Page 35 of Shroom for Improvement

This time I stepped in front of Oggy. “It’s fine,” I said, though I wasn’t sure if I’d spoken for my benefit, Oggy’s, or the nine-foot fire daemon’s. This scary-as-heck dude could call me whatever he wanted. I doubted there’d be anything I, nor two petite sentry fae, could do to stop him.

In any case, Jasper ignored us both. “Ooh, this is a cute little stabber.” He picked something up from the top of the pee-bale and slipped it out of its tan, leather sheath. A hori hori knife. No, wait a second—

“My hori hori!” I snatched the instrument from Jasper’s hands, who relinquished it without resistance, and I inspected the tool. A sort of cross between a trowel and a serrated dagger. Perfect for digging out weeds.

It was my knife alright. My initials,S.D.,had been scratched into the wooden handle, and residue from plant matter gathered in the crack where the blade met the handle. Even some of my blood from a particularly nasty encounter with a rose bush remained caked onto the steel.

“H... How?” I sputtered. “I left this on my tool belt on a hook by my front door.”

Oggy pointed to my waist, where said belt was now fastened securely. My snips were there, and my secateurs. Also, a ball of twine in the apron pocket, and some wooden plant labels I’d painted with chalkboard paint, and a chalk pen.

“How?” I said again.

“That must be the house’s magic. I don’t think our glamour is quite that powerful,” Willow said.

“It—” Oggy began, but then stopped herself. She took a deep inhale. “It understands that both Claude and yourself are the solution to our problem.”

“But—”

Oggy continued. “The house needs you both to stay, and to figure this out together. I don’t know why you’re important. It might be that you’re a mycologist, or it might be something else. We have no way of knowing because of the ties that prevent anyone from discussing mushroom magic, but what I do know—because I feel it in my ancient bones—is that it has to be you, Sonny. You and Claude together have to figure this out. To save us all.”

Jasper opened his mouth to say something, but Oggy cut him off too.

“Zip it,” she said, and he snapped his jaw shut again.

There was a moment of silence. Jasper stood, towering over everyone, creating an ominous, slightly eggy shadow. He folded his arms and raised an eyebrow towards me, in what felt like a challenge. Willow took Oggy’s hand in theirs and was subtly nodding to her. Oggy herself looked close to tears.

“So,” Willow said, breaking the silence and turning to me. “Now that we’ve established you’re the chosen one, shall we show you to your room?”

Turned out neither of the sentry fae knew where my room was, and were simply following “vibes” through the mansion to find it. Thankfully, Jasper had decided he’d had enough entertainment from me, and left us three at the entry to the house from the bed and breakfast. It felt like we’d been walking for hours, trying door after door that either wouldn’t unlock for Willow or Oggy, or else was clearly a bathroom, or linen closet, or storage space, and decidedly not a bedroom.

We travelled higher and higher inside the turrets of the property until finally we arrived at a narrow spiral staircase.

“Surely not,” Willow said, looking at Oggy. “There’s only one room at the top of those stairs.”

Oggy shrugged. “Perhaps there are two now.” She began climbing, and Willow and I followed.

And sure enough, when we reached the topmost step, we were greeted by a dark, windowless hallway lit by a glowing, mushroom-shaped lamp. It revealed two doors sitting exactly opposite each other.

Willow frowned, then pulled their eyebrows into their hairline, and bypassed the door on the left to open the one on the right.

Immediately, I—we all—knew this was my room. I couldn’t stop myself from rushing forward in excitement.

“This is the house’s magic?” I asked no one in particular. The question was rhetorical. I knew this was the house’s magic. “It’s absolutely incredible.”

The room—my room—was enormous, and was split into a few sections. The first seemed like a mini library, with shelves containing books from seasonal veg planting to growing hallucinogenic mushrooms, perhaps even some on ancient mushroom magic. I would pore over those tomes later for sure, but there was too much to take in right away.

Beyond the library was a very modern triple-monitored desktop computer with a comfortable looking vegan-leather, high-backed office chair, and beyond that, an area sectioned off by glass panels. A lab. An actual fucking lab. Better than my own lab back at UR. I spied microscopes and burners and a centrifuge machine and scales and all manner of beakers and petri dishes and test tubes.

“Bathroom’s through here,” Willow said, snapping me out of my awestruck wonder. They whistled and disappeared behind the door. “The shower’s outside!” they said, running back into the main part of the room like an excited child.

I followed them back into the bathroom, like an even more excited child. “Oh, my gods.” The shower was indeed external to the main turret. Like on a balcony, but with higher, more opaque railings. I leaned my head over them. “The walled garden! Oh my gods, the shower water drains straight into a butt!”

I was laughing. Giddy. “I love it! It’s perfect,” I said to the sentry fae, returning to the library area.

“There’s a kitchenette, too.” Oggy pointed to an area with a few vinyl-covered cupboards, a sink, and a kettle. “We’ll keepit stocked for you.” She looked about the room, at nothing or no one in particular. “Or at least, we’ll try to.”

“It’s amazing.” I was breathless. “Uh...” I glanced around the space for another area, or a door leading somewhere else. I really, really didn’t want to sound ungrateful, but... “Where’s... uh, where’s... the bedroom? Is there somewhere for me to sleep?”

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