Hilda and Zelda (15 page)

"Oh yes, darling, we are real. And we would
like to have a talk with you. Preferably inside, before Zelda comes
swooping down on us," Hilda said with her usual lack of diplomacy.
It was a life-saver most of the time.

"Oh, sure, please come in..." The woman was
still searching for a title to address the two when they were
already standing in the hall of her house. She closed the door.
"You are real witches?"

"I'm the witch," Hilda said, swelling with
pride. "He's a wizard. He is William, I am Grimhilda. But you can
call me Hilda."

"Nice to meet you. I am Vivian. Most people
call me idiot."

"Well, Idiot, we are here to talk to you,"
Hilda proclaimed.

Vivian flustered, and William made it clear
to Hilda that Vivian and Idiot were not the same thing.

"Oh. Right." Hilda shook her head. "This is
such a crazy and insane world, William, it is time that we can go
home. This place gives me a headache."

"You are from a different world?" Disbelief
and eagerness sounded from Vivian's voice at the same time. She had
hoped that these real witches were from this world, so there might
be more. And a training to be a witch like them.

Hilda just nodded as they followed Vivian
into the living room, the brooms leaning against the wall in the
corridor. On the wall hung posters and pictures of everything that
could be related to witchery. People flying on brooms, black cats,
images of pointy hats, the works.

"Can I offer you something to drink? I'm
afraid I only have tea. Or coffee. I don't know if you can drink
that."

"Sure, tea would be good," said Hilda. She
sat down on the couch and sunk deep into the soft cushions. "Ooooh,
suck an elf! This thing tries to eat me!" The witch jumped up and
stared at the innocent couch, her wand in her hand. "You have
vicious furniture, Vivian. Better train it some more before someone
gets hurt for real."

The woman in jeans stared at the wand. "How
did you do that?"

"What?"

"The wand..."

"Oh." Hilda made it disappear. "Nothing
special."

Vivian was nailed to the floor, seeing that
magical stuff happen in her very own living room.

William took Hilda's hand and led the witch
to a chair that was not so soft. "Sit down, this one is safe," he
said. He winked at Vivian. "Know what, you start telling why you
wanted to get in touch with us and I'll get the tea."

"Uhuh," said Vivian who sat down on the
couch, staying away from Hilda. As a tray with tea, milk, lemon and
cookies appeared on the table, she shrieked and was on her feet
again, hurtling towards the far wall.

"Do you think this was a good idea?" Hilda
asked William as she eyed the scared woman. "When we read they are
witches, I had a different idea. They jump at the merest hint of
magic."

William nodded, then turned to Vivian as he
put his wand away. "Vivian. Come and sit down. We are from another
world, as you have noticed. We possess real magic, we fly on real
brooms-"

"The proper way," Hilda added as she looked
at a picture on the wall.

"-and we are here to apprehend a witch that
somehow got to this world. And she's been giving us a hell of a
time to catch her," William finished.

Vivian slowly walked over to the couch again,
where William was sitting, and sat down on the armrest.

"I guess you read about Town Hall," William
said. "She had taken up residence in there, and we tried to flush
her out. Too bad she was not in at the moment."

"Otherwise we'd have her," Hilda nodded. She
leaned over and picked up a cup of tea and a cookie. "Oh.
Chocolate. Thank you, my wizard."

Vivian stared at Hilda now.

"See, we read in that newspaper that someone
had an interview with the witches of this town," Hilda continued.
"So we had this idea that we might join forces. We do our bit, you
do your bit and that way we might get Zelda."

"Zelda," Vivian nodded without much
conviction yet. "She's bad, right?"

"Oh, bad is hardly the word. She set dragons
onto us!" Hilda put down her cup, got up and spread out her arms.
"Really big dragons. Fully grown Nobblebacks, you know, the ones
that..." The witch looked around. "Well, take it from me that they
don't fit in your house."

William grinned. Two Nobblebacks would take
up the entire street. And take it apart also.

