Ondine (18 page)

A
couple of hours after the horrible and soul-destroying family meeting, somebody tapped lightly at Ondine's bedroom door.

‘What?' she moaned, not even bothering to disguise the misery in her voice.

‘It's only me,' Melody whispered. ‘Can I come in?'

‘I'm grounded. I'm not allowed to have friends anymore.'

Melody came in anyway, and closed the door behind her with a soft click. ‘I heard about what happened. It's awful.'

As she stepped closer, Ondine noticed the girl had a floppy, leather-bound notebook in her hand.

‘You'll have to narrow it down. It's
all
awful,' Ondine said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. ‘Hamish
turned back into a ferret, Cybelle hates me, I'm grounded, and my parents can't afford to pay for the classes I want to do because they want Belle and Chef to get married. Be careful Ma doesn't find you in here – she'll ground you too.'

‘She can't ground me,' Melody said.

‘Nah, you're right, she'll just ground me twice.' Ondine sighed. Pitifully, with all the pathos she could muster, she said, ‘I know why they call it grounding – because it grinds you into the dust and makes you give up hope.'

‘Then I came just in time. Look what I found.' Melody held out the book for Ondine to see.

It looked soft and old on the outside, and inside the pages had handwritten notes, except for the ones at the back that were left blank.

‘It's someone's diary. But it's hard to read because the writing's all scrunched up,' Ondine said.

The diary pages had a freshness about them, as if it had been sealed up in the dark somewhere for a long time.

‘I think it's Old Col's,' Melody offered, her eyes
opening wide with wonder.

‘Where did you find it?' Ondine tried to make out the scrawled handwriting. Squinting didn't work. She held the pages further away from her face. That didn't work either. ‘It's all just scrawl, page after page of it.'

They looked at the pages in silence, trying to make sense of the bunched-up lettering. ‘Where did you find it, Mel?' Ondine asked again.

‘Um . . . Look at this page, I think I can make out what it says.'

Avoiding the question confirmed Ondine's suspicion. ‘Did you steal it?'

‘Oh no, I would never steal,' Melody said, making a crossing movement over her right breast.

‘The heart's on the left side.'

Hastily, Melody made a crossing motion over her left breast before confessing, ‘It came to me in a dream.'

Ondine's jaw fell open in shock. ‘You went into Old Col's dreams? How did you do that without her knowing?'

For a moment Melody found something interesting
to look at on the bedspread. ‘I'm getting pretty good at it,' she admitted.

‘Not good enough,' a strong voice said from the doorway.

They both looked up to see Old Col standing there.

‘You really must be more careful with your dream-catching, young lady,' Old Col said, walking in. ‘Honestly, it was all I could do not to burst into a fit of giggles. I haven't seen anyone that cack-handed since . . . well, Howser never was any good at it, and now she's passing on her mistakes to you. Come on, make room on that bed for an old lady, I need to rest my bones.'

Too shocked to question their instructions, the girls moved apart and made room for Old Col between them. The woman took her sweet time lowering her frame to the bed.

‘If you knew Mel was in your dream, why didn't you hide the diary?' Ondine asked.

‘Because this way was much more fun,' her great-aunt said, and added a wicked laugh. ‘For a girl who's grounded, you sure got a lot of company. Shambles, you can get out from under the bed now.'

Confused and stunned, Ondine picked her feet up and folded them under herself, then peered over the edge of the bed to see Shambles slink out from underneath. ‘When did you get in there?'

‘Sorry, Ondi. I was going to say something . . . but . . . well . . . it would have been rude to interrupt,' he said. For a ferret, he looked a bit sheepish.

‘Right, Mel, pay attention,' Old Col said. ‘This is my diary, and I let you find it, because I am old and I get my fun when I can. Naturally, you can't read it because I wrote it in code. Shambles, Ondi, this concerns you both because I've got the spell I used on Hamish in here somewhere. Right, let's find the page I'm after . . .' She licked a wrinkled finger and stabbed at the page corners to turn them over. ‘Getting close now, hmm, no, can't read that out, that's private, OK, next page, no, that's private as well.'

This went on for some time, and Ondine couldn't help fidgeting and wondering whether anyone else would walk past and notice all the people in her room. She darted a quick look at Melody and saw that she, too, was fidgeting.

‘Now it gets interesting, I've just met a handsome young laird called Hamish McPhee, and he's utterly charming.' Old Col lifted her eyes from the diary and glanced at the ferret. ‘That would be you then.'

A weird feeling overcame Ondine. She wanted to know everything that had happened between Hamish and Old Col at that fateful debutante ball, but at the same time she wasn't sure she really wanted to know. Or at least, she knew she wanted to know, but it felt awkward knowing that Old Col would know that she knew. And Melody too.

‘Found it. I thought Hamish wanted to court me, but he's not interested, just like all the oth– . . . um, let's see what else I've written.'

Ondine could have sworn her great-aunt was blushing. What had she nearly said? It sounded suspiciously like ‘all the others', which meant exactly what?

Maybe she hadn't been an old prude her whole life. Then another, scarier thought pinged across her brain. If she turned Hamish into a ferret for messing up her debutante ball, what else was she capable of?

‘What others?' Hamish stood up to his full height
(which wasn't very tall) and put his hands on the equivalent of where his hips should be if he were a man. ‘How much others have you turned into like me?'
⁶⁰

A tingling sensation stole over Ondine's skin and she silently thanked Hamish for asking the question she dared not utter. This could get very juicy. They just had to stay quiet and let it unfold. Now, if she could just find a way to let Melody know about shutting up, they could –

‘You mean there are others like Hamish?' Melody blurted out.

