Howl's Moving Castle: A Cursed Heart

Fan fiction

By

Magical Creator!

Chapter 3: The Destroyed Town

Sophie couldn't wait until the castle stopped on the ground and she would be able to walk on the streets of a town. She loved being in that castle, it was her home. Besides there was not a better place for her than being somewhere, anywhere with Howl. But she wanted now and then, to walk on the streets, to see people, to buy food and some new clothes. She wanted to be lost in the crowed. Something that Howl hated but for Sophie he would do anything. Just like now. She couldn't believe it. She actually would get out of the castle. Howl agreed with that too. How happy could that guy make her?

But before they would land, she had to clean up the house. She was a clean freak either way and she wanted to have the house ready for when they returned. She started cleaning all the floors and all the rooms and it was about time to clean Markl's one too. She knocked the door once.

" Who is it?" Markl's little voice was heard from inside the room.

" Markl it's Sophie, I'm coming in to clean your room." Sophie said holding with one hand the mop.

" What? No, no!" Markl started to freaking out. Sophie chuckled at his reaction.

" Markl, if you don't let me clean your room now, you will clean it later by yourself and you will miss our walk outside the castle." Sophie warned him with a smirk. The door opened and Markl appeared with a grumpy face.

" Fine! You win!" he said pouting and Sophie tickled him to make him laugh.

" You can help me if you want. In that way we will finish faster." she said kindly at him and Markl agreed.

While they were cleaning a thought passed Sophie's mind. She hadn't seen Howl at all today and that was odd. She always seeing him in the morning. Always but today.

" Markl, have you seen Howl today?" she asked while she was cleaning the windows.

" Yeah, he is downstairs talking with Calcifer." he replied while he was picking up the dirty clothes form the ground and putting them into the box.

" With Calcifer? Again?" she asked. Something was not right, she could feel it. The last few days Howl was making a lot of meetings with Calcifer, meetings that she didn't even know that were happening.

" Yeah. I think they are discussing the possibility of moving again." he said innocently and Sophie nodded in agreement, tho she knew something was up, but she decided not to speak and she kept on cleaning.

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In the meantime Howl was having one more meeting with his friend and right hand Calcifer. That little demon that he once owned Howl's heart, still had the ability to move the castle and he still was Howl's best friend. Calcifer was the only one that knew every secret that Howl hided. He had his heart from when he was little, so he knew every single thing about him. Included this one.

" Howl are you sure of what you're about to do?" Calcifer asked Howl. Howl stayed skeptical for a minute but then he nodded in determination. He was sure about that stop.

" I can't risk of losing Sophie Calcifer. I need to make sure that she'll be safe."

" Howl I understand. But this is Anna we're talking about." the small fire demon said to him.

" Don't worry about her." he assured him.

" It's not her that I'm worry about. It's you Howl. It's not safe for you, don't you remember what you've done to her?"

" Of course I do!" Howl said with wide eyes. " And it hurts Calcifer. It hurts really bad." Calcifer felt really bad about his friend and master, but he knew he couldn't do anything to help him, even tho he wanted to.

" I thought you were over the whole thing." the demon said.

" I destroyed the girl's life. How can I be over with something like that?" he said with frustration. He ran his fingers through his messy black wavy hair and sighed.

" Are you sure that this is about Sophie?" Calcifer asked cowardly.

" What do you mean? Of course it is!" Howl replied feeling misunderstood.

" Okay I'm just saying. Anna had a huge influence in your life buddy."

" Anna was a mistake. A mistake that I have to fix" he made clear to Calcifer and he made a move to leave.

" She's not a toy Howl. She's a human." Calcifer raised his voice so that Howl could hear him.

" No she's not! Not anymore. I took that from her eight years ago. That's what I have to fix." he finally said his last words and got out of the room.

" Good luck my friend" Calcifer whispered to himself as he watched his friend leave.

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The moment had come. Sophie was so excited and couldn't wait till the time the door would open and she could face the civilization again. Markl was standing next to her feeling pretty nervous but impatient too. While Sophie was putting on her coat her mind went to Howl. Where was he? They were about to go outside and he hadn't been seen nearby. But she put herself of that thoughts the moment his hand touched her shoulder. She gave him a very warm smile and hugged him tightly. Howl smiled and looked into her eyes. He caressed her hair and she let herself be blown away from his touch.

