The nothingness was only an inch-thick after all. Beyond it, in a gray, drizzling evening, was a cement path down to a garden gate. Howl and Michael were waiting at the gate. Beyond that was a flat, hard-looking road lined with houses on both sides. Sophie looked back at where she had come from, shivering rather in the drizzle, and found the castle had become a house of yellow brick with large windows. Like all the other houses, it was square and new, with a front door of wobbly glass. Nobody seemed to be about among the houses. That may have been due to the drizzle, but Sophie had a feeling that it was really because, in spite of there being so many houses, this was really somewhere at the edge of a town.

When Sophie came down the path, he blurred, as if the drizzle round him had suddenly become a fog. When it came into focus again, it was still scarlet-and-gray, but quite a different shape. The dangling sleeves were gone and the whole outfit was baggier. It looked worn and shabby.

"When you've quite finished nosing," Howl called. His gray-and-scarlet finery was all misted with drizzle. He was dangling a bunch of strange keys, most of which were flat and yellow and seemed to match the houses.

To Sophie's surprise, Howl led the way back up the garden path toward the yellow house. The back of his baggy jacket, she saw, had mysterious words on it: WELSH RUGBY. Michael followed Howl, walking in a kind of tight strut because of the things on his legs.

"You'll get used to it," said Howl. "Come on, Sophie."

Sophie looked down at herself and saw twice as much skinny leg showing above her knobby shoes. Otherwise, not much about her had changed.

Michael's jacket had become a waist-length padded thing. He lifted his foot, wit a canvas shoe on it, and stared at the tight blue things encasing his legs. "I can hardly bend my knee," he said.

Howl unlocked the wavy-glass door with one of his keys. It had a wooden notice hanging beside it on chains. RIVENDELL, Sophie read, as Howl pushed her into a neat, shiny hall space. There seemed to be people in the house. Loud voices were coming from behind the nearest door. When Howl opened that door, Sophie realized that the voices were coming from magic colored pictures moving on the front of a big, square box.

She put down her knitting, looking a little annoyed, but before she could get up, a small girl, who had been watching the magic picture very seriously with her chin in her hands, leaped up and flung herself at Howl. "Uncle Howell!" she screamed, and jumped halfway up Howl with her legs wrapped around him.

"Mari!" Howl bawled in reply. "How are you, cariad? Been a good girl, then?" He and the little girl broke into a foreign language then, fast and loud. Sophie could see they were very special to one another. She wondered about the language. It sounded the same as Calcifer's silly saucepan song, but it was hard to be sure.

"Howell!" exclaimed a woman who was sitting there knitting.

"Hatter," said Sophie.

Megan shook hands with both of them in a restrained, disapproving way. She was older than Howl, but quite like him, with the same long, angular face, but her eyes were blue and full of anxieties, and her hair was darkish. "Quiet now, Mari!" she said in a voice that cut through the foreign chatter. "Howell, are you staying long?"

In between bursts of foreign chatter, Howl managed to say, as if he were a ventriloquist, "This I my niece, Mari, and my sister, Megan Parry. Megan, this is Michael Fisher and Sophie… er…"

"What a pity! We can't stay," Howl said, smiling a warm, false smile. "I just thought I'd introduce you to my friends here. And I want to ask you something that may sound silly. Has Neil by any chance lost a piece of English homework lately?"

"Just dropped in for a moment," Howl said, lowering Mari to the floor.

"Funny you should say that!" Megan exclaimed. "Looking everywhere for it, he was, last Thursday! He's got this new English teacher, see, and she's very strict, doesn't just worry about spelling either. Puts the fear of God into them about getting work in on time. Doesn't do Neil any harm, lazy little devil! So here he is on Thursday, hunting high and low, and all he can find is a funny old piece of writing --"

"Ah," said Howl. "What did he do with that writing?"

"Gareth isn't in yet," Megan said in a meaning sort of way.

"I told him to hand it in to this Miss Angorian of his," Megan said. "Might show her he tried for once."

"I don't know. Better ask Neil. He's up in the front bedroom with that machine of his," said Megan. "But you won't get a word of sense out of him."

"And did he?" Howl asked.

The main magic box had a glass front like the one downstairs, but it seemed to be showing writing and diagrams more than pictures. All the boxes grew on long, floppy white stalks that appeared to be rooted in the wall at one side of the room.

"Neil!" said Howl.

