Cora's Hand

a supernatural short story about a parent and child

Jun 26, 2026

*I’ve written a story similar to this one before, about what a parent might accept or do to avoid losing a child.

I’m trying to (learn to) capture the essence of a story and some emotion in relatively few words. If this story gives you thoughts, please let me know in the comments.

Cora’s Hand

Cora was sitting up in bed, the pink and white Hello Kitty comforter bunched up and hanging over the side. She was rocking back and forth, coloring on a pad of paper, crayons in disarray around her. Her grip was stiff and childish, her marks imprecise.

She didn’t look up when he entered, but let out a sigh of frustration as she continued her work. It gave him a chance to put on an upbeat expression even as he took in her too-pale skin, her rail-thin arms with the knobbly elbows, the sparse sandy-brown hair.

He held the package under his left arm, awkward. It was awkward each time.
He took a deep breath. “Daddy’s brought something for you,” he said.

Cora looked up then and there it was—a sparkle in her hazel eyes—the glint of life he longed to see. That made everything worth it.

It took him only three strides to cover the distance and then he was handing her the box, her small, hands grasping it eagerly. A crayon snapped quietly beneath her knee.

She tossed the lid aside, and his stomach flip-flopped when she looked up at him, pale face flushed with a subtle pink, eyes shining. “Oh, thank you Daddy! It’s just what I needed!”

===

The man wore a dark coat and a dark knit cap. He stood in an alcove underneath the purely decorative bridge at Friary Park. It was three o-clock in the afternoon and it was starting to rain.

Joshua stepped under the stonework. “You have it?”

“It was a little harder this time,” the man said, and Joshua wondered if he was angling for more money. He pulled a small kid-shoe-sized box out of an overlarge pocket and passed it to Joshua. “Pretty fresh, relatively speaking,” he added.

Joshua took a few deep breaths as he stared at the lid with some logo on it he didn’t recognize. Then he looked inside. On a bed of bubble wrap lay a small, greyish-pale, human hand.

“Flesh still on it this time, as ordered,” the man said, a little too proudly.

The hand was almost like a doll’s hand, but for the cross-section of flesh and bone where a saw had detached it from a dead body. A child’s body.

Joshua had never asked how the man filled his requests.

The rain grew more steady, but the men were shielded by the bridge. Joshua handed the man an envelope. “Here’s the rest of what I owe you.”

It was a sort of trust, Joshua supposed, that the man didn’t bother to count it, just stuffed the envelope into some hidden pocket. “Your buyer,” the man said, “he must be one sick puppy.”

Joshua turned and squinted into the rain, pulled up his hood and shoved the box inside his jacket. “I’m the buyer,” he said. He stepped out into the rain and didn’t look back. “It’s for me.”

The crunch of a wet twig under his boot sounded like the crunch of bone.

===

Joshua watched his little girl, holding the box, surrounded by crayons and a bunched up blanket. She was wearing her pajama shorts with the yellow butterflies on them and a butterfly t-shirt that read: I know I can fly.

“It’s sick. It’s wrong.” His ex-wife had said. “It’s… something else. It’s not her.”

But Cora tilted her head the way she always had. She laughed the same shrieky little laugh at his silly jokes, even when she didn’t get them. She said, “Love you Daddy, g’night,” with the same quick cadence.

Yes, it was his Cora there on the bed. The pink and white bed he’d tucked her into every night for the majority of her seven years. The bed where she’d lain sick and pale. The bed where she’d taken her final breath. Where his sweet Cora had died.

But it hadn’t been final, after all, had it?

Here she sat in the very bed that had trembled so that its white-painted legs nearly lifted off the floor when he’d called out to God, the Universe, anything that was listening, to save his daughter, to bring her back.

Something had been listening.

Now Cora was holding the small hand over the box. She sniffed it. He turned away. He couldn’t get used to the sickening crunch of bone, the chewing noises, as she devoured her treat. He’d seen it once. That was enough.

He stared at the pink roses on the wallpaper until the sounds subsided, and he heard Cora sigh. A happy sigh? Satisfied?

For now.

When he turned back, Cora was sitting on the edge of the bed, her short, thin legs dangling over the side. The empty box was discarded on the floor, bubble wrap peeking out. The hand was gone.

She smiled at him. “Oh, look how much better!” she exclaimed, wiggling her fingers, opening and closing her hands. She scrambled to grab a crayon and her pad of paper.

“Come sit by me, Daddy,” she said, and he went to her, lightly kicking the empty shoebox under the bed. “I’ll draw you and me,” she said, “playing outside at the playground.”

“Sure,” he said, watching as her little hands now deftly drew trees, her fingers moving with ease once again. He looked down at her pale, spindly legs, her feet small and withered. He leaned back on his elbows. She reached for a different crayon, still intent on her paper. His little girl.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, baby?”

“If I’m really good this week, will you bring me another present?” He felt his throat tighten.

He closed his eyes. “What would you like this time?”

“Oh, well, I was thinking, I’m having trouble walking again.” He breathed in and out, slowly, catching the scent of decay and children’s shampoo. The crayon scratched softly on the paper. “So… how about a foot?” She didn’t look up from her drawing. “Or maybe, if I’m really, really good,” she said with a hint of excitement, “even a small leg.”

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