Page 13 of Shroom for Improvement

The pair led me from the kitchen, through a narrow, kinda scruffy corridor and into the main part of the house, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, an assault upon my senses. The corners had been rounded off, giving the large area a cylindrical feel. The windows had been placed either much too high or too low to peer out of, and there was stuff every-damned-where. Rugs, tapestries, weapons, taxidermy animals, urns that were bigger than me, and bookshelves crammed with all manner of crap. Not a foot of space on the walls, and most of the floor went unblemished by junk. There was even a full cast-iron bathtub nestled within the fireplace. A suit of armour artfully lounged inside it.

If I hadn’t already made up my mind, this room had done it for me. Eggs royale was not worth it.

“This is the entry-hall-slash-informal-gathering-space-slash-dining-area,” Oggy said. She’d jammed her thumbnail into her mouth and watched me with furrowed brows. “There are many rooms like this one. But well, if we’re being honest with you, and since we’re fae we can’t be anything but honest, there’s a reason the guest house is separate.” She flinched and pulled up her shoulders as though expecting to dodge a flying stuffed badger. I noticed she was now growing a beard to match her moustache.

“There aren’t any rooms in the guest house for you to stay in,” Willow said, also looking around as though something might propel towards them. “Besides, the magic won’t work, anyway. You have to stay here. Not here in this room, but—” They cleared their throat and spoke loudly as if addressing a room full of people. “Can you help us out? Show us where Mr Stinkhorn’s room is? To save us from hours of searching.” Willow added quietly at the end.

“Are you talking to the house?” I asked.

Maybe on the way to Stinkhorn Manor, I’d fallen asleep at the wheel, the car had tumbled off a ravine and exploded, and I’d died in an intense inferno. Was I now in... purgatory?

Yep. Only explanation.

At the other end of the entryway, a door swung itself wide open, and a light clicked on in another room. Oggy and Willow gave matchingpleasantly surprisedexpressions. Their brows shot up, their mouths gaped, and smiles tugged at the corners.

“Ooh, teacher’s pet,” Willow said, as Oggy said, “It likes you.”

The house was a labyrinth, and the only thing that kept me following the sentry fae—and the lights flicking onin the distance, and the doors opening themselves—was pure, undiluted curiosity. Which was so unlike me.

I didn’t get curious. Generally, I was happy to stick to the things I knew, the places and hobbies I was comfortable with, but there was something about this place, these people, this everything, that kept me moving forward.

Besides, if I was dead, where else was there to go?

Eventually, we reached a door at the top of a spiral staircase in one of the dick turrets—difficult to tell which turret without looking out the window for my rental car or the B&B gardens.

“This one? Are you certain?” Oggy asked. Unsure if she required an answer from me, I kept my mouth shut. After a few moments, she nodded to Willow and pushed the door open. “Holy crackers, it really likes you.”

We climbed the last few steps and crossed the threshold together. Willow let out a low whistle as though it was their first time viewing the room. Who knew, maybe it was.

The room—my room if I stayed here, I guessed—took up the entire circumference of a cock. Based on the sheer size of the space, it was the biggest cock of the building, and my room was in... the head. The penthouse?

The walls—wall, singular?—was papered in an avocado-green, mushroom-print wallpaper. Tapestries depicted nighttime forest scenes, and gilt thread embossed the dark rugs and curtains. In the centre of the room sat a squashy, peeling leather sofa, surrounded by an arc of bookshelves on one side and a large mahogany coffee table on the other. Next to the coffee table, stacks and stacks of jigsaw puzzles.

I crouched down and examined the pictures on the sides of the boxes, my mouth gaping open. Railway stations. From across the Eight and a Half Kingdoms. I stood up and blinked at Willow and Oggy.

“You like puzzles,” Oggy said, but it wasn’t a question. “And trains.”

“Does the house do this for every guest?” I asked, looking around the space and picking out detail after detail that felt as though someone had reached into my thoughts and dreams and laid it all out before me.

“No, it does not,” Willow replied. “Your father once had to sleep in a bed of brambles.”

“My father?” The room spun around me, and I flopped onto the couch. Gods, it was comfortable. “Was he here often?”

Willow shook their head. “We saw him twice a year. At the summer and winter solstices. He stayed as long as he had to, and then would disappear for another six months. Think the house hated him for it.”

“It must really want you to stay.” Oggy picked at the hem on her blouse. Willow’s fingers crept across and threaded around Oggy’s.

“Then...” I began, feeling like the word had left my mouth despite my better judgement. “Then I guess I could stay. For a few days. Just to make sure everything’s sorted before I head back to Remy.”

Above our heads, a loudTHUNKreverberated. I glanced up and saw, for the first time, another spiral staircase leading to a mezzanine level. A drape-covered four-poster bed was visible.

“That’ll be your suitcase,” said Oggy, no doubt in reference to the sound. She was genuinely smiling now, her beard and moustache turning snow white. “Right, shall we show you the ley lines? Or do you want a few moments to unpack?”

“Ley lines?”

“The ley lines. The place where you need to perform the biannual rhizome reinforcement.”

“The what?”

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