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

“Why?” said Peter. “You don’t think—”

“Now!” said Charmain.

To her relief, Peter went crossly splashing off, muttering about bossy, bad-tempered cats. Charmain pretended not to hear. Meanwhile, she dared not let go of the slit and the slit kept spraying and she was getting wetter every second. Oh, blast Peter! She put her other hand on the farther end of the slit and began pushing and sliding her hands together as hard as she could. “Close up!” she ordered the pipe. “Stop leaking and close up!” Water spouted rudely into her face. She could feel the slit trying to dodge, but she refused to let it. She pushed and pushed. I can do magic! she thought at the pipe. I worked a spell. I can make you close up! “So close up!”

And it worked. By the time Peter came wading back with just two cloths, saying those were all he could find, Charmain was soaked through to her underclothes but the pipe was whole again. Charmain took the cloths and bound them around the pipe on either side of where the slit had been. Then she snatched up the long back brush from beside the bath—this being the only thing remotely like a wizard’s staff that she could see—and batted at the cloths with it.

“Stay there. Don’t dare move!” she told the cloths. She batted at the mended slit. “You stay shut,” she told it, “or it’ll be the worse for you!” After that she turned the back brush on Peter’s blobby gray spells and batted at them too. “Go!” she told them. “Go away! You’re useless!” And they all obediently vanished. Charmain, flushed with a sense of great power, batted at the hot tap beside her knees. “Run hot again,” she told it, “and let’s have no nonsense! And you,” she added, reaching across to bat at the hot tap on the washbasin. “Both hot—but not too hot, or I’ll give you grief. But you stay running cold,” she instructed the cold taps, batting them. Finally, she came out of the bath with a great splash and batted at the water on the floor. “And you go! Go on, dry up, drain away. Go! Or else!”

Peter waded over to the washbasin, turned the hot tap on, and held his hand under it. “It’s warm!” he said. “You really did it! That’s a relief. Thanks.”

“Huh!” said Charmain, soaked and cold and grumpy. “Now I’m going to change into dry clothes and read a book.”

Peter asked, rather pathetically, “Aren’t you going to help mop up, then?”

Charmain did not see why she should. But her eye fell on poor Waif, struggling toward her with water lapping at her underside. It did not look as if the back brush had worked on the floors. “All right,” she sighed. “But I have done a day’s work already, you know.”

“So have I,” Peter said feelingly. “I was rushing about all day tryi

ng to stop that pipe leaking. Let’s get the kitchen dry, at least.”

As the fire was still leaping and crackling in the kitchen grate, it was not unlike a steam bath in there. Charmain waded through the tepid water and opened the window. Apart from the mysteriously multiplying laundry bags, which were sodden, everywhere but the floor was dry. This included the suitcase, open on the table.

Behind Charmain, Peter spoke strange words and Waif whimpered.

Charmain whirled round to find Peter with his arms stretched out. Little flames were flickering on them, from his fingers to his shoulders. “Dry, O waters on the floor!” he intoned. Flames began to flicker across his hair and down his damp front too. His face changed from smug to alarmed. “Oh dear!” he said. As he said this, the flames rippled all over him and he began to burn quite fiercely. By then he looked plain frightened. “It’s hot! Help!”

Charmain rushed at him, seized one of his blazing arms, and pushed him over into the water on the floor. This did no good at all. Charmain stared at the extraordinary sight of flames flickering away under the water and simmering bubbles appearing all round Peter, where the water was starting to boil, and hauled him up again double quick in a shower of hot water and steam. “Cancel it!” she shouted, snatching her hands off his hot sleeve. “What spell did you use?”

“I don’t know how!” Peter wailed.

“What spell?” Charmain bawled at him.

“It was the spell to stop floods in The Boke of Palimpsest,” Peter babbled, “and I’ve no idea how to cancel it.”

“Oh, you are stupid!” Charmain cried out. She grabbed him by one flaming shoulder and shook him. “Cancel, spell!” she shouted. “Ouch! Spell, I order you to cancel at once!”

The spell obeyed her. Charmain stood shaking her scorched hand and watched the flames vanish in a sizzle, a cloud of steam, and a wet, singeing smell. It left Peter looking brown and frizzled all over. His face and hands were bright pink and his hair was noticeably shorter. “Thanks!” he said, flopping over with relief.

Charmain pushed him upright. “Pooh! You smell of burned hair! How can you be so stupid! What other spells have you been doing?”

“Nothing,” Peter said, raking burned bits out of his hair. Charmain was fairly sure he was lying, but if he was, Peter was not going to confess. “And it wasn’t that stupid,” he argued. “Look at the floor.”

Charmain looked down to see that the water had mostly gone. The floor was once again simply tiles, wet, shiny, and steaming, but not flooded any longer. “Then you’ve been very lucky,” she said.

“I mostly am,” Peter said. “My mother always says that too, whenever I do a spell that goes wrong. I think I’m going to have to change into different clothes.”

“Me too,” Charmain said.

They went through the inner door, where Peter tried to turn right and Charmain pushed him left, so that they went straight and arrived in the living room. The wet trickles on the carpet there were steaming and drying out rapidly, but the room still smelled horrible. Charmain snorted, turned Peter round, and pushed him left through the door again. Here, the corridor was damp, but not full of water any longer.

“See?” Peter said as he went into his bedroom. “It did work.”

“Huh!” Charmain said, going into her own room. I wonder what else he’s done. I don’t trust him an inch. Her best clothes were a wet mess. Charmain took them off sadly and hung them around the room to get dry. And nothing was going to cure the big scorch mark down the front of her best jacket. She would have to wear ordinary clothes tomorrow when she went to the Royal Mansion. And do I dare leave Peter alone here? she wondered. I bet he’ll spend the time experimenting with spells. I know I would. She shrugged a little, as she realized she was no better than Peter really. She had been quite unable to resist the spells in The Boke of Palimpsest either.

She was feeling much more kindly toward Peter when she came back to the kitchen, dry again except for her hair and wearing her oldest clothes and her slippers.

“Find out how to ask for supper,” Peter said, as Charmain put her wet shoes to dry in the hearth. “I’m starving.” He was looking much more comfortable in the old blue suit that he had arrived in.