The Trip Sitter

Claude

I left my hand between us again that night, and the next few nights, in case Sonny happened to reach out with his. He never did. I wondered if I should make it more obvious to him, but a part of me worried he already knew it was there and pretended not to have noticed.

Sonny had shakshuka for breakfast, which he let me try. It was almost delicious enough for me to reconsider my usual triple portion of eggs royale. Then after our meal, we came out to the paddock. Sonny foraged for liberty caps while I stood over the tablet at the ley lines and tried to summon anything. A lightning strike, a rain cloud, a thunderclap. Hell, at this point I’d be happy with a gust. Didn’t even need to be a williwaw. A little floosh of wind would be nice.

I’d been there for about an hour and nothing dramatic had happened so far. I had been hoping my earlier success would have spurred me on, but over the past week, something seemed to weigh me down. I had a feeling it had everything to do with a serpent shifter and the terrible house survey.

Every now and then, Sonny would pass through the line of trees in the distance. He’d said the best place to find magic mushrooms was in grasslands and where sheep had been grazing. Jenny had said there weren’t many sheep around these parts, but there was a family of satyrs that often walked in its woods. Each time Sonny passed by me, he would give a huge smile and a wave and my stomach would flip, and then I’d remember all the things and it would drop deep into my gut again.

I had given it a lot of thought—Jenny, the agent’s offer, the guest house, the ritual, my job, my so-called life in Remy, Sonny—and I was seventy percent sure I’d made up my mind.

If I managed to figure out this ritual in time to save Stinkhorn Manor and the guests, I didn’t want to return to Remy. I would stay here. In Agaricus. In the Kingdom of the Fae.

Here, I had incredible food, and chai tea on tap. An exquisitely comfortable bed. Didn’t have to worry about dry-cleaning, the magic of the house or the sentry fae took care of that for me. The air was clean and fresh. There were no filthy, piss-soaked streets, no traffic, no noise pollution. You saw the stars at night, and heard the birds and the crickets and the owls. I’d lived in the city for so long, I’d forgotten what owls sounded like. Tawny owls, lovely. Barn owls, like Satan’s own children were trying to wake the dead.

And company. I never thought I’d ever be in a position to crave company. I’d always been so happy to be by myself, doing my own thing—my puzzles, my solo little job, my complete dearth of a social life. It was only when I’d considered how moving back to Remy would expose me to all that solitude again that it occurred to me: I was lonely.

I was lonely and alone.

At least at Stinkhorn Manor I had people to talk to. I was beginning to consider Willow and Oggy friends. They were smart, and genuine, and never failed to make me smile, even if I still couldn’t tell them apart. And as much as I didn’t like Mr Dupont, Mrs Ziegler, and John, their presence certainly made the house more colourful.

And then there was Jenny. It was impossible to feel lonely with Jenny always there—watching, listening, chatting about nothing, interrogating me, casually berating me.

But Sonny wouldn’t be here, which was why thirty percent of me wasn’t sure. Thirty percent of me wanted to quit everything and simply follow Sonny around. Maybe he needed a lab assistant. Maybe he needed someone to polish his microscope—not a euphemism, but could be. Maybe he needed the companionship as much as I did.

Sonny had proper dreams, though. He didn’t dream of a bigger telly, or fancier chai tea. He didn’t even dream of money, or love, or power. His dreams literally involved saving the planet. There was no way I would ever stand in the way of them.

There was no way I could ask him to give up those things and move into Stinkhorn Manor with me...

His life was in Remy.

His dreams were in Remy.

The Eight and a Half Kingdoms’ salvation was in Remy.

Besides, none of that would even matter if we failed to solve the ritual. I’d be forced to go back to Remy regardless. But what would happen to Mrs Ziegler? What would happen to Oggy and Willow?

Into the ether.

I still needed to find out what that meant.

“Jenny, what does ‘into the ether’ mean?”

“Do you want me to wrap it up in pretty ribbons? Or do you want the truth?”

I swallowed. “Okay, give me the—”

“I found loads!” Sonny yelled, jogging over from the edge of the paddock. The way he ran was so gangly and uncoordinated. It was adorable. “There was a huge patch in the field behind this cute little grotto.” He held out his hand to show me five or six pale, leggy mushrooms. “We should go inside and line our stomachs with something stodgy before we try this.”

Without another word, I walked with Sonny back to the house. In no way was I delaying the inevitably horrific revelation of what ‘into the ether’ meant. I shouldn’t be distracting myself like that anyway, not before I was going to take hallucinogenic substances and open my mind to extreme focus. I would find out another time. Or not at all. Hopefully, we’d figure it out before then, and I’d never have to know.

