House of Many Ways (Howl's Moving Castle 3)

“Yes,” Charmain said. “That was breakfast.” She picked the fallen teapot up. The tea that had spilled out of it rapidly turned into brown bubbles, which whirled upward to make a brown streak among the other bubbles. “Now look what you’ve done.”

“A bit more won’t make any difference to this mess,” Peter said. “Don’t you ever tidy up? This is a really good pie. What’s this other one?”

Charmain looked at Waif, who was sitting soulfully beside the apple tart. “Apple,” she said. “And if you eat it, you have to give some to Waif too.”

“Is that a rule?” Peter said, swallowing the last of the pork pie.

“Yes,” said Charmain. “Waif made it and he—I mean she—is very firm about it.”

“She’s magical, then?” Peter suggested, picking up the apple tart. Waif at once made small soulful noises and trotted about among the teapots.

“I don’t know,” Charmain began. Then she thought of the way Waif seemed to be able to go anywhere in the house and how the front door had burst open for her earlier on. “Yes,” she said. “I’m sure she is. Very magical.”

Slowly and grudgingly, Peter broke a lump off the apple tart. Waif’s frayed tail wagged and Waif’s eyes followed his every movement. She seemed to know exactly what Peter was doing, no matter how many bubbles got in the way. “I see what you mean,” Peter said, and he passed the lump to Waif. Waif gently took it in her jaws, jumped from the table to the chair and then to the floor, and went pattering away to eat it somewhere behind the laundry bags. “How about a hot drink?” Peter said.

A hot drink was something Charmain had been yearning for ever since she fell off the mountainside. She shivered and hugged her sweater round herself. “What a good idea,” she said. “Do make one if you can find out how.”

Peter waved bubbles aside to look at the teapots on the table. “Someone must have made all these pots of tea,” he said.

“Great-Uncle William must have made them,” Charmain said. “It wasn’t me.”

“But it shows it can be done,” Peter said. “Stop standing there looking feeble and find a saucepan or something.”

“You find one,” Charmain said.

Peter shot her a scornful look and strode across the room, waving bubbles aside as he went, until he reached the crowded sink. There he naturally made the discoveries that Charmain had made earlier. “There are no taps!” he said incredulously. “And all these saucepans are dirty. Where does he get water from?”

“There’s a pump out in the yard,” Charmain said unkindly.

Peter looked among the bubbles at the window, where rain was still streaming across the panes. “Isn’t there a bathroom?” he said. And before Charmain could explain how you got to it, he waved and stumbled his way across the kitchen to the other door and arrived in the living room. Bubbles stormed in there around him as he dived angrily back into the kitchen. “Is this a joke?” he said incredulously. “He can’t have only these two rooms!”

Charmain sighed, huddled her sweater further around herself, and went to show him. “You open the door again and turn left,” she explained, and then had to grab Peter as he turned right. “No. That way goes to somewhere very strange. This is left. Can’t you tell?”

“No,” Peter said. “I never can. I usually have to tie a piece of string round my thumb.”

Charmain rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and pushed him left. They both arrived in the corridor, which was loud with the rain pelting across the window at the end. Light slowly flooded the place as Peter stood looking around.

“Now you can turn right,” Charmain said, pushing him that way. “The bathroom’s this door here. That row of doors leads to bedrooms.”

“Ah!” Peter said admiringly. “He’s been bending space. That’s something I can’t wait to learn how to do. Thanks,” he added, and plunged into the bathroom. His voice floated back to Charmain as she tiptoed toward the study. “Oh, good! Taps! Water!”

Charmain whisked herself into Great-Uncle William’s study and closed the door, while the funny twisted lamp on the desk lit up and grew brighter. By the time she reached the desk, it was almost bright as daylight in there. Charmain shoved aside Das Zauberbuch and picked up the bundle of letters underneath. She had to check. If Peter was telling the truth, one of the letters asking to be Great-Uncle William’s apprentice had to be from him. Because she had only skimmed through them before, she had no memory of seeing one, and if there wasn’t one, she was dealing with an imposter, possibly another lubbock. She had to know.

Ah! Here it was, halfway down the pile. She put her glasses on and read:

Esteemed Wizard Norland,

With regard to my becoming your apprentice, will it be convenient for me to arrive with you in a week’s time, instead of in the autumn as arranged? My mother has to journey into Ingary and prefers to have me settled before she leaves. Unless I hear from you to the contrary, I shall present myself at your house on the thirteenth of this month.

Hoping this is convenient,

Yours faithfully,

Peter Regis

So that seems to be all right! Charmain thought, half relieved and half annoyed. When she had skimmed the letters earlier, her eye must have caught the word apprentice near the top and the word hoping near the bottom, and those words were in all the letters. So she had assumed it was just another begging letter. And it looked as if Great-Uncle William had done the same. Or perhaps he had been too ill to reply. Whatever had happened, she seemed to be stuck with Peter. Bother! At least he’s not sinister, she thought.

Here she was interrupted by dismayed yelling from Peter in the distance. Charmain hastily stuffed the letters back under Das Zauberbuch, snatched off her glasses, and dived out into the corridor.