Howl’s Moving Castle

Howl hurried away to the pink-and-green stairs, but Michael and Sophie both hung about near the door of the room, wondering what the whole thing was about. Inside, Neil was reading aloud. “You are in an enchanted castle with four doors. Each opens on a different dimension. In Dimension One the castle is moving constantly and may arrive at a hazard at any time…”
Sophie wondered at the familiarity of this as she hobbled to the stairs. She found Michael standing halfway down, looking embarrassed. Howl was at the foot of the stairs having an argument with his sister.
“What do you mean, you’ve sold all my books?” she heard Howl saying. “I needed one of them particularly. They weren’t yours to sell.”
“Don’t keep interrupting!” Megan answered in a low, ferocious voice. “Listen now! I’ve told you before I’m not a storehouse for your property. You’re a disgrace to me and Gareth, lounging about in those clothes instead of buying a proper suit and looking respectable for once, taking up with riffraff and layabouts, bringing them to this house! Are you trying to bring me down to your level? You had all that education, and you don’t even get a decent job, you just hang around, wasting all that time at college, wasting all those sacrifices other people made, wasting your money…”
Megan would have been a match for Mrs. Fairfax. Her voice went on and on. Sophie began to understand how Howl had acquired the habit of slithering out. Megan was the kind of person who made you want to back quietly out of the nearest door. Unfortunately, Howl was backed up against the stairs, and Sophie and Michael were bottled up behind him.
“…never doing an honest day’s work, never getting a job I could be proud of, bringing shame on me and Gareth, coming here and spoiling Mari rotten,” Megan ground on remorselessly.
Sophie pushed Michael aside and stumped downstairs, looking as stately as she could manage. “Come, Howl,” she said grandly. “We really must be on our way. While we stand here, money is ticking away and your servants are probably selling the gold plate. So nice to meet you,” she said to Megan as she arrived at the foot of the stairs, “but we must rush. Howl is such a busy man.”
Megan gulped a bit and stared at Sophie. Sophie gave her a stately nod and pushed Howl toward the wavy-glass front door. Michael’s face was bright red. Sophie saw that because Howl turned back to ask Megan, “Is my old car still in the shed, or have you sold that too?”
“You’ve got the only set of keys,” Megan answered dourly.
That seemed to be the only goodbye. The front door slammed and Howl took them to a square white building at the end of the flat black road. Howl did not say anything about Megan. He said, as he unlocked a wide door in the building, “I suppose the fierce English teacher is bound to have a copy of that book.”
Sophie wished to forget the next bit. They rode in a carriage without horses that went at a terrifying speed, smelling and growling and shaking as it tore down some of the steepest roads Sophie had never seen-roads so steep that she wondered why the houses lining them did not slide into a heap at the bottom. She shut her eyes and clung to some of the pieces that had torn off the seats, and simply hoped it would be over soon.
Luckily, it was. They arrived in a flatter road with houses crammed in on both sides, beside a large window filled with a white curtain and a notice that said: TEAS CLOSED. But, despite this forbidding notice, when Howl pressed a button at a small door beside the window, Miss Angorian opened the door. They all stared at her. For a fierce schoolteacher, Miss Angorian was astonishingly young and slender and good-looking. She had sheets of blue-black hair hanging round her olive-brown heart-shaped face, and enormous dark eyes. The only thing which suggested fierceness about her was the direct and clever way those enormous eyes looked and seemed to sum them up.
“I’ll take a small guess that you may be Howell Jenkins,” Miss Angorian said to Howl. She had a low, melodious voice that was nevertheless rather amused and quite sure of itself.
Howl was taken aback for an instant. Then his smile snapped on. And that, Sophie thought, was goodbye to the pleasant dreams of Lettie and Mrs. Fairfax. For Miss Angorian was exactly the kind of lady someone like Howl could be trusted to fall in love with on the spot. And not only Howl. Michael was staring admiringly too. And though all the houses around were apparently deserted, Sophie had no doubt that they were full of people who all knew both Howl and Miss Angorian and were watching with interest to see what would happen. She could feel their invisible eyes. Market Chipping was like that too.
“And you must be Miss Angorian,” said Howl. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I made a stupid mistake last week and carried off my nephew’s English homework instead of a rather important paper I had with me. I gather Neil gave it to you as proof that he wasn’t shirking.”
“He did,” said Miss Angorian. “You’d better come in and collect it.”
Sophie was sure the invisible eyes in all the houses goggled and the invisible necks craned as Howl and Michael and she trooped in through Miss Angorian’s door and up a flight of stairs to Miss Angorian’s tiny, severe living room.
