In which Michael has trouble with a spell

It was the sea captain, come for his wind spell atlast, and not at all pleased at having to wait. ?If I miss mytide, boy,? he said to Michael, ?I shall have a word withthe Sorcerer about you. I don?t like lazy boys.?

Michael, in Sophie?s opinion, was far too polite to him, butshe was feeling too dejected to interfere. When the captain had gone,Michael went to the bench to frown over his spell again and Sophiesat silently mending her stockings. She had only one pair and herknobby feet had worn huge holes in them. Her gray dress by this timewas frayed and dirty. She wondered whether she dared cut theleast-stained bits out of Howl?s ruined blue-and-silver suit tomake herself a new skirt with. But she did not quite dare.

?Sophie,? Michael said, looking up from his eleventhpage of notes, ?how many nieces have you??

Sophie had been afraid Michael would start asking questions.?When you get to my age, my lad, ? she said, ?youlose count. They all look so alike. Those two Letties could be twins,to my mind.?

?Oh, no, not really,? Michael said to her surprise.?The niece in Upper Folding isn?t as pretty as my Lettie.? He tore up the eleventh page and made a twelfth.?I?m glad Howl didn?t meet my Lettie,?he said. He began on his thirteenth page and tore that up too.?I wanted to laugh when that Mrs. Fairfax said she knew whoHowl was, didn?t you??

?No,? said Sophie. It had made no difference toLettie?s feelings. She thought of Lettie?s bright,adoring face under the apple blossom. ?I suppose there?sno chance,? she asked hopelessly, ?that Howl could beproperly in love this time??

Calcifer snorted green sparks up the chimney.

?I was afraid you?d start thinking like that,?Michael said. ?But you?d be deceiving yourself, just likeMrs. Fairfax.?

?How do you know?? said Sophie.

Calcifer and Michael exchanged glances. ?Did he forget tospend at least an hour in the bathroom this morning?? Michaelasked.

?He was in there two hours,? said Calcifer,?putting spells on his face. Vain fool!?

?There you are, then,? said Michael. ?The dayHowl forgets to do that will be the day I believe he?s reallyin love and not before.?

Sophie thought of Howl on one knee in the orchard, posing to lookas handsome as possible, and she knew they were right. She thought ofgoing to the bathroom and tipping all Howl?s beauty spells downthe toilet. But she did not quite dare. Instead, she hobbled up andfetched the blue-and-silver suit, which she spent the rest of the daycutting little blue triangles out of in order to make a patchworksort of skirt.

Michael patted her shoulder kindly as he came to throw allseventeen pages of his notes onto Calcifer. ?Everyone gets overthings in the end, you know,? he said.

By this time it was clear Michael was having trouble with hisspell. He gave up notes and scraped some soot off the chimney.Calcifer craned round to watch him in a mystified way. Michael took awithered root from one of the bags hanging on the beams and put it inthe soot. Then, after much thought, he turned the doorknob blue-downand vanished for twenty minutes into Porthaven. He came back with alarge, whorled seashell and put that with the root and the soot.After that he tore up pages and pages of paper and put those in too.He put the lot on front of the human skull and stood blowing on it,so that soot and bits of paper whirled all over the bench.

?What?s he doing, do you think?? Calcifer askedSophie.

Michael gave up blowing and started mashing everything, paper andall, with a pestle and mortar, looking at the skull expectantly fromtime to time. Nothing happened, so he tried different ingredientsfrom bags and jars.

?I feel bad about spying on Howl,? he announced as hepounded a third set of ingredients to death in a bowl. ?He maybe fickle to females, but he?s been awfully good to me. He tookme in when I was just an unwanted orphan sitting on his doorstep inPorthaven.?

?How did that come about?? asked Sophie as she snippedput another blue triangle.

?My mother died and my father got drowned in a storm,?Michael said. ?And nobody wants you when that happens. I had toleave our house because I couldn?t pay rent, and I tried tolive in the streets but people kept turning me off doorsteps and outof boats until the only place I could think of to go was somewhereeveryone was too scared to interfere with. Howl had just started upin a small way as Sorcerer Jenkin then. But everyone said his househad devils in it, so I slept on his doorstep for a couple of nightsuntil Howl opened the door one morning on his way to buy bread and Ifell inside. So he said I could wait indoors while he got somethingto eat. I went in, and there was Calcifer, and I started talking tohim because I?d never met a demon before.?

?What did you talk about?? said Sophie, wondering ifCalcifer had asked Michael to break his contract too.

?He told me his troubles and dripped on me. Didn?tyou?? said Calcifer. ?It didn?t seem to occur tohim that I might have troubles as well.?

?I don?t think you have. You just grumble alot,? Michael said. ?You were quite nice to me thatmorning, and I think Howl was impressed. But you know how he is. Hedidn?t tell me I could stay. But he just didn?t tell meto go. So I started being useful wherever I could, like looking aftermoney so that he didn?t spend it all as soon as he?d gotit, and so on.?

