Sarah stood with the umbrella tilted back enough so that she could see Megan atop the ladder. She kept her boot in place on the lowest rung so it wouldn't wobble as the she climbed.

"This way!" Megan took an old butter knife that seemed to have been used for this very purpose a number of times and jammed it into the gap between the window and its frame. "Just wriggle it like so, and when you feel it catch, pull it towards you and the window should pop open."

She clambered down and handed her the knife.

Sarah took it. The handle was wood and the knife was silver. She managed a wobbly smile.

"Just try it," Megan said in her strong Welsh accent.

Sarah glanced around the dripping garden in Wales. She could not believe she had blown half her college savings to fly all the way to Britain. No. She could. She was that desperate.

"Thanks for believing me."

Megan huffed, and waved her off.

"Our family has always had magical connections. It just came out a little different for you."

"Dad didn't believe me," Sarah said quietly.

"Oh, I think he did." Megan gave her a nudge towards the ladder. "He gave you my address didn't he?"

Sarah nodded; they had corresponded by post for almost a year now.

"Up you go!" Megan waved. "And tell my brother that he had better visit and collect his bills, his taxes are due."

"Okay," Sarah felt a little better. The idea that a Wizard owed the government taxes made him sound a little more down to earth and approachable.

Sarah handed over the umbrella to Megan, who took the supporting stance at the base of the ladder. She climbed up to the second story window. It looked into Megan's study, but Megan had explained her brother had linked it to his home in a neighbouring dimension. If she were to focus on him and his home, she would be able to open it with the silver knife she now held. She jammed the blade in between the window and its frame and felt for the latch. Just as the latch caught, she sensed the glow and fizz she associated with the Labyrinth magic. No! Not the Labyrinth. Howell Jenkins. Megan's brother, her recently discovered second cousin. She called to mind the image of a black haired young man in a rugby jersey from the photograph Megan had of him, and focused on the idea of his home. She felt it the moment the magic caught. It was a smooth almost soft flow of space, like a swiftly flowing stream of water over a layer of rock. She jiggled the window open and put her head in.

It was a bedroom, a magpie's nest of trinkets and curious things. It was also filthy. Oh, she could see someone lived there, there was a clear trail to the bed and the wardrobe, but someone hadn't bothered to clean in ages. She felt a little wobbly doubt pool at the base of her stomach. Were all magic users sloppy in their housekeeping? Jareth's throne room came starkly to mind. No! She couldn't afford to think of Jareth at a thin place in the world. She needed to speak to a Wizard. She focused.

"I think I have it, the room's a mess!"

"That's it!" Megan called back with a sudden sour expression.

Sarah hesitated. She was, after all, about to climb into a man's bedroom.

"Are you sure he won't be mad?"

"No, he's too lazy for that!"

Sarah carefully tossed down the knife so it landed some distance away from Megan in the grass.

"Wish me luck!" She called and pulled herself over the windowsill.


It didn't feel any different. The Labyrinth had a distinct scent in the air, fresh and crisp around the hedges, unbelievably awful around the regions near the Bog. This room smelled a little like lingering perfume, hyacinths she thought, and stuffy like someone hadn't aired it in a while. She closed the window though. Leaving portals open, she had learned the hard way back home, was a free invitation for goblins to wreck havoc. Megan had been very helpful; she didn't want whatever Howell's version of goblins were to cause her second cousin any trouble.

She had to tiptoe across the messy room. Jareth had those menacing crystals of his. She didn't want to step on anything that might have active spells on it. Who knew what Wizards could do? She opened the door and stuck her head out gingerly. She could hear voices down stairs, but the upper landing seemed quiet. She slipped out of the room and headed down. She was not a thief, no matter how much she felt like one, trespassing as she was at that moment.

Sarah trailed down the stairs into a very neatly kept kitchen. A young boy sat at a scrubbed kitchen table, an old woman slept in a chair before the fireplace, and in the hearth crackled some kind of living fire. She could see its face, its eyes bored into her. She shivered. It was dangerous. Possibly as dangerous as Jareth. She couldn't see anything, but that sixth sense she'd gained for magic made all the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

"Woah, there was someone!" The young boy slid off the bench onto his feet to face her.

