Chapter Four: In which Megan makes her demands

Characters this chapter: Sophie, Howl, Mari, Megan, Neil

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

As Sophie watched Howl pull away from Mari and wander back into the Parry house, she could only imagine what was going through his mind—really, she could only imagine what was going on at all. Between the chaotic, abandoned state of the house, and Mari's state of panic, she knew that something must have gone horribly awry. But between Howl's insufferable tendency to keep her in the dark, and their niece's not-so-insufferable tendency to speak in Welsh, Sophie also knew that it would be a miracle if she ever found out what had gone horribly awry.

"Mari, why don't you …" Sophie glanced between the house and her niece. She had been about to ask Mari to wait in the backyard while she went to talk with Howl, but then she realized that, strategically, it would be much better to bring Mari with her.

Even before she and Howl had married, Sophie had figured out that children were one of Howl's better weaknesses. All the beer and beautiful women in the world might not be enough to cajole the great Wizard Pendragon into doing something he was terribly opposed to. But when there were children involved—and especially when they were his relations—much to his chagrin, his more virtuous side was often forced to come out.

"Mari, why don't you come inside with me?" Sophie smiled at the little girl and held out a hand. With a sniffle, Mari took it, pulled herself up, and offered a weak smile in return.

"I'm sure that whatever is wrong, your Uncle Howl will be able to fix it," Sophie assured Mari, rubbing her back in a comforting manner as the two of them walked back towards the house.

"I hope so," Mari mumbled, and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. She then stopped in her tracks, a look of panic flashing across her face. "Wait, Aunt Sophie—we can't leave Mam and Neil!"

Mari dashed back to the patch of violets where she had been sitting, and scooped up the two spiky fruits she'd been holding earlier—what had Howl said they were? Pie naps? Pie caps? Pie apples? Pie napples! That was it. Mari scooped up the two pie napples, hugging one in each arm, and came back to Sophie's side. For a moment, Sophie just stared at the girl and the two fruits—had she just referred to them as her mother and brother? Had they …?

Sophie just shook her head, and opened the back door. She herself had been turned into an old woman and a cat, not to mention … other things best left unmentioned. Howl had been turned into a genie. And that was still nothing in comparison to what the Witch of the Waste had done to Ben. If Megan and Neil had been turned into tropical fruit—well, it certainly wasn't the most surprising thing that could have happened.

Once inside the house, it wasn't difficult to find Howl. Sophie simply followed the sound of clinking, muttering, and cursing to the kitchen, where Howl was currently making quite a small racket.

"Ah ha!" he exclaimed just as Sophie entered the room. "Thought you could escape me, did you?"

Sophie frowned down at her husband, who was currently kneeling in front of the cold, white cupboard where Megan and Gareth stored their food. He was rummaging about on one of the shelves, shoving containers this way and that way and reaching for something that she couldn't see. She half expected it to be a third pie napple—Gareth, perhaps? But when he finally stood up, she saw that it was only a bottle of beer.

"Howl, I hardly think this is the time to be drinking," Sophie admonished him.

"On the contrary, dear—this is hardly the time to be sober," Howl replied. He waved a hand over the glass bottle and its cap vanished into thin air. "I need my brain to be well-lubricated."

"With all the concoctions that you put in your hair and that must seep through your skull, I imagine that your brain has enough lubrication as it is," Sophie retorted.

By way of response, Howl simply took a swig of his beer.

"Don't listen to him, Mari," Sophie advised their niece. "The only thing drinking will get you is a bed in the gutter."

"You don't say," Howl remarked, his eyes wide with feigned innocence. "You've never made me sleep in the gutter before, darling."

"Don't push your luck," Sophie warned. "Now, are you going to change Megan and Neil back into human beings, or am I going to have to try it?"

Howl had been in the midst of draining his beer, but at Sophie's words, he jerked the bottle away from his mouth, and proceeded to do something that was a cross between choking and spitting, with the result that half the kitchen got sprayed with amber liquid.

