Howl's Moving Castle (15 page)
“Mrs. Fairfax is a family friend,” said Sophie. “How was I to know you would be there too?”
“You have an instinct, Sophie, that’s how,” said Howl. “Nothing is safe from you. If I were to court a girl who lived on an iceberg in the middle of an ocean, sooner or later—probably sooner—I’d look up to see you swooping overhead on a broomstick. In fact, by now I’d be disappointed in you if I
didn’t
see you.”
“Are you off to the iceberg today?” Sophie retorted. “From the look on Lettie’s face yesterday, there’s nothing that need keep you there!”
“You wrong me, Sophie,” Howl said. He sounded deeply injured. Sophie looked suspiciously sideways. Beyond the red jewel swinging in Howl’s ear, his profile looked sad and noble. “Long years will pass before I leave Lettie,” he said. “And in fact I’m off to see the King again today. Satisfied, Mrs. Nose?”
Sophie was not sure she believed a word of this, though it was certainly to Kingsbury, with the doorknob red-down, that Howl departed after breakfast, waving Michael aside when Michael tried to consult him about the perplexing spell. Michael, since he had nothing to do, left too. He said he might as well go to Cesari’s.
Sophie was left alone. She still did not truly believe what Howl had said about Lettie, but she had been wrong about him before, and she had only Michael and Calcifer’s word for Howl’s behavior, after all. She collected up all the little blue triangles of cloth and began guiltily sewing them back into the silver fishing net which was all that was left of the suit. When someone knocked at the door, she started violently, thinking it was the scarecrow again.
“Porthaven door,” Calcifer said,
flickering
a purple grin at her.
That should be all right, then. Sophie hobbled over and opened it, blue-down. There was a cart horse outside. The young fellow of fifty who was leading it wondered if Mrs. Witch had something which might stop it casting shoes all the time.
“I’ll see,” said Sophie. She hobbled over to the grate. “What shall I
do
?” she whispered.
“Yellow powder, fourth jar along on the second shelf,” Calcifer whispered back. “Those spells are mostly belief. Don’t look uncertain when you give it to him.”
So Sophie poured yellow powder into a square of paper as she had seen Michael do, twisted it smartly, and hobbled to the door with it. “There you are, my boy,” she said. “That’ll stick the shoes on harder than any hundred nails. Do you hear me, horse? You won’t need a smith for the next year. That’ll be a penny, thank you.”
It was quite a busy day. Sophie had to put down her sewing and sell, with Calcifer’s help, a spell to unblock drains, another to fetch goats, and something to make good beer. The only one that gave her any trouble was the customer who pounded on the door in Kingsbury. Sophie opened it red-down to find a richly dressed boy not much older than Michael, white-faced and sweating, wringing his hands on the doorstep.
“Madam Sorceress, for pity’s sake!” he said. “I have to fight a duel at dawn tomorrow. Give me something to make sure I win. I’ll pay any sum you ask!”
Sophie looked over her shoulder at Calcifer, and Calcifer made faces back, meaning that there was no such thing ready-made. “That wouldn’t be right at all,” Sophie told the boy severely. “Besides, dueling is wrong.”
“Then just give me something that lets me have a fair chance!” the lad said desperately.
Sophie looked at him. He was very undersized and clearly in a great state of fear. He had that hopeless look a person has who always loses at everything. “I’ll see what I can do,” Sophie said. She hobbled over to the shelves and scanned the jars. The red one labeled
“A fair fight.
Understand?” She screwed the paper up and hobbled to the door with it. “Throw this in the air when the duel starts,” she told the undersized young man, “and it will give you the same chance as the other man. After that, whether you win or not
depends
on you.”
The undersized young man was so grateful that he tried to give her a gold piece. Sophie refused to take it, so he gave her a two-penny bit instead and went away whistling happily. “I feel a fraud,” Sophie said as she stowed the money under the hearthstone. “But I would like to be there at that fight!”
