When I was a kid, my friends showed me something in the woods behind our school

It all happened when we were eight years old. It started when my friends told me about a strange thing they saw while exploring the woods behind the school.

“We call it the hands.” Craig said. “It’s sooo freaky.”

“You’re gonna freak when you see it. It’s so awesome.” Miranda, Craig’s sister, said.

At recess, they led me into the woods. We walked on the dirt path for five minutes until we came to a large, distinctive tree stump. From there, we took a left, off the path and continued into the forest. The way was marked sporadically by arrows carved on the trees. That’s how Craig and Miranda had found it in the first place, following the arrows.

After another five minutes, we came to a tall wooden fence, a square about 50 feet each way. The old fence splintered and decayed. Remnants of white paint spelled “D  g r K  p  ut”.  We slipped through the gap left by a fallen picket.

My eyes widened in disbelief at what I saw there.

There were dozens of hands reaching out of the ground. (One day, we counted them and found there were exactly 37) They seemed to grow from the forest floor like toadstools.

They sat at all different heights. One stood almost a foot in the air, a whole forearm exposed. One was just a few fingertips, barely peeking out from the dirt.  The rest were in between. They were scattered, seemingly randomly, but they were mostly about six inches to a foot away from each other

There were all sorts of hands. Big hands, small hands, wrinkled hands, smooth hands. One had a shiny bracelet. Another had long pink nails with hot pink polish. 

“Watch this.” Craig said as he grabbed a stick off the ground and poked a large hairy hand in its palm. The hand snapped shut, grabbing the other end of the stick.

“Holy shit!” I blurted out. “Do they all do that?”

 “Yeah.” Craig answered, grinning.

“But some are faster than the other ones.” Miranda added. She pointed to a muscular hand attached to a thick wrist. “That one can even catch stuff if you throw at it.”

“But you can only touch them with a stick or something.” Craig said, “You can’t touch it directly.”

“What happens if you touch one?” I asked.

“It gets you.” Miranda answered. “Duh.”

…

We visited the hands many times after that. They were a fascinating curiosity. One time Craig was looking at a particular hand and he called me over.

“Whoah.” Craig said, “This one has a birthmark just like yours.”

I cringed. At that age, I was still pretty self-conscious about the very noticeable purple, birthmark in the approximate shape of New Jersey on the back of my hand.

The hand Craig pointed to was that of an old man, pale and wrinkled. When I leaned in to see his hand, I had to admit the similarity was striking.

“Maybe it’s your twin” Craig said.

“How could it be my twin? It’s like a hundred.” I replied.

“I dunno.” He shrugged.

…

Another time, we were watching the hands, and a squirrel came along. This was unusual since animals usually avoided the hands. But this time, one of them was holding a plump black walnut between its thumb and pointer finger.

After much trepidation, the squirrel stood up climbing into the hand to snatch the treat. The squirrel was quick, but the hand was quicker.

It grabbed the squirrel and began squeezing. The hand’s knuckles turned white as the squirrel thrashed in its grip.

We watched silently, in a mix of horror and morbid fascination as the hand fought what we now realized was its prey. After about a minute, the squirrel stopped its thrashing. It made a few more futile spasms, then twitched, then went limp.

The next time we returned to the hands, the squirrel was gone.

…

The last time we spent at the hands together, we were hanging out after spring break. Miranda told us that she had come up with a new idea for a game we could play.

Over break, Miranda and Craig had gone to visit their grandma who lived by the beach. On the way there, Craig was showing off the shark tooth necklace and the mood ring he’d bought at an aquarium gift shop over break. He explained what all the colors on the ring meant and how his dad told him the ring was made by scientists at NASA.

Miranda showed off the henna tattoos on her cheek and the back of her hand.

“Emily [their cousin] did it for me. She’s a real tattoo artist and stuff.” She bragged.

“Looks like butts.” Craig chortled.

“They’re hearts.” Miranda said, stomping a foot on the ground.

“Miranda has butt tattoos.” Craig said in a sing-songy voice.

“Whatever.” Miranda said

The argument stopped as we arrived at the hands.

“So, here’s the game.” Miranda said, “You have to be super brave.”

With that, Miranda hopscotched between the hands. She took jump after jump, threading the needle between them until she got to the other side of the clearing, about 40 feet away from us.

“C’mon!” Miranda called over to us, “It’s easy!”

Me and Craig both hesitated. After a long, heavy pause Craig spoke up.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” he said.

“Cuz You’re scared.” Miranda teased. “I can tell cause your ring’s black. That means scared. I can see it from here!”

“Nuh-uh, it’s not black, it’s blue!” He said, raising his hand, “See?”

Craig took a deep breath, puffed his chest, and jumped through the hands. While he did so less gracefully than Miranda, he made it through to stand next to her.

“Now you have to try.” Craig said, pointing at me.

“I don’t want to” I said, “What if I accidentally touch one?”

“Chicken!” Miranda teased.

She and Craig made squawking sounds at me while folding their arms like chicken wings.

“You’re being dumb.” I argued, my cheeks feeling hot.

I took a hesitant step in between two of the hands. Then I took a hop deeper into the field. On my third hop, I almost lost my balance. For a split second, I was sure I was going to fall into the grip of the bed of hands. However, I quickly regained my balance. Scared, I hopped back out to safety.

“Lame!” Craig teased. “You barely got in at all.” My heart was still pounding from almost falling. My cheeks started burning and I felt my eyes begin to well up.

“This is a dumb game.” I yelled, “I don’t want to play anymore!” With that I stormed off. Craig and Miranda called after me, but I didn’t listen. To this day, I wonder if things would have gone differently if I hadn’t stormed off in my little temper tantrum.

That night, there was a ring at my door. It was Craig and Miranda’s parents. They hadn’t come home that night. My parents asked me where I last saw them.

Craig, Miranda, and I had a sort of unspoken understanding that the hands were a secret. We hadn’t told anyone else about them as they seemed the kind of things parents may not approve of. But now, I was worried.

We went out into the night flashlights in hand, and I showed them to the area. They looked at the scene with awe and disbelief, scanning it with the flashlights.

A few seconds of looking later. Miranda’s mother screamed. After another second, their father started screaming too.

Their flashlights were fixed on two hands jutting out from the ground, right next to each other. These hands hadn’t been there before. They were the tallest there, as nearly their whole arms protruded from the ground. When I looked at them closely, my heart sank.

They were small hands.

A black mood ring on one.

A heart-shaped henna tattoo on the other.