Hilda - Cats
by Paul Kater
Published by the author at Smashwords - Copyright 2011 Paul Kater
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Contents:
31. Charge of the light brigade
1. Messages
Upon their return from William's wonky world, the magical couple had found the big wooden pole near the house littered with arrows carrying messages for the honourable witch and wizard. The two honourables had collected all the messages and dropped the arrows in a basket outside the door. That way the message archers could fetch their arrows without disturbing the peace of the magical ones.
The messages had remained untouched on the table for a considerable time, while Hilda and William took long baths, slept, ate and got reacquainted in the relative tranquility of their own many walls.
When finally they returned to the living room, the house was very much displeased. "I know that it is not my position to complain," it said, "but these two black animals you have brought back... are they going to stay here?"
Hilda stared at the two cats who had found their home in the home on the highest bookshelf. "Seems so. And you're right. You are here to be a house, not to complain." Then she turned to William, who had arranged for a few cups of tea and a plate of cookies. "What do we do with these beasts?"
As William came close to the table, both cats jumped to the ground and calmly trotted over to him. It looked as if they owned the place. It made him grin. He put the tea and the cookies on the table. "I think it is neat to have a few cats around. As long as they don't make a mess I'd say we keep them around."
"I'm still not convinced," said Hilda. She reached down and picked up the cat nearest to her. She put it in her lap and started stroking the soft fur. "I mean, we don't do a thing with them. We don't know what they're good for, and if all they do is sit on the shelf..."
William watched his witch for a few moments. Then he shook his head. "Here's your tea. And don't drop your cat while you drink it."
"Drop my- oh..." Hilda looked a bit lost as she noticed what she was doing.
William smiled. He sat down and the other cat jumped, landing in the wizard's lap. "So what's your peeve with the cats, house?"
"They are hairy. Cats are hairy, and they shed their hair everywhere," the house announced.
"And what is your problem with that?" William asked. The cats had not left any hair lying around since they had gotten home. He just had gathered something for them so they could eat and drink, and that was all. Hilda had arranged for a magical litter box that cleaned itself, so that was also taken care of.
The house was silent, as if it was thinking about a good answer. "There is no problem. Yet. I just want to draw your attention to this before a problem does arise," it said.
"I doubt there will be a problem, house," Hilda said as she picked up her tea.
Her cat calmly got onto the table and carefully walked over to the stack of messages. She sat down with it and sniffed the papers one by one. The magical couple watched the animal as she took her time to inspect each and every snippet. Then, apparently satisfied, she walked back over the table and reclaimed her position on Hilda again.
"We still don't know where they came from, do we?" William did not expect an answer on that question. The cats had appeared from nowhere as they had gone in for the final confrontation with Zelda the witch, and the two had not left them after that. "I like them."
Hilda slowly nodded as she tried to feed her cat a piece of her cookie. The cat was not set on cookies though. "Meowwww..." the animal complained after Hilda's second attempt. Easily she slipped from under the witch's arm, and soon she was on the top bookshelf again, from where she had a perfect view over the entire room.
William's cat peacefully stayed where he was. The wizard's hand made him purr gently.
Hilda looked at the scene and smiled. "They're beautiful, aren't they? I wonder if they have names."
William grinned. "If they do, they are not going to tell us, sweetwitch." The cat in his lap looked up at him, the two bright yellow eyes shining as if they came from a- "Shadow. That's it. I'm going to call this cat Shadow."
"Shadow What?"
"How do you mean that? Shadow what?"
"Cats of people like us have a double name, William. They also have a short, simple name for when we're alone with them. So you pick Shadow, but something has to go with it. Before or after, but just Shadow won't do." Hilda reached for another cookie.
A soft purr came from the bookshelf. The couple looked up at the cat that had taken up station there. "Black as Onyx," William remarked.
"Yes, you are right. Her fur shines like onyx, indeed. How good of you, William." Hilda got up, touched the wizard's hand and then slowly walked to the bookshelves, her eyes on the cat. "Would you like to be called Onyx, black cat?" she asked, calmly reaching up and waiting. "Onyx?"
The cat on the shelf seemed to contemplate the waiting hand. Then lazily she reached out a paw and touched Hilda's hand a few times. "Mworrr..." was the cattish comment.
"Yes. You are an Onyx cat, aren't you? Come here, Onyx cat," Hilda said. She held up both her hands. The cat got up, looked around the room from her high post once more time and then lightly jumped from the shelf, full of trust. She landed in Hilda's hands. "I think you and I will be good friends, Onyx," said the witch as she turned and beamed a smile at the wizard.
"You need to add something to that name, Hilda. Just Onyx doesn't do it."
"Oh, hush you. What do you know?" Hilda walked to the table and sat down. "Only the things that I tell you." She frowned. "Hmm. Those are good things. Hmm." The witch sipped some tea. Then she looked at the cat in her lap. "Do you think you are a Grimalkin?"
Immediately the black head turned and the yellow eyes stared at Hilda.
"Crappedy crap, she really reacts to that name. Grimalkin." As she said the name, the cat's stare intensified for a moment.
William watched the scene and noticed the reaction of Onyx cat as Hilda said the name. "She does, Hilda. She reacts to Grimalkin." He had barely said it when Onyx's head turned to him. "I think you found her name."
Hilda picked up the cat with both hands and looked at the small face. "Very good, you. And your familiar name will be Grim. Like mine. Grimhilda. Grimalkin. You are Grim."
William, watching her, had stopped stroking his cat. Shadow did not seem to like that, it jumped up, knocking William's chin with his head. "Ouch, that hurt!" the wizard muttered. "That animal has a head hard as rock."
"Obsidian," Hilda said. "He's black, so it should be obsidian. Obsidian is hard as well."
"Obsidian, eh?" William said, as he rubbed his chin. "That sounds pretty nice. Obsidian Shadow." It was more his hand touching the cat than the name, that made Shadow lie down and relax again, but the name had a good ring to it. "And the short name will be... Obsi?"
"Obsi?" Hilda stared at her wizard. "What kind of name is that? Obsi. Obsi."
"Now, then explain Grim to me. Sounds grim enough, you know." Obsidian Shadow looked up at William. "Muwhhh," he said. "See? He agrees. Obsi agrees." William grinned.
Then Grim and Obsi both looked away, to the same spot. A moment later, Hilda's large crystal ball started making its pinging noise, which told them that someone was trying to talk to them.
Hilda frowned. Onyx jumped on the ground as the witch got up to walk to the ball. "It's Babs!" She waved over the ball. "Hello Babsi baby!"
"Hilda!! You are there, finally! Where have you and your wizard been for so long? I heard all kinds of rumours about that strange person Griselda having disappeared, and that you are somehow involved in that?" The ugly witch sounded concerned about the wellbeing of her friend.
"You would not believe what we have been through, Babs," Hilda said. She told her friend all the things that had happened, what they had endured, and how glad they were to finally be back home again. As Hilda was talking, William was walking around, cleaning some things up.
Babs kept peeking as she saw the wizard walk along and suddenly had to interrupt Hilda's flow of words. "Hilly baby, now you have to tell me something. I see your wizard walking around, but what is that dark thing on his neck?"
"Huh?" Hilda looked at William, who had Obsidian Shadow draped over his shoulders. The cat lay there are calmly as if it was on a cushion in front of a fireplace. "Oh. That's Obsi."
Baba Yaga frowned. "Obsi? What's an obsi?"
"It's William's cat. We ended up bringing two black cats back here," Hilda explained. "His cat is Obsidian Shadow. And mine is called Onyx Grimalkin. Grim, come here, girl, and say hello to Babs."
Grim leapt up into Hilda's arms and was presented to the ugly witch, who stared at the black animal for a while. "Grimhilda has a cat. Now that is scary," Baba Yaga finally stated.
"There is nothing scary about having a cat, Babs," Hilda lectured, "cats are very nice and clean animals, and they are a witch's best familiar."
"Yeah, sure. I've come along without one fine for all my life," Babs cackled, "but you go be happy with your cats, Hilda. But now that Zelda has ended up somewhere in the hands of a strange creature that took her into a mirror, what are you going to do about her house?"
"Her house?" Hilda wondered what she had to do with Zelda's house.
"Yes. Someone has to release the magic from the house and dissipate it. Or take it in. If you leave it there, anything can happen. Do you want to take the risk that some lone wizard or magician comes along, assimilates the magic from the place and turns into a second Lamador?"
Hilda swallowed. That name still gave her a shiver. The powerful sorcerer that once had served King Herald was dead and gone now, but the fight she and William had had to put up for that was etched in her memory. "You're right. We have to do something about that. Quickly."
"Good girl," Baba Yaga said with a nod. "Stay in touch, Hilda. No running off and making your oldest and bestest friend worry where you are, can we agree on that?"
"I promise," said Hilda. "Unless there is an emergency."
"If there is an emergency, you have to let me know. Don't keep all the fun for yourself!" With that, Baba Yaga's face disappeared from the crystal ball.
"Does this sound like we are going out?" William asked.
"Yes, that is how it sounds," said Hilda as she draped Grim over her shoulders.
Her cat calmly got onto the table and carefully walked over to the stack of messages. She sat down with it and sniffed the papers one by one. The magical couple watched the animal as she took her time to inspect each and every snippet. Then, apparently satisfied, she walked back over the table and reclaimed her position on Hilda again.
"We still don't know where they came from, do we?" William did not expect an answer on that question. The cats had appeared from nowhere as they had gone in for the final confrontation with Zelda the witch, and the two had not left them after that. "I like them."
Hilda slowly nodded as she tried to feed her cat a piece of her cookie. The cat was not set on cookies though. "Meowwww..." the animal complained after Hilda's second attempt. Easily she slipped from under the witch's arm, and soon she was on the top bookshelf again, from where she had a perfect view over the entire room.
William's cat peacefully stayed where he was. The wizard's hand made him purr gently.
Hilda looked at the scene and smiled. "They're beautiful, aren't they? I wonder if they have names."
William grinned. "If they do, they are not going to tell us, sweetwitch." The cat in his lap looked up at him, the two bright yellow eyes shining as if they came from a- "Shadow. That's it. I'm going to call this cat Shadow."
"Shadow What?"
"How do you mean that? Shadow what?"
"Cats of people like us have a double name, William. They also have a short, simple name for when we're alone with them. So you pick Shadow, but something has to go with it. Before or after, but just Shadow won't do." Hilda reached for another cookie.
A soft purr came from the bookshelf. The couple looked up at the cat that had taken up station there. "Black as Onyx," William remarked.
"Yes, you are right. Her fur shines like onyx, indeed. How good of you, William." Hilda got up, touched the wizard's hand and then slowly walked to the bookshelves, her eyes on the cat. "Would you like to be called Onyx, black cat?" she asked, calmly reaching up and waiting. "Onyx?"
The cat on the shelf seemed to contemplate the waiting hand. Then lazily she reached out a paw and touched Hilda's hand a few times. "Mworrr..." was the cattish comment.
"Yes. You are an Onyx cat, aren't you? Come here, Onyx cat," Hilda said. She held up both her hands. The cat got up, looked around the room from her high post once more time and then lightly jumped from the shelf, full of trust. She landed in Hilda's hands. "I think you and I will be good friends, Onyx," said the witch as she turned and beamed a smile at the wizard.
"You need to add something to that name, Hilda. Just Onyx doesn't do it."
"Oh, hush you. What do you know?" Hilda walked to the table and sat down. "Only the things that I tell you." She frowned. "Hmm. Those are good things. Hmm." The witch sipped some tea. Then she looked at the cat in her lap. "Do you think you are a Grimalkin?"
Immediately the black head turned and the yellow eyes stared at Hilda.
"Crappedy crap, she really reacts to that name. Grimalkin." As she said the name, the cat's stare intensified for a moment.
William watched the scene and noticed the reaction of Onyx cat as Hilda said the name. "She does, Hilda. She reacts to Grimalkin." He had barely said it when Onyx's head turned to him. "I think you found her name."
Hilda picked up the cat with both hands and looked at the small face. "Very good, you. And your familiar name will be Grim. Like mine. Grimhilda. Grimalkin. You are Grim."
William, watching her, had stopped stroking his cat. Shadow did not seem to like that, it jumped up, knocking William's chin with his head. "Ouch, that hurt!" the wizard muttered. "That animal has a head hard as rock."
"Obsidian," Hilda said. "He's black, so it should be obsidian. Obsidian is hard as well."
"Obsidian, eh?" William said, as he rubbed his chin. "That sounds pretty nice. Obsidian Shadow." It was more his hand touching the cat than the name, that made Shadow lie down and relax again, but the name had a good ring to it. "And the short name will be... Obsi?"
"Obsi?" Hilda stared at her wizard. "What kind of name is that? Obsi. Obsi."
"Now, then explain Grim to me. Sounds grim enough, you know." Obsidian Shadow looked up at William. "Muwhhh," he said. "See? He agrees. Obsi agrees." William grinned.
Then Grim and Obsi both looked away, to the same spot. A moment later, Hilda's large crystal ball started making its pinging noise, which told them that someone was trying to talk to them.
Hilda frowned. Onyx jumped on the ground as the witch got up to walk to the ball. "It's Babs!" She waved over the ball. "Hello Babsi baby!"
"Hilda!! You are there, finally! Where have you and your wizard been for so long? I heard all kinds of rumours about that strange person Griselda having disappeared, and that you are somehow involved in that?" The ugly witch sounded concerned about the wellbeing of her friend.
"You would not believe what we have been through, Babs," Hilda said. She told her friend all the things that had happened, what they had endured, and how glad they were to finally be back home again. As Hilda was talking, William was walking around, cleaning some things up.
Babs kept peeking as she saw the wizard walk along and suddenly had to interrupt Hilda's flow of words. "Hilly baby, now you have to tell me something. I see your wizard walking around, but what is that dark thing on his neck?"
"Huh?" Hilda looked at William, who had Obsidian Shadow draped over his shoulders. The cat lay there are calmly as if it was on a cushion in front of a fireplace. "Oh. That's Obsi."
Baba Yaga frowned. "Obsi? What's an obsi?"
"It's William's cat. We ended up bringing two black cats back here," Hilda explained. "His cat is Obsidian Shadow. And mine is called Onyx Grimalkin. Grim, come here, girl, and say hello to Babs."
Grim leapt up into Hilda's arms and was presented to the ugly witch, who stared at the black animal for a while. "Grimhilda has a cat. Now that is scary," Baba Yaga finally stated.
"There is nothing scary about having a cat, Babs," Hilda lectured, "cats are very nice and clean animals, and they are a witch's best familiar."
"Yeah, sure. I've come along without one fine for all my life," Babs cackled, "but you go be happy with your cats, Hilda. But now that Zelda has ended up somewhere in the hands of a strange creature that took her into a mirror, what are you going to do about her house?"
"Her house?" Hilda wondered what she had to do with Zelda's house.
"Yes. Someone has to release the magic from the house and dissipate it. Or take it in. If you leave it there, anything can happen. Do you want to take the risk that some lone wizard or magician comes along, assimilates the magic from the place and turns into a second Lamador?"
Hilda swallowed. That name still gave her a shiver. The powerful sorcerer that once had served King Herald was dead and gone now, but the fight she and William had had to put up for that was etched in her memory. "You're right. We have to do something about that. Quickly."
"Good girl," Baba Yaga said with a nod. "Stay in touch, Hilda. No running off and making your oldest and bestest friend worry where you are, can we agree on that?"
"I promise," said Hilda. "Unless there is an emergency."
"If there is an emergency, you have to let me know. Don't keep all the fun for yourself!" With that, Baba Yaga's face disappeared from the crystal ball.
"Does this sound like we are going out?" William asked.
"Yes, that is how it sounds," said Hilda as she draped Grim over her shoulders.
2. Zelda's house
As they were in the air, William kept wondering why the cats wanted to ride along sitting in front of them, on the bristles of the brooms.
"I would not worry about that, William," said Hilda in her usual approach. "At least this way we can keep an eye on them."
Grim, the cat on Hilda's broom, looked at the witch and did a soft meow. Then she looked ahead again. "I wonder what that was all about," Hilda muttered. "At least we're almost there."
Not much flight time later, they descended towards and touched down in front of Zelda's house.
