Диана Джонс - Wizard's Castle - Omnibus

Sophie thought back to the puzzling verse. “What things? ‘Tell me where all past years are’?”

“Oh, I know that,” said Howl. “My own, or anyone else’s. They’re all there, just where they always were. I could go and play bad fairy at my own christening if I wanted. Maybe I did and that’s my trouble. No, there are only three things I’m waiting for: the mermaids, the mandrake root, and the wind to advance an honest mind. And whether I get white hairs, I suppose, only I’m not going to take the spell off to see. There’s only about three weeks left for them to come true in, and the Witch gets me as soon as they do. But the Rugby Club Reunion is Midsummer Eve, so I shall get to that at least. The rest had all happened long ago.”

“You mean the falling star and never being able to find a woman true and fair?” said Sophie. “I’m not surprised, the way you go on. Mrs. Pentstemmon told me you were going to the bad. She was right, wasn’t she?”

“I must go to her funeral if it kills me,” Howl said sadly. “Mrs. Pentstemmon always thought far too well of me. I blinded her with my charm.” Water ran out of his eyes. Sophie had no idea if he was really crying, or whether it was simply his cold. But she noticed he was slithering out again.

“I was talking about the way you keep dropping ladies as soon as you’ve made them love you,” she said. “Why do you do it?”

Howl pointed a shaky hand up toward the canopy of his bed. “That’s why I love spiders. ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.’ I keep trying,” he said with great sadness. “But I brought it on myself by making a bargain some years ago, and I know I shall never be able to love anyone properly now.”

The water running out of Howl’s eyes was definitely tears now. Sophie was concerned. “Now, you mustn’t cry—”

There was a pattering outside. Sophie looked round to see the dog-man oozing himself past the door in a neat half-circle. She reached out and caught a handful of his red coat, thinking he was certainly coming to bite Howl. But all the dog did was to lean against her legs, so that she had to stagger back to the peeling wall.

“What’s this?” said Howl.

“My new dog,” Sophie said, hanging on to its curly hair. Now she was against the wall, she could see out of the bedroom window. It ought to have looked out on the yard, but instead it showed a view of a neat, square garden with a child’s metal swing in the middle. The setting sun was firing raindrops hanging on the swing to blue and red. As Sophie stood and stared, Howl’s niece, Mari, came running across the wet grass. Howl’s sister, Megan, followed Mari. She was evidently shouting that Mari should not sit on the wet swing, but no sound seemed to come through. “Is that the place called Wales?” Sophie asked.

Howl laughed and pounded on the coverlet. Dust climbed like smoke. “Bother that dog!” he croaked. “I had a bet on with myself that I could keep you from snooping out of the window all the time you were in here!”

“Did you now?” said Sophie, and she let go of the dog, hoping he would bite Howl hard. But the dog only went on leaning on her, shoving her toward the door now. “So all that song and dance was just a game, was it?” she said. “I might have known!”

Howl lay back on his gray pillows, looking wronged and injured. “Sometimes,” he said reproachfully, “you sound just like Megan.”

“Sometimes,” Sophie answered, shooing the dog out of the room in front of her, “I understand how Megan got the way she is.” And she shut the door on the spiders, the dust, and the garden, with a loud bang.

The dog-man curled up heavily on Sophie’s toes when she went back to her sewing. Perhaps he was hoping she would manage to lift the spell if he stayed close to her. When a big, red-bearded man burst into the room, carrying a box of things, and shed his velvet cloak to become Michael, still carrying a box of things, the dog-man rose up and wagged his tail. He let Michael pat him and rub his ears.

“I hope he stays,” Michael said. “I’ve always wanted a dog.”

Howl heard Michael’s voice. He arrived downstairs wrapped in the brown patchwork cover off his bed. Sophie stopped sewing and took a careful grip on the dog. But the dog was courteous to Howl too. He did not object when Howl fetched a hand out of the coverlet and patted him.

“Well?” Howl croaked, dispersing clouds of dust as he conjured some more tissues.

“I got everything,” said Michael. “And there’s a real piece of luck, Howl. There’s an empty shop for sale down in Market Chipping. It used to be a hat shop. Do you think we could move the castle there?”

Howl sat on a tall stool like a robed Roman senator and considered. “It depends how much it costs,” he said. “I’m quite tempted to move the Porthaven entrance there. That won’t be easy, because it will mean moving Calcifer. Porthaven is where Calcifer actually is . What do you say, Calcifer?”

“It will take a very careful operation to move me,” Calcifer said. He had become several shades paler at the thought. “I think you should leave me where I am.”

So Fanny is selling the shop, Sophie thought as the other three went on discussing the move. And so much for the conscience Howl said he had! But the main thing on her mind was the puzzling behavior of the dog. In spite of Sophie telling him many times that she could not take the spell off him, he did not seem to want to leave. He did not want to bite Howl. He let Michael take him for a run on Porthaven Marshes that night and the following morning. His aim seemed to be to become part of the household.

“Though if I were you, I’d be in Upper Folding making sure to catch Lettie on the rebound,” Sophie told him.

Howl was in and out of bed all the next day. When he was in bed, Michael had to tear up and down the stairs. When he was up, Michael had to race about, measuring the castle with him and fixing metal brackets to every single corner. In between. Howl kept appearing, robed in his quilt and clouds of dust, to ask questions and make announcements, mostly for Sophie’s benefit.

“Sophie, since you whitewashed over all the marks we made when we invented the castle, perhaps you can tell me where the marks in Michael’s room were?”

“No,” said Sophie, sewing in her seventieth blue triangle. “I can’t.”

Howl sneezed sadly and retired. Shortly he emerged again. “Sophie, if we were to take that hat shop, what would we sell?”

Sophie found she had had enough of hats to last a lifetime. “Not hats,” she said. “You can buy the shop, but not the business, you know.”

“Apply your fiendish mind to the matter,” said Howl. “Or even think, if you know how.” And he marched away upstairs again.

Five minutes later, down he came again. “Sophie, have you any preferences about the other entrances? Where would you like us to live?”

Sophie instantly found her mind going to Mrs. Fairfax’s house. “I’d like a nice house with lots of flowers,” she said.

“I see,” croaked Howl and marched away again.

Next time he appeared, he was dressed. That made three times that day, and Sophie thought nothing of it until Howl put on the velvet cloak Michael had used and became a pale, coughing, red-bearded man with a large red handkerchief held to his nose. She realized Howl was going out then. “You’ll make your cold worse,” she said.

“I shall die and then you’ll all be sorry,” the red-bearded man said, and went out through the door with the knob green-down.

For an hour after that, Michael had time to work on his spell. Sophie got as far as her eighty-fourth blue triangle. Then the red-bearded man was back again. He shed the velvet cloak and became Howl, coughing harder than before and, if that was possible, more sorry for himself than ever.