Hilda - Snow White revisited (12 page)

"You dare wear that??" Sheer shock streamed from
the crystal ball, visible as question marks that floated into the
room and then evaporated into puffs of purple smoke.

"Think it is a bit too much for the oldies?"
Hilda looked at the dress. She had not worn it very often, she had
to admit to herself, and it was kind of revealing indeed. It showed
lots of leg and lots of other things that witches usually don't
show off.

"What the heck, girlfriend," Babs said in her
cackling voice, "put it on and shock them out of their double-knit
knickers!" A witchy laughter filled the room that would be the
death of a mere mortal. Hilda just had to grin along with it.

"Okee dokee, let's make waves there," the wicked
witch laughed, thinking also of the small bit of entertainment she
and Babs had prepared.

In the workshop of Johan the mirror-maker, a lot
of activity was unfolding. The assignment from the dwarfs was an
intriguing one, so the man had shoved all other orders to the side
and was working on the glass coffin. The two dwarfs did their best
to help him, so the work would progress as quickly as was humanly
and dwarfly possible.

Happy had happily used Katrina, Johan's wife, to
indicate what the size of the coffin should be. "Just like her,
only then with her head off," he had said with a big smile.

Katrina had some objections to that kind of
measure-taking, but as long as she was allowed to keep her head
where it was, she was fine with it in the end.

Walt was keeping more than his average eye on
his wife. She had appeared at the breakfast table, which was rather
unheard of already, but she had actually been in a good mood. That
was very uncanny.

He had asked why she was in such a good mood,
and all she had said was that there was nothing bothering her
anymore, and some vague things about competition that now was
eradicated. She would not say anymore about it, and Walt was not
going to push things. That would make his curiosity too obvious.
Instead he went about in a sneaky way: he set up some of his
servants to spy on his wife.

The men kept walking along the corridors and in
turn went to Walt to report what she was doing. Most of that was
quite boring to the king, as that involved woman things, like
having another bath, standing in front of the mirror with yet
another set of clothes that was not going to be worn that day and
more silliness like that.

Then one of the servants came with news that was
interesting: "The queen herself is cleaning out Snow-White's room
herself. And with each item she throws out she is laughing and
making strange remarks."

"Strange remarks? Such as?", Walt asked.

"Things like 'I got you now, sweetie', my king.
Or 'My apple got to your core, did it?' Things like that," the
servant said.

Walt frowned. "Weird things to say, don't you
agree?"

The servant rubbed his nose, unsure what to say
to that. "It is what I heard her say, my king... And then there
is-" The man slapped a hand over his lips, as his face turned
red.

"There is what, my man?", Walt asked. "Come on,
say it. You said something and you are bound to tell me the rest
now. I declare this, here and now. It's good to be king, you
know."

The servant looked as if Hilda herself had
attached his hand to his face: it did not want to come off. Behind
his fingers he mumbled something inunderstandable.

"Get your fingers out of your face, man," Walt
ordered, "and talk in a way that I can understand you!"

The servant tore his hand from his mouth with
obvious difficulty. "They say," he said, as quietly as he could,
"that the queen is uhfuffel."

"The queen is what?"

"Uhfuffel, my king."

"One more time, and now out loud, if you want to
keep your ears, okay?" Walt was getting slightly annoyed by the
mumbling servant.

The servant drew a deep breath and stuck all his
courage in it. "Unfaithful, my king. They say that the queen is
unfaithful. Cheating on you. You know the deal, doing the
hokey-pokey with other men, doing the wild thing with people that
she should not do it with." As the words came out of the man's
mouth, the blood drew away from his cheeks, leaving him standing
there as a ghost.

"Oh. Is that so..." Walt, the king, frowned for
a moment. "And who, pray tell, are 'they'?"

The servant battled with his conscience. He
could hardly say that just about everyone in the castle was aware
of the queen's nighttime (and also daytime) escapades. "Uhm, well,
several people say so. Many people here, I forgot the names. And
the faces too."

"Right...", Walt nodded. "So the queen is
sleeping with other men..."

