Hilda - Snow White revisited (6 page)

Doc looked up. "What?" As there was no sensible
reply, he turned back to the paper.

The five others sat on their beds, cooling down
and counting the seconds before Sleepy would get out of the
bathroom. But the seconds became minutes, and the minutes became
fifteen minutes. The five looked at each other in wonder. Sleepy
should have been out long ago, slapped over the head with the bath
brush or something.

Finally, after about half an hour, the door
opened and Sleepy came out of the bathroom. On his face, almost
entirely pushing away the usual sleepy expression, was a smile. A
grin two feet wide. He dragged his coat behind him. The buttons of
his shirt were undone and he wore his pants backwards.

"Sleepy? What happened?"

The smile became even bigger. "I got to wash her
back... And then she offered to wash mine... and then..." Sleepy
fell face down in his bed and was off the world.

Only moments later Snow-White came out of the
bathroom, looking all happy and refreshed, wrapped in a thick
bathrobe. "Hi guys," she smiled, "it's all yours now..." With a
very contented look she walked over to Sleepy and crawled on the
bed, next to him, wrapping an arm around him.

A deadly silence started to flow through the
room. Then, keeping the silence, the five dwarfs knew they had done
the wrong thing by the keyhole. They got up, entirely sobered up
and cooled off, and started doing the chores that still needed to
be done...

The mean queen was regally pissed off that her
plan to murder the ungrateful child had failed. "No sense of
decency or respect," she fumed, as she had retreated to her special
secret room with all the interesting things.

This time she would not fail, she was certain of
that. She'd think something up that would be dead sure the end of
the beautiful nuisance. Her gaze went over the table with possible
attributes, she needed something that was good for a killing and be
inconspicuous at the same time. "Gotcha," the queen said, an evil
grin in her face.

In the castle yard, the king was pacing,
wondering how he could get his daughter back. The news that she had
run off to the forest and had been killed by a wild animal had made
him go crazy first, drunk secondly, and heavy-headed in the end. He
was just getting over that last stage.

The outside air should do him good, the king
thought. He had called for the huntsman who was the last person
apparently who had seen Snow-White alive.

"Do you have ANY idea where she might be?", the
king asked the huntsman, who was sweating from most pores as he
knew more than he was allowed to say by the queen.

"No, sorry, king sir," the hunter said and
wished he was anywhere else.

"Can't you go out and see if you and some men
can find her or not? Or maybe not you but just some other men? Or
not?"

The huntsman was still trying to find his way
out of all the negatives when the king's personal lackey came
running. "King, king, there's a letter!"

"About Snow-White?", the king asked.

"No, sir, it is from one of the neighbouring
kingdoms, they want to know when you're able to pop over for a
visit," the flunkey said.

"Oh. Well, I guess not." The king stood in
thought for a few moments, trying to kick the alcoholic nebulas
away from his brain. After some more moments he turned to the
lackey. "Been reading my mail again, have you?" He did not try to
lash out to the servant's head, as he was too fat and too tired to
try. The man also was too tall, the king would never be able to
reach up that high.

Hilda sighed. The new mirror was done. It had
been quite a lot of work to get this big one to work properly,
she'd been splashing magic over it in liberal amounts. She took the
loaner down from the stand and put the new one up. Her next task
was to make some herbal tea. She really was in need of that. Her
energy-level had dropped so low that she didn't have enough magic
ready to manifest the tea. So off to the kitchen it was for her,
and do the old-fashioned handywork for tea. Hilda didn't mind. It
had been worth it.

Doc prodded Snow-White in the rear. "Missy, it's
time to wake up, okay? This time we made dinner, but we do hope
that tomorrow you'll be able to hold back your urges and make our
dinner as we agreed."

Snow-White looked up at the dwarf and smiled.
"Of course, dear Doc." She sat up and kissed him on the nose.

"Oh, uh, gee," Doc said, blushing all over.
"Well, dinner is ready. And served."