We had lunch: ratatouille with the smelliest, creamiest, most delicious brie melted over it, and just-out-the-oven, fluffy, crusty, addictively moreish, white bread rolls. Then Sonny returned to his room to deliver a virtual lecture to his students. I had no idea who this Monty person was, but if Sonny didn’t trust them not to fuck up his lecture, neither did I.

I wanted to sit in Sonny’s rooms and watch him chat to his students through his laptop, but I wouldn’t have a clue what any of his talk meant. I barely followed along with his layman’s explanations at night. Plus, it was a weird thing to ask for, so I went into my room and practiced the teacup magic. Alone again.

In the three hours I was there, I’d successfully relocated the tea leaves from their little cup house to the table no fewer than six-point-two-five times. The point-two-five because one leaf jumping ship did not make a complete cup evacuation. I still had not made them swirl like a tornado, but baby steps.

“Sorry, that took so much longer than I expected. A couple of my students wanted to have in-depth discussions about their research proposals,” Sonny said after letting himself into my room around four o’clock. “Actually, some of them have very interesting insights we should look into or try for the ritual. One student is studying the effects of sound waves on mycelium.”

I raised a brow.

“Perhaps you could try singing to the tablet.” Sonny smiled. We began walking toward the paddock again, taking the route that cut through the guest-house kitchens so we could grab some snacks in case we fancied them after our trip.

“You’re kidding, right?”

He laughed, but I knew he wasn’t joking.

“Fine, we’ll try that today as well.”

At the ley lines, I spread a blanket on the ground, took my jacket off and laid it on the fabric. Sonny opened a napkin, the mushrooms he’d picked earlier in the centre.

“How many should I have? And do I just eat them?” I asked.

“Let’s start you on one. I’m more used to them, plus I microdose. And yes, you simply put them in your mouth and eat them. If you don’t want to chew, I can chop it up a bit, but they slip down quite naturally. I sometimes dry them and make a powder, or you can make a tea out of them, but I don’t have the facilities to preserve them right now, or the time, so we’ll take them like this.”

I looked up towards the sky. “Will this work, Jenny?”

Jenny affected a yawn. Pretty sure it was affected since houses didn’t have lungs. “Who can tell?”

“You. You can tell me. Will it work?” I argued back. Sonny, having heard none of Jenny’s amateur dramatics, arched a brow.

“Well, you’ll just have to eat the bloody things and find out, won’t you?” Jenny said.

“Fine. Tell me nothing.” I grabbed a shroom from the napkin and shoved it into my mouth. And I chewed. And chewed. It was spongy and earthy... kind of bitter... a little icky. I swallowed. Swiped my tongue around my mouth to catch any leftover bits, or juice, or whatever. Sonny ate two. Didn’t even chew. “How long does it take to work?”

“Anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours,” Sonny said.

“Two hours?!”

“It can do. So if you don’t feel anything for ages, don’t be tempted to take more, because you can easily overdo it. One time I took four because the first two did nothing, but all four kicked in while I was in the middle of the theatre watching Pride and Mpreg-judice: The Musical.”

“Oh, gods,” I said, unable to hold back my laughter.

“Right? Simultaneously, the best and worst trip of my life. I ended up naked on the banks of the River Rafet with my werewolf friend, Mash, who swears to this day we each had a kidney stolen, but our fae-werewolf bodies are too quick healing to know for sure. We don’t have any scars, but sometimes I get this weird ache. Right here.” Sonny pointed to a spot above his hip.

A hundred thoughts passed through my mind, but ninety percent were of Sonny naked on the pebbly beaches of Remy’s main river. And why was I extremely jealous of his werewolf friend and the bandits who may or may not possess one of Sonny’s kidneys?

“We should get comfy while we wait for the shrooms to take effect,” he said, and he lay down on the blanket, arms behind his head like pillows, his eyes closed against the late afternoon sun.

My breath stuttered. I tried not to stare at his elongated form... Let my gaze travel up his threadbare shorts, across the tiny patch of downy skin revealed at his belt... Watch his chest rise and fall with his relaxed breaths.

I lay next to him. Angled my body slightly away from his.

“What do you want to talk about while we wait for the drugs to start doing the druggy thing?” I asked.

Sonny peeked an eye open. I pretended I’d been staring at the sky all along.

“Why don’t we tell each other all our secrets?”