The Stained Glass Saint

The old mission house in the high desert of New Mexico had been in Elena’s family for three generations, but it had never felt like home to her. The thick adobe walls kept the summer heat at bay, but they also trapped a chill that seemed to seep from the very earth. The only bright spot was the small chapel attached to the house, with its cracked, stained-glass window of Saint Sebastian, his face a mosaic of blues and reds. Elena often found herself staring at it, especially when her husband, Daniel, was away—he ran cattle on the far range, often gone for weeks.

It was on the first night of Daniel’s latest absence that the trouble began. Elena was in the old claw-foot tub, the water nearly scalding, when she heard a soft knock on the bathroom door. She assumed it was her mother-in-law, Rosa, who lived with them and had a habit of nagging about water usage. ‘Almost done, Rosa,’ she called out, but the knock came again, more insistent. This time, a man’s voice, low and gravelly, said, ‘Elena, it’s me. Let me in.’ Her heart stuttered. It was Daniel’s voice, but Daniel was two hundred miles away. She told herself it was a cruel trick of the wind, or her mind playing games after the long day. She quickly dried off, wrapped a towel around herself, and yanked the door open.

The hallway was dark, the only light a faint glow from the chapel, which leaked through the crack under the door. The house was silent, and Rosa’s door was shut. Elena’s bare feet were cold on the stone floor. She shook her head, chiding herself for being spooked, and went to bed.

At dawn, she was awakened by a sound she had never heard from Rosa: sobbing. Elena hurried down the hall to Rosa’s room. The old woman was curled on her bed, the quilt pulled up to her chin, trembling. ‘What is it, Rosa?’ Elena asked, sitting beside her. Rosa’s eyes were wide, fixed on the far corner of the room. ‘There’s someone in the chapel,’ she whispered. ‘Someone who shouldn’t be there.’ Elena felt a chill that had nothing to do with the morning air. She went to the chapel, pushing the heavy oak door open. The room was empty, but the air was heavy with the smell of dust and dry rot. And there, in the middle of the floor, was a single, fresh-cut yucca blossom, its white petals stark against the worn bricks. Rosa had always said that the yucca was a sign of the dead.

Over the next several days, strange things continued. Dishes would move on their own, and at night, Elena heard footsteps in the hallway that stopped outside her door. She began to lose sleep, and her nerves frayed. She tried to call Daniel, but the cell reception was spotty, and he rarely answered. When she finally reached him, she told him about the events. He laughed it off. ‘You’re just spooked, Elena. The wind does strange things out there. You know that.’ But his voice sounded hollow, and there was an echo, as if he was speaking from a long tunnel.

Desperate, Elena visited the old curandera in the village, Doña Luz, who was said to have the sight. Doña Luz took her hands, studied her palms, and then closed her eyes. ‘He is not who you think he is, mija,’ she said, her voice thin as spider silk. ‘There is a man in your life who wears a face that is not his own. He is waiting for you to trust him. Do not let him in.’ Elena was confused, but a cold dread settled in her stomach.

That night, as she lay in the dark, she heard the front door creak open. She held her breath. Footsteps approached her room. The door swung inward, and there in the doorway, silhouetted by the moonlight, was Daniel. Her heart leaped. ‘Daniel!’ she cried, relief flooding her. But as he stepped closer, the moonlight caught his face, and she saw it wasn’t Daniel at all. It was a man with a face that seemed to shift, the features melting and rearranging like wax. He opened his mouth, and her father’s voice came out, ‘I’ve come home, Elena.’ She screamed, but no sound came out. The figure reached out a hand, and on his wrist was a scar, exactly like the one Daniel had from a barbed wire accident.

Elena scrambled back, but the man kept advancing. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, now in Daniel’s own voice, but the tone was wrong, too smooth, too kind. ‘I should have been here sooner.’ She realized then that this thing had been wearing Daniel’s voice all along, even on the phone. It had been here, in her house, feeding on her fear. She knew that the real Daniel was gone, lost somewhere out in the desert, and this—this imposter—was what had been haunting her.

She backed into the chapel, the only place that still felt sacred. The stained-glass saint seemed to glow with a faint inner light. The figure stopped at the threshold, as if unable to cross. His face twisted in anger, then he smiled, a horrible, knowing smile. ‘The saint won’t protect you forever, Elena,’ he said. ‘I will be in your dreams. I will be in your thoughts. And when you’re too weak to remember what’s real, you’ll let me in.’

Elena spent the rest of that night huddled under the altar, the smell of old incense and dust filling her nose. In the morning, the figure was gone, but a new stain had appeared on the saint’s glass, a dark, spreading something that looked like blood, yet when she touched it, it felt dry and cold. She never found Daniel’s body, but a month later, his horse came back without him. Elena locked the chapel doors and boarded them up. But sometimes, late at night, she hears Daniel calling to her through the walls, and she presses her hands to her ears, trying to drown out the voice. She knows it’s not him. She knows it’s the thing that took his voice. But her heart still aches to open the door.