The Tale of Hallow's Peak

There was a town in old Kentucky where, in the olden days, virtue was extolled more than material possessions. The people welcomed visitors with kindness and open hearts. No one was homeless or hungry or lacked anything because the people cared for one another. Over the years as the people prospered, Hallow’s Peak grew into a large town and more people from other places moved into the town and took advantage of the kindness of the town’s folk. The town for a while was acclaimed to be so virtuous that when a person died and was buried a tombstone would be placed above the grave. However, the next day a statue of an angel would appear over the tombstone and for many years this would happen over and over.

One particularly bitter winter the town experienced its first untimely death. Billy Caruthers, a young man from one of the old town families died in a skating accident on the lake. He had been trying to impress a girl he liked, Amy Carpenter, when the ice which was unusually thick because of the low temperatures suddenly cracked under him and Billy Caruthers drowned in the frigid waters. The town mourned. The day after the funeral Billy’s friend Tim went with his brother James and Amy Carpenter to visit the grave. They expected nothing out of the ordinary when they got there but they were stunned to see that above Billy’s tombstone was a concrete gargoyle- no angel. “H.., How..., How is this possible?" Tim breathing hard screamed “Who did this?’. All three ran to the church to confront the priest Father Francis Matheson. He ran back with them to the grave and exclaimed in shock “Oh!” He couldn’t swear, at least not in front of the youngsters. “I can’t explain…I don’t understand…I need to pray for guidance.” He stalked off back to the church. By the end of the week, the whole town had been through the cemetery to see for themselves. Then, people quietly began to speculate as to how it came to be.

By the summer, people began to forget or at least talk less of it until the incident on the Wilkinson farm where Paul Wilkinson while milking one of his cows was gored by his oldest bull. Everyone, except his family, expressed some relief that at least this was not a young man gone too soon and took it as some sort of comfort. However, this was short-lived when the day following his burial his wife and daughter discovered no angel on his tombstone but a concrete gargoyle.

Over the next couple of years, it transpired that there would appear an occasional gargoyle and this was how the townspeople got to know for sure the person was not what he or she appeared to be. People began to notice more that their neighbors were perhaps acting less kindly and from time to time can actually be called wicked in their behavior. As the decades passed and the town endured and grew a little, the common virtue became hard to find as some prospered and others suffered. It became common to see fewer angels and more gargoyles in the cemeteries.

As the town grew darker still, some of the mayor’s cronies decided they would wait to see the expected gargoyle over his grave and replace it with an angel. For his family, friends, and those who were around him often enough there was little doubt in their minds that the very next day the town would see that their late Mayor did not live a godly life till the end.

When the gargoyle appeared and the replacement had taken place, many believed it was a sign their town was not forsaken and tried to lead better lives. Most though maintained only their outer façade of humility and kindness as if none knew of their hypocrisy.

The cemetery held the truth of what was done and would suffer more abuse as the replacements became the norm. People began to wonder how some they knew harbored no love for others would receive angels at their death, and their hearts were confused. Some began to doubt there was really any kind of afterlife of punishment for unkind acts if one appeared to be good to the world and lived that way.