enjoying the feeling.
After a while of snoozing, performed by both of them, Hilda slowly woke up for real. She smiled to herself, knowing that she had spent so much time close to William, and he had not noticed her slipping into his bed. Nor that she had first made the bed large enough for two people. She knew he was awake. "Good morning," she whispered.
As she had expected, he was not prepared for her to be awake already. It startled him a bit.
"Hey, good morning you too," William said, his voice not yet in agreement with the being awake part. "How nice a way to wake up like this."
"Yes," Hilda agreed. "I had to get up in the night, and I must have mistaken the door. But since I was here already, I decided to stay here." She enjoyed his grinning and turned her face towards his. "You're nice and warm."
"Glad to be of service, miss witch," William said as he looked at her. Her black eyes were the first thing he saw of her, and the happy smile on her face was the very next thing. "So, are you going to make a habit of this?"
She pulled a face. "Puh, as if I am going to tell you upfront. I don't think so." And then the happy smile was there again. "You'll find out in time."
"I can live with that," William said, pulling her closer to him for a moment.
"You are stronger than you look," the wicked witch commented, as she felt the pressure of his arm against her spine and ribs.
"I can say that of you also," William replied. "I have seen what you can do and endure, on that wicked broom of yours. I'm glad I did not have to ride shotgun yesterday, when you pulled that broom in the loop."
"Uhm... right... can you use words that make sense? You ride brooms or wagons, or horses or mules. What's a shotgun anyway? Oh, know what: don't even bother. It's far too early for that." She pushed herself up into a sitting position and studied William's face for a while, as he lay looking at her in return. Slowly, making sure he was fully aware what she was doing, she reached out and traced his face with a finger. She sensed his relaxed mood, his feeling good. She also sensed something deep down inside him, something she did not want to know about yet, so she withdrew quickly from that and focussed on the simple joy of touching his face.
William let her do what she did. The soft, light touch of her finger felt very nice; somehow it made him feel... special. Yes, that was the word.
After completing a second round over his face, during which he had closed his eyes, Hilda slowly let her finger slip away from William's cheek. "I'm going to make breakfast, William."
He opened one eye and watched her. "Need help with that?"
"No. But you can help eating it." Hilda got up, but with one knee still on the side of the bed, she stopped the getting up. She leaned over and lightly touched William's cheek with her lips.. Then, without a word, she left the room.
Hilda darted into her own room and quickly put on the red housecoat that reached down to her ankles. Then she stumbled down the stairs and headed into the dangerzone that was her kitchen.
As William came down also, he had given her some time alone, there was already a large pot of tea on the table. The cup with the goldfish was there; from it two faces stared at him as he approached the table and poured the tea.
"Do you like eggs?", Hilda yelled from the kitchen. The yelling was necessary as there were a lot of indeterminable sounds to overcome.
"I do, and what the hell are you doing in there? Do I have to come and rescue you?"
"No, everything is" -loud crash- "fine here. I just need to" -sound of a chicken being squeezed??- "get these eggs out."
William was debating with himself if he should have a peek into the kitchen, or if he should just trust things to be as she claimed they were. As a series of clashing sounds came from the kitchen, followed by "crappedy crap", he could not hold his curiosity.
Hilda had fired up the oven, to make some special bread. It was a recipe she had learnt from the same witch who had the thing with the fingers, but not everything that woman had been teaching was as silly as that. Some of the ingredients were happily popping and crackling behind the thick metal door.
There also was a particular kind of porridge she wanted to make. It was extremely good, once it was made, but the making itself usually was a problem as the porridge fought back once it reached a certain stage.
The eggs for the omelet she had in mind were the least of her problems. She simply magicked up a chicken and was ready to squeeze it a few times, making its eggs fall into a bowl. Before she got that far however, the halfway prepared porridge was trying to escape from its bowl. As a precaution Hilda had put a big lid on the bowl, but the porridge had started swaying back and forth so wildly that the bowl had started to move over the granite table and finally went over the edge, which accounted for the crash that William had heard.
