~A/N~

Well hello again! Here's the situation: I finally finished college! Yes. I'm just done. It's amazing and I've been incredibly busy writing more than 100 pages of fiction and essays to finish the semester. And I haven't updated in a year and half… Urgh! I'm the worst!

And yet there have still been reviews and followers. Which always brings me joy, even when I'm crazy busy and can't do anything about it. Thanks to everyone who's newly reading and everyone who's sticking with it. Couldn't do it without you. And I'm here again to say that I'm definitely continuing this!

For starters, on with the chapter!

~Chapter Seven (II)~

In which a mushroom is a dangerous thing to be

~S~

Sophie did not want to admit it to herself when she got there, and she certainly was not going to to admit it to Howl, but the ride to the Wizards' market was amply made up for by the market itself. Michael and Howl had had a lively discussion of the landscape and where everything was on the way there, but looking over the carpet's questionable edges made Sophie feel just a bit queasy, so she spent most of the time trying to think of different plants that she could put in her garden.

She could not imagine how Howl and Michael were so cavalier about the whole sailing-so-far-up-in-the-air-that-the-landscape-lo oked-like-it-was-made-of-postage-stamps thing. It was true, she had not been nearly the same kind of frightened when she had been flying with Howl before, but she thought that amounted to her being so frightened by other things that she had not even noticed her fear of heights. How things change! Sophie thought suddenly. The first time she had been in the air it had been Howl she was afraid of; by the second time she had been much more afraid of his being offed by the witch of the waste!

Or maybe, some mischievous voice within her said, what made it worse now was that this time Howl was not actually touching her.

After that, of course, Sophie kept much closer guard of her thoughts—which were clearly prone to wandering. Once they arrived at the market it became much easier—there was no shortage of distractions there.

When Sophie thought Wizards' Market, she had pictured someplace rather dark, full of a lot of smoke and cobwebs and shiny things, and in other words rather similar to the insides of Howl's walk-in closet. She was almost disappointed when they arrived and found the market laid out in a very peaceful-looking meadow. There were stalls and tents and tables and stands set up seemingly at random, some huge and gaudy enough to match Howl's suit, but most rather small and blown about in the brisk wind which was cutting across the plateau. And where there were not stalls and tents and tables and stands, there were a lot of blankets thrown out over the ground.

"Why, it's sort of like a rummage sale," Sophie said to Howl. She was surprised when Howl did not immediately look dejected—he'd been so eager for her to come here and see things.

But all he said was "Are you sure?" with such a bland expression on his face that Sophie was at a loss to decipher it.

She cast her eyes about at the surrounding blankets, finding some playing cards, a few bowls of herbs, and a human skull much like the one that Howl had owned before he found out it belonged to Wizard Suliman. "Well, those are much like the things I've seen in the castle," she said. "And that"—pointing to another blanket—"looks just like an old brass teakettle that my father used to own."

"Does it?" said Howl, again very mildly. It was making Sophie suspicious.

"Tea-set?" Michael interjected. "Where?"

"On the paisley carpet," Sophie said.

"That paisley carpet?" Michael asked, pointing at the same carpet Sophie was staring at. "All I see is a pile of baby's buttons. I think I can smell them. Ugh."

The witch sitting behind the carpet spoke for the first time. She was swathed from head to toe in russet robes that left only her eyes exposed, but her voice seemed quite young to Sophie. She laughed quietly to herself and said, "I don't have any baby's-buttons here. And no teapots either. That man—"and she pointed to Howl—"knows what is here on this blanket."

Howl's face shed its bland look instantly and a wide flabbergasted smile appeared upon it. "That's a very fine spell you've got there," he said, shaking his head and stepping closer.

"Do you know how to break it?" The witch asked him.

"Not at all," Howl said, still shaking his head in a delighted, bewildered manner. "But at least I can see what this thing thinks of all of you."

The witch on the carpet closed her eyes and murmured something that Sophie's ears could not pick up. She caught Michael looking again at the blanket, and turned with him to see what was on it: neither a tea set nor baby's-buttons, but a small, quiet book with a cover of blue leather. Michael's eyes looked like they were a mirror of her own face: a large amount of confusion and shock was whirling around in there.

"Alright," Sophie admitted to Howl. "That's a lovely trick."

Howl did not have to argue with Sophie this time because Michael did it for him. "Trick?" he cried. "That kind of spell borrows something different from each of us. They're really rare and difficult to do, right, Howl?"

"Indeed," Howl said, and Sophie thought the eyes of the witch behind the carpet smiled knowingly. She didn't even seem phased by Sophie's skepticism. Sophie was suitably humbled. While Howl struck up conversation with the spell's maker, she looked around more carefully and discovered that magic things at the wizard's market were like ants: once you noticed one, you saw them all.

And they were everywhere! Certain corners seemed to slide out of her view when she looked closely at him; a blanket down the lane held clay pots with steam of all colors coiling out in ribbons from inside them; a child in a ragged dress was herding about a group of seven fat orange cats; and under a parasol held open by an old man, a very small storm cloud was hovering obediently, thundering occasionally and pelting the ground with peevish hail.

Presently Michael began nagging at Sophie's sleeve that they should be going. "Howl looks like he's going to buy something," he explained with a nervous look at the sleeve where Howl usually kept his money. He and Sophie managed to steer Howl away together into the further reaches of the market.

Howl was now behaving according to Sophie's expectations and acting very smug and cool about it all. He swept through the rows of carpets and tables, giving a cursory glance here and there; Sophie followed at his elbow, feeling as though her eyes would pop out of her head from goggling. She gave up trying to hide it because Howl caught her almost immediately. "I can see you goggling," he said in a very satisfied manner.

"I'm not goggling," Sophie protested. "I was just watching that…fish…that bird…that fish-bird thing …flying around in its cage. It has very lovely scales."

