The Ondine Collection Read online

  Opening the back door, the pungent odour of fried meats and old beer greeted them.

  “Aww, that’s the good stuff.” Shambles took a noisy sniff.

  “Ondine! What are you doing home?” her mother called out from the hallway.

  “Hi, Ma, you look great. Have you lost weight? I love your hair.” Her mother looked as plump as ever, but her new burgundy-brown hairdo skimmed her face and made her look thinner. Flattery ought to put her in a good mood. Just to be on the safe side, Ondine adopted what she hoped was a pleading look on her face. “I . . . I got homesick so I came back.”

  Ma stopped mid-stride, mouth open, when she saw the ferret on her daughter’s shoulder. “Heavens above! What is that?” She pointed to the ferret with one hand, while the other patted the ample bosom above her heart, as if the beating organ might leap from her chest.

  It called for quick thinking on Ondine’s part, because her mother could be either furious or happy about the situation.

  “He’s really tame. Please, Ma, let me keep him?”

  But Shambles was having none of it. “That’s the one!” he cried out, finally finding his voice. He scurried down the back of Ondine’s vest. “That’s the witch!”

  Chapter Two

  “I am not a witch,” her mother said. “Ondine, is there a man just out the back door? With a Scottish accent?”

  A sick little feeling settled in Ondine’s stomach as she took in her mother’s pale, shocked face. “You heard him?”

  “Yes, I did hear him, and he called me a witch.” Then the crease in Ma’s forehead relaxed and the tension in her shoulders fell away. “And, by the way, it’s lovely to see you.” She moved forwards to embrace her daughter. Around her neck she wore three gold rings with rubies set in them. They flashed in the light as they bounced and jiggled. Just as Ondine thought they might hug, her mother’s shoulders hitched again and her eyebrows shot up. She must have seen the ferret. “Ondi, I didn’t expect you back so soon, but you can tell me why later. We’re run off our feet – I could use another pair of hands. Good thing school doesn’t start back for a few weeks yet otherwise I’d be in real strife. You can fill me in on Summercamp later. Right now I need you to tell me what that ferret is doing down your back.”[13]

  “OK, Shambles, the jig is up, off you get.” It wasn’t easy, but Ondine contorted her body and pulled the reluctant critter away from the middle of her back. “Ma, meet Shambles. Shambles, this is my mother, Colette.”

  “Naw, lass, hide me!”

  “What?” Ondine exclaimed.

  “Run for yer life!”

  “Stop wriggling, Shambles! What on earth’s wrong with you?”

  So much had happened in such a short time, Ondine felt sure she must be running on pure adrenalin.

  It was left to Ma to break the tension. “Bless my soul, a talking ferret! Ondine, is this your familiar from Summercamp?”

  Ondine then explained the true situation. Ma laughed loud and hearty, making the rings around her neck jiggle and jump.

  “I know who you are, Shambles,” Ma continued. “You’re that weasel what slighted my auntie and ruined her presentation! Hamish McPhee, the Laird of Glen Logan.”

  Stunned amazement turned Ondine mute for a second.

  Shambles piped up, “The witch who turned me is yer auntie? Nawt ye? But if yer all wrinkly, she must be double-wrinkly . . . or dead, no?”

  “You’re well suited to being a ferret, Shambles.” Colette wiped tears of mirth from her eyes. “My auntie Col is eighty-five years young and in perfect health, I’ll have you know.”

  It was a case of mistaken identity, on account of the fact Ondine’s mother bore such a striking resemblance to Ondine’s great-aunt (as Shambles remembered her). They both had the same short stature, plump faces that smiled a lot, deep brown eyes and dark hair.[14] Ondine too had inherited most of those features, except she was already taller than her mother (or perhaps Ma had started shrinking?). The fact that Ondine’s ma and great-aunt had the same first name only added to the confusion.

  “Aw naw, aw naw! I’ve lawst tha will tae live,” Shambles bellowed. “If she’s eighty-five, what does that make me? I must hae been a ferret half a century then!”

