Claude’s Pretty Things

Sonny

It was always going to feel like the end.

The main reason I hadn’t handed Claude’s possessions back to him already was because I knew, on some level, this would mark the conclusion of not only our time together at Stinkhorn Manor, but also those three years I’d spent semi-stalking him on U-Rail trains.

It felt like closing a book. Like being left on a cliffhanger, with no news of the sequel.

It was the morning of the twentieth. My taxi was waiting on the gravel drive of Stinkhorn Manor. Claude and I watched it pull up through the windows of his bedroom. I had packed all my clothes into a suitcase, which Oggy and Willow had brought down already, and had boxed up all my research notes and cultures and soil samples separately. Claude agreed to ship them to me at a later date. I’d said goodbye to the sentry fae and John, and even Mrs Ziegler after I saw her passing in the hall. And I had taken many, many slow strolls through the property, running my hands over the walls and wooden panels, remembering all the moments Claude and I had shared.

There was just one thing left to do.

I swallowed back my sob, and handed Claude the small, plastic ice-cream tub with his belongings inside. At some point in the past three years, I had taken a permanent marker to the lid and scribbled CLAUDE’S PRETTY THINGS on it. The writing was faded, rubbed away by the frequency with which I’d handled it. Could have been worse, I supposed, I could have drawn a love heart next to his name.

“You store them in this?” he said, accepting the container with a raised brow. He peeled the lid off and rummaged through the contents. “My front door key! Oh, my gosh. I’d forgotten about these pins. Fuck, I knew I didn’t lose that pen.” He looked at me, his eyes a little more watery than they usually were. “Thank you for returning them. But you keep this.”

And he placed the largest item in my palm and closed my fist around it.

The compass. The glass face glinted in the morning sun through the gaps between my fingers.

“Why?” was all I could think to say. I’d stolen from him, time and time again. I didn’t deserve his forgiveness, and especially not his generosity.

“I won’t need it here. I’m not going anywhere for a while. I’ve already written to U-Rail and tendered my resignation, and I’d like you to take it as a memento. A reminder of your time here. With me.”

Fuck, Sonny, do not cry.

“I don’t want to go!” I blurted out. Internally, I rolled my eyes. Why could I never keep my mouth shut?

Claude’s mouth opened and hung there. He knew as well as I did I couldn’t lie.

“I mean...” I blew out a breath and tried to steady my racing heartbeat. “Can I come back? To conduct further research.”

“Further research?” Claude’s expression was unreadable, but I was certain I saw disappointment flash across his features.

I nodded. I didn’t trust my flippant mouth not to say something catastrophic like, “I love you, Claude, and I’m seriously considering giving everything up to live in this bonkers house with you until we’re both doddering old men.”

Maybe I’d already overstayed my welcome.

“If that’s okay with you?” I added because Claude had been silent for an unnervingly long amount of time. “I’m not sure when it would be, when I would return. I’d need to tie things up with the article, and with uni, but I could ask the dean for a sabbatical. You can absolutely tell me when you’ve had enough of me, and I’ll leave, just like that.”

Claude swallowed. His eyes remained fixed on my face. “You’re nervous.” It wasn’t a question.

“It’s your home. I don’t want to put you out if—”

“My home,” he repeated quietly. “I would love that. You have no idea how much I’d love that. You’re welcome back any time you like. For however long you like.” His hand cradled my jaw and tilted my face down to his. He kissed me. Slow and soft.

A goodbye kiss.

The taxi honked its horn. The sound echoed through Claude’s room, slicing through the moment and piercing my heart.

“You need to go,” Claude said.

I couldn’t agree out loud, so I let him escort me through the labyrinthine corridors of Stinkhorn Manor, to the front of the property where Oggy, Willow, and John waited with my suitcase.

I said my final farewells. Kissed Claude. Resisted the near overwhelming urge to tell him I loved him. To lie on the ground and wrap my arms around his shins and refuse to let go until he carried me back into the house and fucked me into his couch and then brought me a chai latte.

I resisted, and I got into the back of the taxi.

According to the nameplate inside the cab, the driver was Paul. He was a motus fae. I didn’t bother to absorb any other information about him, or my immediate surroundings.

Instead, I watched Claude grow smaller and smaller as the tires crunched down the drive.

And then he was gone. I buried my face in my hands.

No, this was the right thing to do. I’d been working on this paper for so long. I couldn’t let a couple of months with Claude cloud my judgement.

When would I ever get the opportunity to publish in EHK’s Society journal again?