The fish-bird-thing shrieked "Lovely!" at her, and Sophie gave a shocked little jump at the sound. Howl laughed at her, which did not surprise Sophie; then he gave a pensive look at the stand, which did. "That's Lady Amkin's for you. She brings those sorts of things every time. Last market it was some sort of pig with butterfly wings, and the year before last it was even worse. I feel sorry for the poor things."

"Really?" Sophie asked. Howl did not usually like to admit pitying anything except for himself. "Why?"

Howl blinked at her for a moment. Then he said, "You would feel very sorry for yourself, too, if your scales didn't even match your beak. Now if you're quite done dawdling, there's some other things I'd like you to see. We can't miss a moment here!"

Sophie, who had a feeling that this wasn't what Howl had first thought to say at all, let him stride purposefully away toward the next stall without comment. She could not think of a way to make him tell her what he had almost said, and was surprised by how badly she wanted to know. She watched the fish-bird-thing swimming twitchily back and forth in its hanging cage and gazing at them all out of large, mournful, orange eyes.

Michael came up from behind them with his knapsack teetering upon his back. "Is Howl inside there?" he asked. He seemed a little jumpy.

"He just went to the next stall," Sophie told him. The fish-thing burbled at them. "Next stall, next stall!" it repeated sadly, and she thought she began to see why Howl had been so eager to get away.

"Oh, good," Michael said, and relief passed over his face. "I have to chase him away from Lady Amkin's every year. The year before last he spent all our money on some horrible dog-pigeon thing. Then he spent days trying to make it into a dog and a pigeon again."

Sophie found that she was clutching her hands to her heart. She put them down again. "What happened to it?" she asked Michael.

Michael looked sad. "I think he let it go," he said. "He wouldn't come out of his room for ages, anyway. I thought I'd have to go to Wales and fetch his sister, but luckily he started eating again in a few days."

Oh, Howl! Sophie thought. And that was back when you didn't even have a heart! She had the sudden urge to go find the wizard and throw her arms about him. But perhaps that would just lead to more mortification.

"I've been trying to tell you all for ages," Calcifer said, coming up behind them. "Howl's just a big baby in a wizard suit." His flame eyes looked from Sophie to Michael sharply. "Oh, cheer up! We haven't got all day here, you know! Boo!" he said to the fish-bird (which squawked angrily at him), and flew off after Howl in a shower of sparks.

Sophie and Michael moved on too, the better not to get lost. The jumble of stands, tables and stalls seemed to twist at odd angles. Michael and Calcifer came and went back and forth down the aisle, but Sophie felt better sticking with Howl. She dogged his elbow from stall to incredible stall until it seemed her head was almost spinning with things.

"What do you think, Sophie?" Howl asked finally. He sprung the question on her with a carefree, melting kind of smile that seemed to come out on his face like the sun from behind a cloud. All the traces of his former haughtiness seemed quite gone. Sophie wondered at the change.

She fished for something to say. Howl had already seen her ogling; wasn't that enough? "It is rather cluttered here," she managed at last. "At least I have a better sense of organization than these people."

Howl narrowed his eyes at Sophie. "That is one thing I will give you credit on. But don't think it's much of a feat."

"You don't think I'm organized?" Sophie asked, in some indignation.

"You're certainly more organized than most bearable human beings," Howl said with a thoughtful look on his face. "But you do do most things in a rush. And then you have to do them over again. Ah, you thought I hadn't noticed, didn't you?—" at Sophie's opened mouth to protest— "You always clean half of the castle twice."

"Not quite half," Sophie said, and then she got distracted by a stand with a display of the most enormous flowers she'd seen in her life. "Good grief," she said to Howl. "Look at them! It's as if they've used Michael's enlargement spell on roses!"

"They are ridiculous, aren't they?" Howl said, studying the burgeoning plants as though he could burn their imprint into his green eyes.

Sophie thought this was a bit rich coming from a man wearing a suit of yellow embroidery. She said as much to Howl.

"I told you, it's gold," Howl said. But his wizarding curiosity seemed to get the better of him, for he went closer to the flower stand and peered at it pensively. "And I doubt the enlargement spell I taught Michael would work on living things. It's not designed to. It'd make them go all wonky on the inside, do you know what I mean?"

"Wonky?" Sophie asked. "I'm not sure." She gazed at the huge blooms in a thoughtful hush. It struck her in rather a rush that she and Howl were having a real, civilized conversation. And at a wizards' market, too. The sensation was strange but not at all unpleasant, and Sophie began looking back through her mind, trying to remember if this had happened before. Dinner conversations counted, didn't they? When were she and Howl together and not fighting? The concept was rather intriguing. Yes, she could definitely enjoy this.

And then, of course, someone called out, "Howl? Wizard Howl, if it isn't you? How are you, you old scoundrel?"

Howl turned around from the flowers with his pompous face firmly back on. "If it isn't Ighast!" he said. "Why haven't you gotten swallowed by a quarlebeast yet? I was hoping we'd be rid of you by now."

"I'm sure you were. And you know, I tried my hardest, but no luck!" The person, apparently called Ighast, who was slender and wearing a suit that was more horrible than Howl's, seemed to take it in stride that Howl had insulted him; it certainly did not shorten his grin. Perhaps it was a wizard thing, because the insults did not stop there: by the end of their conversation, Sophie was almost sure that Howl had been told to grow himself a new face because his own was inadequate, and Ighast must certainly have some new ideas about what his mother did for a living.

"Are all wizards so like children?" Sophie said when Ighast had finally vanished again into the crowd and Howl had his regular face on—or at least his not-pompous face (was there such a thing as Howl's regular face?) "I don't think I've heard such rudeness since Martha and Lettie shared a bedroom."

Howl looked askance at her. "It's bad manners to be polite to anyone at Wizard's Market. You need to make sure everyone thinks you're as wicked as possible."

Sophie felt her eyebrows raise a little. "Oh yes. You're the wickedest wizard I've ever seen," she said.

Howl looked down at her. It looked like he was enjoying himself immensely. "Well, they don't really believe I'm wicked. It would just be such a bother if everyone went around thinking I was good."