"Come on," Howl said to Michael and Sophie, who were both staring around the shiny brown-and-orange room. He took Mari's hand and led them all out of the room and up the stairs. Even those had a carpet, a pink-and-green one. So the procession led by Howl hardly made any noise as it went along the pink-and-green passage upstairs and into a room with a blue-and-yellow carpet. But Sophie was not sure the two boys crouched over the various magic boxes on a big table by the window would have looked up even for an army with a brass band.

"Don't interrupt," one of the boys said. "He'll lose his life,"

Seeing it was a matter of life and death, Sophie and Michael backed toward the door. But Howl, quite unperturbed at killing his nephew, strode over to the wall and pulled the boxes up by the roots. The picture on the box vanished. Both boys said words which Sophie did not think even Martha knew. The second boy spun round, shouting, "Mari! I'll get you for that!"

"Yes. But just take a look at this first and tell me what it is," Howl said, and he held the shiny gray paper out in front of Neil.

"How do, Neil?" Howl said pleasantly.

"My no-good uncle," Neil said. He glowered at howl. He was dark, with thick eyebrows, and his glower was impressive. "What do you want? Put that plug back in."

"There's a welcome in the valleys!" said Howl. "I'll put it back when I've asked you something and you've answered."

"Who is he?" the other boy asked.

Both the boys looked discontented. "No, it's the one I had for Christmas," Neil said. "You ought to know the way they go on about wasting time and money on useless things. They won't give me another till my birthday."

Neil whirled further round and stared accusingly at Howl.

Neil sighed. "Uncle Howell, I'm in the middle of a computer game."

"Really?" both boys said eagerly, and Neil added, "Can you make it another of those that nobody else had got?"

"Then that's easy," said Howl. "You won't mind stopping if you've done it before, and I'll bribe you with a new one --"

"A new one?" asked Howl.

"Wasn't me this time. So!" Mari shouted back.

Both boys looked at it. Neil said, "It's a poem," in the way most people would say, "It's a dead rat."

"It's the one Miss Angorian set for last week's homework," said the other boy. "I remember 'wind' and 'finned'. It's about submarines."

"Thank you," said Howl. "Where does she live?"

"When you remember how the rest of the poem goes," said Howl.

"That flat over Mrs. Phillips' tea shop. Cardiff Road," said Neil. "When will you give me the new tape?"

While Sophie and Michael blinked at this new theory, wondering how they had missed it, Neil exclaimed, "Hey! It's my long-lost homework. Where'd you find it? Was that funny writing that turned up yours? Miss Angorian said it was interesting-lucky for me -- and she took it home with her."

"That's not fair!" said Neil. "I can't even remember the bit that was written down now. That's just playing with a person's feelings…" He stopped when Howl laughed, felt in one baggy pocket, and handed him a flat packet. "Thanks!" Neil said devoutly, and without more ado he whirled round to his magic boxes. Howl planted the bundle of roots back in the wall, grinning, and beckoned Michael and Sophie out of the room. Moth boys began a flurry of mysterious activity, into which Mari somehow squeezed herself, watching with her thumb in her mouth.

Sophie wondered at the familiarity of this as she hobbled to the stairs. She found Michael standing halfway down, looking embarrassed. Howl was at the foot of the stairs having an argument with his sister.

Howl hurried away to the pink-and-green stairs, but Michael and Sophie both hung about near the door of the room, wondering what the whole thing was about. Inside, Neil was reading aloud. "You are in an enchanted castle with four doors. Each opens on a different dimension. In Dimension One the castle is moving constantly and may arrive at a hazard at any time…"

"What do you mean, you've sold all my books?" she heard Howl saying. "I needed one of them particularly. They weren't yours to sell."

"Don't keep interrupting!" Megan answered in a low, ferocious voice. "Listen now! I've told you before I'm not a storehouse for your property. You're a disgrace to me and Gareth, lounging about in those clothes instead of buying a proper suit and looking respectable for once, taking up with riffraff and layabouts, bringing them to this house! Are you trying to bring me down to your level? You had all that education, and you don't even get a decent job, you just hang around, wasting all that time at college, wasting all those sacrifices other people made, wasting your money…"

"… never doing an honest day's work, never getting a job I could be proud of, bringing shame on me and Gareth, coming here and spoiling Mari rotten," Megan ground on remorselessly.

Megan would have been a match for Mrs. Fairfax. Her voice went on and on. Sophie began to understand how Howl had acquired the habit of slithering out. Megan was the kind of person who made you want to back quietly out of the nearest door. Unfortunately, Howl was backed up against the stairs, and Sophie and Michael were bottled up behind him.

