2. In Which There are Wolves.
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Lose your temper, lose a customer. Lose your temper a second time, lose your youth, your children-that-might-have-been, your peaceful middle age, and pretty much the rest of your life. Not to mention your family, your home, and your trade.
Sophie was still too stunned to grieve. Just now she ought to have been safe and warm in her room above the shop, not struggling into the knife-sharp wind that blew down off the moors. She had seldom in her life been out after dark, not even in the quiet lamplit streets of Market Chipping. Out here it would soon be dark beyond imagining. A wolf howled, distant yet not far away enough: it sounded bitter and lonely, unwanted and unloved….
Don't be silly, Sophie chided herself. It's hungry, that's all. And if it catches you it's not going to give a fig that you felt sorry for it! Knowing that she would make any wolf a poor supper, stringy and tough, was small comfort.
Sophie was exhausted. At least she had a walking-stick, thanks to the wretched half-wild dog she had pulled from the hedge that afternoon. She had always been nervous around dogs, but there was no time for that; if she hadn't done something the creature would have died of choking or starvation. And anyway no dog bite could disfigure her any worse than she already was! Not that it took kindly to being helped; it bared its fangs and rolled the whites of its eyes at her as she struggled to cut the tangled rope that bound it. Once free it circled her warily, slowly backing away, all the while growling deep in its throat. Then with a sudden yelp it turned and sprang off downhill through the heather.
"That ugly, am I?" Sophie cried, shaking her stick at it. But she was more amused than chagrined by its hostility. Clearly the poor thing had been driven mad by someone else's cruelty. That's two of us, my friend, she thought. Too bad it hadn't stayed, though; they might have curled up and frozen to death together.
There was nothing for it but to keep climbing.
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And there it came, as she had somehow known it would: Howl's castle. Good heavens, it was hideous, huffing and puffing its chilly, predatory breath, as if the moor-wind wasn't bad enough! It lumbered hugely over the hill, right at Sophie, filling the sky with smoke and terror. Oh, there were so many things she'd like to say to that horrible man: "You're the biggest and baddest wolf of them all, aren't you, Wizard Howl? Trolling the countryside looking for innocent girls to eat! Well, try me, you great bully! You might find yourself in for a surprise."
She was angry, but she wasn't really frightened. It was just one more baffling event in this horribly bewildering day. But why did it have to come to this? Why couldn't it have been Someone Else's castle? Wizard Suliman's, perhaps? But no. Wizard Suliman, who was said to be a great and good magician, was dead. Wizard Howl might be the darkest nightmare of every well-brought-up young lady anywhere, but at the moment he was Sophie's only hope of refuge from the dark and cold. Yet it pained her to wonder what would Father think of her, jumping right down the maw of the beast like this.
The spell that had made her look old was going to have to protect her.
"Stop!" she cried at the heaving, grinding, lumbering mass. The castle promptly did so. It must be hungry.
"Open up!" she yelled. It took several tries and much furious pounding before a small shabby back door creaked open.
Let Wizard Howl never, never find out just how young and frightened I really am! she prayed. Then she plunged into the abyss.