“We need to talk about the Hand of Glory.” The shadows in Idris Po’s eyes are deep and menacing but his face overall is merely sad.

He sits you down and explains in hushed and urgent tones that the Hand of Glory is not right. He does not explain why you need to know this, or for that matter how he knows that you have seen one.

“The proper folklore has them taken from a hanged man, a criminal, you see. Not to say that there are no hanged men here, only that there will have been no justice in it.”

His own hands are shaking as he pulls a bottle from his pocket and takes a hasty swig.

“And the hand itself, it was only ever meant as a tool for breaking and entering. Justice and injustice you see, swinging back and forth like a pendulum. But not this hand, do you hear me?”

You confirm that you can indeed hear, even though you have no real sense what he means. Not yet.

“These hands are weapons,” he says and you are fairly sure he is talking about his own hands now. “Weapons against the most unspeakable things.”

You nod. He’s just another madman, and who can say whether he speaks a truth won at an awful price, or if he has paid an awful price to know only nonsense. 

He drinks from the bottle again. “They hang me, and they take my hands,” he explains. “I keep trying to tell them that’s not how the folklore works, it’s not right. It’s not authentic. I don’t think they even care.”

You try to murmur something comforting. 

“Only one hand, once a year. You don’t want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.” He laughs bitterly. “But it still isn’t proper folk tradition. I can’t tell you how much that offends me.”