Secret North: Book 4 of The Wishes Series (10 page)

“No,” muttered Ivy.

“Yes,” overruled Bente. “Tell me what else you know.”

“You’re left-handed.”

“I am,” she confirmed with a chuckle.

It occurred to me that I knew a lot of things about Bente Denison, and they weren’t details she’d shared recently. I wish I’d thought to tell her days ago. It might’ve helped convince her that moving in with me wasn’t such a blind leap.

“You like to sing,” I added, smiling, “but only when you think no one’s listening.”

Bente flushed. I reached over and took her hand. “You’re not a death metal girl. You’re an Etta James girl, right? You used to sing at Nellie’s while you set the tables. I used to hear you from Paolo’s office.”

“I’ll bet I know the song,” interjected Ivy. “‘Anything to say you’re mine’.”

I smiled at Ivy for the first time ever. “That’s the one.”

I hadn’t known the name at the time, so I Googled the lyrics to find out. I then downloaded it to my phone – but I kept that gem to myself in case it was weird.

“That was her pageant song when she was younger,” she revealed. Surprisingly, Ivy’s face didn’t crack when she smiled. Perhaps she’d done it before.

I turned to Bente. “Pageants? You never told me about the pageants.”

Ivy jumped up and moved to the bookshelf. There wasn’t a book on it, just a cluttered row of trophies. “These are all Bente’s,” she said proudly, waving her hand along the shelf. “She dances too.”

“Yes she does,” I beamed. “Beautifully.”

However embarrassing the revelations might’ve been for Bente, I found it endearing. I’d dated a million women who claimed to be beauty queens, but none of them had ever waltzed like Ginger Rogers or crooned Etta James songs in empty restaurants. Bente was old school charming and classically beautiful – far different from the high-maintenance blondes of my past. No wonder none of them had ever appealed long-term; I’d spent years playing on the wrong field. Brassy, shallow divas weren’t my type. Sultry, siren journalists were.

“Can you cook, Ryan?” asked Ivy, snapping me back to the moment.

Bente answered for me. “Yes, he’s practically a chef,” she shamelessly declared.

“Good.” Ivy headed toward the kitchen. “We’re barbecuing tonight. You can cook.” Coming from Ivy, it was an incredible invitation, even if it was disguised as an obnoxious demand.

As soon as she was gone, Bente piled onto my lap and smothered my face with a barrage of kisses. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

“For what?” I asked, trying to escape the onslaught.

“For winning her over. I knew you would.”

I wasn’t sure what I’d won where Ivy was concerned. I was just grateful I’d lived through it.

“Bente, I don’t know the first thing about barbecuing,” I whispered.

“I don’t care.” She kissed me again. “You know plenty about me.”

***

The prospect of barbecuing became a lot more terrifying when I saw what I had to work with. Bente led me outside to a small backyard littered with toys and a broken swing set. Among the junk was a small gas grill propped up on bricks, and it was so raging hot that it glowed.

“When did she light this?” I choked. “Last week?”

“At least you know it works.”

The back door swung open and Ivy appeared at the top of the steps. “Don’t mix Fabergé’s veggie hotdogs up with the rest,” she ordered, waving a plate of meat at us. “She’ll know if you do.”

Bente took the plate. I stayed put until she returned, trying my best not to combust in the meantime. As soon as the door slammed closed, I felt free to speak. “What would an eight-year-old know about vegetarianism?” I asked. “It’s stupid.”

Bente set the plate on the edge of the grill. The thing was so hot, I swear the cooking process began there and then.

“It’s just a fad,” she replied, handing me tongs. “All kids go through phases.”

“It’s weird,” I insisted. “Your niece is weird.”

“Bridget wears boots every single day,” pointed out Bente. “Do you think
your
niece is weird?”

I snapped the tongs at her. “Absolutely out of her little freaking mind.”

Paying no special attention to Faberge’s veggie hotdogs, Bente dumped the plate of meat onto the grill in a heap.

