Hilda and Zelda

by Paul Kater

with Zelda out there, but they had been successfully overruled.

  "Whether Zelda is out there or not, she saw all of us," Gladys had said. "You can't stay here. If you stay here and she finds you, you will endanger the lives of all the people in the hospital."

  That was true, so the magical couple had gone with Gladys. Or rather, they had flown Gladys home, which was a stunning and also slightly frightening experience for the Wiccan witch.

  After a while there was a knock on the door. "Hilda? William? Are you awake?" It was Gladys' voice.

  "We are," the witch replied, "and you can come in if you want. We're still covered."

  Gladys came in, and with her came the smell of toast and coffee. "I thought you might like some breakfast. Everything's in the kitchen. If you care to come..."

  They cared.

  "Ohhh, this coffee is so much better than what William makes!" Hilda declared as she gladly accepted a refill of the refill.

  "Oh?" Both William and Gladys said that. He frowned, she looked surprised that they made coffee themselves.

  "You have coffee there too, wherever there is?" Gladys asked.

  William shook his head. "In our world, my new one, coffee doesn't exist. I just magic up what I remember to be coffee."

  "Show her, show her," Hilda waved with a hand, holding on to her cup. "I'll have some more of this."

  William was not sure if he should be offended. He shrugged and magicked up a cup of coffee. Eagerly Gladys picked it up and tried it. With an apologetic face she put it down and reached for her own coffee again.

  "That bad?"

  "Not really... bad... it works... for an emergency," Gladys offered.

  "Yes. That bad," Hilda added a little bit less diplomatically.

  "I'll never make you coffee again, witch," William warned her.

  "Hah, I can do it myself now!" Hilda puffed. She flipped up her wand and made a cup of coffee appear. "Now this...," she said and confidently took a sip... "is just as good as your coffee, my sweet William."

  Gladys stared at the grey-haired woman. Then she took a sip from the latest magical creation. "Yes. It is." She fought her face. "I'll make a fresh pot." As she was working on more coffee, Gladys asked what they were planning to do.

  "We'll go over to the hospital and see how Tory is doing," William said as he tried to prevent Hilda from snatching his muffins away. "And we may need some stuff from there."

  "Stuff from there? It's not a shop, you may remember," Gladys grinned as she looked back at the table and saw the minor battle.

  "Luckily my memory is lapsing in that respect," William calmly said, as he watched the last muffin disappear into Hilda.

  Gladys decided not to ask. What she did not know would not upset her. Yet.

  -=-=-

  "Again? Are you sure? It's daylight now!" Gladys worried and her faced showed it.

  "Come on. You sat on a broom before," Hilda said from her broom. She hovered some fifteen feet over the ground already. William was patiently waiting for Gladys to sit on his broom.

  "But people will see me," Gladys objected.

  "Yes. And they will see us too, so they'll know you are in good company."

  Gladys did not have the nerve to argue with that. She resigned and sat on the broom.

  "There is nothing to fear, Gladys," William said as they swiftly moved up into the air and headed for the hospital. The woman held on to his arm that she felt behind her, which was fine with him. The flight was not a long one.

  Gladys quickly got off the broom as soon as her feet were able to touch ground again. "Thank you. That was... exciting."

  William grinned.

  "Come, come," Hilda said. She was already near the door. "We have things to get and sick people to see." She shrunk the brooms and William slipped them in his cloak pocket.

  The three entered the hospital, where some of the medical staff on duty remembered the two strangely dressed ones. Whispers were whispered, fingers were pointed. There was little harm though; the visitors had already agreed that Gladys would do the talking in the hospital, and so they were able to see Tory quite quickly.

  The nurse on duty had made Hilda and William promise not to use magic in the hospital and not to fly inside, which they had quickly agreed to.

  Tory was awake, but clearly in pain.

  "We've given her painkillers," the nurse who had come with the visitors said, "they just don't seem to catch on."

  Hilda looked at Tory. "Where does it hurt, dear?"

  "Where doesn't it," the dear said. "I don't know what hit me, but it got me good." She ended her words with a groan as she tried to sit up somewhat better.

  A wand appeared. "This is not going to hurt."

  "Mrs. Witch," the nurse started, but she was too slow. The spell was cast and Tory was free of pain.