"Well, I wouldn't call that sleeping, my king.
Afterwards, perhaps, but she has quite a lot of energy to burn
befo-" The hand flew to the mouth again.

"Is that so..." Walt looked at the servant. "You
seem to know an awful lot about all this, my man. Now, come on, be
a real guy. You are not going to lose your ears over this, I
promise you." The smile on Walt's face did not hold much good in
store for the servant.

The king waved, and two guards that were ever
present stepped up and took the servant by the arms. "Take him to
the physician, guards. And tell the physician to make sure he will
not be able to do the wild thing again. Ever."

"Very well, sire," said one of the guards. The
other one went extremely pale behind his metal mask. Together they
dragged the servant off, while Walt was reconsidering his views and
ideas about what he had until now considered to be his loving
wife.

Hilda had all her gear in order and stacked in
one place in the room. It was a rather amazing amount of material
she intended to take along for the evening.

"Hilly, are you still there?", a voice came from
the crystal ball that was doing overtime these days.

"Babs, baby, I hear you. What's teasing?"

"I have a bit of a problem here," Baba Yaga
said. "I can't get the bloody kettle folded up the way I want and
I'm already in need of a spare broom to take my things along. Is
there a possibility that you swing by and help me out?"

"Oh, sure, I'll drop in with you. Maybe there's
time for tea and a chat, if I pack up and leave now," Hilda said.
"I have another strong broom here that can hold your cauldron
without a hitch."

"You're the best, Hilda! If you care to drop by,
please do to. I'll put the kettle on and have tea and gingerbread
cookies ready."

"I hear you, girlfriend," Hilda grinned, "are
those the same ones that you got from the stupid hag that tried to
get to Hanzel and Gretel?"

"No way, Hilly, they'd gone stale and hard. I
don't know what recipe Bruni used but that was definitely a bad on
her end. Well, she got toasted in her own oven and she took her
secret with her. Good riddance, I think."

Hilda laughed at the memory. "Oh yeah. She never
was good at cooking something up. Hey, I'm loading up and brooming
my way over to you, Babs!" The wicked witch waved over the ball and
ended the chat that way. She brought out her wand and looked at her
small, elegant purse. Usually it would be big enough for a small
hanky and a few coins, but Hilda was not made of usual. She waved
her wand, picked up the dice that remained of her mountain of
things and dropped it in the purse.

"Right, packing done," she nodded. She snipped
her fingers and two brooms lazily floated through the room towards
her, and they followed her as she walked to the front door. Just
before leaving, she hesitated for a moment. Should she have a last
look at things in the kingdom? Hilda shook her head. If things were
to go wrong, then they would also go wrong without her watching.
There was something more interesting coming up this evening. The
world would have to get by without this wicked witch for a
while.

Once outside, Hilda locked up her house. It
looked quite impressive, with hundreds of yards of big iron chains
and padlocks around it. She took a small sign out of the air and
hung that on one of the padlocks. It read: "The witch is out."

Hilda touched down on the path that led to Baba
Yaga's hut. She knew how to approach it, being from the front. It
looked like your average hut on giant chicken legs, but it was a
lot smarter than that. Like Hilda's house, it was able to inform
the resident witch if someone was approaching.

The wicked witch considered that as she was
walking up to the hut. Perhaps she should indeed get her house a
new layer of paint. Lately it had been really neglecting its
tell-tale abilities, making her open the door in her nighty for the
wrong people.

"Heya, house, how's things? Can you watch my
brooms for a bit while I am inside?", Hilda said as she was close
to one of the legs. It lifted a toe and she shoved her brooms under
it. With such a chicken toe guarding her belongings, there was no
way anyone but herself or Babs would be able to get them away from
there.

The witch looked at the unpainted hut. Maybe her
own house was just acting up.

The door of the hut opened and Baba Yaga
appeared, in all her ugliness. "Hilly!", she shrieked as she jumped
towards the wicked witch. The two hugged, as they had not seen each
other in almost a year. "Come in, you witch," Baba Yaga said, "I
have tea and cookies."

"It is so good to see you again, Babuschka,"
Hilda said as they were sitting and having exchanged a lot of
gossip. There was always gossip to go over, or to go over
again.

