witch. Then she hugged William. Rick remained silent as he stood scratching an elbow. "And we know how to get in touch if something goes wrong. We have the pebbles."
Hilda nodded. "Good witch. I like people with stamina." Then, together with William, she walked to the kitchen and from there to the small garden, where they collected their brooms.
Vivian stood in the doorway and Rick in front of the window as the two magical people lifted off and disappeared into the day that had nicely progressed into dusk.
As Vivian came back inside, she noticed that her husband was scratching himself all over. "Time for a hot bath, dear," she said with a benevolent smile. "You heard what Hilda said."
Rick stared at her. "Hot bath? I think I need a shrink."
27. Books
Hilda and William flew over the town, using the strangest route to get back to the room that Bert Bantrey had offered them. Hilda did not sense Zelda around, so she thought it safe to fly into the street and open the window to the room whilst on broom. The alternative was to use magic to open the front door of the shop, as Bert was not in, something which made William wonder a bit.
The room smelled dank.
"No one airs this place, it seems," Hilda muttered, throwing the window wide open so some fresh air could get inside.
William shook his head as he closed the door that led to the corridor. "There are loads of books in this building," he said, "and what you smell is mainly them."
"Suck an elf," Hilda said, "we have to do something about that, William."
"We can't. Bert wouldn't like that, Hilda, and also, books need to smell the way they do."
"You know nothing, do you?" Hilda shook her head. "Look. There." She pointed to a corner of the room, where most of the wallpaper had started its descent to the floor. The wall was wet through, which obviously was the reason for the wallpaper's untimely demise.
"Oh. That." William pulled up his wand and with a spell he dried the wall. Then he looked at the mass of crumpled paper that lay next to the bed. "Shouldn't be too big a problem," he commented to Hilda.
"Think so?" The tone in her voice made him look at her and then follow her gaze back to the wall, which was wet through again.
"Uhm. This might be a good time to take that back..."
The magical couple tried to find out where the moisture was coming from. This effort did not bring them anywhere, as there was no rain outside to supply the wall with water, nor did William find anything waterpipe-like that might have burst.
"I wonder if there's something somewhere else," the wizard said, scratching his head. "I certainly can't get to it from here." He opened the door, crossed the small corridor and started his way down the staircase. He stopped after five steps.
"What- Oh. Crappedy crap."
They stared at a large body of water that made going down further only inviting for seals or other water-dwellers.
"Bert will be angry," William dryly remarked. They went back up the stairs.
"So this is not really a place to stay for long," Hilda said. "Obviously Zelda either figured this one out already, or she has fun making houses here inhabitable."
As they sat down on the bed, William wondered if it would be possible to save Bert's books.
"We should find another place, William."
He nodded. "Yeah..."
"Do you have any ideas? This is your world..."
"Hmmm... The books... The... of course!" William's face showed something good. "We're going to move into the library."
"We're what? What gave you that idea?" Hilda frowned.
"The books."
"Do I have to start worrying about you now, William? For if so, you picked a really bad time for that."
"Yes, no, wait. I mean, I was thinking about the books down there, and then I thought of the library," William managed to be more confusing. "See? Books? Library? These things go together well."
"Whatever your reasoning is, William, let's just go there and see if we can keep dry feet." Hilda pointed to the door. From under it, slowly water started to flow into the room, in a slow but steady charge to their feet.
They took their brooms and headed out the window.
"So much for Bert's place," William muttered. He dropped down to the ground and stared into the bookstore. It was totally filled with water.
The building next door did not seem to suffer from the same moist affliction as the bookstore. Hilda peeked into the windows. "Something's not right in there either, William."
"What's wrong there?"
"Everything's upside down."
As the wizard joined her in peeking, she pointed at the ceiling, where all the furniture was, including the carpetting. The light hung... up from the floor. There was no disarray in the room, everything was just, literally, upside down.
"Zelda's been busy," William commented.
