to that kind of thing by the time you get to the Palace.”
By this time Sophie was wishing she had never agreed. She was heartily relieved when Howl at last turned to Michael.
“Right, Michael. Your turn now. What is it?”
Michael waved the shiny gray paper and explained in an unhappy rush how impossible the spell seemed to do.
Howl seemed faintly astonished to hear this, but he took the paper, saying, “Now where was your problem?” and spread it out. He stared at it. One of his eyebrows shot up.
“I tried it as a puzzle and I tried doing just what it says,” Michael explained. “But Sophie and I couldn’t catch the falling star-”
“Great gods above!” Howl exclaimed. He started to laugh, and bit his lip to stop himself. “But, Michael, this isn’t the spell I left you. Where did you find it?”
“On the bench, in that heap of things Sophie piled round the skull,” said Michael. “It as the only new spell there, so I thought-”
Howl leaped up and sorted among the things on the bench. “Sophie strikes again,” he said. Things skidded right and left as he searched. “I might have known! No, the proper spell’s not here.” He tapped the skull thoughtfully on its brown, shiny dome. “Your doing, friend? I have a notion you come from there. I’m sure the guitar does. Er-Sophie dear-”
“What?” said Sophie.
“Busy old fool, unruly Sophie,” said Howl. “Am I right in thinking that you turned my doorknob black-side- down and stuck your long nose out through it?”
“Just my finger,” Sophie said with dignity.
“But you opened the door,” said Howl, “and the thing Michael thinks is a spell must have got through. Didn’t it occur to either of you that it doesn’t look like spells usually do?”
“Spells often look peculiar,” Michael said. “What is it really?”
Howl gave a snort of laughter. “ ‘Decide what this is about. Write a second verse’! Oh, lord!” he said and ran for the stairs. “I’ll show you,” he called as his feet pounded up them.
“I think we wasted out time rushing around the marshes last night,” Sophie said. Michael nodded gloomily. Sophie could see he was feeling a fool. “It was my fault,” she said. “I opened the door.”
“What was outside?” Michael asked with great interest.
But Howl came charging downstairs just then. “I haven’t got that book after all,” he said. He seemed upset now. “Michael, did I hear you say you went out and tried to catch a shooting star?”
“Yes, but it was scared stiff and fell in a pool and drowned,” Michael said.
“Thank goodness for that!” said Howl.
“It was very sad,” Sophie said.
“Sad, was it?” said Howl, more upset than ever. “It was your idea, was it? It would be! I can just see you hopping about the marshes, encouraging him! Let me tell you, that was the most stupid thing he’s ever done in his life. He’d have been more than sad if he’d chanced to catch the thing! And you-”
Calcifer flickered sleepily up the chimney. “What’s all this fuss about?” he demanded. “You caught one yourself, didn’t you?”
“Yes, and I-!” Howl began, turning his glass-marble glare on Calcifer. But he pulled himself together and turned to Michael instead. “Michael, promise me you’ll never try to catch one again.”
“I promise,” Michael said willingly. “What is that writing, if it’s not a spell?”
Howl looked at the gray paper in his hand. “It’s called ‘Song’-and that’s what it is, I suppose. But it’s not all here and I can’t remember the rest of it.” He stood and thought, as if a new idea had struck him which obviously worried him. “I think the next verse was important,” he said. “I’d better take it back and see-” He went to the door and turned the knob black-down. Then he paused. He looked round at Michael and Sophie, who were naturally enough both staring at the knob. “All right,” he said. “I know Sophie will squirm through if I leave her behind, and that’s not fair to Michael. Come along, both of you, so I’ve got you where I can keep my eye on you.”
He opened the door on the nothingness and walked into it. Michael fell over the stool in his rush to follow. Sophie shed parcels right and left into the hearth as she sprang up too. “Don’t let any sparks get on those!” she said hurriedly to Calcifer.
“If you promise to tell me what’s out there,” Calcifer said. “You’ve had your hint, by the way.”
“Did I?” said Sophie. She was in too much of a hurry to attend.
11. In which Howl goes to a strange country in search of a spell.
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
