The Ondine Collection

by Ebony McKenna

  THE NEXT DAY THEY STILL didn’t have reliable power, so they burned candles for light, boiled water in an old gas-top kettle and bought the newspaper instead of listening to the radio or watching television.

  The main story in the newspaper featured the “gallant” Lord Vincent coming to a distressed woman’s aid in Savo Plaza.

  The rest of the pagers were filled with stories of looting and the hospitals being overrun with patients presenting with a viral strain of magic they were calling Ant Flu Hn26. Named not because it was spread by ants, but because it was marching all over Europe like ants on a discarded box of cheeseballs, across Brugel, Craviç, Slaegal and even Wallachia.

  Ondine, Old Col, Hamish and Melody were down one end of the kitchen, reading the newspaper and talking over the events of the night before.

  Henrik and Cybelle were at the stoves, cooking breakfast, making extra for Melody so she could get back to full strength.

  “I think it’s safe to say Vincent has magic and a PR company helping out,” Old Col said. “There’s no way this happened by chance.”

  “The Ant Flu?” Ondine asked?

  “Not that, the bit with Lord Vincent being in the right place at the right time.”

  “Aye,” Hamish agreed as he took a plate of food from Henrik. “Vincent and Howser have tae be in this together.”

  Ondine’s appetite was back as she guzzled her scrambled eggs on toast. “How do we compete? We try and make her popular by putting up posters, which costs us money; he gets in the papers for free.”

  “Why are you helping Anathea?” Melody’s brows crinkled.

  “She’s goat me papers,” Hamish said, scratching at his beardy half-ferret face. “We help her hold on to the throne, she helps me stay here and not get deported.”

  “Oh,” Melody said.

  “Yeah, Oh,” Ondine said. “And it’s getting us exactly nowhere.” It was hard to look at her lovely Hamish, what with him being stuck mid-transformation. Old Col should be helping more on that front. In fact, Hamish should be doing his best to transform back and forth and fix himself.

  Unless he couldn’t? A thought which made food stick in her throat.

  “Forgive me for asking, but,” Melody’s voice took on a placating tone. “why do you want to help Anathea? Aside from making sure Hamish doesn’t get deported.”

  “Because she should have been duchess all along!” Ondine said, unable to stop the whine in her voice. “And if you got to know her, you’d know she’s really nice and she’s concerned about people, and she’s a darn site better than Vincent.”

  “Are we done with politics?” Cybelle asked.

  “For now yes,” Ondine said, feeling incredibly glum about the mess they were in and their lack of progress.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Melody said as she accepted another plate of food from Cybelle.

  Everyone looked at her.

  “You’ve got me!” she said with a huge grin. Then she grabbed the last two sausages from the serving dish nearby and ate them straight off her fork without putting them on her plate first. “And thank you so much for breaking the link. I can’t tell you how good it feels to be free.”

  “You’re looking better already,” Ondine said, “and – and I don’t want to put a dampener on our celebrations, but how are we going to help Anathea win hearts and minds when Howser and Vincent have all the resources and magic and loads of money?”

  “Too easy.” Melody beamed with confidence as she accepted a plate of scrambled eggs from Henrik. “Howser’s been linked to me; I’ve been linked straight back to her. I know all her secrets.”

  Hamish hugged Melody with glee.

  A stab of jealousy caught Ondine by surprise. “What sort of secrets?”

  “All of them,” she replied. “Her spells, and her stratagems for Vincent. It’s all in here,” she said, tapping the forked sausage to the side of her head.

  Hamish must have seen Ondine’s face because he backed away from Melody a little. Which only made Ondine feel more awful.

  She shovelled in food to block out these new, nasty feelings. Hamish still looked too ferrety from his half-transformation last night.

  Would he be stuck like that forever?

  The lights flickered on again, and they had electricity. It was good news for the restaurant, but bad news as the fluorescent lights did nothing for Hamish’s hairy complexion.

  “Can ye find Howser’s spell so I can be meself again?” Hamish asked.

  “Too easy,” Melody winked, “we’ll have you back to handsome in no time.”

