Composite Creatures, Caroline Hardaker [best ebook reader for laptop txt] 📗

I wasn’t allowed to see. I’d only ever seen the wide-eyes of surprise or the downturned mouth of concern when I interrupted him. Did I like Art’s concentration face? I wasn’t sure.

Sadly, neither of us saw the flaw in our new paper-crafted decorations until later. The impetus of Nut’s runs sent them wafting behind the TV or in some cases out through the window, even if it was only opened a crack to let the air in. Before long we stopped picking them up, and Nut would trample them, only occasionally stopping to chew on the corner of a snowflake or pin an angel beneath her hands as she ripped it apart with her teeth. Once Art realised that his creations were simply toys for Nut and would never last, he stopped making them altogether, disappearing back into his private engine room.

Our brief sojourn together ended, I dressed the rest of the house alone, decking the walls and surfaces with my old garish greens and ruby reds. At first, I’d felt oddly sheepish, as if I was dressing a stranger in costume without asking her permission. So, while I wrapped her in cheap, flaking gold, the house held her breath, looked away, and remained aloof.

But I saved the best for last. A set of four vintage silver-foiled baubles from Mum’s house.

They’d been one of the few knickknacks I’d salvaged from the clear-out. At the time I hadn’t thought too much about why I was keeping them, I was just aware of the fact they outdated me and Mum, and it would have been a crime to dump them in a skip. What right had I to destroy history? I hung the baubles from the curtain rails, and at night the light from the streetlamps reflected across the walls like moonlight on surf.

To Nut, each room had become a funhouse. Imagine it – extra obstacles to vault, shiny curiosities with foreign scents to sniff, loud and crinkly textures to investigate under tentative claws. She’d sit for a good hour in the centre of the living room, just watching one of the antique baubles spinning in the air current. What she saw in it I have no idea, but I thought the effect on the walls was hypnotic. I sometimes stood there too, humming softly, imagining how it would be to float on the sea.

There had been a few times like that, where Nut had imitated me. I’d be watching a film on the sofa with Nut stretched out on the floor beside me, only half-aware that both she and I were chewing on our lips. It was a tic Art had pointed out to me only a few months before. Life repeats, doesn’t it? Chewing on her top lip was Mum’s thing. It was just what she did. It meant she was digging deep into some thought, nothing for me to be concerned about. But I saw collectors and dealers misread it as impatience, and give a little to her demands. I wonder now if she knew that and played on it.

So with me Nut chewed her lip and tilted her head, but even more obvious was her growing obsession with Art’s study. She’d nap outside the locked door, perking up immediately when she heard shuffling from within. The lower three feet of the door was scored with deep furrows, curls of white paint scattered on the carpet like frosting. If Art came out to go to the bathroom or kitchen she’d slither inside, lithe as a snake, and set up home under his desk. She pulled books from his shelves, her fingers now dextrous enough to turn pages. She’d become more vocal than ever, and often mumbled a series of low grunts whenever Art spoke.

She’d also started to look like him, really look like him. Her face was one thing, but there was a certain confidence in her walk, an elegance in the bend of her elbows and knees which reminded me of how Art moved on stage. Sometimes I caught myself just before I talked to her like I would Art.

But this confused me. Nut barely saw Art. He still spent days and evenings deep in his burrow. How could Nut be picking up these habits and traits if she didn’t see them enough to know that they were habits and traits? At no point did I assume that these were Nut’s idiosyncrasies – they were definitely ours. Since we spent our evenings together, I could get it if she was picking up my quirks through boredom or experimentation. But Art’s?

I don’t know if Art was thinking along the same lines as I was. He hardly looked up from his desk to talk about anything. His head was in the sand – not owning up to the truth at home, or even confessing to his publisher that he couldn’t write anymore. I understand; it’s soft and dark down there, and we’ve all done it. Even Mum, ignoring her own body as she succumbed to her cancer. I wanted to pull Art up by the hair and scream at him; Nut has never existed in isolation. She has always been our past, our inheritance, our legacy. You know it now. We both do. Her heart was warm with his blood, not just mine, and perhaps her charms were inherited from (this was the first time I used the word) parents? Hardwired into her being. And did this mean that she had an awareness of these quirks? Did Nut like herself? Did Nut like us? But I never said any of that to him. Never out loud. But I told Nut. I whispered it deep in her ear late each night, when the house groaned in the winter winds and the world slept.

That was when I felt safest, and, apart from Stokers, I hardly left the house at all. Why would I want to be anywhere else? My plan was for Art, Nut and I to spend Christmas alone, so there