“So would I!” crackled Calcifer. “When are you going to release me so that I can go and see things like that?”
“When I’ve got even a hint about this contract,” Sophie said.
“You may get one later today,” said Calcifer.
Michael breezed in toward the end of the afternoon. He took an anxious look round to make sure Howl had not come home first and went to the bench, where he got things out to make it look as if he had been busy, singing cheerfully while he did.
“I envy you being able to walk all that way so easily,” Sophie said, sewing a blue triangle to silver braid. “How was Ma—my niece?”
Michael gladly left the workbench and sat on the stool by the hearth to tell her all about his day. Then he asked about Sophie’s. The result was that when Howl shouldered the door open with his arms full of parcels, Michael was not even looking busy. He was rolling around on the stool laughing at the duel spell.
Howl backed into the door to shut it and leaned there in a tragic attitude. “Look at you all!” he said. “Ruin stares me in the face. I slave all day for you all. And not one of you, even Calcifer, can spare time to say hello!”
Michael sprang up guiltily and Calcifer said, “I never
do
say hello.”
“Is something wrong?” asked Sophie.
“That’s better,” said Howl. “Some of you are pretending to notice me at last. How kind of you to ask, Sophie. Yes, something
is
wrong. The King has asked me officially to find his brother for him—with a strong hint that destroying the Witch of the Waste would come in handy too—and you all sit there and laugh!”
By now it was clear that Howl was in a mood to produce green slime any second. Sophie hurriedly put her sewing away. “I’ll make some hot buttered toast,” she said.
“Is that all you can do in the face of tragedy?” Howl asked.
“Make toast!
No, don’t get up. I’ve trudged here laden with stuff for you, so the least you can do is show polite interest. Here.” He tipped a shower of parcels into Sophie’s lap and handed another to Michael.
Mystified, Sophie unwrapped things: several pairs of silk stockings; two parcels of the finest cambric petticoats, with flounces, lace, and satin insets; a pair of elastic-sided boots in dove-gray suede; a lace shawl; and a dress of gray watered silk trimmed with lace that matched the shawl. Sophie took one professional look at each and gasped. The lace alone was worth a fortune. She stroked the silk of the dress, awed.
Michael
unwrapped
a handsome new velvet suit. “You must have spent every bit that was in the silk purse!” he said ungratefully. “I don’t need this. You’re the one who needs a new suit.”
Howl hooked his boot into what remained of the blue-and-silver suit and held it up ruefully. Sophie had been working hard, but it was still more
hole
than suit. “How selfless I am,” he said. “But I can’t send you and Sophie to blacken my name to the King in rags. The King would think I didn’t look after my old mother properly. Well, Sophie? Are the boots the right size?”
Sophie looked up from her awed stroking. “Are you being kind,” she said, “or cowardly? Thank you very much and no I won’t.”
“What ingratitude!” Howl exclaimed, spreading out both arms. “Let’s have green slime again! After which I shall be forced to move the castle a thousand miles away and never see my lovely Lettie again!”
Michael looked at Sophie imploringly. Sophie glowered. She saw well enough that the happiness of both her sisters depended on her agreeing to see the King.
With green slime in reserve.
“You haven’t asked me to do anything yet,” she said. “You’ve just said I’m going to.”
Howl smiled. “And you
are
going to, aren’t you?”
“All right.
When do you want me to go?” Sophie said.
“Tomorrow afternoon,” said Howl. “Michael can go as your footman. The King’s expecting you.” He sat on the stool and began explaining very clearly and soberly just what Sophie was to say. There was no trace of the green-slime mood, now things were going Howl’s way, Sophie noticed. She wanted to slap him. “I want you to do a very delicate job,” Howl explained, “so that the King will go on giving me work like the transport spells, but not trust me with anything like finding his brother. You must tell him how I’ve angered the Witch of the Waste and explain what a good son I am to you, but I want you to do it in such a way that he’ll understand I’m really quite useless.”
