Hilda the wicked witch (7 page)

From behind it, she saw that the men and the
carts with the flashing lights were still there. "Do you not trust
me?", she asked. "I told you I would leave this building. I
promised. I also said you could leave."

One of the officers stepped up to the fence,
looking at the person in denim, who held a broom. "Are you by
chance the same person with the broom that was in the park the
other day? The one that sat on the grass?"

Hilda stood proud. "That, indeed, was I."

"Maybe you should come with us, to the station.
We would like to run a few checks on you and find out what you did
to our partner. The poor guy was babbling about a woman with a
broom who flew off on it. If you were that woman, we'd really love
to know what you slipped him."

The tone of the man was turning into something
Hilda did not like, and she was usually a very good judge of things
like that. Also, she understood, she was attracting a lot of
attention. That was good in the real world, but in this one, odd
and inexplicable, it was not. Again she felt as if she had ended up
in a horrorstory.

"Come on, lady, you have nothing to fear," the
policeman tried to encourage Hilda.

"Indeed," the wicked witch agreed, "it is not I
who has something to fear." Her wand appeared. "Subverto plostrum."
Nothing happened. "Subvertos plostrum?"

There was silence. There was also wonder on the
faces of the policemen, who until then considerend themselves safe
on their side of the fence.

"I hate Latin..." Hilda shook her head and
mounted her broom. "Carts overturn! Cops stick to the floor!" Again
it took a few seconds, but the result was satisfying.

As if they were grabbed by giant hands, the
policecars were lifted up, turned over and then crashed onto the
ground. The policemen wanted to run away to get themselves to
safety, but they could by no means move their feet. They were
pinned to the earth they were standing on.

Hilda kicked herself free from the ground and
flew off. Screams of the policemen, stuck in place, followed her,
but only as long as she was in yelling range.

Far outside the town, Hilda landed her broom in
field of wheat. A simple snip of the fingers was enough to make
some open space for her to sit and study the papers again.

"The bookstore of the town you're in, Should
definitely make you win. Right. That's something to work with," she
said to herself, ignoring the noise that came from far away. "A
bookstore. The bookstore, even. If there is only one, that should
be quite easy to find."

Hilda looked up. The noise was becoming a
nuissance. She got to her feet and looked round. In the distance,
and coming closer, was a large loud monster. As so many things in
this unruly world, it was made of metal. A large cylinder,
consisting of many separate rods, was in front of it, rolling
slowly like the wheel on a watermill, chopping the wheat down. A
large yellow bulk was behind it, and in front of the bulk, over the
rotating cylinder, was what looked like a very small hut with glass
all around.

"No witch can concentrate with that," Hilda
muttered. She took her wand and slapped out a spell.
"Silencio."

The combine harvester obeyed promptly. Farmer
O'Toole frowned. "What the heck..." The ignition did not respond.
He looked over all the controls, switches and gauges, they all
checked out, the machine was in perfect condition. It just would
not start.

The radio announced that working crews were
still trying to get a group of motorcyclists out of the road where
they had been found.

Hilda sat down and looked at the second page,
the one that pretended to be a map. "Oh. Wait." She turned the page
around. "Trying to be funny, right?", she grumbled at the quill in
her bag. What had first resembled only some scratches and wobbles,
now looked like the view of a street. A street, Hilda noticed, that
she knew. It was the street where she had first met the miscreants,
in the bar where she had left the bouncer. It occurred to her that
there was indeed a bookstore in that street.

"Okay..." She got up as she heard a loud
clanging noise. "Now what..."

Farmer O'Toole had descended from the harvester
and opened his toolbox from where he had gotten a hammer. He
started pounding the engine, hoping it would somehow come back to
life again once it had been abused enough. "Shit, shit, shit, you
stupid thing," he yelled at the refusing block of metal.

"You got it," Hilda giggled, and wiggled her
nose.

With a mushy 'splot' the hammer, and also farmer
O'Toole's arm disappeared in the engine space. Where once had been
an engine, now there was a full and fresh load of still warm horse
droppings...

