The One About The Tree--Part 4

Not one to mess with seemingly self-aware inanimate objects, Tom carefully placed the box in the ground and filled the hole with dirt. He wasn't sure why, but he felt very strongly that he needed to hide any evidence that he had ever disturbed this mysterious box. Somehow, he knew that if he didn't keep this place a secret, something bad would happen. Something very bad.

Tom smoothed the dirt with his hands and covered it with leaves and other forest debris. He stood up to admire his work, wiping his hands on his already mud-stained pants. (His mother had long since given up chastising him about his dirty and ripped clothing. She had long since given up on almost everything, in fact, since the day that Megan had disappeared, and that was one of the main reasons Tom spent so much time in the forest to begin with.) Confident that he had successfully erased all traces of his presence, he took a moment to inspect the tree a little more.

He couldn't help but feel a sense of reverence as he surveyed the tree. It wasn't much to look at--not particularly tall or beautiful in any way--but there was a certain majestic quality about it that made him hesitant to make any noise. When he stood in front of it, he felt an almost uncontrollable urge to kneel and bow his head. He would have obeyed that urge, too, if it weren't for the fact that he was a twelve year old boy and felt embarrassed to even consider such nonsense. Still, kneeling or not, he couldn't deny that the tree was impressive, and that he was standing in the presence of something wiser than himself.

Perhaps it was the age of the tree that gave it such a wise aura. The branches were gnarled and knotted, and reminded him of his grandpa's arthritic hands. The bark was a light silvery-gray color--so light that it almost seemed translucent surrounded by the dark greens and browns that were so common throughout the rest of the forest. It almost looked like the tree were fading away into the background. In fact, Tom was so convinced that the tree was going to vanish, that he reached out his hand to touch it--just to convince himself that it was real.

As soon as his fingertips brushed against the bark, the tree let out a deep rumbling sound that made the hairs on Tom's neck stand on end. He pulled his hand back and jumped away from the old tree, expecting it to crumble down on top of him. But, the tree remained standing, perfectly stable. It looked exactly the same, but for one thing: "Dig" was no longer written on the stump. The words, "Welcome, Tom. Come back tomorrow," were now etched deeply into the tree, as if they had been there all along.