"What-what gave you the idea that Megan and Neil need to be changed back into human beings?" he asked, wiping his mouth and laughing a little too hard. "Really, of all the ridiculous things to say. They're already human beings, Sophie. Why on earth would they need to be 'changed back?'"

"Because I turned them into pineapples, remember Uncle Howell?" Mari chirped, holding up the two spiky fruits as if his memory needed to be jogged by a visual aid.

"I'm not an idiot, Howl," Sophie added, glaring at her husband.

"Oh, I'm well aware of that," Howl sighed. He polished off the rest of his beer, then tossed the bottle into the air and stepped back to let it fall.

"Howl!" Sophie shouted, instinctively moving in front of Mari to shield her from any shards that might come flying their way after the bottle shattered. But when it hit the floor, it burst, not into dangerous glass splinters, but into a throng of soap bubbles.

"Show off," Sophie muttered as the iridescent bubbles came skidding her way. Beside her, Mari uttered something like "wow," her predicament temporarily forgotten.

"You wouldn't have me any other way," Howl winked at his wife, causing her to harrumph and roll her eyes at him. "Now, about this unpleasant business of … ahem … well, you already said it, Sophie, no need for me to repeat it. Mari, are you sure you wouldn't prefer your mother and brother as fruits? They'd certainly be tastier that way."

"Howl, that's awful to joke like that," Sophie chided him. "Now, would you quit stalling and just turn them back already? I know you could do it by snapping your fingers. What are you waiting for?"

"Do I really have to spell it out for you?" Howl asked, heaving a great sigh that seemed to suggest that the weight of the multiverse was currently resting on his shoulders.

No, he didn't have to spell it out for Sophie. She was well aware of all the trouble he went to in order to convince Megan that he led what, by Welsh standards, would be considered a relatively normal life. For his sister, he had woven an entire tapestry of lies, explaining everything from what his job was (Megan thought he worked as a florist, which was, admittedly, a half-truth), to why he was never around (he had told her that Sophie's family was from a place in his world called Australia—which was apparently about as far away from Wales as you could get without going to another universe—and that he and Sophie had moved there so that she could be close to them).

He claimed that he didn't tell Megan the truth about his life because it would worry her. "She'd probably have an aneurysm if she knew that her brother was wrapped up in something as 'abnormal' as wizardry and parallel dimensions," he'd once told Sophie. But even though he never voiced this particular fear, Sophie knew that he was the one who was worried—worried about how his sister would react if she discovered his secret.

"Megan's your family," Sophie said, in a gentle tone that Howl usually never heard. She walked over to him and took his hands in hers. "I know that you think she won't understand—"

"She won't," Howl asserted.

"At first, maybe," Sophie stressed. "But she will, eventually."

"Did a divination spell tell you this?" Howl queried.

"No—"

"Then don't be so sure," Howl told his wife.

"Howl, I can say from experience that siblings have a bond that can't be easily broken—"

"Oh, no one said it was going to be easy," Howl cut in.

"You can't keep her shut out of your life forever," Sophie finally said, getting to the point.

"Actually, I can," Howl corrected. "All I have to do is turn back time, make it so this little mishap never occurred. I'd need a few supplies, and maybe some help from Calcifer—"

"Howl—"

"We'd have to become fugitives, of course—running from universe to universe to evade the magical authorities, surrounding ourselves with cloaking spells at all times—"

"Howl, will you—"

"And it would probably be best for Morgan if we left him with Lettie and Ben. Or maybe Martha—give her a head start on those ten kids of hers—"

"Howl!" Sophie released her husband's hands and gave him a shove with both of hers. "That isn't an option."

"No, I suppose it isn't," Howl sighed again. "But a man can dream. It would be romantic, wouldn't it? An adventure."

Sophie simply crossed her arms, no longer in the mood to humor him. Howl didn't say anything more either, his green eyes clouded with something that Sophie had seen not too long ago, just before he had transformed her into a cat and the djinn had descended on the castle.

