A Very Solicited Lecture on Soil Health

Claude

On the one hand, the storm water had annihilated one of my favourite brown suits, but on the other hand—quite literally—Sonny had touched me. Several times.

It was magical and I couldn’t get the scent of him out of my nostrils, even now, after we’d returned to our rooms, showered, and had dinner.

I was pretty sure my crush on him was reaching dangerous levels, but I didn’t have the slightest fraction of an idea how to stop it. It seemed the more time I spent with the guy, the more I questioned everything I understood about being a reclusive, misanthropic, loner shroom fae.

A teacup now sat on my coffee table, with a bunch of dry tea leaves in a neat little heap inside. Tomorrow we were going to do some indoor practice. I agreed, primarily because I didn’t fancy getting soaked again and ruining another suit. Sonny suggested alternating the days between the ley lines and my room with the teacup.

I’d never made a secret of my dearth in glamour, but I’d always assumed admitting not knowing even the cup trick would be awful. Akin to confessing I didn’t know how to ride a bike, or swim. These were basic skills every fae should be able to do before their one hundredth birthday—should be able to do without thinking. It should have been embarrassing, but I felt relief when I told him. Like ripping off a plaster. Painful at first, but airing the wound to let it heal.

That was all Sonny’s doing. My instinct was to be enraged by the suggestion of learning child’s magic, to run in the other direction, but with Sonny next to me, nothing felt impossible. He had this calming energy about him. Like his bedtime allotment talks, there was something about the guy that soothed me. Soothed my nerves, my embarrassment, my soul.

I hadn’t realised how much stress and tension I’d accumulated worrying that the ritual would be something requiring glamour.

Now that Sonny had promised to hold my hand through the lessons—again, literally—I felt... okay. I felt okay. Like I could get through it. Like it might be a slog, because I hadn’t known of any other fae who’d had to learn teacup magic in adulthood, but Sonny would be there. He would be helping. And he didn’t scoff, or make fun of me, or try to pull my pants down in front of my entire grade-three class.

“I don’t know how to drive,” Sonny said, making me startle. I turned around and realised he’d been watching me stare at the teacup. “I have about eighteen bachelor’s degrees, and I’ve never learned to drive. It scares me. The thought of the road and being in control of a machine that has the potential to take someone’s life. I’ve never fired a gun either. Even on a range. And I never want to. What I’m trying to say is, it doesn’t make you less of a person because you don’t know how to do something a lot of other people take for granted.” He absently tugged at the hem of his sleep tee. A once black but faded to grey thing with a worn screen print of a poop emoji and the text, Shiitake Happens .

Gods, he was adorable.

Was I too old for him? There was a one hundred and forty-four-ish year age gap between us. Maybe I was too out of shape. He was so tall, and lean, with that youthful, superfast metabolism. My hand found my tummy over my PJs. Sonny’s eyes tracked the movement. Maybe I was just not... cool enough for him. He worked at a uni. I bet he was having frequent encounters—sexual ones—with the other cool young people he worked with.

Shit, I was staring at him now, and spacing out. I shook my head at the thought.

Sonny must have mistaken my internal crisis for one related to magic lessons. “It’ll take as long as it takes. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve already spoken to the dean, and she’s agreed I can host my lectures remotely via video cam, and my colleague, Mash, will take on most of my seminars—”

“Won’t you be needed in Remy for your students?”

“Not especially. My students aren’t learning anything new. They’re second years, mostly putting together proposals for their research projects. But they have months to finalise those yet. Besides, they have my number if they need me.”

Wow, now I was jealous of his students as well.

“So, aside from the looming solstice, there are no deadlines nipping at your heels. We’ll figure this out together.”

I had to turn away from him, because I was having more reactions. This time, behind my eyes, and a weird lump had formed in my throat. “Thanks,” I said, attempting to insert as much nonchalance into my tone as possible. “I appreciate it.”

“Let’s start tomorrow. After breakfast.”

“Sounds good.”

“I might have to go to town, or ask Jenny for some more supplies if that’s something it can do?”

“What does he need?” Jenny asked.

“Oh, there you are. I was beginning to think you’d taken a vacation,” I said to Jenny. “It says, what do you need?”

“Clothes, mostly. Jeans, shorts, underpants, pyjama bottoms. I only have these train ones you gave me”—he tugged at the fabric around his thighs—“and I really ought to wash them.”

