Hilda and Zelda (22 page)

"Okay William, I'll stay here. Now, while
Hilda is doing what she's doing... can you tell my why you made
your interpretation of the Mother Goddess look like Xena the
Warrior Princess?"

William shrugged. "I am not too current on
Mother Goddesses, and I decided we needed someone that looked
impressive."

"Well, you got that right," Jennifer
nodded.

Tory groaned.

"Ah, good. She makes sounds," Hilda
commented. "Now lie still, sweetie, you've been hit badly. I've
done what I could, the rest will have to happen by a doctor or so.
You do have those here, right?" The witch pointed that question at
William.

"We do. Not sure if they can do something
about magical inflictions, but we can get her to the local
hospital. That is, if Zelda dear has not shut that down as
well."

"No. The hospital is still operational,"
Jennifer said, "I live quite close to it. But how are you going to
get her there?"

Hilda smiled and put a finger on Tory's
forehead. Slowly the injured woman's head fell to the side. She was
asleep. "This way she feels nothing. She will sleep for quite a
while. William, brooms?"

The wizard was already on his feet and held
out his hands: the two brooms rushed up to him. He sat on his broom
and pulled his wand. "I'll carry her, Hilda," he said.

The witch got up and nodded as she got on her
own broom. Tory's silent body seemed to freeze as William the
wizard slowly formulated a spell. Then she started floating up
until she lay in an impossible way on the broom, in front of him.
Calmly he rose up and was quickly out of sight.

"You go home," Hilda said. "I will follow
William, and we will come back to clean things up here."

"You go, Hilda," said Vivian, "we will close
our circle and clean up. We are used to doing things like this in
the dark, and we will find our way home with one of the torches.
Thank you for taking care of us. And Tory."

"Of course." Hilda was touched by the strange
witches that had such trust in her and William. "We'll come back to
visit you soon, Vivian. And remember the pebbles, when there is a
problem."

Vivian nodded as the witch sped off into the
darkness, following William by the link they shared. "Well, ladies,
Andy... Let's get to work here."

They got to work.

In that time Hilda had caught up with William
who did not fly very fast. He was very careful with Tory, as she
was extremely vulnerable in this state. "Are you doing okay with
her?" she asked, worriedly.

"It's fine so far," William replied. "The
hospital is not far away now. Hope with me that Zelda stays away
until we've delivered her there."

"I don't sense her. She's far away."

"Good."

They flew on in silence, Hilda on the lookout
for a witch, William carrying Tory, until the hospital came into
sight.

"I'm going to warn them," said Hilda and sped
off.

"You-" William started, but held the rest of
his words back. She couldn't hear them anyway. He arrived at the
hospital a few minutes later. To his surprise two paramedics held
open the doors of the emergency exit so he could fly into the
building without the need to do difficult things with Tory's
stiffened body. He proceeded slowly.

"William, over here!" Hilda popped out of an
examination room and waved at him. "You can't fly in there, so you
have to put her on the ground."

Within moments, the corridor filled up with
people, medical and patients. They kept a respectful distance from
the strangely dressed woman and man, but also kept their eyes on
the woman who seemed to hover on the broomstick.

William slowly and carefully landed the broom
and guided it to the floor. As soon as Tory lay there, three people
in white rushed up with a stretcher and lifted the motionless body
onto it and then the stretcher was quickly pushed into the room
where Hilda had appeared from.

"I told them you were coming," said the witch
simply, standing next to William, grateful for the arm he put
around her.

"I can tell. Do I want to know how you told
them?"

"No."

"I thought so."

"Then don't ask dumb questions, wizard."

William grinned and squeezed her tight for a
moment.

"Come. We have to explain to the doctor about
her current condition," she then said. She looked at the assembled
people who were still staring at them. "And you? Don't you have
something better to do? Be sick or heal or something?"

A soft murmur went through the group, but
there was hardly a movement of people who decided that going back
to being sick was a smart plan at this moment.

Hilda turned towards them, hands on her hips.
William sensed what she was up to and wanted to warn her, but he
was too late.

