Howl’s Moving Castle

“Nothing definite yet,” Howl said gloomily. “But he was sounding me out about his brother, quiet ominously. Apparently they had a good old argument before Prince Justin stormed off, and people are talking. The King obviously wanted me to volunteer to look for his brother. And like a fool I went and said I didn’t think Wizard Suliman was dead, and that made matters worse.”
“Why do you want to slither out of looking for the Prince?” Sophie demanded. “Don’t you think you can find him?”
“Rude as well as a bully, aren’t you?” Howl said. He had still not forgiven her about Calcifer. “I want to get out of it because I know I can find him, if you must know. Justin was great buddies with Suliman, and the argument was because he told the King he was going to look for him. He didn’t think the King should have sent Suliman to the Waste in the first place. Now, even you must know there is a certain lady in the Waste who is very bad news. She promised to fry me alive last year, and she sent out a curse after me that I’ve only avoided so far because I had the sense to give her a false name.”
Sophie was almost awed. “You mean you jilted the Witch of the Waste?”
Howl cut himself another lump of cake, looking sad and honorable. “That is not the way to put it. I admit, I thought I was fond of her for a time. She is in some ways a very sad lady, very unloved. Every man in Ingary is scared stiff of her. You ought to know how that feels, Sophie dear.”
Sophie’s mouth opened in utter indignation. Michael said quickly, “Do you think we should move the castle? That’s why you invented it, wasn’t it?”
“That depends on Calcifer.” Howl looked over his shoulder at the barely smoking logs again. “I must say, if I think of the King and the Witch both after me, I get a craving for planting the castle on a nice, frowning rock a thousand miles away.”
Michael obviously wished he had not spoken. Sophie could see he was thinking that a thousand miles away was a terribly long way from Martha. “But what happens to your Lettie Hatter,” she said to Howl, “if you up and move?”
“I expect that will be all over by then,” Howl said absently. “But if I could only think of a way to get the King off my back…I know!” He lifted his fork, with a melting hunk of cream and cake on it, and pointed it at Sophie. “You can blacken my name to the King. You can pretend to be my old mother and plead for your blue-eyed boy.” He gave Sophie the smile which had no doubt charmed the Witch of the Waste and possibly Lettie too, firing it along the fork, across the cream, straight into Sophie’s eyes, dazzlingly. “If you can bully Calcifer, the King should give you no trouble at all.”
Sophie stared through the dazzle and said nothing. This, she thought, was where she slithered out. She was leaving. It was too bad about Calcifer’s contract. She had had enough of Howl. First green slime, then glaring at her for something Calcifer had done quite freely, and now this! Tomorrow she would slip off to Upper Folding and tell Lettie all about it.
8. In which Sophie leaves the castle in several directions at once.
To Sophie’s relief, Calcifer blazed up bright and cheerful next morning. If she had not had enough of Howl, she would have been almost touched by how glad Howl was to see Calcifer.
“I thought she’d done for you, you old ball of gas,” Howl said, kneeling at the hearth with his sleeves trailing in the ash.
“I was only tired,” Calcifer said. “There was some kind of drag on the castle. I’d never taken it that fast before.”
“Well, don’t let her make you do it again,” said Howl. He stood up, gracefully brushing ash off his gray-and-scarlet suit. “Make a start on that spell today, Michael. And if anyone comes from the King, I’m away on urgent private business until tomorrow. I’m going to see Lettie, but you needn’t tell him that.” He picked up his guitar and opened the door with the knob green-down, onto the wide, cloudy hills.
The scarecrow was there again. When Howl opened the door, it pitched sideways across him with its turnip face in his chest. The guitar uttered an awful twang-oing . Sophie gave a faint squawk of terror and hung onto the chair. One of the scarecrow’s stick arms was scraping stiffly around to get a purchase on the door. From the way Howl’s feet were braced, it was clear he was being shoved quite hard. There was no doubt the thing was determined to get into the castle.
Calcifer’s blue face leaned out of the grate. Michael stood stock still beyond. “There really is a scarecrow!” they both said.
“Oh, is there” Do tell!” Howl panted. He got one foot up against the door frame and heaved. The scarecrow flew lumpishly away backward, to land with a light rustle in the heather some yards off. It sprang up instantly and came hopping towards the castle again. Howl hurriedly laid the guitar on the doorstep and jumped down to meet it. “No you don’t, my friend,” he said with one hand out. “Go back where you came from.” He walked forward slowly, still with his hand out. The scarecrow retreated a little, hopping slowly and warily backward. When Howl stopped, the scarecrow stopped too, with its one leg planted in the heather and its ragged arms tilting this way and that like a person sparring for an opening. The rags fluttering on its arms seemed a mad imitation of Howl’s sleeves.
