Hilda and Zelda

tried to scrape the bottom out of his teacup.

  "Andy is one of the witches that offered to help us with the witches meet this evening," Vivian said, shaking off the nasty feelings that suddenly tried to invade her mind.

  "Ah, good," Hilda said. "Not often you meet a male witch. Zelda will like that."

  This shook Andy into gear. "Uhm? Zelda? Viv, you mentioned that name too. I thought it was a joke." He surpassed himself in paleness.

  Vivian stared at the man, tapping the side of one of the trays. "You saw what she did, right? This is real. They are real."

  Andy's face wanted to droop from his skull. "Real, as in... real." He stated it out loud, for himself, to measure his reaction to it. It scared him.

  28. Witches Meeting (1)

  It took them a while to get Andy relaxed enough to hear what the plan was for the rest of the day. Hilda and William would fly around and try to locate Zelda. Any attempt to nab her was worth it. If they had no luck, then the witches meet was on. Vivian was already calling her friends to remind them about the evening event, but none of them had forgotten it.

  "Some are pretty nervous about it," she told Hilda and William after the calls.

  "It is not every day they go against a witch," Hilda understood, "so they should be nervous. But we'll be around. And we won't hesitate to break up the party when Zelda gets ideas."

  "That's good," said Andy. "Very good."

  With all things covered that were worth covering, Hilda and William started their flying around, in their continued search for Zelda. The downside of it was that they did not get beyond the searching. The finding proved to be impossible.

  -=-=-

  The day went through its afternoon and eventually the evening started spreading its dark cloak. In a part of a forest, just outside the town, torches used flames to bring a shivery light to the environment. Figures moved, in silence as much as possible. A few tables were placed just outside the area where the magical circle would be. Stones marked the places of the four directions. A man in a white robe fumbled with a compass he could hardly read because of the lack of light.

  "Still not sure that North is exactly in the North," Andy muttered as he put away the compass. "If we do this, we should do it right."

  "Calm down, Andy," said Tory as she walked past him. "It'll all be well. We have the two magical people on our side."

  Andy mumbled something nobody understood and paced off, almost setting his robe on fire as he moved too close to a torch.

  Vivian and Cornelia, who were to lead the meeting, shook their heads in unison. Perhaps inviting Andy had not been such a good idea after all. He looked like he was becoming a strategic point of failure.

  Jennifer was looking around, wondering if she could detect a trace of Hilda and William, but there was only darkness among the trees, a darkness that stayed just beyond the reach of the light that the flames cast. She shivered.

  "You okay, Jenn?" Vivian asked, who noticed the woman staring into the black.

  Jennifer was startled by that simple question; her thoughts had been drifting far away. "What? Oh. Yes. I'm fine." The fact that she rubbed her arms showed that she was not exactly fine, the fact that she again glanced over her shoulder made that even clearer.

  "We're a bit thin for a coven," Andy muttered.

  "Andy. Not again. We don't have more members, and we've done fine with all other rituals, so stop your yapping or we'll throw you out here and now."

  Andy kept his mouth shut. He knew she would do that without a further thought, and he did not like the idea of being thrown out of the group. First off, he liked being in the coven. And second, something he'd never admit to, he was scared shitless by the thought of having to go home alone in the dark with a crazy witch on the loose.

  Vivian reached into her pocket and felt the magically charged pebble. With that there, Hilda was only a rub away, she told herself. "Right. Shall we begin..."

  The people of the small coven took their places. Vivian started to chant and walked around the circle, to charge it and create the sacred space.

  "Suck an elf..." Hilda frowned as she saw the women and the man perform the start of the ritual. "What are they doing, William? Is that normal for here?"

  They were hovering several hunderd feet over the forest, at a distance that Hilda reckoned was safe.

  William had never before witnessed a Wiccan ritual before and shrugged. "Perhaps. I don't know. They are not my kind of people in that respect."

  Hilda grinned. "I know. I am your kind of people."

  "Do you sense Zelda around?"

  The witch shook her head. "I hope she shows. Would be a shame if this all was for empty dragon eggs."