"Feels so to me also, Hilly," Baba Yaga said,
scratching her few hairs with the long boney fingers. "So can you
have a look at this kettle of mine? It is a serious piece of
hardware, made by one of my most faithful Russian blacksmiths, and
he did a really good job on it. A bit too good for my taste at the
moment."

Hilda considered the immense cauldron. It stood
big, black, round and very solid in the room, appearing too large
to be even inside the hut. "That is one beast, Babs. I see where
your problem sits."

She pulled out her wand and walked around the
cauldron. She tapped it. The kettle was such a massive thing that
there was no sound coming from it. "Whoa, serious stuff," Hilda
mumbled. "This is one challenge. Resilire Cortina!"

The cauldron was hardly impressed. Nothing
happened.

Babs sat watching how Hilda was going about,
biting the thin lower lip with her toothless jaw. Hilda knew it and
wanted to do this.

"Russian eh, no liking for Latin? Good. I hate
Latin." She slapped the cauldron with the wand, while saying:
"Shrink, you bitch." There was an audible plop as the cauldron
reduced itself in size to an overgrown dice.

Hilda picked it up. "Gotcha. Here ya go, Babs,
no problem."

Baba Yaga grinned. "You are so good, Hilly, I
knew you could pull this off as the witchmaster you are. I have
been meddling with skulls and bones too long, I think. Lost the
touch for the bigger magic, I'm afraid."

"Ah, don't worry Babuschka, let's pack up and
head over to Scary Mountain. I am sure Nanny Ogg and Granny
Weatherwax are already working on getting the full moon out
tonight."

And so the two witches took out Baba Yaga's
suitcase and a big bag of goodies for munching on the way. Hilda
tied the shrunken cauldron to her spare broom and they were set to
go.

"Hey, that's wicked, Babs, what gave you that
idea?" Hilda looked at the end of Baba Yaga's broom where a skull
was tied to the stick. The end of the stick stuck out of one of the
eyesockets. "Didn't you have the end out of the nose last
year?"

"Yeah, I used to," cackled the old witch, "but I
did some courses on modernism and alternative approaches to
expressing yourself, and I came up with this. And I have to say
that I like it, although it does affect the flight abilities of the
broom a bit. But I can deal with that."

"Shiny," said Hilda, "I am awed by you,
girlfriend. Doing courses still. Sweet."

Then they kicked off and soared along the
clouds, en route to the meeting place.

They were coming within visual range of the
mountain when Baba Yaga looked up. "Now what..."

Hilda looked up also and saw what was bugging
her friend. The moon was out already. It was full. And too close to
the ground. And pink. "Suck an elf, what's that?"

"I bet they brought that amateur in again,
what's her name... Garlick."

Hilda groaned. "Not her... She's so... kissy
kissy mooshy mooshy..."

"Don't let the kid get to you, Hilly," Baba Yaga
said. "Keep your cool and get it over with. Remember: there's only
one you and that is why I love you."

"Alright," Hilda sighed, not yet convinced she'd
pull that off. Magrat Garlick was one of the sweetest and most
innocent witches around, and she gave Hilda the never-ending
creeps.

The duo landed their brooms a bit away from the
general pucblic that was already assembling on Scary Mountain.
Hilda kept looking at the moon that was still pink, full and too
close. After muttering something about burning on the stake, she
helped Baba Yaga unload her cargo-broom and inflated the cauldron
from hell again. With all their attributes and ingredients in
place, they started preparing for the fireworks they had in
mind.

"Hello, hello," a small obnoxious man with grey
hair and a grey beard cheered as he walked around the cauldron.

"What the heck are you doing here?", Hilda
asked.

"Ignore him, Hilly," the old boney witch
said.

Rumpelstiltskin however grinned. "Hilly. Haha, I
like that! I'll call you Hilly from now on!"

"Do that. Just once. Please, do it, and do it
now," Hilda said as she made her wand appear. "It will be the last
thing that comes from your puny throat, you idiot."

"Hey, wasn't this supposed to be a peaceful
meeting?", Rumpelstiltskin asked as he slowly walked backwards,
holding up his hands.