Billy was watching TV when Lane came over. Well, not really watching. The television was on and he was looking at it, but it was merely background to him, white noise and white light. He was thinking about Lane. Ever since the other day at The Fort, his friend had seemed altered, different. It was nothing he could put his finger on, no change in outward action or appearance, but the difference was more profound and more disturbing than the schism he had sensed when he and Lane had argued over the letter, much more than the seeds of a gradual drifting apart. No, this was something else. He and Lane had gone down to the dig yesterday, had helped unearth an extremely well-preserved group of primitive cooking utensils, and Lane had acted, for all intents and purposes, the same way he always had. But there was a new secretiveness to his manner, a not-quite-definable quality that made Billy extremely nervous. Lane reminded him of a man he had seen in a movie, a man who had for years been killing young children and burying their bodies in his basement, waiting patiently for the right time to spring his secret on the world, to proudly announce his deeds to everyone.

But that was stupid. There was no way Lane could be harboring such a horrible secret. Still, his friend seemed changed in a way he found impossible to understand.

He reminded Billy of the mailman.

That was what it came down to, really. There was no resemblance at all, not in actions or attitude, but on some gut level, he had made the connection and it stuck. He was not simply worried about his friend, he was afraid of him.

Lane’s familiar shave-and-a-haircut knock rattled the screen, and Billy called for him to come on in. Lane was dressed in old jeans and a black rock T-shirt. He had combed his hair differently than usual, parting it in the middle, and it made him seem older, harder.

“Hey,” Billy said in greeting, nodding at his friend.

Lane sat down on the couch. He was grinning hugely, a sincere grin of happiness that for some reason struck Billy as wrong and unnatural, and he looked toward the back of the house. “Your mom here?”

Billy shook his head.

“Too bad.”

Billy tried not to let his puzzlement show. When had Lane ever expressed disappointment that a parent was absent from either of their houses? On the verge of adolescence, eager to prove their adulthood, both of them ordinarily tried to avoid parents as much as possible.

The two of them stared silently at the TV for a few minutes. Finally, Billy swung his feet off the coffee table and stood up. “So what do you want to do?”

Lane shrugged noncommittally, a gesture that somehow rang false.

“Want to go down to the dig, see what’s happening?”