Sophie opened her mouth to disagree, but she was interrupted again by someone calling out "Sorcerer Jenkins! What is your ugly face doing in these parts?"

After that it seemed that Howl's friends multiplied. Not a stall went by without new faces popping up out of the crowd to exchange pleasant insults with Howl, Pendragon, or Jenkins. Sophie felt a little gypped. Howl was in fine form; he was throwing pompous glares left and right, and, worse, introducing Sophie to everyone. This was the last thing Sophie wanted.

After she got introduced to four (or possibly five) people in the span of ten minutes, she started planning ways to escape. No one had told her not to explore the Wizards' Market on her own, had they? She could certainly do it without Howl's guidance.

They were nearing the center of the market; the stalls and stands and so forth had begun to cluster in sorts of circles and rows that might even have a pattern, if one squinted. So there was some sort of order to the whole thing after all! Sophie thought. She awaited the opportunity to creep off at the nearest corner. Sorcerer Jenkins was already engaged in a discussion with several aged witches when someone hailed Howl from a blanket: "Wizard Pendragon?"

Howl was not in the least bit shaken. "Pendragon…? Oh no, I'm sorry, you must have mistaken me for someone else." The aged witches tutted disapprovingly.

The other wizard looked confused. "Why, I could have sworn…"

"Wizard Pendragon," Howl said with great dignity, "is in fact a distant cousin of mine. We do share a godfather or something, and we have been compared once or twice, now that you mention it. Something about having similar good tastes." No one was looking at Sophie. "Howl," she muttered, wondering whether she should let him know where she was going. "I'll be just a moment." She started edging toward an adjacent aisle of tents.

"But we're really quite easy to tell apart." Howl said to sandy-whiskers. "Wizard Pendragon isn't nearly as handsome as me."

Confound that man! Sophie thought, and she crept her way around the corner without looking back.

Thankfully, what started as vindictiveness soon became honest-to-goodness exploration. Sophie discovered that, except for the wares themselves, going among the carpets was no different than an ordinary rummage sale after all. She forgot her earlier shyness and began to poke around things at the market in earnest. She was a witch, too, after all. It was high time she began learning about witch-ly things. She couldn't spend all her career talking life into garden plants, could she? She went about from stall to blanket to table to stand, peering furtively at each one and doing her best not to goggle. "No, thank you," she said, when people asked if she wanted to look closer. She wouldn't get in anyone's way, least of all Howl's.

But there were such amazing things to be seen! Sophie saw a toad that made its nest out of gold flakes and a flute that played bees to sleep. She found out the five ingredients that were most-used in common household spells. And she learned which shop made the safest type of gnome repellent, which love potion wouldn't induce strange boils, and what to avoid when you are looking for a key to unlock every door. If Fanny could see me now, she thought.

She was having a rather good time of it, actually, when she made it to what seemed the center of the gathering. The cluttered aisles of elegant tables and pavilions dropped away to a large clear space of no definable shape which teemed with wizards and witches. They were all standing there in knots and groups chatting (likely insultingly) for all the world like the market down in the village, except for some overall thing that felt different somehow which Sophie could not put her finger on.

"Excuse me, my dear. Would you happen to know where I could find Wizard Pendragon?"

Sophie looked up. Looking up was apt in this case, because the person asking her was very tall, much taller than Howl or even Wizard Suliman. He had shoulder-length brown hair, and was wearing long pale robes with some kind of subtle design on them. "No, I don't know where he is," Sophie said.

"Ah, but you do know him?" The tall wizard said.

He said it very mildly, yet Sophie got the impression that she had made some sort of conversational error, which the man was savoring. It was a little unsettling. "Whether or not I know him, I certainly don't know where he is," she said tartly, and made to move off into the crowd. But the man stuck out his hand at her and she found herself shaking it instead.

"It's very nice to meet you," he said. "I'm Freeyle. I'm an old friend of Wizard Pendragon's. And you must be Sophie?"

Sophie was sure that she had never seen this man before in her life, so this was more than a little unsettling. "Where do you know How—Wizard Pendragon from?" she asked, extracting her hand from the man's large one in a hurry. Yes, he was very polite—but his face seemed awfully far away, even for someone so tall, and she could have sworn that the subtle little designs on his robes were actually making her queasy. As soon as she thought she'd pinned them with her eyes, they would seem to squirm a little, or when she looked back they were somehow different.

"Here and there," said the man. "We've dabbled in the same circles before, as I'm sure you're thoroughly aware."

Sophie was not, in fact, thoroughly aware. "What Wizard Pendragon does with his time is a mystery to me," Sophie said, doing her best to imitate Howl's arch, pompous tone. "Well, perhaps you two will be in a circle together sometime later. Pardon me, I have to go attend to my carpet."

The tall, tall man gave a deep chuckle and began to say something, but Sophie hurried off before he could. She was definitely shaken. She had to veritably tear her eyes off of the squirmy, swirly patterns on Freeyle's robes, and she was positive she felt a twinge of nausea as she turned away—but at last she managed it, and dove at a brisk walk down the first twisty lane of tents she came to. In a wild fit of nerves, she plunged up and down aisles quite at random until she felt she'd put enough distance between herself and the market center. Then she stopped to catch her breath, thinking, that was downright odd!

This part of the Wizard's market did not look any different—any more magical or more menacing—than the parts Sophie had been marveling at earlier. Everything seemed to be going on as normal. A child was chasing little floating golden bubbles around with a butterfly net, and two old men sat on a blanket piling dozens of cast-iron pots and pans atop one another at impossible angles.

"Bother," Sophie said aloud. She was getting a funny niggling feeling that she had behaved abominably. And the stranger had been so polite! What a fool she must have looked! Then and there she determined to be friendlier and more personable to whomever she might meet next.

Her chance came sooner than she expected. When Sophie tried to figure out where she might find Howl again—he ought to be well done with introductions by now—she realized immediately that she was lost. If she had had ever had a clear idea where she was going, the twists and turns she had taken in her escape from Freeyle had left it all behind. She kept walking, but all the tents and the booths and the innumerable blankets were beginning to look the same. And hadn't she just seen that sign reading FROG LEG HALF OFF in large white letters? Was she going in circles?