Vivian nodded slowly. She did not know and
was convinced she did not want to know more about Nobbleback
dragons than she had already heard. "And what do you want from
me?"

Hilda sat down again, after grabbing another
cookie. "We woud like you to call up your sisterhood of witches."
She really tried not to make the last word sound scornful, and
almost succeeded. "Once you have explained that we are here, and
they are okay with that-" here she looked at William, who had been
adamant about this, "-we may come up with a plan to get Zelda. It
looks like we need to combine forces, and with whom better than
witches."

"You want us to help you catch a real witch?"
Vivian had no idea how large her eyes were.

"Exactly."

"But isn't that dangerous?"

"It is." Hilda had a real talent to make
people feel uncomfortable with just simple words.

Vivian sat back, her face showing that she
was working through all kinds of emotions. Many of them were not
pleasant ones. "So you are serious about this, yes?"

"Of course. Zelda has to be stopped," Hilda
said, nodding, as she peeked in a silver box that was on the table.
It contained sugar cubes. She took one. "Oh. Nice." She took
another one.

As the witch was crunching up sugar cubes,
William looked at Vivian. "We really need your help. Zelda does not
belong here, and we have to take her back. But for that, we need to
have her. And we can't seen to get her by ourselves."

Vivian did not want to nod but did it anyway.
"I'll get on the phone and try to get some people to come
over."

Vivian put down the phone after the sixth
call. "Four of them are trying to get here," she announced.

Hilda was poking around in the now empty box,
looking disappointed as all the sugar cubes had 'disappeared'.

William nodded. "Thank you for getting in
touch with your witch friends."

Vivian sat back, still feeling an unease. "I
must be insane," she muttered, just loud enough. "It will take them
a while to make it over," she then said, at a conversational level.
With slight worry she watched Hilda get up and display an interest
in the large fish tank that was against one wall of the room.

William followed her glance. "Hilda, don't
play with the fish, okay?"

"Oh, of course not. They have pretty colours!
Do you paint them by hand?" the witch asked as she tapped the glass
and scared away some of the water-dwellers.

"Paint by hand?" Shock and disbelief drooped
from Vivian's voice. "No way!"

Hilda nodded, relieved. "You'd be not much of
a witch if you have to resort to things like that." She sat down
next to William. "Do you think it would help if we go out and
collect your friends?" She was fully aware that witches from here
did not fly on brooms.

Vivian shook her head. "I don't think that
would be a good idea."

Hilda let out a grumping sound and so they
waited...

Less than an hour later though, the four
ladies had reached Vivian's house. Somewhere along the way they had
found each other and as they were in the hall, William and Hilda
heard excited chatter coming from it. As the four ladies came in,
they stopped as one and stared at the magical couple.

Vivian eased them to chairs and took care of
introductions. The four were Cornelia, Tory, Jennifer and Gladys.
"These are Hilda the witch and William the wizard. The brooms in
the hall are theirs."

The four women responded with silence. Tory
then giggled. "Really?"

Hilda looked at William. "Maybe this was not
a good idea."

Cornelia looked at the witch. "What do you
mean by that?"

"We came here to catch Zelda. The witch who
is responsible for all the mess in your town. The men of the law
try to capture us, hindering us in our efforts. Now we thought we
could request help from the witches of this world, and we are
facing four giggling women who don't seem to have a clue about
witchcraft." Hilda was calm, her arms hanging down, her voice
peaceful. "We came here because of the words in your
newspaper."

William waved the newspaper. "This one," he
said as he also got up.

Vivian was on her feet quickly too. "You have
to believe me, girls, they are real."

Tory laughed again. "Sure. You have us all
shaking, Viv."

Hilda sighed. Wearily she shook her head.
"Okay, okay, demonstration time again then. We have to get
something going, either with or without these people." She held out
her hand and called her broom. It flew in and landed in her
hand.

William did the same thing, then put his
broom against the fish tank.

The four women fell silent, their eyes almost
popping from their heads.

