Authors: Peter David
"You can't. They ... they went away...."
"I want to talk to them. Make them come back."
"Peter . . ."
"Make them come back!"
And the sound and agony that
ripped from Peter's throat terrified the child himself, because
he couldn't believe that it was his own voice sounding like
that. His eyes went wide, pupils tiny and swimming in a sea
of white, and without another word he turned and bolted up the nearby steps.
Looking a lot older than he had a few minutes earlier,
Ben turned to May and sighed dryly, "Well,
that
went well."
Peter sat on the floor in the middle of the room, his knees
drawn up to just under his chin. He could have been a statue;
he was that immobile. The room itself wasn't terrible, but it
didn't feel especially warm. In Peter's room—his real
room—all the furniture kind of looked like it went together.
Here it seemed as if some random stuff had been stuck to
gether in one place. At least none of it was covered in plas
tic.
Uncle Ben had brought up the last of his suitcases some time ago. Peter hadn't spoken to him. The truth was, he was
embarrassed about his outburst and was quite certain that Uncle Ben was angry with him. So he had felt it wisest not
to say anything and hope that, eventually, Uncle Ben would forget that he had shouted in such an inappropriate manner. That's what his mother would have said. "In-ap-pro-pri-ate,
young man," with her finger waggling one quick downward
stroke on every syllable.
Uncle Ben didn't try to strike up a conversation with him;
he didn't seem to know what to say. For his part, Peter was
busy focusing all his attention on the spider that was up in
the corner of his room. It was quite big, hanging in the mid
dle of an intricately designed web that stretched from the
edge of the ceiling down to the upper portion of the wall. He
had never seen anything so morbidly curious. On the one
hand, it was incredibly ugly; on the other, it possessed such an elegant beauty that he couldn't look away. So Uncle Ben
would come and go from the room, grunting slightly and
wondering out loud why Peter was packing anvils in his suit
cases—which puzzled Peter, who couldn't remember bringing any—while Peter sat there and watched the spider. The
sun moved across the sky, the shadows lengthened, Uncle
Ben stopped coming in and out, and Peter and the spider
stared at each other until time ceased to have any meaning.
The smell of fresh-baked cookies wafted upstairs, seep
ing in through the doorway and wrapping the tempting fin
gers of their aroma around him. For a moment he was sorely
tempted to abandon his vigil, which had boiled down to waiting for the spider to move. He resisted, however, although he did shift his posture so that he was sitting cross-
legged.
Finally he heard footsteps again. He recognized them as belonging to Uncle Ben, but he didn't bother to turn around.
Then he heard his uncle chuckling softly, and that distracted him. He swiveled his head and regarded his uncle, who was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame, his arms
folded. He was holding a small, wirebound book tucked
under his right arm. "What's funny?" asked Peter.
"You just remind me so much of Ricky, that's all," said
Uncle Ben. "Same serious face. I'll show you pictures of
him at your age, if you want."
"Who's Ricky?"
"Ricky. Richard. Your dad."
Peter blinked in confusion. "How come you know my
dad?"
Uncle Ben's jaw dropped. "How come I . . . ?
Peter!"
he
said in astonishment. And then he sat down on the floor with
Peter, just like his mom and dad used to. "Peter, your dad ...
he was my little brother! Didn't you understand that?"
Peter shook his head. "I thought you were my uncle."
"I am! An uncle or an aunt is what you call someone who
is a brother or sister of a parent
. . .
in this case, your father."
Peter frowned, digesting that bit of information. "So ...
so Aunt May is my dad's sister?"
Ben made that odd sound that was a combination of
laughter and a cough. "Peter, Aunt May is my wife!"
"You married your sister?" Peter was by now hopelessly confused.
"No, Peter." Rubbing the bridge of his nose between
beefy fingers, Ben said, "We call her your aunt because she's
married to me, which is the other way someone can be an
aunt or uncle. By marriage. Understand?"
"I guess so," said Peter, who thought he did but wasn't
100 percent sure. Then he took a deep breath and let it out
unsteadily. "My mom and dad aren't coming back, are
they?"
"No, Peter," Ben told him, as gently as he could. "They were killed in an airplane crash. It was an accident."
"No," Peter said flatly. "It wasn't."
"It wasn't?" said Ben curiously.