Sophie shook her head to try and get her bearings. Howl would think she was an inutterable fool—she could already imagine the smugness coming off him in waves. She resolved that he mustn't find out she had been lost at all. It would be simple to see if she was going in circles: FROG LEG HALF OFF was certainly recognizable enough. But it seemed she had scarcely struck out for a different lane of blankets when she was accosted by another stranger, this time a woman. She was tall and bland-looking and came up beside Sophie in the little path, falling into step with her. Sophie did not pay her much mind at first; she was busy being cross with herself.

"Hello there," said the woman in a pleasant voice that sounded so similar in tone to the Wizard Freeyle's that Sophie's heartbeat performed an odd little tremor. Then she recovered herself a little—Friendly and personable! she thought.

"Yes?" she said, and, remembering the flower shop, added, "How may I help you?" for good measure.

The bland-faced woman smiled a little smile, like a cat that is dreaming in its sleep of playing with a mouse before it eats it. Don't be so suspicious, Sophie! Sophie chided herself, but she walked a little faster, all the same. Trying to be pleasant was obviously a difficult task.

"Oh, well, in that case," the not-bland woman said, "do you think you can help me find Wizard Howl?" She kept pace with Sophie easily.

Be polite! Sophie thought desperately to herself. "Well," she began, turning a corner. After all, why shouldn't she help this stranger find Howl?

And then she noticed two things at once. One was a familiar sign saying FROG LEG HALF OFF in big white letters. The other was that the woman's long dress was inscribed with patterns that seemed to squirm and twitch just as you looked the other way.

The coincidence was too much. Something inside Sophie's chest seemed to fall into the pit of her stomach. It took all of her strength not to jump right behind the table of a stall they were passing.

"Well?" said the woman, with the tiny catlike smile still perched on the end of her face.

Politeness be damned! Sophie thought. "Well, I don't know any Wizard Howl!" she lied, and walked even faster. Perhaps she could "Isn't he that…that heart-eating fool from Market Chipp…er, Market Chipper? I don't see why anyone would want to eat hearts. They're awfully gooey." Go away, go away! she thought. Leave me alone!

"Oh no," said the woman sharply, and now all the pleasantness was gone from her voice. "None of that now. We're going to stay right here until you tell me how you know Wizard Pendragon. I don't believe your little spiel one bit. You've got a liar's nose if I ever saw one."

Sophie did not know what the woman meant by 'right here'—she was walking so fast now that it seemed her legs had a mind of their own. But they were still going in circles—she was sure now she'd just seen that carpet stall, and there was FROG LEG HALF OFF going by in a blur of big white letters. It was a good thing she was no longer an old woman. Her old joints would never have sustained this pace.

"Nobody has ever said that about my nose, not even the Witch of the Waste," she said, panting a little. The awful woman kept beside her effortlessly, as though they were strolling down main street on a Sunday. "And she didn't last very long, did she?"

"The Witch of the Waste? Peh. She was an old hag," the woman said. "Where is Wizard Pendragon?"

Sophie was getting tired and irritated—and most of all, really frightened. "I already told you I don't know any Wizard Pendragon!" she snapped—and then she stopped. A big horrid smile had slid its way across the other witch's features, and Sophie knew she had made a mistake. But in what? Oh, where was Howl? Or even Michael or Calcifer? Come on, feet, get us out of here! Sophie thought.

But however fast she walked, she could not lose the other woman. In fact, she pursed her painted lips and tutted at Sophie in a way which would have been infuriating, if Sophie hadn't already been so frightened. "Oh, I can see it's no use talking to you. Stop trying to use your petty, childish magic and tell me where Wizard Howl is," the witch said.

"What magic?" Sophie protested. Her brain was whirling every which way. "And Wizard Howl—who's Wizard—"Was it Howl she was pretending not to know, or Pendragon? Drat!

"You do know that even if you won't tell me how you know Wizard Howl, he will certainly come find you when he learns I'm here," the woman said in what she must have thought were tones of perfect reason. "You might as well just tell me, and get it over with."

"I will do no such thing!" Sophie said. The thought had occurred to her just the moment before. What if Howl came across her and ended up blowing the whole story? Stay away, Howl! she thought frantically, and tried to walk faster than ever before. There went FROG LEG HALF OFF again, barely legible for the speed. The woman beside her tutted again in a sad, sympathetic, nasty way. "I'm afraid it's too late for that," she said. "I'm sure your wizard is already on his way."

Whatever happens, Howl can't be allowed to come near you, you beastly bullying hag! Sophie thought viciously. She wanted to say it out loud, but she was having trouble finding enough breath to make words. It was all this spinning, blurring walking-in-circles! It would certainly not do. She struggled to say something and managed to gasp "—Leave—me—alone—!" —which even by her own standards was a very poor escape attempt; and then she walked straight into a pair of hands and everything changed pace quite abruptly.

~H~

Wizard Howl had a general habit of not saying what he meant. He was not sure whether this was because it was nobody's business but his, or because even he never knew exactly what that was. A conversation, he figured, was usually some kind of placeholder while whatever he was actually concerned with thought itself through in his brain. Sometimes a conversation could be a bit of a battle: for instance, when you were out accosting girls, everyone knew what you were getting at and chose to talk in circles around it because it was more fun that way. Those conversations were games. Howl was rather proud of being able to play them without having to get away from what he was really thinking for more than a few moments. (Calcifer had once told him that this was why he never won girls' hearts for very long. But every other method looked like far too much work, so he had pretended not to notice.)

Once in a while there would be a moment in a conversation that actually made him stop to think about what was going on. He was never sure when this would happen—only that it felt very like being pinned to the wall while he stopped and actually thought about the conversation. Generally he tried to avoid these moments whenever possible. He had noticed, though, that when he was talking to Sophie, these sorts of moments became more frequent. It had taken some getting used to. Occasionally it was even nice.

