“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.
The sobs died away to vast, miserable sighs and then to silence. People began cautiously to go back into the town. Some of them came timidly up to Sophie.
“Is something wrong with the poor Sorcerer, Mrs. Witch?”
“He’s a little unhappy today,” Michael said. “Come on. I think we can risk going back now.”
As they went along the stone quayside, several sailors called out anxiously from the moored ships, wanting to know if the noise meant storms or bad luck.
“Not at all,” Sophie called back. “It’s all over now.”
But it was not. They came back to the Wizard’s house, which was an ordinary crooked little building from the outside that Sophie would not have recognized if Michael had not been with her. Michael opened the shabby little door rather cautiously. Inside. Howl was still sitting on the stool. He sat in an attitude of utter despair. And he was covered all over in thick green slime.
There were horrendous, dramatic, violent quantities of green slime—oodles of it. It covered Howl completely. It draped his head and shoulders in sticky dollops, heaping on his knees and hands, trickling in glops down his legs, and dripping off the stool in sticky strands. It was in oozing ponds and crawling pools over most of the floor. Long fingers of it had crept into the hearth. It smelled vile.
“Save me!” Calcifer cried in a hoarse whisper. He was down to two desperately flickering small flames. “This stuff is going to put me out!”
Sophie held up her skirt and marched as near Howl as she could get—which was not very near. “Stop it!” she said. “Stop it at once! You are behaving just like a baby!”
Howl did not move or answer. His face stared from behind the slime, white and tragic and wide-eyed.
“What shall we do? Is he dead?” Michael asked, jittering beside the door.
Michael was a nice boy, Sophie thought, but a bit helpless in a crisis. “No, of course he isn’t,” she said. “And if it wasn’t for Calcifer, he could behave like a jellied eel all day for all I care! Open the bathroom door.”
While Michael was working his way between pools of slime to the bathroom, Sophie threw her apron into the hearth to stop more of the stuff getting near Calcifer and snatched up the shovel. She scooped up loads of ash and dumped them in the biggest pools of slime. It hissed violently. The room filled with steam and smelled worse than ever. Sophie furled up her sleeves, bent her back to get a good purchase on the Wizard’s slimy knees, and pushed Howl, stool and all, toward the bathroom. Her feet slipped and skidded in the slime, but of course the ooziness helped the stool to move too. Michael came and pulled at Howl’s slime-draped sleeves. Together, they trundled him into the bathroom. There, since Howl still refused to move, they shunted him into the shower stall.
“Hot water, Calcifer!” Sophie panted grimly. “Very hot.”
It took an hour to wash the slime off Howl. It took Michael another hour to persuade Howl to get off the stool and into dry clothes. Luckily, the gray-and-scarlet suit Sophie had just mended had been draped over the back of the chair, out of the way of the slime. The blue-and-silver suit was ruined. Sophie told Michael to put it in the bath to soak. Meanwhile, mumbling and grumbling, she fetched more hot water. She turned the doorknob green-down and swept all the slime out onto the moors. The castle left a trail like a snail in the heather, but it was an easy way to get rid of the slime. There were some advantages to living in a moving castle, Sophie thought as she washed the floor. She wondered if Howl’s noises had been coming from the castle too. In which case, she pitied the folk of Market Chipping.
By this time Sophie was tired and cross. She knew the green slime was Howl’s revenge on her, and she was not at all prepared to be sympathetic when Michael finally led Howl forth from the bathroom, clothed in gray and scarlet, and sat him tenderly in the chair by the hearth.
“That was plain stupid!” Calcifer sputtered. “Were you trying to get rid of the best part of your magic, or something?”
Howl took no notice. He just sat, looking tragic and shivering.
“I can’t get him to speak!” Michael whispered miserably.
“It’s just a tantrum,” Sophie said. Martha and Lettie were good at having tantrums too. She knew how to deal with those. On the other hand, it is quite a risk to spank a wizard for getting hysterical about his hair. Anyway, Sophie’s experience told her that tantrums are seldom about the thing they appear to be about. She made Calcifer move over so that she could balance a pan of milk on the logs. When it was warm, she thrust a mugful into Howl’s hands. “Drink it,” she said. “Now, what was all this fuss about? Is it this young lady you keep going to see?”
