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As Others See	By : Jedishampoo Category: +G to L > Howl\'s Moving Castle > Howl\'s Moving Castle Views: 3017 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Howls Moving Castle, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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As Others See
By Jedishampoo R overall, mostly PG-13. Some
language, sexuality, not too explicit.
Summary: A magical misfire ends with the
wrong Howls in the wrong worlds. Howl's Moving
Castle (Movie) crossover with Howl's Moving Castle
(book).
Author's Notes: This is mostly an excuse to play
with the people involved and see how I might make the movie characters deal
with Book!Howl and the book characters deal with Movie!Howl. Thanks to
sakura haru and sharpeslass for their betas!
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this
story, Diana Wynne Jones or Studio Ghibli does. I'm just playing with them.
x x x
Howl laid the spell-page on
the workbench, then set his hands on his hips and looked down at Markl.
"Well," he said.
Markl looked back up at
him, smiling, silent and expectant. The morning Market Chipping sunlight
streaming through the window picked golden bits out of the boy's red hair,
making him look younger, almost innocent and angelic. Howl wondered if he was
about to do something foolish.
The spell on the bench was
an iffy one. But ever since Howl had discovered its existence he'd thought
about it and thought about it, unable to extricate it from his mind. He'd found
it last week in one of his uncle's old notebooks, but it was clear it had been
culled from something older still. The leading edge of the yellowed page was
torn and the rest ragged and showing signs of creeping black, as if it had been
burnt and the ashes knocked off. Rescued perhaps, then; not culled.
And some of the typeset and
spellings were the tiniest bit archaic. Earlier this morning Howl had finally
shown the page to the old lady, wondering if she knew anything about the spell
or had seen it before. She'd merely laughed, an odd little cackle.
"Tell me what happens
when you try it," she'd said.
Howl had laughed at her in
return. "I might not. Besides. You could just watch what happens, if I do
try it."
"Hmm," she'd
said, and had taken her coffee outside for her morning cigar.
It wasn't dark magic; Howl
was fairly certain of that. The ingredients were rare but normal. He just
wasn't sure what the spell would do. He had a pretty good idea, though.
A shower of dust motes
swarmed, glinting, into the shaft of sunlight, set dancing about by Sophie's
broom. Markl sneezed.
"Sophie!" Howl
turned and said.
"What? I'll be out of
your way soon," she said in her most no-nonsense voice. Her broom swished
back and forth, back and forth, swaying like her dark green skirts, sending the
dust motes sparkling and whirling into the air with every swish. Surely when
she was done, the floor would be exactly as dirty as it had been before.
There must be a method to
her madness, Howl thought, but he was damned if he knew what it was. So he
watched her for a few moments, telling himself that he was not
procrastinating the execution of this spell. Just enjoying the view, and the
sound of her humming.
Watching her clean made him
feel a bit warm, and swirly. He would have been hard-pressed to identify every
individual feeling boiling around in his stomach, but there were a few he could
pick out. Watching her clean his castle made him feel homey, secure. Watching
her hips swing back and forth as she swept made him feel something else
entirely. His thoughts crept inexorably back to last night, in his bed, and the
swirly warmth edged up a couple of degrees, formed itself into a tight ball,
and settled somewhere below his stomach. Dimly he realized that his expression
had probably gone rather melty.
"What does the spell
do, Master Howl?"
"I'm not sure,"
Howl said, coughing to erase the melty expression and banish the brief, erotic
fantasies, and to re-focus on the task at hand. Still he watched her. Hadn't he
read somewhere, a long time ago, that men spent at least one out of every ten
minutes thinking about sex? Howl thought perhaps lately he'd exceeded that
statistic. But how could he help it? Sophie really was amazing; she cooked,
cleaned and sewed like any good Ingarian girl. She was the only one sweet and
nice enough to put up with him. She also ran away from home, broke curses, was
heart-stoppingly passionate-- another phrase he'd read at some point flashed
through his brain. That the perfect wife was a lady in the parlor and a
courtesan in the bedroom. Too true. He read too much. But she was
perfect for him, in any case.
He eyed the engagement ring
glinting on her right hand. Now he only had to nail her down to the
"wife" part, and all would be right and tight. A month or so more,
that was all, she'd promised. Wait until her mother and sister were resettled,
and it could be done properly, knowing all along that it was not even remotely
proper for her to be living here. Sophie chose her moments of propriety
according to her own personal method. It was one of the few traits they had in
common.
Right now she apparently
found it proper to clean, as she did every morning after breakfast. The
sunlight turned her hair alternate shades of palest gold and silver as she
moved in and out of the beams, feet dancing to her own private tune. The melty
feelings started up again. Howl turned resolutely back to the bench.
"Well, are we going to
work it?" Markl wanted to know. His young voice held a note of impatience.
"I don't know,"
Howl prevaricated. But he had to be honest with himself, at least. There really
was no doubt that he was going to do the spell. The future!-- who could resist
a peep or two? All that remained was to start. "Yes."
"Awesome." Markl
sneezed again.
Behind them, Sophie sighed.
"All right, I understand," she said, and set the broom against
something with a wooden click. "Calcifer, if you would please heat me some
water, I'll clean your hearth outside. Those birds we passed through
yesterday-- they made such a mess!"