" Are you ready?" he asked looking into her sparkling eyes.

" I am!" she smiled at him. He ran his finger through her soft gray hair and took a deep breath. Sophie couldn't feel happier that moment. Howl placed a soft kiss on her forehead and opened the door.

The moment that the door opened and reviled the view of the outside world made Sophie gasp. Her eyes become wide and she was petrified on her sit. She looked over Howl and noticed that he wasn't better than her. He was left dumbfounded with the view.

They made a move a little bit outside the door and the view became even worse.

" Oh my..." Sophie said. She looked around her and saw a desolated town. Houses were destroyed and all of the shops were closed. It was like a great hurricane had hit the place and destroyed everything. Few people that passed in front of them, they didn't notice them but they were murmuring and they were crying. It was... It was nothing like Sophie expected to see.

" Sophie I'm- I'm so sorry." Howl said disappointed with himself. Sophie noticed that.

" Howl no, no it's okay! It's not a beautiful sunny town, perhaps something bad happened here, but it is what it is. We'll go for shopping and then we can leave." she assured him.

" But, I wanted to-"

" Shh! Howl it's perfect. Even that you made that thought for me, it's more than enough" Sophie smiled. Howl looked at her. He couldn't believe her kindness, her pure good heart. She was with no doubt the best thing that ever happened to him. So no, he wouldn't risk anything happen to her. The decision has been made. There was no going back now.

" Fine! You go for shopping with Markl and I'll go check if it is safe." Howl said to her.

" Howl" she chuckled " Not all things have to do with magic. Perhaps whatever happened in this town was caused by natural events."

" Perhaps...but either way, I'm not risking anything." he winked at her. Sophie blushed a little bit but gave him a small smirk.

" As you wish! Just take care." she said.

" I will, you too!" he finally said and gave her a soft kiss on her lips. Then he took his own way.

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Howl started walking. He was surrounded by empty and destroyed buildings. Houses that had been burned. That town was a mess. It was like it has been in a war.

It couldn't be her, could it? He thought. His eyes were witnessing terrible things, lots of drama, lots of pain and he couldn't even stand the thought that all of these came from the girl that he cursed. 'Cause if it really was, then their blood was on his hands too.

As he was moving he noticed an old lady trying to clean the damage that was caused to her house. He came closer to her, wanted to offer his help, but instead he decided to ask her only a few questions.

" Um... Excuse me...Mam?" he said with hesitation. The old lady turned to face him. Howl's eyes got widen as soon as he saw the woman's face. Her freckled face was all covered with blood, obviously not hers and it was not fresh.

" Yes, son?" she said with her old weak voice. Howl swallowed and tried to hide his surprise on his face so that the woman wouldn't be insulted.

" What happened here?" he asked her. The woman's eyes got dark as the thoughts came through her mind.

" Tragedy my boy..." she began to say as she was coming close to him " That's what happened. This town is cursed, it suffers from it. You see all these?" she asked him pointing with her trembling finger to her house and Howl nodded.

" That was the soft hit. I was lucky. If you want to know what really happened here, if you want to find out the tragedy of the Blue Moon, you have to go to Kara's house."

" Kara's house?" he frowned.

" Yes! She's the witch that lives nearby the mountain. Go find her, and you'll see!" she finally said and disappeared into the smoke that was coming form her burned up house.

Howl listened to the old woman's word and he began to walk on the road that led to the witch's home.

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He walked for a few minutes until he finally had arrived on his destination. There was nothing to be seen but smoke. Lots of smoke that was surrounding the wreckage of a destroyed home. He came closer and noticed a woman standing on her knees between the ruins.

" Excuse me Mam? Are you – are you okay?" he asked as he was walking even closer to the woman.

The middle aged female stood up on her feet. Her hands were trembling and they were all burned up. Her clothes were dirty and torn and her hair was messy.

" Um... Mam?" Howl said again by placing softly his hand on her shoulder. That moment the woman turned around aggressively but terrified too. Howl faced her face. His heart stopped beating at the view. How could it be? He never had seen someone with so much beauty and ugliness too.

