by Paul Kater
Hilda explained that they had been training Esmee and that the short-term effect of that could be slightly disconcerting for the children.
"Oh, I see!" Snow White smiled. "Thank you for being so considerate, I really appreciate that. If there is anything you need, just let us know, there will be a servant near at all times."
Hilda thanked the princess. "We'll be fine, I am sure. Just one request: if you can arrange that nobody comes in the gardens this night, that would be good. We're patrolling there tonight, to see if we can catch whatever creature it is that goes for your chickens. We wouldn't want to throw the wrong person into our cage."
Snow White promised she would warn everyone. "Yes. The cage. My father in law asked about that. I assumed it was yours, as sixteen people tried to move it and it would not budge. Do you think it will be there for long? It is somewhat degrading the view of the garden."
"It's ugly as a troll's butt," Baba Yaga agreed, "but we need it. I'm sure Hilly and Willy will remove it as soon as we're done with it."
Snow White frowned at the words, but nodded anyway. "Could you tell me what happened to the fountain that was originally there?"
"We... moved it." Hilda looked as if that was a perfectly sensible answer. "And for your peace of mind, do not ask more, Snow White. Trust me. We'll put it back once we're done. Promise."
Snow White looked at the witch. "I feel that I should worry."
"A bit of worry is fine. Really." Hilda thought of the fountain that was resting on the flower beds in one of the more distant gardens. And the remains of the statue of King Louie that were under it.
The princess accepted it, be it somewhat reluctantly. "Good. Thank you. And all the luck in catching the -uhm- thing."
As the door closed behind her, a loud "Screwing crap" floated through the room. Esmee had discovered that her magic was now powerful enough to undo William's silencing spell.
-=-=-
The remainder of the day slowly changed into evening. The time that the witches and the wizard would start their night watch arrived. Hilda had swapped her turn with that of Esmee. Babs had said that she would do that turn with the pink witch, as she felt responsible for the still unstable woman. "No good in making her go out alone. One hiccup and we all wake up with rose bushes all through the castle."
Hilda snorted. "No need for that. Been there." Babs nodded. William scowled, the surroundings of a fairy tale taking shape in his mind.
"Now you two pretty ones go and catch a hat full of sleep," Baba Yaga said. "And us two pretty ones will wrap up and start our stroll in the garden."
Esmee grinned. She got up and walked over to her wardrobe. She took one of her bright red cloaks. The other magicals watched her as she threw the garment on the bed and looked for her wand. "Amiculum nigerum," Esmee said, slapping the cloak with her wand. It turned black.
Babs looked appreciatively at the blond witch. "We're getting somewhere yet." She went to fetch her own cloak and then she and Esmee headed out to the garden, brooms at the ready.
William and Hilda went to bed. They lay awake, fully dressed. "It is quiet out there," Hilda said. "It worries me."
"Would you prefer noise?" William asked.
"No. That would worry me."
William knew how she felt.
There was a noise outside. Hilda jumped from the bed. "I am worried." She grabbed her broom, magicked open the window and with William right behind her she flew outside.
"Hilly, you there?" It was Baba Yaga who was waving her lit-up wand. "I think my student had a bit of an accident."
William and Hilda landed their brooms. Baba Yaga stood next to the large metal cage. Esmee was near it too, unconscious and in a sloppy heap. "Crappedy crap, what happened?"
"She got slightly carried away, I think," said Baba Yaga. "Flying around faster than she was used to, a bit too much magic in the fingertips or such something. And then there was the cage that did not get out of her way."
"Ouch," said William, "that must have been quite the collision."
"Don't worry, William, the cage is fine," Hilda assured him.
Esmee moved and moaned. "Ohhh, what happened..." She sat up and made sure her head was still where she expected it.
"I am not sure how you did it, but it looked sensational," Baba Yaga tried to cheer her up.
Hilda helped Esmee to her feet. "Are you in one piece?" she asked.
Esmee regretted nodding. "Yes. I think so. My broom..." That was also in one piece.
"Maybe you should lie down, Esmee," said Hilda. "In your bed. I'll take over the rest of this shift, and then William can do the last part."
They all agreed on that plan, so Babs and William took Esmee in and retreated to bed while Hilda surveyed the gardens.
William had actually nodded off when another bout of noise ripped him to full wakedom again. He had left the window open for this. He was outside and locating Hilda. The noise came from the cage. Again. "She didn't," he muttered.
She hadn't. "William," Hilda said, "look what I have here."
William lit up his wand and held it near the cage. In a corner he saw a man, suspiciously dressed as a servant from the castle. "Who are you then?"
The man tried to crawl back even further. "Morris, sir."
"You got yourself a Morris, Hilda."
"Yes. Just a Morris." She sounded displeased. "I saw him going around the kitchen back there, walking over to the chicken coop round the back. Did you see his hair?"
