The caretaker stood back helplessly and let their procession go past. Howard tried not to laugh. Dad, in his way, was as bad as Erskine.
In the room upstairs Quentin was rapidly arranged with a low angle lamp, the typewriter, and plenty of paper. Torquil opened the windows so that they could see and hear what went on in the forecourt. Catriona prudently locked the door. Everyone else found a tubular metal chair and sat down.
“When do I start?” Quentin asked expectantly, winding paper onto the red typewriter.
“Up to you,” said Erskine.
Quentin looked at his notes, sat back with his eyes closed for a moment, and then leaned forward. Instead of starting to type, he said, “One thing puzzles me about this arrangement with Mountjoy.” Howard looked at him in alarm. He was surely going to ask what use the words had been. But Quentin said, “That time just after Awful was born, when I was too tired to do the words. Somebody stopped all our services and machines. Who was it? It couldn’t have been Venturus—Howard—because he was only five at the time.”
“Was him,” said Erskine. “Angry about Awful. Did it from memory. Did it mostly from memory just now.”
Erskine was right, Howard knew. The feelings and knowledge he had been using without thinking inside the temple were strong and clear and piercing, compared with the fuzzy way he felt his growing powers now. So Torquil had made him fetch the temple from memory! He found himself looking accusingly at Torquil, who bit his lip guiltily and laughed back. And Howard realized another thing. He needed Torquil. Torquil was the only one in the family who could ever make him do things he did not want to do. “Don’t go and stay in the past,” he said to Torquil. “You can come back the same if you think the right way. I did it just now when I came back from the future.”
The laughter faded off Torquil’s face a little. “Ah, but,” he said, “you forget. You’re the seventh child. You can do things none of us can do.”
Quentin announced solemnly, “I now begin.” Everyone was quiet while he tapped away at the keys. Howard watched the words coming over Quentin’s shoulder. “The first to appear was Archer …”
“Archer’s coming!” Awful called from the window.
Howard sped over there to look. Archer’s Rolls was nosing its way through the main gates, silvery in the moonlight. Its headlights blazed across the light streaming from the door of the temple.
“‘in his Rolls,’” Quentin murmured as he typed, “‘headlights … light from temple …’”
Below, the car stopped. Archer sprang out and stood looking at the temple for a moment. Howard squirmed rather. Then Archer leaned into his car and brought out a number of things.
“What’s he carrying?” whispered Ginger.
“‘laden with a number of strange objects …’” murmured Quentin, tapping away.
“Yes, but say what they are, Dad,” Awful whispered at him.
“In due course,” said Quentin. “I only have ten fingers.”
“You only type with two!” Awful said scornfully.
“But I go damn fast,” Quentin retorted. “Besides, I don’t know what the things are.” And he typed, “probably designed to secure the spaceship as his own.”
By this time nobody knew whether to look at what Quentin was typing or to watch Archer out the window. Howard, Catriona, and Torquil all were hurrying back and forth, laughing incredulously. It really seemed to work.
When Howard next looked, Archer was walking in through the lighted glass door of the temple. They saw him jerk himself up the first step. Then he was out of sight.
“‘out of sight,’” Quentin murmured. “Quick, someone. Tell me where he hides in the spaceship.”
“In the toilet, of course,” said Ginger.
“Thanks,” said Quentin. He was rattling away merrily now. “‘in the toilet, where he was at first far too busy arranging his equipment to realize that he was unable to leave the ship. When he did notice—’”
“Oh, no, Dad!” said Howard. “You’ll get him mad and he’ll short something out.”
“Hush,” said Quentin. “Allow for inspiration.” And he typed, “it was only as a pleasant languor and a sense of well-being. He sat down and poured himself a drink, waiting for Fifi. She was not long in appearing.”
“Fifi coming now,” Erskine said, looming over Catriona at the window.