  "Now, let's see," the witch said, convincingly unimpressed by the nurse who kept telling her that she could not do what she was doing. As Hilda looked Tory over (the witch was awake and fresh now), William calmly guided the nurse back into the corridor, hesitantly assisted by Gladys.

  "Now you go back inside, Gladys," said William, "Tory will need someone she knows. And Nurse Dunn and I will take a little walk."

  "We will?" asked Nurse Dunn.

  "You will?" asked Gladys.

  William did not need a wand for this. "We will."

  Gladys watched the wizard in his blue, black and purple robes walk off with the nurse who suddenly was nodding understandingly. As the two turned a corner, she went into the room again and closed the door.

  "Ahhh, good that you came back. I need you."

  -=-=-

  A short while later William came back, a smile on his face. "How's the patient?"

  "As good as new," Hilda grinned. William hugged the witchy woman.

  "Hey, wait, I still don't get it," Tory complained from the bed. "If I got hurt last night, why didn't you guys fix me up then and there?"

  Hilda turned to the woman. "We both were quite exhausted after keeping up the Mother Goddess to make an impression on Zelda. I patched up what I still could and then we took you here. That was the best option, believe me. We're awake now, and refreshed. Thanks to Gladys and her coffee. So fixing you now was easy."

  "So I can get up now and go home?" Tory already looked happy and forward to that.

  "Hmm, better wait for the doctors to say that's okay, Tory," her sister in the witchy arts, Gladys, said. "They might not like it if you walk out of here just like that."

  Tory looked a bit grumpy. "Guess you're right. Can't you call one so I can leave?"

  "Sure." Hilda walked to the door and before someone could do something, yelled "Doctor!" into the corridor. Now, William could have done something as he knew what she was going to do, but he had too much fun with that.

  Hilda's yelling was not in vain. Not only a doctor but also two nurses came running. When they heard what the 'emergency' was, they did their best to refrain from angry looks. Hilda's fame had already spread among the staff of the hospital.

  "This woman is healed," the witch declared, pointing at Tory. "Can you tell her she can go?"

  "Mrs. Witch, this is not the way we work here!" the doctor said, appalled at her behaviour.

  Hilda shrugged and sat down. "I don't know that. I'm not from around here."

  "Thank God," the doctor muttered as he started to examine Tory. He checked her chart too, and could not find anything wrong with her anymore. "Miraculous," he said as he shook his head. "I should ask my colleague-"

  "Is she fine or isn't she?" William asked the good doctor.

  "Oh, she is, yes, she is. Healthy as a fish," he admitted.

  William smiled.

  Not much later, four people left the hospital. Hilda expanded the brooms again, and they carried the two women to Vivian's house.

  31. The plan

  For Tory it was the first conscious broomride in her life. She enjoyed it tremen
dously. So much even that Hilda had to caution her a few times, as she was turning so frantically that the witch had problems keeping Tory on board.

  Gladys, on Williams, broom, was less enthusiastic but she was a bit more at peace with the whole strange mode of travelling by now.

  They landed in the garden again, without being harrassed by Zelda. There was no trace of the witch.

  "You think she left for home?" William asked Hilda as they trailed behind the two women who quickly went inside.

  "I dare not even hope it," she replied. "She was scared, but I don't believe she will leave from here because of that. She's brooding on something evil, mark my words. But we did get her to back off for a while, which is a golden egg in our basket." Hilda beamed.

  "Golden egg..." William frowned. "Oh. Right."

  As they entered into the kitchen, Hilda held the wizard back. "Strange people," she whispered.

  William heard the voices. "Not surprising. You hardly know anyone here."

  "Ssshhhhh..." She gestured that he should keep his voice down. "Not that kind of strange. Strange kind of strange."

  The fact that his witch called something strange started to make William worry. "In what respect?" He lowered his voice some more.

  "A spooky respect," Hilda said, not making things much clearer for the man with her.

  "Oh."

  "Hilda? William? Are you there?" Vivian's voice clearly rang out, and in the undertones it was unmistakable that she hoped they would show themselves very quickly.

  "That's our cue," William sighed. They went inside.

  In the livingroom was rather a large assembly present. William and Hilda now both felt the strangeness almost solidly in the room.

  Vivian, relieved, jumped up and went through introductions. There were three people on the