Clara returned from her vacation to find her prized lily garden destroyed, with only scattered coins left behind. As she unraveled the mystery behind the young intruder, she never imagined how a simple act of compassion would change multiple lives forever.
Clara stepped out of the taxi, her skin tingling from two weeks in Bali. She breathed in the familiar scent of home, eager to see her beloved lily garden.
As she rounded the corner to her backyard, she stopped dead in her tracks.
“What in the world?” she gasped, her voice barely above a whisper.
Where her vibrant lilies once stood, there was nothing but bare earth.
A few coins glinted in the dirt, catching the afternoon sun. Clara’s mind reeled, trying to make sense of the scene before her.
She knelt, picking up the scattered change with trembling fingers.
Anger and confusion battled in her mind.
Who’d do this? And why leave money?
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Clara muttered to herself, pocketing the coins.
She stood up, brushing dirt from her knees, and marched towards her house with determination.
“Gotta check the camera,” she said, hurrying inside. “Please let it have caught something.”
In her study, Clara booted up her computer, her foot tapping impatiently. She pulled up the footage from the hidden camera she’d installed after a previous vandalism incident.
Her jaw dropped as she watched a small boy carefully digging up her lilies, placing coins in their place.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” she whispered, leaning closer to the screen.
The boy’s movements were gentle, almost reverent. “What’s your story, little one?”
Over the next few days, Clara asked around the neighborhood, showing a screenshot from the video to her neighbors.
Finally, she got a lead from Mrs.
Patterson, a chatty retiree who lived two streets over.
“Oh, that’s probably little Leo,” Mrs.
Patterson said, squinting at the image.
“Lives with his dad in that rundown place on Maple.
Poor thing’s been through a lot lately.”
“How so?” Clara asked, curiosity piqued.
Mrs. Patterson lowered her voice conspiratorially.
“Well, his mother passed away last year. Cancer, I heard.
His father hasn’t been the same since.
Drinking, they say. It’s a real shame.”
Armed with this information, Clara decided to pay a visit.
As she approached the house, she spotted a boy mowing the overgrown lawn with an ancient-looking mower.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
TAP → NEXT PAGE → 👇
