Give A Hand

20250922

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

When dealing with a condition like rheumatism it’s normal to feel frustration, grief, even fear. Many people try all sorts of cures.
Very few turn to demonology. But Agnus had been working on this quilt for over fifty years and wasn’t about to let a piffling matter like the inexorable march of time or her own feeble mortality get in the way of finally crossing this darn thing off her WIP list.
And she was an old hand at accessibility by now. So she got an ergonomic chalk holder, figured out how to fit a summoning circle on her craft table such she didn’t have to bend over, and printed the instructions out nice and large.
Seemed simple enough. Far easier than brioche!
As she dabbed a drop of her blood into place and blew out the candle the room plunged into darkness and a rank, sulphurous stench rose from the runed centre. Hopefully that meant it worked and the invitation had been accepted.
Agnus clicked on the desk light - and with it the overhead came back on.
There was definitely something squatting in the middle of the circle.
“Oh. Hello there. Er, one moment.” Agnus fumbled off her reading spectacles and quickly switched in her normal ones. “Ah, that’s better…”
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Getting a demon which looked like two dozen forearms fused together at the elbows into a sea-urchin like ball of ash-grey hands was a bit…
Two of the hands formed a puppet mouth, out of which, inexplicably, a burbling voice emerged. “Greetings, mortal. You petition my aid?”
“I do.” Agnus steeled herself. “I want to be able to keep crafting. I’ve tried all the normal stuff, and magic to fix it is far too expensive, so… here I am. What would it cost me for your aid?”
“Ohoho, I can make a deal with you, yeeeessss.” Hands waved and wiggled, the demon’s entire body undulating with covetous glee. “I want your memories, your dreams…”
Agnus didn’t grasp what the various hands were pointing at until the demon got to “and definitely that vintage sewing machine, yes yes.”
“Wait.” Agnus blinked and adjusted her spectacles. “When you say ‘memories’ and ‘dreams’… what do you mean, exactly?”
“Theeeeese!!!” The demon gestured around. “I can smell them. The hopes you had for each bolt and skein, now withered and fermented into sweet, sweet guilt and regret. The hours of your life toiling in thankless work to earn permission to call another scrap of dreams your own. The memories of places and events and friends long gone. I want them.”
“Are you… asking to inherit my crafting stash?”
“You can put it like that.” The demon’s burbling voice now had a distinct forbearing air to it.
“Oh, well, gladly!” Agnus beamed. “It’ll be nice to know it’s going to someone who’ll appreciate it. My children keep saying when I die they’re going to rent a skip and throw the whole lot in.”
The demon recoiled, hands clutching and grasping. “WHAAAAT???”
“I know!” Agnus sat down. “So. What help can you give me, in exchange for inheriting my stash? And all memories, dreams, and whatever within.”
“We trade hands.” Twisting, bending, tugging, and suddenly the demon was holding two forearms disembodied from the rest. “I get your hands, and all memories they have, yes yes. You get these. Very flexible. Very strong. Serve you well, yes yes yeeees.”
“Memories they have…” Agnus pursed her lips. “You mean muscle memory, don’t you? So I’d have to relearn sewing and all again.”
“Is trade you make.”
“Hm. Well.” Agnus looked down at her hands, which after decades of service now held her back from even getting dressed herself. “I suppose all that muscle memory isn’t doing me any good anymore. And relearning is always faster than the first time, right?”
The demon waved the offered arms in a shrug. “Trade? No trade?”
“So - just to be clear - I give you my hands and promise to let you have whatever’s left of my stash after I pass. Which,” Agnus eyed the packed room with a rueful smile, “will probably be a lot, no matter how wonderful those hands you’re offering are. But in exchange I get those, and they’ll let me keep crafting?”
“Yes, yess!” Another pair of hands formed a smaller side mouth which whispered “Also leave good review and recommend to all your friends, very important.”
“Alright.” Agnus held her hand out to shake - but instead the demon grabbed her just above the elbow. “W-what are-”
With a twist her arm came off.
It hurt. Yet nowhere near as much as it surely should. Which was somehow more disquieting than seeing her own arm being pulled into the mass and melting and warping until it was just like the others.
Meanwhile the hands gripped her tight and shoved the ‘new’ arm into place and the pain exploded white hot as nerves forcibly fused with her own. Muscles spasming wildly while her brain tried to make sense of what was happening to it.
Agnus sucked in air, desperately staving off dizziness, and instinctively clutched at the table edge. Which brought her other arm into the demon’s reach.
This time she screwed her eyes shut and tried to ignore what was happening.
“Trade is trade!” The demon danced about the circle, bouncing from one hand to another.
Agnus could no longer even guess which had been hers.
She lifted her trembling arms and inspected her new hands. They were definitely attached, the cool grey flesh wriggling and clenching at her will. But they felt… dislocated from the rest of her body.
“Eh. You adjust.” The demon flapped a hand. “Now, remember - all you do not craft with is mine. Or else… I take them back.”
It flashed a dozen “ok” signs and vanished with a pop. Leaving Agnus reeling.
After a long moment she got up and slowly, clumsily, like child trying for the first time, began wiping off the table.

Prompt was “Handmade”.