Howard pushed in between them to see. Fifi was running. Howard had expected her to move like a sleepwalker. But she was obviously wide-awake and so sure she was going to see Archer that the silvery haze Torquil and Erskine had created around her had actually formed itself into a cloud above her head. In the cloud was a silvery shape that seemed to be Archer wearing shining armor.
“‘seeing Archer as a knight in shining armor,’” Quentin murmured behind him, clattering away. “‘On she sped …’”
In the courtyard, Fifi raced between the diggers and plunged through the temple door.
“‘and there at last was Archer, her own dear Archer,’” murmured Quentin. “Will somebody tell me just how slushy they want the next bit to be?”
“My dear Quentin,” said Torquil, “I’m sure you don’t need us to tell you that.”
“How about a row of stars?” Catriona suggested, going to look over Quentin’s shoulder.
“Stars might give the game away, don’t you think?” Quentin said, clattering feverishly.
“Yes, but you’ve got to make sure they can’t leave the ship,” Howard called anxiously.
“What do you think I’m doing?” Quentin demanded. “Very well, too! It ought to be censored. ‘We will now leave the lovers’—somebody feed me some chocolate—‘and turn to the next comer.’”
Torquil produced a bar of chocolate. Howard and Awful broke it up and were feeding it into Quentin’s mouth as he typed when Ginger said in a loud whisper, “Hey! This looks like Shine!”
They ran to look. Shine had come with minions. Her big bulletproof car was drawn up in the center of the yard. Men with guns were piling out of it, and one was ceremoniously opening the door for Shine. They could hear her leather creaking, even through the noise of the typewriter, as she climbed mountainously out. She was also carrying a gun.
Everyone turned accusingly to Quentin. “She’s brought a load of people!” said Ginger.
“Of course,” said Quentin. “I put them in because it’s obvious she never goes anywhere without them. How many are there? I put six. I don’t know how they all got in the car.”
There were indeed six guards, all stalking closely about Shine as she strode to the temple.
“Do something about them!” said Howard. “The ship won’t take that number!”
“Coming to it,” said Quentin, typing hard. He typed, “Torquil raised his crozier.”
Beside the window Torquil’s eyes widened as his hand went up, holding the crozier aloft. Everyone began tiptoeing back and forth again, between the window and the words, to see Quentin type that Shine abruptly ordered four of her men to stand guard outside the temple and then to see Shine actually do it. Quentin typed, “The four outside stood like statues, obedient to the power of Torquil’s crozier.” And the four men outside did. Shine and the other two guards pushed their way through the glass door into the temple.
“You let two in,” Erskine said reproachfully.
Quentin, as he typed, grinned just a little fiendishly. “I hadn’t the heart not to. The way you planned it, you had the women on that ship outnumber the men by three to one. All I’ve done is make the numbers even.”
It seemed to everyone that Quentin was getting an undue sense of power. He was rapping away at a furious pace now, grinning as fiendishly as Awful. Erskine plunged toward the window and plunged back again. He seized Howard’s wrist and looked at Howard’s watch. “Dillian’s due,” he said. “Bring her in. Move those men. Smell a rat. Won’t go in.”
“One moment,” said Quentin. “I’m extending myself on the conversation aboard the ship. Shine’s language is spect
acular. And they’ve just realized they can’t get out. Shine thinks it’s Archer’s doing. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Erskine punched his own hand in his exasperation. “Move those men!”
“Ready now,” said Quentin. He typed, “Shine’s remaining men—Erskine, by the way, found himself quite unable to hit Quentin—climbed into the car and drove away.”
Erskine’s face, as he read this, made Howard snort with laughter. Outside, the four guards jumped a little, looked at one another, and went back to Shine’s car. “Bring Dillian!” Erskine more or less shouted as the car drove away.
“In a second now,” said Quentin. There was an interval of intense typing.
“Here’s a police car,” someone at the window whispered.
Howard and Erskine dived to look. There was indeed a police car. It drove to the center of the forecourt and stopped. The headlights went off. The light inside came on, showing them the fair hair of Dillian. Nothing else happened. Dillian seemed to be just sitting with her window down. Quentin continued to type, in a long rattle.
