Kelley Armstrong - Dime Store Magic

I was inclined to ignore the candle until I finished my tea, but if my neighbor across the street, Miss Harris, saw it, she'd probably call the fire department and accuse me of trying to torch the neighborhood.

As I stepped onto the porch, I saw the candle clearly and my breath caught. It was in the shape of a human hand, each fingertip glowing with a tiny flame. The Hand of Glory. This went beyond an innocent child's prank. Whoever did this knew something about the occult and had a very sick turn of mind.

I marched toward the candle. As I snatched it up, my fingers clamped down, not on hard wax, but cold flesh. I yelped and jerked back, throwing the thing to the ground below. A flame flared and a puff of smoke billowed up. I raced down the steps and grabbed the hand, but again, as I touched the icy flesh, my brain balked and I dropped it.

Lights flickered in Miss Harris's house. I dropped to my knees, hiding the hand from view and whacked at the small fire burning through dead grass clippings that Savannah had shoved under the porch. The flames singed my palm. I stifled a yelp and kept smacking the pile until the fire was out.

Then I closed my eyes, caught my breath, and turned to look at the thing lying in the grass. It was a severed hand, skin grayish brown, a nub of sawed bone sticking from the bottom, the flesh wrinkled and stinking of preservatives. Each finger had been coated in wax and fitted with a wick.

"The Hand of Glory."

I jumped and saw Savannah leaning over the railing.

"Is Miss Harris watching?" I whispered.

Savannah glanced across the road. "She's looking through her blinds, but all she can see is your butt sticking up in the air."

"Go inside and get me something to wrap it in."

A moment later, Savannah tossed me a hand towel. One of my good hand towels. I hesitated, then bundled the hand. This wasn't the time for worrying about linen. Any minute now Miss Harris would venture onto her porch for a better look.

"Must be the sorcerer," Savannah said. "Leah wouldn't know how to make one of those. Is it preserved or dried?"

I didn't answer. I stood, hands trembling around the bundle. Savannah reached over the railing for it. Motioning her back into the house, I hurried up the steps.

Once inside, I shoved the towel-wrapped hand under the kitchen sink, then ran to the bathroom and turned on the hot water full blast. Savannah came in as I was scrubbing.

"I'll bury it later," I said.

"Maybe we should keep it," Savannah said. "They're tough to make, you know."

"No, I wouldn't know," I snapped.

Silence.

Through the mirror, I saw Savannah behind me, her expression unreadable, eyes shuttered.

"I didn't mean-" I began.

"I know what you meant," she said, then turned, went into her room and shut the door. Not slamming it, just closing it softly behind her.

The Hand of Glory is a thief's tool. According to legend, it's supposed to keep the occupants of a house asleep. Criminal, to be sure, but neither harmful nor dangerous. So was Leah planning to break into my place tonight? If so, why leave the hand on my porch railing in mid-evening? Or did she just put the macabre candle there to attract attention and cause more trouble for me? That also didn't make sense. By placing it outside my front window, chances seemed good that I'd see it first and get rid of it before anyone noticed.

I lay in bed, trying to figure out Leah's motivation, but all I could think about was the hand itself, wrapped under my sink. The stink of it seemed to permeate the house. The feel of the cold flesh clung to my fingers despite my having scrubbed them raw. I couldn't shake the memory of touching it, couldn't forget it was still in my house, couldn't stop worrying about how to dispose of it. I was spooked. And maybe that, after all, was Leah's goal.

I'd set my alarm for two A.M., but I needn't have bothered with the alarm. I didn't sleep, only lay there, counting the minutes. At one-thirty, I decided it was late enough.

I COVERED MY SILK CHEMISE WITH THE MATCHING KIMONO before leaving my room. For some reason, this seemed to make more sense than getting dressed. From the hall closet, I selected the old rubber boots my mother had used for gardening. I'd kept them, maybe in the dim hope that someday I'd sprout a green thumb.

I slipped out the back door. I'd left the hand under the sink, so if someone caught me digging, at least they wouldn't see what I was burying. Yeah, like that was going to help matters if anyone saw me in the forest after midnight, digging a hole while dressed in a red silk kimono and black rubber boots.

Once outside, I caught a whiff of smoke. As my stomach clenched, I cursed my fear. In first-year psychology I read a theory that all the major phobias are the result of hereditary memory, that our distant ancestors had good reason to fear snakes and heights, so evolution passed those fears on to future generations. Maybe that explains witches' fear of fire. I fight against it, but seem unable to completely overcome the fear.

Struggling against instinct, I sniffed the air, searching for the source of the smell. Was it smoke from a fireplace extinguished hours ago? Smoldering embers from an evening trash-burning? As I scanned the darkness, I noticed an orange glow to the east, in the forest behind my back fence. A bush party. With the weather warming, local teens must have found something better to do on a Friday night than hang out in the hardware store parking lot. Great, now the hand would have to stay in my house until tomorrow night. I didn't dare bury it with a potential audience looking on.

As I turned to go back in the house, I noticed the silence. Complete silence. Since when did partying teens sit silently around a campfire? I considered other excuses for a late-night fire. East Falls was too small for a homeless population. Could a dropped match or cigarette have ignited the undergrowth? Could someone be secretly burning hazardous material? Either required action.

I tiptoed across the grass, wondering whether I'd have another fire to put out. Two in one evening-coincidence? Oh, God, please don't let this be a second Hand of Glory. I inhaled and pushed past my revulsion. If it was, at least I'd seen it before anyone else had.

As I reached the fence, I was glad I hadn't done anything so foolish as calling the fire department. There, laid out in the grass, was a ring of lit black candles surrounding a red cloth embroidered with a goat's head. A Satanic altar.

With an oath, I raced to put out the candles. Then I saw that they encircled a blood-covered heap. For one terrible, endless moment I thought it was a child's body. Then I saw the face and realized it was a cat. A skinned cat: a lifeless mass of blood and muscle, teeth bared in a lipless snarl.

I twisted away from the sight. Something slapped me in the face, something cold and wet. Frantically shoving it away, I stumbled back, but my hand caught in a loop of spongy elastic. I bit back a shriek. I looked up and saw what I'd hit: another skinned cat, this one hanging from a tree, its belly sliced open, guts spilling out. A loop of intestine was wrapped around my hand.

I yanked free barely in time to bring my hands to my mouth to stifle my scream. I fell to my knees, chest heaving, struggling for breath. My hands were covered in blood. My stomach lurched and I spilled my dinner into the grass. For several minutes, I crouched there, unable to move.

"Paige?" Savannah's whisper floated from the backyard.

"No!" I hissed and sprang to my feet. "Stay there!"

I ran and grabbed her as she rounded the corner. Her eyes widened and I knew she'd seen everything, but I still pushed her away.

"Go-go back in the house," I said. "I-I have to clean it up."