by Paul Kater
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..."
22. Wedding bells
"You are kidding me, girlfriend." Baba Yaga's voice rang with disbelief.
"No, ma'am," Hilda said, "he knocked me out cold. Not for long but still, it's a disgrace how they treat us witches these days."
"But knowing you, he didn't get away with that unscathed, I dare hope?" Baba Yaga's face shone with anticipation of what had to come.
"You know me, Babs. I did the nice and friendly thing, and just before they were heading out I gave him a taste of the rock hand. Kapow."
Baba Yaga's cackle reverberated through the room. "Subtle as ever, that's my Hilly."
"It's a gift," said Hilda. "So now I am cooking up some of the wedding preparations. And as I was working on those I thought that it would be the polite thing to invite you to the wedding."
"A wedding? Me? Hilda, that's been centuries ago."
"About time then, don't you think? Just put on your best slinky, or bring something cool and colourful, as you are into those things these days. They'll love it."
Baba Yaga still wasn't convinced. "You sure?"
"Hey, girlfriend, basically I am the one who got these two kids together, so they owe me one. Or two. You get yourself over there for the wedding. I don't take no for an answer."
"Right, then I'll give you a maybe, and no more discussion."
"Cool puppies. We'll talk again, Babs, I still have some things to attend to. Have a good one, kiddo!"
The light in the crystal ball faded.
"Sheesh, why is she always so worked up about public appearances," Hilda muttered.
Several days had gone by since that crystal-balled conversation. Wedding invitations had been sent out, received, RSVP'd and appreciated. Hilda had arranged for one to go to Baba Yaga also, and with some magical persuasion it made it there in time.
On Hilda's advice, the name of Snow-White had been left off the invitations, she was only referred to as the 'lovely bride to be'.
"There is no reason why we should alert dear stepmom that Snow-White is still alive," she had told the happy couple. "If she gets wind of that, she might go for the heavy artillery and level this entire castle in her urge to be the most pretty one."
After all that had happened, the couple could only agree.
Hilda had also had another meeting with Walt, in which she outlined the change of plan. Walt did not like that, but as things were the way they were, there was little he could do about it. Even a king of his size had to bend his crowned head circumstance. "Okay, okay," he had sighed, "I'll think of a nice wedding present." Then all of his face had lit up: "And I may be able to supply some entertainment also!"
Hilda had no idea what the man was talking about, but a smiling king was a useful king, she thought, so she had left him to work out the details of his plan.
The queen had eyed the invitation suspiciously. "Do you have any clue who the girl is?"
Walt had shook his head. "Doesn't say a name, does it? Louie and I aren't the fattest buddies around, so the card is a surprise for me too.
The mean queen glared at the king's rather bulging belly, but had to agree that Walt and Louie were not the closest of old chums.
And then came the big day. The day that Snow-White and prince Jordan, son of king Louie, were getting married.
All the streets in Louie's realm had been wiped clean, the entire kingdom was one flurry of colourful banners, flags and pictures of prince Jordan and a veiled bride, as no one had been informed about the name or origin of the princess that had gotten their prince. The official streetcleaning guild was already sighing as they beheld the amounts of confetti and other well-meant junk was going over the counters in the festivity-shops.
Guests from every kingdom around had shown up, all in their most festive and magnificent outfits. Many of the dresses were especially tailored for this wedding, as such occasions did not come by every year, due to a lack of princes and princesses falling in love enough to tie the knot.
Oh, there was no shortage of princes or princesses. The main problem was that they usually did not live closeby. And the ones who did live close to each other were not allowed to marry most of the time, as they were brothers and sisters. Of course, there were some well-guarded, hidden chronicles that mentioned slip-ups of this rule, but hardly anybody knew about those. This shows that hiding and guarding chronicles works quite well.
Weddings like these were considered royal matchmakers, as these happenings were the perfect stage for marriageable members of the jet-set to meet.
Hilda had dressed very abundantly for the day. She had put on a terrific crimson dress which ended very high above the knee. It also started very far below her shoulders. High-heeled shoes in the same shade of crimson, and ditto gloves upto her elbows. Crimson streaks in her hair completed her attire. For the occasion she had flown in on, what a surprise, a crimson broom.