  It had to be battle fatigue. That was the only way to explain Ondine’s sour mood when they should be celebrating Melody’s rescue. Ondine had read about war weariness in the book about Grand Duchess Elmaree. Elmaree and her supporters had fought for so long, they never had a chance to simply enjoy a normal day and be themselves.

  Like Elmaree, Ondine had a to-do list that stretched to the horizon. Make Anathea popular; get Hamish his work papers; get Hamish back to his gorgeous self; and then defeat Vincent and Mrs. Howser.

  “We should have done this last night, but I was too sick and wonky,” Melody said. She dropped her dirty plate in the sink and reached for Ondine’s hand with her left and Hamish’s with her right. “I know you never got the hang of astral projection, Ondi, but I love it. Join up and we’ll go travelling.”

  Ondine gave over her hand and reached for Hamish with her other. Before she could, Old Col wedged herself beside her and took it.

  “What are we doing?” Ondine asked.

  “We’re beating Birgit at her own game. You’re coming with me into her memories.”

  Ondine creased her brow. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Of course,” Melody said. “Done it heaps.”

  Not entirely convinced, Ondine asked, “But won’t she be up and about already?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Melody winked. “It works just as well if the person’s awake or asleep. They don’t feel a thing.”

  “Are ye sure, hen?” Hamish asked.

  Jealousy twisted Ondine’s stomach again. “Hen” was his special name for her, not other girls.

  “Uh, yep. Quite sure.” Melody blushed furiously, making Ondine instantly suspicious about whose memories she’d been visiting. Before she could ask any more questions, Melody said, “Ready? Close your eyes, let’s go.”

  Everyone closed their eyes and squeezed hands. Ondine had to stay with them or she’d break the chain. Or be left out. And there was no way she wanted to be left out of this.

  When she closed her eyes, Ondine saw only darkness and heard only background noise from the pub. Slowly the everyday noises and darkness faded away. Small sparkles of light danced behind her eyelids. Her body grew lighter, until she was little more than a –

  “Imagine you’re a jellyfish, floating with the tide,” Melody said.

  – jellyfish. Yes, That’s exactly how she felt. Hope unfurled that this experiment might work. She certainly felt lighter and . . . driftier.

  “The floatier you feel, the better,” Melody said. “We’re all connected so we’ll keep each other floating along. I’m guiding us towards Birgit Howser and we’re going to access her memories.”

  Coldness danced around the edges of Ondine’s perception.

  Melody said, “Don’t worry about the chill. It means we’re getting close. She’s always been a cold stone, that one. I can’t thank you guys enough for breaking the hold she had on me. I thought I was going to freeze to death.”

  Interesting, Melody seemed to be –

  “Reading your thoughts. Yes. First things first, let’s fix Hamish’s beautiful face, yeah?”

  Oh yeah.

  In a flash of noise and lights and spinning, Ondine was back in The Pretzel car and everything was going haywire. Memories and nausea from last night came rushing back. Ondine’s eyes were already shut, so she couldn’t shut them any more. Could they hurry up and –

/>   “Get this over with?’ Melody said. “Right, we can see her, and we can see us, but she can’t see us. We’re going to rewind to the point where she . . . ahhh, here we are.”

  “Is this what you went through last night?” Old Col asked. “I’m so glad I sat it out.”

  The real life scene flicker-jumped back and forth, as if someone were zapping through the adverts in the story of their lives. Melody reached the exact point where Mrs. Howser cursed Hamish to freeze, mid-transition.

  “Gotcha,” Melody crowed in triumph. She captured the words in the air between them, then took them to the other side of the picture.

  The words hung in mid-air, written backwards.

  Instead of saying ‘Freeze!’ Melody said, “Ezeerf!” She turned to Hamish to reverse the spell. Not the Hamish strapped into his seat in the Pretzel Ride, but the Hamish floating above her.

  Melody’s hand was still holding Hamish’s as she waved it in the air. “Ezeerf!”

  Ondine saw the dark bristles over Hamish’s face retreating. His whiskery nose smooshed back to his Scottishly handsome one. His eyes morphed from black to sparkly green.

