Page 58 of Shroom for Improvement

We walked in relative silence, our bellies full and sated, and going by Sonny’s contented yawn, his mind was on sleep. Mine was very much still firmly fixed on our earlier conversations.

“It’s a very kind offer, Jenny. But I think, on this occasion, abstinence will be the most favourable option for all parties involved.”

He was right, of course. Abstinence. I could manage a month or two without a wank.

“Do you like him?” Jenny asked.

I side-eyed Sonny but pretended like I hadn’t heard the house speak.

“I mean, do youlike,like him?” it continued. I remained stoic, though my heart started beating a little more erratically and the air temperature rose by about three hundred degrees. “D’you know how many people I’ve had inside me over the past millennia? Thousands. That’s how many. Six thousand, six hundred and eleven to be precise. Used to have so many partiesback in the day. But d’you know what? Sonny is by far the cutest of them all. Don’t you think he’s cute? If I had fingers, I’d pinch his cheeks so hard. Tell me I’m not making it up.”

I ignored the sentient house, thankful it couldn’t read minds, though semi-nervous that on a soul-deep level I thought Sonny was cute.

He was cute. Adorable even.

Like the way he had to fold his stupidly long legs at weird angles to get them under the table, and the way they’d always brush mine no matter which position he placed them in. Or the way he only ever used a fork to eat. Never a knife. He would use the side of it to slice down through his food and then spear it on the end or scoop it up like a shovel. Or the way he covered his mouth with his dirty painted-nails when he giggled. But when he laughed, he threw his head back and his arm out, often bracing himself on my shoulder like if he didn’t he’d implode into a puff of mirth.

Over dinner, between fits of laughter, we decided that tomorrow we would visit the ley lines and “try shit out” to see if something “felt” right. Sonny had spent the day making notes on a scrap of paper. Things that we, or I, should at least experiment with. Some things that were probably too obvious to be an ancient, sacred ritual, but were worth checking off the list anyway, and other things that were related to folklore about mushrooms. Though Sonny seemed pessimistic about the likelihood of these doing anything useful, considering they were tales which had been told and passed down through centuries, even millennia of generations, and therefore didn’t pass the whole “can’t tell anyone about the ritual” vibe-check.

And it led me to believe that perhaps Sonny understood more about this than I was giving him credit for. Like, perhaps he already knew that once he found out what the magic involved, he wouldn’t be able to write it in his paper. I wanted to ask him,but part of me was afraid he didn’t realise, and the epiphany would make him quit.

I needed him. To help save the house and its occupants, but also, I really liked having him around.

We stopped at the top of the spiral staircase. Sonny jiggled the knob on his door, but it wouldn’t budge.

“It’s locked?” he asked. Presumably he was speaking to Jenny. “Look, I’m just gonna have a shower and then I’ll come straight over to Claude’s room.”

The handle clicked all the way down and the door opened.

Jenny spoke. “Ask him if he’s going to do what you did in the shower.”

I ignored it. “Well, I’ll see you in a while, I guess.”

“See you in a bit,” he said, and he nipped inside his room, closing the door behind him with a smile, leaving me in the dim hall.

I went into my room and flopped onto my couch like a lovesick teenager.

Wait—damn, was I lovesick?

“Oh, my gods, you are literally so in love with him,” Jenny said.

I groaned. I’d forgotten there was no escaping it now. “I am not ‘literally so in love with him,’ okay? I like him a normal amount.” Though I was glad I could say those words out loud. “He’s helping me save your ass.”

“I’ll tell you if he masturbates in the shower.”

“No! Please don’t. That seems like a huge invasion of his privacy. Besides, I already know he won’t. We made a sort of pact on it.”

The house sighed in resignation. “So settle a bet for me—”

“Who are you making bets with? Yourself?” I said, flapping my arms to my sides.

“Of course not, you butt-crack. I’m making bets with the Earth Bells.”

“The Earth Bells?”

“The tiny mushroom folk who live in the hills.”

“You can talk to other people besides me?” I was on my feet, my brain going into overdrive. Ideas popping like fireworks. “Do the Earth Bells know what the rhizome ritual is? Have they ever seen it?”

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