21. Change of plans

Hilda and the strange man who caught her fell. Their downfall was accompanied by the sound of even more glass crashing and it ended with an 'oompf', coming from the man who landed under Hilda and a "that must have hurt", from one of the dwarfs.

The next sounds were of someone gagging and coughing and then the polite question: "Can you please get off me?"

Hilda groaned. She sat up on the man's chest and slapped him in the face. "Now see what you did, stupid ignorant son of a bitch!"

"King," the man said as he warded off another slap.

"Hey, did someone hear me?" Snow-White started pounding at anything in her reach as there were several legs prodding in her belly.

Hilda looked back at the source of the voice. "Damn it." That was her mistake.

The man on the ground, the stupid ignorant son of a king, saw his chance and whacked Hilda against the chin, making her world spin around and then go black. Granted, it was one of her favourite colours, but not this way.

Throbbing head. Hilda kept her eyes closed. Throbbing head. She was certain she had not touched any mead, as that always had such an effect on her. Sore jaw. No, that was certainly not a known side-effect of mead. Slowly she reached for her face. It hurt, but it was still there.

"It looks like she is waking up," a young girl's voice said. "Hello, mrs Witch, are you okay?"

Eyes still closed, Hilda groaned again. "Stop - shaking - me..."

"Oops..."

The shaking went away.

"Grimhilda? Are you okay?" The voice of Doc, soft and caring, still was loud.

"My head hurts. My brain buzzes. I am lying on my back in the dirt. What gives you the idea that this has any resemblance to okay?" Hilda opened her eyes carefully and saw a big nose, small glasses on it and a dwarf's hat. "Are you leaning over me?"

"Yes," Doc nodded.

"Don't. Don't ever do that again. The sight of your nose is heartwrenching."

The big nose removed itself from view, and was replaced by the face of Snow-White, who kept a rather respectable distance. "Mrs Witch? Can we help you sit up?"

"Do I look like I need help?", Hilda asked. She hated this. She hated this very very much.

"Yes, you do."

"Urgh..." Hilda let several hands get her in an upright position. The world started swimming before her eyes for several nauseating moments in which it proved impossible for her to conjure up her wand. As soon as the world had decided on a state it wanted to stay in, her wand popped in her hand.

"Great gods," a male voice said as the wand appeared. "She is a real one!"

Hilda pointed the silver stick at herself, muttered something, and felt normal again.

She got up and stared at the man who sat just too close to Snow-White. "And who might you be? Yes, I am a real one. And you may find that I am the worst one you could have pissed off."

"My name is Jordan, honourable witch." He got up and made a professional bow. "I am the son of king Louie. He owns the property next to this kingdom. You may have heard of him, he's somewhat of an expert on jungles. Wrote a book about them too."

Snow-White had gotten up also and wrapped her arm around the prince. "Isn't he cute?"

The prince's natural reaction was to put an arm around the girl's shoulders, kiss her hair and whisper something in her ear that made her giggle.

"Hey, do you have any idea how long she hasn't washed that hair?", Hilda inquired. "You should be careful."

Jordan blushed. "I am sure that it is all fine, honourable witch."

At least, she thought, he knew how to address her. Hilda repressed her revulsion as she saw how Snow-White almost crawled into Jordan, displaying an amount of affection that was revolting.

"We have to talk." Hilda whipped up a set of chairs, large and small. Also a table with cups of tea. "Sit. Powwow now."

They all sat.

"Right. First thing: you messed up my plan big time, buster." Hilda's wand pointed at Jordan. "I had fabulous plans with that girl, and here you come and screw that all up."

Jordan wanted to say something, but the wand prevented that.

"Not yet. Second thing: I do not like it when people sock me in the jaw without proper introduction. Come to think of it, I don't like that when I know someone either."

Jordan tried to make his point clear by waving his hands, which was a waste of his energy, as Hilda ignored him.

"Third thing: we have to come up with something good and fast. The kid's Dad is in on the plan also, and now I have to get to him to let him know about the change in events. Thanks to you." The glare at Jordan was far from friendly, while Snow-White looked offended by being called a kid. "So. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Prince Jordan boggled as he pointed at his lips that did not want to part.

"Oh, right. Sorry."

A flip of the wand later, Jordan gasped for air.

"Good grief, don't exaggerate. Speak, boy." Hilda was becoming a bit impatient. Just a bit. The tip of the wand tapping on the table made that very clear.

"Well, honourable witch, I have fallen in love with Snow-White and I am taking her to my father's castle so we can get married."

"Really..."

"Yes," the prince said happily, "really."

"And does she have a say in this?" Hilda pointed her wand at Snow-White.

"Oh, yes, she does! I told her that I love her and that I want to marry her and she said okay."

"That simple, eh?" The happy couple showed Hilda that it was indeed that simple, by becoming one heart with two bodies, joined at the lips. For a long time. "Hey, alright, you made your point, back to business now."