"Sure," Calcifer
told her, in a nicer tone than he'd ever used with Howl. Howl silently added
"charmed fire demons" to his mental list of things Sophie had
accomplished in the last few months. Then he stretched out his arms and cracked
his knuckles. Something glinted on his blue sleeve, and he stared at it for a
moment in horror. It was one of his own newly re-dyed blond hairs. He picked it
off and reattached it to his head, and then cracked his knuckles again.
"All right, Markl,
hand me the blue rose extract, would you? Careful! It's expensive. Do you
remember what it does?"
"It's a medium for
spells that have a time release. The base holds the time steady until you set
it off."
"Wow, that's pretty
good," Howl told him with some admiration. He tapped a few precious drops
into a bowl. He made a motion over the bowl with his finger, spreading the
drops to make a thin coating up the sides.
Markl stood on tiptoe to
look at the paper and then held up a packet of dried rubber-leaf. Howl nodded
at him and Markl dropped it in, then fetched the other ingredients, one by one.
To be truthful, Howl was
glad of the chance to relearn some of this old book-magic. His contract with
Calcifer had made those sort of basics moot, even after the contract had been
broken. But the routine was comforting. He was becoming rather staid.
As Markl dropped
ingredients into the bowl, Howl's thoughts drifted outside. He could just hear
Sophie's singing, the soft words filtering through Calcifer's open hearth. It
was an old song, one of those sad ones that elderly men sang in taverns after
hours with tears creeping down their weathered faces.
"There," Markl
said after a bit. "Now do you speak the incantation aloud?"
Howl shook his head and
raised his hand, and looked at the words on the yellowed page. Artumnus elo
forthum, he thought. And lo, lo, lo, the fair barmaid did go, go go--
The ingredients in the bowl
flared like concentrated, captive lightning.
Ooops, Howl thought as he felt himself
falling backwards, just before his head connected with the edge of the kitchen
table.
Howell looked over at
Michael, and then down at the book on the table, and then he crossed his arms
and pouted. The magic was pointless and rather dangerous and Howell was not
quite sure why he was going to perform it.
Go to the future, indeed!
Past years were easy-- they'd already happened, and one could visit them at any
time. Of course what he was doing now had already happened, for people in the
future. But it was best left to those people to come backwards, not for him to
go forwards. Or something. Thinking about it made his brain hurt.
But the King had commanded
it. His advisors had discovered the old spell-book in the castle archives--
Howell thought he might sneak into those archives some day to see if there were
any other such dangerous items laying around, if he ever got up the energy,
that was-- and the King had wasted no time in finding a wizard to perform the
magic for him.
Ben Suliman had only
escaped the task by claiming he was not powerful enough to accomplish the
spell. Howell wished he'd been half so intelligent, but he never could resist
an opportunity to show off.
Oh, he'd told His Majesty no,
at first, of course. One might have a peep when divining, but the King had
wanted a spell to take him fifty, sixty years into the future. He'd wanted to
see what had become of him, and Princess Valeria, and he'd also wanted to see
the political climate of the future, to see if the Strangians were sincere in
their current desire for everlasting treaties.
Howell, stupidly, had told
the King that the spell was unworkable. That there wasn't enough blue-rose oil
in the world to make such a thing possible. Five years would be the extent of it,
he prophesied. So the King had said, well then, make it five years.
The King was a lot more
savvy than most people gave him credit for. It was no wonder he'd railroaded
Sophie when Howell had sent her to the palace all those months ago.
Thinking of Sophie conjured
her. She and her sister blew in through the door like forces of nature,
arriving for their daily co-chaperoned visit/cleaning session. Multicolored
leaves swirled in behind them, some as red-gold as his fiancee's hair, others
yellow or crackling brown. Sophie tsked in annoyance at the mess they
made of the castle room, and slammed the door shut behind her.
Michael's eyebrows rose in
hope as the girls entered, and then fell as he saw that it was only the lovely
Lettie accompanying Sophie today. If there was no Martha to gape at, then girls
held no interest for Michael. Even Sophie. He looked at Howell, matching his
pout.
"Everything's
ready," Michael ventured.
"I know," Howell
whined. Still he hesitated to work, and instead watched as the girls removed
their cloaks and hung them in the broom-cupboard. He felt rather smug and
self-satisfied doing so. Sophie had turned out much prettier than he'd imagined
she might, all those months ago. It was a lucky thing he'd picked her to fall
in love with, once he'd had his heart returned.
Her face was heart-shaped
and pale, surrounded by wisps of hair-- titian, he supposed he might call the
color-- that looked well with her darkish-yellow dress. She was slender as a
tree-sprite, wearing the colors of fall, as sunny as the outside. She was
exactly his type.
He'd chosen the right place
to settle, in Ingary, it seemed. In Wales it always rained. And Welsh
girls tended to the dark, like Lettie. He'd used to like dark-haired beauties,
he thought, but decided he didn't care for them any longer.
"Hello, Howl,"
fair Sophie said and walked over to where he and Michael stood at the bench.
Howell leaned forward to give her a chaste peck on the lips. She allowed it for
a couple of seconds and for a couple of seconds he enjoyed it, enjoyed the
little spark of interest that jabbed at his belly when he kissed her. Then she
swished off, her long, braided hair thumping him on the shoulder as she turned.
Howell coveted that
hair-color. He might try it some day. Perhaps for the wedding in a few months'
time; they'd make a fabulous pair.
