Hilda - Snow White revisited (7 page)

"What an ass," she mumbled, referring to her
majesty the queen. "Well, you're not going to be happy, I promise
you that."

Hilda brought out the wand and conjured up a
spell that modified the comb's behaviour. Snow-White still was
floored. She would remain like that for a while longer, but as soon
as the dwarfs got home, Hilda was certain, it all would be good. No
need to seek out the little guys for this, they had their work cut
out for them.

The wicked witch just pushed Snow-White into the
house and closed the door. "It'll work out." With those words,
Hilda got on her broom again and started looking out for the
queen.

"Go faster, man," the queen said to the driver
of the carriage, "I have pressing things to attend to!"

"Sure, lady," the driver said, "you can have all
the pressings you want, but old Betsy here is not going to go
faster than she can. If you can outrun her, feel free."

The queen was slowly losing her good attitude.
This announcement threw tar over her shiny mood of having taken
care of the female nuisance in the house of the dwarfs. Of course
she wanted this verified by the talking-glass in her room, the one
she had so successfully stolen from the wicked witch. She seriously
considered to go by foot, but something told her a slow horse would
still be quicker than a fast queen.

Hilda spotted the carriage as it passed through
a patchwork area of fields. "Ah. There you are. Now let's see if we
can make this more memorable for you..." With an invisibility-spell
around her, she dropped down to almost carriage level. She enjoyed
the unhappy face of the queen and knew that things would get much
worse for the bitch in the cart. She calmly lifted her wand and
aimed for the front wheels of the carriage.

"Sorry, old boy," Hilda said to the driver, as
she unleashed her magic.

It dissolved the front axle of the carriage,
making the wheels fall away from under it. The front part of the
carriage reacted to that unnatural phenomenon in a most natural
way: it slammed downwards, catapulting the driver onto old Betsy's
back, his trajectory aided a bit by the wicked witch. She was
wicked, not mean without reason. The mean queen, not prepared for
this unexpected behaviour of the carriage either, toppled over and
over, to the part of the carriage that was now at the lowest point
and banged into it. And she managed to miss that side with her
extra padded behind.

The scream, the thud and the oompf coming from
the carriage were balm to Hilda's soul. "Alright," she mumbled. If
there had been someone near to her, she would have had the
irresistible need to hold up her hand and slap the other person's
hand in mid-air. There was no one near, so the feeling ebbed away.
With a appreciating smile, Hilda saw how old Betsy trotted off with
what was now her rider on her back, leaving the stranded carriage
in the middle of the dirt road. Then she diverted the broom and
headed back home, as there were other matters to attend to. This
would keep the bitch-queen off her back for a while.

By the time the queen had lost most of the blur
in her eyes and brain, old Betsy and her rider had reached the
village. The queen stared up, seeing part wagon, part sky. "This.
Is. Not. Good." Her royal angriness let herself roll out of the
broken down wagon. As she was not used to this kind of exit from a
cart, something had to go wrong of course. A leather line caught
her ankle. In itself this would not be bad, but as the weight of
the queen now did not keep the front of the cart down, the cart
obeyed the laws of physics and tilted backwards. It dragged the
queen's leather-strapped leg upwards, making her end up in a very
undignified position, one leg held up by the leather line and her
skirt hanging over her head.

It took the mean queen a lot of time to get out
of her awkward situation. It was determination and the unsinkable
conviction that Snow-White was now for good out of her life that
set her free. She cursed a few times, then started walking back
towards the castle, which would mean a healthy stroll of some nine
miles. At that point the queen had no idea of this distance.

At home, Hilda walked up and down through the
room. There were things to arrange for the witches meeting on Scary
Mountain, and plans to cook up for the follow-up to the queen's
downfall. As often as she could, she glanced at her mirror and kept
track of the queen's progress, which was not progressing very
quickly.

"Oh dear," Hilda said, as she watched how the
queen was getting all dusty on the dirt road. "Is it that dry out
there?" She picked up her wand from the table, pointed it at the
mirror and mumbled something. Nothing happened. "Crap. I hate
Latin..." She mumbled almost the same thing in English.

