Sophie sewed buttons on Michael’s shirts and listened to
Howl
going through a spell with Michael. “I know
I’m
slapdash,” he was saying, “but there’s no need for you to copy me. Always read it right through, carefully, first. The shape of it should tell you a lot, whether it’s self-fulfilling, or self-discovering, or simple incantation, or mixed action and speech. When you’ve decided that, go through again and decide which bits mean what they say and which bits are put as a puzzle. You’re getting on to the more powerful kinds now. You’ll find every spell of power has at least one deliberate mistake or mystery in it to prevent accidents. You have to spot those. Now take this spell…”
Listening to Michael’s halting replies to
Howl’s
questions, and watching Howl scribble remarks on the paper with a strange, everlasting quill pen, Sophie realized that she could learn a lot too. It dawned on her that if Martha could discover the spell to swap herself and Lettie about at Mrs. Fairfax’s, then she ought to be able to do the same here. With a bit of luck, there might be no need to rely on Calcifer.
When Howl was satisfied that Michael had forgotten all about how much or little he charged people in Porthaven, he took him out into the yard to help with the King’s spell. Sophie creaked to her feet and hobbled to the bench. The spell was clear enough, but Howl’s scrawled remarks defeated her. “I’ve never
seen
such writing!” she grumbled to the human skull. “Does he use a pen or a poker?” She sorted eagerly through every scrap of paper on the bench and examined the powders and liquids in the crooked jars. “Yes, let’s admit it,” she told the skull. “I snoop. And I have my proper reward. I can find out how to cure fowl pest and abate whooping cough, raise a wind and remove hairs from the face. If Martha had found this lot, she’d still be at Mrs. Fairfax’s.”
Howl, it seemed to Sophie, went and examined all the things she had moved when he came in from the yard. But that seemed to be only restlessness. He seemed not to know what to do with
himself
after that. Sophie heard him roving up and down during the night. He was only an hour in the bathroom the next morning. He seemed not to be able to contain himself while Michael put on his best plum velvet suit, ready to go to the Palace in Kingsbury, and the two of them wrapped the bulky spell up in golden paper. The spell must have been surprisingly light for its size. Michael could carry it on his own easily, with both his arms wrapped round it. Howl turned the knob over the door red-down for him and sent him out into the street among the painted houses.
“They’re expecting it,” Howl said. “You should only have to wait most of the morning. Tell them a child could work it. Show them. And when you come back, I’ll have a spell of power for you to get to work on.
So long.”
He shut the door and roved round the room again. “My feet itch,” he said suddenly. “I’m going for a walk on the hills. Tell Michael the spell I promised him is on the bench. And here’s for you to keep busy with.”
Sophie found a gray-and-scarlet suit, as fancy as the blue-and-silver one, dropped into her lap from nowhere. Howl meanwhile picked up his guitar from its corner, turned the doorknob green-down, and stepped out among the scudding heather above Market Chipping.
“
His
feet itch!” grumbled Calcifer. There was a fog down in Porthaven. Calcifer was low among his logs, moving uneasily this way and that to avoid drips in the chimney. “How does he think
I
feel, stuck in a damp grate like this?”
“Then you’ll have to give me a hint at least about how to break your contract,” Sophie said, shaking out the gray-and-scarlet suit. “Goodness, you’re a fine suit, even if you are a bit worn! Built to pull in the girls, aren’t you?”
“I
have
given you a hint!” Calcifer fizzed.
“Then you’ll have to give it me again. I didn’t catch it,” Sophie said as she laid the suit down and hobbled to the door.
“If I give you a hint and tell you it’s a hint, it will be information, and I’m not allowed to give that,” Calcifer said. “Where are you going?”
“To do something I didn’t dare do until they were both out,” Sophie said. She twisted the square knob over the door until the black blob pointed downward. Then she opened the door.
There was nothing outside. It was neither black, nor gray, nor white. It was not thick, or transparent. It did not move. It had no smell and no feel. When Sophie put a very cautious finger out into it, it was neither hot nor cold. It felt of nothing. It seemed utterly and completely nothing.
