Composite Creatures by Caroline Hardaker (best story books to read .TXT) 📗

far more reading that anyone else would have done in the situation, or more than you’d have done yourself. But you have to remember, animal psychology is an abstract concept, and I just wanted to do things right. The look in Nut’s eyes that first day had frightened me backwards, and a single stupid decision could destroy everything.

5

Nut had arrived on a Friday. That weekend was spent hiking up and down the ladder every hour making visits to her in secret, so as to not disturb her settling in. At one point Art suggested that I cover my head with a pillowcase as a sort of disguise, and I did it too, until the Sunday afternoon when he saw me descend the ladder whilst wearing it and he took pity. Turns out he didn’t think I’d take him seriously. I do wonder if he’d known for longer and laughed at me for longer than he let on.

It didn’t matter anyway. Whether I wore the pillowcase or not, Nut didn’t pay me the slightest bit of attention. Most of the time she slept in the cat bed, a faceless bundle of grey fluff. Art took her sleeping pattern as a sign that we didn’t need to check up on her so much, she was fine, but it made me need to visit the loft even more – just to make sure she opened her eyes. Before we went to bed on the Sunday, we made a pact that we wouldn’t go up during the night at all, that we could “lay off it now”, and we’d close the loft hatch in case Nut chewed through the mesh and fell onto the landing. I was convinced that I wouldn’t sleep a wink, but Art wrapped his arms around me and I slept like a baby. I don’t even remember dreaming.

There was a huge part of me that was relieved to be going back to the office the following Monday. I liked the driving to work, sailing along on anonymous roads that lead to endless places I could get to, if I wanted to. This Monday I felt particularly liberated, but with the luxury of a buried ember to heat my middle. I had a secret, and I smuggled this not-so-secret secret into work with me, hidden beneath my coat. I had a living house to go back to now, a home complete with its own beating heart. This heart was my heart, also. This was the dark and delicious thought that would feed me for the first couple of hours, while being back at work was still a novelty.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d struggled to leave her that morning, but I knew that it was better to get used to it sooner rather than later. Besides, Art would be in his study, and he’d promised to get up and check on her every two hours. I asked him to text me every time he did, so I could be sure. It’s not that I didn’t trust him to keep his promises, I just knew how consumed he became when hammering away at the keyboard or drawing up outlines.

I strode into work with my head held high – feeling a million dollars. And while I shone, the office buzzed around me like a monochromatic hive. I hadn’t known it until then, but I was still on high alert. Every microfibre on my cubicle’s felt walls tickled, and every sigh or throat being cleared was a shock from silence. My face was red, bloating with all the blood, and I couldn’t ignore the feeling that I had a flashing sign above my head. Bodies bristled when I passed by, and yet I couldn’t catch anyone’s eye. And though in itself that wasn’t too weird, the longer I stood at my desk and scanned the office, the more peculiar it became that no one at all looked up. Everyone was completely still. When a woman whose face I vaguely knew from the second floor shuffled by my desk with a stack of folders I offered a sheepish smile, but she averted her eyes and carried on towards the lifts. There was a chance that she hadn’t seen me I suppose, but we’d been only inches apart. It didn’t seem likely.

I set down my bag and settled into my chair, letting myself sink into the comfort of confined spaces. Though a lot of people complain about them, I liked my cubicle. Because no one could see me, I didn’t have to imitate anyone else anymore. All my skin-tugging idiosyncrasies didn’t matter. I could sit there twitching, stroking and fiddling all day long like a monkey in a tree. All I was judged on was my output, and that I could control. There, it was up to me if I burned myself out or gave myself a day to drift off. And returning to work that morning, fresh from our first weekend with Nut, having my own walls felt better than ever.

On that first day back, I resisted thinking about the house. Work was another planet, but because I was waiting for Art’s check-ins I couldn’t relax. I felt a crazy urge to scale my cubicle, like Nut would, just to release some tension, my weight folding the walls flat beneath me. Would anyone even look up if I sat amongst the melee, gnawing on a piece of plywood?

By midday I hadn’t heard from Art at all and my skin was breaking out in a sweat. Didn’t he realise how stressed this was making me? He wouldn’t be doing this on purpose… Could something have happened? I broke my silence and messaged him in the most bright and breezy manner I could manage, sticking an extra couple of kisses onto the end to prove my triviality. He replied within a minute with a short message saying everything was fine, Nut had eaten half a tin of feed, and he was having trouble concentrating