Page 111 of Shroom for Improvement

A spindly, rickety wooden ladder popped into existence against the wall of the house.

Claude spoke before I could. “Jenny, if you let him fall, I swear to the gods I will stand at the top of the cliff beside the waterfall and I will watch you crumble to dust on the solstice.” He paused. Folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t care if it’s not as dramatic as crumbling to dust. Either way, I’ll do diddly squat as you turn into substrate.”

Substrate. He’d been listening to me. Damn, that was way hotter than it should have been.

Beside us, the ladder transformed into a much sturdier looking metal tripod version.

“Thank you, Jenny.” I said. I picked up the ladder, moved it a few feet to the left, and extended it to its full height.

Claude positioned himself to brace the bottom of the ladder and I climbed up. I didn’t look down. I wasn’t afraid of heights, but I wanted to focus on the task at hand: collecting samples of the house’s structure to make cultures. I tried not to think about Claude, steadying the ladder despite it being one of the safest brands for elevated work. Not to think about how he white-knighted that entire moment without me saying or asking for anything.

I reached the top section and stopped. The wind was stronger up here, the waning sun still beat down on my shoulders. The view stretched out for miles, and I wondered if I might glimpse the pool and the waterfall. I couldn’t see them from this angle, but maybe when I sampled one of the other turrets.

Adrenaline began pooling in my legs, making them feel jellylike. Wasn’t afraid of heights—I’d been up this high before to collect fungi from treetops, and rotting beams, and once a rock face I’d had to abseil down—didn’t mean I enjoyed it.

Here, the turret’s stalk morphed into its cap, but unlike a real stinkhorn mushroom, the tip was dry and odourless. No spores. Damn. I looked around at the other turrets, but from this distance they all appeared the same.

The wall didn’t feel organic at all. It felt... like a wall. Cold hard stone, roughly rendered. It snagged at the dry skin on my fingers. The transition from stem to cap was seamless, no sign of organic matter, no sign of gills, or gleba, or any spore distribution system.

“Fuck,” I said.

Regardless, I shucked my backpack and propped it between my knees. From within, I took out a roll of linen and unwrapped the knife and tweezers.

“This might hurt a little.” I had no idea if it would, or if Jenny could even “feel” like a living being did, but it was only fair I gave it a heads up before cutting a fingernail-sized chunk out of the wall.

It cut surprisingly easily, giving me the niggling sensation that one, perhaps the house was more organic than it appeared to be, and two, Jenny probably felt it.

“Very sorry about this,” I said as I used the tweezers to dislodge the piece of definitely-not-stone and placed it in the centre of the first petri dish. With the permanent pen, I scribbledonto the corner of the lid.NWT,for northwest turret. I cut out a larger chunk and dropped that into an empty plastic baggy. I needed to find out what the house was actually made of.

Kicking myself because I hadn’t considered doing this before, I climbed down the ladder and resisted the urge to kiss Claude. I repeated the sample collection on another four different turrets, labelling the petri lids with the turret designations so I’d know if any part of the house contained a higher degree of glamour particles than the others. All the turrets felt the same. Like stone, not like living, fruiting bodies of fungi, i.e., disappointingly void ofmagia.

But there had to be magic there. Claude hadn’t been talking to himself the whole time, had he?

No, of course not. What was I thinking? He was fae, just like me. Neither of us could lie even if we wanted to. So even if Claude had the capabilities to rig an elaborate system of fancy rooms and tricks and reappearing pee-bales, he still wouldn’t be able to tell me anything but the truth.

“Do you want me to accompany you to your laboratory?” he said once we’d reached the top of the spiral staircase leading to our bedrooms. His cautious tone of voice made it clear he’d sensed my upset.

I wanted him there. But I also wanted to be alone. And I was low-key panicking now.

The magic is in the spores.

Could it still be lightning related? Was Claude right to believe it? Maybe he was. Maybe I was worrying over nothing. But he’d still need to master it. Because I wouldn’t be here at the summer solstice.

Unless . . .

He couldn’t learn to do the lightning by himself. In which case, I’d have no choice but to stay and help him. Every six months for the rest of eternity.

That would be... inconvenient. And kind of amazing. Kind of really amazing.

Fuck, Sonny, pull it together.

We had just under a month to figure it out for certain.

A month left until the solstice ritual. And only a month left with him.

Damn it, it wasn’t Claude’s fault, or even Jenny’s. I guessed I was more disappointed in myself for not figuring it out by now.

An idea struck me. “Would I be able to take some samples from you?” I asked.

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