"Hey house, have you heard already?" Hilda asked.
"Alas, yes. I have heard. News travels rapidly these days," the house said in its Italian manner of speech. "You were the last one that saw her, aren't you?"
"William and me, both, indeed. Sorry for the loss, I assume," said the witch, "but you may understand that I cannot put my heart in this. She did try to kill us a few times too many."
"Tried, eh? She never was very good at those things," the house commented. "A real softy, deep down inside."
"I wouldn't go that far," William frowned. He recalled large pieces of concrete flying at them. And big Nobbleback dragons. And humongous plants trying to eat them. Not really the work of a softy.
"Now, house, you're going to open up for us. You know Zelda's a goner, you know we had a hand in her going, so..."
"I am not sure if that is the way things go, madam Witch," said the house. "Are you certain that all legal implications have been considered- Oh..." The house was surprised as William opened the door. From the inside, just like the first time they had been there.
"No protection on the roof and the chimney, remember?" he said as he let Hilda and the cats in.
The house fell silent. It had no defense against this kind of intrusion. No offense either, which was a good thing, as Zelda's house was littered with all kinds of objects. Grim and Obsi carefully walked through the rooms, sniffing here and there, avoiding some places as if there was ice of fire. Hilda and William slowly walked around also, not certain what they were going to do when they found what they were looking for. And that was something they didn't know exactly either.
"I've never done this before," Hilda said, "so give me some time, okay?"
"What is it we're supposed to be doing?" William wondered as he picked up a small statue of what looked like a tree nymph. "This is pretty."
"Better put it down again quickly. They bite," said Hilda.
William was not quick enough: the statue suddenly moved, quickly, and the small figure bit him in the finger. "Holy Bejeebus!" He almost dropped the object. It took a slap on the small head before the miniature nymph let go of William's finger, after which she was quickly placed back on the shelf she'd come from. She growled at him for a while as he rubbed his finger. "Really something for a softy," he commented to no one in particular.
"William, I found it!" Hilda called out from a small room that Zelda obviously had used as a storage room.
"Good grief, what a mess," William precisely defined it as he came in. The two cats had trailed along after him, and sat down right outside the room, their tails neatly curled around their paws. "And what did you find here?" He looked around and saw nothing that would entice him to stay here long.
"In here is her source of magic. Can't you feel it?"
William held out his hands. "No. Nothing. I just think it smells very strange here. But that's not it, right?"
The witch glared at him. "You're not born magical. It's in things like this that it shows, William."
"And in the fact that witches and wizards don't sense my magic," William confirmed. "I know. So please, what is it that you sense here?"
"Magic. Big fat magic. This is her source."
"Oh. I uhm... don't see."
"I'll explain later. Now we have to absorb her magic. It is rightfully ours, as we defeated her."
"Right. And how do we go about that?" William asked.
"I'm not sure. I've never beaten a witch in such a way before, so I am pretty new at this too," Hilda reminded him. "I told you."
Onyx Grimalkin and Obsidian Shadow tiptoed into the room and jumped up, into the arms of their unsuspecting magical humans.
William stared at Hilda who was staring at him. "Now what's that supposed to mean?" As they looked at each other, the two cats meowed, then purred. The next thing William and Hilda were aware of was that they both were on the ground. Without their cats, but with a very tingling feeling all over. "Now what's that supposed to mean?" Maybe this time he got an answer.
Hilda pushed her hair from her face. "Wow." She got up and waved a hand around. "It's gone."
William got to his feet. "What's gone? The magic?"
"Yes. Here, nothing left!" Again the witch waved her hand.
"So where'd it go?" He knew that was a stupid question.
"Tell me how you feel."
"I knew that was a stupid question." William looked at the two black animals that were sitting just outside the smelly room again, as if they had not moved. Four yellow eyes, bright as if there were little lights burning inside them, looked up at the two people. Grim then meowed. The cats got up and walked off.
"Something tells me we should follow them, William," Hilda said as she took his hand and pulled him out of the room. They followed the two cats, who directly walked out of the open door and away from the house. As the magical couple stepped outside, they instinctively grabbed their brooms and stood where the cats sat.
It was as if the house had waited for them to get out. Slowly, almost thoughtfully, the roof started to cave in. As that was going, the door fell out of the walls falling down. It took a few minutes for everything to collapse. After all the falling had completed, Hilda, William and the cats had turned grey by the dust clouds washing over them.
"Now that was weird," William said, rearranging the grey matter on his face with his hands.
"The magic held it together. We took the magic, so..." Hilda slapped her dress, making dust dance around her.
William nodded. The pieces of the puzzle did fit, with some force applied. As a try he flipped out his wand. "Sheesh." It was there faster, more swiftly than usual. "Did you see that?"
"What?" Hilda had been paying attention to Grim and Obsi, who were sauntering towards the destroyed house again.
"Pop your wand, Hilda."
She did. "Suck an elf. That's... different." The witch stared at William and his wand. "This will take some getting used to, William. We'd better be careful for a while, until we know what else happened to us."
"Do you think we should clean this up?" William pointed at the house. "It looks nasty if we go home and leave this place as the mess it is."
Hilda shook her head. "Not to worry, sweet wizard. The people in the nearby villages will come here soon enough, and use the remains of the house for building material. They'd be offended if we were to do something about it."
William nodded. It made sense. He chuckled as he realised that he was adjusting to this world just fine. Crazy things here made more sense than normal things in his old world. "What do you think they are doing?" He was referring to the two cats who were patrolling the area of the collapsed house.
"I don't know," said Hilda, "but I do think we should be going home now. There's nothing more for us to do, I'd say."
William agreed. They called their cats as they mounted their brooms. Hilda and William both grinned as they saw how quickly and gracefully their pets came and leapt on their front row seats. Swiftly the magical ones made the brooms rise up into the air and started on their way back home.
"It feels different," said William as they were flying.
"It does." Hilda had noticed it also. The change was slight, but present. As if there was one hundred and five percent of magic inside her. "It feels just strong enough to make me feel drunk."
William laughed, making Obsi look at him for a moment. "That does not take much, sweet witch."
"Oh, hush you." She wanted to say something snappier, but then she pointed downward. "Look, there."
William looked. "A stork. That is so neat. I don't recall seeing one here before."
"You haven't. They are very special." Hilda looked closely where the stork was flying to.
"Really? Why's that? Do they bring babies?" William grinned.
"Yes." Hilda was serious.
William stopped grinning. "You're kidding me, right?" He knew she wasn't. Their link told him so.
"No. I am not. And I want to know where that bird flies to. Come, let's follow it."
They changed course and went after the stork.
3. Follow that stork
"What's so special about storks here, Hilda?" William asked. "In the other world there are stories about storks delivering babies, but those are just that. Stories."
"Well, they're not here. If you see a stork, that means a woman is pregnant. And not just any woman. A witch."
"Oh. That's serious."
"Precisely. That is why I want to know where the bird's going to."
The stork dove down to a small village in a field, merely a gathering of some fifteen houses. The houses looked as if they had been tossed into a meadow more than that someone had given some thought to where they should be.
"Oh no." Hilda did not elaborate on that. William suspected he would hear more soon enough, so he did not ask.
They swooped down after the baby-bringer, which they found perched on the roof of the house that lay somewhat away from the other houses. That had to be where the witch lived. The house was painted bright yellow. It had dark brown beams around the windows, and from them hung jolly colourful flower baskets. The roof was pitch black which made the bird stand out clearly. An oval red door completed the first impression of the house.
"Lorelei?" Hilda called out as they had landed.
After some moments the door of the house opened. A belly came outside, followed by a woman who clearly had problems keeping her balance. She had curly short brown hair, brown eyes, and was dressed in what could best be described as a gipsy's dress. "Suck an elf. It's Hilda. And her wizard."
"Suck your own elf, Lorelei! How did that happen?" Hilda pointed at the immense belly the witch sported.
"I am sure you know how that happens, silly witch," Lorelei grinned. "Do you want to come in? I have problems standing lately."
That was not a big surprise. The two who had just flown in entered the house, and were sat down on a large orange couch. There Hilda introduced William and Lorelei to each other. The two cats had slipped inside and vanished.
"We saw this stork flying and decided to follow it. Crappedy crap, Lori, who did that to you?"
The pregnant witched grinned. "I have asked that myself a few times, and I am still not sure. That is why I decided to first get the child and then see if it looks like someone I know."
William was not prepared for this liberal an approach to things. It was either the additional magic he'd received, or the simple fact that he bit his tongue, but he managed not to appear too surprised.
Hilda nodded. "Best way to go about it, indeed. Would be good if the Dad is a magical one. That would make for a more balanced kid."
Lorelei nodded. "Yes, indeed. I think there's fair chance of that though. But I am such a lousy hostess. Can I magic you up some tea or wine or so?"
"Wine might not be a good idea," William said, "we still have to fly home."
Lorelei studied William's face for a moment. "Oh. Right. Hilda and wine. I remember." She waved her hand and then there was tea for everyone. "Cookies?" There were cookies. "Pickles? Or pie?" Those appeared also, together with roasted chicken legs and and bowl with raspberries.
Hilda reached for a chicken leg and a pickle. "Oh, that smells good," she grinned. William frowned at his witch for a moment as he worried about her choice of food.
Lorelei went for the same snacks. William was happy with a piece of pie and the sudden appearance of Obsidian Shadow in his lap.
"Oh, what a cute kitty!" Lorelei chimed. "Where did you get that from?"
As Hilda and William told her about the adventures in William's world, Onyx Grimalkin also showed herself. She even allowed Lorelei to scratch her head.
"My, you two get around, don't you," Lorelei said as she went for a cookie. "First all that with Lamador and the Labyrinth of Gurthreyn, and now this." As Hilda looked a bit surprised, Lorelei explained that Baba Yaga had told all about the problems with the magician of King Herald.
"I didn't know Babs was part of the local gossip circuit," William showed his surprise.
The two witches grinned. "We all are. It is how news gets around, William."
"It's just that some spread the news, and others usually are the news," Lorelei added, winking.
Grim squeezed herself onto Hilda's lap, almost disappearing from view against the black clothes except for two bright yellow eyes that kept watching everything.
Lorelei asked why Hilda and William were in the neighbourhood. They told her about the magic they had taken in from the house. "Oh. Yes. I've heard of that. So that really works? How does it feel?"
"Nothing special, once the tingling has gone," Hilda explained. "It does come as a bit of a shock."
"Well, you still look good, so the shock did not leave any marks on you." Lorelei grinned as she popped a few raspberries in her mouth and reached for a pickle.
"So when is your child due?" William tried to pitch in.
"Don't really know," Lorelei shrugged, "when it's ready I guess. Never had one before, and they're all different. I know from my mother that I took little over a year."
Hilda stared at the other witch. "Crappedy crap. You were slow! I was out in seven months or so!"
William almost regretted bringing up the subject. The things he heard were unnerving to say the least. "So you mean that a witch's pregnancy can vary in time?"
"Yes, of course. Depends what kind of magical bun is in the oven. Usually the time inside gives a pretty good indication of how powerful the kid is also."
"Meaning that the longer..." William guessed.
"No, William. It does not work that way. I'm five months in now. If the kid comes out now, it would be a mage. Six months is a mage also but a less powerful one. Seven months is a witch or a wizard, and one that's pretty good too."
William heard the witch explain a whole series and soon was lost. He just nodded politely and took a few deep breaths when the witch was done. The fact that a pregnancy could take up to eighteen months was dreadful even to him. What woman would be able to stand something like that, he wondered.
After all the bits of gossip were exchanged and all cookies and pickles had gone, Hilda and William said goodbye to Lorelei. As they were in the air again, cats and all, William asked Hilda if all witches were so liberal in their sexual encounters.
"No, not really. Lorelei is quite special though. An interesting person, don't you think?"
"She's special alright," William admitted. "I'm still convinced you are more special though, Hilda."
"Awww, you're so sweet." She kissed her wizard in full flight.
They reached the house and were greeted with a complaint: "There is an arrow with a message for you." Usually this would be just an announcement. This time it sounded as a complaint.
William looked at the wooden board he had put up for arrows of messaging archers. "No, there isn't."
"Yes. There is." It was uncanny but the house seemed to sigh. "It is sticking in the wooden window frame of the bedroom."
Hilda looked up. "Yes, there is an arrow there, William." Flying up on her broom she quickly took the arrow down. "Must have been an amateur or a student who did that."
"Or a blind person," the house commented. "And the arrow chipped the new paint too."
"Oh, hush you, we'll fix that soon," Hilda said as she unrolled the little piece of paper that had been tied to the arrow.
"And how long will 'soon' take this time? Twenty years again?"
Hilda didn't hear the house. She walked inside, Grim following her.
William looked at Obsi. "Looks like it's you and me, fellow," he grinned. On broom they went up. Obsi sniffed at the paint for a moment. Then William fixed the paint with a simple spell.
"Thank you. I've never been repaired faster," the house commented.
"Don't mention it," said the wizard as he touched down again.
"Very well. I won't."
William scowled, then shrugged. "Come on, cat, we're going in for food." Obsidian Shadow ran ahead. Inside, they found Hilda sitting at the table, staring at the note.
"Hello there, sweetwitch, what's with the troubled face?" William asked.
"Snow White," Hilda replied.
"What?" William was not certain if he had heard that correctly. "Snow White? From the seven dwarfs you mean?"
"Yes, very same one, apple and all."
"And the glass coffin?"
"Was there too, yes. Stupid thing. It didn't survive. I took care of that alright."
William sat down and looked at the witch. "Want to tell me about it?"
"No. Read this instead." Hilda pushed the piece of paper over to William..
He picked the small bit up and read the itty-bitty handwriting. "Dear Grimhilda, please, help, problem, hurry, SW." He frowned. "SW must be Snow White, right?" He was not extremely impressed with the lack of words, but he sensed that Hilda was. "Trip coming up, right?"
"Yes. We should go there quickly too. Snow White is not the kind to write like that, so there must be something very strange going on."
"And their local witches?"
"Pshaw... They're lucky to find one there that can tell the ends of a broom apart."
"That sounds bad," William agreed.
"It's even worse," Hilda said. "Come, we'll pack some things, swing by the castle of Walt and go see her. I hope you like children." She left the table, leaving William wondering about that last remark.
He also got up and went after her, to pack some things. He was followed up the stairs by two black shadows that then sat in a corner, watching as the couple packed up some things they wanted to take with them. Hilda did the shrink trick, William stuck the small cubes in a pocket, and they were ready to leave.
Hilda stared at the house as they were outside. "Say, house, do you think we have to do the thing with the chains again?"
"You never asked that before," the house remarked. "I must admit that not having chains is liberating, but on the other hand: the chains do provide security."
"Right then," Hilda nodded. She waved her wand, mumbled her spell, and the small mountain of chains was around the house. She hopped on her broom, stroked Grimalkin over the head and looked at William. "Ready?"
"I was born ready," he replied. Obsi was already in place.
"William... sometimes, you know, sometimes you still say the strangest things..." Then they flew off.
4. Meet the family
Hilda and William made their pass along King Walt's castle, but there was no sign of him. One of the servants came running out to tell them that the royal couple were out of the castle, and the date of their return was as yet unclear. "They are off to see their daughter," the man informed them.
"How interesting," Hilda said, "we were on our way to see the girl ourselves. I guess we'll meet up with the king there then." The brooms took to the skies again and their riders started the journey to the kingdom where prince Jordan and his beloved Snow White lived. On the way there, William tried to coax Hilda into telling more about her previous encounter with Snow White, but the witch said nothing.
As they landed for a break and a bite, in a village that lay halfway, William grinned. "Look at that."
The black cat who had claimed the brushy part of her broom was lying there, sleeping as if it was in the relative safety of a lap. Hilda snickered as she saw it. Onyx Grimalkin then awoke and looked up at the two people as if she wanted to know what was so funny.
The magicals as well as the cats found something very edible in the local tavern, and then they pursued their journey, as the landscape beneath them slowly changed. The trees became taller and darker, the roads became narrower and twistier. Even the grass here did not seem as green as it was at home.
"We're almost there, William," said Hilda. In the distance a castle became visible. It's colour made it hard to see from further away, as it blended in very well with the mountains that it was close to.
