Hilda and Zelda (14 page)

The night had passed calmly. There had been
some noise when the police had finally arrived to collect the
villains, but a simple noise-repelling spell had taken care of
that. When the witch and the wizard awoke, the day had already
decided to begin. It was a grey and dull beginning, though.

"Blagh," Hilda commented. "Not my kind of
weather. Makes me think of Zelda."

William grinned as he finished breakfast and
conjured another couple of cups of coffee. "Here, something to take
your mind off her for a while."

"You are so good, my sweet wizard," she said
as she attacked the coffee. "You know what a witch needs."

A bit later they snuck out of their
shed-house and lifted off on brooms in a renewed attempt to locate
and apprehend Griselda.

-=-=-

They flew to the area where Hilda had sensed
Zelda the day before.

"Suck an elf. She's gone, but was here for a
long time." Hilda and William hovered in front of the floor of the
building from which Zelda had watched them. It was utterly
destroyed, the final touch being delivered by a blazing fire that
had rendered most of the building uninhabitable.

"We have to think of a nifty trick, Hilda.
Something that will lure her to us, instead of us running around to
the places where she isn't anymore."

"Yes. Good thinking, and glad you reached
that decision also," Hilda nodded. "We just have to find out what
it is that she wants. Control. Power. Slaves?"

"Followers?", William added.

Hilda raised her eyebrows. "Perhaps a
combination of the lot. Maybe we are on the right track here."

A gunshot cracked, a bullet flew far too
close to Hilda to be comfortable. "Crappedy crap, why are they
always chasing the wrong ones?" She flung a spell down, disabling
all guns in one go. Then they lowered their brooms to see who was
shooting at them this time.

The group of twelve soldiers who were out on
patrol were battling their refusing guns. "There they are!", one of
them shouted to his comrades. All eyes lifted up as one.

"Hey, you. Stop shooting the wrong people,"
Hilda said. "Are all you ordinaries in this world so dense that we
have to tell every single one of you that we're the good guys?"

"You are under arrest," one of the dense
ordinaries informed the two people on broomsticks.

"They are so dense," Hilda said to William.
"Come, let's go somewhere so we can think of a plan in peace. And
you guys, your noise-sticks will work in a few minutes again."
Hilda waved her wand, and then the magical couple flew up and out
of view, disappearing between the buildings.

On top of a shopping mall they touched down
and started to think of what they could do for real to tease Zelda
and bring her out in the open.

"Would she be tempted by the presence of
witches?", William suddenly had an idea.

"Of course. But there aren't any witches
here, you told me so."

"Yes. I told you. But I wonder if anyone has
taken the time to tell her..."

Hilda grinned. "I knew there was a reason I
keep you around, William. Sometimes you have ideas that are worth
exploring."

They talked about the idea. Options,
possibilities, prerequisites, everything came around once or more,
and after almost an hour they had the feeling that their plan was
viable. It had lots of open ends, but this would also give them
room to move. And that was important, as there was no telling what
Zelda's deranged mind would come up with.

The magical couple swooped up into the sky
quickly and then William took the lead, venturing out towards a
side of the town where lots of trees and free space could be found.
It would be the perfect surrounding for setting up the trap to
catch Zelda.

Hilda approved of the place after they had
made the rounds there. She put up a protective magical field around
a spot they had appointed their playground, and then they went
about preparing the place. Bushes and small trees were magically
charged and would appear as witches and ghost-like figures on a
command by either one of the couple. They created a firepit, a
stack of wood ready to be burnt on it, Hilda even made a large
cauldron appear to give the place some extra credibility.

After all their preparations, they flew back
and went inside their homely shed, to eat and think of the best way
to promote the meeting of their witches. It had to be done in a
very subtle way, otherwise loads of ordinaries would probably show
up at their magical place as well, and that would be bad for the
execution of the plan. That was already cracking at enough seams,
adding some more to that would be tempting the fates.

The next part of the plan had to be staged
though. They changed their outfits into something that William
proposed to be the stereotype of a witch in this world. They also
modified their appearance as much as possible, and then they left
their home again and flew out to the city.

Hilda shrunk the brooms, William slipped them
in his pocket and then they started pacing through the streets in
the cultural area of the town. William had decided on that part, as
there were the most places for a witch to hide without attracting
too much attention.

As they walked along, they sent out a simple
message in a voice that only magical beings would hear and
understand. "Witches meet at night, in the field to the East.
Witches meet at night, in the field to the East."

William and Hilda kept repeating that time
and again, until they became sick of the repetitive sentence and
decided to head back to their shed and wait until dusk arrived.

As the sun was on its way out, the magicals
got on their brooms again and flew out to the field they had
prepared. They could sense and see it from miles away already, the
magic that they had spread was glowing like a searchlight. Before
they landed, Hilda first made a run around the place to verify that
they were there first. No trace of Zelda was around, so they
touched down and hid their brooms between the hedges at the side of
their magical circle. Then, as darkness had spread around, William
lit the fire, Hilda hovered the cauldron over it, and together they
made their wooden witches and fake ghosts dance around the beacon
that should attract their prey.

Several times Hilda jerked her head, as she
thought she heard something, but each time that turned out to be a
false alarm. As time had gone by, and it was past one o'clock in
the night, she decided that this was not going to bring
satisfaction. "We'd better pack it up and get some sleep, William.
Not even an insane witch will go to a meeting at this time, when
the hour of power has passed."

With the fire extinguished and their army of
witches rooted again, they flew back. They were disappointed.

-=-=-

"Do you think we should try it again
tonight?", asked William the next morning.