At last, Dillian opened the far door of the car and got out. She was wearing a mink coat and, to everyone’s dismay, carrying a rifle.
“Don’t worry,” Quentin murmured. “Archer won’t let her shoot holes in the ship.”
Dillian rested the rifle on the roof of the car, so that it was roughly aimed at the window. “Venturus!” she shouted. “Venturus! Is that you typing up there?”
There was a frantic scramble as everyone, by common consent, got away from the window. “Dad!” whispered Howard.
“Sorry,” said Quentin, typing hard. “Haven’t you ever heard of a character running away with a writer? I fancy Dillian. She sounds to be just my old-fashioned type.”
Dillian’s voice came up from below. “I can hear you, Venturus! Stop that typing!”
“Just finish this sentence,” said Quentin.
Dillian lost patience and fired at the window. The shot screamed above Quentin’s head and crashed into the wall near the ceiling. Plaster came down like a landslide. “Reloading,” said Erskine, pressed against the wall beside the window.
Howard was on his hands and knees underneath the window. “Dad!” he said. “Stop her!”
Torquil, pressed against the wall on the other side of the window, said, “That caretaker fellow has just come out into the yard now. Send him in before she shoots him!”
“I can’t! I didn’t do him! He came out by himself!” Quentin gasped. He was sweating. “This is going all wrong!”
“Oh, really!” Catriona said angrily. Howard, to his horror, felt her shove him aside with her knee. He looked up to see Catriona leaning out of the window.
“Mum!” he said. “You’ll get shot!”
Catriona took no notice. “You down there!” she shouted. It was her angriest and most booming voice. “Yes—you, woman! You with the dyed hair and the gun! I’m talking to you! Just you stop that, do you hear? I’ve got my two children up here, and I’m not having it. You should be ashamed of yourself, loosing off like that!”
While Catriona was shouting, Torquil tiptoed hastily to Quentin. “Come on!” he whispered. “Type! While she’s distracted. ‘Dillian turned without another word and walked into the temple.’ Quickly!”
Quentin nodded and typed madly.
“Keep yelling, Mum!” Howard whispered. Whether she heard him or not, Catriona was fairly launched, and she continued to thunder at Dillian. Howard looked at his watch. Erskine grabbed his wrist and looked at it, too. “Barely two minutes now,” Howard whispered.
“And I shall have you arrested!” Catriona thundered out of the window. She turned away from the window. She said, in her normal pleasant voice, “Well, she seems to have gone. Aren’t you finished yet, Quentin?”
“Just getting her into the spaceship,” Quentin said. “Does it take off without my help, Howard?”
“Yes, any second now,” said Howard. “Come and look.”
Quentin typed a loud full stop and stood up. They all crowded to the window and looked into the yard, where the caretaker still stood, looking suspiciously at the strange moonlit building inside the scaffolding. A wide smile of light appeared in the domed roof, to the right of the great head of Venturus. The smile widened like a moon, to half, then three-quarters, and then to a blaze that struck upward into the blue clouds of the night. There was a gigantic mutter of power, so enormous that the window rattled and everything in the room shook. The girders, and the temple with its opened dome, blurred with it. Their ears went dead. Then, slowly rising from the opened dome, came the spaceship, silvery and stately, up and up, straight as a pencil, into the light of the dome, up out of that light, into the light of the moon, faster and faster and faster. Their eyes followed it up, then up, until its tail spurted white light. A blunt cough of energy came to their dead ears. Against the moon they saw the ship slant sideways and become a shooting star for a second, up and out.
“Cor!” said Ginger.
Howard looked back at the temple in time to see it collapsing and fading into the future as it collapsed. Venturus had built it too weak. How stupid, he thought. He did not mind. He never intended to go there again.
The thunder from the spaceship came, delayed, and shook Howard into noticing Quentin tiptoeing to the typewriter again. Howard got there first and disconnected the thing Archer had done to it. “I was only going to write, ‘They lived happily ever after,’” Quentin said, injured. “But I suppose it is unlikely.”
