Page 134 of Shroom for Improvement

Jasper huffed. “What are we meant to do, then? Sit here in silence? We have another six hours before we get to Onyxshire.”

Out the window, a blue driver-location sign whizzed past, too quickly for me to read the white lettering, though I caught the number twenty-nine. Somewhere or something was twenty-nine miles away.

“Can’t we just talk like proper adults?” I said.

“Oh, no. I see what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?” No signal. Fifteen percent.

“You’re trying to get me to open up about my feelings and shit. Then I might reconsider kidnapping you and take you back.” Jasper stared me down in the rear-view. I tried to pretend I wasn’t desperate to read the name of a single lonely inn that zoomed past. Missed it. The Bear Ranger or the Bell Ringer, maybe.

“I still don’t understand why you’ve kidnapped me,” I said. It was the eleven hundredth time I’d asked. “If all you’re doing is taking me to a different railway station.”

“Because I need to make sure you’re on this train, on the way to Remy, not sitting at quaint little Agaricus Station changing your mind and hopping in a taxi back to Stinkhorn.”

“But, why? Did Claude send you?”

“Of course not. Claude has no idea where I am.”

“Then why does it matter to you whether I meet with Dr Sorrel?”

No signal. Fourteen percent.

“Who’s Dr Sorrel? What’re you talking about?” Jasper said.

I opened my mouth to tell him exactly who Dr Sorrel was, but something stopped me. My mind whirred. I had, on some absurd level, assumed Jasper was making sure I didn’t miss my appointment. Had assumed that even though he was kidnapping me, it was done with good intentions. A moral kidnapping, if you will. That Claude had sent him to ensure I didn’t throw away my future because of a couple of perfect months.

But Jasper didn’t know who Dr Sorrel was—what my meeting was for—and Claude hadn’t sent him.

What was I missing?

One bar of signal. Thirteen percent.

Oh, my gods, we were getting closer to civilisation.

None of it made sense. I was looking at this the wrong way.

Why did Jasper need me on the train, heading away from Agaricus? Why did he need to keep me off Stinkhorn Manor grounds?

What had he been doing the entire time I was there, and probably decades before I arrived?

Oh, fuck.

Attempting to kill Mrs Ziegler. That’s what he’d been doing. But Mrs Ziegler was unkillable. The only way to destroy her was to...

Destroy the house.

Still only one bar of signal. Twelve percent.

But Claude would be saving the house. In approximately thirteen hours. Unless...

He wouldn’t be. Because he didn’t know what the ritual was.

The ritual wasn’t the lightning.

Holy fuck, the ritual wasn’t the lightning. My gut had been right all along.

“Turn this truck around now!” I yelled.

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