by Paul Kater
Hilda - Snow-White Revisited
by Paul Kater
Published by the author at Smashwords - Copyright 2010 Paul Kater
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Contents:
1. Home sweet home
2. Liver, lung and prosper
3. Poetry
4. The kid
5. Queens and witches
6. Poison
7. Here's a gift
8. Who's the pretty one?
9. Feelings
10. A difficult morning
11. The black queen
12. An apple a day...
13. Riding with the king
14. We make brooms
15. Royal revelation
16. Scary Mountain blues
17. When witches meet
18. Wipe-out
19. Funeral day
20. Onwards and upwards
21. Change of plans
22. Wedding bells
1. Home sweet home
Grimhilda made her wand appear as she felt the splinters of what had been her magical mirror under her feet.
"Too bad about that one. It worked so well...", she mumbled. "I'll have to prepare a new one." Her face became a dark cloud when she thought of the one that had been stolen. She'd never had the opportunity to test that one.
The memory of the theft of that mirror filled her with rage again. If her mirror had not yet been broken, it might not have survived this hissy fit. Now the only victim was one of the chairs, and that was easy enough to fix.
"I hate that bitch," Hilda muttered, and tried to banish the thought from her mind, at least for that moment. With several brusque movements of her wand she magicked all the pieces of the mirror onto a heap. The clinging sound of the silvery shards made her even more angry. As the banishing had not really worked, this did not improve things, so with a curse that would have made a pirate blush she smashed one of the small windows in her room and hurled the stack of splinters out of it. The screams from the unfortunate and unsuspecting recipients of this malevolent gift only eased her mind slightly.
"If ever I get my hands around the neck of Rumpelstiltskin..." With that comment she breezed out of her room, to find the mirror-maker and pleasure him with her presence and an order for a new mirror...
The mirror-maker, Johan, promised he would make her a new mirror. And one as a spare, in case an accident like this previous one would happen again.
"I want it bigger than the broken one," Hilda had emphasised. "Bigger and better. And brighter."
Johan nodded. "I'll do my best for you, as always, honourable witch," he said. From second-hand experience, we'd call it hear-say, he knew that Hilda was not someone to mess with. The things she could do were pretty awesome, and that was putting it very very mildly.
"You'd better. Otherwise you'll become a mirror, and when I do that, believe me, it will not be a pleasure." Grimhilda turned and was about to leave the shop, when she stopped and looked at the craftsman again. "I need a mirror now."
Johan scratched his head. There was not much he had on offer at that very moment. "Let me have a look..." He got up and went into the back of his house, to the part that he referred to as the 'muck shed' when he was alone. There he found a mirror. It had only one crack in it.
"This is the best I can do for you, honourable witch," Johan apologised as he showed her the mirror. "When I clean it, it would not be too bad, I think."
Hilda considered the mirror. "A loaner, okay? You clean it and bring it over before evening falls."
Johan nodded and was relieved. If she was happy with this one, it would buy him a few days extra to get the real mirror done.
"But no fussing about, I want the real mirror as soon as I can," Hilda said, her hands on her hips. "I assume that is not too hard too understand?"
Johan did not let his groan surface. "Of course. Honourable witch."
Hilda nodded, turned and left, in search of a basket full of apples. That was a lot easier than the mirror.
In the evening Johan knocked on the door of Hilda's house. Carefully. After all, this was a witch's house, and not just the residence of any old witch. This was Grimhilda's homestead.
Hilda opened the door, an apple in her hand. Johan stared at it.
"What are you looking at?"
"Uhm, the apple..."
"So? It's just an apple. My apple, is that understood?" To make the point stick, she took a bite from it. "You gop the miwwow?" The piece of apple in her mouth severely impaired her speech, but Johan knew what she meant.
"Yes, honourable witch, I have it right here. I even managed to seal up the crack a bit," Johan said with fitting pride.
"Good. Come in, I'll tell you where I want it."
"Uhm, couldn't you just like..." Johan made a terrible mistake. He wiggled his finger over the mirror, hoping she could magic the heavy thing to its place.
Hilda glared at the finger. "Yes. I could. Digitus agilis in noctium."
Johan found out that evening that it is very difficult to carry a large mirror into a house with a finger that just won't stop moving.
"Your finger will be fine again tomorrow, in the morning," Hilda sort of reassured him when he left. "Just don't ever ask stupid things again."
"I won't, honourable witch, I won't!" Johan then, having become wiser in a hurry, kept his mouth shut and quickly left for safer grounds.
Hilda looked at the mirror. It would have to do. She'd work on it the following morning, now it was time to retreat and sleep off the ill effects of the insane world she'd been in. These were still too vivid in her imagination...
-=-=-
"Now. Let's see..." Hilda had her wand in hand and stood before the newly magicised mirror. She looked at the sun and estimated the time of day and where that singing pale princess would be. She should be... "Exhibio castellum."
The mirror did not respond. "Come on. Show me the castle, damn you, and the yard around it!" Hilda was ready to whack the mirror with a fierce bit of magic, but she held back. "Loaner. Cracked. Urgh. Patience." The latter was not her forte.