"Uhm, Grimhilda?"
Hilda was leaning over a bit, peeking through the curtains that were present everywhere in the large hall where the marriage ceremony would take place. She looked back, seeing nobody, so she was about to return to taking inventory of the assembled guests, when the voice spoke again.
"Down here, Grimhilda."
She looked downwards and saw all seven dwarfs look up at her, obviously enjoying the view. As they had taken such good care of Snow-White, they had been invited to the party as well.
"Oh, it's you. Oh!!" Quickly she stood up straight and turned around to face the group. Without premeditation, her cheeks coloured red also, which clashed quite violently with the crimson of her clothes. "Hey guys, what can I do for you?" Unwillingly she held her hands over the lower part of her dress.
As the grins faded, Doc asked her where they should be when the bride and groom would enter the hall.
"Heck, I don't know. Just mingle and be careful that nobody steps on you. What do you do on weddings?"
"We get plastered," Happy said, looking happy at the prospect.
"You're in luck then. There is a large buffet with food and drinks planned for after the ceremony."
"After?" Severe disappointment.
"Sorry guys, you'll have to wait. Come, let's go in and find a good place to watch from." Hilda grabbed her crimson broom, went upwards on it and carefully maneuvered her way through the curtains. She did not notice the attempts of the dwarfs to strain their necks and eyes.
The ceremonial hall was huge as in very, very large. Its white marble floor was almost a mirror, so well-polished was it. All the way up to the ceiling were marble pillars and columns, looking as if they were made of white, grey and black swirls. From the regular entrance of the hall to the spot where the marriage was to take place, lay a large red carpet, meticulously cleaned. To each side there were nice comfortable chairs for all the guests, including seven smaller ones near the front; the dwarfs' seats.
Sunlight streamed in through all the windows. These were the windows on the east side as well as on the west side. This treat was a small addition to the festivities, courtesy of Baba Yaga, who was brilliant with all things weather.
Hilda parked her broom next to the one of Baba Yaga. They had top-row seats "Hey Babs."
The Russian witch looked her girlfriend up and down. "Hilly, good to see you. I already wondered - oh my, your dress..."
"Yes, cute colour isn't it? Oh, neat touch what you did to your broom." Hilda pointed at the end of Baba Yaga's broomstick that had a jolly white skull fixed to it. From each eyesocket hung a pink ribbon, a tiny pink femur dangling from it.
Babs grinned. "Yeah, thought I'd liven things up a bit as I am here anyway. His name was Roger, so I was told."
"Not now, girlfriend," Baba Yaga whispered as she covered Hilda's hand that had the wand ready to strike.
"Sowwy," Hilda mumbled as she made the wand disappear.
Below them, the ceremony began. Hilda wished they would hurry up. There was one moment she was waiting for, the one moment she had set all this up for.
The couple to be wedded came into the hall.
Hilda enjoyed the view of the couple and tried not to let it show.
The ceremony started.
After listening to the singingin and the talking for a while, Baba Yaga tapped Hilda on the arm. "Hilly. You're drooling."
Hilda wiped her mouth and said: "Am not."
"Are too."
Hilda frowned. "The kid looks pretty, doesn't she?" She looked down at Snow-White in the long white wedding dress, the veil still over her face, who was going through the endless list of vows she'd keep to, as Jordan had already done. The wicked witch sighed and got a dreamy look in her eyes, as well as a smile on her face.
"Grimhilda, stop that. I am worrying about you." Baba Yaga poked Hilda gently in the side with a bony finger.
"Oy, quiet up there," a male voice came from below.
"Shut up yourself," Hilda commented, snipping her fingers.
The man who had made the comment started to hick-up. He diverted his eyes and refrained from further remarks.
"That'll teach him," Hilda grumbled.
"That's my girl." Baba Yaga leaned back against the solidified air behind her broom and relaxed.
Hilda's moment came. Prince Jordan was only a breath away from lifting the veil, as the priest had told him to kiss the bride.
The veil went up.
Seconds later the mean queen went down.
Hilda chalked one up for herself and made 2 glasses of pink champagne appear, complete with a cherry in each glass. A toast with her best girlfriend was definitely in place.