A strange splashing sound made them look to the side. Water was falling down from the room they had occupied only minutes before. It escaped through the window they had left opened.
"This is going too far," Hilda decided, drawing her wand. She muttered some Latin and waited. Nothing happened, unless more water coming down counted as something. "Crap. I hate Latin. Stop that water from coming down, and dry up that bookshop," she growled. The magic took a few seconds, as usual, but then, within as many seconds, the bookshop was water-free. The books lay on the floor like fish would not, as the books did not twitch.
"That's how we do it," the witch nodded. "And now we'd better get to that library, William. Zelda's bound to know that we were here."
They got onto their brooms and William set course for the library.
"So this is your idea of a safe place?" The voice of the witch was not as scornful as William knew it could be, but it was bad enough. Books were gently floating through the air, missing them sometimes by inches.
"It comes close, for now," William said. "They're docile, we can stand on the floor without drowning and the racks are not hanging from the ceiling."
In that light, Hilda had to agree, the library was not so bad after all. "So where in this flying mess are we going to sit and sleep?" Even the latter was a genuine concern, as some books almost scraped the floor.
They checked the upper levels of the library, but everywhere they were greeted by floating books. The attic of the building was not an option either. It was not overflowing with floating books; it was simply full.
"Maybe there's a cellar," William cheerfully said. "There has to be a reason why I thought of this place."
There was a cellar. It contained no floating books, nor was it full of things like the attic. Experienced as they were, they transformed some of the items into a bed and some other basic furniture. Hilda sat down on a chair. "The witch needs food, wizard..."
"Okay..." William looked around. "I doubt it is a smart thing to make a fire here, or a furnace. There's no way out for the smoke."
Hilda frowned, wand in hand. "That's easy, we can-"
"But we won't," William said. "I know it is easy to rebuild the building a bit, but I won't allow it."
"And why?" Hilda was thoroughly surprised by this blunt refusal.
"It is a library. It is about books here."
Hilda got up and looked at the wizard. She studied his face, her eyes slightly closed. Then she nodded. "Okay. I understand. We're not going to rebuild the library, William." She had suddenly understood how deeply books were embedded in William. "We'll find something to eat somewhere."
William seemed to relax despite the fact that he was not tensed at all. "Good. Yes."
Hilda smiled at him and pulled him into a kiss. "I understand, William. Don't worry."
They went outside and became airborne. Almost without thought they flew over to Vivian's and landed in the garden behind the house. Contrary to her normal behaviour, Hilda first looked in through the window.
"The grouch isn't there," she said and only then did she march in throug
h the kitchen. William was right behind her.
Vivian had seen the two land and got up to greet them. "You are back soon." She offered seats to her guests and stared at them as she heard the account of what had happened. As Vivian got up to make tea, there was a knock on the front door.
Hilda jumped up. "Is that your grouch?"
"What? Who? Oh, no, Rick's gone out for a while. It's either Andy or Gladys at the door. I'll get it." Vivian disappeared into the hall.
Hilda got up and went into the kitchen before William could stop her. The wizard had just gotten up when Vivian came back in with a young man, who turned out to be Andy.
"Where is- Oh my God!" Vivian reached for the table to stabilise herself.
Hilda came out of the kitchen, with two large trays floating in front of her. One had tea, cups, milk, sugar and cookies, and the other tray contained two plates with food. "I thought I'd lend a hand," the witch explained.
Andy's face was skeleton-envy pale. He saw the trays land on the table, and the two people in their strange outfits sit down and start eating as if they belonged here. "Who're they?" he managed to bring out.
Vivian arranged for everyone to get acquainted, then Andy sat down at the table too, as far away from the magical couple as he could. He did not care about being polite or social. Nor did Hilda and William.
Their host had gotten over the shock of the flying trays rather quickly. "I had not expected you back so soon."
William told her about the misfortune they had encountered with the places they intended to stay. This did not fill Vivian with a very comfortable feeling about her own residence.
Andy just stared as he