Howl’s Moving Castle

“Just like Michael,” said Sophie.

“What’s that?” Michael said, waking up. “Sophie, I wish we weren’t right on the edge of the Waste. I didn’t know we would be. I don’t feel safe.”

“Nobody’s safe in a wizard’s house,” Calcifer said feelingly.

Next morning the door was set to black-knob down and, to Sophie’s great annoyance, it would not open at any setting. She wanted to see those flowers, Witch or no Witch. So she took out her impatience by fetching a bucket of water and scrubbing the chalked signs off the floor.

Howl came in while she was doing it. “Work, work, work,” he said, stepping over Sophie as she scrubbed. He looked a little strange. His suit was still dense black, but he had turned his hair fair again. It looked white against the black. Sophie glanced at him and thought of the curse. Howl may have been thinking of it too. He picked the skull out of the sink and held it in one hand, mournfully. “Alas, poor Yorick!” he said. “She heard mermaids, so it follows that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. I have caught an everlasting cold, but luckily I am terribly dishonest. I cling to that.” He coughed pathetically. But his cold was getting better and it did not sound very convincing.

Sophie exchanged looks with the dog-man, who was sitting watching her, looking as doleful as Howl. “You should go back to Lettie,” she murmured. “What’s the matter?” she said to Howl. “Miss Angorian not going well?”

“Dreadfully,” said Howl. “Lily Angorian has a heart like a boiled stone.” He put the skull back in the sink and shouted for Michael. “Food! Work!” he yelled.

After breakfast they took everything out of the broom cupboard. Then Michael and Howl knocked a hole in the side wall of it. Dust flew out of the cupboard door and strange thumpings occurred. At last they both shouted for Sophie. Sophie came, meaningly carrying a broom. And there was an archway where the wall had been, leading to the steps that had always connected the shop and the house. Howl beckoned her to come and look at the shop. It was empty and echoing. Its floor was now tiled in black and white squares, like Mrs. Pentstemmon’s hall, and the shelves which had once held hats had a vase of waxed-silk roses and a small posy of velvet cowslips on them. Sophie realized she was expected to admire it, so she managed not to say anything.

“I found the flowers in the workshed out at the back,” said Howl. “Come and look at the outside.”

He opened the door into the street, and the same shop bell tinkled that Sophie had heard all her life. Sophie hobbled out into the empty early-morning street. The shop front had been newly painted green and yellow. Curly letters over the window said: H. JENKINS FRESH FLOWERS DAILY.

“Changed your mind about common names, haven’t you?” said Sophie.

“For reasons of disguise only,” said Howl. “I prefer Pendragon.”

“And where do the fresh flowers come from?” Sophie asked. “You can’t say that and then sell wax roses off hats.”

“Wait and see,” said Howl, leading the way back into the shop.

They went through and out into the yard Sophie had known all her life. It was only half the size now, because Howl’s yard from the moving castle took up one side of it. Sophie looked up beyond the brick walls of Howl’s yard to her own old house. It looked rather odd because of the new window in it that belonged to Howl’s bedroom, and it made Sophie feel odder still when she realized that Howl’s window did not look out onto the things she saw now. She could see the window of her own old bedroom, up above the shop. That made her feel odd too, because there did not seem to be any way to get up into it now.

As Sophie hobbled after Howl indoors again and up the stairs to the broom cupboard, she realized she was being very gruff. Seeing her own old home this way was giving her fearsome mixed feelings. “I think it’s all very nice,” she said.

“Really?” Howl said coldly. His feelings were hurt. He did so like to be appreciated, Sophie thought, sighing, as Howl went to the castle door and turned the knob to purple-down. On the other hand, she did not think she ever praised Howl, any more than Calcifer did, and she wondered why she should start now.

The door opened. Big bushes loaded with flowers drifted gently past and stopped so that Sophie could climb down among them. Between the bushes, lanes of long, bright green grass led in all different directions. Howl and Sophie walked down the nearest, and the castle followed them, brushing petals off as it went. The castle, tall and back and misshapen though it was, blowing its peculiar little wisps of smoke from one turret or another, did not look out of place here. Magic had been at work here. Sophie knew it had. And the castle fitted somehow.