Hilda the wicked witch (6 page)

Bluto then made a mistake. He could have known
that his action was not the smartest. He took his heavy iron chain
bracelet and flung that at Hilda. "Get your bloody magic hands off
my brother!"

Hilda caught the chain effortlessly and looked
at it. "Again," she said with a sigh, "you disappoint me. The
second time also. You are not worthy of my attention or powers."
She bent down and tapped the denim clothes with her wand.
"Commutatus vestitus domesticus." Instantly she was dressed in the
inconspicuous clothes again. Another moment later, the black and
red shoulderbag was in her hand again. She put the crystal ball in
the hidden pocket and made her wand disappear. Then she mounted her
broom and rose several feet in the air. The motorcycle gang stared
at what happened before their eyes.

Hilda looked at the pathetic group in the road,
shrugged and flew off.

Hilda sat under a tree, the broom leaning
against it. She had figured out by now that witches in this idiotic
place were less common and accepted than in the real world, so not
using too many tricks was the best way to stay out of sight. Her
fingers caressed the necklace that she had been missing for so many
hours.

"I am not going to be so careless again,
precious," she said.

The witch looked around the park. There were
many people here. Ordinary ones. Some were walking dogs. Some were
dressed oddly and were running around for no apparent reason. They
could not be messengers, as they did not carry things. None of the
people seemed to have an occupation. They all just... lounged
around. This world was strange. No doubt about it.

"Hey, miss, what are you doing there?" A rough
but still friendly voice interrupted her musings.

Hilda looked up and saw a big black man. He wore
what looked like a uniform and he wore a kind of cap on his head. A
large stick hung from a leather belt. "I am trying to think of a
way to get home again."

The policeman nodded. "Fine, but not on the
grass, okay?"

Hilda looked around her. "Yes. On the grass, of
course, as I am sitting there."

The policeman bent through his knees. "All fun
aside, miss. You're not allowed to get onto the grass here. So sit
on a gravel path, or pick a bench out there, but you have to get
off the grass."

Hilda raised her eyebrows in disbelief. "This
world is truly insane, do you know that? Normal things are unheard
of, and unheard of things are normal."

"You're telling me, miss. I only do my job
upholding the law." The officer stood up again and waited for Hilda
to get up as well. He did look at her as she took the broom, but as
there was nothing dangerous attached to it, he was cool with
it.

Hilda mounted her broom, causing the policeman
to frown for a moment. "Have a good day," the witch said and lifted
off. It did not make the officer's day good. And the frown was
there to stay.

The wicked witch flew over the town, covered
with an invisibility-spell, looking for a decent place to plan the
next step to find her way home. She found her temporary residence
in an old abandoned building. It was large, spacious, and the high
fences around it made sure she had all the privacy that she needed.
It was not a very fancy place to begin with, but that was not
something insurmountable with the aid of magic.

Soon it looked like the good room in her own
house, at home. She missed the mirror, but that would take too long
to prepare. Desperate times asked for desperate measures.

Dressed in her normal clothes, she placed the
crystal ball on the table. The wand went next to it. Hilda sat down
on the grand chair and spun a magical web through the room, mixing
Latin (which worked fastest) and English (which was more failsafe
but a bit slower) until she had the perfect atmosphere for
consulting the ball using the power of her necklace.

The necklace was a special one. It had been made
in ancient times, even before proper candles, someone had told her
long ago. Rumour had it that her necklace had been crafted by
dwarfs, which probably was a cartload of cattlemanure. It was
however a certainty that the necklace had magically been energised
by a very powerful wizard. Used in the right way, and handled by
the right hands, the magical electricity sparkled from the gems,
and that was the power Hilda needed now.

The preparation was done. Magic was afoot and
also over the table. There was a piece of paper, and a quill. While
Hilda mumbled her incantations and spells, the crystal ball started
showing images. The necklace crackled its energy in blue and green.
The quill rose up and started writing ancient signs on the paper.
Hilda felt her energy draining as the magic needed for this quest
was immense.