Howl sipped the milk dolefully. “Yes,” he said. “I left her alone to see if that would make her remember me fondly, and it hasn’t. She wasn’t sure, even when I last saw her. Now she tells me there’s another fellow.”
He sounded so miserable that Sophie felt quite sorry for him. Now his hair was dry, she noticed guiltily, it really was almost pink.
“She’s the most beautiful girl there ever was in these parts,” Howl went on mournfully. “I love her so dearly, but she scorns my deep devotion and gets sorry for another fellow. How can she have another fellow after all this attention I’ve given her? They usually get rid of the other fellows as soon as I come along.”
Sophie’s sympathy shrank quite sharply. It occurred to her that if Howl could cover himself with green slime so easily, then he could just as easily turn his hair the proper color. “Then why don’t you feed the girl a love potion and get it over with?” she said.
“Oh, no,” said Howl. “That’s not playing the game. That would spoil all the fun.”
Sophie’s sympathy shrank again. A game, was it? “Don’t you ever give a thought for the poor girl?” she snapped.
Howl finished the milk and gazed into the mug with a sentimental smile. “I think of her all the time,” he said. “Lovely, lovely Lettie Hatter.”
Sophie’s sympathy went for good, with a sharp bang. A good deal of anxiety took its place. Oh, Martha! she thought. You have been busy! So it wasn’t anyone in Cesari’s you were talking about!
Chapter 7: In which a scarecrow prevents Sophie from leaving the castle
Only a particularly bad attack of aches and pains prevented Sophie from setting out for Market Chipping that evening. But the drizzle in Porthaven had got into her bones. She lay in her cubbyhole and ached and worried about Martha. It might not be so bad, she thought. She only had to tell Martha that the suitor she was not sure about was none other than Wizard Howl. That would scare Martha off. And she would tell Martha that the way to scare Howl off was to announce that she was in love with him, and then perhaps to threaten him with aunts.
Sophie was still creaking when she got up next morning. “Curse the Witch of the Waste!” she muttered to her stick as she got it out, ready to leave. She could hear Howl singing in the bathroom as if he had never had a tantrum in his life. She tiptoed to the door as fast as she could hobble.
Howl of course came out of the bathroom before she reached it. Sophie looked at him sourly. He was all spruce and dashing, scented gently with apple blossom. The sunlight from the window dazzled off his gray-and-scarlet suit and made a faintly pink halo of his hair.
“I think my hair looks rather good this color,” he said.
“Do you indeed?” grumped Sophie.
“It goes with this suit,” said Howl. “You have quite a touch with your needle, don’t you? You’ve given the suit more style somehow.”
“Huh!” said Sophie.
Howl stopped with his hand on the knob above the door. “Aches and pains troubling you?” he said. “Or has something annoyed you?”
“Annoyed?” said Sophie. “Why should I be annoyed? Someone only filled the castle with rotten aspic, and deafened everyone in Porthaven, and scared Calcifer to a cinder, and broke a few hundred hearts. Why should that annoy me?”
Howl laughed. “I apologize,” he said, turning the knob to red-down. “The King wants to see me today. I shall probably be kicking my heels in the Palace until evening, but I can do something for your rheumatism when I get back. Don’t forget to tell Michael I left that spell for him on the bench.” He smiled sunnily at Sophie and stepped out among the spires of Kingsbury.
“And you think that makes it all right!” Sophie growled as the door shut. But the smile had mollified her. “If that smile works on me, then it’s no wonder poor Martha doesn’t know her own mind!” she muttered.
“I need another log before you go,” Calcifer reminded her.
Sophie hobbled to drop another log into the grate. Then she set off to the door again. But here Michael came running downstairs and snatched the remains of a loaf off the bench as he ran to the door. “You don’t mind, do you?” he said in an agitated way. “I’ll bring a fresh loaf when I come back. I’ve got something very urgent to see to today, but I’ll be back by evening. If the sea captain calls for his wind spell, it’s on the end of the bench, clearly labeled.” He turned the doorknob green-downward and jumped out onto the windy hillside, loaf clutched to his stomach. “See you!” he shouted as the castle trundled away past him and the door slammed.
“Botheration!” said Sophie. “Calcifer, how does a person open the door when there’s no one inside the castle?”
“I’ll open it for you, or Michael. Howl does it himself,” said Calcifer.
