The act of parenting draws back a curtain. Whatever priorities are at play on the stage of one's heart

come suddenly into view during the training and discipline of a child. The what, and especially the why and the how of punishment,

pull away the velvet and reveal quickly the character of a mother or father.

This is a story about the sometimes gut-wrenching work of fathering.

It's a story about jealousy and revenge and the cunning power of sin.

And it's a story about what we owe to each other and what happens when we open the door

to the demon crouching outside.

I'm Justin Gerhardt.

Welcome to Holy Ghost Stories.

Thank you. I'm Topsoil splits as a stone spade plunges into the earth, severing thorn and thistle.

It strikes again and again, tracing a line that runs parallel to the line beside it. Sweat runs down a bronze neck, falls into the furrowed soil.

The farmer smiles as the seeds rattle in his pouch, the wonder of the ground yielding its

strength to him. He'll never stop enjoying that. Does he hear his father's voice inside his head?

Does it play again every time he's plowing a line embedded there since those first lessons

decades ago? That's right. Use your whole body. Strike and move, strike and move. Very good,

Cain. You'll make a fine keeper of the ground. Cain smiles as a tear gathers in his eye, perhaps, at the warm echo of those early days.

His mother would laugh if she saw him misty-eyed at a simple memory.

My first son, born with so many feelings, welling up like spring water.

She said that kind of thing to him.

How many times?

Kane looks around at the fields and homes stretching to the left and right along the river.

His home, one of several on the outskirts of the garden,

...