"BOO!!"

Only one window cracked, and that was
probably far gone already.

Something metal and large clattered to the
ground from inside the room where Tory was, so Hilda and William
rushed in there, missing the sudden mass-evacuation of people in
the hall. Hilda's boo did have an effect.

William and Hilda woke up in a soft bed. A
warm bed also. It was such a remarkable thing these days that Hilda
found it necessary to state how she felt.

"William. It's warm."

"It is. Nice."

"Yes." She turned around, making quite the
procedure of it.

"Sheesh, lie still witch. I can't believe
it."

"What is it you can't believe, wizard man?"
Hilda veered up somewhat and draped herself over the man who had
changed her life so much.

"That a skinny witch like you can shake the
bed so much," he informed her.

"I am not skinny," Hilda insisted.

William put his hands around her waist. His
fingers almost touched. He said nothing.

"You just have very big hands," Hilda
decided.

They were in a guest room in Gladys' house.
Gladys had come to the hospital, together with all the others of
the coven, to learn how Tory was doing. The coven members had found
Hilda and William half asleep on chairs in the waiting room and
Gladys had offered them the room. At first the magical ones had
declined the nice offer, as they were afraid it would be too
dangerous, with Zelda out there, but they had been successfully
overruled.

"Whether Zelda is out there or not, she saw
all of us," Gladys had said. "You can't stay here. If you stay here
and she finds you, you will endanger the lives of all the people in
the hospital."

That was true, so the magical couple had gone
with Gladys. Or rather, they had flown Gladys home, which was a
stunning and also slightly frightening experience for the Wiccan
witch.

After a while there was a knock on the door.
"Hilda? William? Are you awake?" It was Gladys' voice.

"We are," the witch replied, "and you can
come in if you want. We're still covered."

Gladys came in, and with her came the smell
of toast and coffee. "I thought you might like some breakfast.
Everything's in the kitchen. If you care to come..."

They cared.

"Ohhh, this coffee is so much better than
what William makes!" Hilda declared as she gladly accepted a refill
of the refill.

"Oh?" Both William and Gladys said that. He
frowned, she looked surprised that they made coffee themselves.

"You have coffee there too, wherever there
is?" Gladys asked.

William shook his head. "In our world, my new
one, coffee doesn't exist. I just magic up what I remember to be
coffee."

"Show her, show her," Hilda waved with a
hand, holding on to her cup. "I'll have some more of this."

William was not sure if he should be
offended. He shrugged and magicked up a cup of coffee. Eagerly
Gladys picked it up and tried it. With an apologetic face she put
it down and reached for her own coffee again.

"That bad?"

"Not really... bad... it works... for an
emergency," Gladys offered.

"Yes. That bad," Hilda added a little bit
less diplomatically.

"I'll never make you coffee again, witch,"
William warned her.

"Hah, I can do it myself now!" Hilda puffed.
She flipped up her wand and made a cup of coffee appear. "Now
this...," she said and confidently took a sip... "is just as good
as your coffee, my sweet William."

Gladys stared at the grey-haired woman. Then
she took a sip from the latest magical creation. "Yes. It is." She
fought her face. "I'll make a fresh pot." As she was working on
more coffee, Gladys asked what they were planning to do.

"We'll go over to the hospital and see how
Tory is doing," William said as he tried to prevent Hilda from
snatching his muffins away. "And we may need some stuff from
there."

"Stuff from there? It's not a shop, you may
remember," Gladys grinned as she looked back at the table and saw
the minor battle.

"Luckily my memory is lapsing in that
respect," William calmly said, as he watched the last muffin
disappear into Hilda.

Gladys decided not to ask. What she did not
know would not upset her. Yet.

-=-=-

"Again? Are you sure? It's daylight now!"
Gladys worried and her faced showed it.

"Come on. You sat on a broom before," Hilda
said from her broom. She hovered some fifteen feet over the ground
already. William was patiently waiting for Gladys to sit on his
broom.