  William pondered that reference, when Hilda sat up on her broom and seemed to listen carefully. "Magic," she then hissed. At that word, as they had agreed, they yanked their brooms up high, so Zelda could not detect Hilda's magical presence.

  On the ground, in the circle, the six people were drawing down the power of the moon, building their magical circle.

  High up in the sky, Hilda stared at the small lighted spot in the forest, her face showing confusion. "How can that be?", she muttered. As William asked what, she said: "I thought that Zelda was near when I sensed the magic. But from here I still feel it, and it is not the magic of a normal witch. Not even of a crazy normal witch like Zelda."

  "You think that these witches down there are bringing up that magic then?" William asked.

  "Well, it certainly isn't me. And if there's nothing else down there that can do it..."

  On the ground, the group was moving forward in the ritual. Their work was feeling so good and powerful that they seemed to forget why they were there. For that reason they did not see the pale woman standing among the trees. Her clothes and hair were black as the feather of ravens.

  Zelda had heard of the witches meeting. Vivian and her friends had done a great job on spreading the rumour through town. And now she was looking at the six people, amazed by the strange power they were bringing about. Her eyes, they flashed in the flickering light of the flames, were fixed on the small dagger that one of the women held. These witches worked in a strange way, she thought, but it was fascinating.

  The witch stepped from under the trees into the light and crossed the magical boundary, coming into the circle. Only then the group of six noticed her.

  Vivian's hand made the athame shake for a moment as she understood who their visitor was.

  The evil witch remained uncommonly silent. She held out her hand and made her wand appear. Then, in her other hand, a copy of Vivian's dagger appeared. "Oh," Zelda whispered, "I like this." She raised the knife in the same way Vivian did.

  Vivian swallowed hard and did her best to continue with the ritual, as she had agreed with the others. The presence of this strange woman in black however, with her strange and aggressive power blasting from her, made that agreement hard to keep. Her lines started to come out wrong and in a stutter. No one in the coven could blame Vivian for that; Andy was surprised that she actually managed to keep something going.

  At a certain point Vivian could not keep the ritual up anymore. Trusting that Hilda and William were around, she started to improvise while she hoped that the two would show up somewhere around a few seconds ago. She held her athame with the point down and turned to the visitor in black. "You are Griselda," Vivian stated, her voice strong and her eyes fixed on the witch.

  "How do you know that?" Zelda's voice was also strong, and cold as ice at the same time. It was a way of speaking she used when she was shocked. It made people uncertain. And she was shocked, as this witch woman was apparently able to pick a name from someone without introduction.

  Everyone in the circle had the feeling as if the skin on their arms wanted to hide somewhere out of view.

  "I am a witch," Vivian said, "and these people are witches too. We are a coven and we join power." And Hilda where the hell are you.

  "Y
ou join power?" Zelda frowned. Out of curiosity, slightly out of uncertainty as to how powerful this group was and also out of a form of courtesy, she also pointed her knife down.

  "Yes. You never do that?"

  Zelda hesitated for a moment. She did not want to tell this strange witch too much about herself, the more as she could not sense any magic coming from the woman opposite her. But then, she recalled, she could not sense magic from the blasted wizard that Grimhilda had with her, and he certainly had quite some. Caution was called for.

  "I work alone," the evil witch therefore said, avoiding a straight answer.

  "Not sure what's going on down there, William, but the energy that comes from there has changed. Perhaps you should go and have a look. I'll know when I have to come down," Hilda said to her wizard. "And remember-"

  "I know. No taking her on alone," William nodded. Then he dropped down to the trees and the lights. When he moved through the forest and reached the lights, he only needed seconds to take in the scene. Through the link they shared he called for Hilda.

  In the circle, from where most magic had gone now (except that of Zelda), something was going very wrong.

  29. Witches Meeting (2)

  Zelda had a spell on Andy. And not one from the song by Creedence Clearwater Revivial, but a very real one. He stood next to her, half a step behind her like a good and obedient servant would do.

  "So you say you are a real witch," the evil witch sneered, "but you don't practice magic like this? What kind