So no one would be locked out when Sophie left. She was not at all sure she would be coming back, but she did not intend to tell Calcifer. She gave Michael time to get well on the way to wherever he was going and set off for the door again. This time Calcifer stopped her.
“If you’re going to be away long,” he said, “you might leave some logs where I can reach them.”
“Can you pick up logs?” Sophie asked, intrigued in spite of her impatience.
For answer, Calcifer stretched out a blue arm-shaped flame divided into green fingerlike flames at the end. It was not very long, nor did it look strong. “See? I can almost reach the hearth,” he said proudly.
Sophie stacked a pile of logs in front of the grate so that Calcifer could at least reach the top one. “You’re not to burn them until you’ve got them in the grate,” she warned him, and she set off for the door yet again.
This time somebody knocked on it before she got there.
It was one of those days, Sophie thought. It must be the sea captain. She put up her hand to turn the knob blue-down.
“No, it’s the castle door,” Calcifer said. “But I’m not sure—”
Then it was Michael back for some reason. Sophie thought as she opened the door.
A turnip face leered at her. She smelled mildew. Against the wide blue sky, a ragged arm ending in the stump of a stick wheeled round and tried to paw at her. It was a scarecrow. It was only made of sticks and rags, but it was alive, and it was trying to come in.
“Calcifer!” Sophie screamed. “Make the castle go faster!”
The stone blocks round the doorway crunched and grated. The green-brown moorland was suddenly rushing past. The scarecrow’s stick arm thumped on the door, and then went scraping along the wall of the castle as the castle left it behind. It wheeled its other arm round and seemed to try to clutch at the stonework. It meant to get into the castle if it could.
Sophie slammed the door shut. This, she thought, just showed how stupid it was for an eldest child to try to seek her fortune! That was the scarecrow she had propped in the hedge on her way to the castle. She had made jokes to it. Now, as if her jokes had brought it to evil life, it had followed her all the way here and tried to paw at her face. She ran to the window to see if the thing was still trying to get into the castle.
Of course, all she could see was a sunny day in Porthaven, with a dozen sails going up a dozen masts beyond the roofs opposite, and a cloud of seagulls circling in the blue sky.
“That’s the difficulty of being in several places at once!” Sophie said to the human skull on the bench.
Then, all at once, she discovered the real drawback to being an old woman. Her heart gave a leap and a little st
utter, and then seemed to be trying to bang its way out of her chest. It hurt. She shook all over and her knees trembled. She rather thought she might be dying. It was all she could do to get to the chair by the hearth. She sat their panting, clutching her chest.
“Is something the matter?” Calcifer asked.
“Yes. My heart. There was a scarecrow at the door!” Sophie gasped.
“What has a scarecrow to do with your heart?” Calcifer asked.
“It was trying to get in here. It gave me a terrible fright. And my heart—but you wouldn’t understand, you silly young demon!” Sophie panted. “You haven’t got a heart.”
“Yes I have,” Calcifer said, as proudly as he had revealed his arm. “Down in the glowing part under the logs. And don’t call me young. I’m a good million years older than you are! Can I reduce the speed of the castle now?”
“Only if the scarecrow’s gone,” said Sophie. “Has it?”
“I can’t tell,” said Calcifer. “It’s not flesh and blood, you see. I told you I couldn’t really see outside.”
Sophie got up and dragged herself to the door again, feeling ill. She opened it slowly and cautiously. Green steepness, rocks, and purple slopes whirled past, making her feel dizzy, but she took a grip on the door frame and leaned out to look along the wall to the moorland they were leaving behind. The scarecrow was about fifty yards to the rear. It was hopping from clump to heather clump with a sinister sort of valiance, holding its fluttering stick arms at an angle to balance it on the hillside. As Sophie watched, the castle left it further behind. It was slow, but it was still following. She shut the door.
“It’s still there,” she said. “Hopping after us. Go faster.”
“But that upsets all my calculations,” Calcifer explained. “I was aiming to circle the hills and get back to where Michael left us in time to pick him up this evening.”
“Then go twice as fast and circle the hills twice. As long as you leave that horrible thing behind!” said Sophie.
“What a fuss!” Calcifer grumbled. But he increased the castle’s speed. Sophie could actually, for the first time, feel it rumbling around her as she sat huddled in her chair wondering if she was dying. She did not want to die yet, before she had talked to Martha.
Wizard's Castle: Omnibus Page 7