But when would I get another two months that were as perfect as those I’d spent with Claude? I’d been alive for over three-and-a-half centuries and I’d never experienced anything quite as magical as those two months.

Wait, why was I being so dramatic? It wasn’t as though I’d never return to Agaricus.

I pulled the compass out of my bag and rubbed my thumb over the face. I clicked the dial once.

Mend a broken heart.

Not just me being dramatic then. Of course the needle pointed directly behind me, towards Stinkhorn Manor.

I clicked the dial again and again. Mend a broken heart. Mend a broken heart. Mend a broken heart. Mend a broken heart. Mend a broken heart. Mend a broken heart.

“Wait. Stop the car,” I said.

But Paul kept moving forward. He made eye contact with me in the rear-view mirror. “Thought we were heading to the train station.”

Inside my head, I heard Claude correct him. “You mean railway station.” Laughter escaped my throat. Paul raised a brow.

“I’ve changed my mind,” I said. “I think I want to—”

A high-pitched screech cut off my sentence. Tyres slid along the tarmac. The taxi skidded to a stop and I was thrown forward.

Paul threw his door open and flung himself out of the car towards the vehicle that had swerved in front of us, already spewing a string of profanities. He halted abruptly when the other vehicle’s driver jumped down to the asphalt.

From the driver’s side of a monster truck.

Jasper Dupont, the nine-foot, micro-shorts-wearing surtr, stamped over to my taxi, blocking out all the sunlight with his massiveness. Jasper held both his wings and his arms out at his sides, taking up as much space as physically possible.

Paul froze. On the breeze, I caught the scent of urine. Couldn’t say I blamed him really.

“Give me the mycologist,” Jasper boomed.

“I’m s-sorry, who? Who are you?”

The fire daemon pointed a meaty finger at me, held it aloft dramatically, and Paul hobbled backwards. He turned towards me, though not all the way, choosing to keep Jasper the main target of his sights.

“Hey, sorry kid, I’m not arguing with that thing.”

“Understandable,” I said, unbuckling my belt. I slid out the door, slipped the driver a twenty despite only travelling a single kilometre at most, and fetched my suitcase from the boot.

Paul reversed away from the scene before Jasper had even tossed my bag into the bed.

“I thought your monster truck was in the garage?” I said.

“This is a rental.”

Sure. Monster-truck rental. Okay.

“Hey, your teeth are growing back,” I said. Jasper glared at me. “So, you taking me to Stinkhorn Manor?” I resisted the urge to celebrate. As much as I couldn’t wait to get back to Claude, there was something... unsettling about the whole situation.

Maybe I’d forgotten something. There was no phone signal at Stinkhorn Manor, or even out here, so if I had left something behind, there would be no way for Claude to call and tell me.

But why not just send whatever I’d forgotten with Jasper? Why dismiss the taxi and have the daemon bring me back?

“Fuck that! I’m taking you to the station,” he said instead.

Every nerve ending in my body suddenly went into warning mode. Internal alarms were popping off left, right, and centre. Danger. Danger.

I hung back in the middle of the empty street, unwilling to take a step closer to the truck until I knew what was going on. “I was already in a taxi on my way to Agaricus Station. It doesn’t matter anyway, I’ve cha—”

“I ain’t taking you twenty minutes down the road to Agaricus. I’m driving you all the way back to Onyxshire.”

Danger! Danger! Danger!

“No, I’ve changed my mind. I want to go back to Stinkhorn Manor,” I said.

“To hell you are. You’re coming with me.”

Holy fuck, he was enormous. But I forced myself to remain calm, at least on the outside. “No, I’m not going to... I need to be with Claude.”

Jasper crossed the ten-foot gap between us in two strides. “I said you’re coming with me.” And with that he picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder like a rag doll. Then he threw me into the rear seat of his truck. “I have rope and duct tape. Don’t make me use it. We’re gonna have a fun trip to the station.”

I barely had time to bleat my objections before he cut me off.

“Do you like car games?”

I massaged my hip where his spiky shoulder bone had dug into my flesh. “How long is the drive?”

“Good ten hours.”

I puffed out a breath and subtly removed my phone from my pocket. Still no signal. Damn, damn, damn.

And then it occurred to me. Claude must have known I would change my mind and want to come back to Stinkhorn. He must have sent Jasper to make sure I didn’t miss my one-time-only meeting with Dr Sorrel. “Sure. Car games are fine.”

What other choice did I have?