by Paul Kater
a thick layer of magic around it," he decided. "And I wonder..." He took his broom, lifted off and checked the roof. "Thought so. Most people forget that." He looked at Hilda. "No magic here. We can go in through the chimney."
The wicked witch raised an eyebrow. "Chimney. Right. Do you hear what you say, William, my deranged wizard? No way that I am going to crawl through that pipe there."
"You don't need to crawl, Hilda, I can just drop you down there."
"Do you see me laugh, William?"
William turned to the chimney and looked down. "Not too high, could be worse." Using his wand, he cleaned the inside of the smoke channel and for convenience's sake he made a simple ladder appear in it also. "I'll open the door for you, from the inside, if all goes well!", he called out to Hilda who was walking around Zelda's domicile.
"And if things don't go well?", the witch returned.
"Hell if I know," William replied, and then he swung his first leg over the rim of the chimney. Using the ladder, he quickly moved down and soon he was in the main room of the house of the missing witch. He carefully reached for the door. It opened without a complaint.
There was a shimmer that seemed to go around Zelda's house as the magical protection was lifted.
"Well, that was easy..." William looked outside. "Hilda? Door's open, it should be safe to come in."
Hilda came in. "How did you remove that protection?" She couldn't believe he had pulled that off.
"I just opened the door. From the inside. That seems to be enough..."
"Really? That's all? Hard to believe..."
But it was that way. There was no problem, no trap or any other kind of surprise.
"Zelda's always been the odd one," Hilda explained to William as they were examining the living room. They did not find anything out of the ordinary. The bats were still hanging from the beams overhead, in the darkness. The jars with herbs and frogs were nicely arranged on shelves, although there was no way William could decide what order they were in.
The kitchen in Zelda's house was entirely different from the maniac at Hilda's. It asked them, as they entered, if there was anything it could make for them, and listed a handful of ideas that would be good for them. And healthy.
"Did I mention odd?", Hilda grinned as they listened to the kitchen talking. "Where's the fun in things with a kitchen like that?"
William could see some advantages though and memorised a few details about the kitchen. Perhaps, he thought, there was a way to convince Hilda that her kitchen needed an upgrade.
"Say, house," Hilda said out loud as they returned to the living room, "did Zelda ever mention something about what she was going to do?"
"Yes. But I am not allowed to tell you," said the house. It had a sultry voice, and an accent that reminded William of something Italian.
4. Good little witch
"Not allowed? Come on, house. She's a witch, I'm a witch. No secrets, you know. We both know the winks, the nudges and the secret handshake, so spit it out."
"No." The house was determined.
"And if I promise I will take you apart if you don't tell us?", Hilda asked.
"Even then: no."
"Suck an elf, she really put a spell on you, didn't she? Oddball..."
"What can I say," said the house, "she's a witchy woman."
"Hilda... come and have a look here," William said. He was in Zelda's bedroom.
"What did you find?" Hilda curiously entered the room and looked around. "Eeeuw!" The very prominent thing in the room was a huge canopy bed, with golden posts and enormous layers of red velvet. There were golden fringes on the draperies. "How obnoxious! She wants nightmares, I am sure of that!"
"Hey, witch. Over here." William stood near a table-like thing, a desk of sorts without legs, that hovered against a wall.
Hilda looked at the desk. "Hmmm. Odd, but a nice touch. So, what's it you found?"
He pointed at a few sheets of paper on the desk.
Hilda looked at them. "Crappedy crap..." She saw drawings. They showed William's battered truck in the mountains where he had 'arrived' in her world. Hilda put her fingers on some doodles that were scribbled at the edges of the paper. "This is definitely Not Good."
William considered the scribble and couldn't make more of it than that. "And what does that signify?"
"These things are magical symbols. This is a transporting symbol. That one is a travelling symbol. Here's a protection sign, and that one is something to put spells on dragons."
It took a moment for William to grasp the implication. "Holy Bejeebus. So you think..."