The spell gave a sort of a whuff then and exploded mildly.Michael brushed soot off the skull, sighing, and tried newingredients. Sophie began making a patchwork of blue triangles roundher feet on the floor.

?I did make lots of stupid mistakes when I firststarted,? Michael went on. ?Howl was awfully nice aboutit. I thought I?d got over that now. And I think I do help withmoney. Howl buys such expensive clothes. He says no one?s goingto employ a wizard who looks as if he can?t make money at thetrade.?

?That?s just because he likes clothes,? saidCalcifer. His orange eyes watched Sophie at work rathermeaningly.

?This suit was spoiled,? Sophie said.

?It isn?t just clothes,? Michael said.?Remember last winter when we were down to your last log andHowl went off and bought the skull and that stupid guitar? I wasreally annoyed with him. He said they looked good.?

?What did you do about logs?? Sophie asked.

?Howl conjured some from someone who owed him money,?Michael said. ?At least, he said they did, and I just hoped hewas telling the truth. And we ate seaweed. Howl says it?s goodfor you.?

?Nice stuff,? murmured Calcifer. ?Dry andcrackly.?

?I hate it,? said Michael staring abstractedly at hisbowl of pounded stuff. ?I don?t know?there should beseven ingredients, unless it?s seven processes, but let?stry it in a pentacle anyway.? He put the bowl on the floor andchalked a sort of five-pointed star round it.

The powder exploded with a force that blew Sophie?striangles into the hearth. Michael swore and hurriedly rubbed out thechalk.

?Sophie,? he said, ?I?m stuck in thisspell. You don?t think you could possibly help me, doyou??

Just like someone bringing their homework to their granny, Sophiethought, collecting triangles and patiently laying them out again.?Let?s have a look,? she said cautiously. ?Idon?t know anything about magic, you know.?

Michael eagerly thrust a strange, slightly shiny paper into herhand. It looked unusual, even for a spell. It was printed in boldletters, but they were slightly gray and blurred, and there were grayblurs, like retreating stormclouds, round all the edges. ?Seewhat you think,? said Michael.

Sophie read:

?Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all the past year?s are,

Or who cleft the Devil?s foot.

Teach me to hear the mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy?s stinging,

And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

Decide what this is about

Write a second verse yourself?

It puzzled Sophie exceedingly. It was not quite like any of thespells she had snooped at before. She plowed through it twice, notreally helped by Michael eagerly explaining as she tried to read.?You know Howl told me that advanced spells have a puzzle inthem? Well, I decided at first that every line was meant to be apuzzle. I used soot with sparks in it for the falling star, and aseashell for the mermaids singing. And I thought I might countas a child, so I got a mandrake root down, and I wrote out a list ofpast years from the almanacs, but I wasn?t sure aboutthat?maybe that?s where I went wrong?and could the thing thatstops stinging be dock leaf? I hadn?t thought of thatbefore?anyway, none of it works !?

?I?m not surprised,? said Sophie. ?Itlooks to me like a set of impossible things to do.?

But Michael was not having that. If the things were impossible, hepointed out reasonably, no one would ever be able to do the spell.?And,? he added, ?I?m so ashamed of spying onHowl that I want to make up for it by getting this spellright.?

?Very well,? said Sophie. ?Let?s startwith ?Decide what this is all about.? That ought to startthings moving, if deciding is part of the spell anyway.?

But Michael was not having that either. ?No,? he said.?It?s the sort of spell that reveals itself as you do it.That?s what the last line means. When you write the secondhalf, saying what the spell means, that makes it work. Those kind arevery advanced. We have to crack the first bit first.?

Sophie collected her blue triangles into a pile again.?Let?s ask Calcifer,? she suggested.?Calcifer, who??

But this was yet another thing Michael did not let her do.?No, be quiet. I think Calcifer?s part of the spell. Lookat the way it says ?Tell me? and ?Teach me.?I thought at first it meant teach the skull, but that didn?twork, so it must be Calcifer.?

?You can do it by yourself, if you sit on everything I haveto say!? Sophie said. ?Anyway, surely Calcifer must knowwho cleft his own foot!?

Calcifer flared up a little at this. ?I haven?t gotany feet. I?m a demon, not a devil.? Saying which, heretreated right under his logs, where he could be heard chinkingabout, muttering, ?Lot of nonsense!? all the rest of thetime Sophie and Michael were discussing the spell. By this time thepuzzle had got a grip on Sophie. She packed away her blue triangles,fetched pen and paper, and started making notes in the same sort ofquantities that Michael had. For the rest of the day she and Michaelsat staring into the distance, nibbling quills and throwing outsuggestions at one another.

An average page of Sophie?s notes read:

Does garlic keep off envy? I could cut a star out of paper anddrop it. Could we tell it to Howl? Howl would like mermaids betterthan Calcifer. Do not think Howl?s mind is honest. IsCalcifer?s? Where are the past years anyway? Does it mean oneof those dry roots must bear fruit? Plant it? Next to dock leaf? In aseashell? Cloven hoof, most things but horses. Shoe a horse with aclove of garlic? Wind? Smell? Wind of seven-league boots? Is Howldevil? Cloven toes in seven-league boots? Mermaids in boots?