"Now the pop the wand trick. Do watch with
care, we are not at a fair here," Hilda said as she made her wand
appear. "Anyone care to be a frog for a while?"

Tory, still not convinced that Vivian was
serious, got up. "Of course. Why not."

"Of course," said Hilda. She pointed her wand
at Tory and said: "Ranunculus." The spell took effect immediately,
and Tory's clothes fell to the ground, covering the green toad that
protested against the load coming down on it.

Jennifer fainted, Gladys stared and Cornelia
uttered an indecent word. Tory croaked her best froggish and
scurried around until Hilda picked her up.

"Anyone else?" the witch asked, holding up
Tory.

"Ribbit," said Tory, indicating that this had
been enough of an example.

Hilda nodded, understanding. She picked up
Tory's clothes and took those, with the frog, to the hall. She
closed the door, turned the woman back into herself and gave her
time to get dressed again. When they returned, Tory was deeply
convinced that Hilda was a proper witch.

"I am glad we have that clear now." Hilda sat
down. As the alarm outside started wailing, she jumped up again.
"Suck an elf, what's that?!"

Vivian and her friends ran to the window to
see what was going on. William, followed by Hilda, ran to the front
door and went outside.

A few streets away, something was on fire.
Large black blots of thick smoke billowed upwards, slowly as if
they were mocking gravity and the bit of wind that was around. The
alarm clearly came from there also. More people appeared in the
street from the safety of their homes.

William went back inside. "What's over
there?" he asked Vivian.

"A gas station," she said, her face pale.
"What if it blows up?"

"Then there will be even more smoke," William
said dryly. He grabbed the brooms and ran out again. From inside
the house, five women saw how the two strange people took off into
the sky. On brooms.

Hilda was in the lead, eager to get her hands
on whoever had done this. She knew it had been Zelda, and the fire
in the gas station fueled her anger towards the bad witch.

Fiery tongues licked upwards at the magical
couple as they hovered over the sea of flames that had once been a
gas station. With wands drawn, they quickly extinguished the blaze
beneath them while keeping a protective bubble around themselves.
The heat that hit up to them was terrifying.

"She was here, I feel it in my bones," said
Hilda as she watched William wipe out the last flames. "The bitch
witch did it again. I hate her." Then she froze on her broom. "Oh
crap. Don't tell me."

Without another word she turned around and
raced off. William sensed her fear and sped after her. They
returned to the house where they had just been, talking to the
witches of this world. To their tremendous relief, the five women
were still there.

"Why did you rush off like that?" Cornelia
asked as Hilda and William came in again.

"You may have noticed that the fire's out,"
Hilda said, rubbing her nose. William knew that meant she was
slightly annoyed.

"Uhm. Oh. Yes." Cornelia blushed as she
looked out the window again.

Vivian saved the situation by making fresh
tea for everyone.

"We came back here so quickly," the witch
explained, "because I was scared Zelda was pulling a stunt to
attract us and get to you. You can never tell with her. She's full
of tricks."

The women sat in silence. There was fear in
all the eyes that were on Hilda.

"It was clearly a Zelda thing, this fire,"
William added, "and I am sure she did that to find out if we are
near."

"Does that mean we are in danger?" Tory
asked, full of respect for the two magical people.

"Only a little more," Hilda said lightly.
"With Zelda around, everyone is in danger. At least there are no
dragons here that she can chase onto us." She eyed William.
"Right?"

William nodded. "Right. Unless there have
been dragons imported since I left."

The talk about dragons made the women shift
uneasily in their seats. After all they had witnessed in the short
time they'd known the two, there was not a shadow of a doubt that
they were talking real dragons.

Hilda frowned, tapping her chin. "I have an
idea... but I'll tell you about that later." She then turned to the
assembled witches. "First we have something to talk to you
about."

It took the two a while to explain their
plans and ideas to the five women. Hilda and William did not try to
make the whole affair less pretty or less dangerous than it was, as
the group had to know what they would be getting into. Slowly
though, smiles appeared on the faces of the five.