Baba Yaga laughed so loudly that the palace
guards came running to check what bad had happened this time. They
dispersed quickly, as a laughing witch was not considered something
bad. Little did they know.
The magical muddies got up and mounted their
brooms again. Hilda cleaned and dried them all, as William took
care of the two cats who looked utterly displeased. When everyone
was in some form of order again, Esmee tried building the ward
again, this time with support from Hilda, and that seemed to help.
The web was clearly visible, looked stable and Baba Yaga approved,
which was most important.
"And now you make four lines from the web,
one to each of us," Babs said.
"Six," Hilda corrected her, "the cats too.
They can alarm us when something happens."
Baba Yaga agreed, watching the two black
creatures who seemed unimpressed, even bored with the whole affair.
They lay curled up on their part of the brooms. Esmee managed the
connections from the web to all the ones who had to be linked to
it.
"Good little witch," Baba Yaga encouraged
Esmee. The flower witch had a pained expression on her face as this
was magic of an entirely different level. "Now, take us to the next
spot. We'll each set up some wards so we are inside before it's all
dark out here. This rain is bad on my old bones."
They visited six places in the castle grounds
and everywhere they left a magical alarm bell, connected to each of
them. Esmee set up the last one, and this time it did not take her
so long. After that the group repaired to the warm dry spaces of
the castle.
As they were in the dining room, where there
was a separate table for them, they talked about things of the day,
and what they would do when the mysterious large cat woman creature
was shaking up any of the wards. Jordan, Snow White and a trail of
children came into the dining room then, and they all flocked
around the table of the magicals. Some of the children looked for
cats to play with, but the cats had spotted the children and had
left for safer quarters.
"Have you found out anything?" Snow White
wanted to know as Jordan and some maids tried to move the children
towards their own table. It looked like herding cats.
The magicals told her about what they had
found, which was not very much. "Good thing we got to those tracks
before the rain," Hilda said, "when it keeps pouring down they'll
be gone quickly."
"And Esmee? Has she been any help?" Snow
White asked. The tone in her voice made it clear that she had not
much trust in her castle-witch beyond household magic and the
improbable taming of children.
"Esmee's been great," Baba Yaga said,
surprising Snow White, who kept an eye on Jordan. The old witch
shook her head as she saw how he tried to grab the twins who were
running around with forks. Esmee seemed surprised at Baba Yaga's
words, she had not expected such praise.
"He's not getting them before they get him,"
Baba Yaga predicted. All heads turned to Prince Jordan and saw her
prediction come true: as Jordan grabbed Dicky, Billy approached him
from the rear and was ready to stab his father in the rear end with
the fork.
Esmee muttered something and had her wand in
hand. Billy yelped, and with a proper reason. He shot up to the
ceiling where his feet then seemed stuck. The little prince
screamed as if he was on a spit, while William magically caught the
falling fork before it could hurt someone.
"Dicky," Esmee then said. She attracted the
attention of everyone in the dining room, the way her voice was
strong and so very un-Esmee. Dicky turned and stared at her. "Put
down the fork and sit. Or you can join your brother up there."
Dicky stared up. The fork fell from his hand
as he heard his twin brother yelp as he hung from the ceiling.
Dinna also saw her brother hanging and started sobbing that she did
not want to go up to the ceiling again. Roderick, who had stayed
close to Snow White all the while, kept looking from hanging
brother to sobbing sister and back up, unsure what to do with the
situation.
"I think we should sit down and eat," Snow
White suggested. "Would you please be so kind to bring my child
down again, Esmee?" There was a sound in her voice that Hilda had
never heard before when Snow White talked to the castle witch. It
sounded close to respect.
"Sure she can, but since these two don't seem
to know what to do with a fork, make them eat with their fingers,"
the wicked witch suggested, grinning at the prospect of a food
fight.
Esmee spoiled her fun by suggesting that she
and Hilda would feed the two boys, while their hands were stuck to
the chairs. "Crappedy crap."
Billy was brought down from the ceiling. He
had fear written all over his face, and the smell of urine rising
up from his collar.