They'd make a fabulous pair
now, he thought, if he could ever get her alone. He'd taken her to Wales
(accompanied by a sister, of course), shown her what life was like there, and
hinted that not everything modern was a bad idea. She'd even met a few of his
old girlfriends. But like most Ingarian girls, she was a tougher nut to crack
when it came to the physical. So perforce, he would wait, and hope fervently
that all there would work itself out in the end.
"Hello Sophie,
dear," he told her back. "And Lettie," he added.
That young lady took her
own look around, and apparently not spotting anyone she'd wished to see, sat at
one of the kitchen chairs with an unladylike oomph.
Michael refused to ask
about a certain person, though Howell knew he wanted to. "Are we going to
start this spell or not?" Michael asked.
"You're awfully bossy
today," Howell told him with a glare.
Michael colored.
"Sorry."
"A-hem," Howell
added for emphasis, and stretched out his arms to begin building the spell,
being careful not to drip his long sleeves into anything expensive.
"If you're a-hemming
to us, then don't," Sophie said at that. "In fact, don't mind us at
all. I'm just going to do some cleaning and Lettie has promised to help me work
on the suits. You can just do whatever you were doing before we came."
"That's exactly what
we were planning to do," Howell told her with a sniff. "I was
a-hemming at Michael."
"Keep on doing it,
then," Sophie retorted.
"I will," Howell said.
She was in a feisty mood today, he thought. He liked that about her. She was
nice, but not too nice. But to make sure he had the last word in that
little argument, he added, "a-hem, Michael."
Michael obediently pulled
out ingredients, being extra-careful with the rare blue-rose oil, and handed
them to Howell. Howell flipped them in turn onto the metal plate and said the
appropriate words at the appropriate times. When the spell was finished, they'd
wrap the plate and deliver it to the King. Well, Michael would deliver it to
the King. Howell would take a bath, or try to make a little time with Sophie,
or both.
"Elos,"
Howell said at the appropriate time, swishing his left hand dramatically. His
voice thundered in just the right manner; he liked the way this one was going,
and hoped the girls were suitably impressed.
"Oh, by the way,
Michael. Martha said to say Hello," Lettie said just then.
"Really?" Michael
asked, and turned away for a second. He lost the rhythm of the spell and
dropped the pinch of livrous serum powder in front of Howell at exactly the
wrong moment.
"Forthum,"
Howell said, and then, "Oh, shit." He briefly saw Michael's
wide-eyed look of horror, receding as Howell fainted dead away.
x x x
x x x
"Howl, wake up!"
It was Sophie's voice. But
Howl didn't want to wake up. His head hurt something awful. And the
little hand slapping at his face wasn't helping.
"I said, wake up!"
Her voice sounded
concerned. He supposed that he ought to try a little harder for consciousness.
And then the memory crawled into his aching skull that he'd been doing
something, something delicate and probably dangerous. Oh heavens, that awful
spell-- he tried to open his eyes. "Mwake," he mumbled.
"You had better
be," Sophie said. "Or I shall dump the mop-water on you."
"Don't," Howl
managed in the face of such nastiness. What was wrong with Sophie? He
was growing more concerned by the moment, about her and the spell, and what
might possibly have gone wrong while he was out. He peeled his eyelids apart,
and tried to focus on Sophie's blurry face above him. She had something reddish
draped over the top of her head. Odd. "Hello, sweetheart," he
told her.
"Huh?" she said,
and leaned in a little closer. She placed a thumb and forefinger on one of his eyelids
and pulled them apart. "Your eyes have gone all strange. They're a
bluish-green color."
"Side-effect of the
spell. It'll pass," he said, sliding one of his elbows along the floor
beneath him to push himself up. With his free hand he hooked her around the
neck and pulled her down for a quick kiss. He whispered against her lips,
"don't worry, Love! I'm awake. I'll be all right. Is Markl okay?"
Sophie only slapped his
hand away, and the look on her face, if it hadn't been so blurry, might have
suggested she was considering slapping him again. "Who?" she asked.
Then she turned for a moment to speak to someone behind her. "He's all
stupid! Lettie, you practice magic. You should have known better!"
"Oh, God, Howl. I'm so
sorry," a male voice quavered from behind Sophie.
"For what? Wait, who
is that?" Howl asked Sophie, grasping the leg of the kitchen table to drag
himself to a sitting position. His eyes focused finally on Sophie, sitting next
to him on the floor. Something was wrong with her. Her hair was-- red? Was it
the odd light in the room? He realized that the room looked wrong, too. Or was
that a side effect of the spell, also? Howl realized that was not possible.
"Oh, no, Sophie! What happened to your hair, sweetheart? How long was I
out? Where am I? When am I? Are you all right? Please tell me that
you're all right!"
He leaned over to try and
hug her. He'd botched his time-control of the spell, and sent himself too far
into the future, or something, and things were not as they should be. Why had
he ever wanted to try that spell?
But Sophie only scooted
away from him, dragging her bottom across the floor, dirtying her pretty yellow
dress. Her eyes narrowed.
"Who are you, and what
have you done with Howl?" she said.
"I am Howl. Oh,
no." Howl closed his eyes and shook his head to clear it of his shock at
such words. It pounded. He winced and cradled his temple in his palm.