His market conversation with Sir Rethe, whom Howl had been seeing if he could despise less for today, was either the worst kind of conversation or the best kind, in that it was pretty much utter drivel all the way through. In fact, Howl was pleased that his face could perform its part in the conversation so admirably with almost no help from his brain whatsoever. Hopefully Sophie would have something to say to shut Sir Rethe up. He would just have to introduce her.

In his mouth's typical fashion, it was halfway through the introduction when Howl's brain realized that Sophie wasn't here, blast her. She'd probably found somebody's stall to go clean up—he'd seen her eyeing the jumble with her things-need-to-be-cleaned face. And of course, she hadn't thought to tell him where she was going. No, it would be just like her, in fact, to deliberately not-tell him where she was going. She could be anywhere at this point.

"This is…?" Sir Rethe asked with a slow inquisitive glance, twirling his long moustache around one finger.

"This was Sophie," Howl said. "She seems to have gone off somewhere."

"Oh," Sir Rethe said. "How unfortunate. Well, as I was saying, following the trouble with the pig remains cropping up in the vegetable gardens—I mean it quite literally, they were cropping up, like ears of corn, so you see—"

"How gruesome," Howl muttered, smiling. He let the words drone into and out of his ears and made a few more faces for effect. Surely Sophie couldn't have got into that much trouble at the wizard's market, could she?

Now that was a question to which Howl suddenly did not want to know the answer. In fact, out of the many questions to which Howl did not want to know the answers, this one was pretty far up there, somewhere between "What does it feel like to be eaten by a dragon?" and "What if Megan finds out about magic?"

When his mouth got tired of this particular game, Howl disengaged himself from Sir Rethe, who would surely keep going on about about his troubles with entrails for days, and went looking around for Michael and Calcifer. Let Sophie stick her nosy nose anywhere she liked. Surely she was enjoying herself.

How long had she been gone, anyway? The day was getting later and later. Howl did not like to think of himself as a worrywart—but alright, he could admit that he was the tiniest bit worried. There was no shame in that. It was just the everyday tragedy of having his kind of wild imagination.

"Calcifer," Howl asked of the air. Or rather, he asked of the strange humming space around his heart where Calcifer's flame had once taken root; it was still quite a solid link between them, although the bond now was dimmer, obscured by his real heart's beating. It took some work to get ahold of the fire demon when, as now, he was not in immediate sight. "Calcifer!" Howl said aloud again, "Where is that blasted woman?"

The faraway feeling that came into Howl's heart at this point could potentially be decipherable as busy busy nosy nosy—Calcifer was being obstinate. "Not now, old blueface, you've got to come through," Howl said. "Help me find Sophie. There's no telling what she's up to out there."

There was a long, resigned, drawn-out whisper of woe and weariness, which Howl ignored. Yes, he was worried. Yes, he already knew that Calcifer was doing this only for Sophie's sake, not for Howl's dreadful, cowardly, spying person. He waited impatiently, until at last he felt the long surge of power which opened up that sense where he and Calcifer were both zipping and flittering about in the atmosphere and securely in their places at once.

Howl almost felt the tiniest twinge of guilt about his surveillance—just the tiniest little nudge—but then he sensed the problem, and immediately everything seemed justified and right and eerily fast-forwarded because someone was after Sophie.

Almost at the same time Howl felt it, Michael came shooting out from one of the nearby aisles between blankets. He was actually running so fast that he nearly plowed into Howl, skidding the last few feet sliding and scrabbling for purchase in the grass. "Howl!" he was shouting, windmilling his arms to stop his momentum. "Howl! I think there's a problem!"

"Do tell," Howl said, his mind only half in the present moment. The other half was still circling with Calcifer, trying to feel out Sophie from the rest of the spells and enchantments that thickened the ground at Wizard's market, and to see which of those enchantments he ought to be worried about.

Michael's face was flushed from running and he wrung his hands nervously against his tunic. "I was just in the gathering space and think I saw one of those people—you know, the ones that you told me not to get involved with!"

"There were several of those," Howl said. Wasting words was not his priority right now. "Do you remember which of them it was? Have you seen Sophie?"

Michael answered the first question. "I don't know…There was a man and a woman. They have those robes of spell-silk that make you dizzy?" He seemed calmer now—perhaps he thought (for some reason) that Howl had the situation under control. "I almost remember one of their names. It had to do with some kind of wood."

Howl's brain made sense of what was going on. "Curses! Damnation and hellfire!" he shouted.

It was clear to him that he must be at Sophie's side this moment—or before this moment, if possible. He had the ingredients and thoughts for the transportation spell in his mind in an instant, and another instant after that—slapdash, slapdash, but there was no time to kill in being thorough—Howl was moving across the market in a rush. He ended up leaving Michael behind him shouting something about balsa. Things seemed to be crashing around him as he went—tents and tables and stands, perhaps—but the important thing was that he get to Sophie, now (or sooner than now, preferably).

One good thing was that finding Sophie was soon made easier Sophie herself, who began shouting out in a very clear, precise spell: Stay away, Howl! Don't come over here! Howl thought that was a load of tripe, although he did feel the magic tugging at his sleeves ineffectively from time to time, the way a small child might. "There we are," he said to himself, and followed the whole thread of it right exactly to her, nevermind all the troublesome scree of blankets and pots and pans and a sign with large white letters that flew up in his face at the last moment with a hideous jarring clanging sound—

There she was. And in the grip of a particularly cunning bit of magic. Howl did not think so much as stick his hands out into the spell before he had lost momentum and pray that what he got was Sophie and not something else entirely. There was the briefest of flashes and he spooled runes frantically through his head and then he had her by the shoulders—"Oh, no, let me go!" she cried, and it was Sophie alright—and everything was going to be alright.

The momentum of the spell she'd been in plastered her face-first against his chest. By some trick she had figured out his identity without even a glance—"Howl!" she said. "Oh, it's no good, you need to stay away!"

