Hilda - The Challenge (13 page)

"Do you think it is such a fun thing to paint
you in the same boring colours every few centuries?", Hilda argued.
"Why didn't you go for purple? The door will open when the stove
thinks it's done, William."

"Oh, thank you." Shaking his head for the
umpteenth time he got up and stood leaning against the cupboard,
following the verbal battle between the witch and the house.

"Purple really is not a colour for a house,"
said the house, "we have had this discussion before. It is also the
only real discussion we've had in the last six or so centuries, so
I am refraining from saying it is a meaningful one."

William decided it was time to cut up the
salad. He had found real salad, that did not move, talk or fly, and
he was very excited about that. He picked it up, rinsed it in a
bucket that always seemed to contain clean water and shook the
water off it. Then he carefully approached the cutting board, the
same one that had jumped away from him before.

"I'm going to use a knife, okay, but it's
nothing personal. I'm the cook, you're the cutting board. It's as
simple as that." The board remained where it was, as William looked
for a proper knife. There were many knives. But not the one he had
in mind.

"Next time, house, you are going to be purple
in all colours of the rainbow," Hilda stated, proving that she had
not slept enough, "and not matter what you say or do is going to
change my mind. Got that? I am the witch and you are the house.
It's as simple as that."

"Oh. Really. And do you already have an idea
where you are going to sleep then? And where you will store your
clothes?", the house threatened her, "because if you paint me
purple, you've slept the longest time of your life under my
roof."

"We'll see about that," spat Hilda.

"I need a salad-cutting knife," William said
calmly, as not to upset anyone. Or anything. Something whizzed past
his head. It touched his ear. It ended up in a wooden beam in the
wall. It was a knife for cutting salad.

William closed his eyes, swallowed hard and
breathed in and out a few times. He watched. The knife was still
there. Carefully he examined his ear. It was still there, and there
was no blood coming from it. "Holy Bejeebus, a knife-throwing
house."

"Kitchen," said the house.

"Oh. Right." William reached out and was
relieved the knife did not give him a hard time while he pulled it
from the wooden beam. Also the cutting board cooperated, so after
not very long the salad was cut up and in a bowl of its own. A bowl
that had no visible problem with being filled.

During that time, Hilda and the house had
taken their discussion into the living room and the stove door was
banging wildly, making a racket that would have woken the dead.

"Alright, alright," said William who raced to
the stove with a couple of rags to hold the cast iron plate with
the chicken. His intentions were noble, but the door kept banging
open and shut, making it impossible for him to get to the chicken.
The book salesman was getting very fed up with this kitchen. He
took one of the rags and slapped that agains the noisy door, really
hard. "And now you cut it out, or you're going to be replaced by a
campfire!"

It was not clear if the door had gotten tired
of the banging at that moment, or if William's approach paid off,
but the door opened and remained open. As William reached inside,
the fire retreated so he would not burn his hands, and the chicken
was out of the oven.

From there on it was a matter of cutting up
the chicken into handy pieces, which was quickly done by a big
cleaver that took honour in its trade. William stood by and watched
as the sharp metal object went crazy for a while, delivering the
chicken in chunks that McDonalds could only dream about.

The now tame soup bowl kept calm as William
carried it to the living room and put it on the table. He saw Hilda
sitting in her chair already, a disappointed look on her face.
"What's wrong, Hilda?", he asked.

"Hmmf. Nothing."

"Really... you could have fooled me..."

"Argh, stupid house, that's all. Next time
we'll paint it red, white and black." She frowned as she looked at
William. "Now, honestly, those are not colours for a house, are
they?"

"Don't ask me, honey, I'm just visiting,"
William bailed out and retreated to the kitchen for the rest of the
food.

"Coward!", Hilda spat after him, but as he
entered the kitchen he could hear her laugh, and a grin made itself
comfortable on his face.