"It looks like
Howl," the male voice said.
"Well, it's not,"
Sophie said. "I would know."
"She's got a
point," the other girl said. She sounded like Sophie's sister
Lettie.
"It is Howl,"
Calcifer's voice said from somewhere around his ear. Howl glanced over and saw
Calcifer, all blue-and-green, hovering at eye level. "I sent a spark into
his brain to be sure. It's not our Howl, though. And I would
definitely be the one to know that. I've known him for longer than any of
you."
"A spark? Into my brain?
Are you crazy, Calcifer?" Howl had to ask. The rest of it was too
confusing, so he focused on his most immediate concern.
"Well, you were acting
all weird," Calcifer-- or the thing that looked sort of like a blue
Calcifer-- said. "And now we know."
"The question is,
where is the real Howl?" the man's voice said. Howl looked up and
connected the voice to a tall, thin and dark-haired adolescent standing behind
Sophie.
"I'm pretty
real, I think," Howl said, burying his face in his hands again. "I've
gone into the future, and I hate it. Oh, Sophie."
"Maybe it is
Howl, and he just went to the future and changed," the young man
suggested.
"Nah, it's not our
Howl, and never was," Calcifer said as he floated back over to a grate.
"He's a Howl from somewhere else, and that's all there is to it. It's not
like we don't know other worlds exist."
"Whoever he is, that
certainly looks like a green-slime mood, and I won't have any of it, do you
hear?" Sophie's voice said. "Now look at me. At me! And talk.
Though I know you probably don't want to, but I don't care."
That voice! Sophie was
being practically cruel, and he couldn't take it. He let himself wallow in
despair and regret for a few moments, then collected his more rational
thoughts. Calcifer was probably right. He wasn't in the future, only some other
world, or dimension, or something. And he was a wizard. He would put everything
right. First, though, he would get rid of this damned excruciating headache. A
wave of his fingers sent the pain spiraling away, a thankful circumstance in
this world gone wrong. He grabbed the edge of the table to stand. The dark-haired
young man moved forward with an outstretched hand to help.
"Don't touch
him!" Sophie said. "You don't know where he's been."
Both Howl and the young man
rolled their eyes at her. Like he hadn't already kissed her.
"I'm Michael
Fisher," the teenager said, shaking Howl's hand once they were standing
side-by-side.
"Howl," Howl
said. "A wizard," he added, with a look at the not-Sophie. Then he
took a few moments to glance around the room. It was sort of like his castle,
and sort of not at the same time. There were the steps leading down to the
door, and the door-switch with its colors, but the switch was square instead of
round. The main room itself was smaller and darker than his own, with a smaller
hearth containing the blue-green Calcifer staring at him out of orange eyes.
There were several doors scattered about the room, all in the wrong places. It
was tidy, though, Howl could say that about it. He glanced at the girls and
their sewing and cleaning accoutrements. The other girl, Lettie, gave him a
hesitant smile.
"I'm Lettie," she
said. She was very pretty. She looked a little like Sophie, but nothing like
the Lettie he knew.
"Hello," Howl
said, with his usual greeting-a-pretty-lady grin.
"Ooooh," Sophie
said, and pulled a chair out at the table. "Sit. Talk."
"Better do it,"
Calcifer said. "She'll bully you until you do so it's best to get it over
with."
"Will she?" Howl
asked with some interest, and gathered his courage to look more closely at the
not-Sophie. She was an almost twin to his Sophie, except for her hair, which
was reddish-blond and twisted into a long braid at her back. And except for her
expression, which was twisted into a look of distrust that his Sophie rarely if
ever wore. But other than that, she was very like. The same apparent height,
the same little figure, that pale, heart-shaped face. And from what he
remembered of that brief kiss, she wore the same scent. Oh, Sophie, he
thought, and almost lapsed into despair once more as she glared at him.
"You'd mentioned a
spell," Michael said in a kind voice as he sat at the table across from
Howl. "We were doing a spell, too, and um-- well-- Howl was knocked
unconscious. What sort of spell were you doing?"
"Well," Howl
began. He might as well tell the truth, he decided. It could only help him get
home more quickly if he had help. "I found it. It was an old one, buried
in my uncle's things."
x x x
"Howl! Oh, Howl.
Please wake up."
Howell winced. It was
Sophie's voice, seeping into his eardrums as if from a distance. It was still
too loud. His head hurt like hell, and the floor under it was very hard. So he
moaned, to show that he was alive and not liking it, but otherwise didn't move.
He was rewarded with a cool
little hand that fluttered over his cheeks and his ears, and a soft pair of
lips that kissed his forehead. "Howl, thank heavens. You frightened me
half to death. Markl, will you please wet a dishtowel for me? Cold water!"
The voice was soft but
still too loud, but the touching and the attention he had liked. So Howell
moaned again, an "uhhhh" like a dying animal. He only dimly thought, Markl?
Maybe he'd lost partial hearing, for surely she'd really said Michael.
"Poor Howl. Give me a
moment. You knocked your head pretty badly when you fell, Markl told me. Thank
you," she said, and he felt gentle fingers behind his ears, lifting his
head, and then a cool, wet cloth pressed against the back of his skull. It felt
nice, almost as nice as the kissing. "You've got a bit of a bump. Does
your head hurt?"
