The Glory Hand (35 page)

Behind the lodge, ice lacquered the gravestones on the way to the forest, making them look freshly polished, as though they had been chiseled that very day with the names of the dead. She shifted the package in her arms and watched her breath billowing in white smoke before her. Above the trees, the smoke from the chimney of Miss Grace's cottage was as pure, as white.

In the snow, the cottage looked like a gingerbread house, as though its gabled roof, its shutters decorated with hearts and cupids and crescent moons, had been frosted with icing. A snowdrift buried the steps leading up to the porch, and she waded through it, wiping her feet on the welcome mat. The wreath on the door gleamed with red berries, like holly, she thought, but the shiny, three-pronged leaves more closely resembled poison oak.

She tapped the brass knocker against the door, expecting it to echo like a gunshot in the silence. Instead, the sound was absorbed by the pine boughs, heavy-laden with snow, that hung over the house.

When there was no response from inside, she tried the metal knob. As usual, Miss Grace had left the door unlocked. She stepped inside quickly, like a fugitive from the cold, slamming the door behind her.

The warmth of the pine logs crackling on the hearth hung sweet and heavy on the air, and the fire bathed the parlor in an amber glow.

'Bless you, child!' The voice was sibilant, sharp, like wind whistling through a cracked windowpane.

Backlit by the fire, the old woman looked more frail than Cassie remembered, it's good to be here, Miss Grace.'

The wheelchair purred over to her, as softly as a cat coming to rub against a welcome visitor. 'That
is
you, isn't it, Cassandra? You've grown so, I hardly recognized you.'

'I almost didn't make it,' Cassie said, holding out the package, 'what with the weather so . . .'

'I never doubted for one minute that you'd honor my invitation. Tonight, of all nights, I'm glad you could come. The Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year, child. The night He first made Himself known to the long-suffering world. The night when we celebrate His power anew.' She nodded for Cassie to put her package down beside a dozen other brightly wrapped boxes, near what looked like a creche: the cottages of Casmaran had been fashioned of twigs against a snowscape of cotton, with figurines of campers carved in fragrant sandalwood. In place of a manger with its Virgin and Child, was one perfect ebony angel a few inches high, its hand extended in blessing.

'Take off your things,' Miss Grace said. 'Let me get a good look at you.'

Cassie unwrapped the scarf from her neck and unbuttoned her coat, eager to show the old woman how her body had developed since the summer - her breasts full beneath her Irish-knit cardigan, her legs willowy, her hips shapely beneath her jeans.

'You have matured nicely,' Miss Grace nodded her approval. 'And I've heard that things have gone splendidly with your dancing. They tell me you may be the youngest member of the corps they've ever had at the New York City Ballet. . .'

it's still not final yet,' Cassie smiled modestly.

'Congratulations are definitely in order. And for your father, too. All that talk about his Presidential chances. Why, it must have been almost too much to hope for.'

'We're very grateful,' Cassie said. 'We've been lucky.'

'Yes ... In life we make our own luck, don't we?' The old woman motioned for Cassie to be seated on the sofa. 'With things so busy for you now, I'm most grateful you took the time to visit me.' 'I wouldn't have missed it.'

'Things may look dead in the winter, buried under snow and ice, Cassie, but nothing could be further from the truth. There's maple syrup in the trees, and fish hibernating in the lake with their eyes open, just waiting for spring to come. And it's taught me something. Why, if there's so much life hidden in the winter, then over there, on the Other Side, there's bound to be life too.'

'I'm sure there is,' Cassie nodded dutifully.

'Have you ever looked up into the night sky in winter? Why, it's so clear and cold you can see to the edge of the universe. You can almost see into the Beyond . . .' The old woman's eyes glazed over for a moment, her mind adrift. Then, as though she didn't like where her thoughts were leading, she changed the subject. 'Do you like my new shawl?'

The wrap over the old woman's shoulders was a patchwork of bright colors, much too young for Miss Grace, Cassie thought. 'It's lovely.'

