The scarecrow whirled round and hopped for the open door.

“Oh, no!” Michael cried out. “Stop it! The Witchmust have sent it so that she could get it in here!”

Most people ran after the scarecrow. Sophie ran theother way, through the broom cupboard into the shop, grabbing herstick as she went.

“This is my fault!” she muttered. “I have agenius for doing things wrong! I could have kept Miss Angorianindoors. I only needed to talk to her politely, poor thing! Howl mayhave forgiven me a lot of things, but he’s not going to forgiveme this in a hurry!”

In the flower shop she hauled the seven-league boots out of thewindow display and emptied hibiscus, roses, and water out of themonto the floor. She unlocked the shop door and towed the wet bootsout onto the crowded pavement. “Excuse me,” she said tovarious shoes and trailing sleeves that were walking in her way. Shelooked up at the sun, which was not easy to find in the cloudy graysky. “Let’s see. Southeast. That way. Excuse me, excuseme,” she said, clearing a small space for the boots among theholiday-makers. She put them down pointing the right way. The shestepped into them and began to stride.

Zip-sip, zip-zip, zip-zip, zip-zip, zip-zip, zip-zip, zip-zip. Itwas as quick as that, and even more blurred and breathless in bothboots than in one. Sophie had brief glimpses between long doublestrides: of the mansion down at the end of the valley, gleamingbetween trees, with Fanny’s carriage at the door; of bracken ona hillside; of a small river racing down into a green valley; of thesame river sliding in a much broader valley; of the same valleyturned so wide it seemed endless and blue in the distance, and atowery pile far, far off that might have been Kingsbury; of the plainnarrowing toward mountains again; of a mountain which slanted sodeeply under her boot that she stumbled in spite of her stick, whichstumble brought her to the edge of a deep, blue-misted gorge, withthe tops of trees far below, where she had to take another stride orfall in.

And she landed in crumbly yellow sand. She dug her stick in andlooked carefully round. Behind her right shoulder, some miles off, awhite, steamy mist almost hid the mountains she had just zippedthrough. Below the mist was a band of dark green. Sophie nodded.Though she could not see the moving castle this far away, she wassure that mist marked the place of flowers. She took another carefulstride. Zip. It was a fearsomely hot day. The clay-yellow sandstretched in all directions now, shimmering in the heat. Rocks layabout in a messy way. The only growing things were occasional dismalgray bushes. The mountains looked like clouds coming up on thehorizon.

“If this is the Waste,” Sophie said, with sweatrunning in all her wrinkles, “then I feel sorry for the Witchhaving to live here.”

She took another stride. The wind of it did not cool her down. Therocks and bushes were the same, but the sand was grayer, and themountains seemed to have sunk down the sky. Sophie peered into thequivering gray glare ahead, where she thought she could see somethingrather higher than rock. She took one more stride.

Now it was like an oven. But there was a peculiar-shaped pileabout a quarter of a mile off, standing on a slight rise in therock-littered land. It was a fantastical shape of twisted towers,rising to one main tower that pointed slightly askew, like a knottyold finger. Sophie climbed out of the boots. It was too hot to carryanything so heavy, so she trudged off to investigate with only herstick.

The thing seemed to be made of yellow-gray grit of the Waste. Atfirst Sophie wondered if it might be some strange kind of ants’nest. But as she got neared, she could see that it was as ifsomething had fused together thousands of grainy yellow flowerpotsinto a tapering heap. She grinned. The moving castle had often struckher as being remarkably like the inside of a chimney. This buildingwas really a collection of chimney pots. It had to be a firedemon’s work.

As Sophie panted up the rise, there was suddenly no doubt thatthis was the Witch’s fortress. Two small orange figures cameout of the dark space at the bottom and stood waiting for her. Sherecognized the Witch’s two page boys. Hot and breathless as shewas, she tried to speak to them politely, to show she had no quarrelwith them. “Good afternoon,” she said.

They just gave her sulky looks. One bowed and held out his hand,pointing toward the misshapen dark archway between the bent columnsof chimney pots. Sophie shrugged and followed him inside. The otherpage walked after her. And of course the entrance vanished as soon asshe was through. Sophie shrugged again. She would have to deal withthat problem when she came back.

She rearranged her lace shawl, straightened her draggled skirts,and walked forward. It was a little like going through the castledoor with the knob black-down. There was a moment of nothingness,followed by murky light. The light came from greenish-yellow flamesthat burned and flickered all round, but in a shadowy way which gaveno heat and very little light either. When Sophie looked at them, theflames were never where she looking, but always to the side. But thatwas the way of magic. Sophie shrugged again and followed the pagethis and way and that among skinny pillars of the same chimney-potkind as the rest of the building.

At length the pages led her to a sort of central den. Or maybe itwas just a space between pillars. Sophie was confused by then. Thefortress seemed enormous, though she suspected that it was deceptive,just as the castle was. The Witch was standing there waiting. Again,it was hard to tell how Sophie knew—except that it could be no oneelse. The Witch was hugely tall and skinny now and her hair was fair,in a ropelike pigtail over one bony shoulder. She wore a white dress.When Sophie walked straight up to her, brandishing her stick, theWitch backed away.

“I am not to be threatened!” the Witch said, soundingtired and frail.

“Then give me Miss Angorian and you won’t be,”said Sophie. “I’ll take her and go away.”

The Witch backed away further, gesturing with both hands. And thepage boys both melted into sticky orange blobs which rose into theair and flew toward Sophie. “Yucky! Get off!” Sophiecried, beating at them with her stick. The orange blobs did not seemto care for her stick. They dodged it, and wove about, and thendarted behind Sophie. She was just thinking she had got the better ofthem when she found herself glued to a chimney-pot pillar by them.Orange sticky stuff stranded between her ankles when she tried tomove and plucked at her hair quite painfully.

“I’d almost rather have green slime!” Sophiesaid. “I hope those weren’t real boys.”

“Only emanations,” said the Witch.

“Let me go,” said Sophie.

“No,” said the Witch. She turned away and seemed tolose interest in Sophie entirely.

Sophie began to fear that, as usual, she had made a mess ofthings. The sticky stuff seemed to be getting harder and harder andmore elastic every second. When she tried to move, it snapped herback against the pottery pillar. “Where’s MissAngorian?” she said.

“You will find her,” said the Witch. “We willwait until Howl comes.”

“He’s not coming,” said Sophie.“He’s got more sense. And your curse hasn’t allworked anyway.”

“It will,” said the Witch, smiling slightly.“Now that you have fallen for our deception and come here. Howlwill have to be honest for once.” She made another gesture,toward the murky flames this time, and a sort of a throne trundledout from between two pillars and stopped in front of the Witch. Therewas a man sitting in it, wearing a green uniform and long, shinyboots. Sophie thought he was asleep at first, with his head out ofsight sideways. But the Witch gestured again. The man sat upstraight. And he had no head on his shoulders at all. Sophie realizedshe was looking at all that was left of Prince Justin.