"Yes," he
mumbled, and raised a weak hand to wave a little spell that took care of it. He
still didn't get up, but he did creak open his eyes. The pain was gone but the
aftereffects of his knock on the head clearly weren't, because Sophie had an
aura of silvery-white about her face.
"Oh, my poor
love." Sophie leaned over to kiss his eyelids, and his mouth, briefly, and
then she sat up with a smile. "How odd. Your eyes have turned the
strangest color. They're a sort of greenish-blue."
"Side-effect of the
spell, Sophie dear," Howell said. But not in too strong a voice, lest the
pity and the kissing stop. "It will pass."
"Oh. Good," she
said. Her light fingertips ran over his shoulder, his chest. The strange silver
halo followed her movements. "Is anything broken? Do you think you could
sit up?"
Howell sighed, and realized
that Sophie's concern would only last so long. "No. And probably. Help
me?" He lifted a floppy arm. It was encased in plain blue. He wondered
briefly where his jacket had gone.
"Of course!"
Sophie slid a dark-green-clad arm under his neck-- hadn't she been wearing
yellow?-- and gently pulled him up. Howell managed to sit just far enough
upright so that he could lean against her. Astoundingly, she didn't protest,
only wrapped her arms around him. She was concerned. This was a side of
Sophie he'd never seen. He decided he liked it.
"Tell Michael I'm
going to kill him, and Lettie, too. For good measure," Howell said,
leaning his head back into the warmth of her neck.
"What?" a child's
astonished voice cried.
"Michael? Do you mean
Markl? Don't be silly. Why should you want to kill him? Or Lettie? She hasn't
done anything to you, has she? You haven't even seen her in weeks."
It began to penetrate
Howell's brain that something was not right. Not only was Sophie kissing him
and holding him and being openly kind to him, but she was saying things that
made no sense. If there was one thing he could say about Sophie, it was that
she usually made some sort of sense, even if it was an arcane sense.
And he was beginning to
realize as well that something was off in his surroundings. The castle
room seemed larger and brighter, and the flagstone floor was not covered in
flagstones at all but in rugs and smooth, polished wood. Oh lord, he
thought. That damned spell. He closed his eyes to block out his strange
surroundings and tried to remember the sequence of events before he'd passed
out. The elos and the forthum, right, he thought.The
timing had been off on the old livrous, and 'oh, shit' had definitely not been
part of the spell. Still, he thought, that shouldn't have sent him off into a
another world, only punished him with a small explosion or two. The spell was
dangerous, sure, but his environment had been pretty controlled, Letties and Marthas
and Michaels aside.
Still, Sophie was acting
odd, but at least she was Sophie. She looked, sounded and smelled like
Sophie. He couldn't have gone anywhere too terrible.
Howell turned his head to
look at her up close. He was astonished to find that the silver halo was not an
aura at all but her hair, cropped to just past shoulder-length and white as an
old lady's. He stared. "Sophie, dear, what happened to your hair?"
Even more astonishingly,
she laughed. "Haven't we had this conversation before?" she asked,
and kissed him again, lips warm and soft against his. "You are
confused. Let's get you up, and we'll get you a glass of water and check you
over."
"I'll get it,"
the child's voice said again. With Sophie's help Howell stood, and he could see
a red-headed little boy scampering over to a tap in the corner of the castle's
kitchen-- living room-- whatever. He almost said, who is that, and then
realized that it would be an incredibly stupid question. Obviously, it was
Markl. Howell eyed that red hair, and remembered Sophie's absent titian waves.
Was this the future? Was
that his son?
"You're not really
going to kill me, are you, Master Howl?" the boy asked. Howell breathed a
deep sigh of relief at that Master, and decided that this was probably
not the future, then. Just some other universe. He hoped. And if this
was another universe, then that was Michael-but-not-quite, and that was
Sophie-but-not-quite.
"No?" Howell
answered.
"Good," the boy--
Markl-- said, and handed him the water. Howell looked at it. He wondered if
there was brandy here, and then decided that brandy was not really a proper
priority and could wait. He sat at the kitchen table, waved Sophie off with an
"I'm all right" look, and swallowed the contents of the glass. It
certainly tasted like good old Ingarian water.
He looked again at his
sleeve, and then down at the rest of his plain blue shirt. Good tailoring, but
not his, he didn't think.
"Sophie, where's my
jacket?" he called in a strained voice.
The not-quite-Sophie had
bustled out through a nearby doorway and was just then returning with a bucket
and a handful of dirty rags. She'd been cleaning. The similarities between this
world and his were almost stranger than the differences.
"I should think all
your jackets are upstairs, in your closet," she said, with another
concerned look from her big brown eyes. His Sophie's eyes. "You
weren't wearing it this morning. Are you sure you're all right?"
"Yes," Howell
lied. Upstairs could wait, too. He looked around at the not-castle room, and
saw the magic bench nearby, and then, across the way, a wide hearth.
"Calcifer? You
there?"
"Yeah." Orange
flames peeped out from among the logs, and then some small, yellow, fire-demon
eyes. "If you are. You went somewhere for a minute there, but I guess
you're back. You gotta pay more attention to your magic, pal."
"True," Howell
said, swallowing his bile at admitting such a thing, even while only
play-acting. He looked at the magic-bench again, at the books and bowl and
packets scattered there, and knew that the bench was where he would have to
start, if he wished to know where he was.