  Gratitude overwhelmed Ondine and she nearly threw herself at Hamish.

  “Don’t break the link,” Melody said, giving her hand a reminder-squeeze.

  As desperate as she was to throw her arms around her beloved, Ondine held back. As soon as this session was over though, she’d cling to him like an orangutan.

  “One more thing,” Melody said. The five of them drifted high above the Martisor fairground and bobbed along on the wind. Soon the city fell away and they followed the train lines into the countryside.

  It may have been night when they were at the fairground, but by the time they reached the forested hillsides, silver pink dawn dusted the horizon. Behind them, heavy clouds built into ominous anvil shapes.

  It looked surprisingly familiar to Ondine.

  “We’re in Bellreeve,” Melody said.

  “Aye, I thought I recognised the place,” Hamish said. “It looks different too.”

  “I know when this is,” Old Col said. “We’ve gone back a few years, haven’t we Melody?”

  Melody giggled and said, “Told you I was good.”

  “That’s enough showing off from you,” Old Col said.

  As if to punctuate her speech, a flash of lightning rippled through the sky, followed by rolling thunder.

  They floated on, above the path Ondine, Hamish and Old Col had taken when they first approached the Autumn Palace. On the rise of the hill they saw the gatehouse. At first Ondine thought the guard on duty was asleep. Then she noticed he was under a spell.

  Splattered spots of rain fell.

  There, standing by the flagstones near the gatehouse, stood Birgit Howser. She looked much, much younger. In her arms she held a ferret.

  Shambles!

  Mentally, Ondine worked out the time frame. It had to have been soon after the debutante ball, if Hamish was already a ferret.

  “I dinnae remember her doing that. Mebbe I’m asleep. Och, hen, do I look that bad when I’m like that?”

  “You have your moments,” Ondine said.

  Old Col said, “Bit of shush, please.”

  “It’s quite all right. Remember, we can see her but she can’t see us,” Melody reminded them.

  They floated above Birgit as she made ready to cast a spell over the flagstones. Those same stones Ondine, Hamish and Old Col had walked over when they’d arrived at the palace, setting off a chain of crazy events and huge helpings of weird magic.[259]

  Hamish said, “Ye know lass, I never did see a Mister Howser.”

  “Shush!” everyone said.

  “Dinnae shush me, she cannae hear us.”

  “No, but we need to hear her,” Melody said. “She’s about to say the spell.”

  “When first love and ferret pass this way,

  The warning signs will fly and fray

  The end will come for Brugel’s head

  My payment, now, or he’ll be dead.”

  Brugel’s head? Ondine wondered. “She means Duke Pavla, right?”

  Old Col huffed. “At least she didn’t rhyme Duke with puke.”

  The five of them floated towards the ground so they could stand on the reverse side of the spell and catch every word.

  Ondine creased her lips in thought, then said, “Howser set this trap, like some kind of remote alarm system. But why? I mean if you set up magic, wouldn’t you want to be around to see it happening?”

  “Not necessarily,” Old Col answered. “Having strange magic happen when you’re not around does give you a certain amount of deniability.”

  Ondine screwed up the rest of her face in puzzlement.

  ​“It means, dear, that she can have the perfect alibi for when things go wrong. She sets things up to go wrong in the first place, then swans in offering help and nobody suspects her. Very clever, really.”

  Birgit Howser looked up, her unlined, years-younger face looking no less evil than her old wrinkly one had last night.

  Her eyes turned hard as stone and she glared at Ondine. Time froze as the old witch’s eyes bored holes through Ondine’s soul. Lead filled her belly and she had to swallow a few times before she could whisper, “Are you sure she can’t –”

  Mrs. Howser pointed her finger and screamed. “Get out! Get out of my memories!”

  Ondine screamed.

  They all did.

  She pulled her hands back to cover her mouth. Too late, she’d broken the link.

  Flashes filled her eyes. Ondine opened them to find herself back with everyone in the kitchen, gasping in shock.

  “I’m nae sure that was supposed to happen, lass.”