  “You’re old enough to know better, even if you haven’t aged in ferret form. You’re the same age now as you were when you were turned.” Colette picked up Ondine’s case and lugged it towards their family quarters. “My auntie warned me about boys like you, and she was right, you’ll never learn. You’re lucky you’re still a ferret, otherwise I wouldn’t let you near my daughters. Given your taste for the sauce, I shouldn’t let you anywhere near the bar either.”

  Yikes! Ondine better not tell her Ma about how much time Shambles spent in her room at Summercamp. Then another thought flickered through her head – A laird, eh? I wonder what lairds look like?

  “So, can we keep him?” Ondine asked. “I mean, it wouldn’t be fair if we set him out on the street. He can sleep in the laundry. I’ll make him a bed in there.”

  “Are you a good mouser?” Ma asked, as she gave Shambles a serious looking over.

  “Sure, why d’ye ask? Have ye a wee gun and holster for me?”

  “You’ll keep,” Ma said with one arched brow, then steered them towards the stairs. “Sorry, Ondi, we’re full up and I’ve had to rent out your room on account I didn’t think you’d be back for another fortnight. You can share with Cybelle for now.”

  “Oh, Ma, not again,” Ondine said, unable to stop the whine in her voice. “Cybelle snores.”

  “And I’m sure she’ll be delighted to see you too. Come down for breakfast and bring Hamish the Shambles with you when you’re done. We’ll have a family meeting to remember.”

  When Ma was out of earshot, Shambles whispered, “Why does she wear those rings around her neck?”

  A dry grin crept over Ondine’s face. “It’s because she’s working with food all day – it’s not hygienic.” The absolute truth? Her mother, having borne three children, had grown too big for her baubles.

  WHAT MA PROMISED, SHE delivered. The entire family squeezed around the breakfast table, watching Shambles snaffle sausage after sausage. All the while he made lickety-sloppity-chompity noises as he ate.

  “He’s so ugly! He looks like a strung-out rat,” said Marguerite, the eldest at twenty-one and a quarter. Marguerite would know about ugly, being so far removed from it herself. She had inherited the best of her parents’ looks. Deep brown eyes framed with long lashes, tidy arched eyebrows and glossy brown hair that waved and curled in just the right way and always looked neat.

  “But he has a . . .” Ondine nearly said “lovely”, but even she couldn’t bring herself to say that. Instead she settled for, “cute . . . personality.”

  “The health inspector won’t like it, not after we had rats this winter,” Ondine’s father, Josef, said. “So you’d better keep him under wraps until you can find a new home for him.” Josef stood out amongst the sea of brunettes, having turned completely grey. His eyebrows, however, had not. They remained stubbornly black and threatened to join in the middle like two furry caterpillars fighting over a leaf.

  “But he’s her assignment,” Ma said. “He’s Ondine’s new familiar – it’s all part of the program. He has to stay otherwise she’ll fail the course.”

  Those comments – otherwise known as outright fibs – made Ondine’s jaw fall open in shock, before she shut it in a hurry. If Da knew Shambles was a real lad, he would throw him out. Ma had also side-stepped the issue of Ondine quitting Summercamp two weeks early.

  Da was annoyed. “I paid good money for that place, and they send them home as part of it? I want a refund.”

  “I’ll look into it,” Ma said in her most soothing tone.

  “Go along with it. I’ll nawt protest,” Shambles whispered between mouthfuls.

  The sight of wet food chunks falling out of Shambles’s gob on to the table provided Ondine with an idea. She shovelled her meal into
her mouth, to prevent having to talk or answer questions with anything more than a nod or shake of the head, lest she spray her family. If Ma did all the talking, Ondine didn’t have to tell any lies . . . as such.

  The middle daughter, Cybelle, who was nineteen, added to the fray. “He can sit on the piano while I play in the evenings. He can guard the tips jar with those nippy little fangs of his.” As a performer, Cybelle also kept herself very neat. She was lucky enough to have dead-straight hair, cut in a bob with a thick fringe.

  If Ondine hadn’t had a mouth full of food, she would have told Cybelle she liked her new eyeliner, and could she borrow it please?