He stood and spotted the
yellowed paper. The spell written upon it was nearly exactly the same spell
he'd been building for the King earlier. Nearly, but not quite.
"I tried to straighten
up the bowl, Master Howl, but the spell was already gone. Poofed!" Markl
said from beside him.
"So it is,"
Howell said, looking at the blue-rose-oil extract and the empty bowl, mind
racing. He would have to play it cool and say as little as possible to keep
them from realizing that he wasn't who they thought he was. Well, he was who
they thought he was, technically, but not really. His brain hurt again just to
think about it.
Luckily they seemed to
accept him as Howl, as a wizard, and to accept his odd behavior without much in
the way of questions. Howell would have to be especially careful around
Calcifer, though. That fire demon didn't look like his Calcifer but he certainly
had his attitude, and most likely all his powers.
Howell scratched light
symbols on the wooden bench with a fingernail, trying to see the shape of the
events which had taken place there. It seemed this world's Howl had built
nearly exactly the same spell as Howell had, and at exactly the same time. That
was an impossible coincidence.
The situation was already
beyond reckoning, so Howell couldn't conceive that there had been any more than
two of them doing such a thing at the same time. And so, since any number
higher than two in this situation was already beyond impossible, he posited
that the two of them had simply switched places.
Furthermore, both spells
had gone wrong, apparently at the same time. Perhaps as a result of the
impossible coincidence? Or had the botched spells caused it? And there was a
barrier of some sort that kept him from returning, he could feel it. Howell's
brain hurt more.
"What sort of spell
were you doing, anyway?" Sophie called from across the room.
Howl heard the familiar
voice, and the questioning tone, and answered as he usually might have without
thinking. "None-of-your-business, Miss Long-Nose," he called back.
The room stilled with
something beyond silence. Howell realized too late his mistake, and looked up.
Sophie was staring at him with wide eyes and her mouth hanging open. Markl and
Calcifer wore similar expressions. Apparently this Howl was a different sort of
fellow from he. Or perhaps he surrounded himself with overly-sensitive people.
Howell tried a grin at the Sophie.
She snapped her mouth shut
and hmphed at him. "Obviously you're not feeling well, or
you would not have said such a thing."
"It was just a joke!"
Howell whined.
Just then a short old lady
with somewhat familiar eyes buried in a flabby, wrinkled face shuffled into the
room. The crone looked at him, and gave a short cackle. "He's gone all
wonky," she said, and plopped herself onto a couch in front of the hearth.
"And how is that not
ordinary?" Calcifer said, snapping his strange little orange flames.
"I think you
should probably go up to bed to rest, and leave Markl to clean up the
spell," Sophie told him. She was still glaring, but her voice had softened
somewhat.
Howell agreed. Not only
because he needed time to think-- alone-- about what was going on here, but he
wanted to get into that closet. And find the bathroom. He couldn't think
straight when he wasn't dressed well and groomed and ready to face the world.
"Exactly," he
said, and ran up the stairs as quickly as he could.
x x x
x x x
"And I woke up on the
floor," Howl said. It had been a very short story. He'd left out the part
about how he hadn't known precisely what the spell would do, as well as the
part where he'd thought the wrong words. Basically he'd said, I found the
spell, tried it, ended up here. Howl looked around the table at the expectant
faces-- Michael's, Lettie's, Calcifer's, and Sophie's. It was obvious that they
were waiting for him to continue. "That's it," he added.
"Um," Michael
said.
"That's not very
helpful," Lettie said. "Spells go wrong all the time, and yet this
sort of thing never happens. Are you sure you did it correctly?"
"Um," Howl began.
"I think we can assume
he knows what he's doing," Michael said.
"Thank you," Howl
told him with some sincerity. He was glad someone here seemed to be on his
side. Still, they were all virtual strangers. The tension in his shoulders
threatened to bring back the headache; he shook his arms a bit to loosen his
taut muscles, and caught a glimpse of a drooping, bright-blue and iridescent
sleeve. He held up an arm and stared. "What in the world am I
wearing?"
Sophie rolled her eyes.
"Howl's favorite jacket. Not his best one, though."
"I should hope
not," Howl told her, looking down at the horrible scalloped edges, the
too-wide lapels. His fingers flew to his earlobes. Only one ear drooped with
the familiar weight of an earring. "Why couldn't I have kept my own
clothes, at least?"
"They're not that
bad," Sophie said with a prim expression. Her voice grew an edge of
sarcasm. "Would you like to change?"
"Yes," Howl said,
letting despair take over for a moment again. "No offense, but I'd like to
change everything. Get back to my right life, world, clothes, whatever."
What he couldn't admit was that he had no idea where to start. Other worlds he
had experience with; other realities were something new. "I wonder where
your Howl is?" And how many more there are, he added silently.
"Probably wherever you
came from," Calcifer answered with a wave of his green flame-hair.
"This sort of thing isn't too common. You two just switched, somehow,
doing the same magic."
"The spells certainly
sound similar," Michael added.
"Do they?" Howl
asked with hope. He could accept this as a best-of-the-worst-case scenario. It
was disconcerting enough to imagine one other Howl, let alone any more. He
looked around the not-quite-familiar room again. From what little he'd seen,
his and the other Howl's lives seemed similar enough, eerily so, in fact. It
led him to wonder, really wonder, how many other Calcifers and Michael/Markls
and Sophies existed--
"Sophie!" he
blurted aloud at the thought of her. The redheaded girl shot him a questioning
glare and he shook his head at her. "If he's there, then I wonder what my
Sophie is doing. Or what he's doing?"
