Archive of Our Own

Sophie picked it up carefully. Now that the flat bit was lit up, she could see quite clearly what was inside the box. It was a girl's face, tinted blue, staring back at her with wide eyes. "Oh!" Sophie said, and very nearly dropped the box again. This must be where Howl kept the souls of girls whose hearts he ate! Or at least one of them. 

"I hope I didn't hurt you," Sophie said politely. "It can't have been fun being dropped on the ground like that." 

The face in the box did not answer. It continued staring blankly, and then suddenly the light turned off and the girl disappeared into darkness.

"Oh dear," Sophie said. She wondered what that meant. Perhaps Howl had become aware of what she was doing... although he hadn't bothered to appear here himself. Sophie began to feel rather frightened. But, she reminded herself, she was an old woman, not a young girl. And if there was a way to get a girl inside a box this small, then there had to be a way to get her out again. "Don't worry," she said. "I'll figure out something."

She prodded the knobs again, and after a few tries, the girl reappeared. "Now don't go anywhere," Sophie said firmly. She pressed more things, and suddenly a noise started up. "Hello?" Sophie said, "is that you?" but it was too quiet and garbled for her to understand. "Come again?" said Sophie. The noise didn't stop. Sophie realized that it wasn't coming from the box itself, but rather from the antennae that were dangling down near the floor. 

She found that if she grabbed the narrow bits, and put the bulbs next to her ear, she could hear the voice quite clearly. What a horrible thing Howl has done! Sophie thought, and turned all her attention to listening. 

"Save me!" cried a female voice, and Sophie gasped. 

"It's you!" she said. 

"Call my name and save me from the dark," the voice said. There was quite a lot of noise going on behind her, that was terrifying in its own right. But at least Sophie could hear that much. 

"What is your name?" she asked. Then a thought occurred to her, and she put down the bulbs so she could look closely at the girl's face on the flat part of the box. In spidery handwriting that Sophie had to squint to read, there was a word. 

"Evanescence," she read slowly, and then more certainly. "Evanescence. Come out." 

Nothing happened. The words and noises kept coming out of the bulbs. Sophie put them back to her ear. The girl kept speaking, or was it singing? About how she needed to be saved, and her soul was gone. Sometimes a deep and menacing voice would join in, and Sophie began to imagine a monster in there with the girl. But nothing that either of them said gave Sophie any idea what she was supposed to do. They mostly repeated "wake me up" one after the other. Sophie pressed all the knobs again, and nothing whatsoever happened.

Finally, the words and noises trailed off, and there was a moment of silence. Sophie breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe she'd done something after all. Then, softly and then louder and louder, the same thing came back. It was repeating itself. 

Sophie dropped the box and the bulbs back on Howl's nightstand and backed out the door quickly. She'd have to look around, maybe she could find some way to get the girl out of there. But first she had to stop shaking. 

She managed to wobble her way to the chair where she sat, still shaking, for quite some time. 

"Is something the matter?" asked Calcifer. 

"Not at all," Sophie said, her voice coming over stranger than usual. "I've simply found where Howl keeps his souls." 

"What are you talking about?" Calcifer asked. "Howl doesn't keep souls." Sophie could not tell whether he was telling the truth or not. 

"Well then it must be a secret from even you, my friend," she said grimly. "I saw one. And heard it too." 

Calcifer hissed irritably at this. "I know everything Howl does," he said. "Especially if he had to use strong magic for it. Besides, the stealing souls story is just a rumor." 

Now Sophie was sure he was lying. She scowled and scooted her chair backwards a few feet. She sat in the chair until she stopped shaking, and then continued sitting as she thought about what to do next. She was still sitting and thinking when Howl came home, whistling cheerfully. 

Sophie glared at him so severely that he ran upstairs immediately, but he came down several minutes later. "Sophie," he said, "really. It's bad enough that you've been in my room, but did you have to break my ipod while you were at it?" 

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sophie said. 

Howl brandished the silver box in front of him. The bulbs swung wildly. Sophie paled. "It won't turn off, and it won't play more than one song," Howl said. "How on Earth did you manage that?" 

"It's your own fault for keeping souls in there," Sophie said crossly. It was probably a foolish thing to say, but Sophie was too furious and frightened to care. 

A series of strange expressions crossed Howl's face. He glanced over at Calcifer, and then back to Sophie. "You must be from Market Chipping," he said, and laughed. "I knew that rumor would come back to bite me, though I hadn't thought it would be like this." 

Calcifer started laughing too, a crackly snickering. "So that's what she meant," he said. 

"What do you mean?" Sophie demanded. 

"One, I don't eat souls. I just asked Michael to spread that around to add to my image. Two, there are no souls in this, you nosy old bat. Just music. And now, it seems, I can only listen to one song." He sighed tragically. "At least it's a song which perfectly describes the misery of my life." 

"He's not lying, I can promise you that," Calcifer said, even though he was still snickering.

Then Howl grabbed the bulbs in one swift motion, and put one of them in each of his ears. He began singing words that sounded awfully familiar. "Now that I know what I'm without, you can't just leave me," he sang, loudly and very off key. Still singing, he turned to go back up the stairs. "Breathe into me and make me real, bring me to life." 

The door slammed as soon as he was inside his room. 

Sophie looked at Calcifer. "That wasn't really music, was it?" It sounded nothing like any of the songs she had heard around Market Chipping, even from the traveling bands of minstrels who played things from far off lands. 

"You'd be surprised what Howl considers music," Calcifer said.

"Does it take a lot of magic to keep it in that box?" Sophie asked. 

Calcifer muttered around the grate. "I don't know. Someone else must have done the spell for him. I've never gotten to look at it." 

While Sophie puzzled that over, she asked the other question that had been bothering her. "If there wasn't someone caught in there, why were the voices talking about souls and being trapped?"

"Because Howl likes to listen to music that reminds him of himself," Calcifer said cryptically. He stared at Sophie rather as though he wanted her to understand something, but Sophie was too rattled to be much use at puzzles. 

"So you're quite certain there are no girls trapped in there," she asked, just to be sure. 

Calcifer gave a whistling sigh. "No," he said. "That's one thing you don't need to worry about." 

"Hmph," Sophie said. She had a feeling that she would continue worrying about it anyway.