by Paul Kater
"Shame, really, isn't it?", Doc said, his hat in hand.
"Yeah, she was so good for us," Happy said, his hat in hand.
"I think we could put another pillow between her legs," Dopey said, his hat in Doc's hand.
"Hufff...", Sneezy said, his hat in hand and a finger under his nose.
"I think she liked me," Bashful said, his hat in hand and red in the face.
"Bunch of whimps," Grumpy said, his hat in hand. "I sure hope that witch knows what she's doing."
The witch in question was staring at a green flame that was walking over her table, leaving a green trail of goo behind it. "This is wrong again," Hilda muttered, as she slapped the flame into oblivion and took the rag to wipe off the green smear before it got too attached to the table. "What the hell am I doing?"
The rag was remarkably green already, from all the attempts she had made to get this right.
Hilda fell into her chair again and looked at the red and the yellow flames that were happily walking around the jars they lived in, without leaving traces. "Damn it, I can't stand this. I get this fantastic idea to annoy people that use roads and pathways, and then the green light keeps dribbling all over the place. That's not going to cut the mustard."
The two goldfish on her cup sat silently in their place.
"What are you looking at?", Hilda muttered and turned the cup around.
Carefully two fishfaces crept around the cup, trying to stay out of sight and yet keep up with the happenings. Their efforts were in vain, because Hilda extinguished the two flames that were not drooping and went to her mirror again.
She giggled. "Fire-light, sun-light and mustard-light. Shiny. Already got the names done." Then she paid attention to the imagery the mirror had to show. Silently she praised Johan's craftsmanship in making mirrors. His products with the best. Simply the best.
"Right. First let's see how the boys are doing with the coffin." She saw Johan working on mirrors. "Ah, good. The midgets left. Oh, bad Hilda, calling your co-conspirators midgets. Oh well, they're small enough for that."
The two fish on the cup looked at each other and frowned. "No man for far too long," they silently agreed.
Hilda switched channels on her mirror and checked the proceedings at the dwarfish house. She saw the six- (six? Oh, of course. The sleepyhead was missing.) -stand around the glass coffin, hats in hand. "Awwhhh... so sweet... they really admired her." Hilda's eyes went all dreamy and a smile was on her face, wondering how the hell it got there. "I wonder if they'd do that for me too..." Her wand was in her hand and her clothes changed to pink, with tiny yellow brooms and blue piglets. The tiny off detail was that each piglet had a broom up its arse.
One of the goldfish tried to cover its eyes. The other wished it could reach its ears. They were out of luck.
"She looks really cute like that," Hilda commented as she inspected the sleeping princess in the glass box. "Maybe I should go for black hair too. And the- nah, no red lips. Come on, Hilda, that's not you! But still, the black hair looks spiffy. But perhaps only with the pale skin, and I am not going there. Been stupid once and I am definitely staying away from that."
Hilda went on and on, until the dwarfs had put the cover on the coffin and carried it out of the room. And during all that time, the fish were trapped on the teacup...
Walt sat outside the castle, enjoying a very mundane and well-chilled beer. He stretched his royal legs and rested them on the seat near him, while taking a sip of the golden liquid. He found that he deserved this. He had been running around after the queen a good deal of the day, and such strain should be rewarded. Without overdoing it of course, so he had promised himself that he would only have two beers.
Little did he know that at that time the dwarfs were lifting his little girl up and depositing her into a glass coffin. He was unaware of their grief and Sleepy's snoring. Unaware of the goldfish that wanted to get away from the cup and Hilda's fluffy-bunny babbling.
The thing that worried him was the rapidly receding level of beer in his pitcher, and that the first pitcher was already on the ground, empty. Only two beers. Walt frowned and tried to find a way to get around his self-imposed limit...
The mean queen sat in her room and stared at the mirror. She did not want to ask, did not need to ask. She wanted and needed something else, but she was afraid to go out and get it. Walt was a seriously inhibiting factor in her life all of a sudden, and she did not like that one bit. She stared at the door of her hidden room. Perhaps she had to go in and think of something queenly constructive that would also be kingly destructive...
20. Onwards and upwards
Hilda had returned the mirror to its reflective state and sat thinking for a while. Things were all going according to plan, more or less. Walt had done what he could. She could not expect a flabby king to turn into a skilled spy within the timeframe of a talk.
