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⊹ Book 1 of the Aldergrove Duology ⊹
After being told he has only six months left to live, Clementine decides to track down his sister's murderers, leading him to Aldergrove Academy, a place...
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Clementine didn't stay with Elliot and his friends once they'd reached the infirmary. Not only did being in there remind him of what he'd seen the night Molly had died, but he had something much more important to do.
In his room, he pulled out a trunk from beneath his bed and opened it. There wasn't much inside—after all, he never really owned many things other than the clothes he'd worn every day. He rummaged through the spare shirts, the extra blazer, and past the books that lay within. Once he located a mortar and pestle, he slammed the trunk shut and sat cross-legged on his bed.
He took the small mushroom from his pocket and placed it into the mortar. Then, just as he'd seen his sister do, he started crushing the fungus with the pestle. At first, the mushroom fought against the pressure of his motions, but after a few more grinds, it cracked, and its texture became something quite like jelly.
The smell was atrocious—like a decaying corpse in a room of old, mouldy cheese and rotting fruits on a humid summer day. Clementine gagged, wishing he had more than two hands so that he could cover his mouth and nose. But he pushed through, grinding the fungus down until it was a strange mushy mixture of putrid grey.
For a moment, he stared at the mixture. Anette would challenge him to see who could down theirs first—she always won. It tasted much worse than it smelt, and Clementine wasn't as wilful as his sister had been when it came to foul smells and putrid tastes. But he'd learnt a little trick. He pulled open the drawer of his nightstand and took out a small box of spiced crackers. He checked the date, and luckily, they weren't yet stale. Then, he took two of the palm-sized crackers out, poured the mushroom mix onto one, and placed the other over the top, creating something of a mushroom-cracker sandwich. He placed the mortar and pestle on his nightstand, leaned back against his bed's headboard, and took a bite out of the crackers.
He grimaced in revolt as it crushed and sloshed around inside his mouth, but it could be worse. The rosemary crackers were muting just enough of the foul cheesy-rotten fruit taste for him to quickly gobble the entire thing down, and once he was done, he snatched the glass of water he'd earlier prepared and started gulping it so fast that it spilled down his chin.
It was over—for now.
With a sigh of relief, he laid back in his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He wanted to spend the day in bed while he waited for the ceraroot to relieve all his symptoms of deterioration, but he needed to get to class. If he missed it, he was sure that would arouse suspicion. Not only that, but if people suspected he was alone in his room, they might come searching for him looking for an easy kill. Of course, he knew he wasn't an easy target, but he didn't want to have to spend the day defending himself when he'd already spent his morning fleeing a beast out in the murky forests.