Clouds pulled together over the fields and the
forests of the kingdom. It took less than three minutes for them to
accumulate enough momentum to be able to unleash interesting
amounts of rain onto the land and queen below.

Drenched, covered in muddy streaks, cold, sore
feet and legs, and very, very angry. That summed up the mean queen
when she finally reached the castle. She slammed the back door
behind her and stomped through the long halls towards her chambers.
A clear trail of water and mud showed where she had gone, much to
the despair of the cleaning crew who had just finished their job
for the day. No one dared to mention a thing. They wanted their
life more than they wanted justice, so they heaved a few heavy
sighs, brought out the buckets and the mops again and started all
over again.

The king saw his wife as she came barreling down
the corridor. "Goodness gracious, my dear, what happened to you?"
He had never seen her in a state of disarray like this.

"Shut up," the queen barked. "Not another word
or it will be your last!"

Confused and slightly insulted, the king watched
her disappear into her room. "A bit short-tempered today, are we?",
he quietly asked.

"I told you to shut up!", the queen screamed at
him, through the closed door.

The king put his hand over his mouth and
chuckled. He knew he was being quite naughty, but the view of his
beloved wife in that disheveled state had really made his day.

The queen stood in front of her magic mirror.
"Looking-glass, looking-glass on the wall, who in this land is the
fairest of all?"

The mirror considered the request and the person
in front of it. "Would you believe that it is very hard for me to
tell at this moment?", it then replied in a very diplomatic
way.

Without a word the queen picked up a perfume
bottle and raised it. "I should damage you for this. Do away with
you over this insolence." The hand was lowered and the perfume
bottle was spared a shattering experience. "But I can't. You're
unique and I need you. But don't push it."

Her anger flaring up again, she made her way to
the royal bath, to get cleaned up. The sand and dust that had
accumulated on her body were giving her serious bother and they
were also scratching in the most unmentionable places of her
physique.

"Now what is this again," Doc asked himself as
he came close to the house. He had decided to check on Snow-White
after the mishap of the previous day. The door was ajar in a way it
was not supposed to be.

"Mighty shovel!", the dwarf yelled out as he saw
Snow-White lying on the floor. "Wake up!"

Snow-White didn't.

Doc kneeled down with her, fussing and honestly
making a bit of a fool of himself at first. But soon he pulled
himself together and assessed the situation. It did not take him
long to find the comb, and as he got it out of Snow-White's hair,
her eyes fluttered open.

"Doc? What..."

"Heck if I know, missy, but it looks as if you
did the wrong thing again." Doc got up and helped Snow-White to her
feet. "Who was it this time?"

"A neighbour lady," Snow-White confessed.

"Neighbour lady? We have no neighbours." Doc
scratched his head. "And you'd better keep that door shut, lil'
lady, or one day we're coming back and find you dead, meaning there
will be no food on the table!"

Snow-White was shocked by his words so much that
she started sobbing.

Doc was sorry about what he said, so in a
comforting way he put his arms around the girl and patted her...
bottom. After all, Snow-White was a human girl and Doc was just a
dwarf, so he could not reach any higher without straining himself.
"Now, come, come, I did not mean to be harsh," he said, trying to
make the crying girl feel better.

"Oh, Doc," Snow-White said, a sudden smile on
her face and the flow of tears stopped immediately. "Could you do
that again?"

"What? This?" He patted again.

"Oh... yes... that... now don't stop..."
Snow-White's voice became kind of husky and heated.

Back at the mine, Grumpy was feeling utterly
himself. "Suck an elf... what is taking Doc so long? He should've
been back here and help out with all this here."

Happy slapped Grumpy on the shoulder. "Relax,
Grumpy, you know Doc. He's probably helping Snow-White with
something." Happy had no clue how close he was to the truth.

Grumpy reached out for a piece of wood. He did
not like Happy slapping him, so the next time the idiot would try
it, he'd be in for a woody that would last him for a while.

