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.