"Hey, Obsi, wake up," William said, gently prodding the black cat. "Look, there, that's where we're going!" Obsi meowed, opened one eye for one moment and decided that more was not worth the bother. He remained asleep until the two brooms were almost over the wall that surrounded the castle. Then suddenly he sat up and observed where they were going quite closely.
"I'll never understand that cat," William remarked. Obsidian Shadow waved his tail, as if he was proud of that compliment. The magicals waited over the wall, to see what would happen. A few guards had seen them already and one had gone inside the building.
"Ah, there is the welcoming committee," Hilda observed.
A shape on a broom came up to where they were floating. The shape was suspiciously pink, and as it came closer, the reason was obvious: the witch wore a pink dress. And a pink hat with ditto flowers. Even her broomstick was pink. "Hello," the woman chimed with a high-pitched voice, "I am Esmee. I do the witching around here. Who are you?"
Hilda stared at the blond hair of the mostly pink apparition, and then at the blue eyes. "Hello, Esmee. I am Grimhilda. This is William, and these are our cats. We got a note from Snow White that there is some problem that she needs help with."
"Oh! Yes! You are the witch and the wizard she mentioned!"
Hilda looked at William for mental support. He understood her reaction. Esmee seemed quite an airhead and probably needed the hat to keep things together beneath the blond curls.
"Yes," Hilda said, "we are the witch and the wizard. I hope there were not more people on brooms coming over this way lately."
"No, you are the first ones in years!" Esmee cheered.
Through the bond William felt Hilda groan. He knew so well why.
"I think you want to see the princess, yes?" Esmee asked with a hopeful twinkle in her voice. Yes, a twinkle. That was the only way Hilda and William could call it.
"Would be an idea, yeah, as we came all the way over for her," Hilda said, not holding much hope for Esmee.
The pink witch nodded. "Come, follow me. I know where to go!" She swooped her broom downwards.
"I hope so, really," Hilda muttered as they followed the resident witch to the ground.
-=-=-
Hilda insisted on taking her broom with her into the castle. With an airhead like that around, she thought, you never know where magic might flutter about and do silly things.
Esmee took them to the wing of the castle where the prince and princess had their chambers. As soon as they reached the actual wing, the cats jumped up on the shoulders of the magical couple, which they had learnt to interpret as an omen. A few moments later a door was flung open and two children, a boy and a girl, no older than four or five, came running from the room. The boy swung a wooden sword and the girl had a collection of small gold and silver crowns hanging from her arm.
"Dinna, I want my crown back!" the boy screamed as he waved the wooden sword around. The girl did not bother with his words. She just uttered a shrill laugh and ran on.
"Dinna, Roderick, stop that!" Esmee really did her best to sound convincing. It sounded rather pathetic instead. "Sorry about that, they are very active children," she apologised to Hilda. The pink witch led them on to the next room, where she went in without knocking. "Nursery," she quickly mentioned.
Hilda and William followed the resident pink cloud.
Snow White looked up at the visitors. "Grimhilda!" Her face lit up as she quickly walked over to the grey haired witch. She nearly thrust the baby she carried in Esmee's arms ("hold her please") and hugged the witch that had saved her from the wrath of her evil stepmother. "I am so glad to see you!"
"Hello Snow White. You look... healthy." Hilda had already noticed the swollen belly of the princess. "Another royal bun in the oven?"
Snow White nodded as she looked at William. "I am not sure if we ever had the pleasure..."
William introduced himself, staring at the woman as little as possible. He had seen and accepted a terrible lot here already, but the fact that he was now face to face with Snow White was a bit more than he could handle out of the pink. Blue.
"Oh, a witch and a wizard, married and all, how beautiful," said Snow White, who took the baby-bundle back from Esmee.
"Looks like your prince is making sure that you stay round, doesn't he?" Hilda remarked, pointing at Snow White's belly.
The princess looked very sad and unhappy for a moment. "Indeed. All he can think of is... that. Well, that what causes it, really."
"Well, that is a good reason to call for help," Hilda nodded, "where is he?"
Snow White looked surprise. "Jordan is out riding with Billy and Dicky. But that is not why I sent you the note, Hilda, no. There is something else."
Hilda looked at the princess in disbelief. "Billy. Dicky. There were two kids out there. You have one in your arms, and one in there?"
"Yes. Billy and Dicky are twins, they are very cute," Snow White said. She seemed proud of her children. "Let me put Sandy in bed, then we can go and talk. And I can pretend to be a proper hostess."
Hilda and William were taken to what originally must have been a magnificent room. Now it was full with play pens, boxes with children's toys and other doubtful joys of parental life. Hilda gasped when she saw all the objects.
Snow White herself cleared out a couch, so the two could sit. Esmee helped to make some seating space for the princess and herself. Then a servant was sent to bring tea and cookies. Finally things were so far in order that Snow White could speak.
"There are strange things going on," she started to say. Her face became serious. "All kinds of small animals are going missing. All we find back are the bones."
"And that is a problem?" Hilda asked. She really failed to understand the urgency.
"It is a problem when there are four or five missing a day, and we've retrieved over one hundred and fifty sets of bones so far. Chickens, rabbits, geese and ducks, animals like that."
"Oh. Right." Hilda looked at the pink witch. "Have you found out anything about that yet? Esmee?"
"Yes, yes, I did my homework," the blond said, "the animals were all eaten."
"Eaten. Right. And how were they eaten?" Hilda hoped that she asked the right thing.
"Dead. I think." Esmee became a bit pale as she thought of the alternative.
Hilda sighed. Not the right question. As William took her hand and squeezed it, she tried it again. "I mean, were the animals raw? Roasted? And were they eaten by an animal? A human?"
Esmee thought hard. Hilda imagined she could hear it. "They were eaten raw. I am quite sure of that. But I don't know what ate them. Nobody knows."
Then the door flew open. Hilda and William were on their feet, wands in hand. Two black cats stood with arched backs, eyes large and nails in the couch. Their tails were puffed up and ready to dust things.
"Mamma, mamma, Dinna hit me!" Roderick ran into Snow White's arms while her daughter came in carrying the wooden sword.
"Children." Hilda just said the word as she made her wand disappear and sat down, picking up Grimalkin. As William sat down, Esmee looked at them. "How did you do that?"
"Do what?" Hilda wasn't sure what the pink woman meant.
"The wand thingy?"
"The.. wand... thingy?" Hilda raised her eyebrows. "This?" She popped up her wand, as Snow White performed her maternal privileges in a very skilled manner.
"Yes, that." The pink witch reached in her pouch and took her own wand. "I do it this way. Your way looks a lot better. Can you teach me?"
Hilda's wand disappeared. "Tell me, Esmee. Did you work with flowers before coming to the castle?"
Esmee nodded, smiling happily. "Yes. I still do, by the way."
"Flower witch. I should have known." Hilda fell back against the backrest of the couch and stared at the ceiling for a while and for help that wasn't there.
"Ouch! Dinna, put down the sword!" Snow White's maternal objectives did not seem to connect with her daughter's mischief. Before the little girl could hit her mother again, Hilda had changed the wooden sword into a lead one. Dinna promptly was more than happy to put it down.
"That's how we handle things like that," the wicked witch nodded.
5. Reading the bones
Dinna stared at Hilda. "Did you do that?" She stuck her tiny fists in her side and looked angry.
"Dinna, that is a guest," Snow White tried.
The girl was not even halfway impressed by that. "I am a princess, Mum!"
"And she is a witch, Dinna."
"Hah. Esmee is a witch too, and she doesn't scare me." Dinna stomped her foot on the ground and looked at Hilda again.
The witch was not impressed. She looked at Esmee who clearly was very impressed by the little girl. "So, we should have a look at these bones you found. Do you have some around?" Hilda asked.
Esmee nodded, not taking her eyes off the angry little princess. "There are some outside now, I am sure."
"Good. Let's go and have a look then." Hilda wanted to get up when she found Dinna standing in front of her. "Step aside, kid."
"NO!"
Snow White had calmed down Roderick and tried to get to her daughter, but she could save herself the trouble.
Hilda popped up her wand, waved it, and a few moments later Dinna stuck to the ceiling. "If you have it high up in the head, stay up there for a while." She got up. "Come. Let's see some bones," the witch announced as she picked up Grim and draped the cat over her shoulders.
Snow White looked up at the squirming and screaming girl at the ceiling. "How do I get her down again?"
"Are you in a hurry?" Hilda asked.
"Not really," Snow White admitted.
"Good. I'll get her down after looking at the bones. Give her some time to cool off. She's not going anywhere." A snip of her fingers later Dinna was silently squirming. "Much better, don't you agree?"
Esmee's eyes almost popped out of her head as she got up, staring at Dinna. William took Obsi and got up also, following Esmee and Hilda out the door.
Snow White kept telling Dinna how everything would be alright, while Roderick tried to lift the lead sword.
-=-=-
Esmee seemed frightened of Hilda as they walked through the castle, and through a side door into a small garden. The pink witch kept William between herself and the grey haired witch.
"Something wrong with me?" Hilda asked. "Do I smell bad?"
"No, no... it's just..." Esmee tried to find the right words.
"Oh. You're scared of me. Why don't you say so." Hilda shrugged. "Now stop being scared for a while and show us some bones."
That proved to be very easy. As Esmee walked them along a hedge, they found two carcasses close to it. Bare to the literal bone. "It's getting closer," the flower witch mumbled.
"What's that?"
Esmee pointed at the bones. "We've never found bones so close to the castle. So it gets closer."
Obsi and Grim jumped down and sniffed the remains of a chicken. Hilda picked up one of the larger bones and looked. "Yup. Eaten raw. And here..." She pointed at clear scratch marks. "Someone with a good set of teeth. Weird teeth too." Not clarifying her words, she picked up Grimalkin and looked at the cat's teeth. Then she nodded, putting her cat down again.
"Say sweetwitch, what are you doing?" William asked.
"Look." She almost shoved the chicken bone in his face. "See these scratches? They're fresh. And they look like the marks of cat teeth."
William then understood what was troubling her. The markings did indeed look like cat teeth marks, but they were too large. Hilda picked up a bone from the other carcass, it had been a rabbit. That carried the same scratch marks.
William noticed that some of the larger chicken bones had been snapped in two. "Wow. Must have been some cat to do that..." He looked at the ground for marks of a large cat, but the floor was laid in with tiles. Tiles did not hold marks.
Esmee turned pale. "Do you mean there is a really big cat out there somewhere?" She clutched her pink pouch at the risk of breaking her wand.
"Are you going to wet yourself, Esmee?" Hilda asked.
The blond stared at Hilda. "No. I think not."
Hilda looked at William. There was pain in her gaze. "Esmee. Can I use your crystal ball? You do have a working crystal ball, right?"
"Uh, yes, I do." There was more nervous fumble and clutch.
"Take us to it. Please. And you do not have to worry about a big cat. There is no big cat, okay? It's all fine." Hilda sounded convincing enough for Esmee, who visibly relaxed. William knew better.
"Yes, yes, of course!" Esmee hurried ahead, glad that she could go back to the safety of the thick walls of the castle. No big cat would be able to follow her in there.
Nothing could have prepared Hilda and William for the room they were entering. There was soft plush on the ground, in red and white concentric circles. The walls were a light shade of pink. The ceiling was plain white. The witch tried to ignore the large colourful vases with large feathery flowers in them.
"I'll go and find the crystal ball," said Esmee. She almost disappeared in one of the closets.
"Find?" Hilda mimed at William. He shrugged and tried to ignore the colours and objects in the room. Not looking at the floor was a prerequisite to survive here, he thought.
It took a while, but finally Esmee came out of the closet, holding a black box. A rather small black box. "Here it is!" Proudly she handed the box to Hilda.
The witch opened it, took the velvet pouch from it and slipped the ball in her hand. She frowned as she looked into it. "A baby ball. When did you use it last?"
Esmee coloured a shade of red that did not go well with the walls. "In class..."
"In... class..." Hilda spoke with a coldness that made each word fall down and shatter on the floor, despite the carpet. "Someone hold me back..."
William put a hand on her shoulder. "Easy, witch. She can't help it."
"I know... I know..." Hilda took a deep breath. "Okay. I will charge this one and use it. No problem. Really. No problem. And William, maybe you can go and pick that obnoxious kid from the ceiling. Esmee will be glad to show you where that is."
Esmee was more than happy to get away from her own room. "Yes, William, come. I am sure that little Dinna will be glad to be on the ground again." She resisted the urge to tug William's sleeve.
Before he left the room, William asked who she was going to call.
"Babs."
"Ah." He nodded. Then he followed Esmee, a smile curling his lips. The pink witch would have another surprise.
Hilda sat down. The two cats lay down near her, their eyes on the ball. She spent a while pumping energy into the ball, until it shone brightly in her hand. "Now let's see if this thing will dial out." She took her wand. Murmured something. And waited.
"Hilda!" the voice of Baba Yaga tore through the room. "How sweet of you to call!"
"Hi Babs. We have a strange creature here, around Snow White's castle. The one of King Louie, remember the place?"
"How could I forget that wedding, Hilly? Didn't we have a scream there?"
"Really." Hilda grinned as she thought back. "Now, there is a house witch here, but there's not much to be done with her."
"Why's that?"
"She wears pink."
"Suck an elf... a flower witch. Did you make her faint already?"
"Yup, flower witch, and no, she's still on her feet because William held me back. Do you have time to pop over here and help look for whatever's going around? I think William and I could do with an extra wand, and the hand to wield it."
"Hilda, I am so honoured. I'm coming over first thing tomorrow if that's soon enough."
"Sure, that's fine. We'll be here, waiting for you. Oh, do you like children?"
"Properly cooked and garnished, yes." Baba Yaga laughed.
"I'm serious, Babs. Snow White already has five and a sixth one on the road."
"Good grief. Sounds like others than you need help too. I'll be seeing you tomorrow, girlfriend."
"Take care, Babs." Hilda grinned as the ball went dark again. Things were looking up.
-=-=-
The next morning Hilda and William were up very early, to patrol the garden. Esmee was with them. They found new bones with the same gnaw-marks. And again, no footprints. As if the creature that had done this was making sure to not leave traces.
"Obviously this visitor comes by in the dark. Looks like we'll have to spend a waking a night. I hope Babs makes it in time."
Esmee peered at her company. Hilda and William had told her about the new witch they had asked to come over and she did not like that one bit.
After the survey of the garden, they went inside, and as they were having breakfast, Hilda suddenly looked up. "Babs is coming!" They left their table and rushed outside.
Esmee the flower witch had enough magic inside her to sense witches and other magical creatures approach. As it was her task, she hopped onto her pink broom and sped upwards to the wrinkly gray and black creature that was approaching on broomstick.
Hilda prodded William. "This will be interesting."
"Hello, stop please?" Esmee was determined to make this a good show.
Baba Yaga stopped. "What? Oh, you're the pink one. That means I'm at the right place. Hilly and Willy are expecting me."
Esmee looked at the old witch in horrified fascination. She looked like a million years old. "There is no one called Hilly or Willy here, so if you could please go away..."
Baba Yaga frowned at the young blond. "Why do I even bother," she muttered. A wand and a flick of the wrist later, Esmee was tied in a magical spell and was dragged along as the old witch had her in tow. "Oh, there they are!" Babs sped up her broom, hardly paying attention to the shaking and swerving that Esmee had to endure. "Hilly! Willy! I'm here! And look what I brought you."
Hilda and William were almost on their knees. Tears of laughter streamed from their faces as they saw how Baba Yaga held up Esmee as if she were a freshly caught fish on a magical line. They took Esmee over from Babs and freed her from the magical sling the old witch had cast around her.
Esmee was very shocked by this treatment. "I do not want to see you anymore today!" she exclaimed, tears in her eyes, and quickly ran inside.
Babs got off her broom. "She doesn't do welcomes very well, does she?"
Hilda shrugged. "She may wisen up yet. At least we'll have our hands free. Do you care for some food?"
After hugging her friends, Baba Yaga appreciated the offer; after all, she had been flying most of the night.
6. Princes and Princesses
Six guards came running into the dining hall, lances at the ready. They positioned themselves around the table where the three magical people were eating.
Hilda raised an eyebrow, William looked up and Baba Yaga muttered: "Not that again" for an unknown reason.
