Author's Note: Howl's Moving Castle, the novel and its characters, belongs to Diana Wynne Jones, who writes with such exquisite understatement that the reader's imagination rushes in to supply the rest. I am not doing a retelling here (although it does seem to start out that way); I'm trying to get to know Sophie better and to explore her feelings, as I understand them. (All lines of dialogue in this chapter but one are mine. Elsewhere in the story, if you recognize a line of dialogue or description, then Diana Wynne Jones wrote it.)

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1. In Which Sophie is Overtaken by a Force of Nature.

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In Ingary, where well-brought-up young ladies were expected to make congenial marriages with well-brought-up young men ('well-brought-upness' being a quality not easily defined but at once recognizable, having nothing to with a family's wealth or rank and everything do to with that family's capacity for love and attention), there was a time and place for everything. Young people were therefore provided with festivals and parties and balls where boys and girls could meet and grow comfortable with one another, their chaperones remaining safely nearby but carefully unobtrusive.

It was a good system. Most of the time it even worked. It had certainly prepared Lettie and Martha Hatter to be outgoing, self-assured young women. But Sophie, the eldest of Mr. Hatter's three beautiful daughters, was convinced she had fallen through the cracks.

She never said so, of course. And if she blamed anyone, it was herself. Perhaps her father and Fanny, her stepmother, ought to have tried a bit harder to lure her out of her shell. They might have insisted every now and then that she put down her book and go off to a party with Lettie. But they hadn't. Sophie had always protested she would rather stay home and read, and they had allowed her to do so. "Sophie takes care of herself," she would hear them say. "No need to worry about Sophie. She's good at everything she tries. And she's such a bright girl! Why, she's smarter than the rest of us put together! She'll be fine."

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It was May Day in her eighteenth year, and Sophie did not think she was fine. Mr. Hatter had died some months before, taking a large piece of Sophie's heart with him, but the family business had carried on and was remorseless in its demands.

"I'm fine, am I?" Sophie muttered as she locked the shop, realizing that even on this holiday she had worked past lunchtime. Indeed, she could not even remember when she had last left home. She had not seen Lettie, who had gone off to apprentice at Cesari's, in the longest time.

"I'm fine, am I?" Sophie muttered again, when she heard the fireworks and saw just how many thousands of people had managed to squeeze themselves into Market Square. There were young men strutting like peacocks in their finery, and young women likewise, everyone shamelessly flirting yet knowing just how far to go and when to break it off. It was like a game that everyone in the world but Sophie had been taught to play.

The noise, the shouting and squealing, the boozy scent of too many people full of too much ale: it quickly overwhelmed her. And the prospect of fighting her way through that crowd terrified her. Sophie was reduced to clinging to the perimeter of the square, skittering like a mouse from doorway to doorway, desperately hoping she would not attract any of the masculine attention that seethed around her. It was dreadful. She felt shriveled and maimed.

But it was only a short way now to Cesari's…. She'd be there in minutes. She'd worry later about fighting her way back home, after she'd seen Lettie and assured herself that all was well with her middle sister.

Almost there….

Oh, no. Sophie had feared all along this would happen: she'd caught a young man's eye. Her tatty shawl and frumpy grey shop-girl dress had been of no use at all. "You were supposed to keep me invisible, you wretched things!" she scolded them. She shrank into the shelter of the nearest doorway. But it was too late. Here he came.

He was golden-haired and richly dressed. He was much older than Sophie and had an air of worldly wisdom about him. He was also very courteous. He exuded none of the brute masculinity of the soldiers and farm boys; his seemed much the gentler, protective sort, reminding her with a pang of her father. But it was masculinity none the less, with its hidden reserves of power and strength. Not long before he died, Mr. Hatter had had that serious talk with his daughters that all parents sooner or later must have: "Never forget that women are smaller than men, and can be physically overpowered by them." He had spoken with particular urgency, for Wizard Howl's castle had not long since appeared in the hills above town. "If a man has been well brought up, such inclinations will have been harnessed and tamed, and he would never dream of hurting you. But if he has not, then you are in danger."

"How are we to know the difference?" Lettie had asked.

"Especially if we fall in love with someone who isn't the boy next door," Martha added.

"You will have to rely on your common sense, your wisdom, and your instinct," Father answered. "You must also listen to your heart."

Well, Sophie was in that situation now, face to face with a stranger, and her wisdom and common sense had fled. Her instinct, however—oh, her treacherous instinct! The young man was saying, "I only want to buy you a drink. Don't look so scared." Even as she protested that she couldn't, she mustn't, she felt a thrill of attraction over every inch of her skin. It frightened her. She'd once seen the tamed and placid river that flowed through Market Chipping in flood; it had uprooted huge trees and sent them tumbling end over end. And all young ladies, Sophie Hatter included, knew that Nature commanded more than one inexorable force.

Now he was offering to see her safely to the bakery. She knew he meant it kindly (that must have been her heart talking, she decided afterwards). But she stammered her thanks and said no. At that he looked a little sad, but he made no move to keep her there.

And then she ran away. He had pitied her and offered to protect her, and she ran away! She felt her face burning with shame. It was she who was behaving badly, yet he had respected her wishes. What a courtly person! What a gentleman!

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Sophie set out for home just before sundown. By then the milling crowds had grown drunken and belligerent, but the fear that had earlier afflicted her was gone. It was as though some benevolent power had raised a favoring wind at her heels, and cast over her a cloak of concealment from any unwanted attention. Still, she was very much relieved to reach her own door. The day had exhausted her. "The world is too big and frightening, and you don't know any of its rules," she told herself as she gave the shop a final—and completely unnecessary—tidying up. "Too late to learn them now."

"And obviously," she went on, remorselessly berating herself, "You are quite incapable of behaving civilly or properly toward anyone, not least a most elegant, well-brought-up young man who means you no harm. You will no doubt live out your life in this shop and die in it, alone."

It was a great relief.

Why, then, was she suddenly angry enough to slash every hat in the place to bits and stamp on it till there was nothing left but straw fragments, tattered shreds of ribbon, and waxy silken puddles that once had been flowers and fruit?