“Naughty girls!” Mrs. Fairfax said, smiling andshaking her head as she emerged from the lupine. “As if Iwouldn’t recognize one of my own honey-based spells! But as Isaid to her at the time, ‘I’m not one to keep anyoneagainst their will and I’d always rather teach someone whowants to learn. Only’ I said to her, ‘I’ll have nopretense here. You stay as your own self or not at all.’ Andit’s worked out very happily, as you see. Are you sure youwon’t stay and ask her yourself?”

“I think we’d better go,” Sophie said.

“We have to get back,” Michael added, with anothernervous look toward the orchard. He collected the seven-league bootsfrom the hedge and set one down outside the gate for Sophie.“And I’m going to hold onto you this time,” hesaid.

Mrs. Fairfax leaned over her gate while Sophie inserted her footin the boot. “Seven-leaguers,” she said. “Would youbelieve, I’ve not seen any of those for years. Very usefulthings for someone you age, Mrs. Er—I wouldn’t mind a pairmyself these days. So it’s you Lettie inherits her witchcraftfrom, is it? Not that it necessarily runs in families, but as oftenas not—”

Michael took hold of Sophie’s arm and pulled. Both bootscame down and the rest of Mrs. Fairfax’s talk vanished in theZip! and rush of air. Next moment Michael had to brace his feet inorder not to collide with the castle. The door was open. Inside,Calcifer was roaring, “Porthaven door! Someone’s beenbanging on it ever since you left.”

It was the sea captain, come for his wind spell atlast, and not at all pleased at having to wait. “If I miss mytide, boy,” he said to Michael, “I shall have a word withthe Sorcerer about you. I don’t like lazy boys.”

Michael, in Sophie’s opinion, was far too polite to him, butshe was feeling too dejected to interfere. When the captain had gone,Michael went to the bench to frown over his spell again and Sophiesat silently mending her stockings. She had only one pair and herknobby feet had worn huge holes in them. Her gray dress by this timewas frayed and dirty. She wondered whether she dared cut theleast-stained bits out of Howl’s ruined blue-and-silver suit tomake herself a new skirt with. But she did not quite dare.

“Sophie,” Michael said, looking up from his eleventhpage of notes, “how many nieces have you?”

Sophie had been afraid Michael would start asking questions.“When you get to my age, my lad, “ she said, “youlose count. They all look so alike. Those two Letties could be twins,to my mind.”

“Oh, no, not really,” Michael said to her surprise.“The niece in Upper Folding isn’t as pretty as myLettie.” He tore up the eleventh page and made a twelfth.“I’m glad Howl didn’t meet my Lettie,”he said. He began on his thirteenth page and tore that up too.“I wanted to laugh when that Mrs. Fairfax said she knew whoHowl was, didn’t you?”

“No,” said Sophie. It had made no difference toLettie’s feelings. She thought of Lettie’s bright,adoring face under the apple blossom. “I suppose there’sno chance,” she asked hopelessly, “that Howl could beproperly in love this time?”

Calcifer snorted green sparks up the chimney.

“I was afraid you’d start thinking like that,”Michael said. “But you’d be deceiving yourself, just likeMrs. Fairfax.”

“How do you know?” said Sophie.

Calcifer and Michael exchanged glances. “Did he forget tospend at least an hour in the bathroom this morning?” Michaelasked.

“He was in there two hours,” said Calcifer,“putting spells on his face. Vain fool!”

“There you are, then,” said Michael. “The dayHowl forgets to do that will be the day I believe he’s reallyin love and not before.”

Sophie thought of Howl on one knee in the orchard, posing to lookas handsome as possible, and she knew they were right. She thought ofgoing to the bathroom and tipping all Howl’s beauty spells downthe toilet. But she did not quite dare. Instead, she hobbled up andfetched the blue-and-silver suit, which she spent the rest of the daycutting little blue triangles out of in order to make a patchworksort of skirt.

Michael patted her shoulder kindly as he came to throw allseventeen pages of his notes onto Calcifer. “Everyone gets overthings in the end, you know,” he said.

By this time it was clear Michael was having trouble with hisspell. He gave up notes and scraped some soot off the chimney.Calcifer craned round to watch him in a mystified way. Michael took awithered root from one of the bags hanging on the beams and put it inthe soot. Then, after much thought, he turned the doorknob blue-downand vanished for twenty minutes into Porthaven. He came back with alarge, whorled seashell and put that with the root and the soot.After that he tore up pages and pages of paper and put those in too.He put the lot on front of the human skull and stood blowing on it,so that soot and bits of paper whirled all over the bench.

“What’s he doing, do you think?” Calcifer askedSophie.

Michael gave up blowing and started mashing everything, paper andall, with a pestle and mortar, looking at the skull expectantly fromtime to time. Nothing happened, so he tried different ingredientsfrom bags and jars.

“I feel bad about spying on Howl,” he announced as hepounded a third set of ingredients to death in a bowl. “He maybe fickle to females, but he’s been awfully good to me. He tookme in when I was just an unwanted orphan sitting on his doorstep inPorthaven.”

“How did that come about?” asked Sophie as she snippedput another blue triangle.

“My mother died and my father got drowned in a storm,”Michael said. “And nobody wants you when that happens. I had toleave our house because I couldn’t pay rent, and I tried tolive in the streets but people kept turning me off doorsteps and outof boats until the only place I could think of to go was somewhereeveryone was too scared to interfere with. Howl had just started upin a small way as Sorcerer Jenkin then. But everyone said his househad devils in it, so I slept on his doorstep for a couple of nightsuntil Howl opened the door one morning on his way to buy bread and Ifell inside. So he said I could wait indoors while he got somethingto eat. I went in, and there was Calcifer, and I started talking tohim because I’d never met a demon before.”

“What did you talk about?” said Sophie, wondering ifCalcifer had asked Michael to break his contract too.

“He told me his troubles and dripped on me. Didn’tyou?” said Calcifer. “It didn’t seem to occur tohim that I might have troubles as well.”

“I don’t think you have. You just grumble alot,” Michael said. “You were quite nice to me thatmorning, and I think Howl was impressed. But you know how he is. Hedidn’t tell me I could stay. But he just didn’t tell meto go. So I started being useful wherever I could, like looking aftermoney so that he didn’t spend it all as soon as he’d gotit, and so on.”

The spell gave a sort of a whuff then and exploded mildly.Michael brushed soot off the skull, sighing, and tried newingredients. Sophie began making a patchwork of blue triangles roundher feet on the floor.

“I did make lots of stupid mistakes when I firststarted,” Michael went on. “Howl was awfully nice aboutit. I thought I’d got over that now. And I think I do help withmoney. Howl buys such expensive clothes. He says no one’s goingto employ a wizard who looks as if he can’t make money at thetrade.”

“That’s just because he likes clothes,” saidCalcifer. His orange eyes watched Sophie at work rathermeaningly.

“This suit was spoiled,” Sophie said.

“It isn’t just clothes,” Michael said.“Remember last winter when we were down to your last log andHowl went off and bought the skull and that stupid guitar? I wasreally annoyed with him. He said they looked good.”