PROMPTUARIUM Prompt: From the Start 

I suppose this story

would be best suited if I told it to you as

we strolled through a Pumpkin Patch

like Godfrey’s Pumpkin Patch where twisted oak trees line the drive in and apple trees

run along the fence line

just before noon  with paper cups of

warm apple cider in  one  hand and a set of pruners in the other.

 

But it’s not Fall, it isn’t even Summer yet but what I saw yesterday  chilled me to the bone and brought an early Halloween to that balmy Spring day.

 

I saw Mrs Pierce’s 12 year twin daughters  in matching pink and blue track suits and her 6 six year old son Del trailing behind them.

Del was dragging his plastic over sized T-Ball bat at his side and when they saw me they all stopped and stared at me with identical gray eyed stares.

They raised their hands and waved.

I raised my hand up and on their own my fingers curled down one by one, and then my thumb locked itself against my forefinger.

” What are you doing?”my thumb seemed to say to my other fingers. ” What on Earth do you think you are doing?

The children stared at me from across the street and I stared back at them and then Del raised his plastic  bat at me and took a swing.

The twins looked back at him and then they looked at me and they grinned.

Del took another swing and then another.

Then they started to cross the street, Del was swinging his bat and the girls were smiling at me.

The three children were oblivious to the cars that were racing up and down the street- just as obvious as the cars were to them. The cars never stopped moving and neither did Mrs. Pierce’s children.

Eventually they reached the curb and the three of them stood there in their track suits smiling their flat painted on smiles. Del put his bat down. ” Have  you seen our Mother? ” Del asked.

He lifted his bat and swung it.

Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh.

” Nobody has seen your Mother for many years. You must know that. ”

The Twins looked at each other. ” We think she’s hiding from us. ”

” I can’t say I blame her. ” I told the Twins.

The Twins laughed. Del Laughed. I did not laugh.

” If you see her, tell her we are still looking for her. ”

” Tell her we want her to come home. ” Del added. ” Tell her we forgive her. We’re not mad that she told on us.”

The Twins smiled and titled their heads to the side, ” Just tell her, if you see her- ”

A man’s voice came from Del’s scrawny little frame ” tell her we just want to talk to her.”

I looked back at the Twins and they weren’t little girls, they were  grown women,  and they looked exactly liked their pictures in the papers that ran the day before the Twins  became the only women to ever be executed for murder in Washington state, along with their brother in 1992 for the murders of  six year old Felicity and her 12 year old sister Penny  Woods.

The sisters had been playing T-Ball at the park with their friends and after the game they left for home. Felicity was carrying her T-Ball Bat and Penny had been carrying their jackets.

Nobody ever saw them alive again.

Del loomed over us- he had grown up to be a bulky man with dirty blond hair and that’s who I saw. ” Tell her we are still looking for her. ”

And then they walked back through the cars  to the other side of the street and when they got there Del waved his bat. The Twins waved their hands.

I waited until they were gone and then I started walking and I thought about my children taken from this world- as the minister had said at their funeral- but not from our hearts –

and I thought about Mrs Pierce begging for the lives of her murderous hellions and pointing out what grand futures they could have had- that they still could have if the courts would only spare their precious lives

and I thought  about making a stop to the logging road that runs a mile away from my house and the rotten oak tree I left Mrs Pierce hanging from  and I decided not to.

It was, after all a lovely Spring day and I didn’t want to spoil it anymore then it had been.