Hilda - The Challenge (14 page)

He opened his eyes partly and looked. The
next step in the process was puzzlement. He clearly recalled
putting Hilda in her own bed, and now she was lying in his. Or...
William slowly looked around the room, only moving his head. Yes,
it was the guestroom.

A slight movement from his left side pulled
his full attention back to the witch that had somehow gotten into
his bed. She moved her head a bit, there was a bit of a tremble in
her legs. One of them lay over his, and her left arm was resting on
his chest.

The final step in the process came.
Acceptance and enjoying the feeling.

After a while of snoozing, performed by both
of them, Hilda slowly woke up for real. She smiled to herself,
knowing that she had spent so much time close to William, and he
had not noticed her slipping into his bed. Nor that she had first
made the bed large enough for two people. She knew he was awake.
"Good morning," she whispered.

As she had expected, he was not prepared for
her to be awake already. It startled him a bit.

"Hey, good morning you too," William said,
his voice not yet in agreement with the being awake part. "How nice
a way to wake up like this."

"Yes," Hilda agreed. "I had to get up in the
night, and I must have mistaken the door. But since I was here
already, I decided to stay here." She enjoyed his grinning and
turned her face towards his. "You're nice and warm."

"Glad to be of service, miss witch," William
said as he looked at her. Her black eyes were the first thing he
saw of her, and the happy smile on her face was the very next
thing. "So, are you going to make a habit of this?"

She pulled a face. "Puh, as if I am going to
tell you upfront. I don't think so." And then the happy smile was
there again. "You'll find out in time."

"I can live with that," William said, pulling
her closer to him for a moment.

"You are stronger than you look," the wicked
witch commented, as she felt the pressure of his arm against her
spine and ribs.

"I can say that of you also," William
replied. "I have seen what you can do and endure, on that wicked
broom of yours. I'm glad I did not have to ride shotgun yesterday,
when you pulled that broom in the loop."

"Uhm... right... can you use words that make
sense? You ride brooms or wagons, or horses or mules. What's a
shotgun anyway? Oh, know what: don't even bother. It's far too
early for that." She pushed herself up into a sitting position and
studied William's face for a while, as he lay looking at her in
return. Slowly, making sure he was fully aware what she was doing,
she reached out and traced his face with a finger. She sensed his
relaxed mood, his feeling good. She also sensed something deep down
inside him, something she did not want to know about yet, so she
withdrew quickly from that and focussed on the simple joy of
touching his face.

William let her do what she did. The soft,
light touch of her finger felt very nice; somehow it made him
feel... special. Yes, that was the word.

After completing a second round over his
face, during which he had closed his eyes, Hilda slowly let her
finger slip away from William's cheek. "I'm going to make
breakfast, William."

He opened one eye and watched her. "Need help
with that?"

"No. But you can help eating it." Hilda got
up, but with one knee still on the side of the bed, she stopped the
getting up. She leaned over and lightly touched William's cheek
with her lips.. Then, without a word, she left the room.

Hilda darted into her own room and quickly
put on the red housecoat that reached down to her ankles. Then she
stumbled down the stairs and headed into the dangerzone that was
her kitchen.

As William came down also, he had given her
some time alone, there was already a large pot of tea on the table.
The cup with the goldfish was there; from it two faces stared at
him as he approached the table and poured the tea.

"Do you like eggs?", Hilda yelled from the
kitchen. The yelling was necessary as there were a lot of
indeterminable sounds to overcome.

"I do, and what the hell are you doing in
there? Do I have to come and rescue you?"

"No, everything is" -loud crash- "fine here.
I just need to" -sound of a chicken being squeezed??- "get these
eggs out."

William was debating with himself if he
should have a peek into the kitchen, or if he should just trust
things to be as she claimed they were. As a series of clashing
sounds came from the kitchen, followed by "crappedy crap", he could
not hold his curiosity.