'You'll never guess who made it for me.'

'I can't . . .'

'Iris! Iris crocheted it for me, all by herself. Now wasn't that a thoughtful gift?'

'Iris is very talented.'

'My favorite girls have come up to visit me this winter.' She nodded towards a cake plate on a side-table. 'Robin brought me up some brownies . . . home-baked. You must try some. And Abigail sewed a quilt for my bed . . .'

'How nice of her.'

'But you, Cassie dear, you were always so clever. I can't wait to see what you brought me.'

'I can't wait to give it to you,' Cassie said, and leaned over to pick up the package.

'I have a gift for you first. "Age before beauty"!'

'You didn't have to . . .'

'Ah, but this is a time for giving. And you deserve it, child. You've
earned
it.' Miss Grace glanced down at her paralyzed right hand. 'But you'll have to take my glove off if you want it.'

Cassie hesitated, then replaced her box next to the others beside the creche, and walked back to the wheelchair. When she lifted the old woman's hand in hers, it felt as light and fragile as a sparrow's wing. She slipped off the glove of yellowed lace.

The silver ring in the shape of a hand hung loosely on Miss Grace's bony finger, it was a gift to your mother from the Master himself,' she said. 'But of course He always intended that you should have it someday.'

Cassie slipped the ring off of the old lady's finger and onto her own. It fit perfectly.

it looks lovely on you, Child,' Miss Grace sighed. 'Because that is where it was meant to be.' She smiled at Cassie. 'You see how life is? The year that got off to such a dreadful start has had a happy ending after all. Spring will come again, and then summer. And then Casmaran will ring with laughter again, and we will all worship Him together.' Her eyes widened, like a child. 'Now it's
my
turn for a present. Whatever could it be? Is it something you made yourself?'

'I'm afraid not. . .'

'Well, I bet it's lovely all the same. It's the thought that counts, after all, isn't it? I only wish I could open it myself.'

'I'm more than happy to do it for you.' Cassie untied the ribbon, careful not to rip the red and green paper as she unwrapped it. Then she lifted the lid off the box.

When Miss Grace saw what was inside, her eyes widened, and her mouth opened to speak. But she couldn't utter a word, as if something barbed had lodged in her throat.

The Glory Hand ... Its flesh was a reptilian green, the green of death. When Cassie picked it up and leaned over the fireplace to set the tips of the fingers alight, they quivered with a life of their own. The fingertips hissed with blue flame, and the fire in the hearth dwindled, plunging the room into near-darkness.

At last Miss Grace's lips managed to shape a word: 'Bitch,' she murmured. '
You little bitch.''
Her paralyzed hands began to tremble in her lap: 'The night of Lammas . . . How did you escape Him?'

Cassie unbuttoned her cardigan sweater, tore open the blouse beneath it. Even in the five months since that night, the wound had not fully healed, and the scar smarted as she ran her finger along the two red seams, the two jagged intersecting lines that she had burned between her breasts with the Glory Hand.

Miss Grace winced at the sight, shielded her eyes from the cross of scorched flesh. And with a shrill whine, the wheelchair whirred backwards, knocking over a table, sending the porcelain elves crowding it crashing to the floor. Cassie crushed the glass underfoot as she walked towards her.

I've waited so long for this, Miss Grace. I've waited so very long. . .

The old woman's body was twitching, as if it were about to succumb to a seizure. Her lips were white and pinched, shaping silent sentences, but only one word came out. 'NO.'

'I have the ring, Miss Grace. The Glory Hand will do what I want now.'

The wheelchair could back no further. It slammed against the wall, smashing into the shrine of photographs so that the silver and gold frames hung lopsided, or fell to the floor. And Cassie inched the five-pronged torch towards the yellowed pictures.