"I know exactly what
he's doing," the redhead told the group, crossing her arms across her
chest and leaning back in her chair. "He's waking up on the floor and
pretending to be you. He's very clever that way."
"It's what I would
have done, if I'd realized sooner what was going on," Howl admitted. He
chewed at a fingernail.
"Will your people
notice the difference?" Michael asked, tentative. "You do look very
alike."
"So I hear," Howl
said dryly around the finger in his mouth. But he couldn't shake the new, terrible
thought that he wasn't sure whether or not Sophie would immediately know that
the other man wasn't him, unless the other man told her. She was so very sweet
and trusting, nothing like this world's Sophie, who was even yet staring at him
with an expression he would have called confrontational. But while he
personally found his Sophie's trusting nature endearing and
heartwarming, it could be a liability in situations like these. Calcifer might
realize the other Howl was an imposter, or even the old lady. But not, he had
to admit to himself, Sophie. At least not right away. He chewed so hard on his
fingernail that he threatened to break it and ruin his well-groomed hands.
"What's he like? Would he hurt her?"
"No!" this Sophie
cried. "He's vain and sly, but he's really quite kind-hearted."
"He just doesn't want
anyone to know it. Um. Sometimes he can be difficult to deal with, if you don't
know him," Michael warned.
Well, so could he, Howl thought silently with what he
felt was great self-intuition. Oh, Sophie.
Aloud he said, "Well,
I can promise you all that I won't hurt you. Calcifer can vouch for me, I'm
sure, because after all he did enter my brain."
The blue-and-green Calcifer
managed to look somewhat sheepish at this.
"All I want to do is
find a way home," Howl continued. "And I assume you want him
back?"
"Of course!"
Sophie said, voice holding the same vehemence with which she'd defended the
other Howl earlier. She held out a slim hand that was heartbreaking in its
size, shape and familiarity. A small, reddish stone winked at him from one of
her fingers. "We're engaged to be married."
"Oh, me too,"
Howl began, and took his finger out of his mouth to hold up his own hand, then
remembered that the ring upon it was not his. He dropped the hand to his side,
out of sight, and looked at Michael, his ally. "Now that my intentions are
clear, can I see the spell?"
"Oh! Perhaps I should
contact Mrs. Fairfax," Lettie spoke up. Her dark eyes widened with some
other idea. "Or Wizard Suliman."
"Suliman?" Howl
asked with some trepidation. She might know what to do in this
situation. But then, he'd hoped to spend the rest of his life avoiding her. And
now that he knew about them, all incarnations of her.
"He's Lettie's
sweetheart," Sophie explained with a sly smile.
"He?" Howl asked.
He was beginning to feel like an idiot. And his head was starting to hurt
again.
"Why, yes. Is your
Wizard Suliman a woman?" Sophie asked. She looked interested. She
still didn't appear to like him, but, perhaps now that her initial shock had
worn off, she had lost some of her animosity. Howl decided that having this
Sophie on his side could only make his time here more bearable.
"Yes. She was my
teacher," Howl told her. He smiled at her, one of his own personal
favorite lady-killing smiles.
But she wasn't going to
fall for it. Her interested gaze morphed into another glare. She stood and
looked at Lettie. "Still, that's a good idea, Lettie. Why don't you go and
get him? I think we're going to need all the help we can get to set things right."
"I'll show you the
spell," Michael said, standing.
"I can't leave you
here, not without a chaperone," Lettie said with wide eyes.
Sophie pooh-poohed that
comment with a wave of her hand. "I'll be all right with Michael. And if
he tries anything, then Calcifer, you have my permission to fry his brain."
"Gotcha,"
Calcifer laughed.
"I'm not going to try
anything," Howl objected, loudly, but he had the distinct impression
that no one was listening.
x x x
Howell stood in the other
Howell's bedroom, looking out the window at the white clouds and blue sky.
There was no rainy backyard, no swingset, no greeny-gray Wales. He looked
around the room. Nothing recognizable met his eyes; the room was packed near to
the ceiling with glittering (and some quite interesting-looking) objects, but
all of them were unfamiliar, and none of them comforted him in the least. He
began to feel a little sick.
He looked up at the
ceiling. There weren't even any spiders. Wait, there was one, building a
web between two of the ceiling-beams. Howell watched its eight legs working and
weaving for a few moments, and felt better for having seen it.
"Right," he said.
He went back out into the hall and spotted the bathroom directly across from
the bedroom. He hadn't had a real bath since yesterday, because this morning
he'd figured on finishing the King's spell first thing.
The bathroom wasn't modern.
It contained no shower, only an old claw-footed tub. He turned one of the taps
experimentally. Hot water gushed out and Howell smiled to himself.
"Thanks, Calcifer," he whispered. He undressed, dropping the plain
blue shirt and black pants to the floor, and looked at the packets lined neatly
next to the tub. Sophie's doing, surely. He examined the words and pictures
of flowers printed upon them, and sniffed the contents of a few of them. They
were close enough to what he needed.