"Make way for the king!" someone shouted. Hilda and William looked at each other. The three of them, the few servants and the guards were the only ones in the dining hall.
Two of the guards shifted somewhat and the king stepped up to the table.
"Hello, King Louie," Hilda said, looking up at the man, "to what do we owe this honour?"
Everything about King Louie was big. Even his hair. His black hair was short, but it came out short in an amazingly big way. His beard was made of the same hair. Short, and big. "Grimhilda. I was alerted that there is an ugly witch in the castle that challenged our house witch."
"Oh." Hilda looked at William. "Have you seen an ugly witch?" William shook his head. "Babs, you?" Baba Yaga also shook her head, sending the thin streaks of her remaining grey hair flopping. "Can't say I did."
King Louie stared at Baba Yaga. "Good grief."
"Oh, you may not know Baba Yaga," Hilda said. "Babs, this is King Louie, King Louie, this is Baba Yaga, our dear friend and my best girlfriend, who came all the way over to help us find out what the problem is with your little animals."
Baba Yaga rose up to her full limited length. "Seriously a pleasure to meet you, your Majesty."
"A dear friend, eh?" the king said, taking in Baba Yaga one more time. "Hmm. In that case I assume it is good that she is around. Welcome to the castle, honourable witch." He nodded an acknowledgement to Babs. After all, even royalty knew how to treat magicals. "I will make sure everyone gets to know you are here. If there is anything we can help with, Prince Jordan or Princess Snow White are the ones you should talk to." The king started to turn, then looked at Hilda and whispered: "And please, don't make our house witch more insecure than she already is." He nodded a goodbye and walked off. After a few moments the guards dropped their aggressive stance and marched out of the dining hall, their armour rattling as they went.
"I hope they don't do that every morning," Baba Yaga commented, "all that metal jerking tends to get on my nerves." William snorted. He was absolutely certain that Baba Yaga was the first person who had abandoned nerves. "So, what's the plan?" the old witch asked.
Hilda told her about the findings of the day. "If you want to see for yourself..." Babs wanted to, so they went outside again. As they walked around in the garden, Esmee looked out the window of her room, which gave her perfect view of the garden and the three magical people.
"It's not fair," the witch in pink complained to the yellow flower in her hand. "I do what I can, I put all my soul in what I do, and they are so... unsophisticated. I am sure they don't appreciate beauty. They are rough. Uncivilised. Wild. I think they are dangerous. They should not be allowed to wield so much magic." Recalling the feeling when Babs had roped her in made her shiver.
A wailing sound from some of the children made her put the flower back in the vase, and quickly she went to Snow White's rescue Yes, the children were wild and rough also, but they were but children. Esmee could handle children. As long as they did not carry wooden swords. Or tried to stab her with the pointy parts of their crowns. Or came on three strong.
-=-=-
Baba Yaga sniffed the air. "Nothing there," she said. "Must have been too long ago." They looked at the bones and not found anything different about them.
"And there is no feel of magic around either," Hilda said. She had been dowsing the area with her wand.
"But there is hair," William pointed. The two witches came closer. The wizard had found a patch of hair stuck in the thorns of a rose bush. The hair was light brown., short and straight.
Hilda lifted the patch from the bush and studied it. "Looks like cat hair."
Babs agreed. "Must have been some cat though, considering where the hair stuck."
"Really," William nodded. "Not many three foot cats around, usually. But we could ask around, maybe they're more common here than at home."
Grimalkin meowed, as she stood up against Hilda's leg. The witch bent down, holding the hair to her nose. Grim took her time sniffing the stuff. Then she sneezed and walked off.
"Don't tell me your cat is allergic to cats," Baba Yaga snickered.
"Not sure," Hilda wondered, "she's not shown signs of that with Obsi around."
Babs looked at her best friend. "Obsi. Grim. Those are really the names you call them by. And they respond. You two are even sillier than I had hoped. Do you think I should have a word with that wizard of yours? Looks to me that this is his doing, as you started going all funny after he arrived."
William grinned a big grin. In some distorted way he could interpret Baba Yaga's words as praise.
Before Hilda could respond, another meow made the witches look around. This meow had sounded very different, almost... calling for attention?
The three magicals walked to where Grim had disappeared to. "What's up, Grimalkin?" Hilda said as she kneeled down with her cat. Grim sat in the middle of a footpath that looked as if it would lead out of the garden. The witch picked up her cat and hugged it, making Baba Yaga shiver. Babs could shiver in an audible way.
"Does she do that often?" she asked William.
"All the time," he confirmed.
"Egads."
William grinned as he kneeled down to have a closer look. There had to be a reason that Grim had warned them. "Oh, look..." He picked another fluff of hair from a bush, this one on a lower branch than the first one they had found. It was the same kind of hair, though. "Looks like it came from the same- uhm- intruder."
Baba Yaga took the hair and slowly rubbed it between her fingers. Her wrinkled face made it impossible to tell if she was actually looking at it. "Yes, I'd say so. It's not from the same day though."
William stared at Babs. "How do you know that?"
The ugly witch turned her head towards the wizard, almost shoving the cat hair in his face. "How is it that you don't?"
"There is only one Baba Yaga," William grinned.
"Bollocks," Babs stated.
"So whoever or whatever it was has been here more than once," Hilda concluded. "Looks like we did not get up early enough then, William."
The wizard nodded. "I foresee a long day. One that will last until next morning." Hilda nodded.
"Good," said Baba Yaga. "If you young folk stay up, I'll go to sleep. You can wake me up when something interesting happens."
William muttered something about old and young as he and Hilda gathered their cats and went back inside, looking for Snow White. They had something to report now.
The trio walked along the corridors and got lost. A servant who responded very well to "hey you" was recruited to take them to the chambers of Princess Snow-White and Prince Jordan.
"I'd almost think that this place was designed by Gurthreyn," Hilda mumbled.
''Meow,' Grimalkin agreed, making Hilda wonder how her cat knew about that sorcerer.
"I have not seen moving walls yet," William remarked.
"Not yet. Just wait," was her answer.
The servant knocked on a door. There was screaming behind it. "Sounds like they're in," Hilda said as the servant knocked again. "Hey you, are you new here?"
The servant scowled. "No, honourable witch, why?"
"To get over those sirens you'll need to whack the door a lot harder," she clarified. She pushed the man out of the way and went inside, William and Baba Yaga right behind her. "Suck an elf..."
Esmee was under the siege of two children, boys that Hilda and William had not seen before. These had to be Billy and Dicky. The pink witch stood on a chair, clenching her skirt between her knees, swatting at the boys with a diaper and holding on to a curtain to keep her balance. Snow White was holding back Dinna, who seemed game to join Esmee's tormentors, and a maid had a hand over Roderick's eyes whilst holding the baby in an arm.
"Oh, Grimhilda..." Snow White's cheeks were red. "How nice to see you."
"Are you coping?" Hilda asked.
Before Snow White could answer, Dinna shrieked. "An ugly witch!"
Roderick tried to fight the maid's hand off, even attempted to use his teeth for that. Dicky and Billy turned around and jumped as they beheld Baba Yaga. The two boys, as one, fled behind the chair that Esmee was standing on, to hide from Babs. One of them could not resist another attempt to peek under Esmee's skirt, despite his fright.
The pink witch quickly got down from the chair and successfully slapped the diaper over one of the heads.
"Oh, fine, it's nothing special," Snow White said. Dinna had by then adopted the tactics of her brothers and now was hiding behind her mother. Baba Yaga's appearance had made quite an impact.
Babs pointed at Esmee. "Come over here." Esmee did it because she had to. "You really need a few lessons if you want to be the witch around here."
"But I am the witch around here!" Esmee looked at Baba Yaga with a mix of fright and the desire to flee.
"You are not. A witch does not jump on a chair when two halfling mice are trying to peek under her skirts. A witch does this." The speed with which the wand appeared, the movement happened, the two boys got stuck with their faces to the wall and the wand was gone again made Esmee stagger backwards. The two boys were silent, too gobsmacked to understand what had happened.
"You can't use magic against children," Esmee said, doubt and satisfaction battling in her voice.
"Sure I can. There hangs your proof."
By then the two boys had started whining that Mummy should get them off the wall. The astonished maid had let go of Roderick, who walked over to his brothers and started yanking an arm. Arm nor brother came off.
"See, that is how we make things calm." A part of Baba Yaga's face moved, it tried a smile.
In the short silence that fell, Hilda picked up her cue. "We found a few strange things," she announced. She held up the cat hair. "This."
Snow White and Esmee came closer. "Hair," they said in unison.
"Cat hair," Hilda pointed out, "and we found this bit on a level that normal cats don't reach unless they jump."
"Or when they're thrown," Baba Yaga added.
Obsidian Shadow, perched on William's shoulder, hissed. Babs was shocked nor shaken.
"So we want to know if you have really large cats here," Hilda finished, ignoring the interruptions. She raised a hand to shoulder height. "About this tall."
Esmee reached out and found support on William's arm while Snow White stared at the hand. "You must be joking, Grimhilda. Cats of that size... No, we don't have those here. We would know."
William frowned. Then he looked at the maid who had been carrying the baby. She had turned around and was changing the baby's diaper. He fixed the smell. "That's better."
The princess asked Esmee to keep Roderick away from his brothers, as the young boy was still trying to remove them from the wall with increasing force. "I will go and ask Jordan if he knows of such cats." With that she took Dinna's hand and left the room with her daughter, leaving the three magical people.
Esmee tried to sweet-talk Roderick into leaving his brothers alone. Roderick was not up for that; pulling at his defenseless siblings was much more fun.
"Hey, kid," Hilda said, "cut it out or we'll stick you to the wall and turn them loose on you." Roderick turned to Hilda, his eyes large. Then he ran out the door, screaming for his mother. "See? And no magic," Hilda grinned at the pink witch.
7. Royalty
A servant entered the nursery. "Honourable witches and wizard, the princess asked me to take you to her and the prince."
They followed the servant, leaving the two complaining boys stuck to the wall. As long as they were there, no harm would come from their side. The two cats were on the shoulders of their respective magicals as they strode through the halls.
The room where Snow White and Prince Jordan resided was big and quite crowded. For some obscured reason, King Walt and his wife Queen Velma, Snow White's father and stepmother, were there. The others in the room were Roderick, his sister Dinna and a number of servants.
"Hello, your Royal Highnesses," Hilda said. Then she looked at the prince. "Good grief, you've become flabby."
Prince Jordan got up. "I do not want anyone to strike such a tone to me. Not even a witch," he said. "And where are my other sons?"
"Don't worry about them, they're safe." Hilda's look had a challenge in it. She ignored his warning, of course, because not even a prince should strike a tone like that to her.
Jordan did not pick up the verbal gauntlet, he knew he'd never win. "My dear wife asked me about something strange. Cats as big as a man?"
"Not any man of course," Baba Yaga pitched in with a silent jab. "Hello your Princeness, I am Baba Yaga, here to help my friends with this little problem you have here." She explained about the cat hair they had found. "So we wonder if there are catty animals of that size."
Jordan thought for a while. "No. Never heard of that." He looked at Hilda and William. "The only way to get cat hair up like you described is, I'd say, carry them like you do."
"Yes. Or toss them," Babs nodded. Grimalkin and Obsi meowed in unison and protest.
"Hmm. That might be an option, if the cat in question allows tossing," Queen Velma said. "Most cats don't."
"She is the one that stuck me to the ceiling," Dinna suddenly announced, pointing at Hilda.
"She what?" Walt, Velma and Jordan looked at the little princess.
"She stuck me to the ceiling. And he had to get me down, because Esmee didn't."
Before Jordan could turn to Hilda, Snow White started explaining what had happened, and how. Dinna did not look happy as her intended victory over Hilda was reduced to sheer nothing. Only the fact she had been against the ceiling remained, and Jordan agreed that had been deserved.
"And if you're looking for the other two, they're still against the wall of the nursery," Hilda added. "They were being somewhat of a pest, so we put them away for a while. To cool off, so to speak."
"Against the wall?" Snow White as well as Jordan were not prepared for that. "Why don't they come in here then?"
"Well, they can't get off the wall without the help of these people," Esmee pitched in her little bit. "The boys were really somewhat of a nuisance." Her voice still carried some of her anger about the boys' behaviour. Jordan look as if he was unable to believe that.
"Cauldron fodder," Baba Yaga added innocently as Prince Jordan left the room.
Shortly after that a howl penetrated the room. It was clear that Prince Jordan had found his sons, stuck to the wall. And getting them off it had proven loudly impossible. The prince came into the parlour again. "Could someone please get my sons from that wall? I refuse to speak any more until they are free again."
"Sounds like a fair trade," Baba Yaga said. "I'd go for the quiet, Hilda. Not trying to influence you of course."
Hilda sighed, casting a resigning look at her friend. She walked out and liberated the twin princes. After that, Prince Jordan said that there was nothing more he could say.
"Well, at least we know what we wanted to know," the witch said. "Maybe now is a good moment to say goodbye and retreat to our rooms, to see what next steps we'll take. I take it that you have a room for Babs here, right?"
"Oh, certainly," said Snow White. "The one next to yours is still free, I will see to it that it is prepared."
"Good good," said Hilda. "We will go and have a walk." She took William's hand. "Babs, are you coming? And Esmee, we may need you as well."
Baba Yaga took Esmee's arm. "Come on, no escaping, no excuses. You're wanted, so you come."
The pink witch didn't even try to resist when the crone witch dragged her from the room.
Once the magical people had left, Prince Jordan belched. "I'm sorry."
His wife slapped him. "Next time be sorry before you do that, Jordan. And otherwise keep it inside you until the children are gone."
Dicky and Billy were sitting on the couch, eating chocolates. They both belched.
-=-=-
"Where are we going? We are not going far, are we? I have other things to do, you know." Esmee was not feeling comfortable as she was taken along. Her ordeal ended as they had reached the room of Hilda and William.
"Sit." Esmee sat.
"We're going to scout outside. Tonight." Hilda sat on the bed. The cats did so too. "I am going to take the first watch. Esmee, you will take the second one. William does the third and if nothing happened, we've all lost some good sleep-time."
Esmee frowned as she worked out the schedule. "We three? What about Baba Yaga?" The old witch just looked at Esmee. "Oh. I see." The pink witch frowned again. "We are going to look for the cat, aren't we?"
"Someone please give that witch a gold star," Baba Yaga said. She produced one and handed it to Esmee who stared at it. "And you will get another one if you catch the cat."
William asked what Hilda had in mind in case one of them spotted the cat. "We should have something of a cage ready, I think," he suggested, "and slap the beastie in it with some magic."
"Excuse me?" Esmee held up her hand. "My magic is not strong enough to do something like that."
"Sounds like you get a double shift, Willy," Baba Yaga giggled. It was an eerie sound. "Unless we pimp this little witch a bit." The old witch looked at Esmee. "Let's see..." Esmee's pouch flew into Baba Yaga's hands. "Not strong enough. Indeed."
Esmee looked aghast. "You cannot-"
"I should not be able to, Esmee," said Baba Yaga, "but since I can, it looks like you and I have a bit of work to do before this evening." She became very serious. "We don't know what we are up against. Since cats this big don't grow on trees, we can only assume it is something else."
"Indeed," Hilda took over. "And we may be facing something magical here, since we cannot find any footprints or paw prints, or something like that. And since we cannot estimate what it is we're facing, we should make sure everyone of us is up to level to take it on."
Esmee's lower lip trembled. "But..."
"Don't worry, kid, I'll make sure you are up to level before the night comes," said Baba Yaga. "Come, be a good flower witch and show me where your room is. Always works best in a place where you're most comfortable." She guided Esmee out of the room.
William looked at them go. "I don't envy either one of them. And you did not warn Babs about the room."
Hilda shrugged. "She'll find out soon enough. Come. Let's go and see if we can find enough iron to make a big cage."
It took them a while and it cost king Louie several fences, but Hilda and William got the cage the way they wanted it. "I still think we could have asked someone for iron somewhere," William said.
"Oh, please, come off that, William. These fences were hideous and you know that too," Hilda said as she was in the cage, yanking the bars. "And also, if we're going to catch something on royal land, we might as well provide a royal cage." She smiled victoriously.
