“Then go twice as fast and circle the hills twice. As longas you leave that horrible thing behind!” said Sophie.

“What a fuss!” Calcifer grumbled. But he increased thecastle’s speed. Sophie could actually, for the first time, feelit rumbling around her as she sat huddled in her chair wondering ifshe was dying. She did not want to die yet, before she had talked toMartha.

As the day went on, everything in the castle began to jiggle withits speed. Bottles chinked. The skull clattered on the bench. Sophiecould hear things falling off the shelf in the bathroom and splashinginto the bath where Howl’s blue-and-silver suit was stillsoaking. She began to feel a little better. She dragged herself tothe door again and looked out, wit her hair flying in the wind. Theground was streaking past underneath. The hills seemed to be spinningslowly as the castle sped across them. The grinding and rumblingnearly deafened her, and smoke was puffing out behind in blasts. Butthe scarecrow was a tiny black dot on a distant slope by then. Nexttime she looked, it was out of sight entirely.

“Good. Then I shall stop for the night,” saidCalcifer. “That was quite a strain.”

The rumbling died away. Things stopped jiggling. Calcifer went tosleep, in the way fires do, sinking among the logs until they wererosy cylinders plated with white ash, with only a hint of blue andgreen deep underneath.

Sophie felt quite spry again by then. She went and fished sixpackets and a bottle out of the slimy water in the bath. The packetswere soaked. She did not dare leave them that way after yesterday, soshe laid them on the floor and, very cautiously, sprinkled them withthe stuff labeled DRYING POWER. They were dried almost instantly.This was encouraging. Sophie let the water out of the bath and triedthe POWER on Howl’s suit. That dried too. It was still stainedgreen and rather smaller than it had been, but it cheered Sophie upto find that she could put at least something right.

She felt cheerful enough to busy herself getting supper. Shebundled everything on the bench into a heap round the skull at oneend and began chopping onions. “At least your eyesdon’t water, my friend,” she told the skull. “Countyour blessings.”

The door sprang open.

Sophie nearly cut herself in her fright, thinking it was thescarecrow again. But it was Michael. He burst jubilantly in. hedumped a loaf, a pie, and a pink-and-white-striped box on top of theonions. Then he seized Sophie round her skinny waist and danced herround the room.

“It’s all right! It’s all right!” heshouted joyfully.

Sophie hopped and stumbled to keep out of the way ofMichael’s boots. “Steady, steady!” she gasped,giddily trying to hold the knife where it would not cut either ofthem. “What is all right?”

“Lettie loves me!” Michael shouted, dancing her almostinto the bathroom and then almost into the hearth. “She’snever even seen Howl! It was all a mistake!” He spun them bothround in the middle of the room.

“Will you let me go before this knife cuts one of us!”Sophie squawked. “And perhaps explain a little.”

“Wee-oop!” Michael shouted. He whirled Sophie to thechair and dumped her into it, where she sat gasping. “Lastnight I wished you’d dyed his hair blue!” he said.“I don’t mind now. When Howl said ‘LettieHatter,’ I even thought of dying him blue myself. You can seethe way he talks. I knew he was going to drop this girl, just likeall the others, as soon as he’d got her to love him. And when Ithought it was my Lettie, I-Anyway, you know he said there wasanother fellow, and I thought that was me! So I tore down toMarket Chipping today. And it was all right! Howl must be after someother girl with the same name. Lettie’s never seenhim.”

“Let’s get this straight,” Sophie said dizzily.“We are talking about the Lettie Hatter who works inCesari’s pastry shop, are we?”

“Of course we are!” Michael said jubilantly.“I’ve loved her ever since she started work there, and Ialmost couldn’t believe when she said she loved me. Shehad hundreds of admirers. I wouldn’t have been surprised ifHowl was one of them. I’m so relieved! I got you a cakefrom Cesari’s to celebrate. Where did I put it? Oh, here itis.”

He thrust the pink-and-white box at Sophie. Onion fell off it intoher lap.

“How old are you, my child?” Sophie asked.

“Fifteen last May Day,” said Michael. “Calcifersent fireworks up from the castle. Didn’t you, Calcifer? Oh,he’s asleep. You’re probably thinking I’m too youngto be engaged—I’ve still got three years of my apprenticeshipto run, and Lettie’s got even longer—but we promised oneanother, and we don’t mind waiting.”

Then Michael was about the right age for Martha, Sophie thought.And she knew by now he was a nice, steady lad with a career as awizard ahead of him. Bless Martha’s heart! When she thoughtback to that bewildering May Day, she realized that Michael had beenone of that shouting group leaning on the counter in front of Martha.But Howl had been outside in Market Square.

“Are you sure your Lettie was telling the truth aboutHowl?” she asked anxiously.

“Positive,” said Michael. “I know whenshe’s lying. She stops twiddling her thumbs.”

“She does too!” said Sophie, chuckling.

“How do you know?” Michael asked insurprise.

“Because she’s my sis-ter- sister’sgranddaughter,” said Sophie, “and as a small girl she wasnot always terribly truthful. But she’s quite youngand—er…Well, suppose she changes as she grows. She—er—may notlook quite the same in a year or so.”

“Neither will I,” said Michael. “People our agechange all the time. It won’t worry us. She’ll still beLettie.”

In a manner of speaking, Sophie thought. “But suppose shewas telling the truth,” she went on anxiously, “and shejust knew Howl under a false name?”

“Don’t worry, I thought of that!” said Michael.“I described Howl—you must admit he’s prettyrecognizable—and she really hadn’t seen him or his wretchedguitar. I didn’t even have to tell her he doesn’t knowhow to play the thing. She never set eyes on him, and she twiddledher thumbs all the time she said she hadn’t.”

“That’s a relief!” Sophie said, lying stifflyback in her chair. And it certainly was a relief about Martha. But itwas not much of a relief, because Sophie was positive that the onlyother Lettie Hatter in the district was the real one. If there hadbeen another, someone would have come into the hat shop and gossipedabout it. It sounded like strong-minded Lettie, not giving in toHowl. What worried Sophie was that Lettie had told Howl her realname. She might not be sure about him, but she liked him enough totrust him with an important secret like that.

“Don’t look so anxious!” Michael laughed,leaning on the back of the chair. “Have a look at the cake Ibrought you.”

As Sophie started opening the box, it dawned on her that Michaelhad gone from seeing her as a natural disaster to actually likingher. She was so pleased and grateful that she decided to tell Michaelthe whole truth about Lettie and Martha and herself too. It was onlyfair to let him know the sort of family he meant to marry into. Thebox came open. It was Cesari’s most luscious cake, covered incream and cherries and little curls of chocolate. “Oh!”said Sophie.

The square knob over the door clicked round to red-blob-down ofits own accord and Howl came in. “What a marvelous cake! Myfavorite kind,” he said. “”Where did you getit?”

“I—er—I called in at Cesari’s,” Michael said ina sheepish, self-conscious way. Sophie looked up at Howl. Somethingwas always going to interrupt her when she decided to say she wasunder a spell. Even a wizard, it seemed.

“It looks worth the walk,” Howl said, inspecting thecake. “I’ve heard Cesari’s is better that any ofthe cake shops in Kingsbury. Stupid of me never to have been in theplace. And is that a pie I see on the bench?” He went over tolook. “Pie in a bed of raw onions. Human skull lookingput-upon.” He picked up the skull and knocked an onion ring outof its eyesocket. “I see Sophie has been busy again.Couldn’t you have restrained her, my friend?”