Hilda and Zelda (20 page)

They sat down on the couch and waited...

"And who the hell may you be?" a harsh voice
dragged the two out of their slumbers. It was not Vivian. "How did
you get in here, and now get the hell out of the house before I
call the police!"

They looked at a big man sporting black
pants, a grey t-shirt and bare feet. He had remarkably big
hands.

"We're here for Vivian. Do you know where she
is?" Hilda asked, without hesitation.

"Vivian is asleep, upstairs," the man said,
bluffed by the amazing response. "Now who are you two nutters?"

Hilda got up. "Grimhilda. Witch. That's
William. A wizard. And we're here to talk about the bad witch that
is tearing up the town." She stuck out her chin, showing that she
meant business.

The man stared at her for a few moments.
Then, with three fast steps, he was almost standing against her and
grabbed her cloak. "Come on. Out." Next thing he knew was that
there was a powerful jolt running through his arm, strong enough to
throw him halfway through the room.

"Do NOT touch the witch," said Hilda, her
eyes close to shooting fire. "We are here for serious things, not
for ignorants."

The man picked himself up from the floor,
rubbing his sore shoulder. "You, serious? Get away before I call
the police, you Halloween creature."

"What's the noise- Oh, hello Hilda, William,"
Vivian said as she came into the room. "I am so sorry. This is
Rick, my husband. He did not know about you. Yet."

"You know these folks?" Rick asked her with
mounting surprise.

"Yes. I should have told you about them. They
are really a witch and a wizard," Vivian nodded as she tried to
make Rick sit down and failed.

"If I may-" William tried, but Rick glared at
him.

"You may shut up. I'm talking to my wife. And
you, woman, should stop with all that mumbo-jumbo about witches.
You and your friends are all going soft in the head," he explained
his feelings.

"Want me to turn him into a frog for a
while?" Hilda offered, her wand ready.

"No, not yet. Let's see if we can get some
sense into him without such a drastic thing," William replied.

"Drastic. Pshaw," Hilda spat. "Frogs are not
drastic. For that you'd do-"

"Hey, quiet!" Rick barked.

"Rick, please, they-" Vivian tried.

"No, I will-" and then the big man was quiet.
He stood petrified, his skin greyish, one arm extended towards the
magical couple and one around his wife.

"What did you do?!" Vivian exclaimed as she
tried to get out of the stone arm of her husband.

"I just turned him into a statue for a
while," Hilda commented. "He was interfering. And don't worry, he
hears and sees everything we say and do. So, we are here to talk to
you about the witches meeting. How quickly can you bring your
friends together, and get the word out on the street in a way that
Zelda hears about it?"

"Uhm?" Vivian, even while already awake, was
taken by surprise.

Hilda calmly repeated her question, sitting
down at the table and courteously offering a seat to Vivian and
William. Doing that for Rick was rather pointless.

"Oh. Right," Vivian said. "I'm certainly able
to contact all of them today, if the phone lines hold. With that
crazy witch out there, you never know."

"Good. Tomorrow evening, when darkness falls,
we'll be at the spot and have some fires burning," Hilda said.
"William will be around closeby, as she can't sense him. I may have
to hide a bit further away, but I can be there quickly, if
something goes wrong."

"And what could go wrong?" Vivian asked, not
sure if she really wanted to know all possible answers to that
one.

"Oh, nothing really special," Hilda said,
quite leisurely. "Just the odd bit of magic or so. Some special
effects." With that, the witch got to her feet again. William got
up too, as Hilda undid the petrification of Rick. "Right, we're off
then. May drop in later today or tomorrow, but we'll meet up
tomorrow evening for sure."

Rick stared at the strange little woman with
the grey hair, too baffled to say a word. He slowly rubbed the arm
that had been extended for a while, and which had gone numb.

"Take a hot bath when it starts itching,"
Hilda said to the big man, without twitching a muscle.

