“What’s this?”
“That’s mind your own business is what it is,” my grandfather snatched the adoption papers from my hand. “Hazel!”
“Yes, dear, what is…” her eyes widened. “Okay,” she inched toward me like she was approaching a wounded dog. “It’s okay.”
I started crying. “Poppy?”
He held me, told me he loved me. “Those papers don’t change anything.”
“Gran?” I pleaded. “Daddy didn’t leave me?”
She hugged us both. “He’s gone.”
“Where…where is he?” I squeaked, not sure I wanted the answer.
Gran’s eyes flicked to the garden. “You must understand, baby. He was not a good man.”
May 20 Prompt: Old Mystery (In 99 words, write about an old mystery in the current time. Is it a discovery? Is it solved? Does it no longer matter, or does it impact innocent generations in between?)
Lemon Shark Reef 
You took on the impact of the innocent generation! Those are some plucky grandparents in this story.
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I did. I knew I would take on the impact of a discovery. But this was a tough prompt for me and I had a longer version again so, in my mind, this ending is silly and abrupt. Eh. They can’t all be gems. 😉
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I want to read the longer piece because I’m not sure if understand what’s going on.
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Haha! 😀 I know. How’s this version?
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Much better.
So they killed him right? I remember that bit from the previous version.
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They did indeed. I’m thinking of scrapping this one and starting over. That’s the beauty of this site. I get to play, shape, reshape — it’s my clay site.
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Seems they did the only thing they could to protect the child. But now how are they going to ensure she never finds out what they did?
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Hmm… I don’t know if they can. They did make sure she’s safe, though, that’s for sure.
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Sarah, I just read this and was going to say: ‘Gran’s eyes flicked to the garden’ – coupled with her words had to mean that he was buried there, murdered. Then I read the comments and know that I got it! (Although maybe not on the buried in the garden part, as Gran could have just been looking away in that direction…. I loved this, and the way it leaves me with so many unanswered questions. For one thing, what was so awful about the father to make his own parents murder him? Dark indeed this, I’m so glad you found your story and let those monsters out and I love it 🙂
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You got it.
I’m not good at mysteries and enjoyed challenging myself with this. It was one of the tougher prompts for me. Yes! You got that Gran and Poppy were his parents. We’re on the same page all the time, it seems. 😉 Letting the monsters out!
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And we both love a challenge too 🙂 ❤
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Intriguing. I want to read the longer version too, please. I couldn’t see any link in your response to Ula. 🙂
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Oh, there’s no link, sorry. I revised it on the blog. I’ll post the original (longer) version to “the mystery” when I can. Thanks. 🙂
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woah. that was a lot of story in not many words – tell me theres a short story behind this? if so, gimme gimme gimme! loved this quite unnerving story! 🙂
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Thanks. 🙂 I was going to trash this one but I might work on it. Who knows… Still, a great weekly practice. Love the 99 word flash challenges.
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