Hilda had fired up the oven, to make some
special bread. It was a recipe she had learnt from the same witch
who had the thing with the fingers, but not everything that woman
had been teaching was as silly as that. Some of the ingredients
were happily popping and crackling behind the thick metal door.

There also was a particular kind of porridge
she wanted to make. It was extremely good, once it was made, but
the making itself usually was a problem as the porridge fought back
once it reached a certain stage.

The eggs for the omelet she had in mind were
the least of her problems. She simply magicked up a chicken and was
ready to squeeze it a few times, making its eggs fall into a bowl.
Before she got that far however, the halfway prepared porridge was
trying to escape from its bowl. As a precaution Hilda had put a big
lid on the bowl, but the porridge had started swaying back and
forth so wildly that the bowl had started to move over the granite
table and finally went over the edge, which accounted for the crash
that William had heard.

The lid held, so Hilda did not worry about
the bowl. It would scurry around the kitchen floor for a while
longer, until its contents had gotten into the next stage which
would solidify it and make it immobile. At least, that was the
plan. As that part was out of her hands, she started to squeeze the
magical chicken, dropping the eggs in the bowl. The chicken was not
cooperative this morning... it had turned its eggs into stones,
clanging into the bowl.

"Crappedy crap." That was something Hilda had
not taken into account. And that was how the situation in the
kitchen had come to be when William stood in the door opening,
holding two cups of tea.

He frowned as he saw the bowl jolting over
the floor, and his eyes almost popped out of their sockets as he
saw the witch holding a chicken over a bowl with stones. And during
all that, the continuous popping and banging of the bread being
baked came out of the oven.

"I don't mean to be distrusting, but are you
sure things are fine?"

"Yes, except for the eggs everything is going
according to schedule. But it would be best" -she shook the chicken
a few times, to convince it that proper eggs would be a really good
idea now- "if you take the tea back inside. I'm a bit preoccupied
now, as you may see. But really nice of you to think of some for
me." She cast a quick smile at him, then addressed the chicken,
promising it a very unpleasant end in a hot broth if it would
remain so bloody stubborn.

William, his mouth slightly opened in stunned
awe, saw six eggs fall out of the chicken. Onto the stones in the
bowl. His mouth closed. His head shook a few times. Then he turned
and walked away, back to the table. Perhaps the house had some new
things to report.

Hilda had seen William leave. "Now see what
you did," she scolded the chicken. "Now he thinks I'm an idiot in
the kitchen." She grabbed her wand and threatened the animal. "One
more of those tricks, and you'll be replaced."

The chicken looked at her with an air of
invincibility and then disappeared from her hand.

Hilda looked at the eggs that were all over
the stones. "Well, at least that's easy." A snip of the fingers
later, the drippy matter of the eggs floated over the bowl, and she
picked out the stones. Then the eggs fell back in, leaving her to
pick out the shell. As she was working on that, she was humming a
tune and thought how nice it was to be a real old fashioned cook.
Not like these youngsters that abused magic for everything.

She picked up the wand, tapped the bowl, and
voila, omelet. "That is how we do this," she nodded to herself,
very satisfied. Then she picked up the runaway bowl. The porridge
had gotten tired of running around the kitchen, so the lid came
off, she sprinkled some raisins and apple chips over it and that
was done also.

"Right then." She hardened her housecoat so
it could take some impact. She put on the mittens and then went to
the oven. It was time to take out the bread. "William, if you hear
something loud, don't worry!", she yelled out, to reassure him. It
had the adverse effect.

With her foot she kicked open the door to the
oven and quickly reached inside, grabbing the tray with the bread.
The fire in the oven retreated, as per plan. Some of the liberated
ingredients, understanding that they now were free to roam, shot
out of the bread, bouncing off the ceiling and walls for a few
seconds. They always did with this bread. They also sounded like
firecrackers going off.