Baba Yaga had a ball, watching the feeding
scene... William did his best not to look, and not to laugh.
In the black of the night, two shapes
splashed down the muddy trail. Magda tried to find protection from
the unrelenting rain under her soaked cloak. Lindolf stared ahead
stoically, his garments also soaked. "I wish I had known this
before," the man said, "I could have saved myself the trouble of
coming here."
"Do you think I enjoy getting all wet and
cold?" Magda snapped at him. "I have better things to do too, you
know. It is not just my game, you are responsible at least as
much." She pushed past some twigs. The curse she heard from the big
man as the twigs hit him in the face gave her some
satisfaction.
-=-=-
"William?"
"Yes, witch?" the wizard said.
"I am glad you did not laugh this evening."
Hilda put an arm around her wizard. "I am not good with
children."
"That was rather obvious," said William, "but
you handled it just fine, Hilda. Esmee has experience, magicking
Dicky's hands to the chair was enough for her. You just did what
you could, and I'm proud of you."
Hilda nodded, her cheek against his shoulder.
"Billy wouldn't sit still. His own fault that I had to make the
iron clamps appear. That way he kept his mouth open and the rest of
him unmoving."
"Inventive, and effective," William
agreed.
"Was a bad move of Jordan though, to tell the
kid that is how it feels when you're in a suit of armour." Hilda
snorted. "As if he knows how that feels."
"And do you know, sweetwitch?" the wizard was
curious.
"No. I don't need that kind of ordinary
stuff." Hilda snuggled closer. "I just need you..."
The morning came on slightly soggy feet, but
the skies were clearing. Apparently the rain was set on wetting
other areas. Hilda sat up and rubbed her face. Then she pushed
William. "I am sure it was your ward that did not work."
"Eh, what?" William wasn't aware of anything
that had not worked on his behalf.
"We all set up wards yesterday, in the rain.
If you care to remember." Hilda leaned down on him, resting her
elbows on his chest. "And we heard nothing this night. I am tempted
to bet that the cat woman was where you put up the ward, and that
your ward failed to warn us. You have to admit that you are not so
skilled in setting wards, William."
The wizard put his arms around her. "Now
listen, witch. I watched what you did, and I copied your ward. If
you care to remember. So if my ward failed, yours has done
too."
"My wards, wizard, do not fail." She sounded
very determined.
"So maybe it were Esmee's wards. Or the
notification lines she set up to all of us." William harboured a
thought for a moment. Only for a moment.
"Don't think that out loud, William. Babs
will have you for breakfast," Hilda said.
"Don't say that. It's already banished from
my head. Really."
Hilda felt the shudder go through William.
She kissed him on the lips. "Come. Breakfast. And then inventory of
what happened outside."
Breakfast was a calm affair, even when Baba
Yaga joined them. After that they went to find Esmee. They found
the pink witch in the room where Snow White and another young woman
were discussing tactics on keeping the twins under control.
"Jordan is taking them with him far too
often," Snow White complained to the magical trio that joined the
talks. "They are learning his way of talking, they eat too much and
they don't listen to me."
Baba Yaga agreed. "These two kids are indeed
becoming a bit chubby. I am sure we can lend a hand with that too,
while we're here."
Snow White seemed to seriously consider the
implicit offer of the witch. "How many children have you
raised?"
"Children? Raised?" Babs asked. "Are you
asking me? And you're feeling well at the same time?"
Snow White did not look at ease all of a
sudden. "Maybe I should just talk to Jordan about that, instead of
you..."
"Ah, no, really, hardly any trouble," Hilda
pitched in, "we'll take care of that for you. You just keep that
belly of you where it is, and by the way, your little girl is
making a mess of the clean diapers." As Snow White and the young
woman stared in terror at the mountain of diapers Dinna had
created, William took Esmee by the arm and made her leave the room
with them.
"Hey, where are you taking me?" Esmee asked
as they sauntered down the long corridor to the exit.