Shielded by an invisibility spell, Hilda landed
in the alleyway next to the bookstore. After releasing the shield
she walked into the bookstore, one particular line from the quill's
poem reverberating through her head. "The use of magic is
forbidden." It worried her, and that was a bad sign. Witches of her
standing never worried. This place was getting on her nerves.

She stared at the sharp sounding bell at the
door, that made Bert Bantrey's head rise up from behind a stack of
books. How easy would it be to make that bell go silent.

"Ah, dear lady, please excuse my appearance. One
moment please..." Bert scrambled to his feet. He grabbed hold of
another stack of books that was on the verge of collapsing, and
after steadying that part of his assets, he turned to Hilda again.
"Welcome to Bert Bantrey's Bookstore. I am Bert Bantrey. Please
state your wishes, and I will do my utmost to fullfill them." He
ended his little talk with a quick bow.

"A gentleman at last," Hilda smiled
benevolently. "I thought this world had seen no civilisation, but
it appears I have to revise my opinion about that." She nodded
regally, something that looked quite odd with her denim attire, the
red and black bag slung across her shoulders and the broom in her
hand. And yet, it suited her.

Bert was accustomed to strange customers, even
people calling themselves witches, asking for grimoires, books of
shadows and other impossible things. This was the prerogative of
owning the only bookstore in town and its surroundings. "So, with
what can I be of assistance?" There was something enticing about
this woman that fed his male feelings, his urges. It was something
that not many women managed to evoke.

"I am looking for a man who has a book," Hilda
said.

"For a book, dear lady, I am your man," Bert
smiled, waving his arm around the store. "And I own many of them.
Therefore I assume that makes me a whole lot of man." He wiggled
his eyebrows at her.

The gesture was lost on the witch. "I am looking
for..." - Hilda rummaged in her bag and took the papers -
"...William Connoley?"

Bert's hopes of capturing this lady's heart
shattered on the floor, in front of his feet. He could almost hear
the shards clatter. Bert however was not one to be thrown out of
the ring that easily. "Dear lady, I am convinced that you and I can
come to an agreement. Whatever it is that my friend William has, I
have it too."

Hilda could smell the stream of stale pheromones
that flowed from the man. It almost made her gag. "There must be
something that William Connoley has that you do not have," she
said. "My paper states that."

"Hah, dear lady," Bert said, leisurely stepping
towards her. "William and I go back a long time. I know what he has
for sale, as he obtains most of his merchandise from my store. He
is, how could I put it, almost my personal travelling
sales-representative."

Hilda closed her eyes and tried to keep her
calm. Magic is not allowed. Magic is not allowed. The words spooked
her. This, she knew, was going to be very difficult. "I have to
know where William Connoley is." She spoke the words slowly and
clearly, as friendly as she could. Without magic, she had to stay
in control and put up with any misfit that came on her path, in the
annoying way that ordinaries did everywhere.

"Can I first offer you some tea? Or coffee,
perhaps?" Without knowing it, Bert had spoken a magical word.

"Coffee. Yes. Coffee is good." Hilda was
grateful for this break. "Do you-", she started, but did not ask
about the extra Arabica. This man would not know, he was not
magical.

"Do I what, dear lady?", Bert asked, his charm
offensives blasting and his most dazzling smile on his face.

"Oh. No. Nothing. Just... coffee." Hilda
emphasised her wish by nodding a few times and repressed the
revulsion.

"Very well. Please, browse around, make yourself
comfortable on the sofa if you want. I'll be back soon. With the...
coffee..." He spoke the last word as if he tried to turn the sound
into an aphrodisiac.

To Hilda it was the ultimate turn-off, something
that made her want to scream and turn the man into a toad and flee
from this place. Instead, she just nodded and turned to the long
lines of books. Instinctively she located the books about magic.
Randomly she took one and looked through it, after placing her
broom against a rack.