The mean queen was getting nervous, and that was good. The coffin was done, and that was good too. She got up for the next step in her plan and caught her image in the mirror. Pink. Piglets. Brooms in strange places. "Oh... I should change that."
A fair amount of minutes later she was dressed as the witch she was. The burgundy dress always looked good on her. She had also put on a long black cloak made of velvet, flowing around her like a liquid in slow motion. She admired herself in the mirror for a while and had the feeling that something was missing. Her necklace was there, so that was not the problem.
The wicked witch wiggled her eyebrows. "Shouldn't be a biggy..."
Dressed up as she wanted to appear, she got her broom and walked out. She turned at looked at her house. "Hey, you awake?"
"Do I ever sleep?", the house asked.
"Right. Well, I saw Baba Yaga's hut and that is still talking to her in the normal way. Unlike you. And the hut is not painted at all, so there." Hilda folded her arms over her chest, the broom floating next to her.
"That is the difference between a hut and a house," the house argued. "Magical huts are hardly ever painted, so feel free to change me into one if you want. Huts get nice decorations at the Solstices, so I would not mind being a hut."
"Smart-ass," Hilda spew and turned around to walk off.
"Smart-house, you mean."
"Oh, shut up!"
"Bad loser," the house threw at her.
Hilda ignored it, trying to carry her defeat with dignity. She walked over to the floating cage, mounted her broom and went up.
The four people were lying sprawled over the bottom of their elevated prison.
"Good morning, guys. Had a good time so far?"
At the sound of Hilda's voice, four heads rose. The people attached to them felt wretched. "Let us off this thing," Ribaldo demanded. "We are all seasick. This cage wobbles worse than a boat!"
Hilda giggled. This was a bonus she had not anticipated. Good to know, though. "You know, guys, I am in a splendid mood at the moment, so I am going to be very gentle with you and let you go. See you downstairs!"
She dropped to the ground like a brick and made a soft landing. There she made the cage come down slowly and made sure it did not make a soft landing. The fourfold 'oompf' was highly satisfying. "Now, do me a favour, guys. Go. Go away. Far away. And do not come back. Ever."
The four broom-making gyspies did not fall on deaf ears. They stumbled over each other in their haste to get away from this crazy bitch witch, and soon they had gone from view, as they ran into the forest, to where they had left their wagon.
"Nice job, Hilda," she praised herself. "Nothing overdone. Very slick." Then she took her wand and turned the cage back into chains that then disappeared.
She turned to the house. "I'll be back. We'll talk later."
"I'll be here," the house said as she took off, "I'm not going anywhere."
"Welcome to the club," one of the fish on the cup said.
Somewhere in the forest, a man got off his horse. "Oh, man," he said as he started to take the pressure off his bladder. The man grinned
at the horse. "I hope you are not in a hurry, this is going to take a while."
The horse couldn't care less.
The six dwarfs had left Sleepy where he was. They had carried the glass coffin out of their house and were on their way to a very nice clearing in the forest, close to their house. They knew that Snow-White loved that spot.
"I didn't know she was that heavy," Grumpy said. He felt that he had put this very nicely, considering his mood.
"Shut up," the others said.
They walked on, maneuvering the coffin among the trees and avoiding treestumps that invited the dwarfs to fall over them.
"Are we there yet?", Grumpy asked. He was in the back so he could not see clearly where they were.
"Shut up," the others said.
"Hey, I'm only asking!" Grumpy felt bad about their remark: he had not used any foul language.
Finally the six reached the nice spot. They put the coffin down and looked around if there was a better place for it to stand.
"This is fine with me," Grumpy said, sweat on his face.
"Perhaps it is better over there, near the oak," Happy pointed.
"No way, as soon as it starts dropping its acorns, do you know what that will do to the glass cover? Are you up for fixing that?", Doc said.
"Then how about there?", Sneezy said.
"Ants. Too many ants."
Each dwarf had another idea for the best spot. In the end they agreed that the place where the coffin was now would be the best place.
"Someone for beer?", Dopey asked, having one of his superior moments.
They all voted in favour, so they sent him on his way and urged him to hurry back.
"So what are we going to do while he's on his way?", asked Bashful.
"Hope he's not losing his friggin' way like last time?", Grumpy shared his sentiments.
Doc shook his head. "Boys, boys, remember why we are together, okay? After all, this is still Snow-White who is lying in this coffin, so a little respect would be called for."
"Perhaps we should sing our song for her again," Happy offered. "She loved to her us sing."
