18. Wipe-out

Hilda had spent the night at Baba Yaga's. After a good breakfast and a short night, she hopped on her broom, took the spare one in tow and headed home again. Out of curiosity she swung by the castle, but except for the new flowerbed there was nothing that looked different.

Satisfied that nothing out of the ordinary had gone on there, as far as she could see, she pointed her broom towards her house.

From a distance she already saw the heap of chains that she had put around her sanctuary. As she had landed, she saw that someone had tried to mess with the big metal padlocks. That was quite obvious. A witch like Hilda would not leave her home without some additional safeties installed. One of them was inside the large chain. The insolent that had tried to tamper with the padlock, the one with the note even, had been nicely wrapped and trapped in the chains.

"Shiny," said Hilda as she came closer. The spelll that was on the chains and the padlocks was the same one that would keep all kinds of nosey folks away from a certain castle that had loads of thorned rosebushes around it, keeping Sleeping Beauty safe from idiots who thought they were entitled to her lips. "So, what do we have here?"

The man who hung in the chains looked at Hilda. "Oh, crap."

"That's my line," Hilda calmly said. "Who are you and what are you trying to prove here?" She folded her arms over her chest and waited for an answer. And it'd better be good.

"I'm sorry," said the failed burglar.

"I'd think so, judging from where you are," Hilda agreed, "but I asked who you are, not what you are. I'll decide on that."

"I am Rodolfo."

"Right. And you have family that makes brooms, right?"

"How do you know?", Rodolfo asked her in amazement.

"Well, first there's the name. And then the clothes that are copies of what Ribaldo and Ronaldo were wearing when they made their mistakes here. Only they did not have that stupid goat-beard you are growing on your chin."

Rodolfo looked hurt. "My beard, dear lady, is my pride."

"Damn, did you sink that low?", Hilda snickered. "Black-dressed sheep of the family, eh? So, to what do I owe the doubtful pleasure of your visit?" She magicked up a chair and a cup of tea and sat down, all ears.

"Oh,"Rodolfo said, "tea. How nice."

"Yes, But I did not ask that. Suck an elf, you people really have a hard time answering a simple question, don't you? What the hell-"

The last bit was not planned, but as all light disappeared from her surroundings, Hilda did need a moment to express her surprise.

"We have her, Rodolfo!", screamed an ecstatic Ribaldo. He quickly wrapped a big rope around the sack that he had thrown over Hilda, immobilising her arms. He knew what she could do with a wand, and as long as her hands were tied, there was no way she could get to her that blasted thing. At least, that was what the gypsy broom-maker thought.

"Regina, Ronaldo, come out and get these brooms!", the man yelled.

Rodolfo, from his unpractical position, could only nod.

Inside the sack, Hilda cursed a few times and then fired off a handful of spells. In case of an emergency there was no time to hate Latin.

Several things then happened at roughly the same time. The two brooms that Hilda had been travelling with rose up and blocked the path for Regina and Ronaldo. The brooms did not go into attack mode yet, they just kept the two away from Ribaldo and the sacked witch.

Ribaldo was having problems of his own. The rope he was holding, the one that he had wrapped around Hilda, had turned into a thin, but very agile and offensive snake. It curled around his wrist, then slid up over his arm as it flowed away from Hilda. Hilda pushed away the sack and momentarily had her wand in her hands.

"You again!" She stared at the three that had left her house in a great hurry not too long ago.

"Yes. Us again, you ugly witch!", Regina yelled.

"I am NOT ugly," Hilda remarked truthfully. "And you are trespassing. And do you know what happens to trespassers here?"

Ribaldo was not very interested in her words. He was trying to get the snake off himself, but the harder he tried, the longer, thicker and more tenacious the serpent became. Rodolfo was almost relieved that he was only wrapped up in the chains of the house.

Ronaldo decided that it was his turn to be heroic. He grabbed the broom that was holding him back and tried to force it to the ground. The broom did not budge immediately. Only when Hilda had hissed a short spell, the broom came to life. The length of the broomstick slammed into Ronaldo's stomach, making the man attempt to wrap himself around the broom. Then the broom went up into the air ten feet.

"I suggest you do not move," Hilda advised the hero. "It's a nasty drop from up there." She turned to Regina. "And as for you..." A spell later, the broom that held Regina back shot up and plummeted back down. The end of the stick slipped down Regina's back, inside her dress and then drilled itself into the ground as the broom elongated itself to a length of twelve yards. Regina stood pinned to the ground, the bristles of the broom scraping her neck.

"What is it with you people? All that just because I did not want to get one of your brooms??" Hilda paced up and down, shaking her head, barely taking notice of the four people in their precarious positions. "I must have pissed off someone very powerful, if this is my reward."

The wicked witch stopped pacing and smiled. "You know, I have things to do that can't wait long, so I have to find something to do with you, and I think I just got the perfect idea..."

