1. Home sweet home

Grimhilda made her wand appear as she felt the splinters of what had been her magical mirror under her feet.

"Too bad about that one. It worked so well...", she mumbled. "I'll have to prepare a new one." Her face became a dark cloud when she thought of the one that had been stolen. She'd never had the opportunity to test that one.

The memory of the theft of that mirror filled her with rage again. If her mirror had not yet been broken, it might not have survived this hissy fit. Now the only victim was one of the chairs, and that was easy enough to fix.

"I hate that bitch," Hilda muttered, and tried to banish the thought from her mind, at least for that moment. With several brusque movements of her wand she magicked all the pieces of the mirror onto a heap. The clinging sound of the silvery shards made her even more angry. As the banishing had not really worked, this did not improve things, so with a curse that would have made a pirate blush she smashed one of the small windows in her room and hurled the stack of splinters out of it. The screams from the unfortunate and unsuspecting recipients of this malevolent gift only eased her mind slightly.

"If ever I get my hands around the neck of Rumpelstiltskin..." With that comment she breezed out of her room, to find the mirror-maker and pleasure him with her presence and an order for a new mirror...

The mirror-maker, Johan, promised he would make her a new mirror. And one as a spare, in case an accident like this previous one would happen again.

"I want it bigger than the broken one," Hilda had emphasised. "Bigger and better. And brighter."

Johan nodded. "I'll do my best for you, as always, honourable witch," he said. From second-hand experience, we'd call it hear-say, he knew that Hilda was not someone to mess with. The things she could do were pretty awesome, and that was putting it very very mildly.

"You'd better. Otherwise you'll become a mirror, and when I do that, believe me, it will not be a pleasure." Grimhilda turned and was about to leave the shop, when she stopped and looked at the craftsman again. "I need a mirror now."

Johan scratched his head. There was not much he had on offer at that very moment. "Let me have a look..." He got up and went into the back of his house, to the part that he referred to as the 'muck shed' when he was alone. There he found a mirror. It had only one crack in it.

"This is the best I can do for you, honourable witch," Johan apologised as he showed her the mirror. "When I clean it, it would not be too bad, I think."

Hilda considered the mirror. "A loaner, okay? You clean it and bring it over before evening falls."

Johan nodded and was relieved. If she was happy with this one, it would buy him a few days extra to get the real mirror done.

"But no fussing about, I want the real mirror as soon as I can," Hilda said, her hands on her hips. "I assume that is not too hard too understand?"

Johan did not let his groan surface. "Of course. Honourable witch."

Hilda nodded, turned and left, in search of a basket full of apples. That was a lot easier than the mirror.

In the evening Johan knocked on the door of Hilda's house. Carefully. After all, this was a witch's house, and not just the residence of any old witch. This was Grimhilda's homestead.

Hilda opened the door, an apple in her hand. Johan stared at it.

"What are you looking at?"

"Uhm, the apple..."

"So? It's just an apple. My apple, is that understood?" To make the point stick, she took a bite from it. "You gop the miwwow?" The piece of apple in her mouth severely impaired her speech, but Johan knew what she meant.

"Yes, honourable witch, I have it right here. I even managed to seal up the crack a bit," Johan said with fitting pride.

"Good. Come in, I'll tell you where I want it."

"Uhm, couldn't you just like..." Johan made a terrible mistake. He wiggled his finger over the mirror, hoping she could magic the heavy thing to its place.

Hilda glared at the finger. "Yes. I could. Digitus agilis in noctium."

Johan found out that evening that it is very difficult to carry a large mirror into a house with a finger that just won't stop moving.

"Your finger will be fine again tomorrow, in the morning," Hilda sort of reassured him when he left. "Just don't ever ask stupid things again."

"I won't, honourable witch, I won't!" Johan then, having become wiser in a hurry, kept his mouth shut and quickly left for safer grounds.

Hilda looked at the mirror. It would have to do. She'd work on it the following morning, now it was time to retreat and sleep off the ill effects of the insane world she'd been in. These were still too vivid in her imagination...

-=-=-

"Now. Let's see..." Hilda had her wand in hand and stood before the newly magicised mirror. She looked at the sun and estimated the time of day and where that singing pale princess would be. She should be... "Exhibio castellum."

