by Paul Kater
buttoned up his coat.
The two people missed the rapid conversation through the link that Hilda and William shared. "Yes, that would be nice. Thank you for the invitation," William said. He got on his broom also.
"Okies, people, see you in a while then," Rebel said as she took Maurizio's hand. "Bye!" And then they were gone.
"Suck an elf!" Hilda stared at the empty spot. All eyes that had been on the two people witnessed the same emptiness. "Where did they go?" She shot up on her broom to scan the area, but there was no sign of Rebel or Maurizio.
William joined her in the air. "I don't think we will find them here, sweetwitch. I have the impression that Rebel has some kind of telekinetic ability from her future. Let's go to that ship and have a look."
Hilda muttered something about unintelligible talking and then they set course for the Green Lake and the Mimosa.
-=-=-
They landed on the ship. On deck the crew were busy setting up a large table with chairs, under the all-seeing eye of Maurizio. Rebel was nowhere to be seen.
"Ah, there you are," the captain smiled. He had his eye patch on his forehead again. The spot over his eye where it had been was still red. "Rebel will be joining us soon, she's getting dressed for dinner. Which reminds me that I should do something similar. If you will excuse me, please, my men will see to it that you are made comfortable." He bowed and then hurried off, disappearing through one of the doors in the stern.
The man they knew as Xander walked up to them. "Mr. and Mrs. Witch, would you please follow me?"
Hilda and William stared at the man. As all the others, he was not in the striped sailor shirt and plain dark pants, but he wore something that came quite close to a tuxedo. It just looked a lot more comfortable. They followed Xander to an area on deck.
"William. Pinch me. Am I drea- ouch, not so hard!" She slapped.
Six things hovered around an also hovering table that had glasses on it. The things looked like hollow pears that were cut open from top to bottom. Pears that looked like chairs. With cushions. In the glasses on the hovering table they saw black, purple and yellow liquids.
"Have a seat," Xander invited them, "and do have a glass before dinner. The yellow is wine, the purple is liqueur and the black is fruit juice."
"What kind of witch is Rebel?" Hilda demanded to know as she poked one of the floating chairs.
"She's not witch, madam."
"Then what makes these things fly?" the witch wanted to know.
"I am not sure," said Xander. "We picked these chairs up somewhere in the future and they appear to function on an internal anti-gravity field that does not affect anything but the chair itself."
"All that newfangled crap no one understands, and then they worry if a broom is safe," Hilda muttered.
William already sat in one of the chairs, and he looked quite happy with it. He had picked up a glass of the yellow wine.
Hilda stared at him after sitting down. "I want something purple," she said, pointing at the glasses. "But not that."
Xander was not able to help.
William suppressed a grin. He took a glass of black fruit juice, cast a small spell and handed the glass over to his witch. It now contained purple fruit juice.
Xander disappeared quietly, only to come back a few minutes later. "Would you please follow me to the table? Moro and Rebel are on their way also."
Maurizio and Rebel were already standing near the candlelit table, a drink in their hands. Rebel wore a skin-tight yellow dress that left a lot of shoulder uncovered. One false move, or so it looked, and she would treat everyone to a breastigious view. Maurizio looked amazing in his white suit, black shirt and silk white tie. His eye patch had gone and his wooden leg did not show. Polly the parrot did look a bit odd in this situation, though.
The whole group, also the sailors, sat down for dinner. There were plates and trays with all kinds of food. Some was even recognisable as such. Hilda and William kept an eye on what Maurizio would eat. He seemed most like them, so what he took should be safe. The conversation was light, the food good and the wine (and fruit juice) were excellent. Hilda did not dare to try the wine, not even watered down.
"Maurizio, do you mind telling me something?" Hilda asked.
"It would be my pleasure, Mrs. Witch," the captain said. "And please call me Moro. We are sharing food, this makes us friends."
"Sure. You can call me Hilda then. What's this strange thing you mean when someone asks 'doctor who' and you say 'no, not him'?"
Maurizio nodded. "Si, very understandable that you noticed. The reason is that we met him."
"Who?"
"Yes. Him. The Doctor."
"Doctor who?"
"Indeed."
