The Land of Ingary Trilogy
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The undersized young man was so grateful that he tried to give her a gold piece. Sophie refused to take it, so he gave her a two-penny bit instead and went away whistling happily. “I feel a fraud,” Sophie said as she stowed the money under the hearthstone. “But I would like to be there at that fight!”
“So would I!” crackled Calcifer. “When are you going to release me so that I can go and see things like that?”
“When I’ve got even a hint about this contract,” Sophie said.
“You may get one later today,” said Calcifer.
Michael breezed in towards the end of the afternoon. He took an anxious look round to make sure Howl had not come home first and went to the bench, where he got things out to make it look as if he had been busy, singing cheerfully while he did.
“I envy you being able to walk all that way so easily,” Sophie said, sewing a blue triangle to silver braid. “How was Ma—my niece?”
Michael gladly left the workbench and sat on the stool by the hearth to tell her all about his day. Then he asked about Sophie’s. The result was that when Howl shouldered the door open with his arms full of parcels, Michael was not even looking busy. He was rolling around on the stool laughing at the duel spell.
Howl backed into the door to shut it and leaned there in a tragic attitude. “Look at you all!” he said. “Ruin stares me in the face. I slave all day for you all. And not one of you, even Calcifer, can spare time to say hello!”
Michael sprang up guiltily and Calcifer said, “I never do say hello.”
“Is something wrong?” asked Sophie.
“That’s better,” said Howl. “Some of you are pretending to notice me at last. How kind of you to ask, Sophie. Yes, something is wrong. The King has asked me officially to find his brother for him – with a strong hint that destroying the Witch of the Waste would come in handy too – and you all sit there and laugh!”
By now it was clear that Howl was in a mood to produce green slime any second. Sophie hurriedly put her sewing away. “I’ll make some hot buttered toast,” she said.
“Is that all you can do in the face of tragedy?” Howl asked. “Make toast! No, don’t get up. I’ve trudged here laden with stuff for you, so the least you can do is show polite interest. Here.” He tipped a shower of parcels into Sophie’s lap and handed another to Michael.
Mystified, Sophie unwrapped things: several pairs of silk stockings; two parcels of the finest cambric petticoats, with flounces, lace and satin insets; a pair of elastic-sided boots in dove-grey suede; a lace shawl; and a dress of grey watered silk trimmed with lace that matched the shawl. Sophie took one professional look at each and gasped. The lace alone was worth a fortune. She stroked the silk of the dress, awed.
Michael unwrapped a handsome new velvet suit. “You must have spent every bit that was in the silk purse!” he said ungratefully. “I don’t need this. You’re the one who needs a new suit.”
Howl hooked his boot into what remained of the blue and silver suit and held it up ruefully. Sophie had been working hard, but it was still more hole than suit. “How selfless I am,” he said. “But I can’t send you and Sophie to blacken my name to the King in rags. The King would think I didn’t look after my old mother properly. Well, Sophie? Are the boots the right size?”
Sophie looked up from her awed stroking. “Are you being kind,” she said, “or cowardly? Thank you very much and no I won’t.”
“What ingratitude!” Howl exclaimed, spreading out both arms. “Let’s have green slime again! After which I shall be forced to move the castle a thousand miles away and never see my lovely Lettie again!”
Michael looked at Sophie imploringly. Sophie glowered. She saw well enough that the happiness of both her sisters depended on her agreeing to see the King. With green slime in reserve. “You haven’t asked me to do anything yet,” she said. “You’ve just said I’m going to.”
Howl smiled. “And you are going to, aren’t you?”
“All right. When do you want me to go?” Sophie said.
“Tomorrow afternoon,” said Howl. “Michael can go as your footman. The King’s expecting you.” He sat on the stool and began explaining very clearly and soberly just what Sophie was to say. There was no trace of the green-slime mood now things were going Howl’s way, Sophie noticed. She wanted to slap him. “I want you to do a very delicate job,” Howl explained, “so that the King will go on giving me work like the transport spells, but not trust me with anything like finding his brother. You must tell him how I’ve angered the Witch of the Waste and explain what a good son I am to you, but I want you to do it in such a way that he’ll understand I’m really quite useless.”
Howl explained in great detail. Sophie clasped her hands round the parcels and tried to take it all in, though she could not help thinking, If I was the King, I wouldn’t understand a word of what the old woman was driving at!