The mirror did not respond. "Come on. Show me the castle, damn you, and the yard around it!" Hilda was ready to whack the mirror with a fierce bit of magic, but she held back. "Loaner. Cracked. Urgh. Patience." The latter was not her forte.

A knock on the door broke her concentration. She walked to it and yanked it open, to see Johan the mirror-maker there, holding up his still wiggling finger. "What?"

"Uhm, honourable witch, you said it would be fine again in the morning?", Johan carefully said.

"Is morning over already?", Hilda asked him curtly.

"No... not yet," Johan had to admit.

"Right." Bang, said the door, and Hilda stomped off to the mirror again. "Well, well, look here," she said as she saw that an image had formed in it. It was a bit crackled, with only faded colours, but she could live with that.

Hilda pulled up her chair and watched the slightly distorted image, checking out the castle and the grounds around it at her leisure.

"Now where's the kid..."

But no matter how she scanned the castle, Snow-White wasn't there. Also on the meadows around, where she used to sing her obnoxious joyful songs and pick the flowers, there was no trace of the girl.

"How did she pull that one off..." Hilda muttered and said a simple spell to locate the girl.

It took the mirror a while, but then it showed her an image that surprised her quite a bit. The queen's huntsman was in the forest, dragging Snow-White along by the arm. That was not exactly what Hilda expected to see. Curious, she watched the scene unfold, until the huntsman pulled a knife and got ready to turn the girl into filet mignon. The mirror, prepared in a hurry, did not give Hilda sound, but Snow-White clearly started crying.

"Hey, that's not going to happen," Hilda muttered. "I was going to take care of her. Whatever gave him that idea?" She got up and located her broom and cloak. As she was getting ready to fly off to the forest and stop the huntsman, she cast another look at the mirror and saw the huntsman letting go of Snow-White's wrist. The girl took off like a bat out of hell, through the forest. Hilda noticed Snow-White was not running towards home. "Weird," was her comment on that. "It's the place where she always runs to when there's trouble..."

With a wave of her hand the mirror became a regular mirror again. Hilda stepped outside with her broom, mounted it, and set course to the forest where the huntsman was. The wicked witch was determined to find out what this whole charade was about and he was the easiest prey for her to tell about it.

When she reached the huntsman's position, she was forced to circle over the trees for a while, until he had progressed onto a more open spot where she could land.

The man reached for his large hunting-knife and pulled it out as he saw the witch touch down. "Who are you? You must be a witch!" He held out the knife.

"My, my," said Hilda. "I bet you did not spend much time in school, am I right?"

The hunter frowned. "How'd you know that?"

The wand that appeared in Hilda's hand turned the impressive knife into several leaves of overcooked cabbage that then hung over the man's hand. "Otherwise you would have learnt that you don't stop a witch with a knife. And you don't threaten a witch like me with a knife either. Well, you see what that got you."

The hunter stared at his hand, then shook off the cabbage. "What do you want from me? I have nothing of value!", he then shouted at her.

"Hey, no need to yell, I'm right here!", Hilda yelled back, and much better than the hunter could. The force of her words made him topple backwards into a bunch of ferns. She waited until he had gotten back to his feet. "So, now you are going to tell me all about that thing with the girl just now."

"What girl?" The hunter tried some bravery, for which he was known and what had him selected as being the huntsman of the queen.

Hilda crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot on the ground. "Don't start like that, mister. What I did to that big knife of yours can just as easily happen to certain parts of your anatomy, and your wife would not be happy when she'd find that out. Would she?"

The hunter swallowed as he considered her words. "Okay, okay, okay. No need to go that far. The girl was Snow-White, the daughter of the king and the stepdaughter of the queen. The queen wanted me to kill the girl. I was about to do that, when she started crying and go all soppy on me, and I can't handle that. So I let her go. She won't make it out of the forest alive anyway, and at least this way I know I didn't kill her."

Hilda, the wicked witch, snorted. "Well, you did, just not the way you planned. But if that makes you happy, who am I to mess up your day. And that's it? End of story, everyone laughing?"

"Well, no. Not really. Just as you fell out of the sky I was thinking how I could get a lung and a liver."

"Eeeuw... you have a weird taste, buster," Hilda said as her face displayed her disgust.

"Hey, not for me okay? The queen wants to see Snow-White's lung and liver, so she knows the kid's been taken care of. I was going to stab a bear or so on the way back. But not much I can do now, since you turned my knife into cabbage..."