"Get this snake off me!", Ribaldo screamed all of a sudden. He had become more and more frantic and wild in trying to get the infernal animal from his arms, and as a result it had wrapped its long and rapidly fattening body around him. There was no way he could do anything else than fall over, which he did. Perfectly.

"Pathetic," Hilda commented. She took her wand and pointed at the chains.

Rodolfo grew pale.

"Don't worry. I just want a cage. A big one," Hilda failed to make the man feel better. Several seconds later, as English did not work as fast as Latin, a large cage appeared on the grass in front of the house. At the same time part of the chains disappeared, releasing Rodolfo and making him fall on the ground. The man could not move well, after having spent the night tied to the house. His moaning had improved though.

"Ordinaries. Nothing but trouble," Hilda sighed as she employed the wand to move the four invaders into the cage. Ribaldo's snake disappeared, and the broom that had held Regina in place peacefully settled in a spot near the house.

The cage was a remarkable contraption. It was quite large for four people, with a solid floor and bars that were at least two feet apart. Ribaldo and Regina looked at eachother as they had taken in the measurements of their prison and grinned. Getting out of this was child's play.

Hilda stepped back. "Oh, yes. You are of course free to escape if you want. I am not going to stop you from that." The wand didn't even move to make the cage move. Upwards. Until it was fifty feet over the grass.

The wicked witch turned and walked to her house, removed the chains, collected her brooms and went inside. She ignored the screams.

In the workshop of Johan the mirror-maker, the glass coffin had reached its completion. Happy and Bashful were very pleased with it, and so was Johan. For the mirror-maker there was an extra reason to be happy, which had the form of a leather pouch with raw gold in it. Happy had handed that to the man as payment, on the condition that Johan would also arrange transport of the glass coffin to their house.

Katrina was already out in the village to find a person with a good cart to bring the coffin away, as Johan was wiping the glass sides for a last time. "I hope you are pleased with the work," the man said to the dwarfs. It was an interesting thing to make but I still like mirrors better."

Happy and Bashful did not mind that. This part of the plan was done, and the result was amazing, and when Katrina came back with a willing person to take them and the coffin back to their homeland and their house, they were even more enthusiastic. Life with the humans had not been bad, but it was a lot different than life with the boys.

After the coffin had been wrapped in straw and carefully loaded onto the cart, the dwarfs were hoisted on board also. Katrina had packed them a good lunch and some bottles, for during the trip.

"Is this water?", Happy asked, glaring at the bottle.

"Not exactly," said Katrina as her husband Johan climbed down from the cart after a final inspection.

"Oh, you make me even more happy!", said Happy, blowing a kiss to the woman. "Hear that, Bash? We're going to get so smashed, you and me, the trip will be over before we know it."

"Uhuh," Bashful said, ogling the bottles.

"Carry on, driver," Happy said, waving at Johan and Katrina. The cart started to move as the mule pulled. They went through the streets of the village, and by the time they had left this paramount of civilisation, the first bottle was already open.

Hilda had put on her comfy stuff and sat in front of her mirror, the goldfish-cup in hand. She saw the two dwarfs ride out of the village. With a well-packed bulk. "Good boys. I hope they behaved themselves." You never knew with dwarfs, they could corrupt anyone if they set their mind to it.

In the castle things were calm but the atmosphere appeared to be weird, Hilda noticed. The king and queen, never very close, now seemed to be the best of mateys. The queen paraded around in her best clothes, the king was never far away to keep an eye on her...

The mean queen swallowed the next sigh. Why won't he just go and do what he does otherwise, she wondered. Walt had been after her all day already and she did not like that one bit.

Walt on the other hand had a lot of fun, seeing how his dear wife was trying to lose him, squirming and sighing without much luck. He had heard from several more independent sides how queeny had been spending her time and this was just too easy to get on her nerves.

He did feel bad about the slight inconvenience he had caused his servant, but hey, Walt was king, and if the king couldn't get things sheetwise with the queen, then why should his servant? Even Walt had to draw the line somewhere.

Around noon the queen was entirely fed up with Walt's little espionage affair and retreated to her room. She ordered a nice lunch to be delivered there and lay on her bed until it arrived, staring at the ceiling as a thousand thoughts ran through her head.

Lunch came and went. Boredom also came, but refused to go. The mean queen asked the despairing mirror once again who was the fairest in the land, but even that didn't make her feel good anymore.

Annoyed, she got up and walked out of her room, not caring if Walt was there or not. He wasn't. The queen rubbed her eyes and looked the long corridor up and down again, but the king was not there. She couldn't believe it. And she didn't. Indecisively she stood in front of the door to her chambers, not knowing if she should retreat inside again or to go out and about and find herself some fun as usual. She ended on the middle road. She went out for a walk but refrained from finding fun.

"Oy," Hilda said to her teacup. "I hope Walt is not putting this on too thick, otherwise the plan might still blow up. Would be a shame.