"That's okay, Hilda. We'll all be there."
Vivian got up and hugged the petite witch. Then she hugged William.
Rick remained silent as he stood scratching an elbow. "And we know
how to get in touch if something goes wrong. We have the
pebbles."

Hilda nodded. "Good witch. I like people with
stamina." Then, together with William, she walked to the kitchen
and from there to the small garden, where they collected their
brooms.

Vivian stood in the doorway and Rick in front
of the window as the two magical people lifted off and disappeared
into the day that had nicely progressed into dusk.

As Vivian came back inside, she noticed that
her husband was scratching himself all over. "Time for a hot bath,
dear," she said with a benevolent smile. "You heard what Hilda
said."

Rick stared at her. "Hot bath? I think I need
a shrink."

Hilda and William flew over the town, using
the strangest route to get back to the room that Bert Bantrey had
offered them. Hilda did not sense Zelda around, so she thought it
safe to fly into the street and open the window to the room whilst
on broom. The alternative was to use magic to open the front door
of the shop, as Bert was not in, something which made William
wonder a bit.

The room smelled dank.

"No one airs this place, it seems," Hilda
muttered, throwing the window wide open so some fresh air could get
inside.

William shook his head as he closed the door
that led to the corridor. "There are loads of books in this
building," he said, "and what you smell is mainly them."

"Suck an elf," Hilda said, "we have to do
something about that, William."

"We can't. Bert wouldn't like that, Hilda,
and also, books need to smell the way they do."

"You know nothing, do you?" Hilda shook her
head. "Look. There." She pointed to a corner of the room, where
most of the wallpaper had started its descent to the floor. The
wall was wet through, which obviously was the reason for the
wallpaper's untimely demise.

"Oh. That." William pulled up his wand and
with a spell he dried the wall. Then he looked at the mass of
crumpled paper that lay next to the bed. "Shouldn't be too big a
problem," he commented to Hilda.

"Think so?" The tone in her voice made him
look at her and then follow her gaze back to the wall, which was
wet through again.

"Uhm. This might be a good time to take that
back..."

The magical couple tried to find out where
the moisture was coming from. This effort did not bring them
anywhere, as there was no rain outside to supply the wall with
water, nor did William find anything waterpipe-like that might have
burst.

"I wonder if there's something somewhere
else," the wizard said, scratching his head. "I certainly can't get
to it from here." He opened the door, crossed the small corridor
and started his way down the staircase. He stopped after five
steps.

"What- Oh. Crappedy crap."

They stared at a large body of water that
made going down further only inviting for seals or other
water-dwellers.

"Bert will be angry," William dryly remarked.
They went back up the stairs.

"So this is not really a place to stay for
long," Hilda said. "Obviously Zelda either figured this one out
already, or she has fun making houses here inhabitable."

As they sat down on the bed, William wondered
if it would be possible to save Bert's books.

"We should find another place, William."

He nodded. "Yeah..."

"Do you have any ideas? This is your
world..."

"Hmmm... The books... The... of course!"
William's face showed something good. "We're going to move into the
library."

"We're what? What gave you that idea?" Hilda
frowned.

"The books."

"Do I have to start worrying about you now,
William? For if so, you picked a really bad time for that."

"Yes, no, wait. I mean, I was thinking about
the books down there, and then I thought of the library," William
managed to be more confusing. "See? Books? Library? These things go
together well."

"Whatever your reasoning is, William, let's
just go there and see if we can keep dry feet." Hilda pointed to
the door. From under it, slowly water started to flow into the
room, in a slow but steady charge to their feet.

They took their brooms and headed out the
window.

"So much for Bert's place," William muttered.
He dropped down to the ground and stared into the bookstore. It was
totally filled with water.

The building next door did not seem to suffer
from the same moist affliction as the bookstore. Hilda peeked into
the windows. "Something's not right in there either, William."

"What's wrong there?"

"Everything's upside down."

As the wizard joined her in peeking, she
pointed at the ceiling, where all the furniture was, including the
carpetting. The light hung... up from the floor. There was no
disarray in the room, everything was just, literally, upside
down.

