Alicia, dubious, told Ted she would meet him out in the car, and Ted and Billy headed for the front doors.

It was very easy, really. As soon as they were clear of the door, they turned left in the lobby and headed for the stairs. They quickly climbed the stairs, both giddy with excitement and very much like naughty children starting something that they are sure will be spoken of for years. The tower door was, indeed, unlocked; Billy tugged it open, and the hinges made a low long squeak. They shut the door behind them, and stood a moment in the darkness. When Billy turned on his flashlight, the inside of the tower was dimly illuminated. It ought to have been brighter, but the darkness here seemed to smothered the light. Still they could see the narrow steps wheeling upward, their unpainted blanks looking ancient and dusty. They slowly began their ascent. The flashlight made jiggley shadows on the bricks walls around them, as Billy labored to climb the stairs that creaked menacingly under his feet. Behind him Ted worried that Billy might toppled backwards and end up crushing him. Strangely it seemed like a long time before they reached the top. The last time he had been here, he was sure, it had only taken a few seconds to gain the belfry. Maybe then Adam and he had run. When you are a child you seem always to be running. It never bothers you. When you get older, running becomes ungainly, if not impossible.

They climbed up into the little room that once house the bell. Billy flashed the light around, its beams sweeping the floor, the pointed ceiling, the rough brick walls around the archways, though which no wind blew as the evening air was quite calm. They saw nothing there, except a few old dried tree leaves on the floor. The presence of the leaves was a mystery; there were no trees outside nearby high enough, it seemed, for leaves to have been deposited here– even the trees that had lined the street, long since cut down due to an infestation of Asian beetles, hadn’t been nearly as high as the bell tower.

Puffing and slightly wheezing, Billy pulled out his handkerchief, and mopped his face.

“See there,” he said. “Not a thing. No ghosts, no goblins– nothing.” He looked down through the archway that overlooked the front entrance. “They’re starting to come out now.”

“You know they’ll never see us,” Ted said.

“Does it really matter? As long as you know what you did– that’s what’s important.”

Ted was gazing through another archway out in the direction of his old house. He was transfixed a the red light that blinked slowly just over the horizon. Somebody must have built a radio antenna close to his old home. He wonder whether that small boxy house was still standing. He remembered his tiny bedroom, cluttered with clothes and toys.

“Some things change a lot,” he said, more to himself than to Billy, “and then some things don’t seem to change at all.”

“That’s the damnedest thing,” Billy said, then, with wonder in his voice.

Was he responding to what Ted had just said, or something else? Ted couldn’t quite tell. “What do you mean?”

When Ted turned round, he saw that Billy was no longer standing there. He giggled in confusion at first. “What the…?” Then his face contorted in horror. He bounded toward the archway at which Billy had just been standing, and looked down below. He could barely make out the bulk form in a dark suit lying on the asphalt. People, having froze in their spots as they returned to their cars, were gazing up at the bell tower. The street lights were dim, and he couldn’t make out the features of their faces, which were fuzzy white ovals tipped up toward him. He heart was beating madly. He wonder whether they all could see him standing up there, or just the shadows inside, where a bell had once hung.