“What
is
this?” she asked Calcifer.
Calcifer was as interested as Sophie. His blue face was leaning right out of the grate to see the door. He had forgotten the fog. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I only maintain it. All I know is that it’s on the side of the castle that no one can walk around. It feels quite far away.”
“It feels beyond the moon!” said Sophie. She shut the door and turned the knob green-downward. She hesitated a minute and then started to hobble to the stairs.
“He’s locked it,” said Calcifer. “He told me to tell you if you tried to snoop again.”
“Oh,” said Sophie. “What has he got up there?”
“I’ve no idea,” said Calcifer. “I don’t know anything about upstairs. If you only knew how frustrating it is! I can’t even really see outside the castle. Only enough to see what direction I’m going in.”
Sophie, feeling equally frustrated, sat down and began mending the gray-and-scarlet suit. Michael came in quite soon after that.
“The King saw me at once,” he said. “He—” He looked round the room. His eyes went to the empty corner where the guitar usually stood. “Oh, no!” he said.
“Not the lady friend again!
I thought she’d fallen in love with him and it was all over days ago. What’s keeping her?”
Calcifer fizzed wickedly. “You got the signs wrong. Heartless Howl is finding this lady rather tough. He decided to leave her alone a few days to see if that would help. That’s all.”
“Bother!” said Michael. “That’s bound to mean trouble. And here was I hoping Howl was almost sensible again!”
Sophie banged the suit down on her knees. “Really!” she said. “How can you both talk like that about such utter
wickedness!
At least, I suppose I can’t blame Calcifer, since he’s an evil demon.
But you, Michael—!”
“I don’t think I’m evil,” Calcifer protested.
“But I’m not calm about it, if that’s what you think!” Michael said. “If you knew the trouble we’ve had because Howl will keep falling in love like this! We’ve had lawsuits, and suitors with swords, and mothers with rolling pins, and fathers and uncles with cudgels.
And aunts.
Aunts are terrible. They go for you with hat pins. But the worst is when the girl herself finds out where Howl lives and turns up at the door, crying and miserable. Howl goes out through the back door and Calcifer and I have to deal with them all.”
“I hate the unhappy ones,” Calcifer said. “They drip on me. I’d rather have them angry.”
“Now let’s get this straight,” Sophie said, clenching her fists knobbily in red satin. “What does Howl do to these poor females? I was told he ate their hearts and took their souls away.”
Michael laughed uncomfortably. “Then you must come from Market Chipping. Howl sent me down there to blacken his name when we first set up the castle. I—er—I said that sort of thing. It’s what aunts usually say. It’s only true in a manner of speaking.”
“Howl’s very fickle,” said Calcifer. “He’s only interested until the girl falls in love with him. Then he can’t be bothered with her.”
“But he can’t rest until he’s made her love him,” Michael said eagerly. “You can’t get any sense out of him until he has. I always look forward to the time when the girl falls for him. Things get better then.”
“Until they track him down,” said Calcifer.
“You’d think he’d have the sense to give them a false name,” Sophie said scornfully. The scorn was to hide the fact that she was feeling somewhat foolish.
“Oh, he always does,” Michael said.
“He loves giving false names and posing as things.
He does it even when he’s not courting girls. Haven’t you noticed that he’s Sorcerer Jenkin in Porthaven, and Wizard Pendragon in Kingsbury, as well as Horrible Howl in the castle?”
Sophie had not
noticed,
which made her feel more foolish still. And feeling foolish made her angry. “Well, I still think it’s wicked, going round making poor girls unhappy,” she said. “It’s heartless and pointless.”
“He’s made that way,” said Calcifer.
