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An Examination of the Infamous Frozen Hand

Winter has fallen quickly on the City and the Park. I hate it so. My research subjects shrivel up and die, or hide deep within the soil. I have nothing to capture, and so I spend my time reading in my laboratory, or sitting next to the fire in the common room, eavesdropping on the conversation of the other guests of the boarding house. I know it is crass of me, but with Miss Watkins on her journey, I have little company. This winter seems so lonely that I nearly thought to write Dr. K___, just to banter more regarding his creations. My other correspondents have not been writing me as of late, or perhaps the mail has simply not gotten through.

Despite the cold and a heavy snow, I went for a walk in the Park just the other day. The urchin gangs huddled in their petty little territories around makeshift fires, burning who knows what for fuel. When things turn this cold, I am told, they are often forced to take work laboring in the factories just to find some warmth. But these children seemed to have avoided the siren’s call of a heated room thus far.

They eyed me suspiciously as I passed. It is a crime to cut firewood in the Park. Yet the trees are younger, thinner, at the boundaries (which is what gives rise to the heavy bramble). I don’t approve, but there is little I can do about it. I simply nod and greet them, indicating that I won’t report them, and they leave me be. In the spring, they will no doubt be flocking to my door with discoveries, demanding the nickel bounties that I offer for unusual finds.

It was as I passed one group of urchins that a runt of a boy called out my name and shuffled through the snow. I at first feared a robbery, as I did not recognize the runt, but he meant no harm, and in fact, wanted to know if my bounty was still offered in the cold.

“It would have to be quite a find,” I said.

He assured me, in that rapid and wheedling way that urchins do, that his find was no mundane thing, and that, he had found a haunted spot, not far, where an icy hand had thrust from the snow.

I fished through my pockets to be sure I had proper payment, and asked him to lead the way. I have long wished to inspect an icy hand, since I first read of them as a child.

It is said that, where an unfortunate man or woman dies from the cold, their spirit becomes frozen in place beneath the Earth. In the deepest, coldest days of winter, they reach up, begging the sun for warmth. A hand of pure ice thrusts up from the snow, marking their grave.

Pure superstitious nonsense, of course. Dr. Finneas Welterschmidt’s foremost work in spiritology has found most cases of haunting to be incidents of carbon monoxide poisoning. True, some cases do merit closer investigation, but so far, I remain confident in my disbelief.

A fifteen minute walk later, and indeed, the runt presented me with the sight I have captured with these notes. I paid the runt his nickel and asked him to watch over the site, to make sure that no harm came to it while I returned to my laboratory to retrieve my photonic capturer. To my irritation, the boy fled before I returned, but no harm had come to the unusual formation.

A hand-shaped object of ice did indeed thrust from the snow in the shade of an old oak. I suppose it likely and perhaps even common that the urchins die in the cold during particularly harsh winters. I at first assumed that the stories had at least a seed of truth to them, if not accounting for the exact causes of accretion.

I can happily report that the myth of the icy hand is just that—a myth, a foolish story told to frighten children and the elderly. The truth behind their creation is far more fascinating!

Careful inspection on the near-microscopic level revealed a biological origin. An as-of-yet unidentified species of subterranean mite faery was responsible. It is in fact a mound of excreted ice, formed as the mites burrow through the snow and make tunnels to access the soil, where I assume they feed on detritus. It is my theory that the mites arrive with the snow on the wind from the colder mountain tops. An examination of the available literature has revealed that most icy hands have been found in the higher elevations. As to the unusual hand-like shape—merely a coincidence, and perhaps in a strange way, an example of convergent evolutionary forms. Patterns of form often repeat themselves in nature.

I have captured several specimens and sent them to an expert for typing, but I do believe them to be an undiscovered variety. I will have to give some thought as to what their proper scientific name will be, but for the moment at least, I am calling them frost mites.

The metabolic process that allows these creatures to survive while others hibernate or die must be quite unusual. Unfortunately, the mites are so small that I cannot examine them properly in their habitat, and at a pleasant room temperature, they dissolve entirely! It was quite an ordeal, to preserve a specimen to send to the Museum for typing, but packing a vial in snow and paying a quick footed courier succeeded.

I am forced to respect the winter more than I have previously. For myself, it has long been a time of irritating idleness. Now I curse myself for being so foolish as to think that life did not find peculiar new forms in the season’s change. I will grudgingly be taking more walks in the future, hoping to make similar discoveries.

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