Friday, April 10, 2015

Springtime Surprise

  "It's just weeds," Julie said.
  "It's too pretty to mow down," Anna whined.
  Julie drove the John Deere lawn tractor into position at the edge of the field. "You know we have to cut it down. We have to find it before they sell the land."
  Anna turned pale. Julie knew she remembered. She put the tractor into gear and drove forward slowly. The waist-high weeds vanished beneath the blades and shot out the side in a cloud of wet green fluff.
  "Be careful!" Julie shouted to Anna as her younger sister walked in the tractor's wake. She held back a comment about watching for snakes. The word alone would send Anna into hysterics.
  Julie steered the mower toward the far edge of the clearing, all the while keeping her eyes peeled for something that didn't belong in an overgrown meadow. Something she and Anna had left in a snowstorm ten years ago.
  Anna's simple mind assumed it would have melted away with the snow, but Julie knew better.
  The mower blades clogged with the damp vegetation after she had cut down half an acre. Julie cut the mower and raised the chute to kick the debris free.
  Anna walked over to help her. She saw it first and started to scream.
  A human skull was lying face-up on the ground, the mouth and eye sockets encrusted with dirt.
  "We found it," Julie said.

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