The Town by Bentley Little Page B

burst out laughing.
    They walked around the empty school, wondering where their classes were going to be, wondering where it would be safe for them to hang out so the eighth- and ninth-graders didn’t beat them up. They took a shortcut across the field to Turquoise Avenue, and Adam invited his new friend to come over, thinking he could show him the banya, but Scott said he was supposed to have been home an hour ago and he’d better get back before his mom threw a fit.
    “Where do you live?” Scott asked.
    “Twenty-one Ore Road.”
    “What’s it look like? Your house?”
    Adam shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s white. Wooden. Two stories. Set back from the road. There’s like a hill behind it and off to the right, and I guess we own that, too.”
    Scott’s eyes widened. “The old Megan place?”
    “I think I heard my dad say something about that.”
    “Cool. I’ll cruise over there tomorrow. What time’re you guys up and about?”
    “Me? Early.”
    “What about your parents?”
    “Everyone should be up and everything by nine or so.”
    “I’ll be there.” Scott started down the street, waved. “And have that Superman ready!”
    “You got it!” Adam called back.
    He started home, feeling good. He’d made his first friend, and that was a big worry off his shoulders. He’d been dreading going to school cold, knowing no one, being “the new guy,” and he was grateful that he’d found a pal.
    And Scott seemed pretty cool.
    Maybe McGuane wouldn’t be so bad after all.
    It was getting late, and he could tell by the angle of the sun and the shadows in the canyon that he’d been gone more than forty-five minutes. He knew his mom would be mad, and he didn’t want to end up being grounded, so he broke into a jog. They’d wound their way around from the store to the school, and though he didn’t know the layout of the town that well, it looked to him like he could cut across a few streets and take a shortcut around the hill behind their house and get home quite a bit faster than he would if he went back the same way he’d come.
    He jogged down unfamiliar streets, following the landmarks of cliffs and hills, and did indeed find a small dirt trail that looked like it led around to their property.
    The banya.
    He’d known he would pass it returning this roundabout way, known he would have to see it in this dying afternoon light, but he hadn’t allowed himself to think about it, had concentrated instead on getting home.
    Now, as he ran between outstretched ocotillo arms and irregularly shaped boulders, he could not help thinking about it.
    And, suddenly, there it was.
    He approached the bathhouse from the back, from a direction he had never come before, seeing it from an angle he had never seen. As expected, the banya stood in shadow, past the ruined foundation of the old house, while the tops of the trees behind it were still in sunlight.
    Inside the bathhouse, he thought, it was probably like night.
    The adobe wall in front of him was the one opposite the door, the one on which the shadow was projected, and he increased his speed, trying not to look at it as he ran by, feeling cold.
    He looked at it anyway, though.
    The banya stood there, door open onto blackness.
    Waiting.
    Shivering, he dashed past it and ran through the rest of the huge yard into the house. Babunya was in the kitchen chopping vegetables, and they exchanged a glance as he came in the back door. She’d seen him through the window, knew the direction from which he had come, and though he saw the look of disapproval on her face, she said nothing. He knew she felt guilty because she had not blessed the banya before walking into it, had made no effort to cleanse it of evil spirits, and she considered herself partially responsible for the banya being the way it was. He didn’t believe any of that, he told himself, not really. But she did, and that spooked him. It gave everything a bit more credibility and made his runs to and from the