  “Excellent. That settles it.” Ma looked happy with herself. “OK, meeting’s over, we all have work to do. Ondi, you and Belle are on laundry duty, Margi’s in the kitchen with me on food prep, Josef, check the bar supplies. The Plütz Appreciation Society is coming to lunch.”

  The PAS was a band of men and women dedicated to damaging their stomachs, livers and kidneys in the most pleasurable way possible. They arrived as ladies and gentlemen and left as purple-lipped human debris, leaving an enormous mess behind them. However, they also left the hotel a sizeable pile of cash for their troubles, so they were always welcome to return.

  “I’d better get a stiff broom too, so we can sweep them out before the dinner crowd turn up,” Josef said, rising from the table. As he passed Ondine, he paused and kissed the top of her head. “It’s lovely to have you back.”

  “So, ye cannae hear me then?” Shambles said to the man of the house, making Ondine hold her breath for the answer. But no answer came.

  How odd that her mother could hear him, but not her father. Perhaps only women could hear Shambles – or maybe only relatives of Aunt Col? In that case, why hadn’t Cybelle or Marguerite heard him either?

  That’s the trouble with ferrets. Just when you thought you had them figured out, they managed to surprise you.

  AFTER CHECKING OUT his new digs in the laundry, Shambles had no intention of catching mice or rats or anything else that might bite him back. Instead, he spent the late afternoon hanging around the kitchen door, catching food scraps Ma and Ondine threw his way.

  He was in a pub, and that meant there was beer to be had. But how? The family wouldn’t let him near the ale taps and he couldn’t very well sit in full view of the public, because – he remembered with a shudder – drunks loved to shove him down their trousers.

  Ditching Cybelle’s plans to sit him on the top of the piano in the dining room, he slunk through the shadows into the front bar. The noise hit him like a wall, with every table full, and everyone talking at once. In the far corner, people played darts and shouted out their scores. The scent of hops and barley filled his senses, making him light-headed. In places, the carpet was so sticky he had to wrench his paws up to keep moving. Another problem was avoiding clumping great human feet.

  He hid under a table in the darkened far corner. It wasn’t so noisy over here. Three men sat hunched over their frothy drinks. One squeezed lemon juice over a bowl of hot chips, then shook pepper over them. The powder went everywhere, falling like grey snow over Shambles’s head, making his eyes water. It was a warm night, and he envied how people could take their jackets off to cool down. Being stuck with a fur coat, he didn’t have that option. Instead, he licked his legs to cool down. The air felt so thick and humid, he could almost taste the beer with each grooming lick, along with plenty of pepper. All his efforts achieved was wet fur. There had to be a better way to cool down. A plan took shape in his head. When the drinkers at the table above him went to the bathroom, he’d dash up on to the table and help himself to their dregs. A nice drink would hit the spot.

  Only, it didn’t quite go to plan, because what the men talked about at that table made his insides scrunch up. The more Shambles heard, the more he wanted to crawl up the closest trouser leg and sink his fangs into soft flesh. That would teach them a lesson! But the longer he delayed any course of action, the more he heard, and it was damning stuff.

  Which only made him want to hear more.

  When the men did eventually get up, he saw their scuffed boots heading towards the front door. There was nothing for it, he had to follow.

  IT WAS GOOD TO BE HOME, despite the work – or maybe because of it. Ondine loved feeling useful, and she felt very useful in the kitchen, helping make meals, taking food to tables and sharing jokes with the patrons. The more she smiled, the bigger the tips. Even the mean ones could usually come around – and if they didn’t, no harm done, they’d be gone in a few hours.

  Tonight, the dining room resounded with chatter and music, with Cybelle on piano taking requests and Marguerite in the bar pouring the beers with Josef. Their father kept track of the money and also made sure the tipsy patrons kept their hands off his daughters. With her shiny hair, previously mentioned deep brown eyes and not-previously-mentioned Cupid’s bow lips, Marguerite was the looker of the family. Exactly why Josef kept her closest to him.

  “It’s not his fault he’s so uptight,” Ma said to Ondine in the kitchen.

  “How did you know what I was thinking?” Sometimes she’d swear her mother was the psychic one. Maybe Ma should have gone to Summercamp instead?

