Angie's bedroom was where Bertie's dad had slept as a boy, and whenever Bertie went in it, she felt a white spirit pass through her.

15:06In which room had her uncle June died when he was 17, a brain bleed after he'd collided with someone in the outfield during a baseball game? In what room had her grandfather seen the angel warning him of June's death? She never asked. Her father called Miriam a princess, but Bertie knew she was more than that, a queen. There was nothing better than Miriam, except Birdie's own mother.

15:35Rachel Yoder:Miriam watched soap operas on the little black and white television on her hope chest, even though they were forbidden by the girl's parents at home. Birdie puzzled over the woman on the little screen shouting, I hate you, at a man, and then embracing him, kissing him desperately. Well, little bird, there's love and there's hate, and you think they're opposites, but they're almost exactly the same thing, Miriam explained. Even though the girl was only eight, she could understand. Miriam had pictures on her mirror, one of a man whom Bertie had met a few times, a Hungarian named Zoltan, who had a nice accent and a kind face.

16:19Rachel Yoder:He always wore a dark suit. He wanted to marry me, Miriam smiled. He brought me a very nice set of knives. Why didn't you? Oh, it wasn't right. And I suppose I wanted to do what I wanted to do. She paused, then blurted, he was shorter than I was. Why does that matter? Miriam hesitated, the question twisting her mouth and eyes. She looked at Bertie, then laughed. Maybe I'm petty, she said. Plus, I already had a set of good knives. Miriam was 40 or maybe 55. Birdie wasn't sure. She was older than Birdie's father, at least. She worked at the meat locker, where Birdie's father had once taken her. Miriam had given her a heavy coat and wrenched open the silver door.

17:16Inside, bloody pieces of animals hung in the cold. A single bulb illuminated the room, and Bertie wanted to leave as soon as she was inside.

17:26Rachel Yoder:She could smell the blood. She watched her white breath blossom and fade in front of her face, while Miriam walked among the bodies, touching each one to make its sway, as she explained the cuts. In bed, Bertie wore a floral nightgown that wrapped her in heat. Her new backpack and folded first-day clothes sat on Miriam's upholstered reading chair. She had wanted to wear a smooth white button-down with her little skirt, but when she tried it on, Rebecca had said it made her look like a boy. She was ashamed for having liked it. Instead, they picked a nice blouse with an itchy lace collar she despised.

18:08tucked under the quilt birdie watched miriam as she searched her head with her fingers in front of the mirror pulling pins from her dark hair one by one would you like to hear a story miriam wondered i have a good one from my friend suzy koblantz it was something that had happened to suzy's friend she said across from the bed the ceiling sloped precipitously with a dormer cut into it. On either side of the window, a small door opened to a space just the right size for a little girl, where her aunt stored wrapping paper and yard sale finds. Miriam didn't like for Bertie to play in there, but it was the only place the girl wanted to play.

18:55It seemed like a punishment not to let her shut herself in with a flashlight when it was just the right size for her make-believe.

19:04Rachel Yoder:At night, though, the doors took on a tinge of terror. They were also the right size for dwarves and goblins, sundry other monsters. You couldn't be certain in the night what sort of world they might open onto were you to turn the knob. People shouldn't have small doors in their houses, Bertie thought. It wasn't right. So the friend of my friend Susie, Miriam continued, this woman was lying in her bed one night when she heard a tap tap tapping coming from the living room. She got up to see what was making it. And there at a little desk her husband used for his bookkeeping, sat the devil, working away on a typewriter.

19:54Bertie, paralyzed beneath the hot sheets, imagined the living room below them with a little wooden desk and an old-fashioned black typewriter on it. An oil lamp, like the one that Rebecca kept in her room as decoration,

20:09Rachel Yoder:illuminated the devil, who wore dark slacks and a dark vest, an impeccable white shirt. A golden chain glinted against the vest, disappearing into his pocket. His skin was browned, and his neck and chin wispy with hair. He wore round, gold-rimmed spectacles. His nose and mouth protruded wolfishly. A cigarette smoldered in the ashtray near his hand. well of course Susie's friend was absolutely petrified but soon enough she found her voice Miriam said the story went that Susie's friend asked what are you doing here and the devil replied in a strange accent she couldn't place I'm here to write your life story smoke wafted from his ears The woman couldn't breathe.

21:04It was as if she were suffocating, just being near him. I'm here to write your life story, the devil repeated. Whatever way you'd like it, just tell me. Do you accept my offer? If you do, I'll make it so. He waited with his long, sharp fingernails poised above the keys. I suppose you want my soul in return, the woman said. Of course, the devil said, smiling. His handsome grin bewitched her, and she imagined all the ways her life might go. Maybe she could be a famous jazz singer. Perhaps she could travel around the world on an ocean liner. Or what about living in New York City and running a soup and bread restaurant visited by people from all over?

21:53Bertie felt the woman's dreams swell in her own chest. she herself wanted to be an astronaut or a ballerina. She wanted to live in a city and visit the art museum every day. She wanted to order takeout Chinese food in white cardboard boxes, even though she'd never had Chinese food. Her mother said she was worldly, and her father said she could not, under any circumstances, be an astronaut. The woman thought long and hard, longer than a good Christian woman should, Miriam said. And in the end, she said, I don't. No, I don't accept your offer.

22:34Rachel Yoder:No, I don't want you to write anything. I want my soul to go to the Lord. I love my good, simple life as a mother and wife with my family, and nothing could ever replace that. As you might imagine, the devil was furious. He slammed his fists onto the keys and let out a horrible screech. He moaned and grunted as she walked back to her room, got into bed, and easily fell into a restful sleep. Even though the story was over, the devil of Bertie's imagination had moved upstairs and was now conducting his business just across the hall in Rebecca's bedroom. He was in there still, sitting at his desk as Rebecca slept in the light of the oil lamp.

23:23Rachel Yoder:Bertie feared she would hear the clicking of the keys if she listened hard enough. Miriam snapped on the bedside lamp and touched the girl on the shoulder. Did that frighten you? she asked with concern. Bertie nodded, though the answer was more complicated than a simple yes. Miriam's face fell. I should have thought it through more. I'm sorry. Miriam pulled one tooth, then another from her mouth, and clinked them into a porcelain dish on her nightstand. Miriam rubbed some pink lotion on the girl's little hands and arms to make her feel better. Then the girl watched her aunt read, willing her eyes to stay open as long as she could manage.

24:08Rachel Yoder:The glinting metal of the devil's watch chain flashed in her mind, his hair and his teeth. She thought of a long, jagged scar cut across her grandmother's chest. Why can't the woman have the life she wants, Bertie asked, without the help of the devil? Miriam paused her reading and stared into a dark corner of the room. Bertie had been tired, nearly asleep, but her aunt's silence kept her awake. She waited, but her aunt said nothing. Bertie rolled over to stick her feet out from beneath the quilt. Three long shelves of books covered the wall next to the girl's side of the bed. She ran her eyes over each spine, sounding out the words to keep herself awake.

24:58Rachel Yoder:She stopped at a book with the word roots on its thick spine. What could it be about? She closed her eyes and imagined roots tunneling into the soil, anchoring the house to the top of the hill as if it were itself a living thing. Then all the plants in the garden and fields, all the distant trees attaching the landscape above to the earth below. White roots cracking through her grandmother's strange shoes and burrowing down into the dark, soft soil, and then Rebecca's taproot breaking through the kitchen floor, traveling across the expanse of the cool basement, plunging into the concrete floor, and below, below.