Finally the quill had written enough and laid
itself down. Hilda brought down the energy she had summoned, whilst
trying to remember the pictures of a cart and a large box that the
ball had shown her. She knew she had to eat something soon. The
last decent meal she'd eaten had been at the house of the ancient
one, and that was quite a while ago already.

After undoing the magical web, she walked into
another space of the building. There was a lot of debris that could
be easily transformed into food. It would taste bland, but that was
the least problem. Using her wand, she made some of the stuff float
into her chambers and cast the transformation spell. She glared at
the result. In her own world food that was prepared this way did
not look really appetising, but this looked downright disgusting.
The smell was gross. She tried some of it and spat it out again.
"This world is wrong. Sick. Bad. I must find a way to go home."
There was no other option for her to silence her hunger than by
going back to the town of lunatics...

With her broom in hand and wearing the clothes
of the locals again, Hilda walked through the streets. Attracting
too much attention was not a good thing here. Flying a broom meant
attracting attention. Her mood was shot to hell, her stomach
growled, her feet screamed at her. Not a good starting point for a
wicked witch to operate from.

After a few streets she still had not found a
place that could supply her with food, so she stopped a person on
the pavement. "I need a meal. Take me to such a place." The wand
convinced the woman that she had stopped to walk Hilda to a
restaurant, and only then the wicked witch let the spell wear off.
The woman was totally confused how she had ended up at the
restaurant.

Hilda entered the restaurant, located a table in
a corner and marched towards it. She put the broom in the corner
and sat down in such a way that she could oversee the place.

"Miss," a waiter said, "this table has been
reserved."

"Good," Hilda said, "you can bring me a
meal."

The waiter needed a few moments to wrap his
brain about what was happening. "Miss, I think you did not
understand. This table is prepared for guests who will be here
shortly. Could you please sit at another table?"

"No. I sit here. And you are going to bring me
food. I am hungry, and my mood is deteriorating rapidly."

"But, miss, please," the waiter tried one more
time.

Hilda took out her wand. "Look, boy, you appear
to have no enemies. Be nice to me, bring me food, and you will
continue to have no enemies. Otherwise you will be dead and have no
enemies. Have I made myself clear?"

The waiter hesitated just a moment too long.

"Oboeditus. Tracto cartula." As there was no
movement in the waiter, Hilda shook her head. "I hate Latin. Obey.
And take care of the bill."

The waiter smiled. "I'll make sure you will have
the daily special, miss." He walked off, to return about ten
minutes later with a few plates. "Enjoy your meal, miss. I have
already taken care of the bill for you. My pleasure, miss."

The wicked witch dug into the food as if it was
the first decent meal she had seen in her entire life. This was
much better than the degraded grub she had managed to make from the
things in her new building.

At the door, there seemed to be some confusion.
Hilda followed the proceedings with interest, as the man that led
the incoming party was obviously in distress. He kept pointing at
the table in the corner, and the waiter was persistently trying to
accept them a few other tables. "How sweet," the witch snickered.
"He stands up for little ole me. I should leave a coin for him."
She didn't, though. She had gone wrong with Latin again, and that
had ticked her off.

As she had finished eating, she got up, grabbed
the broom and walked to the problem-group at the door. She tugged
the waiter's sleeve. "It's fine. Let them have the table."

The waiter smiled and made a deep bow, making
Hilda giggle as she left the restaurant. Out in the street she
looked to the left and right. There were no secluded spots from
where she could fly off. "Oh heck. Why bother." She mounted her
broom and kicked off. Somewhere behind her there were some
screeching sounds followed by a crashing thud.

The wicked witch landed her broom at the
entrance of her new residence and walked inside. There she changed
into her normal clothes and set to work on interpreting the
information she had gotten to find the way back to her own world.
The image of the cart with no horse worried her. As well as the
large box that apparently was inside that cart. Hilda already knew
she'd have to find that cart, because it held part of the
solution.

