Mushrooms4eva!!

Sonny

“You’re Professor Daye?” said the smoking, nine-foot, crimson-skinned, practically naked surtr holding a sign that read: Prof. S. Daye .

“That’s me,” I replied, trying to quash the treacherous notion that even though I was fairly certain Claude hated me, he wouldn’t send me on this ridiculous and scenic journey only to have me offed by a starkers fire daemon the moment I stepped off the train. “Mr Dupont?”

The fire daemon looked me up and down. “Hmm, call me Jasper. I expected a woman. This your case?” He reached down and snatched up my holdall as though it were made of feathers. “What did you pack, feathers?”

He turned and started walking towards a very huge and very illegally parked black four-wheel drive. Actually, probably a monster truck, going by the size of the wheels. It took up not one, but three STAFF ONLY parking bays, and even had red and orange vinyl flames shooting up from the wheel arches.

“I, uh... didn’t know how long I’d be here, so I just brought, like... three pairs of jeans and every T-shirt I own. Plus my laptop. And that’s about it, really.” I had to jog to keep up with him. “Why did you think I’d be a woman? Didn’t Claude explain who I am?”

Jasper opened the passenger door, seized my belt loops at the back of my jeans, and tossed me inside his truck. All six-seven of me shrank into the middle of the huge leather seat. I pulled the belt across my lap, feeling like a child riding shotgun for the first time.

He slammed the door shut, then jumped into the driver’s seat. I tried my absolute darndest not to stare at his flexing quads. Holy crap, those things could suffocate a person. They were probably registered as lethal weapons somewhere.

“So,” he said, sliding shades onto his enormous smoking face and revving the engine so hard it made everyone within a fifty metre radius shit their pants. One guy even fell over. “You’re the mushroom expert?”

“Yes, I guess so.” His earlier words churned over in my head and I realised he never answered my questions. “What am I here for?” If Claude hadn’t known he was emailing me, who did he think he was corresponding with? And why? Why had I been dragged into it?

I’d assumed he was hauling my ass to his so I could apologise face to face for stealing the cufflinks. Though, come to think of it, I’d never mentioned the cufflinks, and I hadn’t used my first name either. I had signed each email off with S, not Sonny.

Shit, maybe he really didn’t know it was me.

“Mushroom magic, no?” Jasper said.

“Mushroom magic,” I repeated back to him.

Unless Claude knew about my research? Had he somehow found out and decided to help me? But that wouldn’t explain his predicament. The one he mentioned in his emails.

“I am in dire need of your assistance.”

“Rather convenient, don’t you think?” Jasper said, pulling out of the lot onto the main stretch of road in Agaricus town centre. A small, and in every way, stereotypical fae town. A few jumbled shops scattered the high street, plus inns, places of worship, and what I believed to be a school. And then countryside that stretched outward for miles and miles and disappeared into the horizon.

“Huh?” I was so confused. Everything was so confusing. Did Claude know I was coming? Me, Sonny? Or was he expecting some mysterious feminine Professor Daye? “How long is the drive to Stinkhorn Manor?”

“’Bout twenty mins. But I gotta make a quick detour, if that’s okay?”

Like I was brave enough to say no to this demigod of hellfire.

“Bought something off eFae. The bees didn’t work.”

“Bees?”

“Oh, Helena’s gonna get such a treat today.”

Bees, eFae, Helena? I decided it was better to keep my mouth shut.

“What’s your name?” Jasper asked me.

“It’s Sonny.”

“So, like, do you and His Lordship know each other, or what?”

“His Lordship?”

“Stinkhorn.”

“Sort of,” I said. “He, uh. I... I ride his... uh, train. I don’t really know him.”

“You ride his train?” Jasper said, taking his eyes off the road to lift a suggestive brow at me. “Oh, you mean literally? ’Cos the guy’s into trains?”

“He’s a U-Rail conductor. Did you not know that?” I asked. Jasper shrugged, turned his attention back to the road. “How do you know Claude?”

Jasper laughed, loud and deep, vibrating the entire monster truck and making the rumbling of the wheels on the asphalt seem like the distant buzzing of a fly. “I don’t, really. I only met the guy a few days ago. He seems alright, though. A little too much like his father, but I can hardly judge a man for that. Have you ever met my father?” He laughed again—so loud. I realised this was what brown note probably sounded like. Was I about to shit myself in a fire daemon’s monster truck?

