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[talkstohats]

The relocated castle is very close to the same shape it always was - inside, at least; all the same, there's an undeniable sense of difference, and Sophie is fidgety and curious all morning, wanting to see what's outside.

But Howl is gone, and the door is set to black-down and won't open, so she appeases her impatience by getting out a bucket of water and setting to work on scrubbing out the chalk marks on the floor instead. It relieves her stress.

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[wizard_howell]

"Work, work, work." He steps over her casually, almost carelessly, almost as if he doesn't notice... but he does. He notices everything. His suit is still jet black but the whole vampire thing's never held much fascination for him; he's let his hair go fair yellow again. Marching across the room, he plucks the skull out of the sink, holding it up with a bit more thoughtfulness than he might normally give it.

"Alas, poor Yorick!" Letting out a breath, he shakes his head sadly. "She heard mermaids, so it follows that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. I have caught an everlasting cold, but luckily I am terribly dishonest. I cling to that."

As if to punctuate the everlasting cold statement he coughs, but it's a bit on the pathetic side. He can't even convince himself that the cold will never go away.

It's not to worry over: he's got enough other things on his mind. He stares at the skull as if it ought to be able to simply start talking, but it doesn't even budge a mandible.

How unhelpful.

[talkstohats]

The cough is astoundingly unconvincing.

Sophie rolls her eyes, and exchanges glances with the dog-man, who looks dolefully long-suffering (although it must be admitted that this is nothing new.) "You should go back to Lettie," she murmurs to him, and then looks back up at Howl, with a sigh.

"What's the matter? Miss Angorian not going well?"

She's trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, she really is.

[wizard_howell]

As if it's any of Sophie's business, but he supposes he can be magnanimous enough to confess. "Dreadfully. Lily Angorian has a heart like a boiled stone."

Before Sophie can pry for any more details, however -- and she should be glad she got an actual answer, for all that she likes to accuse him of slithering out of things -- he sets the skull back down in the sink and shouts for Michael. "Food! Work!"

One thing at a time: once the food is done, it will be time to get back to work. And then once work is done... well, maybe then he'll feel like answering more questions.

[talkstohats]

After breakfast, Sophie goes back to work, resolutely ignoring the strange thumpings and clatterings coming from the broom cupboard to which Michael and Howl have disappeared - though it's rather harder to ignore the dust which keeps flying out and marring her nice clean floor.

She's itching to take a broom to the entire place; when Howl and Michael shout her name, she grabs hers and shuffles eagerly into the closet. Except it's not a closet anymore: where the wall had been, there now stands an elegant archway, leading to the steps that used to connect the shop part of the building to the house where the Hatters had once lived.

Empty and echoing, the shop looks nothing like it used to. Between the black-and-white tile and the two lonely-looking vases of waxed-silk roses and velvet cowslips, it reminds her more of Mrs. Pentstemmon's cold grand house than the comfortable place where she'd grown up.

She is, she realizes, being invited to admire it.

[wizard_howell]

"I found the flowers in the workshed out at the back." With a flourish of hands, he gestures to the outdoors. "Come and look at it with me."

He gives her a pleading, beseeching look: regardless of what she thinks as the door opens and the shop bell tinkles merrily, he knows what he thinks.

For the first time, he'd very much appreciate Sophie's approval.

[talkstohats]

It's the same bell she's heard all her life.

Sophie tells herself that it doesn't matter - it is, very clearly, an entirely different place now - and hobbles out into the street. It's too early in the morning for the neighbors to be out yet to gawk at the new tenants, which leaves Sophie free to gawk at the new front. It's been painted bright green and yellow, and a sign in curly letters over the window reads H. JENKINS FRESH FLOWERS DAILY.

"Changed your mind about common names, have you?" she says to Howl, and is relieved to hear her voice coming out quite normally.

[wizard_howell]

"For purposes of disguise only." He's miffed and more than a little injured at the way her words cut, or would like to cut. "I prefer Pendragon."

And Sophie's next words are even more cutting, if that were possible, when she asks him where the fresh flowers will come from and reminds him that they can't say fresh flowers but then sell wax roses off hats.

He could be so hurt by that, but he's honestly too excited over the prospect of what comes next to let it sink too deeply. "Wait and see." Taking her by the elbow, he steers her out to the back of the shop, a small smile lighting up his face.

[talkstohats]

The backyard is only half the size that it used to be, cut off by Howl's outdoor workspace from the moving castle; the new window above it belongs to Howl's bedroom is next to the window of her old bedroom.

Despite her resolution, she's feeling odder and odder about the whole thing. It gets worse when she runs through the new arrangements of the castle, and realizes that most likely there's no way to reach her old bedroom now.

Then they're indoors again, and, belatedly, Sophie realizes that Howl is being quiet - the sort of quiet she recognizes from her sisters. It means that means that she's been gruff, and now his feelings are hurt and he's sulking.

"I think it's all very nice," she offers, feeling rather guilty.

Although why he should expect me to start praising him now I can't think!

[wizard_howell]

"Really?" One eyebrow arches; he tries to maintain a neutral expression but... he's worked hard at this. Perhaps he's worked harder at this -- at making it nice, at taking her opinion and desires into account -- than he's worked at anything in a very long time.