Somehow they managed to wake up Sleepy and then
the group sat down for dinner, Sleepy's eyes fixed on Snow-White
for some reason, a dumb grin on his face, which annoyed the other
dwarfs to no end.

The evening went on calmly in the house of the
dwarfs. Sleepy slept. Grumpy was in not too grand a mood.
Snow-White took it on herself to wash clothes, and Happy and Dopey
were trying to together a bed for her and intended it to be as far
away from Sleepy's bed as they could manage.

As the little guys had to get up again early in
the morning, they all went to sleep soon. In their own beds.

Hilda's tea had worked miracles in the way she
usually did herself. She was all up and running again, with dinner
already behind her and the new mirror working like a charm. She saw
Snow-White wash clothes and nodded approvingly. The wicked witch
saw the mean queen in the castle's dining room with a smile on her
face, and knew that this was going to be trouble again. Hilda went
to bed early, she wanted to be up in time to make sure the queen
was not pulling any funnies without her being on top of them.

The queen, after dinner, had gone back to her
chambers. She looked at the nice little red package that lay on the
table. Inside it was the special comb she had prepared for
Snow-White.

"Oh yes, child, that is the perfect gift for
you," she chuckled. "Stick it in your hair, touch your scalp with
any of the teeth of this sweet little comb, and kablam, down and
dead. Done deal, case closed, no more Snow-White and I'm the
prettiest one in the house again." She glared at the mirror. "I
hope you got that too!"

The king sat on a chair near a window. He was
looking out over the castle wall, to the few the trees that still
were visible in the approaching evening. Somewhere the body of his
daughter had to be, in there. Silently he cursed the few curses he
had picked over the years.

He hoped that the huntsman would be able to go
out there and look for her. He really wanted to see her again, if
only a last time. The desperate king looked at a bottle of wine.
No. Not this night. It would not be good.

He got up and went to bed, staring at the
ceiling for a long time.

The next morning, very early, the queen dressed
up again. Not as a peddler-woman, but as a regular person. As she
was certain there was a bumpy cart-ride ahead, she had stuffed some
extra padding in her skirt, at the back. Thus outfitted, and with
the package containing the poisoned comb in a pouch, she slipped
out the back door of the castle again and found someone who would
take her to the house of the dwarfs. This ride was a lot smoother,
but still she did not regret the padding.

The queen was well on her way already, when
Hilda woke up. The energy she had used to charge the mirror had
drained her and she was not able to wake up sooner than she did. It
even took her a while to get herself together, but once she'd
managed that, she flew out of bed and raced to the mirror to see
what was going on.

"Queen. Bitch. Where are you?" Hilda scanned the
places she knew where the mean queen often spent time. But of
course, the queen was not there. "Drat. Of course today I have to
sleep late," Hilda scolded herself, magicking some proper clothes
onto herself. She grabbed a broom and ran outside, slamming the
door behind her and taking off into the air without a word.

"Yeah. Good morning to you too," the house
mumbled.

From a point high in the air Hilda surveyed the
area, but as a lot of the ground in the kingdom was blessed with
trees and forests, there was little of a queen to see. She tore
through the air, to the castle, hoping to find Humbert the
huntsman. Sometimes he knew things.

"Hey, big guy," Hilda said as she landed almost
on top of the hunter.

His first response was to pull out the immense
knife, which promptly changed into a fistful of cabbage.

"Never, but never pull a knife on me," Hilda
said. "Now see what you've done..."

The huntsman looked at his hand and shook off
the cabbage. "So sad. Such a fine knife."

"No more whining about the knife, big man. Do
you know where the queen is?" Hilda liked coming straight to the
point. Especially when she was in a hurry.

The hunter looked at her and shook his head.
"No. Isn't she in?"

"Do you think I hadn't looked there before I
came here to ask you?" Hilda snapped. He was not going to be a big
help today, she knew.

"Maybe the king knows where she went," the
huntsman tried. He assumed that getting on the good side of the
wicked witch would yield more opportunities to get his knife back.
It was however a very unfortunate coming together of circumstances:
Hilda did not often bring her good side along with her. And today
was one of those days.

