It was definitely the fire that spoke. Sophie saw its purple mouthmove as the words came. Its voice was nearly as cracked as her own,full of the spitting and whining of burning wood. “Naturally Idon’t,” Sophie answered. “What are you?”

“A fire demon,” answered the purple mouth. There wasmore whine than spit to its voice as it said, “I’m boundto this hearth by contract. I can’t move from this spot.”Then its voice became brisk and crackling. “And what are you?” it asked. “I can see you’re under aspell.”

This roused Sophie from her dreamlike state. “Yousee!” she exclaimed. “Can you take the spelloff?”

There was a poppling, blazing silence while the orange eyes in thedemon’s wavering blue face traveled up and down Sophie.“it’s a strong spell,” it said at length. “Itfeels like one of the Witch of the Waste’s to me.”

“It is,” said Sophie.

“But it seems more than that,” crackled the demon.“I detect two layers. And of course you won’t be able totell anyone about it unless they know already.” It gazed atSophie a moment longer. “I shall have to study it,” itsaid.

“How long will that take?” Sophie asked.

“It may take a while,” said the demon. And it added ina soft persuasive flicker, “How about making a bargain with me?I’ll break your spell if you agree to break this contractI’m under.”

Sophie looked warily at the demon’s thin blue face. It had adistinctly cunning look as it made this proposal. Everything she hadread showed the extreme danger of making a bargain with a demon. Andthere was no doubt that this one did look extraordinarily evil. Thoselong purple teeth. “Are you sure you’re being quitehonest?” she said.

“Not completely,” admitted the demon. “But doyou want to stay like that till you die? That spell had shortenedyour life by about sixty years, if I am any judge of suchthings.”

This was a nasty thought, and one which Sophie had tried not tothink about up to now. It made quite a difference. “Thiscontract you’re under,” she said. “It’s withWizard Howl, is it?”

“Of course,” said the demon. Its voice took on a bitof a whine again. “I’m fastened to this hearth and Ican’t stir so much as a foot away. I’m forced to do mostof the magic around here. I have to maintain the castle and keep itmoving and do all the special effects that scare people off, as wellas anything else Howl wants. Howl’s quite heartless, youknow.”

Sophie did not need telling that Howl was heartless. On the otherhand, the demon was probably quite as wicked. “Don’t youget anything out of this contract at all?” she said.

“I wouldn’t have entered into it if Ididn’t,” said the demon, flickering sadly. “But Iwouldn’t have done if I’d known what it would be like.I’m being exploited.”

In spite of her caution, Sophie felt a good deal of sympathy forthe demon. She thought of herself making hats for Fanny while Fannywent gadding. “All right,” she said. “What are theterms of the contract? How do I break it?”

An eager purple grin spread across the demon’s blue face.“You agree to a bargain?”

“If you agree to break the spell on me,” Sophie said,with a brave sense of saying something fatal.

“Done!” cried the demon, his long face leapinggleefully up the chimney. “I’ll break your spell the veryinstant you break my contract!”

“Then tell me how I break your contract,” Sophiesaid.

The orange eyes glinted at her and looked away. “Ican’t. Part of the contract is that neither the Wizard nor Ican say what the main clause is.”

Sophie saw that she had been tricked. She opened her mouth to tellthe demon that it could sit in the fireplace until Doomsday in thatcase.

The demon realized she was going to. “Don’t behasty!” it crackled. “You can find out what it is if youwatch and listen carefully. I implore you to try. The contractisn’t doing either of us any good in the long run. And I dokeep my word. The fact that I’m stuck here shows that Ikeep it!”

It was in earnest, leaping about on its logs in an agitated way.Sophie again felt a great deal of sympathy. “But if I’mto watch and listen, that means I have to stay here in Howl’scastle,” she objected.

“Only about a month. Remember, I have to study your spelltoo,” the demon pleaded.

“But what possible excuse can I give for doing that?”Sophie asked.