"You are terrible," William declared.
"I know," Hilda agreed as she slammed the cage-door shut and shook that a few times. "I think this would hold, don't you think?"
William tested the door also. "Feels strong, indeed." Then he grinned. "This is the first time I have you caged, sweetwitch."
"Enjoy the moment, wizard, it will also be the last time," Hilda said as she made the lock pop open. With a satisfied snicker she left the cage.
A loud bang made them look towards the castle, from where glass flew all around. The glass was followed by a chair. "I dare guess that Babs has moved on to speed-learning for Esmee," Hilda commented. "We'll wait with fixing the windows until they stopped their exercising." A second window blew, underlining the insight of the witch.
"We should wait a bit further away too," William noticed. The glass of this second window almost reached them.
"You have a point. This one was probably done by Babs. Nothing like a good example to show-" a third blast took her words away "- and now would be a good time to see what is going on there. King Louie won't like it when they break down his castle just for training."
They summoned their brooms and flew high, to be out of the danger zone. When they reached the corridor where Esmee had her room, the full extent of the exercises became clear. Half a wall was gone, as was most of the stuff inside the room of the flower witch. Babs hung over a bedpost, laughing, and Esmee herself lay crumpled in a corner, her blue eyes wide open and a look of fright on her face. Servants were running around, trying to salvage precious paintings and statues there were in the corridor. None of them dared as much as look at the room that was the centre of the devastation.
William picked Esmee from the floor. "Are you okay?"
"Okay... okay..." That was all the now motley looking witch could stammer. She had never been further from okay.
Hilda tried to calm down Baba Yaga who was almost in a laughing stupor. It took Hilda quite a while to calm down her friend, time that William used to put Esmee on a chair, close up the wall and make a bit of order in the room again. He handed Esmee a glass of wine; the pink witch drank it down in a few long gulps and asked for more.
"So, what happened here?" Hilda wanted to know. What followed was quite a hilarious account of things from Baba Yaga, who collapsed with laughter a few more times. She had only stirred up some magic and Esmee had tapped into it, Babs said. And then it was as if Esmee had exploded. That was all.
Esmee was still very much out of it, even after another glass of wine. "I'm not sure if she'll be any use to you tonight," Baba Yaga commented as they put the pink witch in her bed.
The three turned as the door opened. Prince Jordan came in, with one of the twins. He obviously had waited until the dust had gone down. "What happened here?" he asked, eyeing the room.
Hilda gave him the summary version of what Baba Yaga had told them, leaving out the magical bits the prince wouldn't understand anyway. It all made for a three sentence and unrevealing explanation that was in no way representable of the state of the room.
The prince nodded understandingly though. "Will any of you make sure that the hall outside will be presentable again? My mother will be very upset when she sees all the dust out there."
"Surely you are not asking us to use a broom the ordinary way?" Hilda asked him. She would accept a lot, but not that. Not even from a prince.
"Actually, I-" he started. Then he spotted Hilda's expression "-wouldn't dare, Grimhilda. Plenty of people around to handle that. If you could do something about the windows, though, that would be nice. Thank you." Jordan grabbed his son by the hand and left.
8. Cat hunt
Hilda and Babs had taken care of the windows. William had seen to it that Esmee was more like herself again, although Baba Yaga's treatment had certainly had effect already. Esmee cursed at just about everything that could go wrong.
"It is an effect that will diminish," Baba Yaga had assured him. "Things like that can happen when the person in training is - uhm - slightly overwhelmed."
William was certain that Esmee had been overwhelmed. And more than 'slightly'. Four glasses of wine had calmed her down a bit, but the magical ones had decided that they would all share dinner in Esmee's room. It would be better.
"I wonder what stupid moron prepared this," Esmee said as she looked at a chicken leg. "Look at it. Damn, wouldn't feed that to a cat!" Two black specimens of the mentioned kind complained about that; they would not refuse a chicken leg.
The door opened. Snow White came in, not adorned with child this time except for the one that was still on the way. "Are you doing well in here?"
"Of course we're fine, we're witches, dammit," Esmee replied.
"Uhm. Oh. Well, I was wondering-"
"No need for that. If there is smmffff-"
By then William held his hand over Esmee's lips. "Sorry about that, princess. She's not quite herself yet," he apologised. as he felt Esmee's lips part he pulled back his hand and applied some magic. Being bitten by a witch was not very high on his list. Esmee stared at him, not understanding what had happened for a moment. Baba Yaga chuckled.
Hilda explained that they had been training Esmee and that the short-term effect of that could be slightly disconcerting for the children.
"Oh, I see!" Snow White smiled. "Thank you for being so considerate, I really appreciate that. If there is anything you need, just let us know, there will be a servant near at all times."
Hilda thanked the princess. "We'll be fine, I am sure. Just one request: if you can arrange that nobody comes in the gardens this night, that would be good. We're patrolling there tonight, to see if we can catch whatever creature it is that goes for your chickens. We wouldn't want to throw the wrong person into our cage."
Snow White promised she would warn everyone. "Yes. The cage. My father in law asked about that. I assumed it was yours, as sixteen people tried to move it and it would not budge. Do you think it will be there for long? It is somewhat degrading the view of the garden."
"It's ugly as a troll's butt," Baba Yaga agreed, "but we need it. I'm sure Hilly and Willy will remove it as soon as we're done with it."
Snow White frowned at the words, but nodded anyway. "Could you tell me what happened to the fountain that was originally there?"
"We... moved it." Hilda looked as if that was a perfectly sensible answer. "And for your peace of mind, do not ask more, Snow White. Trust me. We'll put it back once we're done. Promise."
Snow White looked at the witch. "I feel that I should worry."
"A bit of worry is fine. Really." Hilda thought of the fountain that was resting on the flower beds in one of the more distant gardens. And the remains of the statue of King Louie that were under it.
The princess accepted it, be it somewhat reluctantly. "Good. Thank you. And all the luck in catching the -uhm- thing."
As the door closed behind her, a loud "Screwing crap" floated through the room. Esmee had discovered that her magic was now powerful enough to undo William's silencing spell.
-=-=-
The remainder of the day slowly changed into evening. The time that the witches and the wizard would start their night watch arrived. Hilda had swapped her turn with that of Esmee. Babs had said that she would do that turn with the pink witch, as she felt responsible for the still unstable woman. "No good in making her go out alone. One hiccup and we all wake up with rose bushes all through the castle."
Hilda snorted. "No need for that. Been there." Babs nodded. William scowled, the surroundings of a fairy tale taking shape in his mind.
"Now you two pretty ones go and catch a hat full of sleep," Baba Yaga said. "And us two pretty ones will wrap up and start our stroll in the garden."
Esmee grinned. She got up and walked over to her wardrobe. She took one of her bright red cloaks. The other magicals watched her as she threw the garment on the bed and looked for her wand. "Amiculum nigerum," Esmee said, slapping the cloak with her wand. It turned black.
Babs looked appreciatively at the blond witch. "We're getting somewhere yet." She went to fetch her own cloak and then she and Esmee headed out to the garden, brooms at the ready.
William and Hilda went to bed. They lay awake, fully dressed. "It is quiet out there," Hilda said. "It worries me."
"Would you prefer noise?" William asked.
"No. That would worry me."
William knew how she felt.
There was a noise outside. Hilda jumped from the bed. "I am worried." She grabbed her broom, magicked open the window and with William right behind her she flew outside.
"Hilly, you there?" It was Baba Yaga who was waving her lit-up wand. "I think my student had a bit of an accident."
William and Hilda landed their brooms. Baba Yaga stood next to the large metal cage. Esmee was near it too, unconscious and in a sloppy heap. "Crappedy crap, what happened?"
"She got slightly carried away, I think," said Baba Yaga. "Flying around faster than she was used to, a bit too much magic in the fingertips or such something. And then there was the cage that did not get out of her way."
"Ouch," said William, "that must have been quite the collision."
"Don't worry, William, the cage is fine," Hilda assured him.
Esmee moved and moaned. "Ohhh, what happened..." She sat up and made sure her head was still where she expected it.
"I am not sure how you did it, but it looked sensational," Baba Yaga tried to cheer her up.
Hilda helped Esmee to her feet. "Are you in one piece?" she asked.
Esmee regretted nodding. "Yes. I think so. My broom..." That was also in one piece.
"Maybe you should lie down, Esmee," said Hilda. "In your bed. I'll take over the rest of this shift, and then William can do the last part."
They all agreed on that plan, so Babs and William took Esmee in and retreated to bed while Hilda surveyed the gardens.
William had actually nodded off when another bout of noise ripped him to full wakedom again. He had left the window open for this. He was outside and locating Hilda. The noise came from the cage. Again. "She didn't," he muttered.
She hadn't. "William," Hilda said, "look what I have here."
William lit up his wand and held it near the cage. In a corner he saw a man, suspiciously dressed as a servant from the castle. "Who are you then?"
The man tried to crawl back even further. "Morris, sir."
"You got yourself a Morris, Hilda."
"Yes. Just a Morris." She sounded displeased. "I saw him going around the kitchen back there, walking over to the chicken coop round the back. Did you see his hair?"
William nodded. Servant Morris was blessed with a tremendous amount of hair. "So Morris, what were you doing out here in the night?"
Morris summoned all his courage. "I came out to see what you were doing. We were all told to stay inside, so something important had to be going on."
"Hair colour doesn't match," Hilda said to William, "he's not what we're looking for. I'm afraid he ruined our chance to get what we're after."
"Can you let me go then?" Morris asked hopefully.
"We can, sure," said Hilda. "But we won't. You wanted to be out here, so we're not going to take that pleasure away from you. Who knows, you could make a nice bait for the monster we want to catch."
"Monster?" Morris' confidence in a happy end dropped several notches.
"Of course," Hilda made the man feel a bit more miserable, "do you think they call for two witches and a wizard for a stray fox?"
Morris was sweating from everywhere. "Let me out? Please?"
Hilda turned to William. "No way the whatever we're looking for will show up after this. I suggest we leave Morris here, to set an example," she whispered.
William nodded. "You go to bed now, witch. I'll take over, just to make sure."
Hilda hugged William. They both ignored Morris, who was pleading once again to be left out of the cage. "I'm going to miss you there, all alone in that big bed," the witch whispered.
"I'll make it up to you," William promised. It was no burden.
"You'd better," Hilda said. She got on her broom and disappeared into the darkness.
"Morris, dear man, you will be silent now," William said to the caged man. "I am not going to stop you from yelling and screaming. That would be too easy. I wonder what your king will tell you if you wake him up with your moaning."
Morris seemed to freeze. William did not want to know what was going through the man's mind at that moment. "I'm going to fly rounds now. You are allowed to shout if something scary happens," the wizard said as he mounted his broom. "I'll leave it up to you to decide what's scary."
"But- but- but," Morris attempted. The wizard ignored him as he flew up and vanished in the dark. Morris was very remorseful about going outside.
William made his rounds until the first light of day appeared. Tired and stiff he got off his broom. "So much for a lost night," he muttered as he went through the corridors. The people who were already up and running to make sure the royal family would be all taken care of did not dare to approach the wizard. His mood was too obvious.
The bed with Hilda in it was the best thing he had seen in hours. He lay down next to her. Close eyes, just a few moments, he thought.
9. Confusion
"William..." Hilda whispered in her wizard's ear. "Wake up, William. Wake up, wake up, wake up..."
"I wasn't sleeping," William claimed. "I just closed my eyes for a few moments."
Hilda sat up. "You must possess awfully big moments then. I've been awake for over an hour now and you haven't moved a muscle. Not many anyway. Snow White and her critters are awake already, maybe we should go see her and that fat prince of hers and tell her about our catch."
"Catch? Oh, right. He's probably eager to be released," William chuckled as the memory returned.
Hilda grinned. "I think we will leave that honour to Babs. She likes things like that."
The two got up and moved through the castle. Soon they heard sounds that did not belong in a castle: Baba Yaga was awake and around also. The sounds came from the dining room, which was slightly remodeled by the witch. In a corner was an open fire. There was a rough metal tripod over it, an iron cauldron hanging down from it on a chain. The flames under the pot were magically restricted in their space of movement: if they flickered sideways they seemed to be chopped off.
"Safety first," Baba Yaga told the two servants who stood as nailed to the wall. "Hilly, Willy, good morning! I am just about to make some decent food, care to join me?"
Hilda went to hug her friend. It took William a little longer to take in the scene and come to grips with it, but then he grinned and went over to see what Baba Yaga was brewing. With combined magical efforts, they soon sat and enjoyed their food. The two servants had found the strength to escape from the dining room's temporary insanity.
After their meal, the small group undid the changes to the hall and went looking for their royal clients. After locating them and waiting for the necessary diaper changes and such, Hilda reported about their nightly adventures. Jordan looked somewhat disturbed at the news that one of the people from the castle had been captured in the cage and demanded that the man be released.
"Oh, sure, no problem," said Hilda. "We were planning to let him go anyway. We have no use for him."
"And from what I heard from him, I wonder how you can have," Baba Yaga added. Hilda had already asked her to release Morris, something she would gladly do.
"So what are you going to do now?" King Louie asked, who had joined the conference. "Morris can't be the person we were looking for, I'm sure."
"Certainly not," William agreed, "and no need to look for Morris. We know where he is."
Baba Yaga screamed with laughter and slapped the wizard. The talk was over quite soon after that, and the three went to the garden where the iron cage holding a very miserable Morris was waiting for them. Morris jumped up as he saw them come, clinging to the bars. Then he saw Baba Yaga and all but leapt to the other side of the cage, his eyes large as he tried to push himself out through the bars.
Baba Yaga slapped the cage with a hand and a bolt of magic, making it shake and rattle. "Good cage, Hilda, I have to say. Sturdy stuff." Then she opened the door. "Hey, you inside. You're Morris, right?"
It looked like Morris nodded, but it could also be the shaking of his entire body that he could not control.
"Good. Get out of this cage. We have better use for it," Baba Yaga said. Morris did not need more encouragement: he dashed out of the cage, in plain view of many people that also worked in the castle. He was unable to go as fast as he wished to make the blemish as small as possible. Babs waved a finger. Morris stumbled and made a nose-dive into the dirt. "Sorry, couldn't resist," the ugly witch grinned to her two friends.
"I don't like what happened, though," Hilda said, "I had really hoped that this mysterious thing would show up so we could go home again. It's not the place itself, but the kids that are getting on my nerves."
Before there was a discussion about children, a man in official soldier's costume came walking to the team of magicals. "Excuse me. You are the honourable witches and wizard?"
"The clothes sort of give that away, don't they?" Hilda grinned. "We are. Why?"
The man nodded as a courtesy. "I have come to inform you that the creature has struck again last night. Bare bones of a rabbit and a peacock have been found near the sheep field on the other side of the castle grounds."
"Hmm. Never got into the taste of peacocks," Baba Yaga commented.
The uniformed man blinked a few times but kept his face under control. "If you would allow me to show you to where the creature struck..." The magical people allowed him this. On horseback and broom they made their way to the crime scene rather quickly.
They reached a large field. Sheep were nervously running around, the four people who tried to keep them calm were no match for the anxious animals. The arrival of three people on brooms added to the upheaval. Baba Yaga and Hilda quickly threw a magical barrier around the aggravated sheep to keep them away from the bones.
The man in uniform, he had introduced himself as Marshal Bender, walked them to the small shed that was the only building around. The bones lay in front of it. Some of them had been kicked around by the sheep. The wool-providers were mainly responsible for the mass of prints that were in the slightly soggy ground. There also had been enough people stomping around, so William was not sure they would find any tracks or prints that could help them onwards. First they chased everyone away and that proved to be a good thing. One of the people who had stomped around the area suddenly yelled out that he had found something.
Hilda was with the man first. He pointed at the ground, his eyes and mouth wide open. Hilda called out for Baba Yaga; William had already joined her as he had sensed Hilda's excitement and surprise through their bond. The thing that made their surprise was the shape of a cat's paw in the soil. That at least fit the picture they had of the creature they intended to catch. The worrying part was the size of the print: it was almost as long as William's foot, and as twice as wide as Hilda's foot. "Holy Bejeebus. These paws are almost as large as those of a lion," William mumbled.
