walls faintly blue-green in the dusk. Howl flung back his long sleeves and gave Calcifer a log.
“She caught up, old blueface,” he said.
“I know,” said Calcifer. “I felt it take.”
CHAPTER TWELVE In which Sophie becomes Howl’s old mother
Sophie did not see much point in blackening Howl’s name to the King, now that the Witch had caught up with him. But Howl said it was more important than ever. “I shall need everything I’ve got just to escape the Witch,” he said. “I can’t have the King after me as well.”
So the following afternoon Sophie put on her new clothes and sat feeling fine, if rather stiff, waiting for Michael to get ready and for Howl to finish in the bathroom. While she waited, she told Calcifer about the strange country where Howl’s family lived. It took her mind off the King.
Calcifer was very interested. “I knew he came from foreign parts,” he said. “But this sounds like another world. Clever of the Witch to send the curse in from there. Very clever all round. That’s magic I admire, using something that exists anyway and turning it round into a curse. I did wonder about it when you and Michael were reading it the other day. That fool Howl told her too much about himself.”
Sophie gazed at Calcifer’s thin blue face. It did not surprise her to find Calcifer admired the curse, any more than it surprised her when he called Howl a fool. He was always insulting Howl. But she never could work out if Calcifer really hated Howl. Calcifer looked so evil anyway that it was hard to tell.
Calcifer moved his orange eyes to look into Sophie’s. “I’m scared too,” he said. “I shall suffer with Howl if the Witch catches him. If you don’t break the contract before she does, I won’t be able to help you at all.”
Before Sophie could ask more, Howl came dashing out of the bathroom looking his very finest, scenting the room with roses and yelling for Michael. Michael clattered downstairs in his new blue velvet. Sophie stood up and collected her trusty stick. It was time to go.
“You look wonderfully rich and stately!” Michael said to her.
“She does me credit,” said Howl, “apart from that awful old stick.”
“Some people,” said Sophie, “are thoroughly self-centred. This stick goes with me. I need it for moral support.”
Howl looked at the ceiling, but he did not argue.
They took their stately way into the streets of Kingsbury. Sophie of course looked back to see what the castle was like here. She saw a big, arched gateway surrounding a small black door. The rest of the castle seemed to be a blank stretch of plastered wall between two carved stone houses.
“Before you ask,” said Howl, “it’s really just a disused stable. This way.”
They walked through the streets, looking at least as fine as any of the passersby. Not that many people were about. Kingsbury was a long way south and it was a bakingly hot day there. The pavements shimmered. Sophie discovered another disadvantage to being old: you felt queer in hot weather. The elaborate buildings wavered in front of her eyes. She was annoyed, because she wanted to look at the place, but all she had was a dim impression of golden domes and tall houses.
“By the way,” Howl said, “Mrs Pentstemmon will call you Mrs Pendragon. Pendragon’s the name I go under here.”
“Whatever for?” said Sophie.
“For disguise,” said Howl. “Pendragon’s a lovely name, much better than Jenkins.”
“I get by quite well with a plain name,” Sophie said as they turned into a blessedly narrow, cool street.
“We can’t all be Mad Hatters,” said Howl.
Mrs Pentstemmon’s house was gracious and tall, near the end of the narrow street. It had orange trees in tubs on either side of its handsome front door. This door was opened by an elderly footman in black velvet, who led them into a wonderfully cool black and white checkered marble hall, where Michael tried secretly to wipe sweat off his face. Howl, who always seemed to be cool, treated the footman as an old friend and made jokes to him.
The footman passed them on to a page boy in red velvet. Sophie, as the boy led them ceremoniously up polished stairs, began to see why this made good practice for meeting the King. She felt as if she were in a palace already. When the boy ushered them into a shaded drawing room, she was sure even a palace could not be this elegant. Everything in the room was blue and gold and white, and small and fine. Mrs Pentstemmon was finest of all. She was tall and thin, and she sat bolt upright in a blue and gold embroidered chair, supporting herself rigidly with one hand, in a gold-mesh mitten, on a gold-topped cane. She wore old-gold silk, in a very stiff and old-fashioned style, finished off with an old-gold headdress not unlike a crown, which tied in a large old-gold bow beneath her gaunt eagle face. She was the finest and most frightening lady Sophie had ever seen.
“Ah, my dear Howell,” she said, holding out a gold-mesh mitten.
Howl bent and kissed the mitten, as he was obviously supposed to. He did it very gracefully, but it was rather spoiled from back view by Howl flapping his other hand furiously at Michael behind his back. Michael, a little too slowly, realised he was supposed to stand by the door beside the page boy. He backed there in a hurry, only too pleased to get as far away from Mrs Pentstemmon as he could.
“Mrs Pentstemmon, allow me to present my old mother,” Howl said, waving his hand at Sophie. Since Sophie felt just like Michael, Howl had to flap his hand at her too.
“Charmed. Delighted,” said Mrs Pentstemmon, and she held her gold mitten out to Sophie. Sophie was not sure if Mrs Pentstemmon meant her to kiss the mitten as well, but she could not bring herself to try. She laid her own hand on the mitten instead. The hand under it felt like an old, cold claw. After feeling it, Sophie was quite surprised that Mrs Pentstemmon was alive. “Forgive my not standing up, Mrs Pendragon,” Mrs Pentstemmon said. “My health is not good. It forced me to retire from teaching three years ago. Pray sit down, both of you.”
Trying not to shake with nerves, Sophie sat grandly in the embroidered chair opposite Mrs Pentstemmon’s, supporting herself on her stick in what she hoped was the same elegant way.
Howl spread himself gracefully in a chair next to it. He looked quite at home, and Sophie envied him.
“I am eighty-six,” Mrs Pentstemmon announced. “How old are you, my dear Mrs Pendragon?”
“Ninety,” Sophie said, that being the first high number that came into her head.
“So old?” Mrs Pentstemmon said with what may have been slight, stately envy. “How lucky you are to move so nimbly still.”
“Oh, yes, she’s so wonderfully nimble,” Howl agreed, “that sometimes there’s no stopping her.”
Mrs Pentstemmon gave him a look which told Sophie she had been a teacher at least as fierce as Miss Angorian. “I am talking to your mother,” she said. “I daresay she is as proud of you as I am. We are two old ladies who both had a hand in forming you. You are, one might say, our joint creation.”
“Don’t you think I did any of me myself, then?” Howl asked. “Put in just a few touches of my own?”
“A few, and those not altogether to my liking,” Mrs Pentstemmon replied. “But you will not wish to sit here and hear yourself being discussed. You will go down and sit on the terrace, taking your page boy with you, where Hunch will bring you both a cool drink. Go along.”
If Sophie had not been so nervous herself, she might have