Ondine (13 page)

‘Where is Shambles?' Mrs Howser asked.

‘H-he's around here somewhere. He's fitting in really well,' Ondine said, making bland conversation while she tried to work out whether Melody and Mrs Howser appearing meant everything else in the dream would happen. The moment she had some free time, she'd take down those horrible fairy lights. Surely, if they weren't there, the rest of the dream couldn't come true?

At that point, Ma and Old Aunt Col came in. Ondine took the initiative and made introductions, pulling up more chairs to accommodate them, all the while trying to find an excuse to leave. As soon as she could get out to the garden, she could sabotage her earlier work.

‘We've already met,' Aunt Col said, giving Mrs Howser a stern look. ‘Been a while, Birgit. Still glomming round the camp, gazing at tea leaves?'

‘Hello, Col. Still spitting acid, I see?'

It was physically impossible for Ondine's eyeballs
to pop out of her head, but it felt like they were about to, such was her shock. ‘Um, Melody, why don't we go out to the beer garden and help with the decorations?'

If these two old biddies wanted to trade insults down memory lane, she'd rather not be around to see it.

‘Oh, it's just like the dream!' Melody said with delight as she saw the lights strung up between the trees. In twilight, the effect wasn't very good, but when the sun set in a hour or so, they would look just like fireflies.

A heavy sense of dread choked Ondine's throat as she pulled up a chair and removed a strand of lights from the nearest tree branch. ‘No, it's not! Melody, what did you do? I woke up and nearly puked, I was so sick with fear. Why did you put that bit in about Shambles dying?'

Now it was Melody's turn to go pale, leaving nothing but contrasting brown freckles on her face. ‘But I didn't. We were in a field of fireflies and I said we were coming to pay a visit. Shambles
wasn't even in it. He's not sick, is he?'

Confusion time. ‘Are you sure?' Ondine rolled up the cables.

‘Yes, absolutely positive, I promise,' Melody said.

Ondine took a few deep breaths to steady her nerves. There was no point even trying to think with all this adrenalin racing around her body. It made her tremble and want to cry and yet she felt strangely hungry all at the same time. She needed a clear head so she could think about a rational answer, not turn into an emotional wreck.

So Melody had not dreamt of Shambles? At last, a positive sign! Things were looking up. If all of Melody's side of the dream came true, no dramas there. Just as long as Shambles's part didn't come true.

‘It's OK. I've got my wires crossed. Let's get the rest of this set up. We should keep busy out here so we can stay well clear of the two witches inside, don't you think?'

Melody giggled.

There were tablecloths and piles of plates and cutlery to set out for that night's party, so they set to
it.
⁴¹
Ma had planned the evening to coincide with the full moon, so they'd have plenty of natural light to add to the mood. Work proved a welcome distraction, and before long they had the place looking very inviting.

‘Ondi, maybe . . . maybe I crashed the dream you were already having,' Melody suggested as she placed knives and forks at each setting.

‘Yeah, that could work. I mean, hey, it was just a dream, right?'

‘Well, of course. Sometimes a dream is just a dream. It doesn't have to mean anything,' Melody said.

The object of their concern came bounding out into the beer garden in a streak of dark fur, his mouth full of food. ‘Ondi, ye've got to try Chef's new meatballs, they're to die for,' Shambles said. Actually, what he really said was ‘O-fi, oof ot oo iy eff's ew eetaaals, ere o ie or' because he had a mouth full of food.

‘Weh hey!' In a blaze of black fur, he leapt on to the top of the last un-set table and skidded along the surface, the tablecloth bunching up at his feet.

The girls laughed at Shambles, even though Ondine should have been cross with him. But she couldn't be, not when he might be leaving soon with Aunt Col. She wouldn't let them end things on an argument.

‘Aw, I messed up yer table,' Shambles said, surveying the damage. ‘I'll fix it up for ye.' With that, he gripped the edge of the fabric in his teeth and walked backwards across the surface, dragging the cloth with him.

From the other end, Ondine held the edges in place, smoothing it out and making it ready.

‘Thanks, Shambles, you're a great help,' she said.

Suddenly, with a yelp of shock, the ferret dropped backwards off the edge of the table, dragging the tablecloth down with him.

‘Shambles!' Ondine screamed, racing towards him.

He lay there, a lump underneath the fabric, moaning in pain.

‘Oh, my darling, I'm so sorry!' Ondine cried. She didn't need to look around to know Melody was
standing behind her. Ondine pulled the tablecloth back to reveal Shambles's head and give him some fresh air.

Shambles groaned even louder. ‘Oh, the pain!'

‘He can talk! Great heavens! Shambles can talk!' Melody said, amazed.

‘You heard that?' Ondine's heart picked up speed at the revelation, yet there was little time to explain it all. If she thought Melody being able to understand Shambles was a shock, she had an even bigger one coming.

As he lay groaning and writhing on the ground, twisting and turning under the tablecloth, Shambles grew to twice his size and his face fur matted together, forming skin. The long whiskers retracted and his head began to bulge.

‘I'm dying!' he cried out to Ondine. ‘Bring me whisky, I'm dying!'

The dream. That horrible dream!

‘Mercury's wings!' Ondine cried as great wet tears splashed down her face and on to Shambles's writhing, deformed body. ‘You can't die, Shambles! I won't let you!'

‘I'll get Mrs Howser,' Melody said, and ran back inside.

‘Oh God, oh God,' Shambles groaned, ‘I'm goin' tae boak.'
⁴²

‘No, Shambles, you'll be OK. Melody's getting help,' Ondine said, although what help anyone could be at this present moment escaped her. On the other hand, a witch had got him into this mess; maybe a witch could get him out of it? Confusion scrambled her brain. She couldn't think what to do – she'd never seen anything like this before and didn't even know how to start helping him. All she could do was stand back as Shambles kept growing and expanding under the tablecloth. Moaning and groaning about the state of his gelatinous body. All the while his face pulsed and wobbled. A horrible thought made Ondine feel ashamed for even thinking it. What if his face set like that?

