Of Men and Spiders

Scott watched as Alice pestered Charlotte with questions. "How come you're so tall when all the other spider people are much smaller? Who is the bigger spider person in the cave? Why do you have my voice? Do you know how to play any card games? Do you have any cards? What is your favorite color?"

His sister seemed inexhaustible. However, rather than grow impatient or try to break away, Charlotte seemed perfectly content to answer anything the younger girl asked. "This Charlotte taller because needed to protect new words. The bigger spider person is Charlotte. Charlotte heard your voice most. What's card? What's game?"

It may be his imagination, but it seemed to Scott that Charlotte was rapidly improving with words, though not everything she said made sense. On the one hand, having Charlotte distract Alice would be nice as it would enable him to focus on jobs that needed to be done more, but on the other hand, he couldn't bring himself to simply trust Charlotte. Something seemed off, and it wasn't just that her movements were slightly more jerky than they should be.

She seemed innocent enough, but what was her motive behind interacting with them this way. It must want something from them, but what? What could they even offer? If it found out they had nothing to offer and couldn't defend themselves, would it remain so peaceful? Then again, it seemed to be so happy just to learn. It was hard to begrudge Charlotte simply wanting to know more.

However, one thing still bothered him. "Hey, Charlotte, do you need to sound like Alice? It's kinda... weird hearing her voice come out of your body, not to mention as large as you are, your voice should probably be a little... I don't know... deeper?"

Charlotte tilted her head to the side. "What voice? Deeper like a hole?"

Scott shrugged. "Well, your voice is what you make words with when you speak, the way it sounds. Deeper means lower, like my voice is deeper than Alice's..." He wasn't sure if he was explaining it right.

Charlotte shivered again, then asked. "Charlotte's voice like Scott?"

Scott shook his head. "Well, maybe split the difference. I mean, try something in the middle."

Charlotte still seemed confused. "Middle?"

Scott wasn't sure how to describe "middle," so he drew a line on the ground with a stick, which Charlotte seemed fascinated by, and he marked two ends. "If this is one point, and this is the other, the middle would lie between them." He drew a spot in the middle to emphasize his point.

However, rather than grasping the concept, Charlotte seemed excitedly distracted. "Line in dirt is thing that not thing!"

That one confused Scott until Alice stepped in. "It's a picture like this!" She then drew stick figures, two humans and one with a few too many extra legs, and pointed to them each in turn. "That's me, Scott, and you, Charlotte!"

Charlotte tilted her head back and forth several times. "Picture is thing that not thing! But Alice, Scott, and Charlotte know it thing, not thing!"

Scott finally got what she was saying. "Thing not thing is a representation." He pointed at his picture. "This represents Scott. It's not Scott, but it means Scott."

It was weirdly cute seeing a monstrous spider person get so excited she vibrated somewhat. Scott found himself letting down his guard again around the monster who could probably effortlessly kill and eat him and his sister. "Thing not thing, representation! It thing in head not here!"

Scott nodded even as he was wondering at this supposedly primitive creature expressing some pretty complex ideas. It was both impressive and mildly concerning. Still, it was hard to say no to such an eager student. "Thing in head not here is an idea or a thought."

Charlotte nodded, perhaps a few too many times, but still had the basic idea, he hopped. "What about thing not real but real in head?"

Scott stopped. Thing not real, but real in head? "Do you mean imagination?"

Charlotte pointed. "Yes! Imagination. Like this!" She then picked up a stick and started drawing in the dirt. It looked like scribbly lines. "This imagination, Alice voice!" Then, another set of scribbly lines spread further apart. "This Scott's voice!" Then, a third set of lines halfway between the two. "This Charlotte new voice?"

It took Scott a moment, but when he figured it out, he froze as his mind caught up with the full implications of what Charlotte had just drawn. Those were sound waves. She was drawing something as abstract as soundwaves in a representation close enough to what was taught in schools for Scott to grasp what she meant... Just how much did this spider person really know and understand? How primitive could it be if it understood the concept of sound waves? He realized Charlotte was looking at him expectantly and snapped himself out of his daze. "Ummm, yes, that would probably work..."

Then, in a move that was as disturbing as it was unexpected, Charlotte reached into her mouth, shoved her whole hand and a part of her arm down her throat, and seemed to be fiddling with something until she withdrew her hand and spoke again. "This good?" Her voice sounded deeper than before as if she'd actually split the difference between Alice's and Scott's voices.

Scott was dumbfounded while Alice merely clapped and shouted, "Again! Again!"

Charlotte looked confused. "Change again?"

Scott held up his hands to stop her. "Uh, no, this is good! You can keep it like this!" It did sound fine, better than hearing his sister's voice coming out of the giant spider monster anyway, but in reality, Scott just didn't want to see something like that again. Even if he was getting used to the idea of giant talking spider people, that was just a little too weird...

This spider-monster-thing named Charlotte understood complex concepts like soundwaves and could apparently adjust its body to suit its needs and desires at will. Suddenly, Scott felt like he'd had enough for today. He shook his head. "Um, yeah...that's neat and all, but I gotta get back to work on the hut..."

However, Charlotte didn't seem to understand and simply followed him over, her many legs sounding like rapid drum beats on the ground. "Charlotte, help!"

Scott shook his head. "No, it's okay, I can handle this."

The spider person seemed to pout, placing her hands on her hips while "stomping" one of her spider legs in a way oddly reminiscent of Alice. It was made all the more surreal coming from a seven-foot spider monster that now had a voice much closer to an adult woman's... "No! Charlotte, help!"

That stopped Scott cold, unsure of how to proceed. In the end, he didn't have any fight left. So, instead, he handed some of the complete roofing tiles to Charlotte. "Here, can you put these on top like I did on the other side? Be careful, though! They're very fragile!"

Charlotte was tall enough that she could reach up with considerably greater ease than Scott, placing the tiles almost all the way to the top simply by extending her legs until she was probably closer to nine feet tall, but even she couldn't quite reach the cap of the roof because of the angle. Scott would probably have to climb up like he'd done before. However, just as he was about to suggest that, a midsized spider monster showed up, closer to the size of a small dog than the ones he was used to. Charlotte simply reached down, picked up the spider thing, placed it on the roof, then handed it a tile.

Scott couldn't help but be concerned. "Ummm, is that okay? Does it understand what it's doing?"

Charlotte nodded. "Yes, Charlotte knows what Charlotte doing!"

Scott watched as the spider carefully placed the tile on the top of the roof and gently nudged it tightly against the edge of the other ones already in place. It was so careful and deliberate that Scott couldn't help but marvel. "Did you tell it what to do?"

Charlotte was already handing it another tile as she answered. "Tsk no. Charlotte, no need to tell Charlotte what to do. Charlotte already know!"

That confused Scott, but he decided to let it go. At this point, he wasn't sure he could handle the real answer. Instead, he tried to focus on making more tiles while Charlotte continued to finish the roof with the aid of her spider friend. However, he couldn't stop thinking about the comics his dad had once shown him so long ago. He wondered if she was like one of the characters from those comics, except instead of speaking with sea creatures, she could speak with spiders?

He shook his head, deciding it wasn't worth dwelling on. Even if it was possible and would explain how she got the spider to work on the roof like that, it seemed a little far-fetched.