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“How about this one, Dorkin?” Chase said amongst the clutter of books around him, discarded here and there. Another box from Mrs. G’s personal library that she had graciously lent them. Chase presented said book in the way that one would bestow a crown upon a king. Across its sleeve was a colorful design, where overhead there stood a thin, towering castle surrounded by puffy clouds contrasted by skies of blue. In the foreground, the backs of a man and a woman could be seen, and their heads were tilted upwards to face the colossal building. In silver lettering, it read, “Howl’s Moving Castle.”
Deacon blinked, and once registering, let out an exasperated sigh. “Chase, there are plenty to pick from. Ones that I took notes on.”
“Yeah, and the notes stuff is getting boring. Probably like your med school books, but you wouldn’t know that because you don’t read them.”
Deacon rolled his eyes, feeling very called out. “Fine. But at least let me read the synopsis-“
“Did someone say read?” a small voice called from the ladder leading to the Hollow house’s tower. A head of red hair peeked just above the entrance as Prunella climbed up the ladder. “What are we reading today?”
Chase crossed his arms, throwing her a scolding look. “No. You’re gonna read your Lady Lovalorn books, like you’re supposed to.”
“Actually,” Deacon mused, turning the book over a few times. “This seems pretty tame. Looks like a fantasy with wizards and stuff.” Deacon was, obviously, trying to hide his excitement about the fantastical setting.
Chase shrugged. “Hm. I guess they made a movie based off of this book. I think. I haven’t seen it, but I saw pictures of it on the internet. If it’s a cartoon, that’s gotta mean it’s okay for kids, right?”
“That’s not how it works, Chase. But yeah, we can give it a try.” Deacon nodded, doing his very best to mask his elation. He wasn’t very good at it.
Chase looked over his shoulder from where he sat criss-crossed on the floor. “Silver, you ready?”
Silver exited her small, doll-sized house, taking a few last bites of a cheese pretzel and dusting crumbs off of her dress. “Yes, Chase! I am quite excited to design your outfit for this book. From what I overheard, it sounds like a whimsical title!”
Chase grinned, offering his palm for her to step on. Elegantly, she did so while Deacon tried to coax Bronze out of his oven mitt.
Goldie’s enthusiasm, was, of course, ever present. “I do hope that we go into a knight book,” Goldie beamed. “I don’t think I have ever designed a child-sized plate of armor! Either way, we will overcome obstacles with heroic deeds as always!”
Chase stood, Silver in hand, and placed Howl’s Moving Castle upon the desk sitting adjacent to the window. In a spectacular flash of light, the trio of humans inserted their corresponding keys into the novel.
Chase found himself in what appeared to be some sort of hat shop, where he sat in front of a desk cluttered with sewing pins, hats scattered upon it. Racks of hats sat every which way. Chase stood and glanced down at the outfit given to him by Silver, to find that he wore a long-sleeved, pastel green shirt with three buttons trailing down from the collar. He sported wide-legged green pants of the same shade, snug around the waist but otherwise flowy, perhaps to make up for where a dress previously was. Upon his head he felt a hat, and after close inspection deducted it to be a beige hat with a red ribbon across it.
So many hats in this book, thought Chase. He placed the hat on the desk beside the others. There was no need to wear it indoors. He twisted a bit where he stood, inspecting the brown ankle boots that made a nice clicky noise across the wooden floorboards when he paced.
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Somewhere, nestled in darkness, Nox stirred.
A luminous flash seeped through his grey eyelids, startling him awake. Three key symbols on the thick book propped against the wall glowed, a stark contrast to the stygian room he and Violet called home. Though, Violet was not there. Nox almost began to look for her, until he remembered that the old man took her somewhere yesterday; she was most likely in a separate book somewhere, or perhaps with her siblings for the day. Either way, Nox could only hope for her safety.
Nox stared blankly at the symbols in contemplation. He wasn’t supposed to go into books without Violet. But he didn’t feel like spending the entire day alone.
Nox stood from where he previously lay. “It’s not like I want to spend time with the dimwitted brat,” he assured himself with a scoff, furrowing his brow incredulously. “I am just... going on a solo mission. To retrieve the keys, like I have been doing this entire time.”
With that, he entered the book.
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Through who he had learned to be his “stepmother” in the book, Chase had learned that the heroine’s name was Sophie Hatter, her surname in the title of the hat shop she worked in. Sophie was the eldest of three—Chase found himself jealous he couldn’t relate—and her two sisters, Martha and Lettie, had split off in different directions for their future. Lettie to a baker’s called Cesari’s, and Martha apprenticed to a witch named Annabel Fairfax. Chase made his best attempt to keep note of this.
Poor Sophie, however, had felt that it was her duty as eldest to inherit the hat shop. Her life was filled with hats and hum-drum. Per the usual for many of the heroines he played the role of, Chase couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Though, with the help of some of his in-book abilities, Chase found himself suddenly adept at making hats. If he picked up a hat and some sort of sewing paraphernalia, like, say a needle, it was as if his hands completed the work on their own. The first few days of the book passed in what felt like thirty minutes for him—book time was weird—and for these first few days Chase found himself making hats. He would even speak to them on occasion.
As these days passed, Chase noticed something odd. Thanks to the gossip of his stepmother, the hats he was creating were laced with magical abilities. After experimentation, he concluded that when he spoke to a hat, the things he said to them would come true! He fashioned a pink sunhat adorned with faux feathers, mumbling something about how whoever wearing it would get “a crap ton of dudes.” Just a day later, the woman who bought it was rumored to have suitors practically flocking to her. When he deemed a bright yellow hat the “hat for party animals,” the previously meek lady who purchased it became an extroverted socialite mere hours after beginning to wear it.