He didn’t know Claude, not well anyway. Claude wasn’t expecting me to turn up at Stinkhorn Manor, he was expecting a woman. I was in a laughably sized vehicle with an entirely unhinged surtr, somewhere in the middle of the Kingdom of the Fae. I didn’t know where, or where we were heading. I had no address, except Stinkhorn Manor and The Night Cap, Night Cap Drive. Nobody from home knew where I was going. I hadn’t bothered to tell anyone.

Fae couldn’t lie, even in email, but those emails could have easily been from a nine-foot-tall naked daemon pretending to be Claude.

“Where is Stinkhorn Manor?” I said, probably too quietly. “Just out of curiosity.” Did it even exist?

“’Bout half an hour that way,” he replied.

I gulped. “It was twenty minutes away, ten minutes ago.”

“You’re a wizard with maths.” He shot me a wink, and I could not tell if he was messing with me. “Gotta get this piano, ain’t I? Ah, here we are, six-nine-six Hell View Road.”

Jasper pivoted the car onto a teeny tree-lined drive, and for one hair-raising moment, the wheels on my side of the truck left the ground, and I was staring down at his maniacal, laughing face. He pulled up outside what seemed to be a row of interconnected, rusted, sun-bleached lorry trailers. Enormous trees grew all around, blocking out the light and making the entire area feel about fifteen hours later than it was.

Holy crap, he’d brought me here to kill me.

Damn, damn, damn. I haven’t solved world hunger yet.

“Right, you wait here. Won’t be long,” Jasper said, jumping out of the car and heading towards the first trailer.

I pulled out my phone and fired a quick message to Mash.

Me:

I’m in a monster truck with a fire daemon. If I don’t call you this evening to let you know I’m okay, call the cops. I’m currently at 696 Hell View Road, somewhere east of Agaricus in KOTF. I’m supposed to be going to Stinkhorn Manor, which may or may not be on Night Cap Drive.

Mash’s reply came almost immediately. I let out a breath. At least if I vanished, the police would already have a lead to go off.

Mash:

WTF mate? U high?

Me:

No, I can’t lie, remember. Just, I’m slightly freaking out here.

Maybe I should make a run for it. I pulled up a map of the surrounding area and found the nearest property was eight miles west. It’d take me two hours to get to if I hiked, or I could find a town and catch a taxi back to the station.

Mash:

I need more deets. Why are you in KOTF? I thought you weren’t ever going back there.

I started to type out my reply, reasoning that Mash should have as much info as possible, including a screengrab of my location, when something, probably about as heavy as the truck itself, dropped into the bed. I spun around in my seat and saw the definitive arched top of a rather beat-up grand piano.

Out the driver’s side, Jasper slipped a man dressed in a hooded black cloak a wedge of notes, and hopped into his seat.

“You really did buy a piano?” I said, unsure whether I was making a statement or asking a question.

“Duh, that’s what I said.” He had such an incongruously posh accent. He slid his shades on, turned the car one-eighty, and headed back down the driveway. “Ain’t she a beaut?”

I whipped my head around to look at the piano again. No, was the answer. From what I saw of it, not at all. She—I guessed we’d assigned a gender to it—was enormous. The real-estate term would be well loved. Paint flaked away from every surface, which were more pockmarked than the moons, and I couldn’t be sure all the keys were there.

“Does it even play?” I asked. “Or is it like, a fixer-upper type job?” Maybe this nine-foot fire daemon’s hobby was refurbishing pianos and giving them a new lease of life.

“Nah, that doesn’t matter. I don’t care if it works. I just needed the heaviest piano the guy had. Absolute bargain. Eighty silvers. Got the idea off this old black and white cartoon. There’s this dog and this fox, right, and the dog is an idiot. It’s meant to be ripping apart the fox, but the fox is always so wily and always besting it. One time, the fox pushes a grand piano out of a window onto the dog. Right on top of him. Lovely sound it made. Like, CLANG! CLANG-brUNG! I wondered if that’s the sound they actually make when they fall from a four-storey window onto someone’s head.”

“Gods, what?” I needed to make myself smaller. Six-seven was way too conspicuous. “I thought you said it was a treat for Helena?”

He wiggled in his seat and started teeheeing to himself, like a schoolboy drawing willies in his class text book. I didn’t need to know. Didn’t want to ask. Should definitely not ask.

