Composite Creatures Caroline Hardaker (smart books to read TXT) 📖

just see this though, keep my head down, try to not make any more mistakes, it’d be OK. Every so often Markus would stroll past my cubicle and give me that same strained wink, his lip twitching in a way I’d never noticed before. Even he looked more tired, kept awake by some phantom.

A letter from Easton Grove arrived with instructions to book a home visit for the following Tuesday. I emailed them straightaway to say that Art and I wouldn’t be around that day, and I didn’t suggest a new date. I left it in their hands, my head buried deep under the dunes.

One night as Nut began her nightly parade, in a fit of desperation Art stood bolt upright and swore at the ceiling before opening the bedroom door and wedging it at the bottom with a dirty sock. He stomped across the landing, slammed the door to his study closed and climbed back into bed without as much as a word. He turned away from me and huddled beneath the covers, still and silent as if in a deep sleep. Had he just given permission for Nut to roam the house? I continued to feign sleep, dead to the heave of the bedframe, the catch of Nut’s toenail in my hair.

At first Nut didn’t seem to notice the change, and looped the room a few more times. But after a few minutes the pounding of her feet stopped, and she padded off onto the landing to investigate this new terrain. A whole new world for her to explore. Pinned between fascination and fear, I was desperate to see what she was doing but I was still pretending to be asleep. I’d committed to it now. Besides, maybe it was best if I wasn’t the one to find her fallen down the stairs, or choking on a misplaced hairpin.

Despite all my wild imaginings, unbelievably I did nod off. And when I awoke, Art was already up and Nut was lying stretched out full-length on the bed, just where Art should have been.

We never talked about what Art did that night. I think he saw what he did as a chess move he couldn’t retract and for better or worse he’d have to see it through.

Nut now had the run of the house. Every room was her domain except Art’s study, the door to which was always closed. He said it was his inner sanctum and he needed quiet. This wasn’t a bad thing – the room was a death trap – piles of heavy hardbacks and slippery plastic folders everywhere. Swallowable paperclips and pen lids. It wasn’t the place for a curious creature only starting to learn the dangers of the world.

It was odd how easy it was to sleep with Nut running free around the place. It’s a funny feeling, to just accept that calamity could technically occur at any time. It’s not easily at home with me, that one. But maybe I just trusted her, or at least trusted her ability to handle what might harm her.

I wasn’t as bothered about the house itself, even when on her mad runs she’d knock into table legs or the coat stand, causing relics of life to fall and break. Art didn’t find it so easy. He continued to look worn out, as if his skin was stretched tightly across his cheeks and stitched beneath a tense jawline. He had the look of someone coming down with something, but whatever bug it was never materialised.

One night, after falling into bed, he whispered, “Do you think we should get Nut back into the attic soon?” I touched his face, shocked at how cold his cheek was. “I don’t think we can do that now, Art. It’s too late.”

He didn’t bring it up again, but continued to lose weight. Sometimes I caught him rubbing furiously at his temples and on either side of his nose. I asked him if he was perhaps allergic to Nut’s shedding fur but he shook his head spasmodically. I suppose with growing up on a farm he’d know that already. Perhaps it was all this self-imposed pressure he put on himself to perform. He hardly left his study other than to eat or sleep, and even then he only stopped for a silent few minutes before running back upstairs with his plate and his mouth still full. Whenever I asked him to stay with me downstairs and talk for a while, he snapped at me, and accused me of not taking him seriously.

After Nut had had free rein of the house for around a month, I needed to do something to stop the shift I could see happening. Outside, the sky was getting darker, igniting with that autumnal red that lit the trees. I’d just been channel flicking in the living room, Nut curled up by my ankles, when Art ventured out of his study to the kitchen. I followed him and dragged him to the sofa by his wrist. He watched me do it without a word, and didn’t even show the slightest spark of a fight.

I sat him next to me, making sure as much of our thighs were touching as possible. I kissed him fully on the lips and whispered, “Do you like that?” The whites of his eyes grew and his lips parted. The tip of his tongue flicked off a tooth. I kissed him again, and pushed him back into the sofa, straddling his lap. “What do you want to do now?” I crooned, coiling his hair around my fingers.

Did I look as desperate as I felt?

Art looked up at me, apparently speechless. I leaned forwards so our faces were enclosed within the dark curtains of my curls. “I’m kidnapping you.”

He looked genuinely terrified. It was a game. Just a game.

He pushed me off and sat upright, his hands held in front of him as if to say “Wait”. It took him a