‘Puck?’ said Oberon thoughtfully with a strange smile. ‘Come here.’
‘Yes, Your Majesty?’ Puck’s tone declared that he hadn’t heard a word of the highly personal quarrel.
‘You know the flower that with just a drop in someone’s eyes makes them fall madly in love with the next creature they see?’
‘Of course, sire. Heartsease, or love-in-idleness.’
‘Fetch me some,’ ordered His Majesty. ‘Now!’
Why did Oberon want the flower for himself? Why not just get Puck to apply it?
Puck bowed. ‘I’ll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes,’ he promised, and vanished in a small puff of chocolate-covered coffee beans.
Forty minutes! Puck was getting old. It would have taken me forty milliseconds. High time I took over his job.
Suddenly Oberon shimmered into invisibility. I did the same, up in the olive tree branches. A second later Demetrius strode into the glade with Helena running after him.
Demetrius stopped and turned on her. ‘I love you not, therefore pursue me not.’
Mr Magnificent was still his charming self, it seemed.
‘Where are Lysander and fair Hermia?’ he demanded.
Helena opened her mouth, but Demetrius didn’t give her time to answer him.
‘The one I’ll stop, the other stops me,’ he declared, still glaring at Helena.
I tried to work out what he meant. Was he speaking literally or metaphorically, or both? Was he really going to kill Lysander? Was Hermia going to kill him? It would be hard to blame her, even though we fairies didn’t go in for killing much. Why bother when enchantments were so much more fun? I suspected Demetrius just meant that he was dying of love for Hermia. Although more likely it was indigestion from too much baklava at lunch.
Demetrius put his hands on his hips. ‘You told me they were sneaking into this wood; and here am I . . .’
Helena looked at him pleadingly. She’d put flowers in her hair, but they’d wilted and made her look like a walking compost bin.
‘They will be here,’ she said, still out of breath from running. ‘I heard them planning it. Demetrius, please —’
‘Get yourself gone,’ he snarled. ‘And follow me no more.’
He pushed her away. I hoped she’d kick him in the shins and then march back to Athens. But of course she didn’t. She just stood there looking at him, a hurt expression on her face.
‘Do I entice you?’ he demanded. ‘Do I speak you fair? Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?’
Helena shook her head. ‘Even for that I love you more. I am your spaniel,’ she added in a little-girl voice that set my teeth on edge. ‘Only give me leave, unworthy as I am, to follow you.’
A bit of drama at the Midsummer’s Eve revels was excellent, but these two left a sour taste.
Demetrius gave Helena one last angry look. ‘I will not stay for your questions. Let me go. Or, if you follow me, believe me when I say I’ll do you mischief in the wood.’
He ran off into the trees, obviously still intent on one thing — finding Hermia and Lysander. I began to think he might really be planning to kill Lysander.
Helena watched him go. ‘I’ll follow you and make a heaven of hell, to die upon the hand I love so well,’ she whispered. She lifted her skirts — heavy with prickles by now — and ran after him.
Helena was a ninny and Demetrius was a bully. It was true that Lysander shouldn’t have been courting Hermia without her father’s consent. But he did love her, and she loved him. I couldn’t let Demetrius kill Lysander, especially not so near Midsummer’s Eve.
I was just about to follow the two foolish humans when Puck TAPed back into the glade, his hands full of heartsease flowers.
The air shivered with moonbeams and the scent of ginger chocolate fudge as Oberon popped back into visibility. He looked thoughtful.
‘Have you the flower there?’ he asked Puck. ‘I pray you, give it to me.’
Puck handed him the pile of flowers, carefully not asking what His Majesty intended to do with them, but just as obviously waiting in case he should feel like explaining.
Oberon smiled. I shivered. I’d seen a smile like that on a snake about to eat a frog. I loved Their Majesties, of course. They would not be King and Queen if they didn’t have the power to make us all adore them. But I didn’t like them much.
‘I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,’ said Oberon softly. ‘Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk-roses and with eglantine: there sleeps Titania sometime of the night . . . and with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes, and make her full of hateful fantasies.’
