The Palms of the Hollow

In the autumn of my thirteenth year, my family moved to the town of Harrow Creek, a place where the leaves never seemed to fall entirely, and the air always carried the faint smell of wet earth. Our new house, a sprawling Victorian with a wraparound porch, had a peculiar feature: a large, dusty attic that no one used, except for storing old furniture. It was in that attic, while rummaging for a spare chair, that I found a battered notebook with a curious inscription on the cover: ‘The Game of the Still Hands.’

Curiosity got the better of me. The notebook contained instructions for a game I had never heard of, one that seemed more like a children’s rhyme than a ritual. It said to stand in a dark room, close your eyes, and snap your left fingers ten times, then stomp your right foot ten times, then repeat with five, three, and one. After each count, you had to hold your arms out straight in front of you and chant, ‘Hollow hands, hollow hands, fill me with the quiet until I can’t stand.’ The notebook warned that if you played it alone, something would take hold of your arms, and you would feel a pressure, like invisible fingers curling around your wrists.

My best friend, Elias, was visiting that weekend. I told him about the game, and he laughed, calling it a silly schoolyard trick. But I saw a flicker of something in his eyes, a mix of curiosity and fear. We decided to try it, but we would do it together in the attic, believing that nothing could happen with two of us. We weren’t prepared for what followed.

As the last chant left our lips, the attic lights flickered. A cold draft swept through, and I felt a gentle but unmistakable pressure on my left arm, as if someone had placed a hand there. I opened my eyes, expecting to see Elias playing a prank, but his arms were still raised, his face pale. He whispered, ‘It’s not me.’ The pressure intensified, becoming a grip, and my arm was forced upwards against my will. I tried to pull back, but my muscles refused to obey. Elias’s arm began to twitch, and then his hand clenched into a fist, his knuckles white.

We stopped the game immediately, but the effects didn’t. That night, I woke to find my left arm raised above me, stiff and cold. Over the following days, the pressure returned at odd times, sometimes light, sometimes like a vice. Elias began to complain of a constant tingling in his right foot, as if it were being stomped repeatedly. We tried to ignore it, but then the attics door began to creak open on its own, and we would hear faint rhythmic sounds, like snapping and stomping, coming from the floor above.

One evening, I went up to the attic alone, determined to find the notebook and burn it. But when I opened the door, I saw a figure, a girl with long, tangled hair, standing in the corner, her arms outstretched in that same position. She was translucent, and her eyes were empty. She turned her head toward me, and I saw that her hands were not hands but hollow sockets, like open mouths. She spoke in a voice that seemed to come from inside my skull: ‘You called me. Now I will walk with you.’

I ran downstairs, my heart pounding. Elias was in the kitchen, drinking water. He looked at me and said, ‘My left hand won’t stop twitching.’ I looked at my own hand, which was lifted slightly, trembling. The pressure was there, constant now, as if an invisible hand was holding mine. The hollow girl appeared behind Elias, her arms slowly sinking into his shoulders. He didn’t seem to notice, but his eyes glazed over, and he started to chant under his breath, ‘Hollow hands, hollow hands…’

The next day, Elias didn’t come to school. When I went to his house, his mother said he was in his room, but he wouldn’t come out. I forced the door open and found him sitting on his bed, his arms raised, immobile. His face was blank, and his lips moved without sound. The hollow girl stood behind him, her hands now buried in his back. She turned to me and smiled. ‘You can’t stop me. I was once like you. I played the game alone, and I’ve been waiting for company ever since.’

I didn’t know what to do. I remembered the notebook said that the game could be undone by reversing the actions and shouting ‘Away, hollow one’ before the final chant. But when I tried to speak, my voice caught in my throat. The pressure on my arms intensified, forcing them higher. The hollow girl stepped closer, her hands reaching for my face. I closed my eyes, and in that darkness, I saw a memory: a girl in a schoolyard, alone, snapping her fingers and stomping her foot, tears streaming down her face, and then nothing.

I opened my eyes and shouted as loud as I could, ‘Away, hollow one!’ For a moment, the pressure snapped, and the girl flickered. But then she laughed, a sound like dry leaves, and said, ‘It’s too late. You’ve already given me your name.’ I realized then that in the game, we had never been chanting to raise our hands; we had been calling her, and by playing, we had offered ourselves as vessels.

I fled that house and never went back. Elias was taken to a hospital, but the doctors found nothing wrong. He remains in a catatonic state, his arms forever raised. I’ve moved away, but even now, I feel the pressure on my left arm, and sometimes, in the corner of my eye, I see a girl with hollow hands, watching me, waiting for me to play again. The game is not over; it is just beginning.