Howl explained in great detail. Sophie clasped her hands round the parcels and tried to take it all in, though she could not help thinking,
If
I was the King, I wouldn’t understand a word of what the old woman was driving at!
Michael meanwhile was hovering at Howl’s elbow, trying to ask him about the perplexing spell. Howl kept thinking of new, delicate details to tell the King and waving Michael away. “Not now, Michael. And it occurred to me, Sophie, that you might want some practice in order not to find the Palace overwhelming. We don’t want you coming over queer in the middle of the interview. Not yet, Michael. So I arranged for you to pay a call to my old tutor, Mrs. Pentstemmon. She’s a grand old thing. In some ways she’s grander than the King. So you’ll be quite used to that kind of thing by the time you get to the Palace.”
By this time Sophie was wishing she had never agreed. She was heartily relieved when Howl at last turned to Michael.
“Right, Michael.
Your turn now.
What is it?”
Michael waved the shiny gray paper and explained in an unhappy rush how impossible the spell seemed to do.
Howl seemed faintly astonished to hear this, but he took the paper, saying, “Now, where was your problem?” and spread it out. He stared at it. One of his eyebrows shot up.
“I tried it as a puzzle and I tried doing it just as it says,” Michael explained. “But Sophie and I couldn’t catch the falling star—”
“Great gods above!”
Howl exclaimed. He started to laugh, and bit his lip to stop himself “But, Michael, this isn’t the spell I left you. Where did you find it?”
“On the bench, in that heap of things Sophie piled round the skull,” said Michael. “It was the only new spell there, so I thought—”
Howl leaped up and sorted among the things on the bench. “Sophie strikes again,” he said. Things skidded right and left as he searched. “I might have known! No, the proper spell’s not here.” He tapped the skull thoughtfully on its brown, shiny dome.
“Your doing, friend?
I have a notion you come from there. I’m sure the guitar does. Er—Sophie dear—”
“What?” said
Sophie.
“Busy old fool, unruly Sophie,” said Howl. “Am I right in thinking that you turned my doorknob black-side-down and stuck your long nose out through it?”
“Just my finger,” Sophie said with dignity.
“But you opened the door,” said Howl, “and the thing Michael thinks is a spell must have got through. Didn’t it occur to either of you that it doesn’t look like spells usually do?”
“Spells often look peculiar,” Michael said. “What is it really?”
Howl gave a snort of laughter.
“ ‘Decide
what this is about. Write a second verse’! Oh, lord!” he said and ran for the stairs. “I’ll show you,” he called as his feet pounded up them.
“I think we wasted our time rushing around the marshes last night,” Sophie said. Michael nodded gloomily. Sophie could see he was feeling a fool. “It was my fault,” she said. “I opened the door.”
“What was outside?” Michael asked with great interest.
But Howl came charging downstairs just then. “I haven’t got that book after all,” he said. He seemed upset now. “Michael, did I hear you say you went out and tried to catch a shooting star?”
“Yes, but it was scared stiff and fell in a pool and drowned,” Michael said.
“Thank goodness for that!” said Howl.
“It was very sad,” Sophie said.
“Sad, was it?” said Howl, more upset than ever. “It was
your
idea, was it? It
would
be! I can just see you hopping about the marshes, encouraging him! Let me tell you, that
was
the most stupid thing he’s ever done in his life. He’d have been more than sad if he’d chanced to catch the thing! And you—”
Calcifer flickered sleepily up the chimney. “What’s all this fuss about?” he demanded. “You caught one yourself, didn’t you?”
“Yes, and I—!”
Howl began, turning his glass-marble glare on Calcifer. But he pulled himself together and turned to Michael instead. “Michael, promise me you’ll never try to catch one again.”
“I promise,” Michael said willingly. “What is that writing, if it’s not a spell?”