“You’re not …” No, that would be stupid. So, so stupid. “You’re not going to drop a massive, and I mean massive, grand piano on this Helena person?”

Jasper snort-laughed. “Yup. Can’t wait. The bees didn’t work. This’ll teach her.”

“Uh …” Shut your mouth, Sonny. “You’re going to murder her?” Please say no. Please say no.

“Well, I’m certainly going to try,” Jasper said with another bark of laughter. “But she can’t actually die. There’s only one way to kill that bitch, and it ain’t gonna be with a fuck-off piano. Ehh, she might have a week-long migraine. If we’re lucky. But she’ll be fine.”

Oh, gods. Oh, gods. Oh, gods. How did I fall for this trap? Claude says jump, and I say off which fucking cliff?

I started to memorise turnings. Left, left, straight for about three miles. Another left. A hair pin right. I pulled out my phone, brought up the maps app. Nothing loaded.

“There’s no signal out here,” Jasper said. A grin eased all the way across his face.

“Is... is there any signal at Stinkhorn Manor?” Because if not, I was definitely not on my way to see Claude. How could he email me with no service?

“Depends. On whether the house likes you or not. Or whether it wants you to communicate with the outside world. It hates me, probably because I’m always trying to burn it down.”

“Sure,” I think I said. Squeaked maybe.

Me:

Go ahead and call the cops. By the time this message gets to you, I’ll be hellhound fodder. My dying wish is that you find someone to continue my research. My lab comp password is Mushrooms4Eva!!

“You’re awfully pale and sweaty,” Jasper boomed. I didn’t know if he’d read the text over my shoulder, or if it even mattered at this point.

“I’m a magpie fae. I’m always pale.”

“Hey, listen, I’m gonna be real upfront with you here. I was gonna pick you up and leave you in the woods at the foot of Mount Agaricus.”

Shit, called it.

“But you’re just so small and cute and helpless, and I can’t do it. I may be a daemon, but I’m not a monster. You’d have been fine, by the way, if I’d’ve done that. There’s nothing there that could eat you. Well... there’s probably nothing. It just would have taken you a few days to get back to the station, and by that time you’d have been so pissed off with the whole thing you wouldn’t have bothered with this Stinkhorn mushroom ritual.”

A thousand thoughts, emotions, and responses flitted through my mind.

You would have let me get eaten by a bear?

Why?

What the hell is going on?

Is Claude even at this house?

Are you lying?

Am I still gonna end up in a ditch?

What part of this situation is real?

Is any of it real?

Am I dreaming?

Was it the Stilton I ate on the train?

What I actually heard—and ended up focusing on—was Stinkhorn mushroom ritual.

Stinkhorn mushroom ritual!

“Wh-what’s this ritual?” I asked, my heartbeat kicking up a few gears in anticipation of his answer. He’d said mushroom magic. Mushroom magic plus ritual sounded like a fever dream. Or a lottery win.

“Nobody knows. That’s why you’re here, no? I reckon it’s a sex thing.” Jasper twisted the truck left onto a long, winding gravel drive. “Here now.”

I lifted my head as the property came into view, silhouetted against the morning sun, and I think it was at that moment I gave up. My nightmare shifted into one of those dreams where everything was so fucking weird even in my sleep I knew I was dreaming.

I was back on the train, tucked up in my narrow little sleeper cabin with my soft cotton duvet, complimentary CrossRealm slippers, and pillow mint. I’ll sleep in too late, miss the stop, ride it to the end of the Kingdom of the Fae, get straight back on it, and return to Remy. Fuck this whole Claude thing in the bin.

Maybe that was all part of the dream, too. Maybe I was still on the roof with Goldie, and this was some kind of extremely vivid high. Maybe I was still at Mash’s, passed out on his balcony with cute-but-meh Josh. Maybe I drank from the yellow plastic keg after all.

But at the same time, I knew I was in the right place. That this was Stinkhorn Manor. Because the building that rose from the ground in front of me resembled a flush of approximately thirty stinkhorn mushrooms, each one between forty to one hundred feet tall. It was surprisingly beautiful. And okay, yes, it looked like a bunch of enormous cocks, but wow, what a fascinating place.

Had it been built? Designed to resemble fungi? Or was it organic? Did it sprout from the earth? From mother nature?

I wanted—no, needed—to study this place.

At a soul-deep level.