‘Oh, excellent plan, Your Majesty,’ said Puck loyally.
Was this what unenchanted love was? I thought, gazing at Oberon so gleefully plotting against his wife. What fantasies was he about to arrange for Titania using the love potion in his hands? He intended her to fall desperately in love with the first person or beast she saw upon waking. Who did he have in mind?
Oberon grinned and handed Puck back some of the flowers. ‘You’ll also find a disdainful youth running through the wood with a maiden running after him. Drip some of this into his eyes so that as soon as he sees her he loves her far more than she loves him. Meet me back here at cock crow.’
‘Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so,’ said Puck.
I blinked in amazement. Oberon was actually going to help a bunch of humans? I’d underestimated him. Once Demetrius had the drops in his eyes, he’d love Helena and give up chasing Hermia and Lysander. They would be safe with Lysander’s aunt, and old Egeus might even forgive them once Demetrius had married Helena. As for Demetrius and Helena, they deserved each other.
PING! A summons from Titania.
I sighed and vanished into a cloud of cocoa with marshmallows.
Her Majesty was still in the Athenian wood, just as she had told Oberon, and planned to stay there till she’d enjoyed Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding, and mine to Flossie, and all the other Midsummer’s Eve revels. She’d settled herself in a fairly pretty glade with olive trees and the same moon that we had in Fairyland, but only one of them.
Moth and Cobweb were in the glade with her. Cobweb raised an eyebrow at me. I winked back. Moth just fluttered in midair, waiting for someone to give him an order. He was good at that.
I gazed around. An Athenian grove was no place for a Fairy Queen to spend her day, much less to sleep. Too many prickles, hedgehogs and imperfect wildflowers, not to mention owls hunting mice once the sun went down. Also spiders — the venomous kind, not the jewelled-cobweb kind — and maybe even the odd adder. But there was nothing I could do about it till Titania realised the place needed some work to bring it up to royal standards.
‘Come now,’ she ordered. ‘A roundel and a fairy song.’
I sighed. This was why we needed Elvis in Fairyland. We fairies were good at many things — turning milk sour, travelling to Alpha Centauri in forty seconds (don’t bother trying it — the weather there is terrible), and, okay, we did dance divinely. Wings helped when you needed to be light-footed. But our music sucked.
Cobweb held out his hand. I took it, then nudged Moth.
‘Which dance are we doing?’ he asked.
I sighed again. We only had four dances. One was for the Midsummer’s Eve revels; one was a rain dance. The third needed at least forty fairies and two full moons.
‘Number four,’ I said patiently.
‘Oh, good, I like that one.’ Moth took my hand.
Cobweb hummed the tune — not hard as it had only five notes — and we danced, our wings flickering, our tiptoes lightly touching the Athenian soil.
Titania watched us for forty-three seconds, then grew bored. She clapped her hands. ‘Enough! Now, you have a third of a minute to kill cankers in the musk-rosebuds, and to go to war with the bats and take their leather wings.’
I
sighed a third time, then tried to make it look like a yawn. Their Majesties hated anything flying above them, but it was a bit hard on the bats to remove their wings. What was a wingless bat to do?
Titania was still giving orders. ‘And hush the clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders at our quaint spirits.’
In other words, tidy the place up and make it look like Fairyland.
The three of us fluttered around the glade, picking up prickles and the odd snake, a few caterpillars and a confused hedgehog looking for beetles.
I found the bats hanging upside down in a tree hollow.
‘Quick,’ I hissed. ‘Out! Titania’s on the war path.’
The biggest bat opened its eyes and stared at me, then recognised my wings. ‘Thanks, mate,’ it said.
The bats waited till Her Majesty’s back was turned, then flapped quietly out of the glade and away.
I looked at the owl sitting in the branches above. ‘As for you, keep your beak shut till Her Majesty has gone.’
The owl nodded silently.
