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

“‘You can get them to grow blue too,’ I said. ‘My mother uses a spell with copper powder for ours.’ And while he was murmuring about that, I asked him if I could take them back with me, so that I could prove to you that I’d met him.

“‘Certainly, certainly,’ he said. ‘They are rather in the way here. And tell your young lady who knows the fire demon that I hope to have my chart of the house finished by the time she is grown up enough to need it.’

“So,” Peter said, “I took the flowers and came away. Wasn’t that extraordinary!”

“Very,” said Charmain. “He wouldn’t have grown hydrangeas if the kobolds hadn’t cut them off and I hadn’t picked them up and you hadn’t got lost—It makes my head go round.” She pushed aside her bowlful of cabbage and turnip. I shall be nice to him. I shall, I shall! “Peter, how would it be if I called in on my father on my way home tomorrow and asked him for a cookery book? He must have hundreds. He’s the best cook in town.”

Peter looked utterly relieved. “Good idea,” he said. “My mother’s never told me much about cooking. She always does it all.”

And I shan’t object to the way he’s made Great-Uncle William think of me, Charmain vowed. I shall be kind. But if he does that once again…

Chapter Ten

IN WHICH TWINKLE TAKES TO THE ROOF

In the night, a worrying thought struck Charmain. If you could travel in time in Great-Uncle William’s house, what was to stop her arriving in the Royal Mansion ten years ago, to find that the King was not expecting her? Or ten years in the future, to find that Prince Ludovic was ruling now? It was enough to make her decide to walk to the Mansion in the usual way.

So, the next morning, Charmain set off along the road, with Waif pattering behind her, until they came by the cliff where the lubbock’s meadow was, when Waif became so breathless and pathetic that Charmain picked her up. As usual, Charmain thought. I feel like a proper grown-up working girl, she added to herself as she strode toward town with Waif happily trying to lick her chin.

It had rained in the night again, but now it was one of those mornings of pale blue sky and huge white clouds. The mountains were silky blues and greens, and in the town, the sun glittered off wet cobbles and flared on the river. Charmain felt very contented. She was really looking forward to a day of sorting papers and chatting with the King.

As she crossed Royal Square, the sun glared so off the golden roof of the Royal Mansion that Charmain was forced to look down at the cobbles. Waif blinked and ducked and then jumped as a loud squealing sound came from the Mansion.

“Look at me! Look at me!”

Charmain looked, found her eyes full of tears from the dazzle, and looked again under a hand spared from Waif. The child Twinkle was sitting astride the golden roof, fully a hundred feet in the air, waving merrily to her. He almost overbalanced doing it. At the sight, Charmain forgot all the unkind thoughts she had had about children yesterday. She dumped Waif on the cobbles and ran for the Mansion door, where she clattered at the great knocker and rang the bell furiously.

“That little boy!” she gasped at Sim when he slowly and creakily opened the door. “Twinkle. He’s sitting on the roof! Someone has to get him down!”

“Is that so?” said Sim. He tottered out onto the steps. Charmain had to wait while he tottered to a place where he could see the roof and craned shakily upward. “Indeed he is, miss,” he agreed. “Little demon. He’ll fall. That roof is as slippery as ice.”

Charmain was jigging with impatience by then. “Send someone to fetch him in! Quickly!”

“I don’t know who,” Sim said slowly. “Nobody much in this Mansion climbs too well. I could send Jamal, I suppose, but with only the one eye his balance is not too good.”

Waif was prancing about, yapping to be carried up the steps. Charmain ignored her. “Then send me,” she said. “Just tell me how to get there. Now. Before he slides off sideways.”

“Good notion,” Sim agreed. “You take the stairs at the end of the hall, miss, and keep on going up. Last flight’s wooden and you’ll find a small door—”

Charmain waited for no more. Leaving Waif to fend for herself, she raced off down the damp stone corridor until she came to the lobby with the stone stairs. There she began to climb for dear life, with her glasses bouncing on her chest and her footsteps ringing round the walls. Up she went, two long flights, her mind filled with horrible thoughts of a small body plummeting down and hitting the cobbles with…well…a splash, just about where she had left Waif. Panting hard, she hurried up a third, narrower flight. It seemed endless. Then she came to wooden stairs and clattered up those, almost out of breath. They seemed endless too. At last she came to a small wooden door. Praying she was still in time, Charmain flung open the door onto a blaze of sunlight and gold.

“I fort you were never coming,” Twinkle said from the middle of the roof. He was wearing a pale blue velvet suit and his golden hair blazed as bright as the roof. He seemed perfectly calm, more like a strayed angel than a small boy in trouble on a roof.

“Are you very frightened?” Charmain panted anxiously. “Hold on very tight and don’t move and I’ll crawl out and get you.”

“Pleathe do that,” Twinkle said politely.

He doesn’t know the danger he’s in! Charmain thought. I shall have to keep very calm. Very cautiously, she climbed out through the wooden door and maneuvered until she was sitting astride the roof like Twinkle. It was highly uncomfortable. Charmain did not know which was worse: the fact that the tin tiles were hot, wet, sharp, and slippery, or the way the roof seemed to be cutting her in two. When she snatched a sideways look at Royal Square, far, far below, she had to remind herself, very seriously, that she had worked a spell only three days ago that had saved her from the lubbock and proved that she could fly. She might be able to grab Twinkle round his waist and float down with him.

Here she realized that Twinkle was moving backward away from her as she worked her way toward him. “Stop that!” she said. “Don’t you know how dangerous this is?”

“Of courthe I do,” Twinkle retorted. “Heighth thcare me thilly

. But thith ith the only plathe where I can talk to you without anyone overhearing. Jutht get yourthelf to the middle of the roof where I don’t have to thout. And be quick. Printheth Hilda hath hired a nurthemaid for Morgan and me. The wretched girl will be along any minute now.”

This sounded so grown-up that Charmain blinked and stared at him. Twinkle smiled blindingly back, all big blue eyes and enchanting rosy lips. “Are you an infant genius, or something?” she asked him.

“Well, I am now,” Twinkle said. “When I wath really thix yearth old, I wath about average, I think. With a thtrong gift for magic, of courthe. Move along, can’t you.”