The last time Landis sat under the Forgiving Tree, he was cradling his leg, freshly snapped from the fall. It had been more than four years since he’d been back here, his limp almost unnoticeable now. He no longer fit between the tree roots to rest his back against the old oak like he used to. Although, he tried for a while anyway.

A thick rope hung from the branch above his head, forming a deep groove where the limb tried to grow around it. The end, long exposed to weather and time, eroded away the clean-cut marks of his knife.

Echoes of the past played in his mind. The Pierson twins howling and beating of their chests as they swung from the tire swing. The same swing that eventually snapped when Tommy the Tub tried to jump through the hole. He kissed Tub’s sister Beth for the first time next to the hollowed knot, not sitting in the tree as the following weeks of taunts and songs might have suggested. Ben’s failed tree house attempt using his “patented” gummy bear and spit adhesive.

A million more memories came and went before his butt began to hurt, wedged in the roots of the tree. His good leg had fallen asleep, forcing him to lean on the trunk for support. He made sure his hand was nowhere near the hollowed knot.

“I thought I’d find you here,” came a voice from behind him.

Landis turned too quick and nearly toppled over. Ben stood there smiling with his hands behind his back.

“Shit, Ben. You scared the piss outa’ me.”

He tried to steady his leg, but the pins and needles intensified wherever he touched it.

The Pierson twins stepped out from behind the tree. Being paternal twins, Terry was taller, but Collin had Terry beat in mass. However they did share one identical trait, something new. Both twins were missing their left hand.

“We heard you were back from college,” said Ben, “and kinda’ wondered why we hadn’t seen you yet. Figured you’d be paying your respects.”

“Something like that.”

He willed his leg awake to no effect. What movement he could manage only got him a few steps away from the tree.

“I take it you haven’t asked for forgiveness yet.”

“I don’t need forgiving,” said Landis, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“Sure. And I bet that had nothing to do with you going to such a far away school, either. Which was that again?”

“Berkley.”

“Berkley, right. That’s where Tub wanted to go, wasn’t it? To Berkley that is, not where he actually ended up.”

Landis followed Ben’s stare to the rope and failed to react in time before the twins grabbed him from behind. Terry had him by the neck, his stump digging into Landis’s cheek, while Collin grappled his right arm and started to haul him towards the hollowed knot in the tree.

The smile on Ben’s face never changed, but something in his eyes did. His right arm, no longer behind his back, ended at the elbow.

“For Tub’s sake, I think you do.”