"Away from there. Snow White has plenty of
help for her kids," Hilda explained, "and we are going to see what
happened outside. None of us woke up last night, so I suspect one
of the wards did not work as we planned."
Esmee nodded. "I was a bit surprised about
not being woken up also," she admitted.
Once outside, they all got on their brooms
and went on a tour around the places they had secured the day
before. To their surprise, they found all the wards in perfect
order; there was nothing wrong anywhere. There also were no
paw-prints, no bits of hair and no piles of bones at any of the
places. The latter made no sense, according to Hilda. Esmee
confirmed that chicken or rabbit remains had been found every
morning.
"Let me tell you something," William then
said, staring at the two black animals that had come along. They
were neatly curled up on the hovering brooms. "Cats don't like to
get wet."
"Everyone knows that, William- Oh, right. It
pissed down last night..." Hilda turned to her best friend: "See,
Babs, that's why I keep him around. Occasionally he does come in
handy." Esmee stared at Hilda and then at William, who winked at
her. She grinned without a sound.
Baba Yaga took her wand and prodded the ward
they were with. "Still looks good. We'll leave it in place for
another night." Esmee was quite surprised and proud. It was one of
her wards, and Baba Yaga had said it looked good.
"I vote we go back to the castle and have a
cup of tea with something or other," Hilda said. "The rain went on
for too long, it still feels moist everywhere."
"And you are going to battle that with taking
in wet stuff, aren't you?" Baba Yaga grinned.
"Hot wet stuff. That's different," Hilda
grinned as she hopped onto her broom. "Come on, folks, I am not
going to wait for you!" Esmee was last in the air, still trying to
come to terms with the seemingly random way Hilda's mind hit all
kinds of things.
Back in the castle, sitting in one of the
many lounges, the four magical ones discussed how they would go
about Prince Jordan. More precisely this meant that Hilda and Babs
were coming up with one weird plan after the next, while William
sat grinning and Esmee became more anxious for them to stop. They
frightened her. Hilda seemed to read that from Esmee's face. "I
think it is time to finish the tea," the wicked witch said, "and
put an end to our talking." Esmee was the first person to agree
with that. Poor Esmee.
They finished their tea. Hilda, William and
Babs got up. "What are you going to do?" Esmee asked, slight bits
of fear making her heart jolt.
"We are going to have a little talk."
"But you said you were putting an end to the
talking..." An awareness dawned on Esmee. It was a dawning that
cast bad shadows.
"Our talking," Hilda confirmed Esmee's fears,
"has indeed come to an end. Now we are going to have the talk with
His Princeness."
"Oh." That was the best come-back Esmee
mustered. "In that case I'll-"
"-come with us, if you would be so kind,
yes," Hilda completed Esmee's sentence in quite a different way
than the pink witch had in mind. "Prince Jordan won't feel so
outnumbered. He knows you and may take heart from that."
Esmee highly doubted that. Prince Jordan had
never been very impressed with her, despite all her efforts to do
what she could. She understood however that there was no way she
would be escaping from the three that now were looking down at her,
waiting until she got up. Lingering, she knew, would only postpone
the inevitable, so without suppressing her sigh, she got to her
feet.
The flower witch was in the lead, on the way
to the chambers of Prince Jordan. As they went along, Baba Yaga
commented to Esmee she should start wearing properly coloured
clothes. "Some more black would do you good. And that red you got
the other day, when are you going to do something with that?"
"Yes, yes, I will do something. Maybe make a
nice dress from that," Esmee responded.
"Good. And a black cloak? Want us to fix you
one?" Hilda offered. "We make mean cloaks. I can see you in one
with shiny black flowers, or cats." Grim and Obsi meowed, objecting
to that.
"If it is all the same to you, Hilda, I will
see that I get my own cloak," Esmee said. She turned into another
corridor and almost bumped into a man. "Oh, I'm so sorry."
"Watch where you're going," the servant
grumbled.
"Hey. Yes, you," Baba Yaga said as the
servant passed her. "I think we need to talk." Esmee grew pale as
she witnessed the scene. Hilda and William looked on with
interest.