Page 139 of Shroom for Improvement

“When we get phone signal again, I want to call a doctor out,” I said.

Willow simply nodded.

I didn’t have the time to process Willow’s worry. Even though it was my fault.

Everything was my fault. I had spent so long focusing on the lightning magic—I had put so much faith in the house—that I’d blinkered myself to the real magic, and now I was back to square one.

But instead of two months to figure this out, I had fewer than twenty hours.

We were all fucked, and it was entirely my fault.

Well, not entirely my fault. Some of the blame had to lie with my father for never showing me the ritual, even if he had been off trying to find a solution. He’d had all that time, and not once did he ever call or text or email.By the way, when I die, you’ll have to do magic twice a year for the rest of your life, or two people you will grow to love will get sent into the ether, your home will be destroyed, and a woman you’re shit-your-pants-scared of will cease to exist. Come over one day and I’ll show you what to do.

And great, now I was having a mild existential crisis about my own lack of heirs. So the house would die with me? That was if I managed to figure it out by four a.m.

Did I want kids? Maybe, but that was beside the point. How would I have them? I was gay and largely single, and would Sonny be interested in me after I failed to save this magnificent palace and its custodians?

No, he wouldn’t.

And even if we could have kids, would I be happy knowing this would be their fate? Tying them to the house, and Jenny? Not letting them live their life as they saw fit? Maybe I could eventually find a way to keep the house alive without the ritual and—

Good gods!

My father. I understood now.

Didn’t mean I’d forgiven him for abandoning me, but I understood.

“Are you okay?” Willow asked, their tiny hand cradling mine.

“No. But you look after Oggy. I’ll be back.”

Willow nodded and took up residence beside their companion once again.

I screwed up my face. I wasn’t sure I believed the words, but I needed to say them. Wasn’t sure my fae mouth would even let me. “I will figure out this ritual.”

Willow’s gaze flitted over my ears, as though reminding themselves I only spoke the truth. Their shoulders dropped, their breath eased out.

“Okay,” they said, wiping away tears with one hand and taking Oggy’s with the other.

I left them in the dining space and headed back into the gardens. The sun was much higher in the sky. The earlier dampness had evaporated away. It was noon, or just before. Sixteen hours maybe.

I blamed myself and my father, but also a considerable amount of this blame should fall onto Jenny’s shoulders... towers? shafts? No idea. But a lot of this was the house’s fault. Why lead me on?

It had said no to everything else—the blood, the mouse, the singing. Why not just say no to the lightning?

Why so self-destructive?

I couldn’t work it out.

As I stepped out into the sun, John and Jacques were emerging from the direction of the orchards. Jacques straightened his robes and John giggled and plucked a twig from Jacques’s silky white hair. They spotted me and their expressions snapped to sobriety.

At that moment there was crunching from the other side of the building, and murmuring, and Mrs Ziegler emerged with a very shell-shocked Mr Greene.

His skin was so pale it was translucent. I saw his green veins tracking over his face and disappearing into his collar, his shoulders were hunched over in an arc, and his hands were cupped in front of him, holding something I couldn’t quite make out. As the pair drew closer, I smelled what he was holding.

Vomit. Most likely, his own.

“That’s it now,” Mrs Zeigler cooed in the most incongruously soothing voice. “I don’t want a single drop spilled in my garden. That’s a good boy.”

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