Michael meanwhile was hovering at Howl’s elbow, trying to ask him about the perplexing spell. Howl kept thinking of new, delicate details to tell the King and waving Michael away. “Not now, Michael. And it occurred to me, Sophie, that you might want some practice in order not to find the Palace overwhelming. We don’t want you coming over queer in the middle of the interview. Not yet, Michael. So I arranged for you to pay a call to my old tutor, Mrs Pentstemmon. She’s a grand old thing. In some ways she’s grander than the King. So you’ll be quite used 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 grey 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 it just as 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 was 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 our 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 grey 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, one 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 somehow 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 had your hint, by the way.”
“Did I?” said Sophie. She was in too much of a hurry to attend.
CHAPTER ELEVEN In which Howl goes to a strange country in search of a spell
The nothingness was only inch-thick after all. Beyond it, in a grey, 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 somewhere at the edge of a town.
“When you’ve quite finishing nosing,” Howl called. His grey 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 said, “We need to be dressed in keeping with this place.” His finery blurred, as if the drizzle round him had suddenly become a fog. When it came into focus again, it was still scarlet and grey, but quite a different shape. The dangling sleeves had 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, with 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 towards 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 realised that the voices were coming from magic coloured 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 round 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 is 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.”
“Come on,” Howl said to Michael and Sophie, who were both staring round the shiny brown and orange room. He took Mari’s hand and led them all out of the room and up the stairs. Even those had a carpet, a pink and green one. So the procession led by Howl made hardly any noise as it went along the pink and green passage upstairs and into a room with a blue and yellow carpet. But Sophie was not sure the two boys crouched over the various magic boxes on a big table by the window would have looked up even for an army with a brass band. The main magic box had a glass front like the one downstairs, but it seemed to be showing writing and diagrams more than pictures. All the boxes grew on long, floppy white stalks that appeared to be rooted in the wall at one side of the room.
“Neil!” said Howl.
“Don’t interrupt,” one of the boys said. “He’ll lose his life.”
Seeing it was a matter of life and death, Sophie and Michael backed towards the door. But Howl, quite unperturbed at killing his nephew, strode over to the wall and pulled the boxes up by the roots. The picture on the box vanished. Both boys said words which Sophie did not think even Martha knew. The second boy spun round, shouting, “Mari! I’ll get you for that!”
“Wasn’t me this time. So!” Mari shouted back.
Neil whirled further round and stared accusingly at Howl. “How do, Neil?” Howl said pleasantly.
“Who is he?” the other boy asked.
“My no-good uncle,” Neil said. He glowered at Howl. He was dark, with thick eyebrows, and his glower was impressive. “What do you want? Put that plug back in.”
“There’s a welcome in the valleys!” said Howl. “I’ll put it back when I’ve asked you something and you’ve answered.”
Neil sighed. “Uncle Howell, I’m in the middle of a computer game.”
“A new one?” asked Howl.
Both the boys looked discontented. “No, it’s one I had for Christmas,” Neil said. “You ought to know the way they go on about wasting time and money on useless things. They won’t give me another till my birthday.”
“Then that’s easy,” said Howl. “You won’t mind stopping if you’ve done it before, and I’ll bribe you with a new one—”
“Really?” both boys said eagerly, and Neil added, “Can you make it another of those that nobody else has got?”
“Yes. But just take a look at this first and tell me what it is,” Howl said, and he held the shiny grey paper out in front of Neil.
Both boys looked at it. Neil said, “It’s a poem,” in the way most people would say, “It’s a dead rat.”
“It’s the one Miss Angorian set for last week’s homework,” said the other boy. “I remember ‘wind’ and ‘finned’. It’s about submarines.”
While Sophie and Michael blinked at this new theory, wondering how they had missed it, Neil exclaimed, “Hey! It’s my long-lost homework. Where did you find it? Was that funny writing that turned up yours? Miss Angorian said it was interesting – lucky for me – and she took it home with her.”
“Thank you,” said Howl. “Where does she live?”
“That flat over Mrs Phillips’ tea shop. Cardiff Road,” said Neil. “When will you give me the new tape?”
“When you remember how the rest of the poem goes,” said Howl.
“That’s not fair!” said Neil. “I can’t even remember the bit that was written down now. That’s just playing with a person’s feelings—!” He stopped when Howl laughed, felt in one baggy pocket, and handed him a flat packet. “Thanks!” Neil said devoutly, and without more ado he whirled round to his magic boxes. Howl planted the bundle of roots back in the wall, grinning, and beckoned Michael and Sophie out of the room. Both boys began a flurry of mysterious activity, into which Mari somehow squeezed herself, watching with her thumb in her mouth.
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 towards 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 even 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.