"Jack, it's too heavy," the kneeling police
officer said.
"Idiot," Jack said and kneeled down. His
attempt to lift the gun ended in him falling over, as it had gotten
extremely heavy from Hilda's spell.
"Would you mind telling us why we are under
arrest?" William asked as policeman Jack gave the gun another
useless try.
The other one, standing again, said: "You
have disturbed the peace in the neighbourhood. In all the town,
actually. Your actions have caused damage to buildings and roads,
as well as blocked most public life over the last weeks."
"Oh." William did not sound impressed. "And
of course you have evidence and witnesses all over the place to
prove that we are to blame."
"In fact we do, sir. Almost every good
citizen in this town has seen you and your partner cause
disturbances while you were fly-... uhm... moving around over...
uhm... through the streets."
"We did not really try hard to conceal our
presence. Officer." William stood up and looked the officer in the
eye.
Hilda followed his cue and also got up. She
bent over with a whisper, took the gun from the floor and looked up
at the officer. "Listen," she said, "you do not go around arresting
witches and wizards. We've been talking to you lot many times, and
you looked the other way as we busted our brooms trying to bring
Zelda down. Now the word is out that the evil witch is gone, and
now you are coming in here two strong to stick us in your dungeons?
I'm sorry, but you will have to do better than that."
"Yes!" Tory stood up. "We've done hard work
too, we risked our necks, we put ourselves in danger. So if you are
going to arrest Hilda and William, you will have to bring us all
in."
More and more people got to their feed; the
policemen felt very uncomfortable all of a sudden.
"Here. This is yours. Take it and leave."
Hilda pushed the gun into its owners hands.
His reaction was swift and remarkable. He
pointed the gun at her. "You are under arrest."
"Look," Vivian said, "we don't want trouble.
We've had our share. I think we can all agree that you had your
share of crap also, with a witch out on the loose, right?"
The officers nodded. They had indeed had many
a troubled night.
"Cool. These two," Vivian pointed at Hilda
and William, "did the hardest work to get the witch out of the way.
Your orders to bring them in are insane. Which idiot instructed you
to do so anyway?"
"Our comissioner is not an idiot," Jack the
policeman said. "Please, I advise you to be silent, or we have to
arrest you for insulting an officer."
"I could turn you into a frog," Hilda said.
"Would you like that?"
The armed policeman shook his head. "You
cannot frighten us with things like that, ma'am."
Hilda sighed. "They've seen us fly brooms.
And then they think that turning someone into a frog is not
frightening. Ranunculus." The last word was accompanied by a swing
of a wand, and the gun fell to the ground again. It was followed by
a uniform and a frog.
Jack, the officer who was not changed, stared
at the heap of things and the amphibian that had been his partner.
"You can't do that!"
Hilda picked up her coffee cup. "Wrong."
"Make him a person again!"
William put his hand on the man's arm. "Use
the magic word. Please. It helps. Believe me, I know her."
"Make him a person again, dammit!" Jack made
the mistake of reaching for his weapon also.
William changed it into fudge, and as the
police officer stared at the goo in his hand, Hilda put a spell on
the man's shoes. They slowly started walking out of the house.
The witch picked up the frog and put it in
Jack's hands. "Here. Take good care of him. In a few hours he will
become human again, so make sure he is home, or you have clothes
for him at hand."
"Ribbit," complained the frog as he was
carried away by his partner who had no option but to walk on: his
shoes did not give him time to kick them off.
"You're going to get in trouble over that,"
Gladys grinned.
"I doubt y'ever gonna see them again," Buster
commented as witch and wizard returned to the room. Cornelia and he
had seen the policeman walk off through the window. Buster had
enough experience with the arm of the law, apparently. "Nice trick
too."
"What are you going to do now?" Vivian asked
as everyone sat down again.
"We're going home," said William.
"Away from the madness," Hilda agreed. "Would
be awfully great if you have a broom for us. We got here on mine,
but that's not fit for two people."
"And two cats," William added.
His witch glared at him. "Sure. Dream
on."
Vivian grinned. "Yes. I have a broom for you.
Not a new one, but I guess it works for you."
"As long as it is in one piece," Hilda
nodded. "William, you want to go and have a look? It will be
yours."