Sophie pushed Michael aside and stumped downstairs, looking as stately as she could manage. "Come, Howl," she said grandly. "We really must be on our way. While we stand here, money is ticking away and your servants are probably selling the gold plate. So nice to meet you," she said to Megan as she arrived at the foot of the stairs, "but we must rush. Howl is such a busy man."

Megan gulped a bit and stared at Sophie. Sophie gave her a stately nod and pushed Howl toward the wavy-glass front door. Michael's face was bright red. Sophie saw that because Howl turned back to ask Megan, "Is my old car still in the shed, or have you sold that too?"

Sophie wished to forget the next bit. They rode in a carriage without horses that went at a terrifying speed, smelling and growling and shaking as it tore down some of the steepest roads Sophie had never seen-roads so steep that she wondered why the houses lining them did not slide into a heap at the bottom. She shut her eyes and clung to some of the pieces that had torn off the seats, and simply hoped it would be over soon.

That seemed to be the only goodbye. The front door slammed and Howl took them to a square white building at the end of the flat black road. Howl did not say anything about Megan. He said, as he unlocked a wide door in the building, "I suppose the fierce English teacher is bound to have a copy of that book."

"You've got the only set of keys," Megan answered dourly.

Luckily, it was. They arrived in a flatter road with houses crammed in on both sides, beside a large window filled with a white curtain and a notice that said: TEAS CLOSED. But, despite this forbidding notice, when Howl pressed a button at a small door beside the window, Miss Angorian opened the door.

"I'll take a small guess that you may be Howell Jenkins," Miss Angorian said to Howl. She had a low, melodious voice that was nevertheless rather amused and quite sure of itself.

Howl was taken aback for an instant. Then his smile snapped on. And that, Sophie thought, was goodbye to the pleasant dreams of Lettie and Mrs. Fairfax. For Miss Angorian was exactly the kind of lady someone like Howl could be trusted to fall in love with on the spot. And not only Howl. Michael was staring admiringly too. And though all the houses around were apparently deserted, Sophie had no doubt that they were full of people who all knew both Howl and Miss Angorian and were watching with interest to see what would happen. She could feel their invisible eyes. Market Chipping was like that too.

They all stared at her. For a fierce schoolteacher, Miss Angorian was astonishingly young and slender and good-looking. She had sheets of blue-black hair hanging round her olive-brown heart-shaped face, and enormous dark eyes. The only thing which suggested fierceness about her was the direct and clever way those enormous eyes looked and seemed to sum them up.

Sophie was sure the invisible eyes in all the houses goggled and the invisible necks craned as Howl and Michael and she trooped in through Miss Angorian's door and up a flight of stairs to Miss Angorian's tiny, severe living room.

"And you must be Miss Angorian," said Howl. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I made a stupid mistake last week and carried off my nephew's English homework instead of a rather important paper I had with me. I gather Neil gave it to you as proof that he wasn't shirking."

"He did," said Miss Angorian. "You'd better come in and collect it."

Miss Angorian said considerately to Sophie, "Won't you sit down?"

Sophie was still shaking from that horseless carriage. She sat down gladly on one of the two chairs. It was not very comfortable. Miss Angorian's room was not designed for comfort but for study. Though many of the things in it were strange, Sophie understood the walls of books, and the piles of paper on the table, and the folders stacked on the floor. She sat and watched Michael staring sheepishly and Howl turning on his charm.

"How is it you come to know who I am?" Howl asked beguilingly.

"You seem to have caused a lot of gossip in this town," Miss Angorian said, busy sorting through papers on the table.

"And what else?" Howl followed Miss Angorian's movements with such a look that Sophie knew Lettie's only chance was for Miss Angorian to fall instantly in love with Howl too.

"That you disappear and turn up rather unpredictably, for one thing," Miss Angorian said.

"And what have those people who gossip told you?" Howl asked. He leaned languishingly on the end of the table and tried to catch Miss Angorian's eye.

"Then please tell me," said Miss Angorian.

But Miss Angorian was not that kind of lady. She said, "Many other things, few of them to your credit," and caused Michael to blush by looking at him and Sophie in a way that suggested these things were not fit for their ears. She held a yellowish wavy-edged paper out to Howl. "Here it is," she said severely. "Do you know what it is?"

Howl took the paper. There was a bit of a scuffle as he tried to take Miss Angorian's hand with it. Miss Angorian won the scuffle and put her hands behind her back. Howl smiled meltingly and passed the paper to Michael. "You tell her," he said.

"Of course," said Howl.

