Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Howl's Moving Castle. I am not making money off of this and I do not want to get sued.
Where All Past Years Are
In Which Howell Gets His Way (Again)
It was a small affair to transfer custody of the Jenkins children to their grandmother after the tragic death of their parents. A social worker drove them to the looming old house the government promptly forgot about them.
Megan made sure that Howell kept on the tie that he loathed so much at the funeral and was then at the point where she was quite ready to forget about all of it herself. She was entering a boarding school for high school and their grandmother had taken over care of Howell, and, well, she was ready to have a life.
She felt horribly guilty about it at first, because her parents were dead and she was leaving Howell and shouldn't she be a better daughter than this? But then she remembered their parents had left them with a huge mountain of debt that they would never have been able to hope to pay off and that Howell had barely said two words to her since she had gotten him ready for the funeral, and it let her pack her bags and leave without looking back more than twice.
It wasn't like Howell wouldn't be taken care of. Their grandmother was independently wealthy and no matter what grudge she had held against her daughter and son-in-law she seemed determined to make up for their uselessness with Megan and Howell. Howell would be happy and it wasn't like Megan would be home for Christmas.
Howell didn't quite see it that way.
He was far from naive. He quite understood the concept of death and knew that his parents weren't coming back. The knowledge of this did not make it an easier pill to swallow. He missed his mother. He missed sitting and watching her to her make-up, and missed her combing his hair, and missed reading to her and having her dote on what a smart boy he was.
His grandmother did none of these things. She seemed far more interested in bustling around the kitchen, making sweets Howell's mother would never have allowed in her house and trying to get Howell to eat them or do something equally absurd, like clean his room.
To avoid this punishment, Howell started exploring the huge old house that his grandmother inhabited. Most of the rooms were dusty and the furniture covered in sheets for there were far too many rooms for their grandmother to maintain on her own. Searching through them gave Howell something to do, despite what little he found. When he could be coaxed to the dinner table his grandmother complained how he could never be found and how little schoolwork he did and how little he ate. Howell made a great show of ignoring her.
Until one day when Howell was stirring through the upper rooms of the house, throwing a tantrum because Megan wasn't coming home for his birthday despite it's close proximity to Christmas. The school board could have debated whether twelve days constituted 'close,' but to Howell, who had been receiving Christmas-and-birthday-presents all his life, the two holidays were of equal importance.
This day was immediately noted as different because there was a locked door. None of the other doors had been locked. Not for Howell. Some had seemed to be on the first try abut had ultimately yielded to bear their contents to Howell's curiosity. This door did not.
Howell was quite use to getting his way and was not ready to be put off by a door. So he kicked and pounded and even let out a cry of frustration once or twice but the door did not budge. Howell conceded momentarily, promising himself that he would come back to the stubborn obstruction. He moved onto other rooms of the house, all of which happily revealed their secrets to him, but his mind did not stray far from his locked door. A little more than an hour later Howell was standing back in front of his door, glaring at the brass of the know and trying to will it to open.
The lock gave a soft click.
Howell was so startled by the sudden sound invading the silence that he fell backwards to the ground. He quickly regained himself and instinctively glanced around to see if anyone had been around to witness his undignified tumble.
The door quickly drew his attention again. A more sensible child would have wondered what was going on and might be a bit wary to open the door. But Howell was not a sensible child and was quite used to odd things happening and thus had very little hesitation in opening the door.
The room was very much like the numerous others that Howell had entered: dusty, sheet covered, and dark. Howell groped for a light switch, but the house was old and this seemed to be one of many rooms still without electricity. Frowning, Howell moved forward to open the heavy curtains in hopes of gaining some amount of visibility. He stopped short when the candles of the old chandelier flared to life. Instead of being frightened Howell found this very convenient and continued over to the large mahogany table covered with strange lumps. He coughed as the dust flew up when he threw aside the white sheet.
The table was covered with massive leather bound tomes and dark parchment scribbled over with ink. Howell examined them curiously. He liked books; he liked them very much. Books told him everything he could ever want to know without stuffing the information down in song form like they did at school.
Howell picked a large green volume off the top of one of the stacks. The words on the cover were in a language he wasn't familiar with. He set it aside and picked up a duller, scrappier brown book. This one as in English.
"Transfiguration of inanimate objects." Howell read aloud from the first page. What on earth was that? He started flipping through the pages. There were strange diagrams and circle drawings that ranged from simple to terribly complex.
"What are you doing in here?"
Startled, Howell jumped a bit. He spun around to face his grandmother.
"I was just looking at the books."
He turned back to the green book that had first captured his attention. "I can't read this one."
His grandmother moved to stand behind him. Howell thought that she smelled of soap and cooking.
"It's Welsh." She answered matter-of-factly. "Don't tell me that your mother didn't at least teach you that much?"
Howell shook his head. His grandmother sighed. "I'll have to teach you then. But you shouldn't be in here. These are your grandfather's things, and they're very old. I could have sworn this door was locked..."
"But I want to look at them!" Howell protested.
"These are not books for little boys that do poorly in school." She stated primly and Howell frowned. This was another reason that he and his grandmother weren't getting along. She wouldn't let him have his way like his parents did.
"I want to look at them!" Howell stated again, stamping his foot for emphasis.
"I'll make you a deal then." She started, placing a firm hand on his back and leading him out of the room. "If you start doing well in school and keep up with the Welsh lessons I give you, I'll give you everything in here. Hmm? How does that sound?"
Howell considered this. "That would be acceptable."
His grandmother chuckled. "All right then. How about supper?"