The Caress of Broken Fingers

Five years ago, I was on a research trip in the misty highlands of the Knuckles Mountain Range, cataloguing endemic flora for a university project. My companions were two colleagues: Dr. Anya Silva, a botanist with a sharp, analytical mind, and Mara Voss, a photographer whose art often blurred the line between reality and dream. We had secured permission to stay in a dilapidated colonial bungalow that had once belonged to a British plantation owner, a Mr. Harrington, who had reportedly gone mad and vanished into the jungle in the 1920s. Its veranda overlooked a sea of abandoned tea bushes that stretched to the horizon, their leaves a dull green under the perpetually overcast sky.

Our first night was uneventful, save for the creaks and groans of the old timber, sounds I attributed to the wind and the cooling of the day’s warmth. But on the second night, I was jolted awake by a voice. It was Mara, from her bed in the corner, her words slicing through the dark: ‘Sorry for shouting.’ I blinked, my heart thumping. ‘You weren’t shouting, Mara. You were quiet all night.’ She sat up, her face a pale oval in the dim light filtering through the shuttered windows. ‘I don’t like this room, Anya. There’s someone here. In my bed.’ Her voice was flat, exhausted. I didn’t want to argue at that hour, so I invited her into my double bed. She crawled in, and I put a protective arm across her, her back to me, her body stiff. I felt her relax slowly, and I drifted back to sleep.

The next morning, over weak coffee and stale biscuits, Mara recounted what she had experienced. She had been sleeping with her hands above her head, fingers splayed against the cool sheets. A sensation, like fingertips brushing hers, had woken her. Startled, she had clenched her fists, but the touch persisted, trying to interlace fingers with her, to caress the backs of her hands. She had resisted, pulling her arms down, but then something gripped her ankles, yanking her toward the foot of the bed. She had kicked out, her heels connecting with something that felt like bone. Then a crushing weight descended on her chest, pinning her, and she heard a woman’s voice, not through her ears but inside her skull, hissing, ‘You have my hands. Give them back.’ Mara had fought, thrashing until finally the weight lifted, and she was free.

I tried to rationalise it as a vivid night terror or sleep paralysis, but something felt off. Later that day, while Mara and I inspected the overgrown garden, I noticed an old well, half-hidden by ferns. Curious, I peered inside. The darkness was absolute, but something glinted. I fetched a flashlight and shone it down. At the bottom, half-buried in silt, was a wooden box. We managed to haul it up with a rope. Inside, wrapped in oilcloth, were a pair of hands—decaying, leathery, the fingers curled as if clutching something. A small diary lay beneath them.

Anya, being the scholar, carefully opened the diary. The handwriting was faded but legible. It belonged to Mrs. Eleanor Harrington, the plantation owner’s wife. ‘August 3, 1923: I have become obsessed with my hands. I feel them moving on their own, writing words I cannot read. I fear I am losing my mind. Yesterday, I cut off a finger, but it grew back. Tonight, I shall do something terrible.’ The entries grew more frantic. ‘I have severed both my hands. Still, I feel them, crawling over me at night. They are not mine anymore. They belong to the devil. I must hide them, but they keep seeking me.’ The last entry simply said, ‘He is coming. He will take them back.’

We looked at each other, the horror of it sinking in. The hands in the box were likely Mrs. Harrington’s, and the entity that tormented Mara was the spirit of the woman herself, or something that had possessed her. That night, we refused to stay in the bungalow. We packed our things and drove back down the mountain, but as we descended, I saw in the rearview mirror a figure standing on the veranda—a woman with her arms held out, her wrists ending in red stumps. She was waving, or beckoning. I floored the accelerator, and we didn’t stop until we reached the village.

Back in the city, we tried to forget, but the experience lingered. Mara began to have nightmares where she saw a woman sewing hands onto her own stumps, the fingers twitching. Anya became obsessed with the history of the plantation, uncovering records that showed Mrs. Harrington had indeed vanished, and that her husband had later been found dead in the jungle, his hands missing. I, too, felt a phantom itching at my fingers, as if the air itself craved connection. One night, I woke to find my hands hovering above my face, the fingers curling and uncurling on their own, reaching upward. In the corner of my room, I saw a shadow, and in the shadow, a pair of luminous eyes. A voice, dry as dead leaves, whispered, ‘You have my hands. Give them back.’ And I knew, with a certainty that chilled my bones, that the caress was only the beginning.