She Brought the Rain (Short Story)

It’s been 47 days of rain. Not drizzles, not storms—just a downpour, constant and unrelenting, as if the sky is leaking grief.

I’m a pastor in a small Wisconsin town you’ve never heard of. We’re Lutheran, traditional, sing hymns, utilize vestments—the whole nine yards. People used to come. And now? The pews are as empty as the church coffers.

Then she showed up. I don’t even know where she came from. No car, no umbrella—just a white dress soaked through, clinging to her like sin, and bare feet caked in mud. Her eyes were gray—not gray like “romantic fog,” but gray like storm clouds that don’t go away.

“You’re the pastor,” she said. Her void had a Finnish accent, soft and worn. “A shepherd.” Then she smiled. “I’m lost.”

Then I did what no self-respecting, single pastor should ever do in a rural town—I invited her inside. I gave her soup, a towel, and a Bible.

She smiled at the last one. Not politely, though it wasn’t menacing either. She smiled knowingly.

“Haven’t seen one of these in a long time,” she said.

She stayed, and the rain never stopped.

She was at every service. Always in the front row—very unLutheran. Always smiling—very unFinnish! And always humming this tune I couldn’t quite place, like a word you forgot that’s just at the tip of your tongue. I asked what it was once.

She just said, “It’s older than hymns.”

No one else came to church. The floodwaters rose. Houses emptied. Graves shifted. Mold coated the sanctuary walls like moss growing on a drowned temple.

But I kept preaching. The Law, the Gospel—the whole truth.

And she listened.

One night, I finally asked, “Who are you?”

She stood, slowly, still humming. “You know Noah, don’t you?”

“Well, I don’t know him, but—” She was still smiling, but didn’t even snicker at my joke. I cleared my throat. “Uh, yeah. Yes, I do.”

“He preached to a corrupt generation,” she whispered. “They didn’t listen.”

She stepped toward the door. Water was leaking in now.

“I came when the judgement began,” she said. “But you’re still preaching. That’s good. That means there’s still time.”

“Time for what?” I asked.

She looked toward the door—where the water now pooled, rising like another Noahic baptism. She turned back and pointed at the crucifix behind me in the chancel. I turned to look.

And I swear to you—it was bleeding. Not just the hands and feet, but also His pierced side—water and blood pouring like an open faucet.

“Time to build an ark,” she whispered.

I looked back… and she was gone.

I haven’t seen her since, but the rain still hasn’t stopped. The basement’s flooded. The parking lot is a lake. Some nights, I think I hear singing from the cemetery.

But I keep preaching. I write my sermons by candlelight. I lay them on the pulpit with trembling hands.

Because she was right. There’s still time. And it’s time to build an ark. Not with wood, but with words, hammered together with Law and Gospel. Before the doors shut.