.2.
Sophie slept very little that night, huddling beneath her blankets and replaying her encounter with the wizard over and over in her mind. There were such horrid stories about Howl; it was a common thing for parents to warn their disobedient children that great misbehavior would lure the wizard and he would eat their hearts. The stories grew more macabre when told by the older generations—because Howl had no heart of his own, he devoured that of any pretty, innocent young girl that caught his eye. A derivative of that particular tale spoke of how he first tortured the girls, using them for his dark amusement before receiving the sustenance offered him by the beating organ in their chest. And there were many, many others Sophie had heard, muttered among people whenever Howl's castle—a large, shambling monstrosity when seen, as it most often was, from afar—appeared somewhere beyond the city. Rumor and hearsay told of his charm, of his wit and of how they were simply a deceiving façade to hide his insidious true nature lying beneath. Sophie, recalling her encounter, thought to herself that he hadn't seemed all that bad, and immediately realized that was the reason he was rumored to be so dangerous.
You have a good heart.
When sleep did finally find Sophie, it was a fitful slumber; broken images of the wizard haunted her, reaching for that which lay beating frantically beneath her skin. When the first light of morning crept through the cracks of her window shutters in an unwelcome intrusion, she met them bleary-eyed and miserably tired. With great reluctance she pulled herself from her bed and began to ready herself for the day ahead while studiously thinking of anything but the events from the night before. In a weary daze she set about opening the shop for business, and when the other girls that worked there arrived she greeted them with monosyllables before promptly situating herself in the backroom.
It was her unofficial workspace, a small corner room with two long work tables affixed to the walls and a single long-legged chair. The sole window looked out upon the highlands beyond the city; it was a sight that pleased Sophie, as she wished someday to be able to travel outside these urban confines that had surrounded her her entire life. This morning the vibrant green of the distant hills filled her with a sense of longing so strong that she momentarily pondered walking out of the hat shop, out of the city and out into the great unknown. Common sense prevailed seconds later, and with a heavy, disconsolate sigh she pulled out the chair and climbed up onto it.
Having distanced herself somewhat from the gossipy, idle chatter of her fellow coworkers that even on a good day irritated her to no end, Sophie set to work. She attacked the pile of hats on the table before her that were waiting to be adorned and decorated with a vengeance, barely focusing on the faux flowers, ribbons and other paraphernalia she was attaching to them. When it came to be time for lunch she pushed herself away from the table with another sigh and reached for her own hat resting atop a nearby mannequin head.
"Ooooh! Look! It's Howl's castle!"
The excited squeal from one of the other girls, Dorothy, made Sophie's eyes flick immediately to the window. Howl's castle could indeed be seen; puffs of dark smoke rose from its many chimneys as it ambled insect-like across a distant hill.
"Maybe he's found another girl," said Anne, another worker, in a very wistful voice that brought a fierce scowl to Sophie's face. She glanced into the other room to find the five other girls all clustered around the window.
"Yes, and now he's taking her away, some place nice and quiet so he can eat her heart!"
They all erupted into laughter at this over-dramatic statement from Dorothy; Sophie's scowl became even more fierce. Foolish, silly prats! They had romanticized the very idea of the wizard and now idolized him as they did the rich noblemen that they glimpsed from day to day walking the city streets.
"I wonder if he's handsome?" This came from Olivia, a dreamy sigh following her words.
"Of course he is!" Anne exclaimed. All the stories say he is, and besides—why would girls follow him if he wasn't?"
"He bespells them," Cora chimed in with a sage nod of her head.
Sophie, scowl fading as she returned her gaze to the last of Howl's castle wandering out of sight, was inclined to agree with both girls; the wizard was, despite her reservations, undeniably handsome. She also didn't doubt that he wouldn't stoop to bewitching someone into doing his bidding.
"Whatever he does," Said Rachel, the quietest of the worker girls, "I wish he'd come and take me away."
A chorus of breathy sighs followed this statement, and Sophie's sour expression returned full force. Plunking her hat firmly on her head she left the workroom, striding past the tittering girls without a glance to spare them. She was almost to the front door when Dorothy's curious voice stopped her.
"Sophie? Where are you going?"
"For lunch," Sophie said, trying and failing to keep the curtness from her tone. After all, she really had no reason to be angry with the bunch; her lack of sleep had made her uncontrollably irritable.