Her face was clean but covered up with dirt. Her eyes were red from crying and she had a big scar starting from her forehead and ending up a little bit below her right eye.

" Who – Are – You?" she asked clearly looking into his eyes with her wide gray ones.

" Howl" he said swallowing deeply.

" Are you here to kill me?" she said forming a small smile on her face. Howl frowned for a moment and threw away the thought of that woman being happy because someone would want to kill her.

" N- No!" he said. The woman's smile faded away as soon as the words came out form Howl's mouth.

" I came here to find out what happened..." The witch got lost in her thoughts for a minute but then she turned and looked at him.

" Come..." she said and Howl started to following her.

" Where- where are we going?" he asked.

" To meet my family." she simply said.

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Sophie all the way down to the street that Howl had mentioned her before, hoping to find one not destroyed open shop to buy some food and maybe some new clothes. Markl had put on his disguise and was standing as close as possible to Sophie. You could say he was a little bit scared by the view but he was trying hard to hide it. Maybe he would have succeed if Sophie didn't know him that well.

" Markl" she chuckled and the continued " You have nothing to fear about."

" But- But Sophie look around you, it's like a tornado swallowed this city" he said frowning and coming even closer to her the moment they were walking by some old creepy old man that was looking at them from head to toes.

" Yeah, I will agree with you in that, but we're not here to solve the mystery, we're here to buy some stuff and then we'll leave, okay?" Sophie said looking into his terrified little eyes. Markl nodded and they continued walking.

The time was passing and they hadn't find any shop open until now. Sophie spotted an open shop a few steps down from where they were standing. There was a middle aged man, kinda chubby, with a thick brown mustache, talking to small figure covered in a big dark blue cape with a hood, in front of him.

" But sir, I need those lemons." the figure under the dark blue cape complained. The voice sounded young to Sophie's ears and she understood that this was a girl. A girl at her age, maybe few years younger than her. She was holding a small brown basket and she was literally begging the man to give her those lemons.

" I'm sorry, we're closed" the man said and made a move to leave. Sophie's eyes witnessed the girl grabbing the old man's hand and stopping him from moving any further.

" But it's just a few lemons. Lemons that I need!" she complained again.

" I'm sorry, but no one knows how the next hit will be and I need supplies. Go find your lemons somewhere else." the man said an got himself out of the girls grip.

The girl sighed in frustration and Sophie felt sorry for her. She didn't know what happened in that town, but she knew that she couldn't leave that girl without lemons. She knew she needed those lemons. Sophie got closer to the girl and she got out of her basket a small blue bag with few lemons in it. The only shop she had found open was one a few feet behind them and it only had one bag of lemons. So she actually payed for this, so that she wouldn't leave without anything.

" You can have mine!" Sophie said with her sweet voice, reaching out the bag to give it to the girl.

The strange female figure turned to face her. Her green eyes saw a young hand holding out the small bag for her. She formed a small smile and remove the hood revealing her young beautiful face.

Sophie faced that girl's face and smiled. She glanced over Markl for a moment and saw the he was left with his mouth opened. She tried to hold herself form laughing but she knew she couldn't blame him. The girl was ridiculously beautiful. Black thick eyelashes that were cover her breathtaking big green eyes. A total clean face with perfect lips and hair black – as the night – too short for Sophie's taste but they were fitting perfectly on that girl.

" That's really kind." she smiled at Sophie and it was like the while town got lighten up. Such a beautiful girl, Sophie thought for a moment and she noticed that probably Markl was thinking exactly the same thing as her. " But not thanks" the girl finished her sentence.

" Come on take them. You may need them more than I do." Sophie said politely.

The girl paused for a moment and looked at the bag then back to Sophie's eyes. She saw the kindness that was in them and she knew she couldn't refuse her offer.

" Thank you" she said taking the bag and looking in it. Sophie's smile became wide as she saw the girl smiling.

" No worries. I'm Sophie by the way." she said and reached out her hand to shake the other girl's.

The beautiful girl looked over Sophie's hand and smiled. She took a deep breath and raised up her head facing Sophie at the eyes.

" Anna!" she said with a smiling face shaking Sophie's hand.