Then again, he's used to being underappreciated and he doesn't see why things should suddenly change now. She's always taken him and his abilities for granted.

So be it: striding across the room, he turns the handle purple-down and pulls the door open.

There are... flowers. Many, many of them, flowers as far as the eye can see; big bushes of them drift past but stop so that someone -- Sophie -- can climb down amongst them. Lanes of bright green grass lead off in every direction; he leads her down the nearest path.

The castle follows them, as befits a moving castle. Though he's almost loathe to do it, he gives Sophie an expectant look but doesn't say a word. He simply wants to watch for her reaction.

[talkstohats]

The air is hot and steamy, filled with the scent of flowers - and, moreover, the feel of magic.

Truth be told, it feels a little like the bathroom after Howl's been in it for four hours.

But Sophie knows better than to say that, and in any case, she can feel her gruffness slipping away to be replaced by simple wonder and delight. The flowers are beyond beautiful - there must be hundreds of varieties, smaller ones nestled in between the bushes and creepers snaking around, lilies and irises and giant pansies and others with strange shapes and colors and scents that she's never seen or imagined before.

She's lived with magic for months now, but she had never dreamed it could do all this. Had never dreamed that Howl would do all this, either - though, she thinks, no one else but Howl could have created this garden; it was so like him.

[wizard_howell]

Now that's better: after all this work, to see a smile lighting her face.

That's much better. "You see? We can cut flowers by the armload every morning and sell them in Market Chipping with the dew still on them." As if to make his point he waves his arm; the motion disturbs what must be hundreds of tiny blue butterflies feasting on a yellow rose bush. They flutter off and resettle down the lane a bit and he leads Sophie to follow, her arm once again tucked safely into the crook of his elbow.

Here, though, the grass becomes moist and less firm underfoot; orchids sprout beneath the shade of bushes and the lane ends at a water lily pond. The castle, still trying to follow, takes another path lined with different sorts of flowers. At the squashy quality of the ground underfoot, Howl turns to Sophie. "If you come out here alone, bring your stick to test the ground with; it's full of springs and bogs. And don't go any further that way."

He points to the southeast, where the sun burns fierce in the sky above a misty sort of fog. "That's the Waste over there: very hot and barren and full of Witch."

Beneath their feet, a creature of some sort crawls into the pond and slips between lily pads with an almost inaudible swish of water.

[talkstohats]

Sophie tears herself away from the flowers and turns to look. In all the oddness of moving back to the hat shop, she had forgotten that they were next to the Waste.

Perhaps Howl didn't make the garden after all, she thinks, doubtfully. It seemed as if it would have attracted attention from the Witch.

But it did scream Howl all over; she couldn't say why, exactly, but it did all the same. And he had never been known for his common sense.

"Who made these flowers, right on the edge of the Waste?"

[wizard_howell]

Turning back to the castle, his voice is almost wistful with the memory. "Wizard Suliman started it a year ago." His attention wavers between the castle, Sophie, and the heat rising off the Waste in the distance. "I think his notion was to make the Waste flower and abolish the Witch that way."

There's a momentary pause as he considers his own words. "He brought hot springs to the surface and got it growing. He was doing very nicely until the Witch caught him."

He knows what that's like, or at least he imagines what it's like: not a pretty thing. It's something he doesn't like to think about or at least not talk about, because the reality of what she can do is far more grim than most people realize. It's rarely a happy melodic wizard's battle with her. No: usually, it's dire beyond comprehension, and he shudders to think what she might have actually done with Wizard Suliman.

[talkstohats]

Sophie would likely have blanched at the idea of considering the last battle between Witch and Wizard happy and melodic. Then again, Howl wasn't the one waiting on the edge of the city, certain that he had been killed.

What had happened to Wizard Suliman? "Mrs. Pentstemmon said some other name," she says, trying to remember what it was. "He came from the same place as you, didn't he?"

Make the Waste flower and abolish the Witch - it's a nice idea, but apparently not a very practical one.

[wizard_howell]

For all that she isn't or doesn't seem to be, Sophie's a very observant person. "More or less," he answers. "I never met him, though. I came and had another go at the place a few months later. It seemed a good idea. That's how I came to meet the Witch. She objected to it."

Sophie asks him why, but the castle is waiting for them: he turns them toward the door. "She likes to think of herself as a flower." Opening the door, he moves to usher her in. "A solitary orchid, blooming in the Waste. Pathetic, really."

The inside of the castle, old but new again, awaits.

[talkstohats]

More like a solitary Venus fly-trap, Sophie thinks, and turns to survey the garden one more time. There must be thousands of flowers there - and almost every one of them prettier than an orchid. It seems impossible to ignore.

"Won't the Witch know you're here?" she asks; Howl is already hurrying past her as he answers that he tried to do what the Witch would least suspect.

The answer is far too pat. "And are you trying to find Prince Justin?" Sophie presses.

[wizard_howell]

"Michael!"

There's more work to be done; he races through the broom cupboard looking for his apprentice.

Answers, if they come at all, will come later.