Hilda - The Challenge

over the plateau as it hit the granite side of the mountain made her squeeze her eyes. "Ouch. That must have hurt," she was certain.

  The wicked witch remained on her belly, her eyes shut, her nose in the dust and her protective layer of solid air over her until she was absolutely sure that this strange wagon was the last thing that would happen.

  As finally the sounds had gone back to the soft blowing of the wind, she removed the protection and got to her feet. She inspected herself. "Damn. Another tear in the skirt." She sighed. Then she looked at the cart. It was blue and silver. And huge. It stood proud on black wheels, in their centre what had been gleaming silver caps. Now they were mere caps, somehow hanging on.

  Hilda frowned. There had not been a horse in front of it. Then her eyes became large: she remembered where she had seen such a thing before! It had been at that weirdest of times when she had been sucked into that insane world, where people did not recognise a witch if she spit them in the eyes!

  "Impossible," she mumbled. Her wand appeared in her hand, as one could never be too careful with this kind of close encounters.

  As she approached the vehicle, she saw that there were indeed glass windows everywhere around it. None of them allowed a peek inside, as there was dust all over them, and not a square inch of glass had remained unscratched. The front of the thing was very warm. Hilda used her wand on it, to cool it down. Then she slowly reached out to the handle of the door and pulled it. The door did not move. She pulled harder. The door moved just as little.

  "Open up, you stupid thing," Hilda said, pointing the wand at the door. A few seconds later the door clicked out of its lock and slowly swung open. From inside the vehicle came a groaning, moaning sound. There was someone inside it.

  Hilda carefully pulled the door open, her wand aimed and ready.

  A man pushed himself up from the round thing he had been leaning against, moaning some more. Then he looked at Hilda.

  Hilda looked at him. He looked at Hilda.

  Two voices at the same time said: "You?!"

  4. And so we meet again

  The two gaped at each other for a while. Then Hilda asked: "How did you get here?"

  William, who examined his nose and cheeks for broken parts, replied: "I was hoping you could tell me that." As his face seemed umblemished, he undid his seatbelt and carefully climbed from his truck.

  The man looked around, to see where he had ended up. "Good grief, what happened here? Did I miss a stone-throwing contest of giants?"

  "No giants here. Not anymore anyway," Hilda enlightened William, still staring at him in disbelief. "Now tell me how you got here, and why?" That also was something Hilda wondered about.

  "How I got here..." William rubbed his face. "Hell if I know, Hilda. I really don't know. I was driving along in my truck" -he looked at the sad remains- "when all of a sudden the small crystal ball you left started singing. I can't call it anything else, it was singing. I tried to reach for it when suddenly there were loud sounds around me like explosions, lightning cracked all around the car and things went dark outside. Then all of a sudden I saw a faint light, drove on towards it and the closer I got, the faster the car went. I didn't have to a thing for that, it just drove itself. And then it shot out of that dark tunnel and I had to work the wheel like crazy to avoid those rocks back there." William sighed. "Could have saved me the trouble if you ask me."

  "I did not ask you about trouble," Hilda remarked. Then she recalled something. "Oh no. Don't tell me..."

  "Tell you what? I just told you-"

  "Shut up," Hilda invited him to be quiet. She turned and ran back to where her table had last been. "Crappedy crap, where is it!" Frantically she looked around for her own crystal ball. It did not show itself.

  The witch pulled out her wand as William scurried closer. "Come here, you."

  "Okay, I am already here," William said, raising his hands just to be on the safe side.

  Hilda whirled around and faced him. "Not you! Argh!" She shook her head and waved her wand. "Come here, ball!' She held out her hand, and a few seconds later the crystal ball freed itself from the rubble it had gotten buried under. It raised itself into the air, whizzed over to the witch and landed in her hand.

  William stared at the hand with the ball. "My god, you really are a witch."

  "Of course. What do you think made me disappear from your insane world? Breadcrumbs? Think again, William Connoley." Hilda tucked the crystal ball in her pocket and then used her wand to clean herself up and fixed the tear in her dress.

  "William, are you hurting?" Hilda found it necessary to ask him, as he was clearly confused and very unaware how he had gotten here, to the real world.

