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

“He found it,” Charmain said. “You can tell by these arrows that say ‘Unexplored’ that he doesn’t know what’s out there yet.”

“You may be right,” Peter said judiciously. “He really only uses the middle bits, doesn’t he? We can do him a favor by exploring more of it.”

“You can if you like,” Charmain said. “I’m going to read my book.” She folded up the paper with the swirly lines on it and stowed it in her pocket. This could save her a journey in the morning.

In the morning, Charmain’s good clothes were still damp. She had to leave them draped depressingly around her room and get into her next-nicest, while she wondered if she could manage to leave Waif behind with Peter today. Perhaps not. Suppose Peter tried another spell and contrived to turn Waif inside out or something.

Waif of course came trotting eagerly after Charmain into the kitchen. Charmain tapped the fireplace for dog food and then, a little doubtfully, for her own breakfast. It could be that she and Peter had thrown the spell out by demanding breakfast yesterday evening.

But no. Today she got a full tray, with a choice of tea or coffee, and toast, and a plate piled high with something made with fish and rice, and a peach to follow. I think the spell’s apologizing, she thought. She didn’t like the fish stuff much, so she gave most of it to Waif, who liked it the way she always liked food and smelled quite fishy as she trotted after Charmain when Charmain unfolded her swirly paper, ready to go to the Royal Mansion.

Looking at the swirls confused Charmain. She found she had been even more confused by the chart in the suitcase. Bending the paper backward and forward to try and reproduce what was in the suitcase did not help at all. After several turns left and right, she found herself walking into a place that was large and well lighted by big windows overlooking the river. There was a fine view of the town across the river, where, most frustratingly, she could see the golden roof of the Royal Mansion gleaming in the sunlight.

“But I’m trying to get there, not here!” she said, looking around.

There were long wooden tables under the windows, loaded with strange implements and more implements stacked in the middle of the room. The other walls were full of shelves piled with jars, tins, and odd-shaped glassware. Charmain sniffed the smell of new wood here, which was overlaid by the same thunderstorm-and-spice smell she had noticed in Great-Uncle William’s study. The smell of magic having been done, she thought. This must be his workroom. To judge by the way Waif was trotting cheerily about, Waif knew this place well.

“Come on, Waif,” Charmain said, pausing to look at a piece of paper on top of the strange implements in the middle of the room. It said, “Please do not touch.” “Let’s go back to the kitchen and start again.”

It did not work out that way. A left turn from the workroom door brought them into a warm, warm place open to the sky, where a small blue pool rippled amid white stone surrounds. The place was fenced off by white stone trellises with roses growing up them, and there were white reclining chairs beside the roses, piled with large fluffy towels. Ready for when you’d finished swimming, Charmain supposed. But poor Waif was terrified of this place. She crouched against the gateway, whining and trembling.

Charmain picked her up. “Did someone try to drown you, Waif? Were you a puppy someone didn’t want? It’s all right. I’m not going near this water either. I’ve no idea how to swim.” As she turned left through the gateway, it occurred to her that swimming was only one of a very large number of things she had no idea how to do. Peter had been right to object to her ignorance. “It’s not that I’m lazy,” she explained to Waif as they arrived in what seemed to be the stables, “or stupid. I’ve just not bothered to look round the edges of Mother’s way of doing things, you see.”

The stables were rather smelly. Charmain was relieved to see that the horses that must belong there were up in a meadow beyond a fence. Horses were another thing she had no idea about. At least Waif did not seem to be frightened here.

Charmain sighed, put Waif down, scrabbled up her glasses, and looked at the confusing swirly chart again. “Stables” were here, up in the mountains somewhere. She needed two right turns from there to the kitchen again. She turned right twice, with Waif pattering behind, and found herself in near dark outside what seemed to be a large cave full of hurrying blue kobolds. Each one of them turned and glowered at Charmain. Charmain hurriedly turned right again. And this time she was in a store for cups, plates, and teapots. Waif whined. Charmain stared at several hundred teapots, in rows on shelves, of every possible color and size, and began to panic. It was getting late. Worse than that, when she put her glasses on again and consulted the plan, she found she was somewhere near the bottom left-hand part of the swirls, where the arrow pointing off to the edge had a note that said “A group of lubbockins live down this way. Care necessary.”

“Oh,” Charmain exclaimed. “This is ridiculous! Come on, Waif.” She opened the door they had just come through and turned right yet again.

This time they were in complete darkness. Charmain could feel Waif nosing anxiously up against her ankles. Both of them sniffed and Charmain said, “Ah!” This place had a damp stone smell that she remembered from the day she had arrived in the house. “Great-Uncle William,” she asked, “how do I get from here to the kitchen again?”

Much to her relief, the kindly voice answered. It sounded very faint and far away now. “If you are there, my dear, you are rather lost, so listen carefully. Make one turn clockwise…”

Charmain had no need to listen anymore. Instead of making a complete turn, she turned carefully halfway and then peered forward. Sure enough, there was a dimly lighted stone corridor ahead, crossing the one she seemed to be standing in. She strode thankfully toward it, with Waif trotting behind her, and turned into that corridor. She knew she was now in the Royal Mansion. It was the same corridor where she had seen Sim pushing a trolley on her first day in Great-Uncle William’s house. Not only did it smell right—with faint foody smells on top of the damp stone smell—but the walls had the typical Royal Mansion look, with lighter squares and oblongs where pictures had been taken away. The only trouble was that she had no idea whereabouts in the Mansion this was. Waif was no help. She simply plastered herself against Charmain’s ankles and shivered.

Charmain picked Waif up and walked down the corridor, hoping to find somewhere she knew. She turned two corners without being any the wiser and then almost ran into the colorless gentleman who had passed the crumpets round yesterday. He jumped backward, thoroughly startled.

“Dear me,” he said, peering at Charmain in the gloom. “I had no idea you had arrived yet, Miss…er…Charming, is it? Are you lost? Can I assist?”

“Yes, please,” Charmain said resourcefully. “I went to the…to the…er…um…you know, the one for ladies—and I must have turned the wrong way afterward. Can you tell me the way back to the library?”

“I can do better than that,” said the colorless gentleman. “I’ll show you. Just follow me.”

He turned round and led the way back where he had been coming from, along another dim corridor and across a large, cold lobby, where a flight of stone stairs led upward. Waif’s tail began to twitch slightly, as if she found this part familiar. But her tail stopped moving as they crossed in front of the stairs. Morgan’s voice came booming down from the top of the flight.

“Don’t want to! Don’t want! Don’t WANT!”

Twinkle’s shriller voice joined in. “I can’t wear thethe! I want my thtwipey oneth!”

Sophie Pendragon’s voice echoed down too. “Be quiet, both of you! Or I’ll do something dreadful, I warn you! I’ve no patience left!”

The colorless gentleman winced. He said to Charmain, “Small children bring so much life to a place, don’t they?”

Charmain looked up at him, meaning to nod and grin. But something made her shudder instead. She was not sure why. She managed to give a little nod and that was all, before she followed the gentleman throu

gh an archway, where the booming of Morgan and the screaming of Twinkle died away into the distance.

Round another corner, the colorless gentleman opened a door that Charmain recognized as the door to the library. “Miss Charming seems to have arrived, Sire,” he said, bowing.