The Earth Bells

Claude

I checked Oggy’s vitals, made sure her airways were clear, and turned her on her side in case she threw up. Willow had regained enough sense to fetch another blanket and place it over Oggy’s tiny sleeping body. They put a cushion on the ground and sat cross-legged atop it.

“She’s in shock,” they said. “Sometimes this happens. When she wakes up, I’ll make her some hot chocolate.”

“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.”

Perhaps murdering him would’ve been more humane.

“Lord Stinkhorn, sir,” said Mr Greene. His speech was steady, robotic, even though his body was racked with shivers. “I have decided the Stinkhorn grounds are not worth the money nor time it would take to redevelop. I’m very sorry, my lord, but you are stuck with an extremely unprofitable plot of land there.”

“There we go,” cooed Mrs Ziegler. “Now leave, please, and never return.”

“Yes,” he said simply.

I turned to Jacques. “Is that it? Are you still planning on flattening the house?”

“Ew, no. I never wanted anything to do with this house, but it seemed like a perfect opportunity to visit an old friend.” Jacques took the scroll and held it in an open palm. The next second, it disintegrated into ashes. He let it pour between his fingers as though it were sand scattering in the wind. “Cam tends to have a rather unhealthy hold over some of the council members, but it shouldn’t take much paperwork to sort this out. Leave it with me.”

I simply nodded.

Jacques marched up to the sickly Mr Greene and regarded him with disgust. “Think I’d better drive this time.” He retrieved Mr Greene’s keys from his pocket with the very tips of pinched fingers.

“Honestly, it seems kinda harsh, what you did,” I said to Mrs Ziegler as we watched the convertible pull out of Stinkhorn Manor, Mr Greene in the passenger seat, still holding his own barf. “But thank you for saving the house.”

“It’s nothing more than his own past haunting him. If the guy hadn’t committed so many transgressions, he wouldn’t have been so affected. You wouldn’t, for example. I cannot see much in your life, regret wise, that you are not presently dealing with.”

Wow, okay, that was painful. And accurate.

If I hadn’t been such a miserable bastard convinced of my own lack of appeal from the offset, maybe I would’ve agreed to coffee with Sonny when he’d first asked. Maybe we’d already be a couple—in love, living together, with future plans and all sorts.

“But don’t you think Mr Greene deserves a second chance?”

“This is his second chance.” Mrs Ziegler smiled, and as usual, the blue flames danced around her lips. But this time, her smile didn’t seem so malicious. “Once you’ve seen as many atrocities as I have, you begin to learn who can recover from their mistakes and whose souls will be permanently maimed.”

I considered her words. Wondered if she wasn’t as evil as I first assumed.

But then I remembered the very pressing issue at hand. “Do you know what the ritual is?”

“Of course. I know everything.”

“But you can’t tell me, right?”

“You’ve got it,” she said with a wink.

“You don’t seem the least bit nervous that I might not figure out the ritual in time. If I don’t get it, you’ll die, will you not?”

Mrs Ziegler inhaled sharply and let it all out in one lengthy sigh. “I’ve been so-called alive for a very long time. Too long. I’m so tired. Of everything. A few more centuries on this planet might be nice, but I’m ready for either eventuality.”

A strange thought occurred to me. Jenny had said Mr Dupont was trying to kill Mrs Ziegler by destroying the house. Knowing what I now knew about Jenny, this could have been a lie, but what if it wasn’t? And what if Mr Dupont hadn’t been acting for his own interests?

What if somebody had asked him to ensure the house was destroyed?

It would explain why he volunteered to pick Sonny up from the station with the intention of leading him astray and leaving him at the foothill of Mount Agaricus. It would explain why he’d not actually harmed either of us in the past two months, despite having multiple opportunities.

He could’ve killed me in my sleep, and the house would crumble at the solstice, but he never did. Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to. Maybe this enormous, imposing, scary as fuck fire daemon wasn’t entirely a bad guy.

Maybe he was just trying to put someone he loved out of their misery.