Michael's blushing face lit up as soon as he looked at it. "It's the spell! Oh, I can do this one -- it's enlargement, isn't it?"

"That's what I thought," Miss Angorian said rather accusingly. "I'd like to know what you were doing with such a thing."

"Miss Angorian," said Howl, "if you have heard all those things about me, you must know I wrote my doctoral thesis on charms and spells. You look as if you suspect me of working black magic! I assure you, I never worked any kind of spell in my life." Sophie could not stop herself making a small snort at this blatant lie. "With my hand on my heart," Howl added, giving Sophie an irritated frown, "this spell is for study purposes only. It's very old and rare. That's why I wanted it back."

"Well, you have it back," Miss Angorian said briskly. "Before you go, would you mind giving me my homework sheet in return? Photocopies cost money."

Howl brought out the gray paper willingly and held it just out of reach. "This poem now," he said. "It's been bothering me. Silly, really! -- but I can't remember the rest of it. By Walter Raleigh, isn't it?"

Miss Angorian gave him a withering look. "Certainly not. It's by John Donne and it's very well known indeed. I have the book with it in here, if you want to refresh your memory."

"Please," said Howl, and from the way his eyes followed Miss Angorian as she went to her wall of books, Sophie realized that this was the real reason why Howl had come into this strange land where his family lived.

"My fiancé," said Miss Angorian. "He disappeared some years back. Now, do you wish me to read this poem to you?"

But Howl was not above killing two birds with one stone. "Miss Angorian," he said pleadingly, following her contours as she stretched for the book, "would you consider coming out for some supper with me tonight?"

Miss Angorian turned round with a large book in her hands, looking more severe than ever. "I would not," she said. "Mr. Jenkins, I don't know what you've heard about me, but you must have heard that I still consider myself engaged to Ben Sullivan --"

"Never heard of him," said Howl.

"Do that," Howl said, quite unrepentant. "You have such a lovely voice."

Howl had gone a terrible white. Sophie could see sweat standing on his face. "Thank you," he said. "Stop there. I won't trouble you for the rest. Even the good woman is untrue in the last verse, isn't she? I remember now. Silly of me. John Donne, of course." Miss Angorian lowered the book and stared at him. He forced up a smile. "We must be going now. Sure you won't change your mind about supper?"

All strange wonders that befell thee,

No where

"If thou beest born to strange sights,

Till age snow white hairs on thee.

And swear

Lives a woman true, and fair.

"Then I'll start with the second verse," Miss Angorian said, "since you have the first verse there in your hand." She read very well, not only melodiously, but in a way which made the second verse fit the rhythm of the first, which in Sophie's opinion it did not do at all:

If thou --"

Thou, when thou returnest, wilt tell me

Things invisible to see,

Ride ten thousand days and nights

"I will not," said Miss Angorian. "Are you quite well, Mr. Jenkins?"

"Oh, nothing," Howl said airily, leading the way back to the yellow house called RIVENDELL. "The Witch of the Waste has caught up with me with her curse, that's all. Bound to happen sooner or later." He seemed to be calculating or doing sums in his head while he opened the garden gate. "Ten thousand," Sophie heard him murmur. "That brings it to about Midsummer Day."

"What is brought to Midsummer Day?" asked Sophie.

"In the pink," Howl said, and he hustled Michael and Sophie away down the stairs and into the horrible horseless carriage. The invisible watchers in the houses must have thought Miss Angorian was chasing them with a saber, if they judged from the speed with which Howl packed them into it and drove off.

"What's the matter?" Michael asked as the carriage went roaring and grinding uphill again and Sophie clung to bits of seat for dear life. Howl pretended not to hear. So Michael waited until Howl was locking it into its shed and asked again.

"The time I'll be ten thousand days old," Howl said. "And that, Mrs. Nose," he said, swinging into the garden of RIVENDELL, "is the day I shall have to go back to the Witch of the Waste." Sophie and Michael hung back on the path, staring at Howl's back, so mysteriously labeled WELSH RUGBY. "If I keep clear of mermaids," they heard him mutter, "and don't touch a mandrake root --"

"I shudder to think," Howl said. "You don't have to go back in, Michael."

Michael called out, "Do we have to go back into that house?" and Sophie called out, "What will the Witch do?"

"She caught up, old blueface," he said.

He opened the wavy-glass door. Inside was the familiar room of the castle. Calcifer's sleepy flames were coloring the walls faintly blue-green in the dusk. Howl flung back his long sleeves and gave Calcifer a log.

"I know," said Calcifer. "I felt it take."