and towed her uphill to the waiting castle. She was forced to give little hops in order not to catch her feet in the heather. “But,” she panted, “seven leagues is twenty-one miles! I’d be halfway to Porthaven in two strides!”
“No, it’s ten and a half miles a step,” said Michael. “That makes Upper Folding almost exactly. If we each take one boot and go together, then I won’t be letting you out of my sight and you won’t be doing anything strenuous, and we’ll get there before Howl does, so he won’t even know we’ve been. That solves all our problems beautifully!”
Michael was so pleased with himself that Sophie did not have the heart to protest. She shrugged and supposed Michael had better find out about the two Letties before they changed looks again. It was more honest this way. But when Michael fetched the boots from the broom cupboard, Sophie began to have doubts. Up to now she had thought they were two leather buckets that had somehow lost their handles and then got a little squashed.
“You’re supposed to put your foot in them, shoe and all,” Michael explained as he carried the two heavy, bucket-shaped things to the door. “These are the prototypes of the boots Howl made for the King’s army. We managed to get the later ones a bit lighter and more boot-shaped.” He and Sophie sat on the doorstep and each put one foot in a boot. “Point yourself towards Upper Folding before you put the boot down,” Michael warned her. He and Sophie stood up on the foot which was in an ordinary shoe and carefully swung themselves round to face Upper Folding. “Now tread,” said Michael.
Zip! The landscape instantly rushed past them so fast it was only a blur, a grey-green blur for the land and a blue-grey blur for the sky.
The wind of their going tore at Sophie’s hair and dragged every wrinkle in her face backwards until she thought she would arrive with half her face behind each ear.
The rushing stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Everything was calm and sunny. They were knee-deep in buttercups in the middle of Upper Folding village common. A cow nearby stared at them. Beyond it, thatched cottages drowsed under trees. Unfortunately, the bucketlike boot was so heavy that Sophie staggered as she landed.
“Don’t put that foot down!” Michael yelled, too late.
There was another zipping blur and more rushing wind. When it stopped, Sophie found herself right down the Folding Valley, almost into Marsh Folding. “Oh, drat!” she said, and hopped carefully round on her shoe and tried again.
Zip! Blur. And she was back on Upper Folding green again, staggering forwards with the weight of the boot. She had a glimpse of Michael diving to catch her—
Zip! Blur. “Oh, bother!” wailed Sophie. She was up in the hills again. The crooked black shape of the castle was drifting peacefully nearby. Calcifer was amusing himself blowing black smoke rings from one turret. Sophie saw that much before her shoe caught in the heather and she stumbled forwards again.
Zip! Zip! This time Sophie visited in rapid succession the Market Square of Market Chipping and the front lawn of a very grand mansion. “Blow!” she cried. “Drat!” One word for each place. And she was off again with her own momentum and another Zip! right down to the end of that valley in a field somewhere. A large red bull raised its ringed nose from the grass and thoughtfully lowered its horns.
“I’m just leaving, my good beast!” Sophie cried, hopping herself round frantically.
Zip! Back to the mansion. Zip! to Market Square. Zip! and there was the castle yet again. She was getting the hang of it. Zip! Here was Upper Folding – but how did you stop? Zip!
“Oh, confound it!” Sophie cried, almost in Marsh Folding again.
This time she hopped round very carefully and trod with great deliberation. Zip! And fortunately the boot landed in a cowpat and she sat down with a thump. Michael sprinted up before Sophie could move and dragged the boot off her foot. “Thank you!” Sophie cried breathlessly. “There seemed no reason why I should ever stop!”
Sophie’s heart pounded a bit as they walked across the common to Mrs Fairfax’s house, but only in the way hearts do when you have done a lot rather quickly. She felt very grateful for whatever Howl and Calcifer had done.
“Nice place,” Michael remarked as he hid the boots in Mrs Fairfax’s hedge.
Sophie agreed. The house was the biggest in the village. It was thatched, with white walls between the black beams, and, as Sophie remembered from visits as a child, you walked up to the porch through a garden crowded with flowers and humming with bees. Over the porch a honeysuckle and a white climbing rose were competing as to which could give most work to the bees. It was a perfect, hot summer morning down here in Upper Folding.
Mrs Fairfax answered the door herself. She was one of those plump, comfortable ladies, with swathes of butter-coloured hair coiled round her head, who made you feel good with life just to look at her. Sophie felt just the tiniest bit envious of Lettie. Mrs Fairfax looked from Sophie to Michael. She had seen Sophie last a year ago as a girl of seventeen, and there was no reason for her to recognise her as an old woman of ninety. “Good morning to you,” she said politely.
Sophie sighed. Michael said, “This is Lettie Hatter’s great-aunt. I brought her here to see Lettie.”
“Oh, I thought the face looked familiar!” Mrs Fairfax exclaimed. “There’s quite a family likeness. Do come in. Lettie’s a little bit busy just now, but have some scones and honey while you wait.”
She opened her front door wider. Instantly a large collie dog squeezed past Mrs Fairfax’s skirts, barged between Sophie and Michael, and ran across the nearest flower bed, snapping off flowers right and left.
“Oh, stop him!” Mrs Fairfax gasped, flying off in pursuit. “I don’t want him out just now!”
There was a minute or so of helter-skelter chase, in which the dog ran hither and thither, whining in a disturbed way, and Mrs Fairfax and Sophie ran after the dog, jumping flower beds and getting in one another’s way, and Michael ran after Sophie crying, “Stop! You’ll make yourself ill!” Then the dog set off loping round one corner of the house. Michael realised that the way to stop Sophie was to stop the dog. He made a crosswise dash through the flower beds, plunged round the house after the dog, and seized it by two handfuls of its thick coat just as it reached the orchard at the back.
Sophie hobbled up to find Michael pulling the dog away backwards and making such strange faces at her that she thought at first he was ill. But he jerked his head so often towards the orchard that she realised he was only trying to tell her something. She stuck her face round the corner of the house, expecting to see a swarm of bees.
Howl was there with Lettie. They were in a grove of mossy apple trees in full bloom, with a row of beehives in the distance. Lettie sat in a white garden seat. Howl was kneeling on one knee in the grass at her feet, holding one of her hands and looking noble and ardent. Lettie was smiling lovingly at him. But the worst of it, as far as Sophie was concerned, was that Lettie did not look like Martha at all. She was her own extremely beautiful self. She was wearing a dress of the same kind of pinks and white as the crowded apple blossom overhead. Her dark hair trailed in glossy curls over one shoulder and her eyes shone with devotion for Howl.
Sophie brought her head back round the corner and looked with dismay at Michael holding the whining collie dog. “He must have had a speed spell with him,” Michael whispered, equally dismayed.
Mrs Fairfax caught them up, panting and trying