Oh, shit. I tried to bat the thought aside. But suddenly I had the urge to run away from Mrs Ziegler in case she attempted anything.

Beside me, she sighed. “I won’t harm you. I know you might not believe that, given who I am, but you have my word.”

Super fun. She could also read minds.

She smirked at me and for some stupid, cowardly, and self-destructive reason, I believed her. Knew it in my gut she wouldn’t hurt me.

Because now I felt only an overwhelming sadness for her.

“I know you can’t tell me about the ritual, but can you tell me how Sonny is related to it?” I asked. It felt like my final stab.

Mrs Ziegler thought for a moment. “Do you remember when I first met you by the ley lines?”

I nodded... Brought back the memory of Mrs Z calling my mother a cock sleeve, of eating all of Mr Dupont’s bees, her hand flickering in the sunlight. In real life, she laughed.

“I saw him in your thoughts... Sonny. He’s not vital to the ritual, but... I saw the potential there. I told Genevieve... Jenny about him. Made sure the house knew who to summon.”

“Oh,” was all I could say. So I had Mrs Z to blame-slash-thank for falling in love.

“You’re welcome,” she said with a laugh. “I meant it when I said I know everything. Nobody can tell you what the ritual is. You need to find someone who can show you.”

“But I thought—”

“Claude, come on. Surely you know already, nothing is as it seems here. There’s a grotto, northeast of the forests beyond The Night Cap. You will find them there. You will need this, as payment.” Mrs Ziegler unzipped the front of her bumbag and retrieved a fist-sized, pearlized cowrie shell. It was beautiful.

“Wait, them? Who do I need to find?”

But I already knew. And I was already running at full pelt towards the whereabouts of the grotto.

.

I searched for an hour—two, three—it was impossible to tell. I hadn’t worn a wrist or pocket watch this morning and had left my useless phone on the coffee table. The sun’s position in the sky was my only guide. But here, in the midst of the Stinkhorn forests, the canopy was so thick, I often found myself walking for several minutes before I spotted a clearing large enough to catch a glimpse of the sun. Going by my estimate, it was midafternoon. Three maybe. Possibly four.

There was still no sign of the grotto, though I imagined it would be pretty well hidden. seemed to be a secretive species. I had lived at Stinkhorn Manor for two months now and I’d never seen so much as a glimpse of tiny mushroom folk. Not a strange little noise, not a footprint—did they even have feet?—not one sign they also lived here.

I began marking trees—every fourth or fifth trunk—with the juice of some unidentifiable purple berries I’d found, so if I’d already been through this patch, I would be able to tell at a glance. And I continued walking.

That compass would probably have come in very handy right about now. I also regretted not bringing any drinks or snacks. I paused again to check the sky, now cloudless and blue. The conditions were at least in my favour, even if time wasn’t. At the very latest, it was early evening. Five, at a push.

I spotted a stream ahead, and I quenched my thirst by scooping handfuls of water to my mouth.

And then I heard it. A high-pitched squeak from somewhere behind me. I whipped my head around. There was rustling, but I couldn’t see anything.

“Hello?” I called out.

No response.

I felt like a fool. “Hello, Earth Bells?” Please don’t be a bear or a lion. Or Mr Dupont.

More rustling, but I saw nothing.

“Please, I need your help.”

Still nothing.

“I have a gift.” I held out my hand, palm splayed, cowrie shell in the centre.

A squeak. Then another. Then ten, twenty, thirty more squeaks, and a mushroom shuffled along the forest floor in my direction.

A fly agaric, to be precise. A typical “toadstool” type. It was about twelve centimetres tall, with a wide, white-dotted red cap, and frilly white gills. I slapped a hand over my mouth to trap my surprised squawk as the tiny mushroom folk waddled closer towards me.

It tilted its cap up and smiled.

“Oh,” I said. I was still on my knees after my drink, so I spun around to it. It had a little face and arms and legs, and was absolutely beguiling. “Hello, are you an Earth Bell?”

It blinked at me. Its tiny cheeks turned pink. Then, in the distance, I saw red polka-dotted caps popping up from everywhere.