Miss Grace seized the moment to send the wheelchair racing towards her. Cassie stepped out of the way as it jolted into a rolltop desk, hurling the old woman onto the floor. The wheelchair careened into the fireplace, and the electric motor sputtered in a flash of sparks. Miss Grace's frail body lay curled, fetuslike, on the carpet. 'You stupid child!' she shrieked. 'You think you know everything, but you know nothing.
Your father. . . he was unbaptized, tool'

Cassie groped to understand. Her father hadn't been religious, but . . . Was it possible? Had Grandfather Broyles, the freethinker who had told her that no one who knew the sea as he did could believe in God . . . had he refused to baptize his son? 'What are you saying?' she whispered, her voice so faint she could barely hear it herself. 'What do you mean about my father?'

The old woman smiled, seemingly relishing Cassie's confusion. Then she started to move.
But she's a cripple,
Cassie thought,
how can she
? And yet, Miss Grace was on her knees, pulling herself up on the leg of a table, her thin, bony arms imbued with a strength that only now did Cassie understand. It was written on her face: hate gave her the power, a hatred deeper than any Cassie had ever felt.

'The Master was too greedy for your soul,' Miss Grace hissed. She stood upright, her eyes cold. 'He should have known when your mother defied us that you would be poison, too. For it is her blood that runs in your veins . . . Her blood as well as
His . . .
The blood of betrayal. Cassie, how can you betray your father?'

'My
fatherV
Cassie lashed out with the Glory Hand as if to fend off Miss Grace's words before they hit their mark. But the Glory Hand brought her back with brutal swiftness to a moment more distant than a memory, an image from a time so long-forgotten that it had merged with lost dreams:

A woman in bed with a man, locked in a hungry, urgent struggle, lit by the dim glow of.. . candles? No, it was a Glory Hand on the mentel.

And . . . was it a man in her mother's arms? If her father had never been baptized, had his body been possessed that night by another? Was it a man thrusting into her mother, sowing his seed in her?

Or
was
it Him?

It wasn't a memory; it went much deeper than that. It was the distant echo of the dawn of her own consciousness, the moment when she had been conceived.

'He spawned your life,' Miss Grace said. 'The spark was His gift. But you have lost the right to possess it.' She took one unsteady step towards Cassie, then another, and locked her fingers around Cassie's throat. As Cassie reached up with both hands to tear herself free, she lost her grip on the Glory Hand. Its fingers raked her leg with fire as it dropped to the floor.

But Miss Grace's hands on her throat cut off the pain in her leg - cut off all sensation. With her oxygen choked off, Cassie felt herself blacking out, and fought against it, clenching her fist to feel the pain of the ring cutting into her palm.

Don't pass out. Once you go under you'll never come out again.

She groped for an image . . . any image ... to keep her mind alive. Her mother's face . . . she could see her clearly now, but not as she would have wanted to remember her: Ann, with that Hindu holy mark on her forehead, that look of helplessness in her eyes.

They killed your mother . . .
Cassie realized her hatred matched Miss Grace's own. She was stunned to see the Glory Hand responding to her surge of rage, the flames from its fingers slashing out. . .

The old woman's grip loosened around her throat. Cassie gasped for breath and saw that the blades of fire had pierced Miss Grace's satin gown, that they were feeding on the gaudy shawl that draped her shoulders. Miss Grace tried to beat out the flames, but the sudden movement only fanned them. They flew from her body to the lace antimacassars on the armchairs, and to the wallpaper; the photographs in the frames withered in the heat like wilting flowers.

Miss Grace's silver hair was burning like straw.
You've killed her.
The awareness stunned Cassie, until she realized that she was wrong, that what was happening before her eyes wasn't a spasm of death, but a transformation.

With horror and fascination, Cassie stared at the face taking shape beneath the halo of blue flame, the features of another, emerging from Miss Grace's aged flesh: Sarah's face, her hair shimmering more brightly than it had in the summer sun, her skin blushing in the heat with the glow of life.

'You . . . betrayed ... us .. .' Two voices, one parched and dry, the other strong and lilting. Or was it just one voice, in youth and old age, as time had twisted and distorted it? 'Betrayer
!' The voice echoed away, like the last cry of someone leaping into a chasm.