Howl’s Moving Castle

The nothingness was only an inch-thick after all. Beyond it, in a gray, drizzling evening, was a cement path down to a garden gate. Howl and Michael were waiting at the gate. Beyond that was a flat, hard-looking road lined with houses on both sides. Sophie looked back at where she had come from, shivering rather in the drizzle, and found the castle had become a house of yellow brick with large windows. Like all the other houses, it was square and new, with a front door of wobbly glass. Nobody seemed to be about among the houses. That may have been due to the drizzle, but Sophie had a feeling that it was really because, in spite of there being so many houses, this was really somewhere at the edge of a town.

“When you’ve quite finished nosing,” Howl called. His gray-and-scarlet finery was all misted with drizzle. He was dangling a bunch of strange keys, most of which were flat and yellow and seemed to match the houses. When Sophie came down the path, he blurred, as if the drizzle round him had suddenly become a fog. When it came into focus again, it was still scarlet-and-gray, but quite a different shape. The dangling sleeves were gone and the whole outfit was baggier. It looked worn and shabby.

Michael’s jacket had become a waist-length padded thing. He lifted his foot, wit a canvas shoe on it, and stared at the tight blue things encasing his legs. “I can hardly bend my knee,” he said.

“You’ll get used to it,” said Howl. “Come on, Sophie.”

To Sophie’s surprise, Howl led the way back up the garden path toward the yellow house. The back of his baggy jacket, she saw, had mysterious words on it: WELSH RUGBY. Michael followed Howl, walking in a kind of tight strut because of the things on his legs. Sophie looked down at herself and saw twice as much skinny leg showing above her knobby shoes. Otherwise, not much about her had changed.

Howl unlocked the wavy-glass door with one of his keys. It had a wooden notice hanging beside it on chains. RIVENDELL, Sophie read, as Howl pushed her into a neat, shiny hall space. There seemed to be people in the house. Loud voices were coming from behind the nearest door. When Howl opened that door, Sophie realized that the voices were coming from magic colored pictures moving on the front of a big, square box.

“Howell!” exclaimed a woman who was sitting there knitting.

She put down her knitting, looking a little annoyed, but before she could get up, a small girl, who had been watching the magic picture very seriously with her chin in her hands, leaped up and flung herself at Howl. “Uncle Howell!” she screamed, and jumped halfway up Howl with her legs wrapped around him.

“Mari!” Howl bawled in reply. “How are you, cariad? Been a good girl, then?” He and the little girl broke into a foreign language then, fast and loud. Sophie could see they were very special to one another. She wondered about the language. It sounded the same as Calcifer’s silly saucepan song, but it was hard to be sure. In between bursts of foreign chatter, Howl managed to say, as if he were a ventriloquist, “This I my niece, Mari, and my sister, Megan Parry. Megan, this is Michael Fisher and Sophie-er-”

“Hatter,” said Sophie.

Megan shook hands with both of them in a restrained, disapproving way. She was older than Howl, but quite like him, with the same long, angular face, but her eyes were blue and full of anxieties, and her hair was darkish. “Quiet now, Mari!” she said in a voice that cut through the foreign chatter. “Howell, are you staying long?”

“Just dropped in for a moment,” Howl said, lowering Mari to the floor.

“Gareth isn’t in yet,” Megan said in a meaning sort of way.

“What a pity! We can’t stay,” Howl said, smiling a warm, false smile. “I just thought I’d introduce you to my friends here. And I want to ask you something that may sound silly. Has Neil by any chance lost a piece of English homework lately?”

“Funny you should say that!” Megan exclaimed. “Looking everywhere for it, he was, last Thursday! He’s got this new English teacher, see, and she’s very strict, doesn’t just worry about spelling either. Puts the fear of God into them about getting work in on time. Doesn’t do Neil any harm, lazy little devil! So here he is on Thursday, hunting high and low, and all he can find is a funny old piece of writing-”

“Ah,” said Howl. “What did he do with that writing?”

“I told him to hand it in to this Miss Angorian of his,” Megan said. “Might show her he tried for once.”

“And did he?” Howl asked.

“I don’t know. Better ask Neil. He’s up in the front bedroom with that machine of his,” said Megan. “But you won’t get a word of sense out of him.”