A huge, spindly greyhound leaped off the hillside between thegrinding black blocks of the castle and landed in the middle of theroom. Sophie dropped the cloak and backed away hurriedly. She hadalways been nervous of dogs, and greyhounds are not reassuring tolook at. This one put itself between her and the door and stared ather. Sophie looked longingly at the wheeling rocks outside andwondered whether it would do any good to yell for Howl.

The dog bent its already bent back and somehow hoisted itself ontoits lean hind legs. That made it almost as tall as Sophie. It heldits front legs stiffly out and heaved upward again. Then, as Sophiehad her mouth open to yell to Howl, the creature put out what wasobviously an enormous effort and surged upward into the shape of aman in a crumpled brown suit. He had gingerish hair and a pale,unhappy face.

“Came from Upper Folding!” panted this dog-man.“Love Lettie—Lettie sent me—Lettie crying and very unhappy—sentme to you—told me to stay—” He began to double up and shrinkbefore he had finished speaking. He gave a dog howl of despair andannoyance. “Don’t tell Wizard!” he whined anddwindled away inside reddish curly hair into a dog again. A differentdog. This time he seemed to be a red setter. The red setter waved itsfringed tail and stared earnestly at Sophie from melting, miserableeyes.

“Oh, dear,” said Sophie as she shut the door.“You do have troubles, my friend. You were that collie dog,weren’t you? Now I see what Mrs. Fairfax was talking about.That Witch wants slaying, she really does! But why has Lettie sentyou here? If you don’t want me to tell WizardHowl—”

The dog growled faintly at the name. But it also wagged its tailand stared appealingly.

“All right. I won’t tell him,” Sophie promised.The dog seemed reassured. He trotted to the hearth, where he gaveCalcifer a somewhat wary look and lay down beside the fender in askinny red bundle. “Calcifer, what do you think?” Sophiesaid.

“This dog is a bespelled human,” Calcifer saidunnecessarily.

“I know, but can you take the spell off him?” Sophieasked. She supposed Lettie must have heard, like so many people, thatHowl had a witch working for him now. And it seemed rather importantto turn the dog into a man again and send him back to Upper Foldingbefore Howl got out of bed and found him there.

“No. I’d need to be linked with Howl for that,”Calcifer said.

“Then I’ll try it myself,” Sophie said. PoorLettie! Breaking her heart for Howl, and her only other lover a dogmost of the time! Sophie laid her hand on the dog’s soft,rounded head. “Turn back into the man you should be,” shesaid. She said it quite often, but its only effect seemed to be tosend the dog deeply to sleep. It snored and twitched againstSophie’s legs.

Meanwhile a certain amount of moaning and groaning was coming fromupstairs. Sophie kept muttering to the dog and ignored it. A loud,hollow coughing followed, dying away into more moaning. Crashingsneezes followed the coughing, each one rattling the window and allthe doors. Sophie found those harder to ignore, but she managed.Poot-pooooot! went a blown nose, like a bassoon in a tunnel. Thecoughing started again, mingled with moans. Sneezes mixed with themoans and the coughs, and the sounds rose to a crescendo in whichHowl seemed to be managing to cough, groan, blow his nose, sneeze,and wail gently all at the same time. The doors rattled, the beams inthe ceiling shook, and one of Calcifer’s logs rolled off ontothe hearth.

“All right, all right, I get the message!” Sophiesaid, dumping the log back into the grate. “It’ll begreen slime next. Calcifer, make sure that dog stays where itis.” And she climbed the stairs, muttering loudly,“Really, these wizards! You’d think no one had ever had acold before! Well, what is it?” she asked, hobbling through thebedroom door onto the filthy carpet.

“I’m dying of boredom,” Howl said pathetically.“Or maybe just dying.”

He was lying propped on dirty gray pillows, looking quite poorly,with what might have been a patchwork coverlet over him except thatit was all one color with dust. The spiders he seemed to like so muchwere spinning busily in the canopy above him.

Sophie felt his forehead. “You do have a bit of afever,” she admitted.

“I’m delirious,” said Howl. “Spots arecrawling before my eyes.”

“Those are spiders,” said Sophie. “Whycan’t you cure yourself with a spell?”

“Because there is no cure for a cold,” Howlsaid dolefully. “Things are going round and round in my head—ormaybe my head is going round and round in things. I keep thinking ofthe terms of the Witch’s curse. I hadn’t realized shecould lay me bare like that. It’s a bad thing to be laid bare,even though the things that are true so far are all my own doing. Ikeep waiting for the rest to happen.”

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

“Oh, I know that,” said Howl. “My own, or anyoneelse’s. They’re all there, just where they always were. Icould go and play bad fairy at my own christening if I wanted. MaybeI did and that’s my trouble. No, there are only three thingsI’m waiting for: the mermaids, the mandrake root, and the windto 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’sonly about three weeks left for them to come true in, and the Witchgets me as soon as they do. But the Rugby Club Reunion is MidsummerEve, so I shall get to that at least. The rest all happened longago.”

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

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

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

Howl pointed a shaky hand up toward the canopy of his bed.“That’s why I love spiders. ‘If at first youdon’t succeed, try, try, try, again.’ I keeptrying,” he said with great sadness. “But I brought it onmyself by making a bargain some years ago, and I know I shall neverbe able to love anyone properly now.”

The water running out of Howl’s eyes was definitely tearsnow. Sophie was concerned. “Now, you mustn’tcry—”

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

“What’s this?” said Howl.

“My new dog,” Sophie said, hanging on to its curlyhair. Now she was against the wall, she could see out of the bedroomwindow. It ought to have looked out on the yard, but instead itshowed a view of a neat, square garden with a child’s metalwing in the middle. The setting sun was firing raindrops hanging onthe swing to blue and red. As Sophie stood and stared, Howl’sniece, Mari, came running across the wet grass. Howl’s sister,Megan, followed Mari. She was evidently shouting that Mari should notsit on the wet swing, but no sound seemed to come through. “Isthat 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 withmyself that I could keep you from snooping out of the window all thetime 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 onher, shoving her toward the door now. “So all that song anddance was just a game, was it?” she said. “I might haveknown!”