The irritation in her voice had Howl's innards going gooey with relief. "Garbage," he said.

"Wizard Howl! Or should I say, Wizard Pendragon?" A low, slinky, familiar voice interrupted. Howl got his bearings and realized that they were in one of the trampled-grass lanes of the Wizard's Market, standing amongst a wreckage of tent-poles and table-legs and magical knick-knacks, with a crowd gathering round whispering. Just in front of him stood a middle-sized woman with a round, forgettable face, dressed in a grandiose fashion which Howl knew was supposed to distract from her decidedly ordinary appearance. Her hands were on her hips and her richly-patterned green dress crawled with spelled runes and designs of an arcane nature.

"I do prefer Pendragon, it rings much nicer on the tongue, don't you think?" Howl said. He had Sophie, and now he was determined to get out of here as quickly as he could. "Belsin," he added pleasantly, "Isn't it?"

"Oh, so you admit to your own treachery!" The woman did not react to the name, but Howl was almost sure he was correct. Careful, he heard Calcifer's voice ring out in his heart. Don't forget about the other half.

I haven't! "I am the most treacherous scoundrel of them all, I'm afraid," said Howl. "No denying it. My reputation ought to be suitably impoverished. Lovely chatting with you. And now, I think Sophie and I are going to be on our way."

The witch's brown eyes went from Howl's face back to Sophie's red-gold head tucked under Howl's chin. "Ah, does this one belong to you, then?" she sneered. It was an impressive sneer for such a mild face.

Howl's heart beat a few times errantly in his chest. "Heavens, no!" he said. "Sophie belongs to no one but Sophie. If she puts up with my nonsense, it's only out of the goodness of her nosy old heart."

"What a pity," the witch said; Howl felt Sophie squirm and scrabble around in his arms to face her attacker. Her breath sucked in and she started forward as if to speak, but the woman cut her off, still addressing Howl: "She's such a drab little peahen. Not like the ones you usually go for. She won't last longer than any of the others."

Then she seemed to see something in Sophie's face that Howl could not, for she quirked her round, bland face to the side and added, "Hold onto him while you can, my dear. Or don't you know what Pendragon is doing while Wizard Howl isn't at home?"

Sophie's body was taut with fury, and Howl had to admire the affected haughtiness in her voice when she snapped, "What Howl does is none of your business. You're being dreadful and rude."

Howl, Calcifer was whispering into his heart, I've got my eye right on Freeyle now, but let's not get caught up if we can. It'll be nasty all around.

Howl could not agree more. He had no idea what the woman was talking about, and no desire whatsoever to let Sophie provoke her into a real fight. He looked around them for arrangements and saw his opportunity.

Cutting Sophie off as she took a breath before what certainly would've been a truly impressive retort, Howl said aloud, "Alas! I can't stay to hear more about my wicked, evil-drenched soul. We really must skedaddle. Right, Sophie?" And he whispered into her ear, out of the other witch's earshot: "Hold on."

The tent he'd barged through to get here was a shambles; no sense in leaving a trail of broken bits and hard feelings in his wake. Before the bland-faced woman could speak, Howl leapt up on a convenient little gust and returned. It was simple: like pulling a zipper together, he shot backwards the way he had come, and blankets and stands and jewels and pestles and a twice-surprised tomcat came spilling back up into their rightful places in a confusion of jarring and clanging. Things whirred past over their heads and crashed and flew around them in a waving colorful maelstrom. But this time Howl's arms were fastened tight around Sophie's middle and his head was bent over the back of hers, so that he was quite sure of where she was.

And in a moment they were back by Michael, who was still standing bewildered in a wide, meandering aisle of the market, peering at a blanket covered in heaps and heaps of little white shells. Howl stumbled onto solid ground with Sophie in his arms and said, winded for a moment, "Whew!"

Michael turned toward them in a "Oh, good you're back! What just happened?" he asked. "Howl, I remembered the name of the man I saw. I think it was Belsin—"

"She's not following!" Calcifer shouted, shooting into view above their heads in a sparkler of purple and gold and orange.

"I know," Howl said. Relief was already making him silly. Michael asked "Who's not following?" but Howl had some words for Sophie first.

"You confounded woman!" he said, turning her around by the arms to face him. His arms were weak with relief and he felt like shaking her right out of her skin. "I knew I shouldn't have brought you here. It's just like you to slink off when I'm not looking and cause trouble!"

~S~

"Did something bad happen—?" Sophie heard Michael say. She had been about to apologize for getting into the whole mess: now she felt attacked by Howl too. "I wasn't causing trouble! I was completely fine," she said, pulling back from the wizard a little. She felt fine, too. There was no need for Howl to hold onto her shoulders as though he thought she might fall down at the slightest breath of wind.

"Doing alright!" Howl said. "Is that what you call that? That witch had you marching all around the market like a marionette!"

"She—I'm sure she would have gotten out of breath any moment there," Sophie said. The stammer surprised her. Her breathing was still a little touchy, perhaps. Howl had hurled them through the market so suddenly and her heart was still jumping from such close contact.

Howl did not believe her. He leaned down right to Sophie's eye level and fixed her with a piercing green glare. "And you knew all about the spell she was using, I expect?" he asked.

The thought that she had been under a spell had not even occurred to Sophie. She felt the heat flushing up her face. "Of course I did," she said. "Anyone could see that it was a spell."

Howl threw up his arms. "What an unbelievable creature you are!" he shouted, but Sophie had a hard time listening. It was as if she had only now realized that her legs were made of jelly and the world was swinging gaily around and around beyond her head like a maypole dancer. She swayed, said squeakily, "Oh! Don't let go!"

Howl grabbed her again in an instant. The panic flooding his face would have been funny if Sophie had been in a fit state to appreciate it. "Steady!" he said, and his arm went around her shoulders this time.