A disappointed sigh rose up from the mouths of the dwarfs who would have loved to see where that kiss would lead.

"Looks like you two made up your minds." Hilda shook her head.

"Mrs Witch, can you tell us what you were planning?", Snow-White asked.

"Wow. She makes sense," Hilda acted surprised. "I want to get rid of your step-mother. She's no good, screws half the kingdom but not your Dad, and she has something that belongs to me."

"Oh. I never liked her much either," Snow-White admitted. "What can I do to help you?"

Talk about getting to the point, Hilda thought. "Well, I am thinking... maybe you can invite her to your wedding..."

Faces became question marks, and Hilda started talking to them, bent on making them exclamation points. That took a while, but in the end there was a general consensus that Hilda's quickly revised and changed plan was a good one.

The dwarfs got ready to go home. Before they left, Hilda warned them to take care of Sleepy. She did not reveal more, even though they asked her several times why she had said that.

"So you two lovebirds are off to the next kingdom, right?"

Prince Jordan nodded. "We're going to prepare the wedding as we agreed, and get the invitations out also. We'll have a blast."

Snow-White hugged Hilda. "Thank you for everything you did."

"Sure. Just leave out the soppy stuff next time, okay? I don't go for the huggy kissy stuff. Oh, wait... before you leave..." Hilda looked at prince Jordan. "One last thing... Manus saxeaus."

The wicked witch took a swing at the prince, her hand, changed to rock, hitting him square on the jaw. He went down like a brick. "Payback. He'll be around again soon, kid, and then you can go. He might experience some dizziness, but that will go away also. Just later."

Hilda changed her hand back, took her broom and winked at Snow-White. Then she took to the skies again.

The wicked witch landed on the dot. There was a nice green dot in front of the door, and she often tried to land on it, to see if she could still handle precision landing. This time it worked. "Cool," she said to herself and pulled the door... not open. "Now what?"

"Hilda, we need to talk."

"Not now, I have things to do." She stepped back and looked at her house. "Don't give me this. Not now. Well, not ever actually."

The house was not impressed. "You have been neglecting me. In the housing codex for witches it states clearly that the inhabitant of the house should take proper care of the building and its surroundings, including the area underground for at least six feet."

"Yeah, so? Have I burnt you down?"

"Not recently," the house had to admit.

"Did I bang nails in your walls to put up all kind of junk that nobody is interested in?"

"No, but-"

"Do you see any dirt here? Debris? Some sort of mess? Well? Well?" Hilda put her hands on her hips and looked challenging at her house.

"Uhm, no, the area is clean, I have to admit that."

"And look here..." Hilda drew her wand and lifted fifty square feet, five feet deep, out of the yard and had it hover several feet above the surface. "See? Nothing. All clean and sandy and worms, like new." She put the lump of ground back. "So, what are you whining about?"

"I need to be painted."

Hilda magicked up a chair and sat down on it. "You really are not giving up, are you? You go on and on about the paintjob, as if it is the best thing since magical wands and brooms."

"Yes. Because it is."

Hilda sighed. First this thing with the coffin. Then the idiot prince who punched her lights out. And now this. Would this day please end now?

The day did not.

"Okay... you win..." Hilda shook her head. This happened every so many hundred years and she still wasn't used to it.

She got up and drew her wand. "Right. What do we need..."

"Paint," said the house.

"Don't push it. I know that. Paint. Brushes. That sounds about right, right?"

"It does. Lots of paint."

"Quiet you, you sound like an addict. Any favourite colours?" She might as well do it right while she was going to do this.

"White. And red. And black."

"No purple? You always want white, red and black."

"I like white, red and black," the house commented, "and I hate purple. You always bring up purple. Have you ever heard of a purple witch-house?"

"No, sadly not, it would look ultimately cool though. Why don't you try? Just to be the first?", Hilda tried one more time.

"I am a conservative house. I do not do purple."

Hilda understood that this was not going anywhere. "Okay...", she sighed. Large buckets of paint, white, red and black appeared in front of the house. Also a small army of paintbrushes in all sizes materialised, resting peacefully and waiting for the real work.

"Paint." Hilda muttered. She shook her head and sat down again.

As always, it took a while for the English spell to take effect. Then the myriad of brushes flew up, plunged into the paint and went to work on the house at an astonishing speed. The roof was even painted, bright red, and it looked as new. The walls were really white again, the woodwork along the windows was shiny and red, the doors became seriously black. Gone were the smudges, the scratches and the bits of peeled paint. Magically, everything was repaired as the witchy paint covered spots and filled cracks, leaving the house as new within five minutes.

Hilda was picking her teeth with her wand as the paintjob came to an end. She got up, made the chair vanish and came up to the house. "So, happy now?"

"Yes!", said the house, "I feel brand new again. The door is open, but mind the paint, it could still be wet."

"Yeah, yeah, and I'll wake up with a headache the coming days because of the smell of it..."