Page 105 of Shroom for Improvement

After a while, he pulled his knees up to his chest. His skin had erupted in goosepimples, and even in the waning light of the evening, I saw the blue that tinged his lips.

“Come on, let’s get dressed,” I said.

“I never want this moment to be over.”

“Me neither. But I don’t want you suffering hypothermia.”

We held hands as we walked around the pool to the bank where we’d left everything and clawed our way into our clothes. I pretended not to notice Sonny slipping the compass from my shoe and into the butt pocket of his jean shorts.

Damn, he could have it.

Keep it forever.

I was almost one hundred percent certain that no matter what emotion I programmed into the compass, the needle would forevermore point to him.

The Library

Sonny

Darkness had settled over Stinkhorn Manor and its grounds by the time we’d reached Jenny.

I’d guided Claude by the light of the torch and from memory alone, using the fungi I’d spotted earlier as landmarks. Luckily it was only a short walk back—approximately three kilometres—and we didn’t get lost. I couldn’t very well suggest we used the compass, because that would have meant admitting to Claude I’d stolen the thing whilst he’d tugged on his trousers.

Like everything, I didn’t intentionally steal it. My eyes had caught the evening sun glinting off the brass, and my fingers seemed to move of their own volition. I’d return it, like I planned to return all of his possessions. I just wasn’t sure when that would be.

When I got back to my room, I had the quickest shower known to fae, and replied to two emails—both from Mash, both about my lecture slides—and a text message from Goldie.

Goldie:

This is more amusing than anything else, but I thought you should know. Someone has stolen your pee-bale.

Before our trip to the pool, my afternoon had been filled with virtual student meeting after virtual student meeting. Unlike the in-person versions that usually took place in my office, we managed to keep the online counterparts fairly brief. Though most students hadn’t required too much input from me anyway. For most, it seemed they were just checking off yet another mandatory box on their academic to-do lists. Which was fine. Great even. They didn’t desperately need me, and I wasn’t at risk of pissing anyone off by spending more time here with Claude. Which I really, really wanted to do.

Yes, we were learning more about the mushroom magic and the ritual, and I could spend an eternity studying this magic house alone, but it was the moments with only Claude and me, me and Claude, that had me wishing the twentieth would never arrive. That I could spend longer here.

Swimming with him at the waterfall had been like all of my fantasies come to fruition. Claude had been so different from every version of him I had met before: the taciturn U-Rail conductor, the guy crying out for help in the emails, the grumpy land owner forced to share a bed with me, the sprouts stan, the“I take no shit from estate agents”fae. They were all great. But the silly, naked, cannonballing guy who fell to pieces under my touch—that was the real Claude.

It had felt like there was only us.

No city of Remy. No university. No students. No papers. No academic journals. No Dr Sorrel. No overarching “save the planet with ancient shroom magic” theme.

There was also no pollution out here either, or litter. The air was clean and breathable, and besides the lawyer and agent, I hadn’t seen another vehicle for weeks.

Just me and him and the sunset. And nature in all its breathtaking majesty.

And didn’t I choose mycology because of my love for nature?

How had that landed me in the second largest city in Borderlands of all places?

Remy was fine. Good if you were young—or Mash—but there was a considerable deficiency of nature.

I dressed in clean PJ’s and headed over to Claude’s room, expecting him to have done the same—showered and changed for bed—but he was still wearing his suit and a very serious, sombre expression.

“Gods, who died?” I asked, stepping onto the plush carpet of Claude’s lounge area.

“Please can you take a seat on my couch,” he said.

My adrenaline spiked. Was he about to ask me to leave? Say that what we did by the pool earlier should never have happened?

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