William nodded. Servant Morris was blessed with a tremendous amount of hair. "So Morris, what were you doing out here in the night?"
Morris summoned all his courage. "I came out to see what you were doing. We were all told to stay inside, so something important had to be going on."
"Hair colour doesn't match," Hilda said to William, "he's not what we're looking for. I'm afraid he ruined our chance to get what we're after."
"Can you let me go then?" Morris asked hopefully.
"We can, sure," said Hilda. "But we won't. You wanted to be out here, so we're not going to take that pleasure away from you. Who knows, you could make a nice bait for the monster we want to catch."
"Monster?" Morris' confidence in a happy end dropped several notches.
"Of course," Hilda made the man feel a bit more miserable, "do you think they call for two witches and a wizard for a stray fox?"
Morris was sweating from everywhere. "Let me out? Please?"
Hilda turned to William. "No way the whatever we're looking for will show up after this. I suggest we leave Morris here, to set an example," she whispered.
William nodded. "You go to bed now, witch. I'll take over, just to make sure."
Hilda hugged William. They both ignored Morris, who was pleading once again to be left out of the cage. "I'm going to miss you there, all alone in that big bed," the witch whispered.
"I'll make it up to you," William promised. It was no burden.
"You'd better," Hilda said. She got on her broom and disappeared into the darkness.
"Morris, dear man, you will be silent now," William said to the caged man. "I am not going to stop you from yelling and screaming. That would be too easy. I wonder what your king will tell you if you wake him up with your moaning."
Morris seemed to freeze. William did not want to know what was going through the man's mind at that moment. "I'm going to fly rounds now. You are allowed to shout if something scary happens," the wizard said as he mounted his broom. "I'll leave it up to you to decide what's scary."
"But- but- but," Morris attempted. The wizard ignored him as he flew up and vanished in the dark. Morris was very remorseful about going outside.
William made his rounds until the first light of day appeared. Tired and stiff he got off his broom. "So much for a lost night," he muttered as he went through the corridors. The people who were already up and running to make sure the royal family would be all taken care of did not dare to approach the wizard. His mood was too obvious.
The bed with Hilda in it was the best thing he had seen in hours. He lay down next to her. Close eyes, just a few moments, he thought.
9. Confusion
"William..." Hilda whispered in her wizard's ear. "Wake up, William. Wake up, wake up, wake up..."
"I wasn't sleeping," William claimed. "I just closed my eyes for a few moments."
Hilda sat up. "You must possess awfully big moments then. I've been awake for over an hour now and you haven't moved a muscle. Not many anyway. Snow White and her critters are awake already, maybe we should go see her and that fat prince of hers and tell her about our catch."
"Catch? Oh, right. He's probably eager to be released," William chuckled as the memory returned.
Hilda grinned. "I think we will leave that honour to Babs. She likes things like that."
The two got up and moved through the castle. Soon they heard sounds that did not belong in a castle: Baba Yaga was awake and around also. The sounds came from the dining room, which was slightly remodeled by the witch. In a corner was an open fire. There was a rough metal tripod over it, an iron cauldron hanging down from it on a chain. The flames under the pot were magically restricted in their space of movement: if they flickered sideways they seemed to be chopped off.
"Safety first," Baba Yaga told the two servants who stood as nailed to the wall. "Hilly, Willy, good morning! I am just about to make some decent food, care to join me?"
Hilda went to hug her friend. It took William a little longer to take in the scene and come to grips with it, but then he grinned and went over to see what Baba Yaga was brewing. With combined magical efforts, they soon sat and enjoyed their food. The two servants had found the strength to escape from the dining room's temporary insanity.
After their meal, the small group undid the changes to the hall and went looking for their royal clients. After locating them and waiting for the necessary diaper changes and such, Hilda reported about their nightly adventures. Jordan looked somewhat disturbed at the news that one of the people from the castle had been captured in the cage and demanded that the man be released.
"Oh, sure, no problem," said Hilda. "We were planning to let him go anyway. We have no use for him."
"And from what I heard from him, I wonder how you can have," Baba Yaga added. Hilda had already asked her to release Morris, something she would gladly do.
"So what are you going to do now?" King Louie asked, who had joined the conference. "Morris can't be the person we were looking for, I'm sure."
"Certainly not," William agreed, "and no need to look for Morris. We know where he is."
Baba Yaga screamed with laughter and slapped the wizard. The talk was over quite soon after that, and the three went to the garden where the iron cage holding a very miserable Morris was waiting for them. Morris jumped up as he saw them come, clinging to the bars. Then he saw Baba Yaga and all but leapt to the other side of the cage, his eyes large as he tried to push himself out through the bars.
Baba Yaga slapped the cage with a hand and a bolt of magic, making it shake and rattle. "Good cage, Hilda, I have to say. Sturdy stuff." Then she opened the door. "Hey, you inside. You're Morris, right?"