Michael pulled a three-legged stool up to the fire and sat on it while Sophie sewed, telling her of Howl’s conquests and some of the trouble that had happened afterward. Sophie muttered at the fine suit. She still felt very foolish. “So you ate hearts, did you, suit? Why do aunts put things so
oddly
when they talk about their nieces? Probably fancied you themselves, my good suit. How would you feel with a raging aunt after you, eh?” As Michael told her the story of the particular aunt he had in mind, it occurred to Sophie that it was probably just as well the rumors of Howl had come to Market Chipping in those words. She could imagine a strong-minded girl like Lettie otherwise getting very interested in Howl and ending up very unhappy.
Michael had just suggested lunch and Calcifer as usual had groaned when Howl flung the door open and came in, more discontented than ever.
“Something to eat?” said Sophie.
“No,” said Howl.
“Hot water in the bathroom, Calcifer.”
He stood moodily in the bathroom door a moment. “Sophie, have you tidied this shelf of spells in here, by any chance?”
Sophie felt more foolish than ever. Nothing would have possessed her to admit that she had gone through all those packets and jars looking for pieces of girl. “I haven’t touched a thing,” she replied virtuously as she went to get the frying pan.
“I hope you didn’t,” Michael said uneasily as the bathroom door slammed.
Rinsings and gushings came from the bathroom while Sophie fried lunch. “He’s using a lot of hot water,” Calcifer said from under the pan. “I think he’s tinting his hair. I hope you left the hair spells alone. For a plain man with mud-colored hair, he’s terribly vain about his looks.”
“Oh, shut up!” snapped Sophie. “I put everything back just where I found it!” She was so cross that she emptied the pan of eggs and bacon over Calcifer.
Calcifer, of course, ate them with enormous enthusiasm and much flaring and gobbling. Sophie fried more over the spitting flames. She and Michael ate them. They were clearing away, and Calcifer was running his blue tongue round his purple lips, when the bathroom door crashed open and Howl shot out, wailing with despair.
“Look at this!” he shouted. “
Look
at it! What has that one-woman force of chaos
done
to these spells?”
Sophie and Michael whirled round and looked at Howl. His hair was wet, but, apart from that, neither of them could see that it looked any different.
“If you mean me—” Sophie began.
“I
do
mean you! Look!” Howl shrieked. He sat down with a thump on the three-legged stool and jabbed at his wet head with his finger. “Look.
Survey.
Inspect. My hair is ruined! I look like a pan of bacon and eggs!”
Michael and Sophie bent nervously over Howl’s head. It seemed the usual flaxen color right to the roots. The only difference might have been a slight, very slight, trace of red. Sophie found that agreeable. It reminded her a little of the color her own hair should have been.
“I think it’s very nice,” she said.
“
Nice
!” screamed Howl. “You would! You did it on purpose. You couldn’t rest until you made me miserable too. Look at it! It’s
ginger
! I shall have to
hide
until it’s grown out!” He spread his arms out passionately. “Despair!” he yelled.
“Anguish!
Horror!”
The room turned dim. Huge, cloudy, human-looking shapes bellied up in all four corners and advanced on Sophie and Michael, howling as they came. The howls began as moaning horror, and went up to despairing brays, and then up again to screams of pain and terror. Sophie pressed her hands to her ears, but the screams pressed through her hands, louder and louder still, more horrible every second. Calcifer shrank hurriedly down in the grate and flickered his way under his lowest log. Michael grabbed Sophie by her elbow and dragged her to the door. He spun the knob to blue-down, kicked the door open, and got them both out into the street in Porthaven as fast as he could.
The noise was almost as horrible out there. Doors were opening all down the road and people were running out with their hands over their ears.
“Ought we to leave him alone in that state?” Sophie quavered.
“Yes,” said Michael. “If he thinks it’s your fault, then definitely.”
They hurried through the town, pursued by throbbing screams. Quite a crowd came with them. In spite of the fact that the fog had now become a seeping sea drizzle, everyone made for the harbor or the sands, where the noise seemed easier to bear. The gray vastness of the sea soaked it up a little. Everyone stood in damp huddles, looking out at the misty white horizon and the dripping ropes on the moored ships while the noise became a gigantic, heartbroken sobbing. Sophie reflected that she was seeing the sea close for the first time in her life. It was a pity that she was not enjoying it more.