I knew the thing was unsteady. What I didn’t know is that it wasn’t level. Before I had a chance to act, a handful of hotdogs rolled onto the ground like they were trying to escape the searing heat. I held the rest in place by pinning them with the tongs. “Now what do we do?”

“Just leave them,” she replied, unperturbed. “She won’t notice a few missing.”

I looked down at the casualties on the ground. “Fabergé might,” I said, gravely. “The veggie hotdogs are now
really
veggie.”

Bente plucked as much grass off them as she could and threw them back on the grill. “The extra nutrition will do her good.”

18. FAIRY CONNECTIONS

Bente

Despite the pandemonium, dinner in Ivy’s house is actually pretty structured. We ate at the table every single night. I’m not sure what Ryan was expecting, but a neatly set dining table probably wasn’t it.

Although she’d never admit it, my sister was out to impress. The first thing I noticed was that she was using the cutlery usually reserved for special occasions. She’d also laid a tablecloth. Until then I wasn’t aware that she had a tablecloth.

Ryan had no way of knowing that she’d gone the extra mile, but he did know when to lay on the charm. “This looks great, Ivy,” he praised.

Ignoring the compliment, she pointed to an empty chair. Ryan politely pulled my chair out for me before sitting down. I wasn’t sure if she’d positioned him well or not. He was opposite Malibu, who was trying to kill him with a nasty glare. Fabergé was a little more receptive to our dinner guest, but I suspected that would change once she tasted her veggie hotdogs.

Ivy loaded the girl’s plates, then took the odd step of doing the same for Ryan. She sat at the head of the table and the weirdest dinner party of my life got under way.

“Do you live in a mansion?” asked Fabergé, out of the blue.

Ryan glanced at me before replying. “No. Why?”

“You have a nice watch,” she replied, waving her fork at him. “Did it cost a lot of money?”

Instead of reprimanding her for being rude, Ivy turned to Ryan, seemingly hanging for the answer. I sank down in my seat, mortified.

“It might have,” he casually replied. “It was a gift from my parents.”

Fabergé shrugged. “I like it.”

“I like it first!” growled Malibu, determined to put her two cents in.

Ryan kept his focus on Fabergé. “Well, I like your bracelet. I’ll bet that was expensive too. I can tell by the craftsmanship that it’s a quality piece.”

Fabergé was befuddled. “What’s craftsmanship?”

“The way it was made,” he explained. “Someone worked very hard to make it so pretty.”

Fabergé set her fork down to free up her hand. She twisted the string of plastic beads, proudly showcasing her work. “I made this.”

Ryan widened his eyes in mock surprise. “No kidding?”

The little girl’s face was laced with pride. “It’s true. I put all the beads on the string and this one is a flower button.”

Ryan craned across the table to study it. “Oh, so it is. The flower is a nice touch.”

“It’s a fairy bracelet,” explained Fabergé.

“Yes, I know,” fibbed Ryan. “I actually know a few fairies. Flowers are important to them. Each flower has its own special meaning.”

Fabergé’s hazel eyes brightened, probably at the prospect of having Ryan hook her up with a fairy or two.

Malibu was less impressed. “You don’t know fairies,” she accused.

“Sure I do.” He sounded calm but I could tell his gentle tone took effort.

“What do they look like then?”

“Well, the ones I know are blonde. They’re very pretty but really crazy. That’s why you can’t hang out with them for very long. If you do, they start to make you crazy too.”

I couldn’t be sure if it was the fairy-tale voice or the silly story that made both girls giggle. Either way, it was a good result.

“Can you call them on the phone?” asked Malibu.

“I guess I could, but you wouldn’t understand them. They speak in a different language.”

“Call them now!” demanded Malibu, abandoning her calm demeanour in a flash.

“Yes, do it!” agreed Fabergé excitedly. “Ask them about this flower.” She twisted the flower bead on her bracelet. “They can tell us what it means.” The little girl turned to her mother. “What sort of flower is this, Mom?”