It looked like Morris nodded, but it could also be the shaking of his entire body that he could not control.
"Good. Get out of this cage. We have better use for it," Baba Yaga said. Morris did not need more encouragement: he dashed out of the cage, in plain view of many people that also worked in the castle. He was unable to go as fast as he wished to make the blemish as small as possible. Babs waved a finger. Morris stumbled and made a nose-dive into the dirt. "Sorry, couldn't resist," the ugly witch grinned to her two friends.
"I don't like what happened, though," Hilda said, "I had really hoped that this mysterious thing would show up so we could go home again. It's not the place itself, but the kids that are getting on my nerves."
Before there was a discussion about children, a man in official soldier's costume came walking to the team of magicals. "Excuse me. You are the honourable witches and wizard?"
"The clothes sort of give that away, don't they?" Hilda grinned. "We are. Why?"
The man nodded as a courtesy. "I have come to inform you that the creature has struck again last night. Bare bones of a rabbit and a peacock have been found near the sheep field on the other side of the castle grounds."
"Hmm. Never got into the taste of peacocks," Baba Yaga commented.
The uniformed man blinked a few times but kept his face under control. "If you would allow me to show you to where the creature struck..." The magical people allowed him this. On horseback and broom they made their way to the crime scene rather quickly.
They reached a large field. Sheep were nervously running around, the four people who tried to keep them calm were no match for the anxious animals. The arrival of three people on brooms added to the upheaval. Baba Yaga and Hilda quickly threw a magical barrier around the aggravated sheep to keep them away from the bones.
The man in uniform, he had introduced himself as Marshal Bender, walked them to the small shed that was the only building around. The bones lay in front of it. Some of them had been kicked around by the sheep. The wool-providers were mainly responsible for the mass of prints that were in the slightly soggy ground. There also had been enough people stomping around, so William was not sure they would find any tracks or prints that could help them onwards. First they chased everyone away and that proved to be a good thing. One of the people who had stomped around the area suddenly yelled out that he had found something.
Hilda was with the man first. He pointed at the ground, his eyes and mouth wide open. Hilda called out for Baba Yaga; William had already joined her as he had sensed Hilda's excitement and surprise through their bond. The thing that made their surprise was the shape of a cat's paw in the soil. That at least fit the picture they had of the creature they intended to catch. The worrying part was the size of the print: it was almost as long as William's foot, and as twice as wide as Hilda's foot. "Holy Bejeebus. These paws are almost as large as those of a lion," William mumbled.
Baba Yaga silently nodded, and Hilda sized the paw-print with her hand, to be certain it was as large as it looked. William and Babs saw magic sparkle around Hilda's fingers as the witch was touching the earth.
Hilda got up again. She looked confused. "It's a cat. But not just a cat. It is a woman. And a cat." She looked at William. "Why are Grim and Obsi not with us?"
William didn't know. The two always were there, so he had not really paid attention to them. Nor had Hilda. "Now can you be more specific about the cat and woman?" the wizard asked.
Babs hoisted herself up again. "No, she can't. Nor can I. It is confusing, wizard, feel for yourself." The wizard felt, then joined the confusion club.
Marshal Bender had kept the ordinaries away for as long as he could, but a few had managed to slip past him. The two men and a woman stared at the large paw-print. The woman pressed a hand against her mouth and staggered backwards into one of the men.
"Now, folks," Baba Yaga took control of the situation, "we know that this is a bit of a strange size cat, but it's nothing to worry about, really." Her wand appeared. "Now you lot, look at the little stick, will you?" She waved her wand, attracting the attention of all people with it. A small red blip popped from it and disappeared again. "Now all of you are not going to talk about this thing. If you do, we will know about it and we will not hesitate to make you suck elves. Trust me, there are nicer things to suck."
William wondered how far Baba Yaga's knowledge of that reached. Regardless of that, Babs' message reached the people and they slowly walked away, suddenly interested in the number of sheep in the magical pen, and exchanging mutton recipes.
"Right. That takes care of that. The king might lose a few sheep today, though." Baba Yaga grinned. Hilda and William laughed about the creative way Babs had handled the situation.
"But we still have to find the woman-cat," Hilda then said. "I'd think someone like that sh
ould not be hard to find. With paws like that and covered in the hair we found, you would not go unnoticed for long."
William agreed. "I'll look around and see if there are more prints like this one. If we know where the woman-cat went, we stand a chance of finding her." Hilda and Baba Yaga also helped looking, and they found four more prints before the trail ended on a rough stone path that would eventually lead to the village near the castle. William flew his broom along the path for some time, but he came back with no new insights.
They returned to the castle, after thanking Marshal Bender for his help in coming to warn them. The man was still talking recipes when they left.