With that, two, three, four neat stacks of laundered clothes shuffled into piles on the couch. Sonny walked over to them, plucked a pair of jeans from the top and unfurled them next to his legs. “Oh, my.” He thumbed through the rest of the clothes. “They’re all second-hand, well, except the underpants. How did it know? Thank you.”

“Because I can see his soul. Tell him he’s a dumbass,” Jenny said.

“I would never,” I replied.

Sonny frowned at me, but seemed to understand I was talking to the house, not him, because he didn’t ask questions. He took a clean pair of PJ pants—green and gold tartan—into my bathroom and emerged a few minutes later wearing them. They fit his ultra-long legs perfectly. His bare feet poked out at the bottom.

“My ankles are so toasty,” he joked.

You look cute. I bit back the words. Gods, that would be so inappropriate. But he really did. So fucking cute.

We ascended the spiral staircase and climbed into bed on our usual sides. I flicked the lamp off. Jenny stayed quiet, sleepy perhaps. We’d already developed a routine, and something about that small observation made my insides ache. I tried to remind myself that I was happy in my central Remy basement flat. I was happy alone. No one to tell me what to do, or fight with over what to watch on the telly. No one to tell me what to eat, or call me gross, or a slob. No one to up and disappear in the middle of dinner, leaving me wondering if they would come back this time.

No one to start conversations when I really wasn’t in the mood to talk.

Which, to be fair, did not happen as frequently with Sonny as I thought it would.

Or at all, come to think of it. I seemed to always be in the mood to chat to him. How odd.

“Sonny?” I snuggled down under the duvet, turned half onto my side so I could gaze at the highlights of the moon on his features.

“Truth,” he replied.

“Actually, I was going to ask if you wouldn’t mind telling me about the paper you’re working on.”

He sat up, pulling at the duvet. “Really? You want to hear more about that?”

“Yes.” I tried to keep emotion out of my voice. Tried to keep it as professional as two guys sharing a bed could be. “It’s probably useful to the ritual. I think your research and my responsibilities are linked, somehow. That’s why the house brought you to me.”

“I agree. I feel like they are one and the same,” he said, his voice bordering on a whisper. He scooted back down under the covers. “Okay, so prepare yourself. This is long and quite boring, and if you fall asleep while I’m talking, I don’t blame you.”

“If I fall asleep, I apologise. I’ll hear the rest tomorrow, or the next day, or however long it takes for you to explain it all.”

Sonny sucked in a wobbly breath. “I’d love to. So, my paper is essentially a follow up from one I published a few years ago about fostering favourable habitats for the sexual selection of monokaryotic mycelium.”

“Gods,” I said, proving I was amongst his peers with my devastating wordsmithiness. I didn’t know which to focus on first, the fact I understood the words separately but not combined, or the term sexual selection. “What’s the name of the paper?”

“That’s it. Fostering Favourable Habitats for the Sexual Selection of Monokaryotic Mycelium . Academic articles tend to be rather to-the-point.” The sheets rustled. The moon bounced off the curve of his cheek as it arched into a smile. “But I really enjoy the triple alliteration in that title.”

“What journal—is it journal?—was it published in?”

“Yep, journal’s the right word. It was published in the EHK’s —Eight and a Half Kingdom’s— Society for Biological Sciences journal.” I heard the pride in his voice. “It’s a—no, it’s the most prestigious journal for my type of work. I’ve had a few papers published in other journals, ones that specialise in mycology, but if you want the wider scientific community to sit up and pay notice, you need to get the big boys’ attention.”

“It’s more well respected?”

“Not necessarily more well respected, just that typically what happens in mushroom world stays in mushroom world. The EHK Society has such a phenomenally wide reach, that if you make it there, you’ve made it everywhere.”

Sure, that made sense. “Will your next paper be published in the same journal?”

Sonny shrugged. “At the moment, no. I have nothing concrete. I know a lot of science is based on speculation, but I don’t even have any speculative ideas. Only the notion that ancient shroom fae glamour has the potential to be the biggest conduit for sexual—uh, mycelium reproduction we’ve ever seen. After all, it built this house, no? It could change everything. Solve so many problems. Malnourishment, crop production, famine. It could restore ecosystems. Reverse greenhouse gases. Reforest the planet.”