Using her wand, she magicked up a cup of coffee,
the exact same stuff she'd had at the home of the ancient ones.
That was good, fortifying and reassuring.

She picked up the first sheet of paper that the
quill had written on, and started reading.

"There is the cart of the man William
Conolley,

The wares he owns are packed quite
thoroughly,

The book of tales, the book of dreams,

Contains the solution, or so it seems

You must find the cart, the book, the man,

And make them tell you all they can,

From there the path will make you roam

And find the trail back to your home."

"You are not going to make this easy on me, are
you?", Hilda said to the quill that lay silent on the table. It was
not impressed enough to respond. She turned to the next page, which
was an attempt to a map. "Call this information?", Hilda snapped,
waving the sheet at the quill. "Thanks for nothing." The next
page'd better be better.

"A hint for you, my dearest witch,

To find your man without a glitch,

The bookstore of the town you're in,

Should definitely make you win.

The use of magic is forbidden,

Or from the town you will be ridden.

Good luck, enjoy, and have some fun-"

Then Hilda saw the last line change into
something new, before she could read the original...

"The cops are here, you'd better run."

"Cops?" Hilda frowned. "Hair of a unicorn, what
are cops?"

"Hello, lady inside the building. This is the
police. We know you are in there. You are in danger, the building
is not stable. Please come out as soon as you can, or we will be
forced to come in and get you." The sound boomed through the room,
and probably all the other rooms in the building.

Hilda understood that she had just received an
answer to her question. She rose from her chair and walked to the
open window. Outside the fence that was erected around her new
home, there were four carts without horses. Blue lights were
flashing on top of them, and there were at least ten men in black
uniforms. She recognised those, as the man in the park, who had
told her not to be on the grass, had worn something similar.

Hilda magically enhanced her speech, and at the
same volume as the police megaphone had been, she boomed back: "I
am not in danger. Go away and leave me be."

The men in black covered their ears and dove for
cover at the sound of her words.

"Pathetic," she muttered. As she was about to
turn and pay attention to the papers again, the police voice came
back.

"You in the building. We are not joking. We will
come in and take you out by force if you do not cooperate."

Force? Now there was a word that Hilda
understood. "You want a show of force? Yours against mine? Very
well. Where do you want to duel?"

The police voice remained silent for a
considerable amount on time, as the keepers of the law were
discussing how to go about this crazy person in the condemned
building.

"We do not want to duel. We just want you out of
the building. It is not safe there for you."

"I do not need a handful of people in carts to
tell me what is safe for me," Hilda responded. "I am safer in here
than you are out there." She tapped her wand in her palm, waiting
for them to make a move, so she could make a countermove. And let
them hurry please, she had better things to do than to muck about
with insolents.

"This is our last warning. Come out now and
there will be no repercussions, lady. We'll let you walk and there
won't be charges for breaking and entering an unsafe building."

Hilda did not understand most of that. She had
not broken the building. It was safe enough for her also. Yes, she
had entered it, but that was for obvious reasons, her belongings,
few as they were, were inside. But the words of the police cops
that they would let her walk did sound like a good thing. No
hassle, no problems. It would be a shame to lose this home, but
there would be another one somewhere.

"You say you will let me walk. Will you also let
me fly?"

"Whatever you want, lady. Just come out without
making trouble."

"I shall come out. This I promise. You can
leave."

Hilda sighed. Seriously too bad. She changed
into the local's clothes again, made the shoulderbag from her own
clothes. She folded the quill and the papers and put them in the
bag. Carefully she stored the crystal ball in the hidden pocket,
put her necklace around her neck and then she turned the chair and
the table back into the rubble, the way she had found it in the
room. After all that, broom in hand, she walked out of the
building, towards the fence.