Later, right before it is officially the polite time to go to bed when company is staying over, Peter edges his way along the dim hallway to the bathroom to shower. He doesn’t want to have to make conversation with anyone, it would ruin his clean streak of no substantial communication with the house guests.
He can hear the water rushing from inside of the bathroom and a yellow glow emits from under the doorframe. He’s not used to having to wait for the bathroom since his parents have their own in their room and Linus never orbits the same space he does unintentionally.
The water shuts off with a creak of the faucet and Peter raps on the door three times feeling as if a line of ants are marching up his neck.
“Who is it?” Jenny calls from inside.
Peter scratches his neck absently. He decides he’ll just grab his toothbrush and take it to the kitchen sink if she lets him in.
“Peter,” he replies softly.
“Door’s open,” she says casually.
Immediately he’s enveloped in humid, perfumed air and the mirrors are all fogged up. The two cats, Hermes and Hunter are taking turns running along the edge of the tub, pawing at the red and blue shower curtain. They do this over and over, and Peter pauses to wonder if their shapes appear distorted on the other side, magnified and with pronounced two dimensional movements. They do this when he showers too, but he wonders if the image is different when lying prone in the tub; he wonders if they loom over her. Peter can’t see his cousin’s outline but he can hear her breathing from behind the curtain.
“I’m just getting my toothbrush,” he says though he hasn’t reached for it yet.
“Take your time,” she replies, some part of her splashing the water slightly over and over in rhythm, the cats still running past.
Peter wraps his hand around his toothbrush, noting all the extra toiletries scattered around the wide mouthed sink.
“You can sit and talk to me if you want, I like company,” her disembodied voice sighs.
Peter is still frozen, something cold slides down his belly despite the heat in the room.
He feels someone approaching behind him, nearly inaudible footsteps. He turns his head slightly to see Linus standing with his head above his right shoulder.
Peter turns and begins to back away, regaining feeling in his limbs. Linus gives him that smile, that shining expression that could mean a million different things. He holds a single finger to his lips and nods as Peter slips out of the bathroom.
“Are you still there?” he hears Jenny call anxiously as the door whispers closed and he finds himself in the kitchen with his toothbrush in his hand, wondering how he still has it.
Peter dreams of a time when he and his brother were little and watching movies while their babysitter napped. It was late; both of their parents off working or doing whatever it was parents did when not with their children.
They were about ten years old and Linus was playing a game.
“Let’s say I’ve drowned,” he whispers, laying stiff on the shag carpet as Peter looks down at him.
“In what? A lake? The ocean? A well?” Peter asks, uncomfortable.
“A puddle. Let’s say I drown in a puddle, Peter Prim and Proper.”
“Okay, a puddle,” Peter mutters.
In front of them dreary carnival music is playing and Heffalumps and Woozles, the stuff of Pooh Bear’s nightmares, are floating bulbous and round eyed through the air. They are all shapes and colors, made of patchworks and splashes of paint.
Peter waits. The game is never quite the same every time. Linus always asks questions after announcing how he’s died and Peter has to answer them. They can be any kind of question.
“What does my face look like?”
Linus has twisted his face up tight and there is a green light bouncing off it from the television. “It looks green,” Peter says.
“Blue,” Linus mutters. “How do you feel?”
“Separate,” Peter says after a moment.
Linus nods, approving. “How could you fix this?”
This takes Peter a while to mull over. His response is still unsure. “I could have helped you?” he finally says.
Dead Linus shakes his head. “No, that’s not what I asked,” he says. The babysitter stirs behind them.
Peter looks over at his clock, it is five in the morning and there is no light filtering through his window. The digital neon stings his eyes. With great effort he places his palm against the window. It jolts him, how cold it is.
Linus has a blanket strewn half across his legs on the floor. “What did I tell you?”
“What did you do when I left the bathroom?” Peter asks.
“I told her a story,” Linus says.
“Which story?” Peter is looking at him closely.
“Little Red Riding Hood,” Linus replies.
“Why that one?” Peter asks.
“Because she likes that one, Peter,” when he turns to face him his cheeks are too harshly angled in the blue light. Peter doesn’t ask anything else. He’s not the one who asks the questions.
“I can’t wait until they leave so you can sleep in your own room,” Peter mutters before turning over.
“I’ll bet you can’t, Peter, Plain and Tall.”
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