A knock on the door broke her concentration. She walked to it and yanked it open, to see Johan the mirror-maker there, holding up his still wiggling finger. "What?"
"Uhm, honourable witch, you said it would be fine again in the morning?", Johan carefully said.
"Is morning over already?", Hilda asked him curtly.
"No... not yet," Johan had to admit.
"Right." Bang, said the door, and Hilda stomped off to the mirror again. "Well, well, look here," she said as she saw that an image had formed in it. It was a bit crackled, with only faded colours, but she could live with that.
Hilda pulled up her chair and watched the slightly distorted image, checking out the castle and the grounds around it at her leisure.
"Now where's the kid..."
But no matter how she scanned the castle, Snow-White wasn't there. Also on the meadows around, where she used to sing her obnoxious joyful songs and pick the flowers, there was no trace of the girl.
"How did she pull that one off..." Hilda muttered and said a simple spell to locate the girl.
It took the mirror a while, but then it showed her an image that surprised her quite a bit. The queen's huntsman was in the forest, dragging Snow-White along by the arm. That was not exactly what Hilda expected to see. Curious, she watched the scene unfold, until the huntsman pulled a knife and got ready to turn the girl into
filet mignon. The mirror, prepared in a hurry, did not give Hilda sound, but Snow-White clearly started crying.
"Hey, that's not going to happen," Hilda muttered. "I was going to take care of her. Whatever gave him that idea?" She got up and located her broom and cloak. As she was getting ready to fly off to the forest and stop the huntsman, she cast another look at the mirror and saw the huntsman letting go of Snow-White's wrist. The girl took off like a bat out of hell, through the forest. Hilda noticed Snow-White was not running towards home. "Weird," was her comment on that. "It's the place where she always runs to when there's trouble..."
With a wave of her hand the mirror became a regular mirror again. Hilda stepped outside with her broom, mounted it, and set course to the forest where the huntsman was. The wicked witch was determined to find out what this whole charade was about and he was the easiest prey for her to tell about it.
When she reached the huntsman's position, she was forced to circle over the trees for a while, until he had progressed onto a more open spot where she could land.
The man reached for his large hunting-knife and pulled it out as he saw the witch touch down. "Who are you? You must be a witch!" He held out the knife.
"My, my," said Hilda. "I bet you did not spend much time in school, am I right?"
The hunter frowned. "How'd you know that?"
The wand that appeared in Hilda's hand turned the impressive knife into several leaves of overcooked cabbage that then hung over the man's hand. "Otherwise you would have learnt that you don't stop a witch with a knife. And you don't threaten a witch like me with a knife either. Well, you see what that got you."
The hunter stared at his hand, then shook off the cabbage. "What do you want from me? I have nothing of value!", he then shouted at her.
"Hey, no need to yell, I'm right here!", Hilda yelled back, and much better than the hunter could. The force of her words made him topple backwards into a bunch of ferns. She waited until he had gotten back to his feet. "So, now you are going to tell me all about that thing with the girl just now."
"What girl?" The hunter tried some bravery, for which he was known and what had him selected as being the huntsman of the queen.
Hilda crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot on the ground. "Don't start like that, mister. What I did to that big knife of yours can just as easily happen to certain parts of your anatomy, and your wife would not be happy when she'd find that out. Would she?"
The hunter swallowed as he considered her words. "Okay, okay, okay. No need to go that far. The girl was Snow-White, the daughter of the king and the stepdaughter of the queen. The queen wanted me to kill the girl. I was about to do that, when she started crying and go all soppy on me, and I can't handle that. So I let her go. She won't make it out of the forest alive anyway, and at least this way I know I didn't kill her."
Hilda, the wicked witch, snorted. "Well, you did, just not the way you planned. But if that makes you happy, who am I to mess up your day. And that's it? End of story, everyone laughing?"
"Well, no. Not really. Just as you fell out of the sky I was thinking how I could get a lung and a liver."
"Eeeuw... you have a weird taste, buster," Hilda said as her face displayed her disgust.
"Hey, not for me okay? The queen wants to see Snow-White's lung and liver, so she knows the kid's been taken care of. I was going to stab a bear or so on the way back. But not much I can do now, since you turned my knife into cabbage..."
2. Liver, lung and prosper
"You. Stab a bear," Hilda snickered. "Do you have any idea how big and strong a bear is?"
"Huh, from a distance they're not too bad," the hunter said.
"Oh, right, so you are going to stab one from a distance. Yeah, do invite me when you're going for it, I want to watch that. Front row seat please," Hilda grinned.
The hunter thought, long and slow. Especially slow, he was good at that. "That's not a good idea, is it?", he decided then.
"No. Not really." Hilda thought, very fast. She was good at that. "Now listen, let me get this straight. The old hag is out to off the kid, right?"
The hunter had no problems at all translating 'the old hag' to 'the queen'. He nodded.
"Crap. That means I've been going after the wrong one." Hilda stood and thought some more. "I am going to do something really bad, my friend the hunter. I'm going to be good for a change."