“Wait until Buddy sees this. He’s gonna be so shocked,” he remarked to a red hat encircled with faux roses of the same shade. “Alright, you’re gonna... give people, like, superhuman strength.” He nodded to himself in approval. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
Chase had also found out that book characters would give him a nudge in the right direction if he was off-track long enough. So far, he had been doing what he was supposed to do; making hats until the heroine was bored out of her mind. Until, while making said rosy hat, the stepmother suggested that he go to Cesari’s and visit Lettie.
“Geez. This character hasn’t been outside in days,” Chase muttered to himself. Then he called to the stepmother, “I’ll do it in a sec! This hat doesn’t have enough roses on it yet and I need it looking crazy.” He was having so much fun with this newfound ability that he realized, just in that moment, that he hadn’t seen Deacon or Prunella even once.
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Somewhere within a floating castle, Deacon was sitting inside of a fireplace, his strikingly orange getup resembling a fire itself.
“Calcifer, move the castle a little ways west. We need to loom over Market Chipping long enough to make the peasants put up a fuss,” Buddy ordered.
Deacon rolled his eyes, though he would never let Buddy see his silent complaints. He was deeply confused by this book in the beginning, and after nearly four book-days of being bossed around by Buddy, he was already sick of it. It certainly didn’t help that Buddy refused to explain anything. The only tidbit of information he provided was that Deacon was a fire demon named Calcifer, and Prunella was Howl’s assistant and apprentice named Michael. Buddy played the role of said Howl.
Deacon also didn’t understand Buddy’s role in all of this. From what he had read of the synopsis, Howl wasn’t a villain of any kind. To add onto it, Buddy was always the villainess. It boggled Deacon’s brain.
Buddy spent these four book-days entering and exiting the castle on what he called “errands.” Sometimes, Buddy would stare into space muttering something about being surprised that Chase picked a more complex book. After these ominous mumbles, he would return to the task at hand. Just what had the three gotten themselves into?
On the morning of the fourth day, Deacon was busy controlling the castle with his in-book powers. He still didn’t understand how a fire demon could control the movements of a floating castle. Prunella was trying to work on a spell, something that Howl apparently made Michael do frequently. Buddy prepared to go out.
“What are you doing this time?” Prunella asked, bottles of glass potion bottles clacking together as she tried to find a specific potion.
“Initiating the first encounter with the heroine,” Buddy answered simply. He threw on an oversized jacket of yellow and red overtop his billowy white pirate shirt, not bothering with the sleeves and instead allowing them to trail gracefully behind him. He clipped emerald green earrings with red droplets above them into his earlobes, and in a show of curiosity, paused in front of a nearby mirror to look at the wizardly man in the reflection. Deacon rolled his eyes for the second time in that same minute, leaning against the interior brickwork of the base of the chimney where he sat.
“I hate being a literal ball of fire,” Deacon complained. “Do I really have to stay here the whole time?”
Buddy gave him a sideways glance. “Fireplaces were designed to keep fire in one place, were they not?” he sneered.
“Yeah, but like a fire demon—“
“You’re a fire demon who is cursed to be a ball of fire. This book is filled with curses. Your little friend will be hexed as well, soon here.”
Deacon sprang up. “What?”
“Relax, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” Buddy scoffed, turning to reach for the door. “He’ll be fine. In fact, I think he should be coming here tonight. After he gets cursed, of course.”
Deacon’s face simply paled as he helplessly watched Buddy leave.
After a beat, with both Prunella and Deacon staring at the closed door, Prunella spoke. “I wonder if it’s a deadly curse—“
“Stop.”
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Buddy quite enjoyed the alarmed stares and hushed whispers from the general public. They even cleared a sort of path for him. He was used to it, being the villainess in most stories and all, but oddly enough he wasn’t a villainess at all. But the entire situation still racked at his brain. He had went into the book by himself; he was the villain key, so why was he playing the role of someone meant to be the heroine’s love interest?
No matter. There were more important matters at hand, such as making sure that idiot Chase was on the right track. He passed Cesari’s—the place where Chase was supposed to be heading for—and looked around him as he went. There was nothing quite like being the talk of the town, not that he’d experienced it in the real world. He basked in the attention as much as he could. Especially because Chase was the only human interaction he’d received in what felt like eons. Not that he was grateful for Chase or anything, that would be ridiculous. And it wasn’t like his thoughts were always plagued with a head of blond hair, honey eyes, and an energetic smile—
Without paying attention, Buddy collided with another pedestrian and lost his footing, nearly falling to the ground. The other person let out a shout and toppled to the ground, their hat coming loose and hanging over their face to conceal it.
“Have you no spatial awareness?” Buddy said, glaring down at them. He leaned forward to take the person’s hand, lifting them to their feet. “There. Now if you don’t mind, I have someone I am supposed to meet.”
The person, after fixing their hat, was in fact Chase.
“Okay, I know you’re not yelling at me about spatial awareness when you’re the one who was staring at the bushes!”
Buddy rolled his eyes to hide his slight embarrassment. Chase was right, as much as he hated to admit it. “That is of no importance right now. This is the point in the story where we first encounter one another, and I flirt with you.”
“WHAT?”
“Er—“ Buddy blinked a few times in a futile attempt to regain his composure. “It is only a brief attempt at courting, in which I call you a mouse and offer to buy you a drink. You decline, and we both go our separate ways for the time being.”
“Ugh, not another dig at my height—wait, why? Who’s the villainess, again?”
Buddy folded his arms. “The Witch of the Waste.”
Chase’s expression went blank. He spoke slowly. “And you’re the Witch of the Waste, right?”
Buddy cleared his throat, and answered, voice small, “No. I am Howl.”