"I told you," the living fire crackled at him, somewhat smugly. "She tripped the wards with some sort of magic." The living fire fell into crackling contemplation. "It's familiar, but I can't quite place it."

"Sophie!" The boy ran over to the old woman and jiggled her arm. She raised her grey head sleepily.

"Michael, what is it dear?"

He pointed at Sarah who had paused on the bottom step of the stairs, still uncertain of her welcome.

"Calcifer says she used some odd magic to come through the upstairs window."

"The upstairs window?" Sophie propped both aged hands on her walking stick and peered at Sarah. "Did you climb up the outside of the castle?" Michael said in horrified awe.

"The what?" Sarah looked around the room. This was certainly no castle. Megan's house in Wales was bigger than this.

"The Moving Castle?" Michael put his hands on his hips in a cross manner. "How could you miss it if you climbed in from the outside?"

"I climbed in from Megan's garden in Wales," Sarah explained. "I'm Howell Jenkin's second cousin and I have some magical business to discuss with him."

Calcifer crackled and roared in the fireplace.

"You're Howl's family? He said he had no relatives as strong in magic as he!"

Calcifer said the wizard's name in a subtly different way, which she noted.

"I, I don't think I have his sort of magic, it's that what I need to discuss. Please!" Sarah backed up a few stairs, Calcifer the living fire looked more and more like a demon the bigger he flared.

"Oh settle down, Calcifer," Sophie scolded, and to Sarah's relief he did.

She didn't dare leave the stairs though.

"You're here to see Howl on family business."

"Yes, ma'am," Sarah could accord her respect, that scary fire obeyed her.

"Well then you are welcome, come and sit down and tell us a bit about yourself. Howl is out at the moment, but he should be back by the end of the day."

Sarah felt as if an enormous pressure had been lifted off her shoulders. She smiled and careful to keep the old woman between her and the living fire in the hearth went to sit on the well scrubbed bench along from where Michael had been working.

"What's your name?" Sophie asked.

"Sarah Williams, Howell and I share a great grandfather, Robert Jenkins, my father was named for him."

"You said Howl had a sister?"

"Yes, she's his older sister by three years."

"Did you know he had a sister?" Sophie asked Michael.

The boy shook his head but Calcifer crackled and muttered something that sounded like 'nagging shrew', but it could be the way he was gnawing on a log.

"You speak with an unusual accent," Sophie observed over Calcifer's impolite crackling.

"Oh, yes, I'm from America." She saw their blank faces. "It's to the west, over the sea? It took me two days travel by aeroplane to get to Megan's place."

"That's far," Sophie marvelled.

"Aeroplanes? You've been in one?" Michael all but climbed into her lap with enthusiasm. The conversation derailed into Sarah giving the story of her trip over. Even Calcifer sounded interested.


The sun sank and red streaks of the last light splashed over the walls of the room. Sophie hobbled over to the sink and began to scrub a few plates. Sarah hurried over to help the old woman. Michael settled back onto the kitchen bench with a pencil and a notebook as he returned to the homework he'd been attending to earlier. Calcifer skulked about the logs in the hearth, watching them.

"So, dear," Sophie asked in that quiet comforting voice of hers. "What trouble brings you to Howl's door? Or is it a private family matter?"

Sarah sighed; a full body action that made the soapsuds dance and froth everywhere.

"That bad?"

"Worse," Sarah complained, "there's this guy…" she trailed off not knowing how to explain the full measure of infuriating irritation that was Jareth.

"What's he like?" Sophie said gently and took a wet plate and dried it off.

Sarah scrubbed the next plate rather too harshly but didn't notice.

"Tall, arrogant, thinks the world revolves around him, and I can't get a straight answer out of him!"

"He's not blond with blue eyes is he?"

Sarah gaped at her in alarm.

"You know Jareth?"

"No, I thought you were describing Howl!"

They both began to laugh, awkwardly, yet Sarah felt a sudden kinship with this woman.

"If Howell's exactly like Jareth, then I don't know what I'm going to do," she said and handed the plate along for Sophie to dry. "How did you deal with irritating men in your day?"