Jasper cut the engine of his truck and leaned right over me. His wing brushed against my chin and I accidentally sucked in a lungful of smoke—acrid and slightly sulfuric. He opened my door.

“You getting out my truck, kid, or you gonna help me rig this piano up outside Helena’s room?”

“Yeah... Um.” Without another word, I hopped the five or six feet to the ground, grabbing my holdall from the footwell. Jasper sped off farther down the drive, the passenger door swinging wildly.

The next time I looked up towards the property, two childlike blonde fae stood in the entranceway.

“Hi, you must be Professor Daye,” one of them said, racing up to me, arm outstretched. “My name is Oggy. I use she, her pronouns. This is my companion, Willow. They use they and them.”

“Wow, you’re sentry fae!” I said, shaking Oggy’s hand, my earlier encounter with the surtr seemingly a distant memory. Sentry fae. I couldn’t believe it.

“Yes, we are,” said Willow. “We’re the custodians of Stinkhorn Manor.”

“Of course, yes,” I said, taking Willow’s hand now and pumping it. “This would explain why Claude said the breakfast here is phenomenal.”

“You hear that, Ogs? Claude reckons your breakfast is phenomenal.”

Oggy’s cheeks pinkened, and she scuffed the side of her shoe against the stone.

“So, Claude’s here? Like, he’s really here?” I sounded desperate, and yeah, I was. I just needed to know it was actually him who’d summoned me and not another weird acid-trip hallucination or bad-cheese dream.

“Sure, he’s right—”

“You’re Professor Daye?!” came Claude’s unmistakable, and remarkably on-brand, pissed-off voice as the man himself appeared in the doorway.

My heart flip-flopped in my chest, and a swooping, impending-doom feeling churned my stomach. He hadn’t been expecting me. He’d obviously assumed I’d be someone else. A woman, perhaps. That might explain Jasper’s disappointment on my arrival. I felt like I was balancing on the edge of screaming and lashing out or turning in the opposite direction and heading back to the station.

All those emails he sent. He thought he was talking to someone different this entire time.

“I am highly anticipating your arrival.”

Not my arrival, though. Someone else’s. Someone wholly not me.

Claude continued to drive in the knife. “How has this happened? I’d never have agreed to this had I known you were Professor Daye. This can’t be—”

I held up a flattened palm to stop him in his tracks, puffed out a breath, scrubbed a hand down my face. “Yep, you know what? I don’t need this.” I slung my holdall over my shoulder, turned on my heels, and made my way back down the drive.

I managed five steps before something stopped me. Not my conscience or my duty or anything else intrinsic, but physically. I physically could not move my feet forward. It was like they’d been glued to the gravel.

“Don’t go. Please don’t go,” one of the sentry fae called out, chasing after me. It was Oggy. “Please.”

“I know Claude is a little cranky,” said Willow. “But he’s all we have, and without him... and you... we’re fucked.”

Oggy gasped.

“I’m sorry, Ogs. I never meant to curse.”

“It’s okay.” Oggy cradled Willow’s cheek. She turned to me. “Stay, at least one night. We’ll do everything we can to convince you to stay long term. We could show you to your room—”

Willow put their hand up and spoke in a hushed whisper. “That, uh, might be a risky move. Depending on whether it likes him.”

“Good point,” Oggy whispered back. I didn’t know whose benefit the lowered voices were for; I could still hear everything they said. She turned to me again. “There must be something you like that will pique your interest? Do you like books? There’s a vast library somewhere in the house. Video games? Pretty sure there’s an arcade. Kink? There’s definitely a sex dungeon. Though we should keep you out of Mr Dupont’s direct line of contact. You especially don’t want to be caught in the crossfire.”

“He mentioned a Helena?” I said. The sentry fae’s eyes widened. “So, this dropping a piano on her head... is foreplay?”

“He’s going to do what?!” Oggy yelled, but evidently it was a rhetorical question because the next moment she dropped to her knees and closed her eyes. Her mouth moved over silent words and I realised she was praying.

Willow’s tiny hand closed over my forearm. “What about gardening? We have acres and acres of land begging to be... cultivated? Farmed? Tilled?”

Instantly, every ounce of my attention snapped to Willow. “What kind of gardens? Flower gardens? Are they walled? Allotments? Is it pasture?”

“Yes, I believe they are all those things,” they said.

And suddenly, I could move my feet again.

When I turned to look at the grand front doors of the property, Claude was nowhere to be seen.