Hilda - The Challenge

like a sailor," William warned her.

  "Huh?"

  "Never mind."

  Later he carried her to bed. She was singing.

  "William...," the witch whispered, "wand..."

  He gave her his.

 

  She used it on her head. "Oh... that is better... I should not drink wine like that again. And it's all your fault, and you know that. Here..." She slapped the wand on his stomach.

  "Oompf. Thank you, dear." He made the wand vanish. "You have a remarkable singing voice, you know that?"

  "Oh, shush you. You make breakfast." She rolled on her side, turning her back to William. Her hair became a grey veil over her face and shoulders. "Let me know when it's done," she mumbled.

  William grinned soundlessly and got up. He went down, to the kitchen, and prepared a solid breakfast. They'd need it for the flight to Baba Yaga's territory. Then he came up to the bedroom, where Hilda was still curled up, on her side.

  He nodded and placed a well-aimed slap on her bottom.

  She shot up, staring at him. "What?!"

  William smiled. "Breakfast is ready. You wanted to know, right? You did not say how, so I improvised" Then he escaped from the room. A pillow flew through the room as the wicked witch yelled after him.

  Not much later Hilda came down and sat at the table. "You hit hard," she complained.

  "I'm sorry if I hurt you," William said.

  "You didn't. It was kind of different to wake up like that." She giggled. "But don't make a habit out of it, okay?"

  "Promise."

  Somewhat later they were outside, in travel clothes, brooms at hand. Hilda showed William how to conjure the chains around the house, but as he tried to make them appear, it did not work. He frowned and did not feel too good about that.

  "Don't worry, sweet man. This is a different kind of magic. You may not be ready for it yet."

  He watched how effortlessly she put the tremendous amount of iron around the house.

  "Ready. Come, we're off."

  They mounted their brooms and lifted to the skies, brooms turning into the direction of Baba Yaga's home.

  The flight was long, but compared to what they had done to harass Lamador it was a joyride. Once they had arrived, Babs had indeed tea waiting for them, and also their guestroom was prepared already.

  The wrinkled witch was still amazed about their plan, but screamed about the beauty of its boldness.

  "So the points you mention are gathered by 'getting to the other participant'. And how do you intend to 'get' to Lamador?", Baba Yaga asked.

  "Anything that is not lethal or damaging goes," explained William. "We just want to shake him up, unnerve him. Think of anything, buckets of water falling from trees to whacking him in the behind with a piece of wood. The sweetness of this all is that magic will not be allowed, and we will have people here that will watch the duel. Use magic and you lose."

  "That is the most insane kind of challenge I have ever heard of," said Babs, "a duel between magicals without using magic."

  "But Lamador will have to accept it," said Hilda. "If he refuses, then he can't expect me to show up for his challenge. He'd be dishonouring me."

  Babs nodded. "That is how it works, yes. Still, I wonder how you will get out of this. Knowing him, he will not give in that easy."

  "Well, either way around we will have to face him," William said. "He made the mistake of allowing me into his challenge with Hilda, knowing nothing about me, which is good. By not using magic, there is only a minimal risk that he will find out how I have changed."

  "You are devious, William." Baba Yaga handed the tray with cookies around again.

  Hilda clung to William's arm. "Isn't he sweet?"

  "I'll leave that decision up to you, Hilly baby. Looks like you made it already, so I am not going to argue with you. Now, what's the plan for today?"

  "We want to look around your forest," said Hilda who wanted to be in charge. "Get to know the area, decide on where we will stage the challenge, things like that."

  "Yes. That and have the advantage of knowing our way around," grinned William.

  Baba Yaga's cackling laughter bounced off the walls and shattered a window.

  After tea, they went out and got airborne. Baba Yaga took the lead and directed them to a rather remote part of the forest that she lived in.

  "Not many peope come here," she said. She could have saved herself the trouble of mentioning this. If ever there had been a more inhospitable piece of forest, Hilda nor William wanted to know about it. This place was so evil, dismal and gloomy that they both had the urge to turn around and go away. Fast.

  William shivered as he looked down at the dark, waving mass of branches. It felt to him as if they were trying to lure him down. It was spooky to see, there more as there was no wind.

 

  "You have... interesting places here, Babs," Hilda commented dryly. The view gave her the shivers. "How do you get to the floor?"