“Wow,” I said, as I let the gravity of Sonny’s words sink in. “You can change the world through soil health?”

He laughed, loud and brilliant, and threw himself onto his side, grabbing my arm. “Yes! Yes, exactly.”

Now I understood. Now I got it.

Sonny was the epitome of good. Tireless, selfless, incredible. A hero. A saviour in scruffy trainers and holey jeans and graphic print T-shirts.

And then a lead weight dropped in my stomach.

“I need to come clean,” I said in a whisper.

Sonny’s smile fell in an instant. “What is it?”

“I’m acutely aware that once we figure out this ritual—if we figure it out—you won’t be able to include it in your paper because of the shroom law stopping us... stopping me from talking about it.” I winced, braced for impact.

“Oh, gods, is that what you’ve been worrying about?” He actually laughed. “I got the feeling you were holding something back from me. I’m already well aware, though.”

“But . . . how can you . . . ?”

“How can I be so calm? How can I carry on with the research knowing I’ll never be able to share my complete findings?”

“Well, yes.”

He laughed again, and this time I swear I felt the warmth of him reaching out to me like tendrils. “Because the purpose of my paper is merely to prove the existence of the connection between shroom magic and soil health. Once I can categorically say, ‘Yes, it exists , ’ I leave myself open to further funding opportunities to explain the glamour in more depth. The paper’s not about the how, it’s about the why.”

“And forgive me, the EHK Society will publish a paper about archaic shroom magic without detailing what that magic involves?”

He shrugged again. “We’ll see. That’s my dream. But I’m willing to settle for a lesser subscribed, more specialist paper if that’s the case. The research is far too significant to keep to myself.”

“Your dream is incredible.” I slipped farther under the covers. “My dream, comparatively, is crap. Was crap.” I mean, I didn’t even really have one. My dream was to exist exactly as things were. To achieve nothing grand or revolutionary. To alter nobody’s life but my own.

“Thank you,” Sonny said. “What was your dream?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“It’s embarrassing?”

“Embarrassing doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

“Aw, you can tell me. I won’t judge you.”

I already knew he wouldn’t judge me. He was Sonny. Sonny was not at all inclined to criticise others. We were so different.

Regardless, I screwed up my face because saying it through clenched muscles would make it easier. “Before I came to Stinkhorn Manor my dream was to get a bigger telly, and buy some expensive chai tea.”

I peeled my eyes open one at a time and found Sonny staring at me, a curious expression on his face. One I couldn’t quite place.

“Sometimes having realistic dreams is much more important than having pie-in-the-sky fantasies about saving the Eight and a Half Kingdoms.” He was always going to say something stupid and lovely like that. “So, you achieved those dreams? Or they’ve changed? What’s your new dream?”

“I guess I’ve achieved them. Jenny has given me a huge telly, and Willow and Oggy have the nicest chai lattes I’ve ever had the pleasure of drinking, but...” I shrugged, not sure how to answer his last question.

“No new dream?” Sonny asked, his voice laced with sorrow. I shrugged again. “Does that make you feel sort of hollow?”

“Yeah. I guess it does,” I agreed.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s okay to not have a dream. There’s nothing wrong with not having a dream. Besides, things change so often, I’m sure you’ll find something.”

“Tell me more about your paper,” I said, because I was dangerously close to telling him I already had. Found something, that was. A new dream.

“Okay. Since my second article is a follow-on, let me tell you about the first.” He smiled again, and I closed my eyes.

And I listened as Sonny explained the most favourable conditions for mycelium reproduction, and how humans and fae alike were poisoning the soil with artificial fertilisers and chemicals, intensive crop production, over-farming, soil-surface exposure, the burning of trash and fossil fuels, too much digging. He described a bunch of ways that we could counter this. No-dig gardening, lactic-acid bacteria (whatever that meant), compost tea (if I heard him correctly), diversifying the microbes, indigenous microorganisms (again, whatever that meant), worms worms worms, his pee-bale.

At which point, because I was over-sleepy and feeling somewhat childish, I developed the giggles.

“All I’m saying,” Sonny said, between his own bouts of laughter. “Is you put the goodness back into the soil and nature will take care of the rest.”

“The goodness that comes from your body?”

“Exactly.”