As Sophie wrote this, Michael asked equally desperately,?Could the ?wind? be some sort of pulley? An honestman being hanged? That?s black magic, though.?

?Let?s have supper,? said Sophie.

They ate bread and cheese, still staring into the distance. Atlast Sophie said, ?Michael, for goodness? sake,let?s give up guessing and try just doing what it says.Where?s the best place to catch a falling star? Out on thehills??

?Porthaven Marshes are flatter,? Michael said.?Can we? Shooting stars go awfully fast.?

?So can we, in seven-league boots,? Sophie pointedout.

Michael sprang up, full of relief and delight. ?I thinkyou?ve got it!? he said, scrambling for the boots.?Let?s go and try.?

They went out into the street in Porthaven. It was a bright, balmynight. As soon as they had reached the end of the street, however,Michael remembered that Sophie had been ill that morning and beganworrying about the effect of night air on her health. Sophie told himnot to be silly. She stumped gamely along with her stick until theyleft the lighted windows behind and the night became wide and dampand chilly. The marshes smelled of salt and earth. The sea glitteredand softly swished to the rear. Sophie could feel, more than see, themiles and miles of flatness stretching away in front of them. Whatshe could see were bands of low bluish mist and pale glimmers ofmarshy pools, over and over again, until they built into a pale linewhere the sky started. The sky was everywhere else, huger still. TheMilky Way looked like a band of mist risen from the marshes, and thekeen stars twinkled through it.

Michael and Sophie stood, each with a boot ready on the ground infront of them, waiting for one of the stars to move.

After about an hour Sophie had to pretend she was not shivering,for fear of worrying Michael.

Half an hour later Michael said, ?May is not the right timeof the year. August or November is best.?

Half an hour after that, he said in a worried way, ?What dowe do about the mandrake root??

?Let?s see to this part before we worry aboutthat,? Sophie said, biting her teeth together while she spoke,for fear they would chatter.

Some time later Michael said, ?You go home, Sophie.It?s my spell, after all.?

Sophie had her mouth open to say that this was a very good idea,when one of the stars came unstuck from the firmament and darted in awhite streak down the sky. ?There?s one!?Sophie shrieked instead.

Michael thumped his foot into his boot and was off. Sophie bracedherself with her stick and was off a second later. Zip! Squash. Downfar out in the marshes with mist and emptiness and dull-glimmeringpools in all directions. Sophie stabbed her stick into the ground andjust managed to stand still. Michael?s boot was a dark blotstanding just beside her. Michael himself was a sploshy sound ofmadly running feet somewhere ahead.

And there was the falling star. Sophie could see it, a littlewhite descending flame shape a few yards beyond the dark movementsthat were Michael. The bright shape was coming down slowly now, andit looked as if Michael might catch it.

Sophie dragged her shoe out of the boot. ?Come on,stick!? she crowed. ?Get me there!? And she set offat top hobble, leaping across tussocks and staggering through pools,with her eyes on that little white light.

By the time she caught up, Michael was stalking the star with softsteps, both arms out to catch it. Sophie could see him outlinedagainst the star?s light. The star was drifting level withMichael?s hands and only a step or so beyond. It was lookingback at him nervously. How odd! Sophie thought. It was made of light,it lit up a white ring of grass and reeds and black pools roundMichael, and yet it had big, anxious eyes peering backward atMichael, and a small, pointed face.

Sophie?s arrival frightened it. It gave an erratic swoop andcried out in a shrill, crackling voice, ?What is it?What do you want??

Sophie tried to say to Michael, Do stop?it?s terrified! Butshe had no breath left to speak with.

?I only want to catch you,? Michael explained.?I won?t hurt you.?

?No! No!? the star crackled desperately.?That?s wrong! I?m supposed to die!?

?But I could save you if you?d let me catchyou,? Michael told it gently.

?No!? cried the star. ?I?d ratherdie!? It dived away from Michael?s fingers. Michaelplunged for it, but it was too quick for him. It swooped for thenearest marsh pool, and the black water leaped into a blaze ofwhiteness for just an instant. Then there was a small, dying sizzle.When Sophie hobbled over, Michael was standing watching the lastlight fade out of a little round lump under the dark water.

?That was sad,? Sophie said.

Michael sighed. ?Yes. My heart sort of went out to it.Let?s go home. I?m sick of this spell.?

It took them twenty minutes to find the boots. Sophie thought itwas a miracle they found them at all.

?You know,? Michael said, as they trudged dejectedlythrough the dark streets of Porthaven, ?I can tell I?llnever be able to do this spell. It?s too advanced for me. Ishall have to ask Howl. I hate giving in, but at least I?ll getsome sense out of Howl now this Lettie Hatter?s given in tohim.?

This did not cheer Sophie up at all.

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 117