“So you won’t go?” Howl said. And the turnip head slowly moved from side to side. No. “I’m afraid you’ll have to,” Howl said. “You scare Sophie, and there’s no knowing what she’ll do when she’s scared. Come to think of it, you scare me too.” Howl’s arms moved, heavily, as if he was lifting a large weight, until they were raised high above his head. He shouted out a strange word, which was half hidden in a crack of sudden thunder. And the scarecrow went soaring away. Up and backward it went, rags fluttering, arms wheeling in protest, up and out, and on and on, until it was a soaring speck in the sky, then a vanishing point in the clouds, and then not to be seen at all.
Howl lowered his arms and came back to the doorway, mopping his face on the back of his hand. “I take back my hard words, Sophie,” he said, panting. “That thing was alarming. It may have been dragging the castle back all yesterday. It had some of the strongest magic I’ve met. Whatever was it-all that was left of the last person you cleaned for?”
Sophie gave a weak little cackle of laughter. Her heart was behaving badly again.
Howl realized something was wrong with her. He jumped indoors across his guitar, took hold of her elbow, and sat her in the chair. “Take it easy now!” Something happened between Howl and Calcifer then. Sophie felt it, because e she was being held by Howl, and Calcifer was still leaning out of the grate. Whatever it was, her heart began to behave properly again almost at once. Howl looked at Calcifer, shrugged, and turned away to give Michael a whole lot of instructions about making Sophie keep quiet for the rest of the day. Then he picked up the guitar and left at last.
Sophie lay in the chair and pretended to feel twice as ill as she did, she had to let Howl get out of sight. It was a nuisance he was going to Upper Folding as well, but she would walk so much more slowly that she would arrive around the time he started back. The important thing was not to meet him on the way. She watched Michael slyly while he spread out his spell and scratched his head over it. She waited until he dragged big leather books off the shelves and began making notes in a frantic, depressed sort of way. When he seemed properly absorbed, Sophie muttered several times, “Stuffy in here!”
Michael took no notice. “Terribly stuffy,” Sophie said, getting up and shambling to the door. “Fresh air.” She opened the door and climbed out. Calcifer obligingly stopped the castle dead while she did. Sophie landed in the heather and took a look round to get her bearings. The road over the hills to Upper Folding was a sandy line through the heather just downhill from the castle. Naturally. Calcifer would not make things inconvenient for Howl. Sophie set off toward it. She felt a little sad. She was going to miss Michael and Calcifer.
She was almost at the road when there was shouting behind her. Michael came bounding down the hillside after her, and the tall black castle came bobbling along behind him, shedding anxious puffs of smoke from all four turrets.
“What are you doing?” Michael said when he caught up. From the way he looked at her, Sophie could see he thought the scarecrow had sent her wrong in the head.
“I’m perfectly all right,” Sophie said indignantly. “I’m simply going to see my other sis-ter’s granddaughter. She’s called Lettie too. Now do you understand?”
“Where does she live?” Michael demanded, as if he thought Sophie might not know.
“Upper Folding,” said Sophie.
“But that’s over ten miles away!” Michael said. “I promised Howl I’d make you rest. I can’t let you go. I told him I wouldn’t let you out of my sight.”
Sophie did not look very kindly on this. Howl thought she was useful now because he wanted her to see the King. Of course he did not want her to leave the castle. “Huh!” she said.
“Besides,” said Michael, slowly grasping the situation, “Howl must have gone to Upper Folding too.”
“I’m quite sure he had,” said Sophie.
“Then you’re anxious about this girl, it she’s your great-niece,” Michael said, arriving at the point at last. “I see! But I can’t let you go.”
“I’m going,” said Sophie.
“But if Howl sees you there he’ll be furious,” Michael went on, working things out. “Because I promised him, he’ll be mad with both of us. You ought to rest.” Then, when Sophie was almost ready to hit him, he exclaimed, “Wait! There’s a pair of seven-league boots in the broom cupboard!”
He took Sophie by her skinny old wrist and towed her uphill to the waiting castle. She was forced to give little hops in order not to catch her feet in the heather. “But,” she panted, “seven leagues is twenty-one miles! I’d be halfway to Porthaven in two strides!”
“No, it’s ten and a half miles a step,” said Michael. “That makes Upper Folding almost exactly. If we each take one boot and go together, then I won’t be letting you out of my sight and you won’t be doing anything strenuous, and we’ll get there before Howl does, so he won’t even know we’ve been. That solves all our problems beautifully!”
Michael was so pleased with himself that Sophie did not have the heart to protest. She shrugged and supposed Michael had better find out about the two Lettie’s before they changed looks again. It was more honest this way. But when Michael fetched the boots from the broom cupboard, Sophie began to have doubts. Up to now she had thought they were two leather buckets that had somehow lost their handles and then got a little squashed.