Sophie shut her eyes against the world spinning and leaned into Howl's arm. It was solid and helped with the spinning in her brain. She thought: Howl isn't shouting at me because he's angry. He's just worried, like the coward that he is. And she had been really, truly in a pickle back there with the woman whom Howl had called Belsin. It was only her pride that was keeping her from saying so. Howl was running his mouth in the general sense: "I suppose it would be too much to ask for you to acknowledge I've got us out of a scrape."

Perhaps it was the shock that had tired her brain out. Sophie tried something new.

"I'm..sorry," she muttered. It was a wretched little murmur and felt wrong, but she could not stop now, could she? "I'm still a bit shaky. I...thank you."

If Howl's face had been funny earlier, now it was hilarious. Half an incredulous frown sunk one side of his mouth down, and his green eyes were so wide that it seemed they would burst any moment. It was almost insulting. "Did I hear that correctly?" he said after a moment of what seemed to be flabbergasted silence. "Sophie Hatter, is that you? Are you still under a spell? Surely you're not apologizing to me. You must be in shock. I think I might just die of surprise."

"You see why I don't want to!" Sophie said weakly, but Howl was shaking his head, with a smile growing on his lips. It was a handsome, real, bewildered smile and for a moment Sophie felt her stomach get loopy in a way that had nothing to do with behind frightened earlier. She was glad again of Howl's arm wrapped around her shoulders. "You have rely too much on never revealing any weakness. It's really baffling," he said.

Sophie had never thought of herself like this. "It's not that," she found herself saying. "It's just that if you pretend to know what you're talking about, people are likely to believe you. I would think you would know all about that!" This had worked particularly well with Martha and Lettie when they were small.

Howl raised his eyebrows. "It seemed to be working well for you back there," he said.

Sophie glared at him, though she was in no way tempted to shake off the supporting arm. "What am I to do, then, run away from everything?"

"I don't see what's the problem with that." Howl said, and smiled a smile of great nobleness and dignity. "I do it all the time."

"Hmmph," Sophie said. She felt a little better than before. All this had taken place in only a few minutes, for Michael was still trying to figure out what had just happened. He had given up on she and Howl and was trying to get it out of Calcifer now.

"Howl was just being flashy," Calcifer crackled, hovering at the boy's eye level.

"Of course he was," Michael said. He looked aptly frustrated. "But then who was that man I saw? Did Howl hear me at all? Are they going to come find us here? Howl—Howl, listen to me, what's going on? I think this is really important!"

And then of course the whole thing had to come out at last. Everyone began asking questions; Howl dodged answers left and right like a bullfighter scrambling about the ring. Sophie's body began functioning normally again. She realized she had the same question as Michael: "But what do Belsin and Freeyle want with you, Howl?" he kept asking very seriously. "It's not as if we've been out picking fights. Have we?"

In the midst of the explaining, they found their way back to their magic carpet and started for home. "We've had enough excitement for the day, Mrs. Nose," Howl explained, and packed them all onto the carpet so quickly that Sophie half-expected this was magic too. She had not noticed it earlier, but Howl seemed to have purchased at least one or two large items, because the carpet was altogether more crowded coming back than it had been going to the market. She did not inspect them closely, partly because Calcifer and Howl's loud discussion on Howl's enemies continued, and partly because soon they were off the ground again with the whole landscape of Ingary (or wherever they were) spread out like a very faraway green quilt underneath them.

Sophie still felt very justifiably nervous about the edges of the carpet—they were so awfully close! But the events of earlier had emboldened her somewhat. So this time she decided to do what she had wanted to do the whole trip to the market: she put her arms around Howl's waist and did not let go until the carpet was quite safely near the ground. She waited until they were going and he looked settled and secure in front of her, but only just; then she scooted forward and slid her arms about Howl quite prepared to defend herself against anything he might say to dislodge her. She was almost disappointed when all the wizard did was jump a bit, and suck his breath in perhaps a little harder than usual. She consoled herself to this lack of reaction by asking Howl if anything was wrong. The coyness in her voice surprised even Sophie herself.

"You startled me," the wizard said, and then chuckled. "All I ask is you don't squeeze me too hard. As you know I'm incredibly fragile." An unexpected benefit to having her face pressed against Howl's shoulder blade was being able to feel his every word vibrating against her cheek.

"I would never dream of such a thing," Sophie said into what amounted to Howl's armpit. "Someone's got to steer this carpet. Michael said so."

"Oho, I see how it is!" Howl barked. His stomach moved in and out under Sophie's arms. Then she felt a warmth across her entwined hands as Howl's long-fingered hand crept up to cover them. The hand seemed a little guilty at first, but soon it settled itself around hers and became restful and comforting. A giddy calm spread across Sophie's chest, seeming to come from somewhere in between her ribcage and her stomach. She closed her eyes and felt perfectly content.

Of course, if there was one thing that did not last in Howl's moving castle, it was content. The ride to the market had seemed ages long to Sophie; the ride home seemed so short in comparison that she wondered if she had fallen asleep and missed half of it. But she knew it was not really possible: who could sleep in such close proximity to Howl? If this was how married people were supposed to feel it was a wonder anyone ever slept at all. Her body certainly seemed twice as awake as usual: it noted, and made appropriate responses to, every minute shift in Howl's position as he steered the carpet home, sometimes muttering things to himself under his breath. Surely this kind of excitement was not something that Sophie alone experienced.

She tried not to let this thought process continue for too long. Squashing that kind of thought was a skill she had been honing lately.

But if that was necessary, that mischeivous part of her mind said, what was she doing right now anyway? It certainly wasn't just keeping from falling off the carpet.

Ooh, drat! Sophie thought at herself, and tried her hardest not to think anymore.

~H~

And they were home at long last.

It hadn't really been that terrifying a day, Howl figured, all things said and done. There had been moments of terror, sure, but overall, the day had been good. It could certainly not compare to anything served up during the Witch of the Waste's days. Then again, it was rather a different kind of terror. Ish.

