The Stone Creek Sermon

When I was nine, we lived in the parsonage of Red Hollow, a town that clung to the foothills like a barnacle to a hull. My father, Pastor Elias, was a stern but gentle man, and our house was a drafty Victorian with a porch that groaned like a tired old dog. Behind the house, past the rusted clothesline and the overgrown rhubarb patch, lay Stone Creek Gorge—a narrow, black cleft in the earth that the locals whispered about after dark. My grandmother, Nana May, was the one who told us the law: ‘Never go past the shed after ten o’clock, and never, ever call out into the gorge, no matter what you hear.’ She’d make the sign of the cross and tap her temple, as if to shake loose a warning. We thought it was just an old woman’s superstition, a story to keep us from stumbling into the ravine in the dark. But one October night, I learned the truth.

It was a Tuesday, and the moon was a thin, yellowed nail clipping in the sky. My brother Caleb and I had been fighting over a comic book, and I’d been sent to bed early, my room facing the gorge like a dark eye. I lay in the narrow iron bed, listening to the wind rattle the screen of the window that looked out onto the back slope. The clock on the nightstand ticked past ten. I was drifting off when I heard it: the snap of a twig, a soft, shuffling sound from the direction of the old stone well at the edge of the yard. I sat up, my heart doing a little tap dance. The moonlight caught a figure—a man in a dusty black coat, standing by the well, his back to me. He seemed to be talking, low and rhythmic, like he was reciting a rosary. Then I heard a child’s voice, high and thin, answering him. The man laughed, a dry, crackling sound, and began to walk toward the gorge, and I saw he was leading a small girl by the hand. She wore a white dress that seemed too long, dragging in the weeds.

I should have closed the curtains and hidden under the blanket. But I was nine, and my legs were made of thunder. I crept to the window, pressed my nose against the cold glass. The man and the girl stopped at the lip of the gorge. The man knelt down, and I saw his face in the moonlight—it was gaunt, with hollow cheeks, and his eyes were dark, like the bottom of the well. He said something to the girl, and she nodded, then she stepped off the edge and vanished. The man stood there for a long moment, then turned and walked back toward the house. I ducked out of sight, my breath caught. I heard his footsteps pass my window, slow and deliberate, then the creak of the kitchen door. I lay frozen, listening. The house was silent. But then, from the kitchen, I heard a man’s voice, low and calm, say, ‘Wash your hands, child. There’s creek mud under your nails.’

The next morning, I asked my mother about the man. She paled and said, ‘That was just the wind, hon. Or maybe a hiker.’ But Nana May heard us, and she pulled me aside, her fingers cold and sharp. ‘You saw him,’ she said, not asking. I nodded. She stared out the window at the gorge, her face gray as old bone. ‘That was the Preacher of Red Hollow. He died a hundred years ago, back when the church was new. He got lost in a blizzard and wandered into the gorge, and he’s been trying to get back to his congregation ever since. He takes the souls of children who go near the edge. He thinks they’re his daughter, who died that same night.’ She squeezed my hand, her nails biting. ‘You must never tell anyone you saw him. He’ll know you can see him. And then he’ll come for you.’

But the story didn’t end there. Two nights later, I woke to the sound of water running. It was the old faucet by the back step, the one that had been broken for years, dripping a steady, rhythmic plop. I got up and went to the kitchen window, careful not to step on the creaky floorboard. There, by the faucet, stood the man from the gorge, and beside him a little girl with wet, dark hair plastered to her face. She was trying to wash her hands, but the water was black, like ink, and it stained her fingers. The man was saying, over and over, ‘Wash your hands, child. There’s soil from the deep. Wash them clean.’ But the girl just shook her head, and a sound came from her throat—a gurgling, like water down a drain. She looked up at the window, right at me, and her eyes were white, without pupils. She smiled, a wide, lipless smile, and then she pointed at me. I stumbled back, tripping over a chair, and fell hard on the linoleum. When I scrambled to my feet, the yard was empty, but the faucet was dripping, and the water was clear.

I didn’t tell anyone about that. I was too scared. But I couldn’t sleep. Every night, I’d lie in bed, listening for the drip. And I’d hear it, even when the faucet was turned off. And sometimes, I’d hear a child’s voice, singing a little tune, a nursery rhyme that I didn’t recognize, coming from the gorge. One night, I heard the voice right outside my window. ‘Let me in,’ it said. ‘I’m cold. My hands are dirty. Let me in.’ I pulled the covers over my head and squeezed my eyes shut. But the doorknob to my room rattled. I thought it was just the wind, but then I heard my father’s voice, gentle, from the hallway: ‘Eli? You awake?’ I yanked the covers down, and my father was standing in the doorway, his face lit by the hall light. ‘You were moaning,’ he said. ‘Bad dream?’ I couldn’t tell him. I just shook my head. He sat on the edge of my bed, and I noticed his hands were pale, almost gray, and there was dirt under his nails. ‘Go back to sleep,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave the light on.’ I nodded, but I saw his reflection in the dark window, and it wasn’t my father’s reflection. It was the man from the gorge, and he was smiling.

The next day, I told my mother everything. She listened, her face growing ashen. When I finished, she took my hand and led me to the shed. She opened the door, and inside, behind old paint cans and a rusty saw, was a photograph on the wall, frayed and yellowed. It showed a man in a black suit, standing in front of a church, with a small girl in a white dress at his side. The man’s face was gaunt, with hollow cheeks. ‘That’s him,’ I whispered. ‘That’s the Preacher.’ My mother nodded. ‘His name was Reverend Silas Greene. He lost his daughter, Sarah, to a drowning in the creek. Some say he went mad and walked into the gorge himself. They found his coat hanging on a branch, but never his body.’ She looked at me, her eyes hard. ‘The water in the faucet is from the creek. He’s been using our pipes to try and wash her blood away. But it never comes off.

That night, I lay awake, listening to the wind. At exactly ten, I heard the water begin to run. I got up, poured the holy water that my father had blessed for anointings, and walked to the back step. The man was there, his back to me, the girl beside him. Her hands were black, and she was weeping a watery, thin cry. ‘You’re not welcome here,’ I said, my voice shaking. ‘This is God’s house.’ The man turned slowly. His eyes were white, and his mouth opened, but no sound came out—just a dry, sucking breath. The girl looked at me, and I saw that she was crying tears of dirt. I raised the bottle of holy water and poured it out in a line between us. As the water touched the ground, thin steam rose, and the air filled with the smell of sulfur and wet clay. The man stepped back, and the girl reached out, but her hand passed through the steam as if it were nothing. Then, with a sound like paper tearing, they faded, and the water stopped dripping.

After that night, the faucet never broke again, and I never saw the man or the girl. But I still dream of them sometimes. And once in a while, if I’m in the yard at night, I’ll hear a child’s voice, thin and hollow, from the gorge, saying, ‘Tell Papa I’m clean now. Tell Papa.’

I never go past the shed after dark. And I never, ever wash my hands after the sun sets.