The Invisible Spider

When I was a boy, my grandfather had a tarantula in a crystal dome, an actual, hair-perfect specimen.  The creature was lifeless, of course, preserved in the perfect half sphere of the glass, but the animal looked every bit alive--blond and dangerous, and ready to pounce.

My grandfather loved rocks--agate and amethyst, highly polished quartz and native California jade. My grandfather kept his tarantula specimen on a bookshelf, among dictionaries and other reference books about minerals, and near his books of poetry and his Bible, too.  On the top shelf of his living room library were books a child was not supposed to see.  And I think this might have been the beginning of my feeling that books were objects of uncanny power.  

You might have a book that explained the various types of gems, semi-precious and precious jewels, a book that was a pleasure to browse.  And you might also possess a book that told you secrets no one liked to talk about--what happened in war, for example.  There were peaceful subjects, and reassuring books, and there were unmerciful books, books that grownups kept high on the top shelf, volumes describing killers and bloody histories of the Civil War, with the dead captured in glossy gray photos.

I know--because I climbed high as soon as I could, and I looked at those books, too, even before I knew how to read.

And always there, treasured among all the books, like a small, delicate severed hand, was the lifeless prince of knowledge, the golden-haired spider.

I grew up in Southern California, and many of our towns were just being constructed.  Many of the libraries I visited were newly built, with recently hired librarians stamping due dates in our novels.  I enjoyed the fresh shelves of recently printed books, but I think I treasured the worn volumes of my grandfather’s bookshelf even more.

The first word I could ever read was the word We.  My father pointed it out to me as I sat in the garage.  He was working on repairing a piece of furniture, using a wood plane and pink, coarse sandpaper to finish another chair.  He ambled over and looked over my shoulder at the book I was puzzling over, five-years-old and ready to learn.  I can't recall the story, or any of the pictures. But I remember his sawdust-grimed finger pointing down at the page, and his warmhearted voice saying. "See that word?"

We.

What a wonderful first word to learn!  But I saw at once, even then, that the word was not as innocent as it might have seemed to my father.  Turn the word over, and you can see the problem.  The W looks alive and as though it has legs.  It lurks like a living thing ready to scurry, or ready to approach and to befriend.   Or, perhaps, to bite.

One day my grandfather's spider, the specimen that had seemed set to last forever, suffered a remarkable mishap.

My little sister Laura Lee was holding the crystal dome containing the preserved tarantula--and she dropped it.  There was a musical crash, and there were shards of glass all over the hardwood floor.  

But the spider had vanished.  There was no sign of the creature, not even a pinch or two of gold, arachnid-colored dust.

The spider was absolutely gone.

Or, perhaps it had in an instant turned into all the words, in all the pages on the bookshelf.

Words are powerful.  They sometimes seem to have more life than we do, which is why we take such care in naming a new baby, or in writing a poem.  Our souls are too often like that golden, perfect spider--illusions kept trapped in silence.  But through language in an instant we can discover, on the blank of the page, or the glossy void of the computer screen, a secret that can give us life.

In my new book Peril on the Sea I have taken great care to use words that bring existence to characters who would otherwise remain silent.  I sought to create human beings, with all their courage, and their intelligence, and love for each other.
 
In preparing to write this book I visited the river harbors of Portugal, and the northern harbors of Europe.  I wandered New Forest in England, and the rocky fields of Spain.  I did not think that I was getting ready to write a book of high adventure.  I thought I was doing what I love to do--traveling, and learning--living my life.  

But over time I grew to know so much about one of the greatest naval invasions ever attempted that I simply had to begin telling the fascinating story.  Peril on the Sea is an exciting tale, but there is danger and sadness in this book, along with passion and friendship.  I learned at an early age that the frightening and the beautiful stand right beside each other in the light.