Dinner was done, the dishes had done
themselves, which was a very convenient trait of the kitchen, and
Hilda had watched how William had lit up the fireplace with some
magical pieces of wood he had in his bag in his room.

William always had a box of matches with him,
as these things came in handy in many ways. Even to light the
fireplace in the house of a witch.

Lacking something more comfortable, they had
put their dining-table chairs near the fire, with a large thick
blanket over it, which was William's idea. Hilda had stared at what
he was doing as he set the make-believe couch up, but as it was
done she was surprised at how it looked.

"Is this how you spend evenings in your
world?", she asked, "sitting on a chair with a blanket and looking
at the fire?"

William grinned. "Not exactly. For one, I
don't have a fireplace in the other world. I do have a television,
but usually I am reading a book."

"Oh." Reading books was something she
understood, but Hilda did ask about a television. It proved
difficult for William to explain the concept, and when he started
to compare it to a large crystal ball, she grinned loudly.

"Oh, come on William, first you tell me there
are no magical people in your world, and now you insist that almost
everyone has a magical ball in the house. You are not making much
sense, dear man."

William nodded. "I was afraid of that. As I
said, I am not a technical person. I just push buttons and hope
things work."

"You are maybe not a technical person, but I
think you are a nice person," Hilda said as she looked in his eyes.
She did not turn red, she did not feel uncomfortable saying the
words, and she surprised herself with that. "I have an idea," she
then said, "come, get up for a moment."

Wondering what the witch had in mind, William
got up. Hilda was busy moving their chairs apart and folding the
large blanket a few times. She mumbled some Latin, repeating it in
several versions until the spell took hold.

"Latin is not your strong point, it is?",
William asked.

"No. I hate it," she told him. "But I got it
this time. Now we can sit again." She proved it, by sitting down on
the blanket that was hovering over the floor between the chairs.
"It's much softer this way." Her face showed William that she was
happy that she'd gotten this idea and that it worked. "Come, sit
down next to me," she encouraged him, patting the space with her
hand. "It's safe, really."

William shook his head, for a change. "You
never cease to amaze me, Hilda," he said as he sat down. He was
confident that this would hold, if she was able to keep him on a
broom.

"That is good," she said as she took his arm
and draped it over her shoulders. She sat very close to him. "I am
not one for being predictable."

There was silence for a while, only
interrupted by the cracking wood in the fireplace.

"Maybe there is something missing," Hilda
frowned.

"And what might that be?" William was
puzzled. This evening was going incredibly well, he thought.

"Oh! I know!" Hilda jumped up and went to
fetch a few glasses. Unfortunately her magic had not yet fully
recovered, so magicking up two glasses with wine was something she
avoided, just to be safe. Another unfortunate thing was that she
was a bit weary from the sleepless night and the busy day that had
also gotten stacked full with emotions. As she went into the
kitchen, her attention slipped away from the improvised couch, the
blanket slipped from the chairs and went down to the floor, taking
William with it.

Hilda returned with two glasses of wine, one
watered down, one with wine of its original colour. "What are you
doing on the floor?", she asked in wonder as she saw William
sitting there.

"You went away, and the couch went with you,"
he remarked dryly, not making any attempt to get up.

"Oh..." Hilda blushed as she sat down on the
ground with him. "Here. For you. Poured by hand."

The book salesman chuckled.

"Hey, no laughing at the resident witch,
okay? I am not used to this, I told you that."

William put a finger over her lips. "Sssst.
No more babbling about that, Hilda. Everything's fine. Very fine
even. I count myself incredibly lucky to be here with you. And I
really think you look cute in that nightgown."

Slowly Hilda raised a hand and took his
finger. Just as slowly she stuck it in her mouth and held it
between her teeth. She stared at him and he was entirely in the
dark about what was happening or if he should do something. He did
not dare to pull his finger back; Hilda's teeth were amazingly
sharp. William felt how she flicked her tongue against his
fingertip, only once. Then she let go of his finger.