The hunter hoped she was honest. You never knew with wicked witches, after all.
Hilda walked up to the hunter, bent over and ripped a plant from the soil. "Here. Yours."
As the hunter held out his hand, Hilda did her wand-trick and the plant changed into an even bigger knife than the simpleton had owned before. His eyes gleamed when he saw the weapon. "Yeah!"
"Don't get carried away, my friend the hunter, we're not there yet. We need to set you up with a lung and a liver. Where did you see those bears? I assume you saw one, right?"
"Yes. I did," he nodded. "Yesterday, in the forest, right about there." He pointed an unstable finger generally in the direction of the castle. "I can smell them."
"Surprising," Hilda said, wiggling her nose, "but we're getting somewhere." Her hand took extra hold of her broom. "Show me to the bears, huntsman. We're going to settle a score."
The huntsman proved to be very good at his actual job. Soon they had located a group of bears. He also earned some of Hilda's appreciation by stating that the lung and the liver of one of those bears would unfashionably large for a person the size of Snow-White.
"You got that right, buddy," the witch said, "so we'll just have to tailor one of them down. Which one is the best, you think?"
The hunter selected one of the bears. It was a bit older and sickly, he saw, and would probably not make it through the next winter. He already drew his extreme knife.
Hilda aimed her wand and mumbled a petrifying spell. The doomed bear was hit full in the chest by her charge. He got up on his hind legs in amazement and then keeled over backwards with a loud thud. His companions were startled at first, after which they made themselves scarce.
"Alrighty," Hilda said, and walked up to the fallen bear, whose brain had been fried by the spell. "Now... five foot three would work, I think." She cast another spell, and the bear shrunk to the estimated size of Snow-White, after which the huntsman could use his skills of skinning with the new knife.
The man worked with vigour while Hilda stood to the side. "That's gross, hunter, that is so gross."
"Works for me," he told her. There was no need for that, his enthusiasm spoke for itself.
After some twenty minutes of digging around inside the bear he was done, lilting lumps of flesh hanging from his bloody hands. "See, the lungs, the liver. All in prime condition."
Hilda tried to avoid watching the dripping parts. "Well, there we are," she said. "Liver, lung and prosper, huntsman. Take it away."
"I will do that, Mrs witch. And I'll tell the queen I saw you."
"You will NOT tell her that you've seen me." Hilda banged the huntsman on the head with her wand. "One word in that direction and you'll end up like that bear. Did I make myself clear?"
The hunter looked at the wicked witch in surprise. "Okay, okay, no need to bite my head off, I won't tell..."
"Me biting your head off would be the least of your worries, huntsman," Hilda warned him. "Not a word. Just take that... stuff away." Quickly she got on her broom and sped off. The hunter would take care of the nasty bits.
-=-=-
Hilda stared at the kitchen utensils as they were busy making dinner for her. She hardly noticed them as her mind was many miles away. To be precise, it was going around about the inhabitants of the castle. She did not care about the king. He was a good guy and all that, not interesting at all. But the queen. She was something else. Hilda still wondered how that bitch had managed to maneuver herself between the royal sheets. Her style sucked, it was way overdone. Her choice in clothes was at least as awful. The queen's attitude to peopl
e was rivaled by none, not even Hilda's. At least Hilda admitted fair and square that she didn't care. And the queen was a thieving, conniving bitch.
Hilda recalled the day that the heralds had come round to proclaim what they were told was good news, that the king was getting married again and that all the people in the land were entitled to two days off. Rather a stupid thought, because for two days there was no bread and fresh goods to be bought and loads of other things went down the drain too.
Also, all the witches of the land, even the wicked ones, were invited to attend the royal wedding. Oh man, what a pompous affair that had been. Even Glenda, the good witch of the East, who had come all from her neck of the woods in Oz, had frowned at more than one occasion. And if there was one witch that was all good and chummy and sweet, that would be Glenda. Hilda's mouth twitched, thinking about that woman, and shivered.
The wicked witch had never bought the story of the former queen pricking herself on the needle while sewing and that had been the beginning of her end. She didn't trust the new queen as far as she would be able to throw her. A plan started forming in Hilda's mind, and the more it took shape, the bigger the grin on her face became...
By then her dinner was ready, so she interrupted her musings while she sat down to eat. After that she fired up the mirror again to browse around the castle for a while. First she located the huntsman. He was going around in his own quarters, which were on the castle grounds but not connected to the main building. Hilda suspected she knew the reason for that. The thought of the man's smell made her twitch her nose again. Then she looked at the places where the bitch annex queen usually was. After some looking, she located the woman in the kitchen, scrutinising the work of the cook. Now that was something else, that cook. He was really a prize Hilda thought, as she remembered the goodies she'd had to eat at the wedding. He'd knock all her magical cookings dead with only a whisk.
The wicked witch wondered for a moment what the good man was doing, that the queen was almost on top of him. Then it hit her. He was cooking the bear's liver and lungs, under her majesty's supervision, and she wanted to make sure it was done properly! Hilda grinned, knowing what she knew. Let her be happy for now, the witch thought. We'll make her squeal. Someday.