Sophie gave her a sly smile then leaned over and whispered conspiratorially.

"You manage them, only, don't let them realise you're doing it. As long as they think it is their idea all along, you're good."

"But he's the most stubborn, relentless person I have ever met! I can't get a word in edgeways, and if I do I'm arguing with him!"

"Have you tried giving him a choice?"

"A choice?" Sarah sounded dubious. "Usually my choice is 'no' and 'never.'"

"Oh, no wonder he's upset. Tell me, and this is important, dear, is he relentless in a good way or a bad way?"

Sarah did not know what she meant and shrugged.

"What I mean is, when he asks for things–"

"Demands," Sarah corrected.

"When he demands things, what is his intent? Does he want to control you and override your will with his own, or does he simply not know a polite way to request things?"

"Oh he knows a polite way," Sarah ground out, "only he's the damn King and always gets his way. If not he throws a massive temper tantrum."

"A King, now that makes things a little more difficult."

"You don't say?" Sarah grouched. She took the crustiest looking pot, dumped it in the water and began scrubbing. Doing the dishes was a wonderful outlet for her temper.

Sophie mildly continued to dry the plates beside her.

"My stepmother gave me some very good advice once," Sophie said, "we had a hat shop, and had all sorts of customers through there. She said to remember that men are like little children at heart, they might be loud and full of bluster, but inside their hearts are most soft and delicate. We are to treat them gently, even if they put up a show. Often, the bigger the bluster the more delicate the heart. However, and this is important, sometimes that heart is not tender but damaged beyond repair. A man will also cover it in bluster, but they lack control, and they damage those around them. What sort of heart does your Jareth have?"

Sarah stopped scrubbing. She thought over the interactions with the fae King. He was tricky, manipulative, nasty in the manner of a sulky two year old and oddly fragile. Sophie was right he was full of bluster, but what sort of heart did that hide? She did not know.

"As mad at him as I am now, I'd say he's damaged and be done with him, but…" she sighed.

"You rather fancy him?"

Sarah gaped at the old woman in rising horror. No. No. No! This was not happening. Where did this become any sort of idea like that?

"Actually," she said stiffly, still reeling, "I came to ask Howell the best way to raise threshold wards against fae."

A crackling belch of heat and soot roiled from the fireplace. Everyone in the room jumped as the living fire flared up, baking the room with his heat.

"Fae!" Calcifer roared at Sarah. "You! You're part fae and I let you through the wards! What a fool am I! Claiming family kinship indeed! Get out!"

"What?" Sarah breathed then rounded on the living fire in fury. "I am no fae! I am Howell's second cousin by blood. I was born to human parents. I am human! Don't you dare pin that on me!"

"The slippery magic you used to open the window that had a fae touch!" Calcifer crackled menacingly in the hearth.

"Well, I did think of the Labyrinth, the portal has the same tingly flowing magic!" Sarah spat at Calcifer.

"You travel the thin places of the world?" Calcifer said, banking himself amongst the logs, but still flaring hotly. "How?"

"By mirror, usually," Sarah explained. "I've friends on the other side. I can invite them over and they can invite me there."

Only Calcifer's crackling broke the silence.

"You claim you are human, yet you use their manner of travel."

"Wizards use the exact same thing!" Sarah sniffed.

"You have a point," Calcifer conceded reluctantly.

The silence drew out just too long and Sarah sighed.

"Look, I'm not here to make trouble. I'll be gone as soon as Howell teaches me the spell, okay?"

She went back to scrubbing the pot, though the fire and fight in her belly had dimmed and she just felt tired. Sophie picked up the dried plates beside her and set about preparing supper. After a failed argument with Calcifer, who crackled and grumbled amid his logs and refused to bend his head, the old woman set the frying pan aside and made do with salads, cold ham and cheese for supper.

Sarah had finished the dishes by the time they sat down to supper. Sophie lit the lanterns hung from the rafters and the room was bright with Calcifer's glow and cozy for the night.

The food was simple yet wholesome, and there was a jar of the best chutney she had ever tasted. Sophie kindly sat and wrote out the recipe for her so she could make her own supply.