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

to bed soon after our conversation, leaving me alone on the stairs. I called up to him that I’d follow him shortly.

After he’d switched off the upstairs light and there’d been a few minutes of silence, I headed to the airing cupboard and pulled out the spare duvet we’d bought for guests but had never used. I carried it to the living room, switching off all the lamps as I went.

Nut followed me, of course, and stretched out on the floor as I made myself a makeshift bed. I hadn’t been able to find a pillow, so I rolled the patchwork blanket and squashed it by the arm of the sofa. Rain lashed against the window, sounding like someone whispering “hush, hush”.

I tucked myself in as tightly as I could, burying myself beneath the cloud of cotton, but it didn’t feel right, so I snaked one arm free and let it rest on Nut’s head. She was still there, her breathing heavy and slow. I coaxed her onto the duvet with the dance of my fingers and she lay along my body, grounding me into the cushions. The patchwork smelled like Nut’s smoky scent and matted fur, but I could also pick up Aubrey, the perfume of lilies.

I don’t know how I slept, but I did. I wanted to be with Nut, and with my fingers on her neck I was connected to the whole world. Even years later, some nights I’d lie in bed and feel like anywhere anyone blinked, I’d be blinking too. Colours, wants, curses and swearing – everything everyone thought flashed across my retinas from left to right, and if I reached out to grab at them, hold them still, the ribbons would slip through my fingers. But I always slept eventually, lost in the chorus, all the noise bleaching itself out into nothingness, like switching off a lamp. There’s the bright light of the day and then darkness, nothing. I wouldn’t, and still won’t, let myself digest what we did.

New Year’s Day dragged me into the world without my agreement.

Even before opening my eyes, the morning poured its fire into my belly and burned, twisting my guts this way and that. To move, to open my eyes, meant accepting it so I lay there still, wasting time.

I reached down blindly for Nut and brushed my fingers against the carpet. Confusion, dread, and I bolted upright – scanning the room for signs of her. Art couldn’t have gone, he couldn’t have taken her already. He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t.

I stalked the downstairs rooms without breathing, quickly testing the front and back doors to make sure they were still locked. My head was swimming and took a few seconds to catch up with me as I bulleted up the stairs and tore into the bedroom.

I don’t know what I expected to see. The bed left unmade, a sealed envelope on the pillow? Or signs of a struggle – pillows slashed with wild bloody stripes, finger-pinches of stuffing drifting on the up-draft. Maybe a fallen fingernail, a puddle of red and the edges rusting.

Instead, Art was folded beneath the covers, fully dressed, still wearing his glasses. His mouth hung open, consuming one unstuffed corner of the duvet. Nut was there, sleeping, stretched out behind Art’s back. In that moment, the bed was split by a terrible mirror, both bodies totally unaware of how each life depended on the other. Take away the skins and together they formed one glutinous mass. The lump on the bed was both Art and Nut together, as it was meant to be.

I watched them for some time from the doorway before Nut raised her head, blinking at me in the light. It was still early, not yet past 6am. She’d be starting her territory-run soon and would wake Art. I had perhaps half an hour before I wasn’t in control anymore. This was it.

I knelt down and smoothed the back of her head, lulling her to drowse a little more. At the same time, I slipped my arm under the bed and pulled out an old blue duffle-bag with a broken zip. It wasn’t all that big, but the suitcases were stacked on top of the wardrobe and there was no way I’d get those down without waking him.

What could I grab? What could I take?

There was no plan. I hadn’t thought anything through.

There was just this instinctual need to protect, protect, protect this creature as vital to me as a liver or beating heart. She was the closest thing I had to family, she was blood, and her life, though small, was just as valid as mine, if not more so because she was an innocent. How long do ova organi live? Does anyone even know? Do Easton Grove know? Would one live forever if we didn’t consume it? How long had the oldest ovum organi lasted, before she was cracked open like an egg?

That was it – perhaps Nut deserved to be here more than we did. In the end.

All the wondering, lost in the metropolis of me. All that postmodern, existentialist, self-interested crap. Maybe I’m not meant to create something. Maybe I’m meant to help her live on. Maybe I’m meant to save her. And maybe one day Art will understand and take me back.

But this lie poured over me, black like oil. “You will save me?” he’d asked. “You promise to save me?” And I’d said “Yes”. Always. To do what I was doing could kill him. He’d taken a tooth, but what next? A kidney. A liver. A heart. Bones. There would be nothing of her left. If he and Easton Grove were still going through with this, they couldn’t understand the extent of their invention. But I did.

There wasn’t a lot I could grab for myself; everything was in the wardrobes, and the more noise I made the greater the chance of Art trying to stop me. I so needed him to stay