William appeared in the kitchen again as if
he had been shot from a crossbow. "What are you-"

By that time, the noise was over. Hilda
looked at him. "Something wrong?"

"Uhm, no apparently not. I thought, with the
noise and all that..."

"I had told you there could be some noise,
William. Everything's fine, really."

"I guess." He did however not leave his post
until she was done cutting the bread and preparing two large plates
with everything she had been making. It was better, he thought, to
stay here just in case.

"Well, since you are here, you can help me
carry this stuff," she said with a smile, pushing the plates into
his hands.

At the table, William pointed at three
arrows. "Your mail, right? Two from yesterday and one from this
morning."

"Yesterday? I never saw those," Hilda
frowned.

"Hardly surprising, considering the fact that
you were nearly in shambles when we came back and on your bed only
moments later.

Hilda nodded, chewing her food. She held up a
hand and the three arrows jumped into it. Quickly she untied the
small pieces of thread and looked at the message that were brought
in by what William considered special delivery.

The first paper got crumpled into a ball and
was then tossed into the fireplace. "The rat idiot now sends
messages to everyone that the problem is solved. As if I care."

As the wicked witch was reading the second
message, her jaw stopped chewing. The way she stared at the paper,
her face going rather expressionless, worried William, but he felt
it would be best to leave her alone with her thoughts for a while.
If she wanted to share this with him, he'd hear it.

Hilda lifted her eyes from the paper, to meet
William's. In silence she handed him the message. He instantly
recognised the fancy calligraphy, it was without a doubt written by
the same person who had sent the original challenge. It read:
'Grimhilda. This is the official second invitation to the
challenge. Do not forget about it, you are bound by the magic in
your blood to accept this. I am setting the moment for our
encounter to the third new moon from now. This will give you more
time to become nervous, and allows me more time to enjoy the
thought of this. I do hope you bring your false wizard along. Then
there are two to witness your downfall.'

"He sounds like quite an arrogant prick, if
you ask me," William said, "but if he is only half as powerful as
you say he is, I'm afraid he has every right to be like that." He
read the note again. "This really sucks."

Hilda nodded. "Elves are better," she sighed,
slumping back in her chair. Her happy feeling of earlier that
morning had left as if it had been an exploding balloon, just the
noise missing. "I really have to start working on that,
William."

"We have to," he affirmed. "Babs said
so."

She smiled dimly, admiring his attitude, even
if there was nothing he could do. He had no magic, no power to go
against someone the likes of Lamador. The things Babs had said
still made no sense to her, and although she was prone to believe
that witchy sister, there was always a chance Baba Yaga the
fearsome was wrong.

Hilda tossed the paper in the fireplace and
then looked at the third note. "Oh, right, now that's more like
it."

William curiously looked at her, across the
table.

Hilda was able to smile at him for real
again. "This is a note from a friend. Long time since I saw her,
and she asked if I could drop in for a chat today. Does have a bit
of a drawback though... she's very much against being crowded, so
if I go there, I have to go alone. Would you mind staying here for
the morning?"

"Not at all," William said. "You go make the
rounds and see your friend, I have plenty of books here to keep me
occupied."

Hilda felt relieved, and at the same time
still burdened. Making the rounds with William was so much fun, he
held himself so well on a broom already. But the visit to her
friend would take her too far away from home to drop him off first.
And would he really be able to stay fine in this house all the time
she was gone? Well, there was only one way to find out.

They finished eating and Hilda ran up the
stairs to get changed. William had 'ordered' her to, he'd take care
of the cleaning up. She was downstairs again very quickly.
Changing, rushing and magic are a very happy combination.

"Now I'll try to come back as soon as I can,"
Hilda lectured William who had her broom at the ready for her, "and
I'm going to miss you. If someone calls at the door, the house will
let you know if it is safe to open the door or not. If nobody
answers they'll know I'm out anyway, so that's easy." The witch was
standing in front of him, her toes almost against his.