William grinned.
Vivian got up. "Come, it's in the shed."
When they returned, Hilda had a cat in her
lap and her hand was resting on the black furry body as she was
chatting along.
The other cat was lying on William's chair,
as if it was waiting for him to return. He picked the animal up and
put it on his knees. "The broom will do fine, Hilda. No problem at
all."
"My broom will go to their world. Their
fairyland," Vivian said. There was obvious pride in her voice. As
she sat down next to her husband, she added: "It is a good one, he
said. It's been used well. Maybe something for you to
remember."
Laughter ran through the room, affecting
everyone but the cats.
"We should go," said Hilda. "It's going to be
dark soon and I do want to be able to find the spot from where we
can go back home."
William agreed. "It's best that we leave now,
yes. The people from the town will be able to get things in order
again. Except the Denton Building, probably."
The people in the room said emotional
goodbyes to the magical couple. Many a tear was shed, and the coven
members all tried to coax a "we'll come back" from William and
Hilda, but they could not make such a promise. A maybe was the best
they could give.
They went outside, where now two brooms
leaned against the wall. They mounted the utensils, and as they
were making themselves comfortable two black streaks came from the
kitchen and jumped.
"Looks like you are stuck with some cats,"
Jennifer grinned.
Hilda muttered something about hairy pests,
so Buster frowned and reached out, to lift the cat from her broom.
"Hey! No touch! My kitty!" she warned him.
The big man looked puzzled and needed a hug
from Cornelia to feel better again. Or so it seemed anyway.
"Goodbye, people," Hilda said. She waved
quickly and then her broom, including cat, shot away into the
skies.
"Stay well," William said. He lifted off too
and went after Hilda. His cat seemed very much at ease on the
broomstick, even enjoying the ride as it sat on the bristles.
Hilda had slowed down after the first mile;
it was easy for him to catch up.
"I know," he said to her. He sensed, through
the bond, how she felt. "Stuff like that is not easy."
The witch nodded.
In silence they flew on. As they reached the
town limit, they saw a man standing om the back of an old pickup
truck, who was waving and yelling at them.
"Damn. That's Bert!" William said.
They swooped down and greeted the man who had
let them a room in his store when they had arrived in this
world.
"What's this then, William, are you leaving?"
Bert's face looked as if he had witnessed something horrible.
"Yes. Our work here is done," said William.
"And we're running from the police. They wanted to arrest us for
doing what we did."
Bert shook his head as he heard the story.
Then he said goodbye to his friend and the witch. "I'm sorry we did
not get to meet in happier circumstances, Mrs. Witch," he said,
"maybe another time will be more favourable."
"Yes. Maybe," said Hilda. "William, dusk is
coming in..."
William agreed, so they left Bert on his
truck and found the portal that would bring them into their own
world again.
"It's a madhouse here," Hilda said as she
looked back to the town where now lights were beginning to come on.
She stroked the head of the cat in front of her. "Come. Let's go,
wizard." She leaned over and kissed William.
Then they plunged into the wavy circle that
disappeared as soon as they had gone through it.
A few minutes, Bert stopped the old pickup
where he had seen them vanish. "Now really..."
The magical couple raced through the tunnel
that seemed to close itself behind them. They emerged at the rocky
platform where the trip had started. William's broken down car was
there, waiting for them.
"We're almost home, William," Hilda said. She
sounded relieved. They took to flight again, heading for the house,
curious what it had to report.
###
About the author:
I am an IT consultant who loves reading and
writing.
I've been an amateur-author since years,
writing SciFi, Fantasy and lately also Steampunk. My home is in the
Netherlands.
I hope you liked "Hilda and Zelda".
All books I published so far:
Hilda the wicked Witch series:
Hilda the wicked
witch
(Smashwords, July 2010)
Hilda - Snow White
Revisited
(Smashwords, September 2010)
Hilda - The
Challenge
(Smashwords, December 2010)
Steampunk:
Aeroparts
Factory
(Smashwords, December 2010)
Lily Marin
(three short steampunk stories) (Smashwords, January 2011)
If you want to connect with me online:
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/pagan_paul
Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/paulkater
My website:
http://www.nlpagan.net