Peter shoved his hand into one of the bags and extracted
a stack of comic books. "They were secret heroes. Like ... spies. And they were helping their country, and a bad guy,
like the Red Skull, killed them." He held up an old issue of
a comic, spine-rolled and tattered.
Ben flattened it carefully and looked at the cover.
"Cap
tain America.
You like these old comic book heroes?" Peter
bobbed his head. "And you think your mom and dad were
like that? Why?"
"Because they were special. Too special to get killed in a
stupid airplane accident."
"I see," said Ben, very seriously. "That's an interesting
possibility you've got there, Peter. I'll have to think about
that one."
Peter nodded and, satisfied that the conversation was
over, went back to what he was doing ... namely, watching the corner of the room.
"I see you have a roommate," Ben commented after a
time. "Heck of a spider. They're good luck, you know."
"They are?" That surprised Peter. His mother had always
hated them and called on his father to squish them whenever
one happened to wander unwarily into the house.
"Oh yes. They eat harmful bugs, like mosquitoes. They
protect people. That's what they are, Peter. Protectors.
They're helpful. And in this world, folks need all the help
they can get. Right?"
"Right," Peter agreed.
"Who knows? Maybe my brother—your dad—sent him
to watch over you."
"Maybe," said Peter. He was looking back at Ben, staring at him as if seeing him for the first time. "I thought only kids
had brothers," he said.
"No, grown-ups have them, too. I, uhm
. . .
I brought you something." He took out the notebook that he'd tucked under
his arm and handed it to Peter. "Here you go."
Peter turned it over and over, then opened it. "There's nothing in it," he said curiously.
"I know that. It's for you to write in. You see ..." He
shifted on the floor, perhaps to make himself comfortable, or
perhaps because he felt uncertain of exactly what to say
next. "You said you wanted to talk to your folks. Well . . .
they're in heaven now, Peter. But they can see you. They can
see whatever you're doing, and they're watching you all the
time."
"They are?" Peter asked, looking around, brushing a hank
of tousled hair from his face.
"Oh, yes. And if you write to them, in this book ... they
can see it. So it's just like talking to them."
Peter stared at the pages, running his hands over the paper
respectfully. "But . . . what will I write to them? Say to
them?"
"Whatever you want. Tell him about how things are going
with you. About your life, about school . . . whatever you
want."
"Can I tell them I wish they were here?"
"As much as you want." Ben smiled, resting a hand on
Peter's shoulder.
Peter considered it a moment more. "If I'm talking to
them," he said at last, "how will I know when they're talking
back? Will I hear them?"
"You won't hear them with these," he said, tapping his
ears, and then he reached down and tapped Peter's chest
gently. "You'll hear them with this."
"My heart? Who listens with their heart instead of their ears?"
"The wisest men in the world, Peter. The wisest men in
the world. And I think you can be one of them."
"Oh." He riffled through the pages once more. They made
a most satisfying noise as he slid them across his thumb.
Then he frowned. "Uncle Ben, I don't know how to write."
"Ah." Apparently Ben hadn't remembered that. "Well . . .
tell you what," he said after pondering the problem. "At first
you can tell me what you want to say, and I'll write it for
you. As you get older, you can write it yourself. How's that?"
Peter's head bobbed up and down. The entire idea
sounded rather exciting to him. The notion that his parents
could be watching right over his shoulder, without being
seen, was an exciting one. It made them almost like invisible heroes or something. More importantly, it eased—ever so slightly—the aching melancholy that had threatened to
overwhelm him.
Uncle Ben pulled out a ballpoint, balanced the notebook
carefully on his knees, and waited expectantly for Peter to
start talking. He had a very serious demeanor, like an executive secretary about to take dictation from the president of the United States.
"Mom and Dad," Peter said finally, "I love you and I miss
you. Maybe I'll see you soon. Uncle Ben is nice," and he glanced surreptitiously at his uncle to see his reaction. The
only hint of it was the edges of his mouth twitching upward.
Peter took that as a good sign. "Aunt May is nice, too. I think
she made cookies. They smell good."
"They are good," Ben assured him under his breath.
"Uncle Ben says they're good. I think maybe I'll have
one, if that's okay. But I won't sit on the couch or chair or anything to eat them, because I don't like how they feel."
"Know what? Neither do I," said Ben, even as he contin
ued to write. He spoke very distantly, as if thinking aloud. "I
think I'll have a chat with your aunt about removing them.
No reason we can't make the house more little-boy friendly."