Baba Yaga silently nodded, and Hilda sized the paw-print with her hand, to be certain it was as large as it looked. William and Babs saw magic sparkle around Hilda's fingers as the witch was touching the earth.
Hilda got up again. She looked confused. "It's a cat. But not just a cat. It is a woman. And a cat." She looked at William. "Why are Grim and Obsi not with us?"
William didn't know. The two always were there, so he had not really paid attention to them. Nor had Hilda. "Now can you be more specific about the cat and woman?" the wizard asked.
Babs hoisted herself up again. "No, she can't. Nor can I. It is confusing, wizard, feel for yourself." The wizard felt, then joined the confusion club.
Marshal Bender had kept the ordinaries away for as long as he could, but a few had managed to slip past him. The two men and a woman stared at the large paw-print. The woman pressed a hand against her mouth and staggered backwards into one of the men.
"Now, folks," Baba Yaga took control of the situation, "we know that this is a bit of a strange size cat, but it's nothing to worry about, really." Her wand appeared. "Now you lot, look at the little stick, will you?" She waved her wand, attracting the attention of all people with it. A small red blip popped from it and disappeared again. "Now all of you are not going to talk about this thing. If you do, we will know about it and we will not hesitate to make you suck elves. Trust me, there are nicer things to suck."
William wondered how far Baba Yaga's knowledge of that reached. Regardless of that, Babs' message reached the people and they slowly walked away, suddenly interested in the number of sheep in the magical pen, and exchanging mutton recipes.
"Right. That takes care of that. The king might lose a few sheep today, though." Baba Yaga grinned. Hilda and William laughed about the creative way Babs had handled the situation.
"But we still have to find the woman-cat," Hilda then said. "I'd think someone like that should not be hard to find. With paws like that and covered in the hair we found, you would not go unnoticed for long."
William agreed. "I'll look around and see if there are more prints like this one. If we know where the woman-cat went, we stand a chance of finding her." Hilda and Baba Yaga also helped looking, and they found four more prints before the trail ended on a rough stone path that would eventually lead to the village near the castle. William flew his broom along the path for some time, but he came back with no new insights.
They returned to the castle, after thanking Marshal Bender for his help in coming to warn them. The man was still talking recipes when they left.
Back near the castle the three found a nice spot in the sunshine and sat down on a large couch that they made appear. They considered their options and the findings so far. There was not much to go on. Two plucks of hair, five paw prints of considerable size and heaps of bones. And of course the confusing bit about the creature being a cat as well as a woman. As they were talking, Esmee came outside and walked over to the three.
"Good morning," the blond witch said. There was some strange change about her: her dress seemed less pink. "My head hurts." Now there was a surprise. Esmee sat down next to Babs. "Did I really fly into that cage?"
"You sure did, kiddo," said the ugly witch. "Spectacular. I don't suppose you want to do it again to show Hilly and Willy, right?"
Esmee wanted to look daggers at Baba Yaga but decided against that. "No. I don't. Where were you this morning? I heard that cook was quite upset about something in the dining hall. Did you see anything strange?"
The three said they had not seen anything they had not seen before. Esmee shrugged. "Sometimes they are like that. People, I mean."
"Ordinaries," Hilda helped.
Esmee nodded. "Yes, them."
Hilda then told the flower witch about the things they had discovered that morning. Esmee quickly woke up over that strange news. "No, never heard of a cat that is also a woman around here. Nor anywhere else, for that matter." Esmee frowned as she thought about that again, but came up with nothing. "No. Never."
10. A strange meeting
As Esmee was being brought up to date on the findings earlier that morning, two people met in a shed. The shed was not on the castle grounds; it was about a mile from the nearby village. When the man entered the shed, making sure nobody had followed him, he found that the woman was already inside and waiting.
"I thought you would not come," said the woman.
"Magda, listen, I have many things on my mind. I have to tell people what to do and such. How did it go?"
The woman shrugged. "Nothing special. There is not much progress and something seemed out of control this night. As if there was a force interfering. I don't know what to make of that."
The man sat down on a block of wood. "But you can keep this up, right?"
"Lindolf, look, I know you want to expand your influence and I am grateful for all the energy you can supply me with, but I still say we have to take this slowly. All this changing business is hard work and wearing me out no matter what. I can keep this up, yes, but not at the rate you want."
"But the 'scaring the people' part? Are you ready for that soon?" Lindolf leaned over to Magda, as if that would make a difference.
"Soon. I think so. Once we're more stable, and that is starting to develop," Magda nodded. "In a few days I could try something in the village. I will need some small animals there though, somewhere we agree on in advance. I don't want to waste time looking all over the place."
Lindolf waved both hands. "No problem, really, I will have Jock put a crate of chickens wherever you want them. Just let me know when and where, and things will be prepared."
"Good." Magda got up and stretched her back. "Argh, I'm getting old and tired."
"Nonsense," said Lindolf. "You are a young, wonderful and strong woman!"
"I miss the 'beautiful' in that list, Lindolf," she laughed, "but you are not looking for a beautiful woman. Instead you come to me. Because I have what you want." She laughed even harder now, forgetting for a moment that the meeting should go unnoticed. "I'll send word to you when I'm ready."
"I'll be waiting," Lindolf said as he got up. "You should get some sleep, Magda, you look like you were up all night."
"I should kick you for that, Lindolf," Magda grumbled, "but I don't feel up to that. Yes. I need to sleep."
Lindolf nodded. "We'll meet again soon, Magda." Then he left.
Magda waited for a while and then she too left the shed.
11. A village trip
Hilda believed what Esmee had said. A person that also was a big cat would not go unnoticed. "Right. So bottom line is that we have only very little to go on. Several handfuls of bones, some hair and a few paw-prints of uber-cat size. Ideas anyone?" The assembled magical society remained alarmingly quiet.
From inside the castle a few children started wailing. Esmee groaned. "I wish I was not around, Hilda," she said, "when I am not around I don't have to come to the rescue..."
Hilda frowned. "I thought you like these kids..."
"I do. But not all the time. And not when they are in this howling mood..." Esmee stared at the castle and felt the urge to make her way into it, when Hilda said: "Well, we may have to make sure you are not around then."
Baba Yaga cackled and summoned her broom. Hilda's and William's came flying also. Esmee's blue eyes grew large. "You're not leaving me alone here, are you?" Babs muttered something about pink and then whispered a spell that made Esmee's broom fly up to them. The pink witch, surprise all over her, caught it. Her broom appeared to be chased by two black cats that sat down and looked up at their magical humans. Clearly they did not want to miss out on any action. Or the kids were too much for them as well.
"Up and away, folks," Hilda suggested. Four broomed shapes, two with furry navigators, flew off from the castle gardens.
"Where are we going?" Esmee asked.
"Away from the castle," was Hilda's simple answer. "We're going to snoop around the area a bit, looking for clues. Maybe go shopping in the villages nearby. You never know who you run into on nice days like this."
William looked at the sky. It looked like rain. His witch was incorrigible.
They flew over the forests that lay around the castle, when Grimalkin suddenly started meowing, her tail twitching as she stared down. "Stop, people," Hilda said as she did just that. "What is it, kitty cat? Did you see something to play with?"
"Marrrrw!" was the response she got. Slowly the magicals flew back until Grim's tail twitched again, and this time Obsi joined in, scratching at the bristles of William's broom. They descended to the ground, where the two cats leapt from the brooms and ran off. Four brooms were put against a tree and their owners walked after the cats. Only a few dozen paces into the forest, the two cats were sniffing at the floor. William brushed away some ferns and floor-crawling greens.
"Crappedy crap. Did she see that all the way from up there?" Hilda was truly amazed. The two cats had led them to another paw-print. As they went around the area a bit, they discovered more prints. There was quite a trail of them. It started, for some odd reason, just off a gravel path that according to Esmee was frequented by travelers and salesmen with their carriages. The prints led down into the forest quite far where they suddenly stopped, as if the creature that had made them had flown off or evaporated.
"This has to be the same creature," William said. "If there's a nest of them, then someone should have seen them by now. Especially if it's a flying kind of uber-cat."
"Unless they can become invisible," Baba Yaga pointed out. William had not considered that option.
"Whatever they are, they don't seem to shed their hair easily," Hilda pointed out. She had tried to find more bits of hair, but with no success. "Two scrawny bits of it, both from the castle garden, that's all we have." The four magicals tried to locate more evidence, magical or visible, but there was nothing for them to find.
Hilda picked up Grimalkin and stroked the black head. "Good girl, at least we now know that the creature gets around a bit." That was true; they had gone quite far from the castle already. They walked back to their brooms and soon they were over the trees again. After some cruising and keeping their eyes on the two cats, they decided that this was not going to deliver anything better, so Esmee took the lead and set course towards the village.
"Oh, uhm, please, when we get there, could you try to be a bit calm? The villagers know only me as the witch," Esmee asked them as they approached the spread-out collection of houses that with some imagination could be called a village. Baba Yaga laughed. It made Esmee worry, with reason.
Their appearing in the middle of the village caused moderate commotion. Within half a minute everyone that was in the houses near the village square had come outside and stared at the four. Most of the assembled gapers were women and children, only a few men were there and most of them were old. William and Hilda picked up their cats and put them on a shoulder. Esmee took all their brooms and took them to one of the people in the street. "Would you please take care of them for us, while we are here?"
As the woman she had addressed nodded, Baba Yaga turned to Hilda and William. "We should do something about that too. No respect, I'm telling you."
"Looks to me that our Esmee has plenty of respect for the people here," William couldn't resist. His remark made Baba Yaga laugh so loudly that within fifteen seconds the entire square was empty again, save Esmee who looked back, wondering what was going on. She returned to her three companions, broomless.
"Are you sure our brooms are safe there, Esmee dear?" Baba Yaga asked.
"Oh yes, no need to worry about that. I know these people, they are always very kind to me. At least, until now," Esmee frowned. She hoped her reputation would not suffer too much from the presence of the three that were here with her.
"Now take us to the shops and the good places, girl," Hilda said, patting Esmee on the arm. She was so good in creating a false sense of safety.
Esmee smiled happily, and as she chattered about the wonderful people of the village, the produce they brought forth on their fields and the great things that were available in the shops here, Hilda, William and Babs looked around and hoped to find anything that could be a clue to finding the strange creature. They visited several shops too, one with herbs and spices that had Hilda's interested, and one with fabrics where the owner tried to sell some pink fluff to Esmee. To his surprise she declined and bought something burgundy red, stating that it would look great as a new cloak. Baba Yaga displayed a big and satisfied smile. The shop owner did not interpret it as such and gave Esmee a big discount on the material, hoping they would leave the shop quickly before other customers were scared off.
As they roamed the narrow streets, the cats walking by themselves, Babs stated that they'd get somewhere yet. Hilda and William understood that she meant Esmee, Esmee responded that they'd just have to stay close and no one would get lost. Her comment invoked quite some amusement among the three, and she laughed along. They reached a large area that seemed somewhat lost between several groups of houses. "This is the marketplace," Esmee shared with the others. "We have a market here every week."
"A market. Astonishing. And what do people market here?" Hilda asked.
Esmee worked down a list of vegetables, fruits and meats as if she had studied for it. Or worked in the market for far too long.
"So no large cat creatures, eh?" Baba Yaga.
Esmee stopped and stared at the ugly witch. Her face showed that she was really thinking; then a giant grin was on her face. "Oh no, you almost tricked me, Baba Yaga, but you don't get me that easily!"
Babs laughed. "She's good, she's good," she said, looking at Hilda and William. The two almost died laughing. Magic helped them to keep a straight face.
In the market area, six men were working to load crates on a cart. "Oh, look, there's Jock," Esmee said. "Jock! Hello!' She waved frantically. Her companions frowned and wondered what they were up for now. "Come, I will introduce you to Jock," the mostly pink witch said as she briskly walked off towards the cart.
Jock turned out to be a very simple man who had been forgotten to come in on the day that 'smart' was handed out. Actually, he had been absent most days that beneficial traits were available. It did look as if he spent all that time in the place where muscle was distributed. The man was enormous in size. He seemed to care about Esmee a lot, too. She walked up to him and almost disappeared from view as he wrapped his impressive physique around her. "Esmee," he said slowly but clearly.
Esmee spoke just as slowly as she introduced the people who were with her. Jock nodded as she mentioned their names, then he bent down and petted the two cats, very tenderly. "Cats," the big man stated and he looked up to Esmee, a happy smile on his face. Obsi and Grim allowed the man his time to pet them.
The pink witch then introduced the trio to the other men who had continued loading the cart. Without big Jock's help that went a lot slower. One of the men asked why they were there, and Hilda explained vaguely that they had been called over to help with something at the castle.
"Oh. Something that our witch can't handle then, is it?" The man, only half Jock's size, positioned himself next to Esmee, as if he wanted to protect her from something. He had been introduced as Charles. "Just so you know, our witch is the best witch in the area."
"I am sure," said Baba Yaga, "but sometimes even the best of the best need some help. Look at your man Jock, for instance."
Jock was happily stacking things onto the cart. Charles frowned. "He don't need no help."
"Oh yes, he does," Babs said.
"What do you mean?" Charles did not look at ease all of a sudden.
"Jock is good at what he does, but what he can do is limited, right?"
Charles nodded. "Yeah. He needs us to tell him what- Oh... I see."
Esmee again had the desire to look daggers at Baba Yaga, but held herself back. "I think we need to move on now," she said instead.
Babs looked at Hilda and William and shrugged. They said goodbye to the men, Esmee was hugged by Jock again and then they walked on. Once they were away from the market square and far from any people, Esmee turned to Baba Yaga. "I would appreciate it, Baba Yaga, if you would not make me look like a fool any more. Please?"
"Finally," Baba Yaga said. She popped up her wand and some chairs. "Sit." Esmee sat. "Wrong, get up." Esmee got up. "You don't get it, do you?"
Esmee looked at Hilda and William, her whole face shouting 'HELP'.
12. Now listen
Baba Yaga sat down. "Sit."
"No," Esmee said, her face glowing red as she did so. "I want to know why!" Her lower lip trembled as she realised that she was challenging this ugly but powerful witch.
"Good girl. Now sit down and I will tell you." When Esmee sat, Hilda arranged for some cups of tea, while Baba Yaga started talking. "Esmee, child, you need to smarten up. What is the worst thing you've come across in your life?"
Esmee told them about the children of Snow White and Jordan. About finding frogs in her bed. And about a ghost in a closet that she'd had to remove with magic.
Baba Yaga nodded. "Yes, that all sounds blood-chilling, Esmee. I have bad news for you though; the thing we are looking at now is even worse than all that you just mentioned. We seem to be facing a woman who can turn into a cat of tremendous size. Not something like the kittens we have here." The kittens meowed in protest but were ignored. "So we can't afford to do the nice and pretty thing, Esmee. If that creature comes storming at you, you have to slam it, not ask if it wants some tea."
"But maybe it-" Esmee started. Then she changed her mind. "No, probably not."
"Good girl. Remember the lesson we did earlier? Use your magic when you have to. We'll make sure your magic will be pumped up to something usable and help you to keep that under control. But people have to understand that you are not someone that will be happy with a flower when you need a hammer." Here Baba Yaga wondered for a moment where she was going with that statement. "What I mean to say is that you have to be clear and don't accept just anything from anyone. Not even from me, unless it's clear that the situation calls for it of course."
Esmee stared at Baba Yaga. "Not even from you? But you are..."
"Yeah, I know, I'm big and bad and powerful and all that. I know. But that does not mean that I am always right. We all know things, but only when we toss these things in a cauldron and stir it together, we share that knowledge."
Esmee nodded. "But I see no cauldron," she then said. Hilda and William were convinced that Baba Yaga's eyes would roll now, even when they weren't clearly visible. They braced for a minor explosion. Just before something else could happen, Esmee started laughing and got up. She popped out her wand and made a cauldron appear. It was a tiny one, but it was there. She picked it up and handed it to Babs. "Here is a present for you. I really understand what you mean. Well, at least I think I do."
Baba Yaga held the small cauldron up in her wrinkled hand. The lower part of her face showed what they all knew to be a smile. "This flower witch may actually learn something after all," was all she said, but Hilda and William understood the significance of her words. Then it started to rain. William slapped a magical umbrella over them; the two cats ran for cover under it.
