Page 17

Sonny

Over the rest of our breakfast, we devised a list of interview questions. Well, actually, it was a bunch of topics we felt we needed answers to that we’d scribbled on a napkin.

Things like . . .

Is the ritual something we already know how to do, or do we need to learn it?

How will we know when we have it right?

And . . . Where’s the gods-damned library?

In addition to... Can you read minds? Please say you can’t.

I didn’t much fancy being the subject of another “Let’s tell Claude all about Sonny’s masturbatory habits” discussion, especially if I was unable to hear the house and therefore unable to defend myself, so I took to the walled kitchen gardens next to the bed and breakfast while Claude went back to his room.

If we were going to be here for a couple of weeks, this place would become my sanctuary. It had everything I needed. All of my favourite tools, a pee-bale, beautiful veg to tend to, and eco-friendly watering solutions.

I filled up a watering can from a butt, and watered in my newly sown tomato plants. Of the two butts available, I chose the one on the left which had wildflowers bursting into life around the leaky tap. Difficult to tell which was from Claude’s room and which was from mine, but I’d followed the pipes with my eyes, and I was eighty-five percent sure the one I’d chosen connected to Claude’s shower drain.

I’d figured the spontaneous little meadow at the base was because of his latent mushroom magic and would hopefully give the tomatoes a little injection of glamour. I couldn’t wait to tell him I’d used his butt water on my plants.

“Can you see me now?” I asked the space at large. Really, I was speaking to the house. I didn’t expect any kind of answer—didn’t get one.

I was alone, so I used my new pee-bale for the first time. After peeing, I moved to the empty beds and began ridding them of weeds.

The climate in the Kingdom of the Fae had always been a few degrees cooler than Borderlands, and Remy in particular which sat on the southern border beside the Human Realms. KOTF got colder the farther north you travelled, culminating in icy tundras and mountainsides where only the toughest animals and mythics could survive. Agaricus—and Stinkhorn Manor—sat smack bang in the middle of the Kingdom.

Compared to Remy, there was a noticeable chill in the air. Especially without the towering skyscrapers buffering the wind, and the five walls of concrete often heating to unbearable temperatures.

But in my humble opinion, it most definitely wasn’t cold enough to warrant the thick woollen coat and hat Claude wore over his three-piece suit. The sun shone directly overhead when he entered the walled gardens, and the leather of his brogues gleamed in the light.

“Hey,” I said, straightening up from my knees and shielding my eyes from the full glare of the sun. I would need to find a ballcap at some point. Maybe I should go into town to get one. Or ask the house to magic one. I didn’t know how it worked, but it seemed like suitable compensation for watching me jerk off.

“Afternoon,” Claude replied. “I have spoken with Jenny. The house,” he added, as though I could possibly forget a giant mushroom-turreted building had asked to be referred to as Jenny. “Do you have a few minutes?”

He looked around the gardens, evidently searching for somewhere to conduct this conversation. His eyes landed on the pee-bale a few metres away from us.

I threw myself between Claude and the compostable toilet. “Don’t sit there! Yeah, no, you don’t wanna be sitting there. Like, ever.”

He narrowed his eyes at the pee-bale, then homed in on my hands, which I realised I’d braced against his coat lapels.

“There’s a picnic-type area through here, actually. In this little courtyard.” I led Claude through a one-person-wide alleyway into an informal, dusty five-by-five-metre space. The rendered walls of the property rose on each side, but somehow sunlight penetrated to the bottom and illuminated a pink wrought-iron bench. I took a seat on one end and Claude sat on the other.

“I’ve been here a week and you’ve been here for approximately twenty-nine hours and already you know of places I don’t,” he said.

I didn’t know if his statement required a response. I answered anyway. “I found it yesterday, during my explorations. Found a lot of cool little places tucked away, but weirdly, I haven’t been able to find the ones inside the house again. What did it say? Jenny, sorry.”

“A few things. Firstly.” He held up one finger like he was counting them out. “It cannot hear our thoughts. It said, and I quote, ‘I do not read minds, only souls.’”

“Read souls?”

“Those were my exact words. It said it knows every soul that steps foot or hoof or tentacle on its soil. That it can ‘see’ someone’s deepest desires and drives, and who they are as a person. But it cannot tell what you’re thinking, only what you’re feeling.”

“That’s actually fascinating,” I said. That’d be why it provided Claude with a smokeless smoking den and jigsaw puzzles, and me with a lab and an allotment and a pee-bale.

I must crave pee-bales at a soul-deep level.

“On the subject of souls,” Claude continued. “It said yours is pure, and mine... well, I have some work to do, apparently.” He turned his head from me and scratched at a spot below the brim of his hat.

I didn’t enjoy seeing Claude uncomfortable like this, but what could I say or do? I couldn’t read souls like Jenny the house, I had no way to counter this.