Meanwhile, Moth and Cobweb had arranged a new grassy bank soft with moss and dotted with tender-petalled flowers that didn’t grow in Greece at this time. They were going to play havoc with the Greek ecosystem. I’d seen Greece a thousand years in the future and there were wildflowers everywhere. This must have been where they began.
At last Titania nodded, satisfied. She lay on the mossy bank to test it for softness, gestured to Moth to shove the pillow moss a bit higher, then ordered, ‘Sing me now asleep.’ Sleep was the best way to escape fairy singing. I was just about to gesture for us all to begin when she added, ‘Then to your offices and let me rest.’
Oops. Leaving her all alone wasn’t a good idea. If Cobweb and I stayed to guard her, or even Moth, she couldn’t get into too much trouble when Oberon put the love potion in her eyes. I hesitated. Should I warn her of Oberon’s plan?
But if I did that, Oberon would find out I’d eavesdropped. Titania would know that I’d eavesdropped too. A fairy who eavesdropped on the King might eavesdrop on the Queen. To say she’d be displeased was an understatement. There’d be no promotion to Puck’s permanent assistant in Oberon’s court. Nor would the Queen be grateful to me. Fairy Queens didn’t believe in the ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ principle. If I blurted out her marriage troubles in front of the others, I’d be raking unicorn dung for at least a century.
Pretending ignorance was best, I told myself. After all, what trouble could she get into here, even with the love potion in her eyes? The bats were gone, the owl was safely out of sight high in a tree. We’d even removed the hedgehog.
The three of us arranged ourselves ready to sing, bass to baritone to tenor. I was a tenor and didn’t have a bad voice either. You didn’t get far at the Fairy Court if you didn’t sing and dance, no matter how bad the song or music.
‘One, two, three,’ I commanded softly, and we began our song:
‘You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,
Come not near our Fairy Queen.’
See what I mean? We wouldn’t even make it into the audience at a talent quest.
‘Philomel, with melody
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby.’
Titania’s eyes closed.
‘Never harm,’ we sang, more softly now, except for Moth, who was attempting a descant. I nudged him, and he lowered his voice but not his pitch.
‘Nor spell nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So, good night, with lullaby.
Weaving spiders, come not here;
Hence, you long-legg’d spinners, hence!
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm nor snail, do no offence.’
Was the Queen asleep? I gestured to the others for one more verse.
‘Philomel, with melody
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby.’
I held up my hand for silence, and nudged Moth when he opened his mouth again. The Queen was deeply asleep now. The day’s tantrums must have tired her out.
She looked beautiful lying there in her green silk dress that matched the moss, except where it was trimmed with gold. Her hair hung in long blonde tresses down the bank. Even her snores were deliciously alluring. And sometime soon, Oberon was going to squeeze heartsease juice in her eyes so she would fall in love with . . . Who? Or what?
I looked around carefully, but nothing had entered the grove, not even a beetle. The only things here that Titania could fall in love with were the wildflowers, which should be safe enough. Actually, a Fairy Queen in love with a rose or asphodel or anemone might be peaceful.
As long as she didn’t fall in love with me, I thought. Even raking out unicorn dung wouldn’t be punishment enough if that happened. I needed to get well away from ancient Athens and this glade until Her Majesty was safely in love with whatever she first saw when she woke.
After all, she had told us to leave her once she fell asleep. Plus I had a table booked at the Leaning Tower of Pizza for 6 pm.
The Athenian glade vanished into a fog of after-dinner mints.
CHAPTER 8
Their choc-mint scent was still with me when I appeared on the footpath outside the pizza shop. I blinked. No long line of customers — Gaela must have told them she wasn’t opening tonight. But there were other changes too. The cats had vanished. The café’s windows gleamed. Someone had painted its sign in gold. Even the pavement seemed scrubbed.
I opened the door.
‘Do you have a reservation, sir? I’m afraid we’re booked out tonight.’