"But people will see me," Gladys
objected.

"Yes. And they will see us too, so they'll
know you are in good company."

Gladys did not have the nerve to argue with
that. She resigned and sat on the broom.

"There is nothing to fear, Gladys," William
said as they swiftly moved up into the air and headed for the
hospital. The woman held on to his arm that she felt behind her,
which was fine with him. The flight was not a long one.

Gladys quickly got off the broom as soon as
her feet were able to touch ground again. "Thank you. That was...
exciting."

William grinned.

"Come, come," Hilda said. She was already
near the door. "We have things to get and sick people to see." She
shrunk the brooms and William slipped them in his cloak pocket.

The three entered the hospital, where some of
the medical staff on duty remembered the two strangely dressed
ones. Whispers were whispered, fingers were pointed. There was
little harm though; the visitors had already agreed that Gladys
would do the talking in the hospital, and so they were able to see
Tory quite quickly.

The nurse on duty had made Hilda and William
promise not to use magic in the hospital and not to fly inside,
which they had quickly agreed to.

Tory was awake, but clearly in pain.

"We've given her painkillers," the nurse who
had come with the visitors said, "they just don't seem to catch
on."

Hilda looked at Tory. "Where does it hurt,
dear?"

"Where doesn't it," the dear said. "I don't
know what hit me, but it got me good." She ended her words with a
groan as she tried to sit up somewhat better.

A wand appeared. "This is not going to
hurt."

"Mrs. Witch," the nurse started, but she was
too slow. The spell was cast and Tory was free of pain.

"Now, let's see," the witch said,
convincingly unimpressed by the nurse who kept telling her that she
could not do what she was doing. As Hilda looked Tory over (the
witch was awake and fresh now), William calmly guided the nurse
back into the corridor, hesitantly assisted by Gladys.

"Now you go back inside, Gladys," said
William, "Tory will need someone she knows. And Nurse Dunn and I
will take a little walk."

"We will?" asked Nurse Dunn.

"You will?" asked Gladys.

William did not need a wand for this. "We
will."

Gladys watched the wizard in his blue, black
and purple robes walk off with the nurse who suddenly was nodding
understandingly. As the two turned a corner, she went into the room
again and closed the door.

"Ahhh, good that you came back. I need
you."

-=-=-

A short while later William came back, a
smile on his face. "How's the patient?"

"As good as new," Hilda grinned. William
hugged the witchy woman.

"Hey, wait, I still don't get it," Tory
complained from the bed. "If I got hurt last night, why didn't you
guys fix me up then and there?"

Hilda turned to the woman. "We both were
quite exhausted after keeping up the Mother Goddess to make an
impression on Zelda. I patched up what I still could and then we
took you here. That was the best option, believe me. We're awake
now, and refreshed. Thanks to Gladys and her coffee. So fixing you
now was easy."

"So I can get up now and go home?" Tory
already looked happy and forward to that.

"Hmm, better wait for the doctors to say
that's okay, Tory," her sister in the witchy arts, Gladys, said.
"They might not like it if you walk out of here just like
that."

Tory looked a bit grumpy. "Guess you're
right. Can't you call one so I can leave?"

"Sure." Hilda walked to the door and before
someone could do something, yelled "Doctor!" into the corridor.
Now, William could have done something as he knew what she was
going to do, but he had too much fun with that.

Hilda's yelling was not in vain. Not only a
doctor but also two nurses came running. When they heard what the
'emergency' was, they did their best to refrain from angry looks.
Hilda's fame had already spread among the staff of the
hospital.

"This woman is healed," the witch declared,
pointing at Tory. "Can you tell her she can go?"

"Mrs. Witch, this is not the way we work
here!" the doctor said, appalled at her behaviour.

Hilda shrugged and sat down. "I don't know
that. I'm not from around here."

"Thank God," the doctor muttered as he
started to examine Tory. He checked her chart too, and could not
find anything wrong with her anymore. "Miraculous," he said as he
shook his head. "I should ask my colleague-"