“We’ll think of one. Howl’s pretty useless atmost things. In fact,” the demon said, venomously hissing,“he’s too wrapped up in himself to see beyond his nosehalf the time. We can deceive him— as long as you’ll agree tostay.”

“Very well,” Sophie said. “I’ll stay. Nowfind an excuse.”

She settled herself comfortably in the chair while the demonthought. It thought aloud, in a little crackling, flickering murmur,which reminded Sophie rather of the way she had talked to her stickwhen she walked here. And it blazed while it thought with such a gladpowerful roaring that she dozed again. She thought the demon did makea few suggestions. She remembered shaking her head to the notion thatshe should pretend to be Howl’s long- lost great- aunt, and totwo other ones even more far- fetched, but she did not remember veryclearly. The demon at length fell to singing a gentle, flickeringlittle song. It was not in any language Sophie knew— or she thoughtnot, until she distinctly heard the word “saucepan” in itseveral times— and it was very sleepy-sounding. Sophie fell into adeep sleep, with a slight suspicion that she was being bewitched now,as well as beguiled, but it did not bother her particularly. Shewould be free of the spell soon…

When Sophie woke up, daylight was streaming acrossher. Since Sophie remembered no windows at all in the castle, herfirst notion was that she had fallen asleep trimming hats and dreamedof leaving home. The fire in front of her had sunk to rosy charcoaland white ash, which convinced her that she had certainly dreamedthere was a fire demon. But her very first movements told her thatthere were some things she had not dreamed. There were sharp cracksfrom all over her body.

“Ow!” she exclaimed. “I ache all over!”The voice that exclaimed was a weak, cracked piping. She put herknobby hands to her face and felt wrinkles. At that, she discoveredshe had been in a state of shock all yesterday. She was very angryindeed with the Witch of the Waste for doing this to her, hugely,enormously angry. “Sailing into shops and turning peopleold!” she exclaimed. “Oh, what I won’t do toher!”

Her anger made her jump up in a salvo of cracks and creaks andhobble over to the unexpected window. It was above the workbench. Toher utter astonishment, the view from it was a view of a docksidetown. She could see a sloping, unpaved street, lined with small,rather poor-looking houses, and masts sticking up beyond the roofs.Beyond the masts she caught a glimmer of the sea, which was somethingshe had never seen in her life before.

“Wherever am I?” Sophie asked the skull standing onthe bench. “I don’t expect you to answer that, myfriend,” she added hastily, remembering this was awizard’s castle, and she turned round to take a look at theroom.

It was quite a small room, with heavy black beams in the ceiling.By daylight it was amazingly dirty. The stones of the floor werestained and greasy, ash was piled within the fender, and cobwebs hungin dusty droops from the beams. There was a layer of dust on theskull. Sophie absently wiped it off as she went to peer into the sinkbeside the workbench. She shuddered at the pink-and-gray slime in itand the white slime dripping from the pump above it. Howl obviouslydid not care what squalor his servants lived in.

The rest of the castle seemed to be beyond one or the other of thefour low black doors around the room. Sophie opened the nearest, inthe end wall beyond the bench. There was a large bathroom beyond it.In some ways it was a bathroom you might find normally only in apalace, full of luxuries such as an indoor toilet, a shower stall, animmense bath with clawed feet, and mirrors on every wall. But it waseven dirtier than the other room. Sophie winced from the toilet,flinched at the color of the bath, recoiled from the green weedgrowing in the shower, and quite easily avoided looking at hershriveled shape in the mirrors because the glass was plastered withblobs and runnels of nameless substances. The nameless substancesthemselves were crowded onto a very large shelf over the bath. Theywere in jars, boxes, tubes, and hundreds of tattered brown packetsand paper bags. The biggest jar had a name. It was called DRYINGPOWER in crooked letters. Sophie was not sure whether there should bea D in that or not. She picked up a packet at random. It had SKINscrawled on it, and she put it back hurriedly. Another jar said EYESin the same scrawl. A tube stated FOR DECAY.