There was a surprised silence at this, for Sophie never left the shop for lunch; she merely went upstairs into the house to make a meal for herself. Sophie quickly walked the rest of the way to the door and slipped through, fearing she would snap if asked any more questions. Once outside she breathed deep and began to walk, not really caring where she was going as long as it was away from the stifling confines of the shop. There were days—like this one—when she became deeply unsatisfied with her life; she had stayed to work in the hat shop at her stepmother Fanny's request after her father had passed away, thinking perhaps it would be only a temporary thing. Fanny had allowed Dorothy and Anne to continue work and had hired the other three girls, but every time Sophie attempted to broach the subject of her departure from the shop Fanny would plead for her to stay, if only for a little bit longer. And so Sophie would always acquiesce, and the weeks became months which in term became one year.
It had now been, to her count, one year, three months and twenty three days since her father had passed away; it was also one year, three months and twenty three days since she had done as Fanny had begged her to do and begun work in the hat shop. Her younger sisters, Martha and Lettie, had apprenticed with masters of different trades after their father's death. When she visited them—Martha at district herbalist's shop and Lettie at the bakery—she found that she was envious of them, for both loved what they were doing despite their earlier reservations. It wasn't fair, she often mused, that they were leading lives they wanted while she lived a life so tedious that oft-times she despaired of knowing of anything other than hats.
A sudden gust of wind tugged at Sophie's own hat as she rounded a corner, and she hastily caught it as it was ripped from her head. Keeping it in place with one hand she hurried to catch a trolley car across the street; it was mostly empty, and so she settled in one of the rear booth seats and immediately closed her eyes. She liked riding the trolley, because it both kept her out of the way of the crowds and made it possible for her to glimpse the city in its entirety in a short time. When the hour designated to her lunch had passed Sophie didn't move from her seat. Instead she remained in place as the trolley stopped repeatedly to both let people board and to let them off. She stared fixedly at the buildings around her, at the hustle and bustle that made the city what it was, at the constant state of motion everyone was in. And all the while, she could feel something unsettling, something restless growing within her core; she knew it for what it was—discontent. She wasn't happy among all the people, living in the house/shop surrounded by a hundred other houses and shops. She didn't like the streets always filled with people, and she didn't like the fact that no matter where she went, she was never really alone. All of these things had bothered her for a long time, but suddenly it felt as though she was at her breaking point. It's the lack of sleep, she told herself, and focused single-mindedly on the surroundings outside her trolley window.
The sun was just sinking below the horizon when she returned to the shop. She slept that night, a deep and uninterrupted slumber and when she woke in the morning she felt entirely normal again—except for the unrest which hadn't left her and had instead tightened into a hard little lump somewhere in her insides. You're being ridiculous, she thought to herself. You live a good life here.
A good life, yes, said another part of her mind, but is it the life you want?
Pointedly choosing to ignore the two warring factions of her consciousness, she rose and set about preparing for yet another day. The girls arrived as they always did, and she greeted them with smiles and polite questions about their well being. She could see the relief on their faces; Sophie was such a creature of habit that her surprising excursion the previous day had actually worried them. Alone in her workroom, sewing a length of lavender ribbon to a hat with a ridiculously wide brim, she found her eyes constantly wandering to the window and the landscape beyond, searching for something she knew she shouldn't search for. She would at intervals get angry with herself, and force her attention back to whichever hat happened to be in her hands, and so it was the day passed.
It was also the way the next day passed, and the next, and the one after that. At the end of the week, Sophie had been focusing so hard on her work in an effort to avoid thinking about anything else that she hadn't noticed at all that the girls had left for the day and that she was now alone. Looking up and blinking from eyes red and tired, she set the current hat she was laboring over down, flexed her cramping fingers, and slowly slid off her chair. It was near sunset, she was surprised to see, and so she set about closing the shop, sweeping the floor and tidying the rows of finished hats on display. She opened the door and stepped outside to turn the sign hanging on the knob so that it read "Closed", noting with detached interest that the evening crowds—both the rich and the working class—were amassing in search of a place to meet and engage in debauchery in honor of the end of the week.
Sophie was in the process of closing the door when abruptly and rather unceremoniously a foot wedged itself between the door and the frame. Irritated, Sophie swung it open wide in order to administer a rebuke to the intruder, but the scathing words died abruptly on her lips.
"Good evening, dear Sophie," Howl said, ever-present smile in place, resplendent in a fine ensemble of blue and silver.
Sophie stared at him in horror. The infamous wizard hadn't, as she had rather fervently hoped, been a figment of her imagination or a hallucination; he was in fact real, and was currently preventing her from closing the door to the shop.
"I believe," he said lightly as Sophie, too frightened and incredulous to speak, stared at him in mute dismay, "The customary reply would be "Good Evening" or "How are you this eve?""