  William looked at the woman with the long grey hair. She had not changed a bit in all these years, he saw, where he had put on a few pounds and traded some of his brown hair for grey ones. "No, I think I'm fine." He looked at himself. His suit had taken a beating, but he was still reasonably presentable.

  To his surprise, as he checked his shoes, he saw a cupcake. He bent and picked it up. "Do these grow here?"

  Hilda quickly took it from his hand. "It's mine. I conjured them up." Then she saw his surprised and confused face again. "Sorry." She put the small cake back in his hand. "You can have it if you want."

  William smiled. "Thank you." Politely he picked a few small pieces of rock out of it and ate it. "Holy Bejeebus," he said, "these are good!"

  "I know. I take good care of myself," Hilda said, pride evident. "Uhm, what are you going to do now? I have a problem to handle."

  William scratched his head. "I am not really sure. Looks like the truck is not going anywhere soon, unless you have a Ford dealership around who can get here."

  Hilda stared at him blandly. "We have only regular things here. Cartmakers, wheelmakers, horsemen." She hoped she got through to him.

  A feeling of discomfort crawled over William. The car was a mess. He didn't even want to consider what had happened to the engine, but from the looks of the front of the car it had been shortened by a considerable number of inches.

  He took his phone and flipped it open. "No signal. Why had I already expected that..."

  "What magic is that?", asked Hilda, peeking at the shiny device. "Can you kill people with that?"

  William grinned. "You'd have to try very hard, Hilda." He put the phone away. "Maybe I ask stupid things, but can you fix the car for me?"

  Hilda looked at William as if he had asked her for her virginity. Then she looked at the car. "That."

  "Yes. That."

  Hilda walked over to the car and looked at it. "What does it do?"

  "You drive it. You sit behind the wheel, fire up the engine, shift gears, press the pedals and you go."

  The wicked witch was intrigued, and looked at what William pointed out. "This is an insane cart," she decided. "There are three pedals, and you only have two feet."

  "You don't press all of them at once."

  Hilda gave him a contemptuous look. "Insane. And what makes it go? There is no horse. No mule."

  "There's a big V 8 engine in the front," said William. He was not too technical, but he knew that.

  "Vee ate..." Hilda sampled it on her tongue. "What is vee ate?"

  The book salesman started to worry. This was not going well very quickly. "It is under there," he pointed, "but it is all cracked and wrung out of shape now. I can't open it."

  Hilda snorted. "Such a big man. Abscindo obductio."

  A blood-chilling sound came from the front of the smashed-up truck as the bonnet was torn away by an invisible hand. William became a whiter shade of pale as he saw and heard it happen.

  Hilda could not look into the engine compartment and cast a slightly accusing glance at the owner of the scrapheap. A flick of the wand made her float up. "So, that is vee ate. Doesn't look like much, William. I'd put my silver on a horse if I were you."

  "Does that mean you can't fix it?" The salesman felt all hope fleeting.

  "Yes. Sorry. I
have to have some idea of what it is in order to fix it. This is..." Hilda shrugged and shook her head. She was not happy with the situation, but she knew that she had to do something for William. He knew nothing and probably could do as much. She got her feet back on the ground, walked to the door of the truck and looked inside. She mumbled a few words and waited.

  Some metal parts inside the car made it clear that they did not like to be ripped out of shape, but that was not Hilda's concern. A few moments later she turned to William and held out her hand. "Here. Yours." She held the small crystal ball that she had taken from the Swarovsky shop in the man's nutty world. "Good to keep that with you, trust me."

  William accepted the precious little ball and with delight he saw that the tiny light inside it was still dancing. The ball had not even been scratched.

  Hilda looked at how he gazed at the light, how his face relaxed and his eyes started to shine as he saw the bouncing light. "You like it, don't you?"

  "Yes. I do. Very much. It is a precious reminder of our encounter. Our first encounter." William closed his fingers over the ball as he looked at the wicked witch. "When you had gone, I could hardly believe that you had been there, Hilda. But then I found this ball in the back of the old truck, and when I saw the dancing light, I knew it had to be true. And now you are here- I mean now I am here. You really haven't changed a bit."

  Hilda frowned. "Let's get down to business, William. We cannot stay here. My goal for coming here has been blown. Your... thing there is not going anywhere. I