I stared. The door attendant was tall, dark and handsome, with pale lips and brilliant white fangs. Not Guyye, but close enough in looks to be his sister. I wondered suddenly if the Fairy Floss ever collected vampire fangs. I wasn’t sure I’d want any hanging in our trophy room. But I supposed they’d crumble to dust with daylight.
‘Yes,’ I told her firmly. ‘Name of Pete for 6 pm.’
The attendant looked at the book on the counter. The newly painted counter, with a vase of stylishly arranged branches painted black and silver.
‘Ah, yes, Mr Pete. Your table is in the kitchen, sir.’ She made it sound as if the kitchen was the best place for me, preferably lined up on the ‘to be sucked for supper’ bench. She looked disdainfully at my hoodie. ‘May I take your, ahem, jacket, sir?’
‘No, thank you,’ I said. This was not the time to display my fairy wings.
I gazed around. Half the café tables — each with a fresh white tablecloth and black twig decorations in a crystal vase — were still empty. The customers at the others looked different from last night’s: men in suits that must have cost the food bill for an entire village; women wearing clinging dresses and with smooth faces like transplanted baby cheeks — all of them exuding enough glamour to power a small city.
The vampires sitting with them hadn’t even bothered to dress for the occasion. When you had as much charisma as a vampire, you could wear an old raincoat and everyone would remember you as elegant. The vampires here tonight had stuck with Vampire Classic: black trousers and black turtlenecks for both the men and the women. Only their hands were bright: loaded with rings ranging from antique to pop art, decorated with gold, rubies and diamonds — proof of the riches they’d looted from their victims for centuries.
It was hard to recognise the café as the same place I’d been in last night. Even the floor was polished, though not enough to show the reflections the vampires didn’t have. Only the scent was familiar: pizza crust and melted cheese and the faint tang of seaweed.
A young man entered the café behind me and approached the reception desk. ‘Excuse me, I wonder if —’
The attendant cut him off. ‘Do you have a reservation, sir? I’m afraid we’re booked out tonight.’
> ‘No, I just hoped there might be time for a quick vegetarian pizza before the people who made the reservation arrive?’ He spoke as if he could already taste the artichoke hearts, cheese, grilled capsicum, marinated eggplant, mushroom and Gaela’s special tomato sauce. It was the voice of a true pizza lover, lured here by the menu, not by magic.
‘Scram,’ said the attendant softly. The glamour about her changed as the beast within erupted. I could smell ancient blood . . .
The door banged shut. Footsteps sounded out on the footpath, then stopped. I hoped the young man had just hopped onto his bicycle or into his car, not been gathered up for a vampire supper. Then again, all of Guyye’s . . . friends? family? colleagues? were probably already in here.
‘Pete!’ Gaela looked up from talking to one of the suited men at a table with Guyye. She seemed truly glad to see me. ‘Come into the kitchen.’
I caught snippets of some intense conversations as we passed between the tables.
‘. . . that land is three metres underwater after every big storm. We couldn’t possibly change the zoning laws.’
‘Of course you can,’ replied a vampire voice smoothly, dripping glamour. ‘There’s room for six hundred houses and a supermarket there.’
‘Yes . . . yes, of course I can,’ the first speaker said, sounding dazed. She took a bite of pizza (House Special with anchovies). ‘The owner of this café . . . you’re a friend of hers?’
‘A very good friend.’ Just a hint of fang accompanied the answer.
The first speaker looked reassured.
Vampire glamour was irresistible, but it wasn’t love. The vampires needed Gaela too, needed the warmth and security of her café, the love Gaela gave to her pizzas, and the love humans feel for selkies too.
‘What do you call a group of vampires?’ I asked Gaela as we walked towards the kitchen.
She looked around nervously in case anyone had heard, then grabbed my hand and ushered me through the swinging doors. As usual, all the topping ingredients were laid out neatly on the stainless-steel benches, and the dough was rising in small mounds ready to be stretched flat. The giant oven, with its small door and the long spade to slide the pizzas in and out, was already hot. The room smelled of herbed tomato sauce and no glamour whatsoever.
My Name is Not Peaseblossom Page 6
