I followed him further down the hall until we reached a laundry room where a middle-aged woman stood folding clothes, a little boy playing with building blocks inside a washing basket.
“Marianne,” Nathaniel greeted. “This is Augustus. We’ll be working on an assignment together in the study. Augustus, this is Marianne and Luca.”
I gave the woman and child a polite nod, hovering in the doorway awkwardly while Nathaniel and Marianne discussed dinner arrangements.
My gaze landed on Luca who shared the same soft brown eyes as Nathaniel, the same black hair. While Nathaniel’s was straight and combed neatly over his forehead, Luca’s waves were wild and untamed. He didn’t much care for my presence, playing happily on his own, and I looked away as Nathaniel guided me down another hall and up a large, carpeted staircase.
“How many brothers did you say you have again?” I asked.
“Six,” Nathaniel chuckled. “Luc was my parents’ last attempt for a girl.”
“Ah, so definitely no more?”
“God no.”
I snorted, shaking my head.. “And you said James was here too?”
“Yeah, he’s sick at the moment, so he’ll stay in his room,” Nathaniel said, leading me down another long hallway.
“Is he like you?” I asked.
“Hm?”
“Is he going to study Medicine?”
Nathaniel shook his head. “Oh, no, James wants to go to business school.”
“Oh, cool.”
My gaze locked on a photo of the whole family in front of an altar, a baby who I assumed to be Luca draped in white in his mother’s arms. I found Nathaniel’s tall frame easily. He was standing beside his father, their identical smiles almost unnerving.
“That’s us,” Nathaniel mused, following my gaze. He pointed to the boy beside him, who he said was James. Unlike Luca, James did not resemble Nathaniel. His face was all sharp edges whereas Nathaniel’s was soft. Beside James was Rio, the second youngest, who shared Luca’s waves and Nathaniel’s dimpled smile. He was taller than his older brother Avery, which was amusing to Nathaniel since Rio was a year younger. Then there were the twins—Kaleb and Kian—their identical wavy curls crawling down to their shoulders.
“Must be a loud house,” I commented.
“Oh, yeah, definitely,” Nathaniel grinned as he pushed open a heavy wooden door and invited me inside. “This is the study. Make yourself comfortable.”
The ‘study’ was the size of my bedroom, living room, and bathroom combined. Dark oak bookshelves lined the wall to my left and the wall straight ahead of me. Books of all kinds litteredthe shelves, most stacked upright, though some had been shoved on top of the others horizontally.
Two large round wooden desks sat in the centre of the room beneath a large golden chandelier and atop a large rustic fur rug. Each desk had its own lamp in the centre with a power point switch beside it for laptops or phone chargers. A long, rectangular desk of the same colour was pressed against the wall to my right, seated comfortably below a window overlooking the back garden which housed a large swimming pool. I should have been used to grandiose homes since living with Aunt Vera, but Nathaniel’s was on another level.
I sat by the closest round desk, the cushioned chair welcoming me with a warmth that one would not usually expect from an inanimate object.
I must have released a satisfied sigh, for Nathaniel glanced my way, lips tugged upright in an amused smile.
“Marianne will bring us some water and some snacks once she’s done with the laundry,” he said, fiddling with the cord to connect his laptop with the projector slowly falling from the ceiling.
My gaze fell upon the bulging veins crawling along his forearms and knuckles, the sight oddly alluring. I wanted to trace my fingers over the blue lines, following them until they disappeared beneath his sleeves.
The sound of the projector connecting with Nathaniel’s computer snapped my attention away from his hands and onto my laptop which I had yet to open.
“What’s the uh…plan for today?” I asked.
We had finished the bulk of our secondary research, but our report still needed to be written.
“Let’s work on the structure and maybe writing our introduction and first paragraph,” Nathaniel said. He gestured to the screen which illustrated a suggested structure he musthave set up prior to this session. “Our introduction will list these points which will make up our four paragraphs.”
I read through the four paragraph topics. 1) Cults as a breeding ground for psychological manipulation, 2) Vulnerable members of society more susceptible to the psychological manipulation of cults, 3) People with psychological disorders more susceptible to the psychological manipulation of cults, 4) Anyone is susceptible to psychological manipulation.