The lid held, so Hilda did not worry about the bowl. It would scurry around the kitchen floor for a while longer, until its contents had gotten into the next stage which would solidify it and make it immobile. At least, that was the plan. As that part was out of her hands, she started to squeeze the magical chicken, dropping the eggs in the bowl. The chicken was not cooperative this morning... it had turned its eggs into stones, clanging into the bowl.
"Crappedy crap." That was something Hilda had not taken into account. And that was how the situation in the kitchen had come to be when William stood in the door opening, holding two cups of tea.
He frowned as he saw the bowl jolting over the floor, and his eyes almost popped out of their sockets as he saw the witch holding a chicken over a bowl with stones. And during all that, the continuous popping and banging of the bread being baked came out of the oven.
"I don't mean to be distrusting, but are you sure things are fine?"
"Yes, except for the eggs everything is going according to schedule. But it would be best" -she shook the chicken a few times, to convince it that proper eggs would be a really good idea now- "if you take the tea back inside. I'm a bit preoccupied now, as you may see. But really nice of you to think of some for me." She cast a quick smile at him, then addressed the chicken, promising it a very unpleasant end in a hot broth if it would remain so bloody stubborn.
William, his mouth slightly opened in stunned awe, saw six eggs fall out of the chicken. Onto the stones in the bowl. His mouth closed. His head shook a few times. Then he turned and walked away, back to the table. Perhaps the house had some new things to report.
Hilda had seen William leave. "Now see what you did," she scolded the chicken. "Now he thinks I'm an idiot in the kitchen." She grabbed her wand and threatened the animal. "One more of those tricks, and you'll be replaced."
The chicken looked at her with an air of invincibility and then disappeared from her hand.
Hilda looked at the eggs that were all over the stones. "Well, at least that's easy." A snip of the fingers later, the drippy matter of the eggs floated over the bowl, and she picked out the stones. Then the eggs fell back in, leaving her to pick out the shell. As she was working on that, she was humming a tune and thought how nice it was to be a real old fashioned cook. Not like these youngsters that abused magic for everything.
She picked up the wand, tapped the bowl, and voila, omelet. "That is how we do this," she nodded to herself, very satisfied. Then she picked up the runaway bowl. The porridge had gotten tired of running around the kitchen, so the lid came off, she sprinkled some raisins and apple chips over it and that was done also.
"Right then." She hardened her housecoat so it could take some impact. She put on the mittens and then went to the oven. It was time to take out the bread. "William, if you hear something loud, don't worry!", she yelled out, to reassure him. It had the adverse effect.
With her foot she kicked open the door to the oven and quickly reached inside, grabbing the tray with the bread. The fire in the oven retreated, as per plan. Some of the liberated ingredients, understanding that they now were free to roam, shot out of the bread, bouncing off the ceiling and walls for a fe
w seconds. They always did with this bread. They also sounded like firecrackers going off.
William appeared in the kitchen again as if he had been shot from a crossbow. "What are you-"
By that time, the noise was over. Hilda looked at him. "Something wrong?"
"Uhm, no apparently not. I thought, with the noise and all that..."
"I had told you there could be some noise, William. Everything's fine, really."
"I guess." He did however not leave his post until she was done cutting the bread and preparing two large plates with everything she had been making. It was better, he thought, to stay here just in case.
"Well, since you are here, you can help me carry this stuff," she said with a smile, pushing the plates into his hands.
18. Visits
At the table, William pointed at three arrows. "Your mail, right? Two from yesterday and one from this morning."
"Yesterday? I never saw those," Hilda frowned.
"Hardly surprising, considering the fact that you were nearly in shambles when we came back and on your bed only moments later.
Hilda nodded, chewing her food. She held up a hand and the three arrows jumped into it. Quickly she untied the small pieces of thread and looked at the message that were brought in by what William considered special delivery.
The first paper got crumpled into a ball and was then tossed into the fireplace. "The rat idiot now