  “He thinks all men are lecherous drunks, but he can’t help it because they are what he mostly sees. I try and tell him there are some good ones out there; that he’s not the only decent man left in Brugel. But it’s falling on deaf ears. Right, here are the meals for table eleven, out you get.”

  Many people would find the truncated and many-threaded conversations confusing but Ondine was used to them. She made her way to the table and placed the food down.

  Across the dining room, a woman screamed. “Aaaaaaaaahhhh! A rat!”

  Not again! Ondine’s heart sank at the thought of rodents infiltrating the rooms. Just as quickly, her spirits lifted when she saw the blur of long black fur.

  “It’s all right, everyone relax. It’s just my pet ferret,” she said, scooping Shambles off the floor and on to her shoulder. She stroked the top of his smooth head. “He’s very clean and harmless. I apologize for the disruption.”

  Time to get away before things got out of hand. How stupid of Shambles to be scurrying around the dining room! They’d be sure to get another visit from the health inspector after this.

  “You are in so much trouble, Mister!” Ondine hissed as they made for the family’s private room on the other side of the kitchen.

  “Hear me out, lass, there’s merdah afoot and I came tae warn ye. I heard them plotting the whole thing. I followed one of them; man’s got a head like a guiser’s neep. We have tae warn the Duke.”[15]

  “What’s going on?” The voice belonged to Ma, who’d heard the commotion and followed them out to the back room. “Why was Shambles running around the dining room?”

  “He heard people plotting to kill someone.”

  “Aye, I did! They were in the front bar, drinking their courage and plotting their evil against the Duke of Brugel. I know where they live. We have tae take action, before it’s too late.”

  Ma threw her hands skywards. “I can’t abandon a full house!”

  “But Ma, someone’s going to get killed!” Ondine said.

  “OK, OK. If what you say is true, Shambles, then you’re right, the Duke needs to be warned. Ondine, I’ll get your Da and the two of you can warn him.”

  “The three of us,” Shambles corrected.

  “What do you mean the three of us? I can’t leave, we’re only halfway through dinner,” Ma said.

  “Naw. I mean I’m goin’ with Ondi and Josef. I’ll tell them everything I heard as we go – it will save time,” Shambles said.

  “But what do we tell him?” Ondine asked. “How do we explain to royalty that a ferret told us about a murder plot?”

  “We’ll tell him you overheard the plot, Ondi, while you were tending tables in the bar,” Shambles instructed.

  “But . . . but . . .” Confusion bubb
led in her veins and sapped her brain. Never in her life had she felt so out of control, and that was saying something for a girl with two older sisters who lived in a pub.

  “Hurry lass, there’s no time to lose. Do you want the Duke’s blood on yer hands?”

  Chapter Three

  How they reached the Duke of Brugel’s city domain that night isn’t important, but what they said to him when they got there is, so we’ll pick up the story from there.[16]

  “It’s so big,” Ondine said as they approached the gates of the Duke’s domain.

  Big didn’t even come close. Humongous would be more apt.[17]

  Ondine let Josef do all the talking at the security gate, then a sentry walked them across the vast gravel expanse towards the side entry. The looming walls and dark shadows sucked all the warmth from the summer’s evening. Ondine’s breath came in short bursts and her feet ached. As they walked along the cavernous hallway, the echoes of their footsteps reverberated in her ears. No ordinary tiles on this floor. She marvelled at the intricate mosaic work and wondered how many years it had taken to make it. A cool chill settled in her neck, despite Shambles wrapping himself around her like a stole. For his part, Shambles remained as still as it was possible for a ferret to remain still, so the Duke wouldn’t notice how alive he was.

  They entered a large room and waited. The Duke cast an imposing figure as he arrived, dressed in a suit and tie, and took a seat at the other end of the room. Standing so far away from him, Ondine felt small and insignificant. The sentry put his hand out to let them know they were not allowed to step any closer. From such a distance, Ondine could see very little of the Duke, except his silvery white hair, which curled back in soft waves from a pronounced widow’s peak. He had the classic Brugel split moustache, which is shaved at the philtrum, and a narrow goatee, which he stroked thoughtfully.[18]