Too late!

‘Do you want to hear the curse or not?' Old Col said, her voice sounding testy as she scanned through the pages. ‘Because I can very well take the diary and go.'

‘Please stay, Aunt Col,' Ondine begged. ‘We need to hear the curse so we can figure out how to reverse it permanently.'

‘You girls remind me so much of how we used to
be, Birgit and I. We were good friends – we used to do everything together. I'm not sure how, but as we got older, we started to get pretty competitive. I had my gifts, she had hers. When Hamish came on the scene, our competitive streak turned to jealousy. We should have known Hamish had a mind of his own, but each of us thought we could control him. I . . . gosh, I can't believe I did this, but I cast a spell on him just to drag his sorry self to the debutante ball in the first place. He was such a handsome man. Quite turned my head. Ah dear, the things we do. It seemed so important then, but in hindsight, vanity got the better of me. Just once, I wanted to feel like a princess. Birgit was so much better looking than me, y'see. But
I
had Hamish on my arm for the ball.'

For a moment the old woman batted her eyes as if she might be crying, then she righted herself and kept going.

‘Everybody was looking at me, and I felt wonderful. Birgit was furious and said she'd never speak to me again. But it didn't matter at the time because I had Hamish. Only, the enchantment started to wear off
because alcohol and free will have a stronger pull than magic. I wasn't to know that at the time, having never touched the stuff until that point in my life.
⁶¹
If I'd just let Hamish have his say beforehand, he might have partnered me anyway. But you see, I was too jealous of Birgit. I wanted to make sure I had the best date. So I made him think he wanted to dance all night with me. Except he came to his senses soon enough and knew I'd tricked him.

‘Not even the strongest magic in the world can make people do something they really don't want to do. Hey, Hamish?' Col looked at the ferret on the floor.

‘Sorry, Col. I wes pretty young an' stupid meself at the time.'

Old Col wiped her eyes and flicked through the book. ‘Right, the curse, let's see . . . oh, here it is . . .'

‘You revolting little weasel.
How dare you break my heart?'

‘It's not one of my better ones.' Old Col absently scratched her face.

Melody looked confused. ‘It doesn't even rhyme. I thought all spells had to rhyme.'

‘That's just what Birgit Howser would have you think. Don't worry, it gets worse.' Old Col cleared her throat to read the next part of her curse.

‘You can stay like that for all I care.
You're all the same, you lot.'

‘See, I completely destroyed the metre as well. Put that down to the heat of the moment, I guess,' she said with a shrug.

‘That's it? That's the curse?' Melody asked.

‘Told you it wasn't one of my better ones, although it's lasted longer than I thought it would,' Col said.

Ondine rubbed the patch of skin between her eyebrows to help her think. ‘So, if he's been a ferret all this time, does that mean you don't care? Is that what it would take to get him back?'

Old Col closed the book. ‘I'd best get out before
your ma finds me in here and I get grounded too.'

‘I'm still in the room ye know, ladies. Can we get back to the issue of how I get back to me regular self?'

They all looked at Shambles. He cleared his throat. ‘I hev a theory. For most of the years I've bin like this, nobody could hear me. But now people can. The curse is wearing off, so it is. I've reformed since Ondi took me in, truly I have. Surely that's enough to make ye care?'

‘I do believe you have, Hamish,' Old Col said. ‘I swear to you, I do care, and I have lifted the curse. You've had a glimpse of the man you once were, and can be again. The rest is up to you.'

At her great-aunt's words, Ondine couldn't help thinking about the glimpse she'd had of the man Hamish could be. And That Beautiful Kiss. It was the kind of sense-memory that stayed with you.

Shambles looked up at Ondine and their gazes locked.

Please be human again, Hamish.

Please kiss me again, Hamish.

 

60
In times of great stress, people's grammar often flew straight outs the windows.

61
While it's true Colette Romano did not drink alcohol until she was nearly twenty-five, she made up for it pretty quickly after that.

A
s it transpired, Ondine's ‘grounding' was not the usual kind. She was isolated in her room for most of the day, but her parents allowed her out for kitchen duty when they had customers. Considering they had customers nearly all day long in the bar and dining room, things didn't feel that much different from her normal life.

For the rest of the day, Shambles kept his distance, but she told herself that was because he didn't want to cause more problems or get her into trouble. To add to her punishment, hardly anyone talked to her, the dark looks Cybelle gave her notwithstanding.

They were incredibly busy that night. Ma set Ondine to work in the front dining room instead of scrubbing greasy dishes. There she stood, pencil and
paper in hand, ready to walk into a room full of people, grinning to herself.

‘I'll be fine.' She stepped out into the public arena and took the orders from table six. It was Mrs Howser's table, and she'd invited some friends to dine with her. They wanted the set menu. Too easy.

‘I can do this,' Ondine said to herself as she headed back to the kitchen to give Chef the details. The beautiful smells of the busy kitchen invaded her senses, but she ignored her growling tummy as she gave her table's order to Chef.

Her voice cracked, making the word ‘six' sound a lot ruder than it should have. ‘Four sit meals for table sex,' she said.

Any moment now searing heat would pour up her neck and face.

Huh? Nothing. How strange.

For a man who had every right to be furious with Ondine, Chef Henrik looked pretty calm. ‘Thanks.' He took the note and stuck it to the metal stove-hood with a magnet.

‘Right.'
Keep going on with work and act as if
everything is completely normal
.

Down the other end of the kitchen, Melody stood with her sleeves rolled up, washing plates.
⁶²
Ondine rolled her eyes. Her parents had even got her friend working!