Sophie blinked and said in a voice hardly above a whisper, "I know who you are. You're Howl."
"Wonderful!" He exclaimed cheerfully. "Now the introductions are complete and we are no longer strangers."
"Why—" Sophie began to ask in a panicked voice, but he smoothly interrupted her.
"Aren't you going to invite me inside?"
"No." She said flatly. He made a chiding noise, shaking his head; the dangling blue stone earrings he wore tinkled softly as he did so. In a sudden movement—too swift for Sophie to be sure what happened—he moved past her, the brush of his clothes against her skin making her step back with a gasp. He was then within her shop, within her haven, standing with his hands on his hips and surveying the interior.
"So many hats!" He said, moving to the shelf where the day's finished products were neatly displayed. "I can see you keep yourself busy."
This, Sophie decided incredulously, is not happening. It can't be.
Turning back to face her, the wizard Howl said almost disapprovingly, "I daresay you're being rather quiet. Is something the matter?"
"Y-you," Sophie managed to utter. "You're—you're Howl. Why are you here? What do you want?" As she spoke, she began edging ever so carefully towards the still open door. Getting away, far away, from this … wizard … was the only thing she could even think of doing. As she whirled suddenly and reached for the door it suddenly slammed shut, and she was left staring at it, stunned.
"I would appreciate it, Sophie, if you would at least remain here until I've told you why I've come."
Sophie, ignoring him desperately, gripped the doorknob and turned it frantically; no matter how hard she pulled it would not move.
"It won't open, I'm afraid, until we're through here."
"We have nothing to discuss!" Sophie said wildly, swinging back around to face him. "Please get out of my house!"
Instead of complying, the wizard settled himself comfortably on a work stool which, of its own volition, had slid smoothly out from under the cutting table and over to him. "We have business," he told her quietly, smile gone; Sophie found its absence quite unsettling.
"What business could you possibly have with me?" She asked despairingly, but in response to her own question the words he'd spoken the night she'd first met him echoed ominously through her mind.
You have a good heart.
"There is still," Howl told her, plucking at the hanging, scalloped edge of his silver embroidered shirt sleeve, "the matter of the debt you owe me."
Sophie opened her mouth to issue a vehement denial, but stopped. She had said she was in his debt, but it had only been a formality, a thing to say to express her gratitude for the sake of being polite. He couldn't possibly be taking it seriously …?
"I – I didn't mean—" she stammered as it suddenly dawned on her the seriousness of the situation she was now in.
"No, I imagine you didn't," the wizard replied, lips curving slightly as his smile reappeared. "Unfortunately, among wizards and witches and warlocks and all other manners of magical folk, debts are something taken very seriously."
"But you can't expect me to … you can't just think I'll …"
Howl huffed a sigh that was very theatrically sympathetic and thus not at all believable. "Unfortunately, my dear, it's not a matter of what you'd like to do. I'm afraid, by saying you were in my debt, you actually were placed in my debt. It's a funny sort of bylaw with magic and such called the Favor. And I'm afraid it's binding, both legally and magically."
"I've never heard of such a thing," Sophie said faintly.
"I thought not, which is why I brought this." With a puff of smoke a large, leather bound tome appeared on the counter where purchases were made and money was exchanged. Sophie, despite herself, drew nearer to it. "If you'll look on page four hundred and thirty-six, you'll find that under the contractual legislation between the magical community and kingdom that any debt owed a wizard, witch, warlock, etc must be fulfilled."
Sophie gasped as the book flew open, dust flying everywhere as it did so; the pages began to swiftly flip before falling still. Sophie peered at the current page, found a large paragraph underlined all in red, and began to read:
Subsection 17
Any citizen of the land who advertently or inadvertently, vocally or by written statement renders themselves as owing a debt to any of the kingdom's registered members of the magical society shall, subject to any right of appeal given by this Act, carry out the terms and conditions set by that registered member of the magical society.
Subject to Section 38, if a citizen fails to comply with the terms and conditions set by the registered member of the magical society, (which shall be known forthwith as the Favor) that citizen is then regarded to be in contempt of the law, and as such subject to all relative criminal charges as specified under Section 39.
Sophie would have read more had not the pages begun to flip again; startled, she looked to Howl, who was making them turn simply by fluttering his hand about in the air. When they fell still again he indicated she was to read further, and so she did with a steadily increasing sensation of unrest.
Subsection 21
A citizen is only required to be subject to the terms and conditions of the Favor until a) the registered member of the magical society deems it fulfilled b) the period of one lunar month has passed or c) the citizen experiences an untimely death.
