Page 109 of Shroom for Improvement

In. The. Spores.

Spores from where though? I flipped the book closed to look at the embroidered stinkhorn mushroom on the cover.

The house’s spores?

Was that what Angus Stinkhorn did twice a year? Collect the house’s spores and redistribute them to the ley lines? Like a... fly?

Was that what Claude would become?

“Are you organic?!” I said to Jenny, scare jumping Claude. I mouthed an apology to him, which he waved away, smiling.

“It says it doesn’t know for sure,” Claude said. “It remembers being smaller, when it only had a few thirty-foot turrets.”

“Jenny has grown, then?”

“Must have. It said nobody has ever come to do any construction work on it. Except on The Night Cap.”

I scribbled a note in my notepad. “Is it still growing?”

Claude shrugged. “It doesn’t think so. Said it’s been the same size for a half a century-ish. Said it’s difficult to tell time when you’re a house and were created before the existence of modern calendars.”

Still, just because the house’s growth had stabilised, didn’t mean it wasn’t responsible for the redistribution of magic to the soil.

“Created? As in built?” I asked.

“It asks if you remember being born?” Claude put on a slightly whiny voice, giving me a tiny insight into how the house sounded. “How can the mycologist know he’s organic? How does he know he’s not a deepfake Sonny robot programmed to replicate the real Sonny who’s lying comatose in some battery pod miles underground? I’m sorry,” he added at the end, and I knew the apology was from him and not the house.

“I’m just trying to figure all this out. I really wish I could speak to you, Jenny. That I could hear what you say.” I rested my elbow on the table and cradled my forehead in my palm.

“It says,‘Naw, sweet.’And it wishes you heard it, too.” Claude moved to the empty chair next to me, abandoning his puzzle. “Why is it important?” Again Claude was speaking, it wasn’t Jenny asking. His voice was soft, mindful.

“Honestly?” I said, like I could be anything besides honest. “Vibes. Super scientific, I know, but if the house is natural, if it’s the fruiting body of a magical network of mycelium, then perhaps we are looking at something a little more rudimentary. Perhaps we’re looking at spreading spores, or spore germination. I’m pretty sure this paragraph”—I showed Claude the page in the book—“saysthe magic is in the spores.”

Like someone had stabbed him in the bottom with a pin, Claude jumped to his feet. “Jenny says warmer!”

My chair legs scraped the wooden floor, and I stood just as abruptly. “Oh, my gods.”

“Does that mean it’s not the lightning?” Claude looked up at the glass ceiling and rolled his eyes. “It can’t say. Sure.”

“Jenny, I need a ladder!” I was already running back to my rooms before I heard—through Claude—what its answer would be.

The Unique Culture of Stinkhorn Manor

Sonny

The silver of the blade grew red within the flame. I held it there for a few seconds longer, then removed it, let it cool, and wrapped it in a sterile linen. It would be impossible to kill off all the microorganisms. It always was when working outside of a lab, but especially whilst operating up a ladder at thirty, forty, fifty feet.

I did the same with a pair of metal tweezers, passing the points through the fire until they glowed, and I repeated these steps with a further four sets of scalpels and tweezers. I packed them in a plastic wrap along with five new petri dishes, some disposable latex gloves, and a permanent marker, and stuffed them inside my backpack.

“Ready?” I called into Claude’s room, letting myself in.

He rose from his couch, tossing the jigsaw-puzzle lid back onto the coffee table. “What’re we doing?”

“It’ll be easier to show you rather than explain, but I need you.”

“Really?” Claude’s shoe snagged on the edge of his rug and he stumbled forward a few steps.

I caught him in my arms and stopped him from hitting the floor. His gaze caressed my face, flicking from my eyes to my lips and back again. We both held our breath.

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