  Old Col sniffed. “I fear we’ve really upset her now.”

  “Yeah,” Melody said, chewing on her thumbnail. “How did she do that?”

  While Melody and Old Col conferred with each other, Ondine found she only had eyes for Hamish. Because he was back to being so handsomely Hamish again.

  “Ondine, snap out of it,” Old Col said. “Help us think of ways we can fix this.”

  Huffing and feeling tired, frustrated, emotionally wrought and – despite the enormous breakfast – still a bit hungry, Ondine crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know how any of this magic works.”

  Muttering just enough for everyone to hear, Old Col said, “If we can’t fix this, Howser will keep making chaos across the country.”

  Added to that, Mrs. Howser now hated their livers. [260]

  It was an absolute certainty that the moment Ondine thought, “things can’t get worse” they absolutely would. “Yes but . . . Hamish and I can still make nice things happen.” Did anyone notice how desperate she sounded?

  “Ondi’s right,” Hamish said. “I’m glad I’m me again, and we’ve freed Melody, but we havnae made Anathea the best and fairest, so mebbe it’s a good thing we havnae broken Howser’s wishing spell, so we can still use it.” Then he flashed a smile Ondine’s way and made her tummy flip. In a nice way, not in a stuck-in-The-Pretzel-ride way.

  “You’re right, of course,” Old Col said. “We’d best use the magic while we still have it. Let’s get close to Anathea and make her wishes come true.”

  Which sounded remarkably like their earlier plans. Before Old Col and Ma had split up her and Hamish.

  Melody put her hands up. “I have an idea. The Snow Maze Festival comes straight after Martisor. Big crowds. The Duke always cut the ribbon and gets to go through first.

  Obviously it will be Anathea this year. Loads of people turn up. They should have the power properly back on by then.”

  “She’s a clever one, isn’t she Ondi?” Hamish said. “Lots of people there to boost Anathea’s popularity ratings.”

  “If Vincent and Birgit show up, as they’re bound to,” Old Col added, “we can have it out with them, once and for all.”

  ​The lights flickered above them, as if applauding the ideas Melody and
Old Col were creating. In the midst of everyone congratulating each other for being so clever, Ondine sighed and thought, Why didn’t I think of that?

  ​

  ​

  ​

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Like an unwelcome guest, winter made itself completely at home and messed the place right up. Where light snow had covered the world with pretty magic at Christmas, the deep freeze of proper-winter slathered everything with a thick layer of hard ice.

  Every day, just before lunch and then in between first and second dinner, Hamish, Josef, Henrik and Thomas took a shovel each and headed out to clear a trench through the snow so their customers could get to the front door. They threw the snow into the kerb, adding height to the walls of snow and ice. In the middle of the night, the street sweepers also cleared the streets like some kind of snow-eating alien with a lightning-fast metabolism. Gorging itself at one end, squirting it out the other. The snowspray slathered the walls of icy debris at the kerb, making them higher and wider than before. Snow buried lampposts, rubbish bins and bicycles, if they happened to be chained to the post at the time.

  Walking the streets felt exactly like walking in an enormous maze of snow. Which conveniently put people in the right mood for the next festival. Between Martisor and Easter, Savo Plaza held the annual Snow Maze Festival. Some people complained about so many festivals arriving one after the other, but they were quickly hushed up with a well-aimed snowball. After all, there was no point in having an empty plaza. [261]

  And at this time of year, they had plenty of snow with which to build the maze, which cannot be said for summer.

  The sun kept its distance and the heavy white stuff kept on falling as Ondine, Hamish, Melody and Old Col walked the cobbled streets to the Plaza. Banners hung from buildings, groaning and creaking with the weight of snow piled over them.

  Despite the cold, it was a much nicer walk than the last time they’d come here, because the power was back on, alarm systems were working and so were the traffic lights.

  “Here’s how it’s going to play out,” Old Col said as they shook the snow off their umbrellas. Steam poured from her mouth as she spoke. “When we get near Anathea, Ondine and Hamish will get loved up. That way, Anathea’s wishes will come true. It’s going to work. I can feel it in my bones.”