"You see?" Howl asked, and with a flick of his wrist the book snapped shut, prompting more dust to explode into the air and invade Sophie's nostrils and mouth. Howl politely waited until her fit of coughing and sneezing subsided before speaking again. "I'm afraid your debt still stands."
"What— " One final sneeze interrupted her question, and after it had passed she continued in a watery voice, "What about an appeal? It said something about an appeal."
"Oh yes. That." He made another vague motion with his hand and the book abruptly vanished, leaving behind it another large cloud of dust. Sophie, standing safely beyond its clutches, waited for the wizard to continue. When he did, he shook his head. "There's rather a lot of politics involved with an appeal, as first you must submit a written appeal to the court advisors, and then if they deem it acceptable a spoken version of the appeal must be presented before the king, who then convenes with his advisors to deliberate whether or not you must be made to fulfill your Favor."
Sophie by now was feeling quite ill; the very thought of appearing before the king and speaking aloud before him was horrifying—more so, it seemed, than owing a Favor to the infamous wizard Howl. No matter how she looked at it, she was quite thoroughly mired in trouble; wishing she had just followed her instincts earlier in the week and walked right out of the city she asked him dejectedly, "What must I do to complete the debt?"
"Favor," the wizard corrected her, and suddenly he was smiling his blinding smile again. "I'm not asking for much, you know. As it so happens, I'm rather in need of some assistance in my castle—"
"In your castle?" Sophie echoed in the utmost dismay.
Looking slightly put off by the interruption, Howl continued, "Yes. In my castle. You see, I am so terribly busy and my assistant Markl is … well, he's assisting me, so naturally he's terribly busy too. I'm afraid our living quarters are rather in need of looking after."
"You want me," Sophie said, and just like that her unease was converted to anger and indignation, "to be your maid?"
"No, no, nothing like that at all!" He replied hastily; Sophie almost swore his smile became even brighter. "Think of it more like … more like being an assistant. An assistant that assists with maintaining the household."
It took a long moment for Sophie to respond; all she could think was of how nice it would be to strike this man over the head with something both heavy and sharp. Twice she opened her mouth to refuse, but she recalled what she'd read in the book, and she had no desire to be branded a criminal. Finally, resignedly, she made a sound of disgust.
"Why would they make a law like that anyways?" She demanded.
"To limit the exploitation of wizarding folk."
Sophie scowled, wondering how on earth anyone could exploit a person like Howl. He stood then, and the stool he'd been seated on slid back to its original spot. "Well then," he said cheerily, "Shall we be off?"
"Now?"
"Is there a better time?"
"Never, if I could help it." Sophie muttered, but the frown Howl leveled in her direction let her know he'd heard. She continued quickly, "I can't just leave now! What about the shop?"
"There are, I believe, five other girls working here."
"And my stepmother, I have to tell—"
"I will personally send her a letter."
"And my sisters! They'll be worri—"
"I'll send them a letter too."
Out of excuses, Sophie glared at the wizard. He glared back, his smile having died at some point. Exasperated, infuriated, and overly suspicious Sophie asked in a very soft voice, "You meant to save me from those soldiers didn't you?"
She almost missed it—something dark, something secretive sliding behind the luminous green of the wizard's eyes. In a flash he was smiling again, his gaze empty of everything but amusement, but Sophie knew what she had seen. "Don't be ridiculous!" He exclaimed with a hearty laugh. "I was merely wandering the streets when I saw a pretty young lady being accosted by drunken soldiers. I did what every good gentleman would do."
She blushed at his compliment, which she was sure was insincere. Was he lying about finding her that night? She had no way of knowing, but unbidden came his words again, echoing eerily from the past—You have a good heart.
"We'd best be off," Howl said, approaching her. "The sun has set."
Sophie watched him come with wide eyes, afraid of him again. When she shied back from the hand he reached out towards her he said in a gently chiding tone, "Sophie. Please. I won't hurt you."
She was not reassured, but when his hand moved towards hers she stood absolutely stock still. Clasping tightly her fingers in his own, he flashed her a rakish grin and said, "Hold on tightly, my dear. This could be a wild ride."
And with that, the world as Sophie knew it vanished.
xXx
Author's Note: I've now read the novel, and because I love both movie and book this fic is henceforth to be a fanfiction mixture of both. I decided to keep the name Markl instead of Michael (as it is in the novel) because I like it better. As well, in the novel Sophie has two sisters, so I'm using that fact.