"Zelda's been busy," William commented.

A strange splashing sound made them look to
the side. Water was falling down from the room they had occupied
only minutes before. It escaped through the window they had left
opened.

"This is going too far," Hilda decided,
drawing her wand. She muttered some Latin and waited. Nothing
happened, unless more water coming down counted as something.
"Crap. I hate Latin. Stop that water from coming down, and dry up
that bookshop," she growled. The magic took a few seconds, as
usual, but then, within as many seconds, the bookshop was
water-free. The books lay on the floor like fish would not, as the
books did not twitch.

"That's how we do it," the witch nodded. "And
now we'd better get to that library, William. Zelda's bound to know
that we were here."

They got onto their brooms and William set
course for the library.

"So this is your idea of a safe place?" The
voice of the witch was not as scornful as William knew it could be,
but it was bad enough. Books were gently floating through the air,
missing them sometimes by inches.

"It comes close, for now," William said.
"They're docile, we can stand on the floor without drowning and the
racks are not hanging from the ceiling."

In that light, Hilda had to agree, the
library was not so bad after all. "So where in this flying mess are
we going to sit and sleep?" Even the latter was a genuine concern,
as some books almost scraped the floor.

They checked the upper levels of the library,
but everywhere they were greeted by floating books. The attic of
the building was not an option either. It was not overflowing with
floating books; it was simply full.

"Maybe there's a cellar," William cheerfully
said. "There has to be a reason why I thought of this place."

There was a cellar. It contained no floating
books, nor was it full of things like the attic. Experienced as
they were, they transformed some of the items into a bed and some
other basic furniture. Hilda sat down on a chair. "The witch needs
food, wizard..."

"Okay..." William looked around. "I doubt it
is a smart thing to make a fire here, or a furnace. There's no way
out for the smoke."

Hilda frowned, wand in hand. "That's easy, we
can-"

"But we won't," William said. "I know it is
easy to rebuild the building a bit, but I won't allow it."

"And why?" Hilda was thoroughly surprised by
this blunt refusal.

"It is a library. It is about books
here."

Hilda got up and looked at the wizard. She
studied his face, her eyes slightly closed. Then she nodded. "Okay.
I understand. We're not going to rebuild the library, William." She
had suddenly understood how deeply books were embedded in William.
"We'll find something to eat somewhere."

William seemed to relax despite the fact that
he was not tensed at all. "Good. Yes."

Hilda smiled at him and pulled him into a
kiss. "I understand, William. Don't worry."

They went outside and became airborne. Almost
without thought they flew over to Vivian's and landed in the garden
behind the house. Contrary to her normal behaviour, Hilda first
looked in through the window.

"The grouch isn't there," she said and only
then did she march in through the kitchen. William was right behind
her.

Vivian had seen the two land and got up to
greet them. "You are back soon." She offered seats to her guests
and stared at them as she heard the account of what had happened.
As Vivian got up to make tea, there was a knock on the front
door.

Hilda jumped up. "Is that your grouch?"

"What? Who? Oh, no, Rick's gone out for a
while. It's either Andy or Gladys at the door. I'll get it." Vivian
disappeared into the hall.

Hilda got up and went into the kitchen before
William could stop her. The wizard had just gotten up when Vivian
came back in with a young man, who turned out to be Andy.

"Where is- Oh my God!" Vivian reached for the
table to stabilise herself.

Hilda came out of the kitchen, with two large
trays floating in front of her. One had tea, cups, milk, sugar and
cookies, and the other tray contained two plates with food. "I
thought I'd lend a hand," the witch explained.

Andy's face was skeleton-envy pale. He saw
the trays land on the table, and the two people in their strange
outfits sit down and start eating as if they belonged here. "Who're
they?" he managed to bring out.

Vivian arranged for everyone to get
acquainted, then Andy sat down at the table too, as far away from
the magical couple as he could. He did not care about being polite
or social. Nor did Hilda and William.