"No. Never happens twice in a row, meetings
like the one we staged. We must wait at least until tomorrow
evening. Day after that would be even better." Hilda sighed as she
put down the coffee cup. "We'll go around patrolling again today
and see if we can find her. Never put all your silver on one card,
William. The plan is one, scouting is another."

So they went about the town again, searching
for the witch that caused them so many problems, and at the end of
the day they both felt very disgruntled about not finding anything.
Granted, this day they had not been shot at or threatened in any
other way, but all it ended up with was a grumpy magical
couple.

-=-=-

The next morning both Hilda and William were
hardly motivated to get up.

"She's like sand running through our
fingers," Hilda muttered. "I wish she'd never found your truck, and
she'd never found the way through to this world. That would have
saved us a wagon load of problems."

"I know," William sighed. "Too bad your
wishing doesn't help much. I am already paining my brain where she
could be, and also what she'd want here. Still I think our best bet
is the circle of witches that we made here. Too bad we can't use
that yet."

Hilda nodded, pushing her tea cup over the
table, staring at where she'd usually see her two goldfish flit
around. "Is your brain handing you anything we can use?"

William emptied his own tea cup. "Not really.
Oh... I thought of something. Newspapers!"

"Newspapers?" Hilda was not used to them, as
these carriers of affairs were not invented yet in her world.

"Yes, of course!" William slapped his
forehead. "Why didn't I think of that sooner? If Zelda is making
turmoil here, there has to be something in the papers. I mean, she
even shot down the helicopter of a TV-station." He veered to his
feet and grabbed his broom.

"Where are we going?", Hilda asked as she
also took her broom.

"No, I am going alone, sweet witch," William
said, "that is faster and less conspicuous."

Hilda's face clouded over. "I never get to go
to the fun places," she muttered, a pout on her face.

"This is not something I'd call fun," William
tried to make her feel better.

"But I would!", the witch argued. "It's new,
so it's fun!"

"Next time we'll get one together," William
promised. "I'll be back quickly." He kissed her on the cheek and
left the room, broom under his arm.

William returned with the newspaper. He had
gone to the neighbouring town to get one, as he was not sure that
the town they were in would still be accessible for a newspaper
truck.

Hilda was glad to see him back unharmed and
curiously eyed the stack of paper her wizard carried under his
arm.

William folded the paper open on the table,
and together they stared at the headlines.

"Prettyville in lockdown," Hilda read out
loud. "That's here, isn't it?" she asked, to which William nodded.
"The town of Prettyville has been closed off from the rest of the
world by the army," she continued reading. "The series of strange
incidents and inexplicable happenings of late have not ceased,
according to police comissioner Brendan Willis. Rumours report the
sighting of a witch, others report a real invasion of people flying
on actual brooms and displaying magical powers."

"Invasion," William snorted. "They don't have
a clue that one is enough."

Hilda nodded. "Indications that the
devastation in the sewer beneath Drewmore Street are also the work
of the aforementioned witch or witches have so far not been
confirmed. The police for now assume that this is an after-effect
of the terrorist gas attack."

The witch looked at her wizard. "They keep
spouting that crap, William. About time we tell them that there is
no terrorist group."

"We tried that, Hilda, and they didn't
believe us. Pigheaded describes the lot of them."

Hilda nodded as she turned the page. With
interest she looked at the advertisements, then turned the next
page. After a few seconds she said: "That's it!"

"What is, sweet witch?" William looked at the
page and missed what it apparently was.

Hilda tapped a picture of a lady in an
evening gown. The caption read 'Gala dress of the year.' "That is
it. We have to do something with a 'witch of the year' thing,
William. Zelda won't be able to resist that."

William stared at her. "Do you know how much
time and effort it takes to set something like that up? We need
space, witches, a credible ambiance, money and stuff for prizes,
and I can go on."

"Oh, shush you," Hilda waved his words away.
"You think in problems, William, while I think in opportunities.
And this is a great opportunity to get Zelda. All we have to do is
get that Witch of the Year thing going."

"Yes. That's all." William frowned as he made
two cups of coffee appear. He needed both of them, he was certain
of that.

"Oh, thank you," the witch said as William
saw one cup of the dark gold disappear. "Now you be a good wizard
and get all the circumstantial issues under control, and I will
think of a way to capture Zelda once she shows up for the
nomination of Witch of the Year."

William said nothing. He took his cup before
that disappeared as well and drank it, with a frown.

Hilda put her empy coffee cup on the table,
and with her sweetest smile she asked: "More, please?"

He gave her more. Then he went to the next
page of the newspaper, where another article caught his eye. "Hey,
now look at this," he said to Hilda, who sat down next to him and
also started to read the article that William pointed out.

-=-=-

They were on broomstick again. William had
the newspaper with him and they were hoping to locate a certain
address. Hovering over a part of the town they had not been to
before, Hilda asked: "Are you sure this is the area? Doesn't look
like much."

"I know," admitted William. "But from what I
could get from the article in the paper, this should be where we
want to be."

Slowly they descended to street level,
deliberately flying past the houses there. They also went along
very slowly, so the people in the houses were able to see them,
unless they were blind as bats. The magical couple had almost
reached the corner of another street, when they heard a door open
and sensed someone stepping out. They halted their brooms and
calmly turned around.

The woman who had come out of her house
looked in no way out of the ordinary. She wore jeans and a black
t-shirt with some white text on it. Her brown hair was tied into a
pony tail behind her head. Hilda and William flew their brooms back
to the house, where the woman was watching them.

After touching down and getting off the
brooms, Hilda pointed at the newspaper in William's hand. "Are you
one of the witches that's in that paper thing?"

The woman nodded, speech temporarily having
escaped her. "You are real," she finally managed to bring out, her
eyes glued to the robes that the two people in the street were
wearing.