THE BEST CHRISTMAS gift I ever received was my hand of glory. I found it mixed in with the other presents, unlabeled, unwrapped, unadorned, taped-up loose, sliding back and forth in a battered cardboard box beneath the tree in the park. I opened it right there and then, on Christmas Day, and I knew immediately what it was... It still had all its nails and was distinctly corded across the back with tendons; bone dry and discolored—as though it had been baked in an oven. I didn’t dare touch it at first. I brought it home still in its box, tucked beneath my overcoat. No one noticed me. Plenty of people walk around hiding things at Christmas.

In my room, at my desk, I opened the box and stared at it again. The thumb was nearly as long as the other fingers. There were no scars. There was no ring. No candle, or wax dripping. The bones of the wrist were splintered, jagged where the hand had been hacked away. There was a rustic elegance about it. And a power. There were times I worried it couldn’t be entirely concealed in its box. Those long clever fingers must have played something — piano, or guitar perhaps. I could imagine them nimbly stitching up a seam or folding origami. There was, at most, only the barest suggestion of the odor of decay; more decay; more noticeable by far was a spicy smell, like black pepper. A distinguished smell, that made me think of snuffed candle wicks or freshly-sharpened pencils. When my awe had subsided enough to allow me to touch it, I felt a cold current of old electricity go through me, like the charge from an antique battery. As if electricity could feel old. I turned the hand of glory over, carefully studying the palm. Even stretched like a drumhead, it was deeply engraved with long creases. When I looked more closely, I seemed to see the whorls of the skin’s grain shaping astrological and occult symbols that vanished the moment I traced them, although I knew they had only disappeared from view, that they remained unseen. There were callouses at the base of middle and ring fingers, and perhaps that smudge at the base of the little finger was another. Lying on its back, fingers stiffly extended, the open hand—far from forbidding me, the way an upraised hand would—welcomed and even accommodated me.