"Seems to be a good time to go back," Hilda said as she looked at the skies where more and darker clouds were moving in. As they walked back to the house where their brooms were kept safe, William wondered if they should do another night watch.
"Perhaps we should set some magical wards in the most obvious places," Hilda suggested, "I'm sure Esmee will know the places where the creature struck most often."
Once on their brooms again, Esmee detailed the best places where the safeties could be put up, and she was very interested in how to make things like that. Baba Yaga said that she would see to it that Esmee was trained on the job. Hilda thought that a great idea.
They reached the castle grounds. Rain was pouring down in streams. Some overzealous gardeners were still trying to do something nice for the plant life they were responsible for. The men stared as the small squadron of brooms came in to land near the large cage.
"Oy, honourable witches," one of the gardeners said, "how long do you reckon that metal box has to stay here in the garden? It's pretty much an eyesore, you should know, the king said so himself."
Hilda nodded understandingly. "Would it be terribly offensive to make the king temporarily blind?" Esmee and William said that it would be, Baba Yaga was tempted to take Hilda's side.
"Let's first get these wards up, folks," Baba Yaga decided, "we'll have time to ponder the king's eyesight in a dry environment." Everyone agreed with that. Staying on broomstick, as the paths had all turned into mud, they followed Esmee to the places where most of the times bones had been found.
Hilda and William, who had been charged with additional magic from Zelda's place, helped Baba Yaga in supplying magical power for Esmee as the flower witch was trained in setting wards. The first one was an absolute disaster, as all three had expected already.
"Listen, wench," said Babs, "I can't do this for you, I can only explain what you have to do. So you'd better listen carefully and do it well. This rain, even when Willy here makes it fall somewhere else, is not good for my old bones. So, you envision a web of magic here around the place and you pin it to the place. Let's first get that part done."
Esmee nodded, held out her wand and nothing happened. She shook her wand a few times. "Maybe it got wet..."
"It did not get wet," William was certain. "I don't see a drop on it, nor on your hands. Let me try something." He put his hand on Esmee's shoulder. "Give it another go."
She did. William let some magic flow directly into her. A web appeared where Esmee wanted it, but it was slightly too powerful: a magical explosion meant the end of the web, and four magicals found themselves in the mud. "Oops," said William. "That was a bit too much, wasn't it?"
Baba Yaga laughed so loudly that the palace guards came running to check what bad had happened this time. They dispersed quickly, as a laughing witch was not considered something bad. Little did they know.
The magical muddies got up and mounted their brooms again. Hilda cleaned and dried them all, as William took care of the two cats who looked utterly displeased. When everyone was in some form of order again, Esmee tried building the ward again, this time with support from Hilda, and that seemed to help. The web was clearly visible, looked stable and Baba Yaga approved, which was most important.
"And now you make four lines from the web, one to each of us," Babs said.
"Six," Hilda corrected her, "the cats too. They can alarm us when something happens."
Baba Yaga agreed, watching the two black creatures who seemed unimpressed, even bored with the whole affair. They lay curled up on their part of the brooms. Esmee managed the connections from the web to all the ones who had to be linked to it.
"Good little witch," Baba Yaga encouraged Esmee. The flower witch had a pained expression on her face as this was magic of an entirely different level. "Now, take us to the next spot. We'll each set up some wards so we are inside before it's all dark out here. This rain is bad on my old bones."
They visited six places in the castle grounds and everywhere they left a magical alarm bell, connected to each of them. Esmee set up the last one, and this time it did not take her so long. After that the group repaired to the warm dry spaces of the castle.
As they were in the dining room, where there was a separate table for them, they talked about things of the day, and what they would do when the mysterious large cat woman creature was shaking up any of the wards. Jordan, Snow White and a trail of children came into the dining room then, and they all flocked around the table of the magicals. Some of the children looked for cats to play with, but the cats had spotted the children and had left for safer quarters.
"Have you found out anything?" Snow White wanted to know as Jordan and some maids tried to move the children towards their own table. It looked like herding cats.
The magicals told her about what they had found, which was not very much. "Good thing we got to those tracks before the rain," Hilda said, "when it keeps pouring down they'll be gone quickly."
"And Esmee? Has she been any help?" Snow White asked. The tone in her voice made it clear that she had not much trust in her castle-witch beyond household magic and the improbable taming of children.
"Esmee's been great," Baba Yaga said, surprising Snow White, who kept an eye on Jordan. The old witch shook her head as she saw how he tried to grab the twins who were running around with forks. Esmee seemed surprised at Baba Yaga's words, she had not expected such praise.
"He's not getting them before they get him," Baba Yaga predicted. All heads turned to Prince Jordan and saw her prediction come true: as Jordan grabbed Dicky, Billy approached him from the rear and was ready to stab his father in the rear end with the fork.
Esmee muttered something and had her wand in hand. Billy yelped, and with a proper reason. He shot up to the ceiling where his feet then seemed stuck. The little prince screamed as if he was on a spit, while William magically caught the falling fork before it could hurt someone.
"Dicky," Esmee then said. She attracted the attention of everyone in the dining room, the way her voice was strong and so very un-Esmee. Dicky turned and stared at her. "Put down the fork and sit. Or you can join your brother up there."
Dicky stared up. The fork fell from his hand as he heard his twin brother yelp as he hung from the ceiling. Dinna also saw her brother hanging and started sobbing that she did not want to go up to the ceiling again. Roderick, who had stayed close to Snow White all the while, kept looking from hanging brother to sobbing sister and back up, unsure what to do with the situation.
"I think we should sit down and eat," Snow White suggested. "Would you please be so kind to bring my child down again, Esmee?" There was a sound in her voice that Hilda had never heard before when Snow White talked to the castle witch. It sounded close to respect.
"Sure she can, but since these two don't seem to know what to do with a fork, make them eat with their fingers," the wicked witch suggested, grinning at the prospect of a food fight.
Esmee spoiled her fun by suggesting that she and Hilda would feed the two boys, while their hands were stuck to the chairs. "Crappedy crap."
Billy was brought down from the ceiling. He had fear written all over his face, and the smell of urine rising up from his collar.
Baba Yaga had a ball, watching the feeding scene... William did his best not to look, and not to laugh.
13. Watch where you're going
In the black of the night, two shapes splashed down the muddy trail. Magda tried to find protection from the unrelenting rain under her soaked cloak. Lindolf stared ahead stoically, his garments also soaked. "I wish I had known this before," the man said, "I could have saved myself the trouble of coming here."
"Do you think I enjoy getting all wet and cold?" Magda snapped at him. "I have better things to do too, you know. It is not just my game, you are responsible at least as much." She pushed past some twigs. The curse she heard from the big man as the twigs hit him in the face gave her some satisfaction.
-=-=-
"William?"
"Yes, witch?" the wizard said.
"I am glad you did not laugh this evening." Hilda put an arm around her wizard. "I am not good with children."
"That was rather obvious," said William, "but you handled it just fine, Hilda. Esmee has experience, magicking Dicky's hands to the chair was enough for her. You just did what you could, and I'm proud of you."
Hilda nodded, her cheek against his shoulder. "Billy wouldn't sit still. His own fault that I had to make the iron clamps appear. That way he kept his mouth open and the rest of him unmoving."
"Inventive, and effective," William agreed.
"Was a bad move of Jordan though, to tell the kid that is how it feels when you're in a suit of armour." Hilda snorted. "As if he knows how that feels."
"And do you know, sweetwitch?" the wizard was curious.
"No. I don't need that kind of ordinary stuff." Hilda snuggled closer. "I just need you..."
The morning came on slightly soggy feet, but the skies were clearing. Apparently the rain was set on wetting other areas. Hilda sat up and rubbed her face. Then she pushed William. "I am sure it was your ward that did not work."
"Eh, what?" William wasn't aware of anything that had not worked on his behalf.
"We all set up wards yesterday, in the rain. If you care to remember." Hilda leaned down on him, resting her elbows on his chest. "And we heard nothing this night. I am tempted to bet that the cat woman was where you put up the ward, and that your ward failed to warn us. You have to admit that you are not so skilled in setting wards, William."
The wizard put his arms around her. "Now listen, witch. I watched what you did, and I copied your ward. If you care to remember. So if my ward failed, yours has done too."
"My wards, wizard, do not fail." She sounded very determined.
"So maybe it were Esmee's wards. Or the notification lines she set up to all of us." William harboured a thought for a moment. Only for a moment.
"Don't think that out loud, William. Babs will have you for breakfast," Hilda said.
"Don't say that. It's already banished from my head. Really."
Hilda felt the shudder go through William. She kissed him on the lips. "Come. Breakfast. And then inventory of what happened outside."
Breakfast was a calm affair, even when Baba Yaga joined them. After that they went to find Esmee. They found the pink witch in the room where Snow White and another young woman were discussing tactics on keeping the twins under control.
"Jordan is taking them with him far too often," Snow White complained to the magical trio that joined the talks. "They are learning his way of talking, they eat too much and they don't listen to me."
Baba Yaga agreed. "These two kids are indeed becoming a bit chubby. I am sure we can lend a hand with that too, while we're here."
Snow White seemed to seriously consider the implicit offer of the witch. "How many children have you raised?"
"Children? Raised?" Babs asked. "Are you asking me? And you're feeling well at the same time?"
Snow White did not look at ease all of a sudden. "Maybe I should just talk to Jordan about that, instead of you..."
"Ah, no, really, hardly any trouble," Hilda pitched in, "we'll take care of that for you. You just keep that belly of you where it is, and by the way, your little girl is making a mess of the clean diapers." As Snow White and the young woman stared in terror at the mountain of diapers Dinna had created, William took Esmee by the arm and made her leave the room with them.
"Hey, where are you taking me?" Esmee asked as they sauntered down the long corridor to the exit.
"Away from there. Snow White has plenty of help for her kids," Hilda explained, "and we are going to see what happened outside. None of us woke up last night, so I suspect one of the wards did not work as we planned."
Esmee nodded. "I was a bit surprised about not being woken up also," she admitted.
Once outside, they all got on their brooms and went on a tour around the places they had secured the day before. To their surprise, they found all the wards in perfect order; there was nothing wrong anywhere. There also were no paw-prints, no bits of hair and no piles of bones at any of the places. The latter made no sense, according to Hilda. Esmee confirmed that chicken or rabbit remains had been found every morning.
"Let me tell you something," William then said, staring at the two black animals that had come along. They were neatly curled up on the hovering brooms. "Cats don't like to get wet."
"Everyone knows that, William- Oh, right. It pissed down last night..." Hilda turned to her best friend: "See, Babs, that's why I keep him around. Occasionally he does come in handy." Esmee stared at Hilda and then at William, who winked at her. She grinned without a sound.
Baba Yaga took her wand and prodded the ward they were with. "Still looks good. We'll leave it in place for another night." Esmee was quite surprised and proud. It was one of her wards, and Baba Yaga had said it looked good.
"I vote we go back to the castle and have a cup of tea with something or other," Hilda said. "The rain went on for too long, it still feels moist everywhere."
"And you are going to battle that with taking in wet stuff, aren't you?" Baba Yaga grinned.
"Hot wet stuff. That's different," Hilda grinned as she hopped onto her broom. "Come on, folks, I am not going to wait for you!" Esmee was last in the air, still trying to come to terms with the seemingly random way Hilda's mind hit all kinds of things.
Back in the castle, sitting in one of the many lounges, the four magical ones discussed how they would go about Prince Jordan. More precisely this meant that Hilda and Babs were coming up with one weird plan after the next, while William sat grinning and Esmee became more anxious for them to stop. They frightened her. Hilda seemed to read that from Esmee's face. "I think it is time to finish the tea," the wicked witch said, "and put an end to our talking." Esmee was the first person to agree with that. Poor Esmee.
They finished their tea. Hilda, William and Babs got up. "What are you going to do?" Esmee asked, slight bits of fear making her heart jolt.
"We are going to have a little talk."
"But you said you were putting an end to the talking..." An awareness dawned on Esmee. It was a dawning that cast bad shadows.
"Our talking," Hilda confirmed Esmee's fears, "has indeed come to an end. Now we are going to have the talk with His Princeness."
"Oh." That was the best come-back Esmee mustered. "In that case I'll-"
"-come with us, if you would be so kind, yes," Hilda completed Esmee's sentence in quite a different way than the pink witch had in mind. "Prince Jordan won't feel so outnumbered. He knows you and may take heart from that."
Esmee highly doubted that. Prince Jordan had never been very impressed with her, despite all her efforts to do what she could. She understood however that there was no way she would be escaping from the three that now were looking down at her, waiting until she got up. Lingering, she knew, would only postpone the inevitable, so without suppressing her sigh, she got to her feet.
The flower witch was in the lead, on the way to the chambers of Prince Jordan. As they went along, Baba Yaga commented to Esmee she should start wearing properly coloured clothes. "Some more black would do you good. And that red you got the other day, when are you going to do something with that?"
"Yes, yes, I will do something. Maybe make a nice dress from that," Esmee responded.
"Good. And a black cloak? Want us to fix you one?" Hilda offered. "We make mean cloaks. I can see you in one with shiny black flowers, or cats." Grim and Obsi meowed, objecting to that.
"If it is all the same to you, Hilda, I will see that I get my own cloak," Esmee said. She turned into another corridor and almost bumped into a man. "Oh, I'm so sorry."
"Watch where you're going," the servant grumbled.
"Hey. Yes, you," Baba Yaga said as the servant passed her. "I think we need to talk." Esmee grew pale as she witnessed the scene. Hilda and William looked on with interest.
"What do you want?" the servant asked, taking an eyeful of Babs.
"Well," said the wrinkled witch. "How about you first apologise to the witch there?"
The servant's faced conveyed a year's supply of amazement. "Apologise? To her?"
"Yes. You heard correctly."
"Baba Yaga, please," Esmee started, but something in the stance of Hilda made her keep her mouth shut.
"I'm not apologising to any witch," the servant said, puffing a proud chest. "And certainly not to that one."
"We'll see about that, dear man," said Baba Yaga. "The 'that one' you are so disdainfully are referring to is my protegé. She is a witch, and a damned good one. One with less sense would have turned you into a toad for not watching where you're going."
Esmee stared at Baba Yaga. Protegé? She somehow convinced her lower jaw to stay put.
"The flower witch? She can't even change a diaper quickly," the servant scorned. The scene was attracting more than a fair share of attention by now, most of them servants deciding that their chores could wait.
Baba Yaga looked at her protegé. "Turn him into a toad."
Esmee wanted to say that she did not know how to do that, but the stare that had to come from Babs' eyes made her swallow those words. She popped up her wand, a trick she had learnt by now. Hilda had taken position directly opposite Esmee and slowly moved her lips.
The servant laughed. "See? She's not making much of it. Now, let me pass and don't get in my way again!"
"Ranunculus," said Esmee.
"Ribbit," said what a moment ago had been a servant. Esmee stared at the animal that crawled from the heap of clothes.
"Someone take care of him," said William, "and his work. If you treat him well enough, we'll see about turning him back. Tomorrow or so. Treat him badly and you will face what he's facing now."
Then the four walked on, Esmee still in shock of what had just happened.
14. A chat with Jordan
Esmee, who was kept moving by William's hand in her back, looked confused. "Who did that?" she whispered to the wizard.
"You did. Hilda just helped a bit," he said, "I saw how she worked on the Latin so it would work immediately."
"Latin?" Things did not get easier for Esmee. "And who is going to turn that man back into a man?"
"You will," Baba Yaga informed her, "and we're going to work on that this afternoon, so you know what's waiting for you." Esmee nodded. Somehow this was a relief and a worry at the same time. At least, she gathered, her chances of flying into the large iron cage were low.
They arrived at large double doors, laid in with the official seal of King Louie's household. It was a large blue square with many small yellow crescents. Over a number of them was a large hand that seemed to grab at them. Baba Yaga looked at the seal for a moment. "Someone's been monkeying around with that, it seems," she remarked.
Esmee knocked on one of the doors and pushed it open. Baba Yaga nodded approvingly. Knocking was good, after all this was royalty of a kind, but waiting to go in was not witchy.
