“I have a letter for you.” He handed the envelope to the professor, then glanced purposefully over at Billy. There was the same suggestive smile on his face that Billy had seen that day by the mailbox, and he felt both sickened and scared. His heart was pounding, and he glanced over at Lane to see if he had noticed, but Lane’s attention was focused on a braless woman in the front row of students.

Billy forced himself to stare only at the professor, trying to ignore entirely the creepy insinuating look of the mailman.

Dr. Holman opened the letter and quickly scanned its contents. “Our funding came through,” he announced to the assembled group, holding up the letter. “The university has decided to go ahead with our research project.”

There was a spontaneous and only partially tongue-in-cheek cheer from the students.

The professor, grinning, nodded at the mailman. “Thanks,” he said. “That’s the best news I’ve gotten all semester.”

“Glad to be of service,” the mailman said.

Ordinarily, Billy thought, that would have been the man’s cue to leave, but he showed no intention of doing any such thing. He clasped his hands behind his back and stood there calmly, looking around the camp, taking everything in. His face was purposefully neutral, carefully expressionless, but there was an underlying smugness, an indefinable something that manifested itself in his attitude and that gave Billy the feeling that he was passing judgment on all he surveyed—and that he was happy it did not live up to his standards. He was silent and expressionless, but Billy could tell that inwardly he was gloating.

The mailman’s eyes scanned the faces of the students, lingering on none of them, then landed once again on Billy.

Billy was sweating. He could feel twin trickles of perspiration slide in winding paths from beneath his armpits down his sides. His forehead, too, was sweaty, and he wiped it with a palm. It was hot out, but not that hot, and he swallowed hard, wanting to escape, to run, to get the hell out of here. But he could not move. He was frozen in place by that gaze, by the unnatural promises behind that superficially benign smile, so utterly powerless to react that he could not even glance over at Lane.

The mailman nodded at him, a nod of recognition and acknowledgment, a nod that said “I know what you’re thinking,” then turned away and strode back through the forest the way he had come.

“We got our funding,” the professor enthused. “We finally got our funding!” He was holding up the letter proudly. “Now we’ll really be able to make some progress.”

Billy felt Lane, next to him, give him a nudge with his elbow. “That’s great, huh? I guess we’ll be able to do more stuff.”