‘There's the light,' he said, ‘it's calling me, I have tae go tae the light.'

Fear making her tremble, Ondine looked in the
same direction. Her horrible dream was about to become reality. As she turned her head, she felt her stomach lurch as a white light shone on her face. A moment later, blessed relief coursed all through her body. ‘That's not the light, Shambles. That's just the full moon, you bampot.'

When she turned to check on Shambles, her breath hitched in her throat. He'd stopped thrashing about, stopped moaning and groaning. Now he was shivering.

And completely human.

The next surprise came straight after the first, as Shambles looked up at Ondine. Far from looking like a bucket of twisted shoes, his face could have belonged to a movie star. He was even more handsome than Lord Vincent. With a shock of black hair and a dangerous gleam in his green eyes.

And he was glorious.

Heat coursed through her body and her tongue turned to sandpaper as she tried to swallow. Something flip-flopped in her belly. Thank heavens for the tablecloth, because from the looks of things, he didn't have a patch of clothing on.

Ondine's pulse hammered freshly in her ears.
I'm going to have a heart attack before I make sixteen
.

‘I'm nawt dead,' Shambles said at last.

Despite her concern for some modicum of decorum, a smile broadened her face and happiness bubbled in her veins. Heavens above, her dream had been wrong. Way wrong.

Those devilish green eyes stayed fixed on hers, while a lopsided grin added a mischievous gleam. Suddenly she averted her gaze and dropped her lashes so she could study the ground.

‘I'm nawt dead,' Shambles said again, louder this time as he turned his hands back and forth in the moonlight. Then he wrapped the tablecloth around his middle, stood up and shook his head in amazement. He took a step closer and cupped Ondine's cheek in his palm. Heat seared her face. ‘The dream didn't come true.'

‘The . . . the . . .'
The dream? He knows about it?

‘You're not dead by a long shot,' Old Aunt Col said from the doorway, making Ondine and Shambles-Hamish turn quickly to see they had company.
‘But if you lay a finger on my grand-niece, you'll wish you were.'

Indeed, they had an audience, including Ondine's mother who, from the shocked look on her face, had seen quite a bit too.

 

38
Sit Nice. Instruction for children to behave, used sparingly if at all, because of its negligible value in teaching children anything. More often used as a precursor to a smack. As in, ‘I told ye tae sit nice and ye didnae. (Smack!) Now stop crying and go to your room.'

39
Often spoken in comfort, but just as often not, depending on tone, e.g. ‘Oh, did ye drop yer wee bottle of ginger and it's all splished away? Ach, dry yer eyes.'

Compared to: ‘Ye fell out the windae and got a compound fracture? Ach, dry yer eyes.' Closest modern equivalent is ‘Suck it up and get back to work.'

40
Not completely blank, obviously, otherwise her vital functions like breathing would stop. But the thinking part of her brain shut down.

41
It may seem short notice to be having the engagement party so soon after Josef discovered his eldest's intentions. However, just as Ma had kept a good secret from her husband about Margi and Thomas, she'd also kept the party secret, only telling Josef that morning that it was on. Her reasoning was that if she didn't tell him until the last minute, it would be too late to cancel it.

42
Vomit. A lot. Usually after drinking. A lot.

I
t was Ma who came to her senses first, ordering Shambles-we-should-call-him-Hamish-now to go inside and get dressed. She gave him some of Josef's old clothes
⁴³
so he could dress properly. Tablecloths are only fashionable for attending a toga party, and this was not such an occasion.

‘I look like a waiter,' he said, as he came back to the beer garden.

At the sound of his voice, Ondine turned and looked to the ground because she'd become used to
Shambles approaching from a low vector and racing up her leg. But of course he wasn't a ferret any more, he was a real man.

Old black leather shoes, scuffed and somewhat curled up at the toes, came into view, then an expanse of black socks capped by the hems of his pants. Something made her stall over the hem, because she didn't want to look up any further, knowing what a furious blusher she could be.

‘Sure, the pants are too short, but they're better than the tablecloth,' he said, taking a step closer to Ondine. ‘Ye can look up, lass, ye won't turn to stone. Yer ma says she's made me look nice.'

If she'd known the word ‘smitten', Ondine would have used it to describe herself when she looked into Hamish's face. Those green eyes glistened in the moonlight, making them seem dangerous, while his shock of black hair lay flat on his head, smoothed down into submission with gel. Ondine's palms itched to mess it all up again, as her face burned with fresh embarrassment.

What a man!
If she'd thought Lord Vincent was
attractive, Hamish was off the scale.

To her deep, cringe-inducing embarrassment, nothing came out of Ondine's mouth, because she found herself thinking,
You look gorgeous
. But she didn't know if she'd actually said it out loud or not.

At that point, Cybelle walked past and made kissing noises as she headed back to the kitchen, shattering Ondine's illusion that they were the only two people on the planet. Everyone else in the garden looked at the two of them as well: Mrs Howser, Old Col, Melody, Ma and Marguerite.

Then Ma spoke up, ‘It's all hands on deck tonight, people will be arriving for dinner soon. Hamish, head to the kitchen and help Chef and Josef, they're run off their feet. Ondi, it's not your engagement party, it's Margi's. Roll your sleeves up and get to the sink.'

Just like her mother to double-book the night. She probably figured with all the extra guests, she could rope some of them into waiting tables.

‘Yes, ma'am,' Hamish said, and gave Ondine a look she couldn't read – although she felt something flip over in her belly – before he turned and left.