"I could have bitten it off," she said.

"Yes. But you didn't. Why did you do that,
anyway? Is it some magical practice?"

She shook her head, her hair flowing around
her. "I was just curious what you taste like."

"You what?"

"I wanted to taste you. It is amazing how
much you can learn from a person when you taste them. Here." She
put her glass down and before William knew what was happening, she
had stuck her finger in his mouth. "Well? Isn't that
something?"

William took her hand and pulled her finger
from his mouth. "It definitely is... different. I'm not sure if I
get the deeper meaning of it, but it is interesting."

"Yeah, I know. I never got into that myself
either. We all suspected that the witch who taught us that had a
bit of an odd streak, or was a finger fetishist." The wicked witch
picked up her glass of wine and sipped it, staring at the fire.
"Aren't we silly to have the fire burning while it is not
cold?"

"As far as I'm concerned, we can be silly all
we want. Nobody's bothered by it, and I for one have always liked
fireplaces. And burning it once in a while is good for the chimney
too." William raised his glass and she touched it with hers, the
crystal making a really nice sound.

The blue sparkle was in Hilda's eyes again.
"You are a weird person, William Connoley. I really cannot figure
you out. You always are different from what I expect. When I
brought you to my house I was not sure if that was a good idea,
although it was the only thing I could do. After all, now I know
that I brought you here, to my world, even though I still don't
know how I did that. I really was afraid that you'd get on my
nerves within hours. And now you are here since more than two days
and I still haven't changed you into something obnoxious. That is a
miracle."

"Oh... and what would you change me into?",
William asked as there was a pause.

She looked at him, her eyes large and
shining. "See, you do it again. You ask the only thing that I would
not have expected." She drank the last bit of wine from her
glass.

"And now I am glad you are here, William.
Really happy. It still scares me, because- well, just remember that
it is so. I'll tell you when it's better, okay?"

"I am all fine with that," William said, who
had already emptied his glass. "And I strongly believe that you
should be in bed by now."

Hilda pouted. "I don't want to. It feels so
good sitting here with you." To William's surprise she then put her
hand against his cheek. "But you are right. I am really tired."

"Would you want me to put you in bed?"

Hilda considered that for a few moments.
"Actually it is my turn now, to put you in bed. You did that for me
this afternoon."

William sat on his knees and held out his
arms. "Come here. We'll pretend that doesn't count as you had flung
yourself on the bed already."

Hilda giggled. The wine, watered down as it
was, had gotten to her head quickly as she was so bushed. She got
halfway up and let herself fall in William's arms. The man caught
her easily and stood up, holding her against him as she wrapped her
arms around his neck, her head lying against his shoulder. Her soft
breath touched the skin of his neck.

He calmly walked up the stairs and as he
reached the small upper hallway, the door to Hilda's bedroom
opened. He put her on her bed and took the bunny-slippers off her
feet which made her giggle again. Then he pulled the covers over
her and sat on her bed. "Sleep well, pretty witch," he said.

She smiled at him, her face small, worn out
and pale in the flurry of her long grey hair. "Thank you, William."
She was holding one of his hands.

He bent over and kissed her lightly on her
cheek. When he looked at her again, there was the amazing blue
sparkle in her eyes again.

"You sleep well also, dear man," she said as
he got up.

"I will."

Hilda was asleep before he had left the room
and closed the door.

A minimal amount of awareness came into
Hilda's head. She softly moaned, happy, warm and at peace. She
shifted slightly, moved her arm a bit and listened to soft
breathing and a heartbeat. The shadow of smile visited her lips for
a moment, then she drifted back to sleep again.

Early morninglight was coming in through the
windows. William woke up with the acute awareness that something
was different. It did not imply that it was a bad thing, but
different nonetheless. Something was on his chest. And something,
or rather someone was lying next to him. There was a distinct smell
about also, one he had gotten to know very well. This triggered a
process that started with confusion.