Miss Angorian said considerately to Sophie, “Won’t you sit down?”
Sophie was still shaking from that horseless carriage. She sat down gladly on one of the two chairs. It was not very comfortable. Miss Angorian’s room was not designed for comfort but for study. Though many of the things in it were strange, Sophie understood the walls of books, and the piles of paper on the table, and the folders stacked on the floor. She sat and watched Michael staring sheepishly and Howl turning on his charm.
“How is it you come to know who I am?” Howl asked beguilingly.
“You seem to have caused a lot of gossip in this town,” Miss Angorian said, busy sorting through papers on the table.
“And what have those people who gossip told you?” Howl asked. He leaned languishingly on the end of the table and tried to catch Miss Angorian’s eye.
“That you disappear and turn up rather unpredictably, for one thing,” Miss Angorian said.
“And what else?” Howl followed Miss Angorian’s movements with such a look that Sophie knew Lettie’s only chance was for Miss Angorian to fall instantly in love with Howl too.
But Miss Angorian was not that kind of lady. She said, “Many other things, few of them to your credit,” and caused Michael to blush by looking at him and Sophie in a way that suggested these things were not fit for their ears. She held a yellowish wavy-edged paper out to Howl. “Here it is,” she said severely. “Do you know what it is?”
“Of course,” said Howl.
“Then please tell me,” said Miss Angorian.
Howl took the paper. There was a bit of a scuffle as he tried to take Miss Angorian’s hand with it. Miss Angorian won the scuffle and put her hands behind her back. Howl smiled meltingly and passed the paper to Michael. “You tell her,” he said.
Michael’s blushing face lit up as soon as he looked at it. “It’s the spell! Oh, I can do this one-it’s enlargement, isn’t it?”
“That’s what I thought,” Miss Angorian said rather accusingly. “I’d like to know what you were doing with such a thing.”
“Miss Angorian,” said Howl, “if you have heard all those things about me, you must know I wrote my doctoral thesis on charms and spells. You look as if you suspect me of working black magic! I assure you, I never worked any kind of spell in my life.” Sophie could not stop herself making a small snort at this blatant lie. “With my hand on my heart,” Howl added, giving Sophie an irritated frown, “this spell is for study purposes only. It’s very old and rare. That’s why I wanted it back.”
“Well, you have it back,” Miss Angorian said briskly. “Before you go, would you mind giving me my homework sheet in return? Photocopies cost money.”
Howl brought out the gray paper willingly and held it just out of reach. “This poem now,” he said. “It’s been bothering me. Silly, really!-but I can’t remember the rest of it. By Walter Raleigh, isn’t it?”
Miss Angorian gave him a withering look. “Certainly not. It’s by John Donne and it’s very well known indeed. I have the book with it in here, if you want to refresh your memory.”
“Please,” said Howl, and from the way his eyes followed Miss Angorian as she went to her wall of books, Sophie realized that this was the real reason why Howl had come into this strange land where his family lived. But Howl was not above killing two birds with one stone. “Miss Angorian,” he said pleadingly, following her contours as she stretched for the book, “would you consider coming out for some supper with me tonight?”
Miss Angorian turned round with a large book in her hands, looking more severe than ever. “I would not,” she said. “Mr. Jenkins, I don’t know what you’ve heard about me, but you must have heard that I still consider myself engaged to Ben Sullivan-”
“Never heard of him,” said Howl.
“My fiancй,” said Miss Angorian. “He disappeared some years back. Now, do you wish me to read this poem to you?”
“Do that,” Howl said, quite unrepentant. “You have such a lovely voice.”
“Then I’ll start with the second verse,” Miss Angorian said, “since you have the first verse there in your hand.” She read very well, not only melodiously, but in a way which made the second verse fit the rhythm of the first, which in Sophie’s opinion it did not do at all:
“If thou beest born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights
Till age snow white hairs on thee.
Thou, when thou returnest, wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear
No where
Lives a woman true, and fair.
If thou-”
Howl had gone a terrible white. Sophie could see sweat standing on his face. “Thank you,” he said. “Stop there. I won’t trouble you for the rest. Even the good woman is untrue in the last verse, isn’t she? I remember now. Silly of me. John Donne, of course.” Miss Angorian lowered the book and stared at him. He forced up a smile. “We must be going now. Sure you won’t change your mind about supper?”
“I will not,” said Miss Angorian. “Are you quite well, Mr. Jenkins?”
“In the pink,” Howl said, and he hustled Michael and Sophie away down the stairs and into the horrible horseless carriage. The invisible watchers in the houses must have thought Miss Angorian was chasing them with a saber, if they judged from the speed with which Howl packed them into it and drove off.