Sneezy came out of the mine. "Wha.. haaa...
haaachooo!!!!" He had intended to ask a question, but the hay fever
hit him as soon as he appeared in the open air. The cart with ore
they had dug that day keeled over, Happy tumbled over the sand,
laughing, and Sleepy rolled onto his other side.

"Oops... sorry about that, brothers," Sneezy
said, "I just wanted to know what you're talking about while we're
doing all the work. Bashful down there says he could do with some
water."

Happy slapped the sand off his clothes and
grabbed a cup that he filled with water. "I'll take it to him,
Sneezy, you and your sneezes will never make it to him with a cup
filled with water."

Sneezy nodded. "Haa... haaa... haaaa..."

The other dwarfs ran for cover, but the expected
storm didn't come.

"Hey, guys, I was only laughing," Sneezy said,
quite dismayed.

The brothers came out of hiding again. Happy
went into the mineshaft with the water. He hadn't gone but a few
yards, when a thundering sneeze sounded, followed by Grumpy's
words: "Now do that one more time and you won't see another
sunrise. Brother."

In the castle, the queen got out of the bathtub.
After a double clean-up she felt better again. Clean too. She put
on her best clothes, her best make-up and, thinking about
Snow-White's demise, her best mood.

She put herself in front of the talking mirror
and asked her question again. It's response did not make her very
happy: "Oh, queen, thou art fairest of all I see, but over the
hills, where the seven dwarfs dwell, Snow-White is still alive and
well, and none is so fair as she."

Hilda was satisfied with her actions of the day.
After seeing the queen go into the mother of hissy-fits after the
announcement of her mirror, she took a while to wind down, read and
think. About her outfit for the meeting on Scary Mountain for
instance.

She wasn't surprised that no one had contacted
her to help in the preparations for the meeting. Once they had
asked her to supply some special effects, as a demonstration of
what was she was capable of. In her enthusiasm Hilda had almost
blown the top off Scary Mountain and that had been an honest
mistake. Not that any of the witches believed her, least of all the
ones that had gotten burnt. Which basically amounted to the same
thing.

Then a ping sounded through her room. A ping on
a frequency that was reserved for witches. Hilda frowned as she put
her grimoire to the side. She walked to the crystal ball and
grinned as she saw the emblem.

"Hey, Babs!", Hilda said after waving her hand
over the ball, to make the image come up.

Baba Yaga grinned at her from inside the ball,
in all her ugliness. "Hilda. I just -have- to talk to you. About
Scary Mountain."

Hilda already felt what was coming and pulled up
a chair. "Talk to me, woman, I am all ears. And I have a few things
in mind for that meeting also. I think we are thinking similar
thoughts..."

The king was on the loose in the castle garden.
He had just told someone to send a letter back to the neighbouring
king about the visit and stuff. "Regrettably blah blah death of my
daughter blah blah and such blah blah. Sincerely, Walt. King."

Walt the king felt really crappy. Not about
being short and snappy with the letter, but with the knowledge that
his daughter was dead and gone and nobody could or would tell him a
friggin' thing about it. Humbert the huntsman was no more than
blabbering sorry heap when asked, none of the servants had seen
anything of Snow-White on the last day she'd been around. And his
wife, his dear little wife... she had been out all day, probably
trying to find the little darling, and she had come back all wet
and dirty He felt sorry for cracking his little joke on her and
thought that a new flowerbed, a large gem and a box of chocolates
would be in order to make up to her. At least that thought made him
feel somewhat... less bad.

The queen was in her special room again,
skimming over her potions, poisons, aphrodisiacs- oh, she would not
need them for a while.

She slapped herself on the head a few times,
trying to remember what Snow-White's favourite food was. If only
she had been paying better attention to the girl when the wench had
still been in the castle.

"Apples," she decided, "it has to be apples", as
she recalled finding apple cores in Snow-White's room very often.
"So an apple it will be." A mean and sly smile shadowed over her
face as she reached for a few specific potions and poisons...