“What else did it say?” I said instead.

“Besides the soul reading, I asked it if it knew what the ritual was. It said yes. I asked if the answer could be found in the library. It said ‘maaaaaaybe,’ like that. I asked if it could show us the way to the library, and it said ‘in time.’”

“So, what, we just wait for it to show us the library? Or do we try out other stuff in the meantime?”

Claude shrugged. Defeated.

“I know a few mushroom-adjacent folk tales, so I guess we could start with those,” I suggested.

“Sure. Feels wrong to do nothing. I’m trying to save Jenny’s life here, and it won’t even attempt to help me.” He paused, looked up towards the courtyard walls. “Yeah, you keep telling me, ‘if Sonny and I just opened our eyes we’d figure it out.’ Yada yada. You could at least tell us if we’re getting close.” A pause. I concluded he was talking to the house and waiting for it to respond. “Exactly, like a hotter-colder scale.”

After Claude didn’t speak for a while, I asked, “What did it say, then?”

“It said no to the hotter-colder scale.”

I nodded. Wetted my lips. “So it can see us out here?”

Claude paused again. “Yes. It saw you peeing.” He leaned forward and looked through the alleyway to my pee-bale, perfectly framed in the gaps between the walls. “Thank you for not letting me sit on that.”

Well, I didn’t care if the house saw me peeing. I mean, I couldn’t stop myself from peeing altogether.

“What about the third thing we talked about?” I asked Claude, lowering my voice, because now I knew the house was listening.

He stared at me. Pursed his lips together. We both understood the importance of that particular question. A man had needs and urges, and those needs and urges required absolute privacy.

“There is nowhere on Stinkhorn land besides the B&B where the house cannot see us, and there are no free rooms at the B&B.”

“Damn,” I said. “It’s fine. I can just...” A bubble of nervous laughter escaped my throat. “Not do that for two months. I’m sure I’ve gone longer in the past.”

Claude nodded his agreement, but wouldn’t meet my eye. His freckles glinted in the one beam of sunlight that reached the bottom of the courtyard. After a few moments, he looked up at the walls again. “No, I won’t. Absolutely not,” he said to the house.

To. The. House.

It struck me then just how odd the whole situation was. Giggles began bubbling up in my chest. I swallowed them down.

“I’m not telling him that. Please, leave Sonny out of it.”

I knew I’d regret asking, but curiosity had the better of me. Claude was having a conversation with a building. About me. To which I was not privy. “Tell me.”

Claude shook his head. His eyes took on a desperate, pleading quality.

“Don’t I have a right to know? If it’s talking about me?” I said.

“Fine. But I cannot look at you while I tell you this.” Claude breathed hard through his nostrils and angled his body away from mine.

I had a fleeting second of panic, that I wouldn’t like what he was about to say, but I quashed the notion. A house was talking about me. I needed to know what it had said.

“It... Jenny, would like me to mention that you shouldn’t refrain from wa—masturbation. That it’s a healthy and natural way to relieve tension.”

He paused, as though listening for further instruction.

“And Jenny would be more than willing to provide you... us, find us a place to... conduct such matters, and any...” He scraped his hands down his face. “And any aids we may need to, uh, reach those, uh... No, he doesn’t want me to list the aids... Okay, okay. Toys, lubes, graphic novels, et cetera.” He said the last part in a hurried whisper, like he was trying to get the words out as quickly as possible. “Happy now?”

I watched him for a short while. He looked defeated, having immediately returned to his bent-backed, face-palming posture of a few seconds ago. The laughter threatening to burst free from my chest had finally made its way to the surface, and began coming out as wheezes.

“It’s a very kind offer, Jenny,” I said to nowhere in particular. “But I think, on this occasion, abstinence will be the most favourable option for all parties involved.”

Claude looked off into space and rolled his eyes.

“What did it say now?”

“Fuck my life,” Claude whispered before turning to me. I wiped my tears of mirth away on the heels of my hands. “It says we should never forget the house’s motto.”

“It has a motto?”

Claude shrugged, as though he didn’t believe it either.

“Okay, what’s the motto?”

A full two minutes passed before Claude spoke. His face travelled on a journey from scrunched-up, to full shutdown, to the deep furrowed brows of physical agony, to searching for a deity in disbelief, to a final subtle head shake of resignation.

“Amor sui vitas salvat.”

I stared at him for a good twenty seconds longer. The language was familiar. Often used in the plant world. Amor, I think, meant love. But the rest I wasn’t sure about.

“It roughly translates to . . . self-love saves lives.”

Hard to say if it was the motto, that a sentient building had relayed this information to Claude, or Claude himself adorably uncomfortable and squirming over the words, but that was the moment the floodgates to my dam of giggles burst wide open. And didn’t seal themselves closed again until we were settled down for dinner that night.