He'd been soaking happily
for a good fifteen minutes when the bathroom door opened. Howell was a bit
shocked to see Sophie squeeze through the gap, carrying a couple of fluffy
white towels. She laid these on the closed toilet lid.
"You'll need these, I
think," she said, and set her hands on her hips, and smiled at him.
"Sophie," Howell
said, with what he was sure was a scandalized expression. "I don't know if
you'd noticed, but I'm in the bath."
She had the grace to blush
a little. Watching her, he had to admit that it looked well with that strange
silvery hair.
"Well fine, then. Be
modest if you wish," she told him with a little sniff. She bent to pick up
his discarded clothing and turned to leave.
She hadn't quite shut the
door behind her when Howell had an idea. "Sophie," he called after
her. He considered his words, and decided to be as nonchalant as possible.
"You know the land of Wales?"
"I think you've
mentioned it before." She halted but didn't turn, and he could sense her
tension through the back of her green dress. "Why do you ask?"
"I was just thinking
about it," he mumbled, not having heard the answer he wanted. "No
reason."
"All right," she
said. She hadn't left, but neither had she turned to look at him again. Howell
found his eyes drawn to the curve of her hips as she hugged his clothes to her
chest and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. It was an interesting situation,
having her in here when he was completely naked. The bubbles hid everything,
but still. It was disconcerting and rather exciting at the same time. He
couldn't decide whether or not he wanted her to leave. This Sophie was definitely
nothing like his.
She continued in a soft
voice. "You're worrying me, Howl. I do hope you rest. Would you
like me to bring you anything else?"
"What a little
servant! You don't have to wait on me hand and foot," he told her.
A short silence greeted
this. "I know you're grumpy, but I'm only trying to help," she said
after a few moments in an injured little voice, and swished out, shutting the
door behind her.
Howell soaked for a few
more minutes, considering her. Hopefully he wouldn't be here long. Still, he
would have to be more careful if he wished to keep her convinced that he was
the Howell she knew, but he wasn't sure how to deal with her. Twice now he'd
upset her with his normal random, throwaway comments, things his Sophie would
not have blinked an eye at. And her reasonable, hurt reactions made him feel guilty
in some way. He hated feeling guilty.
Whenever he said something
to his Sophie that she didn't like, she would only gripe back at him
with something unrelated. When she was really cross, she became utterly silent
(and she had no idea that this was how Howell knew she was angry with him).
This line of thought
naturally made him consider the other Howell. He wondered if he was there in
the Ingary where he, Howell, belonged. If so, then he wondered what Sophie and
Michael and everyone were making of him. Howell nursed a forlorn hope that
they'd tied him up and locked him in the broom-cupboard, and were feverishly
working on a way to get him, Howell, back.
Actually, they were
probably petting him and feeding him chocolate and whatnot for being such a
nice guy. "Grrr," Howell said, and rinsed his hair. The fluffy towels
were quite welcome.
So was the bedroom closet
full of clothing. Howell sifted through the hangers. He found a blue suit which
was close to acceptable, though its sleeves and collar were much too plain for
fashion. He found a nice white lawn shirt and tried it on with the blue
suit-jacket over it. It was a tiny bit small around the middle.
"Grrr," Howell
said again, and magicked the waist to make it fit. For good measure, he
lengthened the sleeves and shirred the edges to give them more flair.
Once he had on the matching
pants-- also slightly snug, though he left these as they were-- he checked his
reflection in a tall, gilt-and-jewel-edged mirror. The blue color of the suit
complemented his blond hair and his new, strange, bluish-green eyes. He decided
the suit's color could stay as well. A snazzy pair of impractical black boots
completed his sartorial splendor.
Feeling much better than he
had over an hour ago, Howell left the bedroom. He resolutely did not
look out the window at the Not-Wales, but trod with confidence down this
castle's narrow stairway. There was an entire crowd waiting for him in the
large yet cozy kitchen/living area.
Sophie was there, her back
to him as she pulled something out of a small black stove next to the hearth.
Her brown eyes widened a bit when she turned and spotted him. Her cheeks
flushed, again, just a little. She didn't speak, just swiveled to set a pan on
a trivet at the table. Howell wondered what he'd done this time to upset her,
and then he thought once more about how attractive she was despite the white
hair.
"I cleaned up the
spell, Master Howl. Just in time for lunch," the red-headed Markl said.
The boy ran to the table and stuck a fork into the hot pan and pulled something
out onto a plate. It looked like toasted cheese. Little bowls of soup already
dotted the table. Howell's stomach perked up, rumbling at the sight and smells
of the food.
Sophie poured tea into
little chipped cups and glanced at him again, then turned away and tossed some
crumbs at Calcifer in his grate. Her cheeks were practically flaming this time.
Howell hadn't said anything so he couldn't possibly have upset her; he wondered
if perhaps she was simply overwarm from cooking.
The flabby old lady creaked
her way to the table and looked over at him. Her strangely familiar eyes
examined him, up and down and up and down again, and Howell feared that he was
about to be exposed. He realized just then whose eyes those were. Then he
realized that she was leering at him.
"Nice
pants," she said, and then picked up a fork to eat.
Ah, Howell thought, and then rather
than doing what he'd planned, which had been to begin his serious attempts to
do a home-location spell, he sat down to eat with them. He was bathed, and
well-dressed. A little food would set him up just right.
x x x
End Chapter 1
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