  "Using magic and brute force," the ugly witch explained. You have to slam an opening somewhere using magic and then throw yourself through it quickly. The trees here are sentient and will make it hard for you to land. It's not too bad once you get the trick down, though." Baba Yaga lowered her broom, staying just out of reach of the waving branches. With magic she created an opening somewhere that looked safe.

  Hilda and William saw how she simply dopped herself into the hole that seemed to suck her in and eat her up. They looked at each other.

  "You want to go first?", asked William. "I yield to seniority."

  "You are just a coward," Hilda snorted.

  "Yes, I admit to that. This place scares the willies out of me. But let's do this together. I'll see you down there."

  Hilda nodded. They lowered their brooms, summoned their wands to be on the safe side, and punched holes in the foliage. Once the openings appeared, they let themselves fall through, the way Baba Yaga had done. The trees tried to catch the two figures, but more from luck than wisdom on the side of the couple, the trees missed. Only inches from the forest floor, the brooms came to a halt.

  William tumbled from his broom, not prepared for the strange final of the maneuver. But he had made it.

  "Tired already?", asked their guide. "Come on, Willy, there are sights to see and places to discover."

  William got up but fell down again as he had not seen that a long twig had wrapped itself around one of his ankles already. "Holy Bejeebus, is this forest out to get us?", he grumbled as he kicked himself free.

  "Yes. Did you notice?"

  This message from Baba Yaga made him feel most unwelcome.

  "Mount the brooms, stay off the floor."

  "Uhm, Babsy baby, perhaps you missed the bit that we do not want to use magic in the challenge here?" Hilda however hopped onto her broom, as there were things trying to crawl up her legs.

  "No, I heard you, but you said 'no magic', not 'no flying a broom'." Baba Yaga looked at her girlfriend.

  William almost fell off his broom as he heard that. "Babs, you have been in the trade for a bit too long perhaps. How does one fly a broom without magic?"

 

  "Can I hit him?", Baba Yaga asked Hilda.

  "No. He's mine. Get one of your own."

  The Russian witch glared at William. "You are lucky I love this girl as my sister. Otherwise you'd be in trouble."

  47. Eye-quill coordination

  They completed their tour around the area that Baba Yaga had in mind. Most of it was less hostile than the part where they had landed, as in that it was possible to walk around there without the need to beat off twigs and shrubs all the time.

  Back in the hut with the chicken legs, Babs served more tea and more cookies. "So you are happy with the patch. That's good. I may be able to work out a bit of a preparatory spell for it while you are gone again. If Lamador can play things dirty, he's at the right address for more."

  "Oh? What are you planning then?" Hilda n
ibbled a cookie, stared at it and handed it to William. "Yours."

  Babs watched the strange exchange of the cookie, then snapped out of it. "Oh, just a little thingy. I think it would be helpful if the forest calms down a bit when one of you two is there. In a radius of, let's say, three feet?"

  Hilda's eyes sparkled blue. "You have the most ingenious ideas, Babs. I love you for that. Do you really think you can pull that off? It's quite an area."

  "I said I'd work on it, okay? What was wrong with that cookie?"

  "It was not sweet enough," Hilda said as she let her finger soar over the plate with cookies.

  "They're all the same, Hilly baby..."

  "And now they are the same sweet, Babsy baby..." The two witches laughed, William feeling a bit out of place at that moment.

  In front of him were an ink pot and a stack of paper. He had asked for that, as he wanted to write down a few things that he had thought of. He held the quill in his hand, grinning at the exchange between the two witches.

  "Willy, what's that?" Baba Yaga pointed a boney finger with a long finger nail at his hand.

  "Hand. Quill. Why?"

  "Why are hand and quill together?", the ugly witch asked.

  "Because I want to write, perhaps?" William had a suspicion what would come next.

  "And while you are magical, why do you write the ordinary way?"

  He carefully put down the quill. "Because that is the way I have been writing most of my life, Babs."

  "Yes, I see. But that life is behind you now, Willy, so grow up and write like a wizard. No touching the quill, no dipping the quill into the ink. It's easy. Even I can do that." Baba Yaga's laughter bounced around the hut again.

  Hilda proved to be little help to him too at that moment, as she turned her chair