Walking over to Mari, Howl took the pie napples away from her, and set them on the floor.

"Stand back," he told Sophie and Mari, who both moved towards the hallway. He then recited a short, incomprehensible verse, and quickly traced a sigil in the air with his right hand.

Immediately, the two pie napples began to rotate, slowly at first, and then faster and faster until they were both whirling blurs of green and yellow and brown. As they spun, they also began to fragment, leaves and pieces of husk shooting away from them like branches being torn from a tree in a tempest. The pie napple shrapnel fanned out across the kitchen, unfurling like a peacock's tail, before dwindling to dust and snapping out of existence. At the same time, a tinkling sound filled Sophie's ears; it made her think of wind chimes, swaying to and fro on someone's porch. When the sound faded, she found that Megan and Neil were standing in front of her, both of them restored to their natural forms.

"Mam!" Mari shouted and ran to her mother, throwing her arms around the woman's legs before bursting into tears again, and launching into a stream of Welsh.

Megan responded in Welsh, frowning at her daughter, and reflexively placing a hand on top of her dark head—a sweet, maternal gesture that was in complete contrast with the steely look on her face. Her eyes scanned the kitchen, darting past Sophie and a bewildered Neil, before finally settling on Howl.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, switching to English now that she had realized that Sophie was present. Sophie used to think that Megan spoke English in front of her out of politeness. Eventually, however, Howl had explained to Sophie that Megan believed that speaking Welsh in front of foreigners would make her look uneducated. It was something that Sophie had never understood—in Ingary, knowing more than one language was a sign that you were intelligent and cosmopolitan. But this wasn't the time to dwell on that particular cultural difference ...

"What is going on?" Megan was asking. "What just happened? What did you do, Howell?"

"Mam—" both Mari and Neil tried to say something at once, but Megan cut them off.

"You owe me an explanation, Howell," Megan continued, stepping free of Mari's grasping arms, advancing on her brother like a wolf approaching its cornered prey. "One minute, I'm standing in the kitchen, putting away my groceries, and the next I'm trapped in a dark, wet space and I can't move and I can't feel anything—"

"Megan, that's—" Howl tried to get a word in, but apparently Megan was more interested in ranting than in getting her explanation, for she steam-rolled right over him.

"And don't you tell me that I'm imagining things," Megan bellowed. She was inches from him now, jabbing at his chest with her index finger. Howl backed up until he was pressed against the wall behind him, but Megan closed in on him again, refusing to give him space. "You're always telling me I'm imagining things, as if everything that ever went wrong in the world was all in my head. Well, I'm not crazy, Howell, and I'm not blind, either. You've been telling me that I'm imagining things ever since you filled my underwear drawer with snakes when you were a kid, but I'm not swallowing your lies anymore. Tell me what you did to me, or get out."

"Mam, it wasn't Uncle Howell—" Neil started up.

"—it was my fault," Mari finished.

For a moment, Sophie felt touched that Mari and Neil would defend their uncle, but Megan wasn't buying it.

"Oh, this is rich," Megan snapped. "Now you have my children covering for you? Really, Howell, is it possible for you to stoop any lower?"

Howl opened and closed his mouth a few times, like a fish out of water, while Mari and Neil clamoured for their mother's attention.

"No, Mam, it's the truth!" Mari insisted.

"He wasn't even here," Neil pointed out.

Sophie thought of saying something, but considering how her sister-in-law felt towards her, she decided it would be best if she kept her mouth shut. She didn't want to make things any worse for Howl.

"Megan, if I told you the truth, you would still think I was lying," Howl finally said, his voice as grave as Sophie had ever heard it.

"Try me," Megan ordered, folding her arms across her chest.

Howl chuckled uneasily, and rubbed at his forehead with one hand.

"Oh, heavens," he groaned. "Where do I begin?"