They found Prince Jordan on a large couch. Dicky wasn't around, but Billy, the other of the twins, was on a similar, be it smaller version of the couch. Esmee stared in disbelief at the goblet that the kid was holding. She walked over to him and took it, then tasted it. "Your Highness!" she then said, "Billy is drinking wine!"
"Yes. I know," the highness said, "I gave it to him myself. If he's going to be a king someday he should know how to handle wine and such, so I thought it would be a good idea to start the training as soon as possible."
"Where's the other one?" Hilda asked, somewhat less polite and somewhat more herself.
"Dicky? Oh, he ran off, retching. Not so good with wine yet," Prince Jordan said. "Strange too, as he's from the same batch as Billy. I'd expected them to be the same."
"Oh yes, we need to talk about that also." Hilda used magic on a few chairs so they moved themselves closer to the couch.
"Also?" Prince Jordan hoisted himself into a more upright position, knocking over his goblet of wine.
"Yes. Also. Hey, kid, off you go, and do something kid-like. We have to talk to your Dad for a bit and that's not something for small ears," Baba Yaga ordered Billy. As the child complained that he had a right to hear that as he would be king someday, Babs showed him her wand and made a comment about ceilings and how much space there was on them. Billy did not need more encouragement. He left, in search of his brother.
William made sure the double doors would not open until they were done, and sat back to enjoy the show.
"You, Jordan, did not write the book on bringing up children, did you?" Hilda asked the highness.
"You didn't either, witch," he retorted, sitting up even straighter. The topic of the conversation called for that. "I am bringing up my sons the way I see fit. Trying to do a better job than my father did."
"'Trying' being the operative word here," Baba Yaga pitched in. Jordan chose not comment on that.
"I refuse to be spoken to like that!" Prince Jordan now sat upright, appearing genuinely annoyed by what appeared to become an inquisition.
"I'd say you have little choice here, Jordan," Hilda calmly said. "Let's get to the points, and get this over with. Step one, you stop feeding stuff to your children that is not good for them. Step one, you stop feeding yourself with the same stuff. Makes for a bad example."
"Shouldn't that be step two?" Jordan asked. "You have two steps one."
Hilda treated him to a devastating look. "All steps one should be done together. Don't interrupt me. Step one. Stop eating so much. Your belly is already fatter than your father's, and the way he looks is insulting. It's also quite the remedy against love."
Prince Jordan observed the object of attention for a moment. "It's not too bad."
"I recall the time that you could get on a horse alone, Jordan. Somehow I don't see that happen these days." Hilda frowned at the prince. "And please, tell me when I'm wrong."
"It's temporary," Jordan brought to his feeble defense.
"Damned sure it is," Baba Yaga agreed, "we'll see to that. And no worry, it is all part of the service."
Again Prince Jordan ignored the remark of the ugly witch. "It's not my fault Snow White sleeps in a different room lately," he said. Then his face froze. "Tell me I didn't say that."
"You didn't," William assured him. "We all did not hear that."
"Look, Jordan," Hilda said, to Esmee's growing concern, "it's all good and fine that you care to love your little wife inside and out and all that, but man, do give her a bit of a break once in a while. She's not a brooding machine."
"I need heirs, to make sure the kingdom will retain its royalty!" Jordan attempted.
"Sure, you need heirs, but you have a bundle of them running around already, and one more on the way. Do you want to go down in history as the prince who had more kids than regular subjects?"
Prince Jordan looked angry. "Now don't you go put all the blame on me. She's loving it as well, you know."
"As she should," said Hilda. Baba Yaga snorted. Hilda ignored that.
"Jordan," William then said, "listen. Nothing wrong with having your urges and wanting to take the steam off. But perhaps some sensible planning and care on that account is the way to go."
Prince Jordan stared at William. "You can't plan things like that."
"Oh, sure you can. Stay off for a while, for instance. Not like you're not doing that now, is it? Of course, there is another option. That would would require some care, but would take away the need to do some planning."
Prince Jordan was all ears suddenly. "Tell, wizard, what way is that?" Hilda and Esmee looked as if they wanted to know about that too. Baba Yaga did not seem very interested in all that talk.
"Well," said William, "there is a way to make sure you can get all the horizontal exercise you want, and that kids are not a result of that."
"And what might that be?" Hilda asked, cutting off the prince who had the same question.
"Well, it is only a small action that needs doing," the wizard said, wiggling his eyebrows. "Nothing difficult, really."
"Will it hurt?" Prince Jordan asked.
"Yes. Not for long, but it will."
Jordan scowled. "I don't like pain."
"Not many people do, but everything has a price," William said, "and look at it from the bright side: you have to put up with it for a while, but Snow White is pregnant and not sleeping with you anyway. So the timing could not be better, could it?"
The prince saw the reasoning in that. Still, the prospect of pain was not very appealing. "Is there a chance that I could lessen the pain in a way?"
Baba Yaga tossed in that there could be a generous supply of medical alcohol, or some magically induced sleep to make things more bearable. William had to grin; clearly the witch was more interested than she wanted them to know. Prince Jordan was very susceptible to the idea of medicinal alcohol. "But what about the care? You said there would be some care?"
"Yes," William said. "Step one, you will have to lose a considerable amount of weight, otherwise the pain will take longer to go away. And I am talking about months, if not years, young man. If you get that belly off it will be mere days." Prince Jordan nodded. He had just heard another very good reason to reshape his physique. "And point two, after the procedure you will have to refrain from any horizontal activity for a while, to make sure everything's fine down there."
"DOWN THERE?" Prince Jordan had just learnt about a very good reason not to go one with all this.
"Of course," William said, "that's where all the trouble started, right? You always have to yank out trouble by the root."
"YANK OUT?" Another reason to just forget about the whole deal. It also was good for making all blood evacuating from his cheeks, leaving his face a pale mass.
"Figuratively speaking, prince," William reassured the young man. "There won't be any physical yanking."
"Oh. Good." The thought of someone doing anything violent to his 'down there' made the prince's face flush all red: his blood was reclaiming its rightful place. (Royal blood is not blue.)
"So does that mean we have a deal?" Hilda asked.
Prince Jordan asked for some time to think it all over. After all, and everyone understood that, it was quite a decision to make. "I should also talk about that with my wife, the princess," he announced. "Maybe she is opposed to the idea of not having more children."
"Somehow I think you don't have to worry about that, but do talk to her. That is a good thing to do," Hilda advised him. "I'm glad we had this talk, Jordan. Make Snow White proud. And your sons too."
"Uhhuh," Prince Jordan said. He was not yet very convinced of it all, but at least this conversation was over now. He did have a lot to talk about with Snow White.
As the magical people left, and he still couldn't grasp that Esmee was now really one of them, he stared at the tray of food and the bottle of wine. It hurt, but he didn't touch any of it. Better start as soon as possible on that particular step one...
15. To be a frog
Once they were quite far from Prince Jordan's rooms, Esmee stood still. "Tell me that didn't happen."
"It didn't happen," said Hilda. "Why?"
"That's no way to talk to a Prince! That's why!" Esmee bit her lower lip. "I mean, you were talking about his... his..."
"Yes. We were. And he did too. Looks like you are the only one that had a problem with it, Esmee, and it's not even yours," said Hilda as she took the flower witch by the arm and urged her to walk on again. "Jordan sees the benefits of it all. He may not be too happy when it all goes down, but by then it's a done deal anyway."
William grinned just too loudly. "What's your problem, Willy?" Baba Yaga asked. "Something you know that we don't?" William said he'd tell them later, outside, once they were away from the curious ears of servants.
"Why are we going outside?" Esmee wanted to know.
"You still have a frog to turn back, remember?" he reminded her.
"Oh. Yes. I had forgotten."
"That's bad, Esmee. A good witch forgets nothing," Baba Yaga told her protegé.
"Oh? Who told you that?"
"Don't really remember, sort of must have slipped my mind." As it was Baba Yaga who said that, there were no comments or remarks.
Once outside, they looked for a quiet spot in the large gardens. They found one with a nice lawn, some flowerbeds in it, and a marble bench next to it. Baba Yaga sat down on the bench, and together with Hilda she explained to Esmee the trick behind turning people into a frog. And how to turn one back again.
"I wonder if it hurts," said Esmee, after listening intently for a while. Babs said that she had no idea, as nobody had ever succeeded in turning her into a frog. Hilda and William told her that they had never heard anyone complain about it. "But," William added, "that might also be because of the shock after being changed."
Hilda offered Esmee to turn her into a frog, so she would have first hand experience. The pink witch was not very keen to find out, but the three insisted, so finally Esmee accepted to be turned into one. She made them promise to turn her back quickly too.
They left the honour of changing Esmee to Baba Yaga, as she was the self-appointed mentor. Babs popped up her wand and spoke the spell. Esmee's clothes fell into a heap and the frog that had been a pink witch dropped on top of them. "That went well," said Baba Yaga, "I don't get to change many witches."
Hilda and William lay down on the grass and looked at Esmee in her new shape. "She's really small, isn't she?" Hilda said as she prodded the frog. It complained with a sad sound. "I'm actually surprised she the right colour. Not pink or so."
Esmee croaked with indignation.
"Step back, kids, I'll make her herself again," Babs announced. Hilda and William moved to the side, Babs used the counter-spell, and Esmee was Esmee again. Esmee shrieked, because she was naked. A flick of Babs's wand later the pink witch was decent again.
"I was naked!" Esmee exclaimed, her face red, her arms still covering her barely present bosom. This rather loud revelation attracted the unwanted attention of some servants who suddenly were in earshot.
"Keep your voice down, Esmee," Babs calmly said, "and sit down here. You've just been a frog, you may be a bit unsettled still."
Hilda guided Esmee to the bench and they waited for the pink witch to come to grips with herself again. "So, how was it?"
Esmee shook her head, sending her short blond curls dancing. "It was so strange," she said, "everything is the wrong size. I never knew that grass can be so big. And there were beetles and worms and-"
"Eeeeew..." said Hilda. "I lay on worms?"
"Only a few," Esmee said, trying to make it sounds less bad. "And never prod a frog please. It hurts!"
"Oh. Okay, won't do it anymore." Hilda grinned. "Nor any less."
Esmee did not put enough venom in her stare to be impressive.
"So, did it hurt when you were turned?" Baba Yaga asked.
"Well, becoming a frog didn't hurt. The change in view and how I felt was so different that I had no time to think about that. And when I was turned back into me, uhm, the first thing I noticed was that I didn't have my clothes on. I didn't think to feel pain or so."
Hilda nodded. "Right. Seems that we have our answer. It probably doesn't hurt enough, if at all. Given the absence of clothes."
William remarked that perhaps they should find a way to change the reversing spell a bit, to do something with the clothes of the person. Hilda and Babs were strongly against that. "That would take all the fun out of it, William! And while we're talking about fun, wizard, what was the reason for you to grin when we left the castle?"
William grinned again as he thought back to the conversation with Prince Jordan. "Oh, it's just a little thing." That made him burst out laughing, invoking more curiosity with the witches. "We may have to cover Esmee's ears," William then laughed. "Remember when I talked about the little procedure of Jordan's 'down there', and the fact that it would be painful?" The witches nodded. "Well, I am sure it can be done painlessly. The magic is there for it," William explained.
"Right...," said Hilda, "so why did you claim it would be painful if there is no pain?"
"Listen, sweetwitch," William said, "I did not say there was no pain. Without any discomfort to think back to, it won't be a big deal to him. He strikes me as the kind of prince-guy that needs some thing inflicted onto him that is unpleasant, to remind him of what he's done. And why."
Baba Yaga looked at him, no expression on her face. Esmee stared at him in disbelief. Hilda kissed him on the cheek. "That's my wizard."
"He's a natural," Baba Yaga had to admit. "Only wizards and certain witches come up with things like that."
William was proud with all that praise. "Coffee anyone?"
-=-=-
The day got tired of the sunlight and set out to chase the offending heavenly body away. The witches and the wizard mounted their brooms while dusk was still struggling for a foothold. They had agreed to make a sweep over the area before it was completely dark. Perhaps they could find the owner of the large paw prints, and if not then they'd had a nice evening flight.
The forests were still very much alive, with small animals running around and birds tuning their beaks for the next morning. Esmee was falling behind rapidly as they passed over an open field where deer were grazing.
"Hey, come on, we've got more ground to cover," Hilda said who had turned to urge Esmee into moving along.
"Oh, please, let me look at the bambies for a while longer," Esmee begged, as if she were a child. "They're so cute."
Hilda looked down. Her sense of cuteness was severely lacking in the bambi department, she decided. "Tell you what. You stay up here and look at the grass-munchers, while we finish the rounds and come back for you."
"Oh, yes!" Esmee beamed. "I'll wait here for you."
"I'll leave Grimalkin with you. Just in case," Hilda said, as she scooped her cat from the bristles of her broom and pushed the black animal into Esmee's arms. "Don't drop her, or you'll answer to me. Grim will make sure you are not going anywhere without us."
Esmee was still trying to get over the surprise of suddenly being inhabited when Hilda had flown off, in pursuit of Babs and William. "Oh," the flower witch managed to bring out.
"Meow," Grimalkin agreed, clearly as surprised about this treatment as the blond witch was.
The three remaining night-flyers did not find anything out of the ordinary, so they returned to the spot where they had left Esmee and Grimalkin.
Esmee sat very still on her broom when they arrived. Grimalkin lay peacefully on the bristles, as if she had not a care in the world. Hilda and William, illuminating the scene with their wands, wondered what had happened. Esmee's eyes were large, her lips squeezed together in a thin line. And there were dark spots on her dress.
Hilda waved a hand in front of the face of the young witch, as Grim gracefully hopped back on her trusted spot on Hilda's broom. "Hello, Esmee. Are you still in there? Or did the cat get your tongue and the rest of you too?"
"Is it gone?" Esmee asked, still afraid to move.
"Grim? Yes, she's on my broom. Why?"
Esmee carefully relaxed and watched where Onyx Grimalkin had been. Still careful, she let out a sigh. "I flew around a little bit. To see the bambies a little better." The others waited for more. "I think I flew off a bit too far for the cat's liking. It attacked me. It scratched my hands and my face!"
"And so you flew back to this spot, healed yourself and waited for us," Hilda concluded. Esmee nodded. Crappedy crap. Sorry about that, Esmee. Next time I'll be a bit more precise with Grim, telling her what's acceptable." She picked up the cat and pressed its face against Esmee's cheek. "There, kissed and made up. Come, let's go back to the castle. It's getting nippy out here."
William carefully touched Esmee's arm. The flower witch had frozen up again as the black head had been pressed against her cheek. "Come, Esmee. Danger's all gone."
"I wish she would not do that," Esmee hissed quietly. "I just had the fright of my life and then she sticks that beast in my face."
"Just tell her not to do that again then," William shrugged, taking control over Esmee's broom as the witch was not coming along by herself.
"Tell her?" Esmee stared at William as if he had suggested something obscene. "That's Grimhilda. You don't tell her anything."
"Sure you do. How else does she get to know things? I tell her things all the time, in case you did not notice."
"Uhuh," Esmee responded, "but you're different. You're bonded to her." She finally was together enough again to fly her own broom. "She does things I can only dream of!"
"So what are you dreaming of, Esmee? Of being a witch like her?" William asked. "If so, you're on the right track. In case you did not notice, Babs nor Hilda have torn your head of. Instead she leaves her cat with you. She trusts you. And Baba Yaga called you her protegé. Don't underestimate that one either. Babs is quite the awesome witch."
"She's positively scary," Esmee said. "But kind of cool also."
William grinned. He knew he had helped her confidence back in the saddle. "Come, I'll race you to the castle."
She screamed with joy as they sped off.
Later that night, most of the lights in the castle had been extinguished, there was a movement in one of the gardens. Carefully, a shape moved over a lawn. Large, padded feet gently stepped on the grass. It stopped at the large iron cage, eyeing it, sniffing it, touching it. A rumbling sound came from the creature as it moved around the cage and headed towards the large pen where a few rabbits were still scurrying around before falling asleep.
Silent as a falling feather, the shape kneeled down with the rabbits. A grumbling sound accompanied its attempt to take the top of the wooden contraption. It did not open easily. What did happen easily was a signal shooting from the ward on the box to the four magical people, who were savagely yanked out of their sleep.