“It’s a sunflower,” replied Ivy.

“Do it!” chanted Malibu, smashing her fork on the table. “Do it! Do it! Do it!”

In a move that surprised me, Ryan rose to the challenge. He took his phone out of his pocket, dialled a number, and set it on the table.

19. CROWD PLEASER

Ryan

I wasn’t sure how this was going to play out, but I was determined to convince the precocious little monsters that I had fairy connections.

I spoke as soon as Charli picked up, giving her no chance to blow my charade. “Speak French,” I demanded in the language she barely understood. “You’re on speaker.”

“
D’accord
,” she replied, making me cringe.

Charli’s pronunciation was dreadful. She didn’t sound French at all. She sounded like an Australian trying to speak French while chewing a wad of gum.

“What do sunflowers mean?”

Despite the fact that I’d spoken slowly and dumbed it down for her, she didn’t understand the question.

There was no point persevering with her, so I slowed my speech even further and asked her to put Adam on the phone with one simple word. “
Mari
.”

The little girls leaned over the phone while Charli’s rambling, unnecessary reply played out. Both looked awed, but they had no clue what was being said. I wasn’t sure I did either. She’d thrown in a few words that were neither French nor English.

Finally Adam took over and I explained the situation as best I could. “I need to know the meaning of sunflowers. Just ask the chief fairy and translate.”

“We’re in the middle of dinner,” he complained.

“So am I – with Bente’s nieces.” Bente looked across at the mention of her name. “If I can’t deliver a fairy story, they’re going to attack and eat me. Mom will never forgive you.”

“Such a romantic language,” breathed Ivy, blissfully unaware that I’d just compared her daughters to wild animals.

“Mom will recover,” stated my brother. “I’ve always been her favourite anyway.”

The introduction of Adam’s voice seemed to confuse Malibu. “Is he a man fairy?” she asked, speaking straight into the phone.

“No,” I replied. “He’s an ugly troll. He helps with fairy business, but he’s the ugliest and dumbest creature you can imagine. He never even leaves his house because he’s so gross.”

Everyone at the table cackled. Adam was unamused. The slew of insults he hit me with were unrepeatable in any language.

The background conversation was muffled, presumably because he had the sense to cover the phone while he asked Charli about sunflowers. After what seemed an eternity, he returned.

“It’s not a short story,” he warned.

“They never are,” I replied. “Just tell me.”

The story Adam told was epic, but he was relaying it truthfully. There was no way he possessed the talent needed to make it up. I thanked him, asked him to thank Tinker Bell, and ended the call.

“Well?” demanded Fabergé.

I leaned back in my chair. “Sunflowers represent adoration,” I announced. Both little girls stared blankly at me and I knew I’d lost them already. “Once upon a time there was a water nymph called Clytie.” Neither Charli nor Bridget ever began a story with ‘once upon a time’. I felt like a fraud, but battled on. “She was Greek.”

Fabergé leaned close to her sister. “That means she was from a land called Greece,” she whispered knowingly. Animal nodded as if she was keeping up, but I knew differently.

“She was in love with a man called Helios, but he didn’t love her at all,” I continued. “He loved someone else.”

Fabergé pouted. “Big meanie.”

“He was,” I agreed. “But Clytie didn’t give up. She tried and tried to make him love her.”

“Did it work?” asked Ivy, showing the same inexplicable interest that most people did when hearing Charli’s La La stories.

“No, he ended up leaving town to get away from her,” I told her. “He rode off in his chariot, following the course of the sun.”

I’d reached the make or break part of the fable. Most fairy stories involve some level of tragedy. Clytie’s was no exception. How the Denisons would cope with that remained to be seen. “She missed him so much that she stripped herself naked and sat on a big rock for nine long days,” I said gravely. “She had no food and no water. She stared at the sun the whole time, watching Helios as he travelled through the sky, hoping he’d come back to her.” I took it up a notch by adopting a dire expression and a tone to match. “But he never did.”