The Hand

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Two dirty and weary children were walking through the tangled woods that night. They had lost the path in the darkness, their faces scraped and their arms bruised from the branches that slapped at them as they fought through the underbrush. No moon or stars lit their way. They were desperate and hungry, when suddenly they saw the light from the window and the black shape of the cabin rising large, right in front of them where it seemed nothing had been a second before.

The boy's hand reached out to touch the damp wall of the structure, and he felt great relief. His sister, quietly crying beside him, took his hand and he felt her shiver and sigh as her small body leaned against his.

"Do not worry," he said, "We have found a house. They will surely let us in and give us food and a place to sleep for the night."

The little one looked up at him, trusting his voice. And for a second, his heart, which was pure, and sensed good and bad things clearly as only a child's can, hesitated. Who would they find within? But a light in the window was the universal sign of welcome and hospitality in those parts, so he only paused for that one moment. Then, the two children, hand in hand, trudged around the corner of the cabin and found the front door. The boy put his hand out to lift up the latch, but, before he could touch it, the door swung wide open of its own accord. He felt a strange feeling, as if the door moved away from his hand because it didn't want to be touched. But now they were standing in front of a nice little scene.

Through the doorway, they saw a table and chairs in the middle of the room and a dinner laid out of cold porridge and plums with two glasses of cream placed beside the inviting food. Two shiny spoons were laid next to the bowls, on two snow-white napkins. In the middle of the table stood the candle, its long bright flame casting a cheerful glow all around. On the floor, to one side of the room, were two child-sized pallets of straw all made up with soft blankets, and each had a small pillow upon it. Other than the food-laden table and the two little beds and the candle, the room was quite empty.

They looked at the food and each other, and then they half-ran, half-fell into the house, to the table, and started to eat. If they had not been so famished, they might have placed the plums into the bowls of porridge, and poured the good cream over all, but they were too hungry for ceremony. They set upon the porridge, gulped down the cream next, and ate the plums last, with great relish. Then, they laid down on the mattresses of straw, wrapped themselves in the blankets--one tousled head on each pillow--and fell fast asleep.

In the middle of the night, the boy woke with a start. He sat upright in terror, as there, in the middle of the room, hanging over the table and up near the rafters of the little cabin, was a hand. The hand had no arm and no body attached to it. It was just a hand, and it opened and closed its fingers, into a fist and, when open, made slapping motions in the air. It was angry.

The boy called out, "I'm sorry!" For he thought then they had eaten the hand's food. The hand stopped its slapping and hovered in the air, which seemed stale now to the boy, and he struggled to breathe. He longed to go to the window and throw it open. He felt the fresh air from outside was a necessity, but the window was on the other side of the room, and the hand lay in between. He could not move away from his sister and let her be placed between him and the hand, nor did he wish to cross under it. So, he stayed still, his breath coming in rasps. His sister slept soundly. The hand waited, and he waited...each for the other to make the first move.

The hand grew then. The pink of its skin became a dark shadow, and it gained in size and started flapping around like a predatory bird. It flew, with its fingers growing longer, and its fingernails now pointed and sharper, around and around in circles over the table. It widened its arc, soaring around the room like a vulture circling its prey. Then, it dove at the boy.

In that instant, the boy put his hand up to guard his head. His palm was out, and his hand flat, and he closed his eyes, sure that his next breath would be his last. Nothing happened. He opened his eyes and there was the hand, small again, now flat and upright like his, only inches away from his own hand where he held it up in front of his face. His small, upraised palm seemed to stop the horrible hand from coming closer. So, he held it there, stretching out his arm straight as if brandishing a sword.

The conquered hand fell back to the corner, and stayed there, plotting its next move. The boy's arm grew tired, but he held it up, for his raised hand alone kept the evil hand at bay. Once, he lowered his arm and the hand began to move forward and grow again, the way shadows grow in the night when there is only a candle's worth of light between you and the darkness. The boy soon became so weary of holding his arm up, he had to prop it with the other arm. Still, the vulture hand waited. If only the morning would come, the boy thought. Then all shadows disappear.

The boy stood with his hand up all night, warding off the demon until it was just one hour before dawn, and the hand that threatened the children grew restless. It knew that its power was tied to the darkness, and with daylight, it would cease to exist until night fell again. The hand started hitting the walls, making a deafening noise, like the loudest thunderclaps in a storm, the kind that shake windows and make babies cry. Still, the little girl slept.

The boy knew she had been very tired. But he looked at her face then, and saw with alarm how shallow her breathing had become. And now he saw something that made him leap to her side. He must have dozed off and his arm dropped, for there was the hand, with its vicious fingers, crawling right up her chest and onto her face. The hand covered her mouth. Her chest stopped rising and falling. Her skin turned pale white. The boy tore the hand off with both of his hands, and flung it far across the room. The girl gasped and turned over, the color coming back to her cheeks. And still she slept.

The devil hand was whirling and whirling around, as the boy, despite the great pain in his arm, held his own hand up high once again, and that other hand threw itself this way and that, unable again to come close to its captives, to capture their breath, to feed on their life. Now, just a half-hour of darkness stood between death and safety for the poor children. The birds were waking, and dawn was nearly upon them.

The hand grew silent then. It was terribly still. It was thinking. A deeper blackness had descended upon all four corners of the house, for it is, as they say, always darkest before the dawn. Then, the hand began to move slowly toward the table. It drifted downward, ever so slowly, and the boy saw, with horror, it's plan. All he could do was watch as the hand he had fended off that whole, long night came to rest in the air over the candle.

The boy knew that in darkness, all would be lost. Then, the hand snapped its fingers gleefully, meanly, as if to say, "Now, I've got you!" And it curled itself over the candle's brave flame, where the good wax had lasted through the long hours. The boy cried out, "No!" but it was too late, and that awful hand snuffed out the light.