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

She was right up in the mountains here, with most of High Norland spread out beneath her, already blue with evening. Opposite her, lit up orange by the low sun and deceivingly near, were the snowy peaks that separated her country from Strangia, Montalbino, and other foreign places. Behind her were more peaks where large dark gray and crimson clouds were crowding up ominously. It was going to rain up here soon, as it often did in High Norland, but for the moment it was warm and peaceful. There were sheep grazing in another meadow just beyond some rocks, and Charmain could hear mooing and bells tonkling from a herd of cows somewhere quite near. When she looked that way, she was a trifle startled to find that the cows were in a meadow above her and that there was no sign of Great-Uncle William’s house or the window she had climbed out of.

Charmain did not let this worry her. She had never been this high in the mountains before, and she was astonished at how beautiful it was. The grass she was standing on was greener than any she had seen in the town. Fresh scents blew off it. These came, when she looked closely, from hundreds and hundreds of tiny, exquisite flowers growing low in the grass.

“Oh, Great-Uncle William, you are lucky!” she cried out. “Fancy having this next door to your study!”

For a while, she wandered blissfully about, avoiding the bees that were busy among the flowers and picking herself a bunch that was supposed to be one of each kind. She picked a tiny scarlet tulip, a white one, a starry golden flower, a pale pigmy primrose, a mauve harebell, a blue cup, an orange orchid, and one each from crowded clumps of pink and white and yellow. But the flowers that took her fancy most were tiny blue trumpets, more piercingly blue than any blue she could have imagined. Charmain thought they might be gentians and she picked more than one. They were so small, so perfect, and so blue. All the time, she was wandering farther down the meadow, to where there seemed to be a drop-off of some kind. She thought she might jump off there and see if the spell had made her really able to fly.

She reached the drop-off at the time when she found she had more flowers than she could hold. There were six new kinds at the rocky edge that she had to leave where they were. But then she forgot flowers and just stared.

The meadow ended in a cliff half the mountain high. Way, way below her, beside the little thread of the road, she could see Grea

t-Uncle William’s house like a tiny gray box in a smudge of garden. She could see other houses, equally far off, scattered up and down the road, and lights coming on in them in tiny orange twinkles. They were so far below that Charmain gulped and her knees shook slightly.

“I think I’ll give up flying practice for the moment,” she said. But how do I get down? asked a subdued inner thought.

Don’t let’s think about that now, another inner thought replied firmly. Let’s just enjoy the view.

She could see most of High Norland from up here, after all. Beyond Great-Uncle William’s house, the valley narrowed into a green saddle glinting with white waterfalls, where the pass led up into Montalbino. The other way, past the bulge of mountain where the meadow was, the thread of road joined the more winding thread of the river and both plunged in among the roofs, towers, and turrets of High Norland City. Lights were coming on there too, but Charmain could still see the soft shining of the famous golden roof on the Royal Mansion, with the flicker of the flag above it, and she thought she could even pick out her parents’ house beyond it. None of it was very far away. Charmain was quite surprised to see that Great-Uncle William really lived only just outside the town.

Behind the town, the valley opened out. It was lighter there, out of the shadow of the mountains, melting into twilight distance with orange pricks of lights in it. Charmain could see the long, important shape of Castel Joie, where the Crown Prince lived, and another castle she did not know about. This one was tall and dark, with smoke drifting from one of its turrets. Behind it, the land faded into bluer distance full of farms, villages, and industries that formed the heart of the country. Charmain could actually see the sea, misty and faint, beyond that.

We’re not a very big country, are we? she thought.

But this thought was interrupted by a sharp buzzing from the bunch of flowers she held. She held the bunch up to see what was making the noise. Up here in the meadow, the sun was still quite dazzlingly bright, bright enough for Charmain to see that one of her blue trumpet-shaped probably-gentians was shaking and vibrating as it buzzed. She must have picked one with a bee in it by mistake. Charmain held the flowers downward and shook them. Something purple and whirring fell out into the grass by her feet. It was not exactly bee-shaped, and instead of flying away as a bee would, it sat in the grass and buzzed. As it buzzed, it grew. Charmain took a nervous sideways step from it, along the edge of the cliff. It was bigger than Waif already and still growing.

I don’t like this, she thought. What is it?

Before she could move—or even think—again, the creature shot up to twice the height of a person. It was dark purple and man-shaped, but it was not a man. It had small see-through purple wings on its back that were blurred and whirring with motion and its face was—Charmain had to look away. Its face was the face of an insect, with groping bits and feeler bits, antennae, and bulging eyes that had at least sixteen smaller eyes inside them.

“Oh, heavens!” Charmain whispered. “I think the thing’s a lubbock!”

“I am the lubbock,” the creature announced. Its voice was a mixture of buzz and snarl. “I am the lubbock and I own this land.”

Charmain had heard of lubbocks. People at school had whispered of lubbocks, and none of it was pleasant. The only thing to do, so they said, was to be very polite and hope to get away without being stung and then eaten. “I’m very sorry,” Charmain said. “I didn’t realize I was trespassing in your meadow.”

“You are trespassing wherever you tread,” the lubbock snarled. “All the land you can see is mine.”

“What? All of High Norland?” Charmain said. “Don’t talk nonsense!”

“I never talk nonsense.” the creature said. “All is mine. You are mine.” Wings whirring, it began to stalk toward her on most unnatural-looking wiry blobs of feet. “I shall come to claim my own very soon now. I claim you first.” It took a whirring stride toward Charmain. Its arms came out. So did a pronged sting on the lower part of its face. Charmain screamed, dodged, and fell off the edge, scattering flowers as she fell.

Chapter Four

INTRODUCES ROLLO, PETER, AND MYSTERIOUS CHANGES TO WAIF

Charmain heard the lubbock give a whirring shout of rage, though not clearly for the rushing wind of her fall. She saw the huge cliff streaking past her face. She went on screaming. “Ylf, YLF!” she bellowed. “Oh, for goodness’ sake! Ylf! I just did a flying spell. Why doesn’t it work?”

It was working. Charmain realized it must be when the upward rush of the rocks in front of her slowed to a crawl, then to a glide, and then to a dawdle. For a moment, she hung in space, bobbing just above some gigantic spikes of rock in the crags below the cliff.

Perhaps I’m dead now, she thought.

Then she said, “This is ridiculous!” and managed, by means of a lot of ungainly kicking and arm waving, to turn herself over. And there was Great-Uncle William’s house, still a long way below her in the gloaming and about a quarter of a mile off. “And it’s all very well floating,” Charmain said, “but how do I move?” At this point, she remembered that the lubbock had wings and was probably at that moment whirring down from the heights toward her. After that, there was no need to ask how to move. Charmain found herself kicking her legs mightily and positively surging toward Great-Uncle William’s house. She shot in over its roof and across the front garden, where the spell seemed to leave her. She just had time to jerk herself sideways so that she was above the path, before she came down with a thump and sat on the neat crazy-paving, shaking all over.

Safe! she thought. Somehow there seemed to be no doubt that inside Great-Uncle William’s boundaries, it was safe. She could feel it was.

After a bit, she said, “Oh, goodness! What a day! When I think that all I ever asked for was a good book and a bit of peace to read it in…! Bother Aunt Sempronia!”

The bushes beside her rustled. Charmain flinched away and nearly screamed again when the hydrangeas bent aside to let a small blue man hop out onto the path. “Are you in charge here now?” this small blue person demanded in a small hoarse voice.