"Not think. I'm sure. Zelda charged these two Nobblebacks to go after us. I don't know exactly for what reason, but this is something bad, and I think we should get to your truck. Something there attracted her attention."
William folded up the drawings and tucked them in his pocket as they left the house and collected their brooms. They jumped on them and took off into the air. They did not talk a lot as they raced their brooms to the limit.
-=-=-
The mountainous area came into view. Hilda beckoned William to slow down. "We should be careful now. We don't know where Zelda is, what she's doing here and what she prepared for possible unwanted visitors."
William nodded and popped out his wand.
They moved ahead relatively slowly. Everything around them was rock and stone, making it hard to find the way around, but Hilda's sense of direction here was remarkable. They crossed over the lower mountains, made their way around some of the higher ones, and so far they did not encounter a problem.
Wands sensing out, to increase their range of finding magic, they reached the spot where William had appeared, after Hilda's call for help. The truck, severely deteriorated, still sat against the wall of rock. There was no sign of magic. Also there was no sign of Zelda.
They landed near the truck. William regarded it with a strange mix of emotions and walked over to it. Hilda watched him go and started going around the plateau, trying to locate something out of the ordinary.
William touched the metal of his truck. It was strange, after so long a time, to see the vehicle again, or at least what was left of it. The door on the driver's side was open. He tried to recall if they had left it that way and couldn't. Both Hilda and he had been shaken up quite badly after his appearance. Things inside the car were still a mess.
Hilda walked around the immense boulders on the plateau. There were faint traces of residual magic, but not strong enough for her to get a clue to what had happened here. Zelda was not around, that was clear to her.
William got into the truck and looked around the inside. It looked relatively normal. As he sat in the seat, he looked around another time, and then he noticed the thing that was off. There had been a small plastic dreamcatcher hanging from the rearview mirror and that was gone. He got his wand.
"Where's the dreamcatcher?", he wanted to know. The wand shuddered for a moment, telling him that the dreamcatcher was not around.
"Where's the dreamcatcher?", he asked again. The wand responded in the same way, so he was not mistaken. "Shit." He almost fell out of the truck in his hurry. "Hilda!!"
She heard him yell and used her broom to get back to him. "What is it?" His voice had sounded worried, the bond even more.
"Something from my world went missing from the car. I think Zelda got it." He reached for the drawings he had taken with him and looked at them. "Car...", he pointed. "Rocks..." He held up the drawing and started walking about until he had found the viewpoint from where the drawing was made.
"Crappedy crap," the witch said as she looked at the drawing. She pointed her wand at it. "See that?"
In the drawing there was a nice flat area of rock, slightly to their right. In the actual rock, there was a rift, five feet wide. It was in almost the exact spot where William had come from.
"Oh no. Don't tell me what you think happened," William groaned. "She can't. She didn't."
The bleak facts all supported what they feared. Zelda had found the truck, and a way to go to William's world.
"Are we now officially screwed?", William wondered.
"Depends on how you look at it. We're free of Zelda. That could be good." Hilda felt the worry that took William in its claws. "Yes. Your world now has a witch on the loose."
"I have to go back there and do something about that."
Hilda nodded. "And I have to go with you."
William looked at her. "I am glad you will do that."
"Mind you that I am not crazy about it. Your world is insane, so you have to help me, William." Hilda looked at her wizard and her face showed fear. Her memories of that crazy place were daunting.
William hugged her. "I will. Nothing will happen to us, Hilda. I'll make sure of that."
She nodded and drew in a lot of breath. "Then we have to go. Now."
William nodded. "It's not what we planned. But you are right."
They mounted their brooms and flew towards the opening in the mountain wall. The rift was black. It looked as if the light that fell into it just disappeared. They looked into it, but there was nothing but blackness.
"Let's go," said Hilda. She took William's hand. Together they flew into the void.
-=-=-
The magical couple was sucked into a kind of whirl, tossing and turning them around for several long seconds. Then the strange feeling was over and they were in a different darkness.
"William. Where are we?"
William looked around before he could answer the question. There were trees. No streetlights. He used his wand to