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

“Not humanly possible,” she remarked to herself as she put Waif down on the living room carpet. The room struck her as being unusually clean and tidy. Everything was orderly, from the suitcase neatly put back beside one of the armchairs to the vase of variously colored hydrangeas on the coffee table. Charmain frowned at this vase. It was surely the one that had disappeared when it was put on the trolley. Maybe Peter ordered Morning Coffee and it came back then, she though

t—rather vaguely, because she suddenly remembered that she had left damp clothing all over her bedroom and bedclothes trailing over the floor. Bother! I have to tidy up.

She stopped short in the doorway of her bedroom. Someone had made her bed. Her clothes, dry now, were neatly folded on top of the chest of drawers. It was an outrage. Feeling anything but kind, Charmain stormed into the kitchen.

Peter was sitting at the kitchen table, looking so virtuous that Charmain knew he had been up to something. Behind him, on the fire, a large black pot was bubbling out strange, weak, savory smells.

“What do you mean by tidying up my room?” Charmain demanded.

Peter looked injured, even though Charmain could tell he was full of secret, exciting thoughts. “I thought you’d be pleased,” he said.

“Well, I’m not!” Charmain said. She was surprised to find herself almost in tears. “I was just beginning to learn that if I drop something on the floor it stays dropped unless I pick it up, and if I make a mess I have to clear it away because it doesn’t go by itself, and then you go and clear it up for me! You’re as bad as my mother!”

“I’ve got to do something while I’m alone here all day,” Peter protested. “Or do you expect me to just sit here?”

“You can do anything you like,” Charmain yelled. “Dance. Stand on your head. Make faces at Rollo. But don’t spoil my learning process!”

“Feel free to learn,” Peter retorted. “You’ve got a long way to go. I won’t touch your room again. Are you interested in some of the things I’ve learned today? Or are you thoroughly self-centered?”

Charmain gulped. “I was meaning to be kind to you this evening, but you make it very difficult.”

“My mother says difficulties help you learn,” Peter said. “You should be pleased. I’ll tell you one thing I’ve learned today, and that’s how to get enough supper.” He pointed with his thumb to the bubbling pot. That thumb had a piece of green string round it. The other thumb had red string and one of his fingers was decorated with blue string.

He’s been trying to go in three directions at once, Charmain thought. Striving mightily to sound friendly, she said, “How do you get enough supper, then?”

“I kept banging on the pantry door,” Peter said, “until enough things landed on the table. Then I put them in that pot to boil.”

Charmain looked at the pot. “What things?”

“Liver and bacon,” Peter said. “Cabbage. More turnips and a chunk of rabbit. Onions, two more chops, and a leek. It was easy, really.”

Yuk! thought Charmain. In order not to say something really rude, she turned round to go to the living room.

Peter called after her, “Don’t you want to know how I got that vase of flowers back?”

“You sat on the trolley,” Charmain said coldly, and went away to read The Twelve-Branched Wand.

But it was no good. She kept looking up and seeing that vase of hydrangeas and then looking over at the trolley and wondering if Peter had truly sat there and vanished away with an Afternoon Tea. Then wondering how he had got back. And every time she looked, she was more aware that her resolve to be kind to Peter had come to absolutely nothing. She stood it for nearly an hour and then went back to the kitchen. “I apologize,” she said. “How did you get the flowers back?”

Peter was prodding at the stuff in the pot with a spoon. “I don’t think this is ready yet,” he said. “This spoon bounces off.”

“Oh, come on,” Charmain said. “I’m being polite.”

“I’ll tell you over supper,” Peter said.

He kept his word, maddeningly. He hardly said a word for an hour, until the contents of the pot had been shared into two bowls. Dividing the food was not easy, because Peter had not bothered to peel anything or cut it up before he put it in the pot. They had to hack the cabbage apart with two spoons. Nor had Peter remembered that a stew needs salt. Everything—white, soggy bacon, hunk of rabbit, whole turnip, and flabby onion—floated in weak watery juice. To put it mildly, the food was quite horrible. Doing her best to be kind, Charmain did not say it was.

The only good thing was that Waif liked it. That is to say, she lapped up the weak juice and then carefully ate the meaty bits out from among the cabbage. Charmain did much the same and tried not to shudder. She was glad to take her mind off it by listening to what Peter had to tell.

“Are you aware,” he began, rather pompously, to Charmain’s mind. But she could tell that he had everything worked out in his mind like a story and was going to tell it just as he had it worked out. “Are you aware that when things vanish from the trolley, they go back into the past?”

“Well, I suppose the past makes quite a good waste dump,” Charmain said. “As long as you make sure it really is past and things don’t turn up again all moldy—”

“Do you want to hear or not?” Peter demanded.

Be kind, Charmain told herself. She ate another piece of nasty cabbage and nodded.

“And that parts of this house are in the past?” Peter continued. “I didn’t sit on the trolley, you know. I just went exploring with a list of the ways I needed to turn, and I found out by accident, really. I must have turned the wrong way once or twice.”