The others could only agree, so the five of them sang their "hi ho, hi ho" a few times. After three times however they got fed up with the lyrics. Happy tried to brighten things up a bit by adding some lines that were not exactly appropriate so Doc slapped him on the head. That settled the singing.
Dopey returned at the coffin space, to find his mates sitting in the grass around the coffin, all looking rather miffed. "Hey guys, look what I found!"
Hilda had landed her broom in front of the dwarfish house. "Yo, people," she said as she rapped on the door. The door swung open slowly. Hilda drew her wand, as this was not standard operational procedure. The door should be closed. Dwarfs were reliable with that.
A rasping sound came to the wicked witch from inside the house, so with her wand ready to strike, she entered the room.
"Crap. I should have known." The wicked witch put her wand away and walked over to the bed where Sleepy was snoring his dwarfish heart out. "He's getting worse every week, it seems," Hilda muttered.
A short spell later, the bed rose up a bit and tilted sideways. With a solid thud Sleepy hit the hardwood floor. The snoring stopped.
"Don't tell me...", Hilda started, but nobody had to tell her.
"Ouch." Sleepy sat up. "Who the- oh, it's you." He cleanly ignored his floating bed. "Whassup?"
"Where's the coffin? And Snow-White?"
Sleepy scratched his head. "Gosh, dunno really. I just nodded off for a second..." He gazed around the room, finding his mates gone. "Looks like it's gone, eh?" He got up and looked around again. "Yup, it's gone. And it took the boys with it."
Hilda closed her eyes, breathed in and breathed out. "I could swear I am hearing Dopey..."
"Nope, he's gone too," Sleepy informed the wicked witch.
"Shut up, you fool! I love it when a plan comes together, but this is seriously getting out of hand." Hilda was tempted to do something very nasty to Sleepy. And why not, she thought. She grabbed her wand, pointed it at Sleepy and said something in Latin.
"Uhm?" Sleepy frowned. "Am I supposed to be scared now? Or green and hop around the room?"
"Do what you like. I am going to find these little twats and see what they're upto." Hilda turned and walked out of the house. Lacking witchful attention, Sleepy's bed banged onto the floor again.
"Yikes, I wonder what bug crawled up her ass," Sleepy said as he lovingly eyed his bed. He sighed as he lay down, a blissful smile all over his face.
He stared at the ceiling.
Several minutes later he still stared at the ceiling. His blissful smile had faded. "Don't tell me...", he moaned. But no one had to tell him. Hilda had taken his sleep away.
The wicked witch was by then nearing the open space where the dwarfs were sipping beer and chatting away a mile a minute. Her wand beat any satnav system, although she had no idea about that. She had heard the voices already and progressed as fast as she could, wanting to see what was happening and perform damage control were needed.
The view she was treated to made her stop before she was completely out of the woodwork, in this case the bushes that were between her and the others.
The dwarfs were sitting around near the coffin. There was a horse in the open area, and that was definitely not something the dwarfs owned.
But the biggest shock was that a MAN was kneeling next to the coffin, and he was taking the lid off! As he was holding the glass cover, Hilda burts into the space. "Don't!! Get away from there!"
At that point things went very fast, despite that here they are described in slow-motion.
Some of the dwarfs jumped to their feet and stared at the witch that came from the bushes, waving her broom and wand.
The man dropped the lid. That shattered in the proverbial million pieces. He too got up and turned to see what was causing all the racket behind his back.
Hilda cried out as she saw the top of the coffin break into shards and lashed out to the idiot man with her broom. He was getting in the way of her plan, and that was unpalatable.
One of the dwarfs (it was Bashful, although this information is rather irrelevant) yelled out: "No!"
This caused Hilda to look where the sound came from. Because of that she did not see the large twig in front of her feet that caught her shoe. Hilda fell forward.
The idiot man, standing close to the glass and now also open coffin, saw the woman in the burgundy dress lose her balance, waving her arms. Galantly he held out his arms to catch her whilst at the same time trying to avoid being whacked by the broom that was now in free flight as Hilda had let go of it.
Hilda shrieked as she saw the man come closer, even while he did not move. She did not want to touch him, but gravity and her falling made her wishes subordinate to reality.
Several dwarfs closed or covered their eyes or ears, as they saw impending doom come up. It was unavoidable.
Hilda bumped into the man.
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 col
ours, 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."