"Really..." Hilda saw a few guards approach.
They came closer slowly, not sure how to go about apprehending a
trespassing witch, but they did not want to let their employer down
either. Duty and self-preservation were obvious in a dispute among
the men.

"No worries, boys, I'm off again already!", she
yelled at the group of eight. She swung herself on the broom and
she was gone.

"But... my knife..." Humbert stared at the speck
in the sky, then kicked the bits of cabbage around. The guards made
sounds of pity. And nervous laughter.

The queen had arrived at the house of the dwarfs
again. Shrewd as she was, she knew that she had to take a different
approach from the one she'd used as a peddler-woman. Snow-White was
not a dummy and would not fall for the same trick twice.

Her disguise in place, she started walking
around the house. The queen was convinced that singing a nice song
would be a great thing to help her, but since she did not know any
nice songs, that idea was off. So the queen walked up to the door
and knocked on it. Then (and this is where the Grimm brothers went
wrong), the queen announced that she was a neighbour and had a gift
to welcome Snow-White to the area.

Now Snow-White was indeed not a dummy, and she
also was a quick learner. The experience with the laces were still
fresh in her memories when she heard the voice call out outside the
door. Determined not to be caught this time, Snow-White yelled
back: "I'm not sure what you are trying to sell, but we have
everything. Please go away." It was a line she'd heard some of the
maids call out to undesirable types at the castle gate at times,
and usually that worked.

Alas, the mean queen wasn't prepared to be sent
off that easily, so she tried again. "Dear child, this is simply a
welcoming gift from the folks around. We'd be pretty insulted if
you don't want to accept it and I wouldn't know how to explain it
to the others if I have to return with the present."

"No, thanks, really. I was told not to open the
door to strangers, and I'm sticking to that."

"Oh, right. You're one of those," the queen
said, "one of those easy chicks that do everything a man says and
that don't think for themselves."

Snow-White pondered that for a while. She did
not want to be known as an easy chick, even if she had deserved
that title the night before. But nobody had to know that. And also,
a neighbour usually was a friend, her father the king had often
said that. Or something along those lines anyway.

"You sure you don't want the gift? You'll like
it, you know, you'll be able to make yourself so pretty with it."
The queen suppressed a giggle, loving her own acting. "Well, too
bad, I'll just have to go then."

Snow-White yanked open the door. "No, wait. I'm
sure a neighbour is a good friend. My dad always said that."

"Ah, dear child," the queen said, resisting the
urge to grind her teeth as she saw the girl, "here is your present,
your welcoming gift. With love and hugs from us all." The queen
knew she had to stop talking. It would not look good if she started
throwing up because of her own sugar-sweet lies.

Snow-White took the nicely wrapped box and
opened it. "Ohhh!! A comb!!!" Just what she needed, because most of
the dwarfs were quite bald on top, and the excuse for a comb they
had would die on her hair as she had so much of it.

"Go on, try it," the queen said, who could
hardly wait.

In the meantime Hilda was pushing her broom to
the limit. She had one fear, and that was the the queen bitch had
gone to see the kid again, and this time she might have some really
heavy artillery with her. Throwing all caution in the wind, Hilda
dove down to the ground, aiming for the front door of the house. To
her shock she saw the door was open and Snow-White was lying on the
ground, her hand in her hair. And no queen in sight.

"Fuckadory," she muttered. "Too late again..."
The broom clashed against the side of the house, leaving its
equivalent of a skid-mark. Hilda kicked the door open wide and
kneeled down with Snow-White. The girl's face was paler than usual,
her breathing barely noticeable. Hilda quickly found the comb and a
spell told her what was wrong with it.

As Snow-White had rather a lot of thick hair,
the damage that the comb was meant to inflict had not set in
completely. The tips of the comb had barely brushed the girl's
scalp, so even though the poison had gotten into her system, it was
not yet a lethal dose. Hilda knew she had to do something though,
otherwise the comb, that was still in Snow-White's hair, would
slowly but surely make it happen in the end.