Bert came back with two cups of instant brew,
and his heart jumped for joy to see the woman still standing there,
obviously entertained by a book, as he heard her grin and giggle.
"Dear lady," he said, in a voice as husky as he could muster, "your
servant." He had intended to add: "And your coffee", but the first
two words startled Hilda, and that was the start of bad news for
Bert. As he said "your servant", she had already closed the book
and was turning towards the man behind her. Quickly. With the book
at face-height.

The impact of the big, bound book against Bert's
skull was shocking. He uttered a muffled "oompf". His head turned
away from Hilda, his body following suite. The two cups of instant
coffee suddenly became either very hot or very heavy, because he
dropped them to the floor.

"No magic," Hilda told the unconscious man,
whose body was obeying the laws of gravity. She looked at the
grimoire that had had this dramatic effect. "At least I assume that
hitting someone with a book about what they call magic here was not
included in that line, otherwise I am majestically screwed."

Carefully she stepped over the body that lay in
a heap on the floor and found her way to the small kitchen annex
toilet. Locating a bucket was not difficult, but filling it became
a problem. There was no pump or well inside the small space, and
through the tiny dirty window she could not see anything that
resembled one either.

"The use of magic is forbidden, or from the town
you will be ridden." The words laughed at her, taunted her. She
could not fill the bucket using magic, nor with anything she
recognised. Drawing on all her willpower, she walked back to the
store and looked at the motionless body. "And I thought you were a
gentleman. Goes to show."

A very unhappy Hilda paced the bookstore. She
had gone to the door that had the "Open" sign shown to this crazy
world and turned that around, decreeing that the store was
"Closed". At least that would give her some peace and time to
think. Waiting until the man regained consciousness was not her
preferred option. He might not take the course of past events very
well. Hilda could not be bothered by that fact, but she still
needed to know where William Connoley was, and this was the place
where she could find out. Provided the quill had not played a trick
on her. Bert, after being treated to a taste of solid magic, was
probably not eager to help her out.

In the kitchen Hilda had found a packet of
cookies covered in chocolate, and she was working on reducing the
contents, when suddenly an eerie sound rang through the store. The
wicked witch ducked behind a stack of books, wishing that the sound
would go away. Her wish was not granted, the sound persisted. It
also did not move through the store, she noticed, so she got up and
went around to locate the source of this noise and silence it once
and for always. A large book she had picked up would serve her well
in that, she hoped.

The phone rang and blinked. That is how Hilda
found it on the counter. "Magic is not allowed, eh?", she snorted.
"Really."

She put down the book and examined the device
with its noise and its blinking light. There was a small window on
it, and there was a text on it. William Connoley. Hilda stumbled
backwards, pressing herself against the shelves of books, holding a
hand over her heart. This demonic device bore the name of the man
she needed to talk to! She then saw the small blinking button that
read 'talk'.

Hilda looked at the device and said: "Talk!"

It didn't.

"Talk!!"

It remained unimpressed.

Boldly she stabbed at the flashing button.
"Talk, you abomination!"

"Bert? Are you there? It took you long enough,
dear friend!"

Hilda stared at the demon device and wanted to
damage the quill. Magic is not allowed my ass, she thought. "Who
are you, demon?", she said, making the wand appear and pointing it
at the telephone.

"Hello? Who is that? Is Bert there?", the device
spoke.

Hilda glanced at the body, whose mind was still
unavailable. "Bert is... indisposed."

"What? You mean he is sick? Too bad for him. I
assume you are watching the shop for him then. I am William
Connoley. Bert's friend."

Hilda poked the demon device with her wand. "You
are his friend?" She tried to connect two dots that were just too
far apart. She had been convinced that William Connoley was an
ordinary, a human, not a small demonic device that flashed lights
and spoke with a feeble voice. "I don't understand. He talked like
you were far away, and you are lying here on the table."

William needed some time to let this sink in.
First there was the surprise of hearing a woman answering the
telephone. A woman! In Bert's shop! And then there was the added
sensation of hearing her speak as if she was skyhigh, on some drug.
Bert should get rid of his habit to attract weirdos, but for now
he'd have to do with this person. He decided to play along.