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the first girl to disappear and start the rumors about eating hearts is Howl
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howl, in a fit of drama: [deadname] is dead and i killed her
-also howl: GOD ifuckin g LOVE GIRLS but unfortunately i have to flee the moment i get attached in case they Discover my Dark Secret
-of course hes trans his name is HOWL PENDRAGON.
-i also do love the concept of him nervously explaining this to Sophie and shes like: “so… ur a girl who got turned into a man?”
and hes like “ABSOLUTELY NOT. DISGUSTING.”
sophie: “hm. ok. so u turned urself into a man with magic, bc ur a man on the inside”
howl: “MORE OR LESS”
sophie: “ok makes sense, idk why this had to be a huge production, please come down off the ceiling and shave that weird beard u grew specifically for this conversation, ur my horrible beautiful husband and beards do NOT suit u”
Oh this is TAME compared to the usual relentless Unhinged Hoopla the mycologists usually get up to.
I have had the tremendous good fortune to know several mycologists, all of whom I would trust with my life and to help me hide a body should the occasion arise but not with a Ham Sandwich. A Short List of the bullshit I’ve seen the Mycologists do:
Went out on a late-summer mushrooming expidition with some as part of a class in scientific illustration to collect samples. The scandanavians are notorious about keeping thier family mushrooming grounds a secret but in order to go up with the mycologists, we all had to be blindflded for the better part of an hour in the car as we got close, and put our hands on a copy of All The Rain Promises And More because they didn’t think the Bible was “Serious Enough” and swear to keep any educated guesses we had about where we were a secret.
I thought this was perhaps over-doing it a little, until Valerie (not her real name) waved me over to a patch of rather boring looking white mushrooms and told me, Quote: “Now, when I was a young woman*, this was a more serious issue but should you ever find someone worthy of a slow, painful death, all you need is a sliver of these. The first symptom is stomach cramps and by then it’s too late. The toxin interferes with the body’s ability to translate DNA into protiens, and once it sets in, it’s irreversible. He’ll be dead no more than five days later of liver failure.” “That’s fascinating Valerie. I will keep it in mind.” “You’re a smart G- No. What’s the word. Thing that comes out at night**. Anyway, I’m sure you can find your way back here.”
*for context, Valerie is old enough that when she was born, women couldn’t vote. Sometimes, fools have the hubris to ask her what she thinks of the Good Old Days and she tells them that it’s so good that divorce and women’s rights has become a thing, instead of ‘having to beat a man to death and blame it on the poor mule” to get out of a bad marriage.
**Valerie also seems to have confused Nonbinary People with Nocturnal Animals, but she’s not wrong.
She was also entirely correct that I figured out where the mushrooming grounds are despite the blindfold but the book oath still holds.
Anyway, back to the Bullshit .
Valerie was 97 at the time of this expidition and still hoofing it p and down the side of a mountain to identify specimens.
The trouble with being out in the CO Mountains in late summer, and ESPECIALLY in a part of the mountains that has an awful lot of high-calorie tasty things like Chanterelles and Boltetes and Morels and Puffballs is that there are other things that enjoy all these lovely fungi as well
like Black Bears.
Hyperphagic and hyper-territorial Black Bears because it’s fucking october and they are trying to get fat AND laid.
Sure enough, we’d been up there a few hours when I hear a sort of shuffling from uphill and see a rather large bear ambling purposefully in our direction.
He can undoubtedly smell us.
He does not care.
There are Boletes to be had
“Uh. Valerie.” I Interrupt her lecture on how to determine the likely age and spread of the underground fungal body of Boletes so you can tell if a patch will be there next year or not. “There’s a Bear.” She looks up to where I am pointing less than 100 feet away and shugs. “Well it’s his house first. So long as he stays over there it’s fine.” “Valerie I don’t think he’s staying there.” I say, considering if I can sprint back to the van while carrying her or if I’m going to have to file a death report with the police.
“What are you pointing at?” asks the Department Head. She is not only Finnish, but has an actual doctorate in Mycology, and much, much more unhinged than Valerie is.
“B e A R !” I say, trying to keep my voice down while conveying the appropriate sense of urgency about the fact that a 300lb and likely half-mad with hunger carnivore is headed towards his favorite mushroom patch and we are in the way.
My Department Head striaghtens up to her full 6′4″ and I swear, bristles her hair like a fucking Myazaki cartoon.
She makes a loud, harsh barking noise at it that I now recognize as the Finnish Profanity “PERKELE!” and slaps a ponderosa to show she means business.
The Bear
Stands
Up.
This is very definitely a Boar Black Bear and I’m doing a quick headcount so emergency services can bring up an appropriate number of body bags.
“Oh.” Says my Department Head.
“It’s only a little one.”
It is at this point that I remember that she is from the North parts of Finland and she has a Polar Bear Skull in her office.
As I am realizing this, she storms directly towards the bear, continuing to curse it in Finnish, picks up a stick in one hand and a rock in the other and throws the latter in a rather elegant curveball that only misses the bear as he realizes the Mycologists are back and ducks, before hightailing it up the mountain.
“He’s only a little love, there was no need for that.” Pouts Valerie.
“He would have made a good rug.” Says my Department Head.
the debate on the ethics of hunting bears on foot with rocks continues until a third Mycologist, Ralph, Discovers an Elk Skull with Mushrooms blooming out of the bone.
“Ooooh! Ossiphages! This is a lovely find!” Says Valerie, and we gather around to coo over the delicate gray caps growing along the elk’s rotted browridge.
the madness is contagious, apparently.
“Do you think your conciousness is transferred to that which consumes you after death?” Ralph asks.
“I hope so.” he continues like he has not just said something absurd and nightmarish. “Its so horribly noisy being an animal. I’d live to be an ossiphage fungus.”
We all nod in agreement. Something moves in a bush and several of us pick up rocks in case the bear has decided to make a career change into carpeting.
At one point Valerie takes a bite out of Boletus.
“Hm. Good Specimen. Needs some salt and butter.” She nodded aprovingly. “Weren’t you just telling me we have to do a cut test to see if they’re poisonous or not?” I ask, as she had in fact, juct finished telling me that.
Valerie swallows, THEN looks down at the bite she’s taken out of it.
“Well it didn’t turn purple so I guess i get to live today.” She smiles, serenely.
Anyway, Mycologists are absolutely bonkers and you should definitely go make friends with them.
[”Sometimes in late summer I won’t touch anything, not the flowers, not the blackberries brimming in the thickets; I won’t drink from the pond; I won’t name the birds or the trees; I won’t whisper my own name.
One morning the fox came down the hill, glittering and confident, and didn’t see me—and I thought:
so this is the world. I’m not in it. It is beautiful.”]