It was barely even late afternoon, but Michael was yawning by the time they had shuttled all the old things and new things back up from the carpet into the castle room. Perhaps the day had exhausted him. Howl wasn't sure whether to be exhausted or exhilarated—it depended on who was watching, he supposed. The trip home had been nothing short of perilous—how did Sophie expect him to steer the unreliable old carpet with her arms about him? That wasn't fair of her at all. Horrible grey dress or no, being soft and warm and Sophie all over him and expecting him to keep a clear head was in his humble opinion a deep and tragic injustice.

It occurred to Howl that he hadn't been in such a tizzy over a girl simply putting her arms around him since prep school, or perhaps earlier. The thought was just as terrifying as the incident with Belsin and Freeyle, if not more so.

It became more terrifying when they got back to the castle, although in a different sort of way. Howl had not in fact thought the day could get more terrifying, but it obviously had a different idea in mind. One thing he was certain about: all the speculation about Belsin and Freeyle was going to ruin his nerves if it didn't stop instantly—they'd survived, hadn't they, and wasn't that enough? Calcifer was sulking over Howl's intervention with Sophie, so it wasn't hard to get him to stop; Howl set Michael some tasks about the castle to distract him, and that seemed to work well enough. As for himself, he went about sorting his purchases from the market into the jumble of spells and magical objects already crowding his workbench. That spelled blue leather book, plain as it was, would be very good friends with his collection of scrawling chalk. He had to work hard to keep the rest of his spell-stuff arranged just so

Evening came on in its slow steady way. Soon after dinner (no-longer-raw potatoes, to Howl's delight) Michael yawned widely and slouched upstairs to bed. Calcifer was sulking in the upper levels of the chimneys—Howl could feel him there, as always—but could not be reached; which suited Howl just fine. The afternoon had taken it out of all of them, alright.

And then the strange thing happened, which was that neither Howl nor Sophie seemed to be able to go to bed. Surely Sophie was tired and wanted to sleep off today's adventure; but no, she was putzing about the castle room as always, tidying things here and there, without speaking to him. This was not in itself remarkable—but tonight there was something mysteriously portentious about it, or at least it seemed so to Howl.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye. She swept the hearth but Howl got the impression she was not really looking at it. She picked up things off the large table—some spell papers, scissors, a cabbage—and rearranged them. She looked through the pantry. It was as though there were something she wanted to do, but she did not know what that was.

Worse, the mood seemed to be infectious. Watching Sophie, and pretending not to watch her, Howl caught himself juggling bits of spells about on his workbench, walking to the wall to check on the patch which was still not right at all, looking halfheartedly at some notes he had written on a tricky new spell-book. Eventually, after two powders which were not meant to touch accidentally brushed in his restlessness and sparks flew across the workbench, he settled for trying to read.

Soon he felt almost sure that this was somehow some kind of contest—who would leave the room first ? Howl determined it would not be him. He wanted to see what Sophie was planning. She had put her arms around him on the carpet that afternoon without so much as stopping to ask his permission; was there more of that in store?

Howl thought about how this part of the day usually worked: Sometimes there were pleasant little discussions that pretended to be arguments, and then whoever was going to bed first usually finished up whatever they were doing, said goodnight, left the room. The goodnight bit caught his imagination up—maybe it was the goodnight she was waiting for. He could just picture it: Sophie tapping at his shoulder in her bare feet, red gold hair curling about the nape of her neck, her small hands framed by her nightgown's trailing sleeves, bending down to his lips to whisper goodnight to him—No, this was Sophie he was thinking about. She would most likely roll the sleeves of her nightgown as though she was about to get a job done, stomp toward him, and pull him up demanding that he kiss her goodnight. Howl had to chuckle at this, or at least he had to chuckle to ignore the fierce tingle that skated across his lips at the thought.

At long last, after what seemed to be years of waffling, Sophie went about getting ready for bed. Howl turned a page in his book, but the words seemed to scroll by without his comprehension. Fantasies kept shuttling through his body in a tightening kind of hope. Without really looking he noticed her go into the bathroom to wash, go into her cupboard room under the stairs, come out again wearing her familiar long shapeless nightgown, and look around the room as though for something else to stall.

At last she stood and faced him. Was she waiting for a signal? Howl was sure he was not completely wrong in her intentions. By now the castle room seemed almost to resonate with the buzzing of the unsaid thing. It was far worse than their argument a few days ago. Howl's heart was putting up a pumping drumming racket in there.

"Goodnight, Howl," Sophie said. And paused. Howl felt the pause go all through his bones. Here he had the evening's most terrifying thought yet: Heavens, she didn't expect him to do something? Hadn't she already figured out that he was hopeless at that kind of endeavor? A paralyzing horror punched across his limbs at the very thought.

Howl's mouth realized that something must be done about the occasion; and, perhaps because it was so good at playing those meaningless conversations, it came out with something that he was not thinking at all. "Goodnight, Sophie," it said.

And then Howl went upstairs to bed, thinking, dammit, what a pair of fools we are!

~(II)~

~7~

~A/N #2:~

Now that I have taken care of the guilt (not to mention the guilt I've been building up since my graduation in May…let's not even go there) I have some more writerly babble to indulge in.

I feel rather indebted to the thoughtful souls who put together a far-too-detailed timeline of the original book and posted it on Wikipedia. I've been refreshing my book knowledge and finding out about all the incongruities between my world and the books' world.

Apparently, as some reviewers have already pointed out, Wizard Suliman takes Lettie on as an apprentice directly at the end of Howl's Moving Castle. I had kind of imagined that this would happen eventually, but in my brain I've added a transitional period when Lettie is finishing up at Mrs. Fairfax's.

Also, of course, my castle looks like a cross between the book's (on the inside, as far as I can tell) and the movie's castle (on the outside, because that's just way cooler!) [Later edit: I may have, in fact, also messed up the doors and windows and mail locations. Oh dear. More research to follow!] Lastly, Howl only goes flying with Sophie once in the actual book, I believe, but I only remembered this after I wrote the next few paragraphs, and now I like them too much to change them. Movie-book hybridity for the win!

Thanks again for reading!

Much love,

AA-M