Hilda looked at William. "Maybe we should leave now," she said, "it's getting late. I'm not sure what he's had to drink, but he had too much and that's not healthy." She whispered the latter part of her remark.
"But you haven't had dessert yet," Rebel said, "and we worked so hard on that. Would you please stay for dessert?"
The two magical people looked at each other, having a silent discussion. Hilda gave in. "Yes, we'll stay."
Rebel looked genuinely happy about that.
One of the sailors in suits took a small device from his pocket and pressed a few buttons. The plates with food sank into the table. Something automatic moved all the plates and cutlery to the centre of the table and also that disappeared. Half the candles that were on the table extinguished, as by invisible fingers.
Hilda felt highly uncomfortable. If this was not magic, then there was something ghostlike going on here. And everyone knew that most ghosts were bad news.
The centre of the table pushed up silvery bowls, one of them moved to every dinner guest.
Hilda and William stared. "I have never seen food that lights up," the wizard admitted.
"Crappedy crap, it moves," Hilda added, "I'm not eating things that aren't dead."
"It's dead, no need to worry," Rebel said, "it's just a chemical reaction between the air and the light emitting compound of the pudding. It never ceases to amaze me."
"William, these people are worse than you are in saying weird things," the witch proclaimed. The bright pudding stopped moving, though.
Carefully William and she watched how the others started eating the stuff. It had to be safe. Hilda picked up the spoon that lay next to the bowl and stabbed the pudding. It did not react. She sniffed a scoop. "Oh," she said with a surprised face, "it smells like lemon!"
Grins and chuckles came from several sides as the wizard and the witch now dared to eat the pudding.
"It tastes like raspberry," William decided.
"No. It's lemon," Hilda corrected him.
"Be quiet, witch, this is raspberry," he insisted. More chuckles followed. "Here, try it yourself."
Hilda tried some of his pudding. "See? Lemon. I told you."
William tried some of hers. "Raspberry." He looked at Rebel and Maurizio, who both were close to dying from held back laughter over their own bowls. "There's a trick here, isn't there?"
Rebel explained that the pudding would taste different for everyone. Hilda frowned at that, but after all the weird things she had seen on this ship, she did not want to comment on that.
"Thank you for everything, it was a very entertaining day," William said, when finally he and Hilda summoned their brooms. "We may come and see if you are still here in a few days."
"You are always welcome," said Moro. "Do come and visit again. You are very interesting people to speak with."
The two cats, who had remained invisible during dinner, came walking from a shadow and hopped onto the brooms. Some of the crew, who had assembled around the two magicals, grinned.
The brooms lifted off into the darkness and left the black ship behind.
6. Crystal
The next morning, over breakfast, Hilda sat muttering to herself. William had asked what was the matter, but he was just stared at and for the rest the witch ign
ored him.
Hilda did not feel good. She blamed something in the food on the ship and she was ready to make them pay for it. The nerve, making a proper witch feel bad. Things like that were not done and should be followed up in a severe way. Wearing her pink housecoat and purple slippers she shuffled to the couch and crashed onto it. The two cats jumped away just in time, making noises of discomfort.
After cleaning up the table, which was hardly any trouble for the wizard, he asked: "What's wrong, Hilda? Want me to switch on the magic mirror for you?" He sensed through their link that she was feeling bad.
"Hmmf. No. I'm fine." The staccato way that she said it was already proof that she was far from fine.
William sat down next to her and scooped her up. As she sat in his lap, he folded his arms around her and rested his cheek on her long grey curls.
"Nice," mumbled the witch. "I feel like crappedy crap, William, and it's not fair that you don't."
William held her and slowly let some magic do its work on her. He didn't have to tell her or ask her. She'd know and agree.
The witch relaxed as the nauseating feeling left her. "Good wizard. Much nicer," she said, leaning into him and not planning to move. "Good thing I have you around, you make me feel good. No need for a doctor."
"Speaking of doctor..." William started.
"I know. I know. But I don't want to. Not now. We'll go see if they're still there later, okay?"
The wizard nodded and kept his arms around her.
"Yes. That is a good wizard."
A moment of silence. Then Hilda sighed.
"What's the matter, witch?"
"I want to go to that ship and give the cook a piece of my mind for making me