Behind them Erskine luxuriously stretched long Goon arms. “Go and travel now. See the world,” he said. His eyes slid to Catriona pleadingly. “Come and see you every year?” he asked.
“Of course, if you want, Erskine,” Catriona said warmly.
Howard looked at Erskine warily. He rather thought Erskine’s eyes had flicked on to Awful after that. She was leaning against Torquil, yawning her head off. Awful saw Howard look and beckoned him over. “If you do things to me,” she murmured sleepily, “I shall tell Dad about the words. I saw Erskine kick Torquil.”
Hm, thought Howard. He had been thinking it was his duty to stay and help Quentin and Catriona bring Awful up, to make up for all the trouble he had caused them. They would not want her to be like Shine. Now he saw he would have to bring himself up not to be Venturus, too. Because it was quite possible that Erskine would come back one year, saying he had taken a look at the world and decided he would like to farm it. When he did, he would offer Awful a share. Howard saw that he and Awful both would have to be ready for that day. He thought that since this was his third time around, he might just manage to get it right for a change.
Read on for an excerpt from Howl’s Moving Castle
CHAPTER ONE
IN WHICH SOPHIE TALKS TO HATS
In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.
Sophie Hatter was the eldest of three sisters. She was not even the child of a poor woodcutter, which might have given her some chance of success! Her parents were well to do and kept a ladies’ hat shop in the prosperous town of Market Chipping. True, her own mother died when Sophie was two years old and her sister Lettie was one year old, and their father married his youngest shop assistant, a pretty blonde girl called Fanny. Fanny shortly gave birth to the third sister, Martha. This ought to have made Sophie and Lettie into Ugly Sisters, but in fact all three girls grew up very pretty indeed, though Lettie was the one everyone said was most beautiful. Fanny treated all three girls with the same kindness and did not favor Martha in the least.
Mr. Hatter was proud of his three daughters and sent them all to the best school in town. Sophie was the most studious. She read a great deal, and very soon realized how little chance she had of an interesting future. It was a disappointment to her, but she was still h
appy enough, looking after her sisters and grooming Martha to seek her fortune when the time came. Since Fanny was always busy in the shop, Sophie was the one who looked after the younger two. There was a certain amount of screaming and hair-pulling between those younger two. Lettie was by no means resigned to being the one who, next to Sophie, was bound to be the least successful.
“It’s not fair!” Lettie would shout. “Why should Martha have the best of it just because she was born the youngest? I shall marry a prince, so there!”
To which Martha always retorted that she would end up disgustingly rich without having to marry anybody.
Then Sophie would have to drag them apart and mend their clothes. She was very deft with her needle. As time went on, she made clothes for her sisters too. There was one deep rose outfit she made for Lettie, the May Day before this story really starts, which Fanny said looked as if it had come from the most expensive shop in Kingsbury.
About this time everyone began talking of the Witch of the Waste again. It was said the Witch had threatened the life of the King’s daughter and that the King had commanded his personal magician, Wizard Suliman, to go into the Waste and deal with the Witch. And it seemed that Wizard Suliman had not only failed to deal with the Witch: he had got himself killed by her.
So when, a few months after that, a tall black castle suddenly appeared on the hills above Market Chipping, blowing clouds of black smoke from its four tall, thin turrets, everybody was fairly sure that the Witch had moved out of the Waste again and was about to terrorize the country the way she used to fifty years ago. People got very scared indeed. Nobody went out alone, particularly at night. What made it all the scarier was that the castle did not stay in the same place. Sometimes it was a tall black smudge on the moors to the northwest, sometimes it reared above the rocks to the east, and sometimes it came right downhill to sit in the heather only just beyond the last farm to the north. You could see it actually moving sometimes, with smoke pouring out from the turrets in dirty gray gusts. For a while everyone was certain that the castle would come right down into the valley before long, and the Mayor talked of sending to the King for help.