Howl bent and kissed the mitten, as he was obviously supposed to. He did it very gracefully, but it was rather spoiled from back view by Howl flapping his other hand furiously at Michael behind his back. Michael, a little too slowly, realised he was supposed to stand by the door beside the page boy. He backed there in a hurry, only too pleased to get as far away from Mrs Pentstemmon as he could.
“Mrs Pentstemmon, allow me to present my old mother,” Howl said, waving his hand at Sophie. Since Sophie felt just like Michael, Howl had to flap his hand at her too.
“Charmed. Delighted,” said Mrs Pentstemmon, and she held her gold mitten out to Sophie. Sophie was not sure if Mrs Pentstemmon meant her to kiss the mitten as well, but she could not bring herself to try. She laid her own hand on the mitten instead. The hand under it felt like an old, cold claw. After feeling it, Sophie was quite surprised that Mrs Pentstemmon was alive. “Forgive my not standing up, Mrs Pendragon,” Mrs Pentstemmon said. “My health is not good. It forced me to retire from teaching three years ago. Pray sit down, both of you.”
Trying not to shake with nerves, Sophie sat grandly in the embroidered chair opposite Mrs Pentstemmon’s, supporting herself on her stick in what she hoped was the same elegant way.
Howl spread himself gracefully in a chair next to it. He looked quite at home, and Sophie envied him.
“I am eighty-six,” Mrs Pentstemmon announced. “How old are you, my dear Mrs Pendragon?”
“Ninety,” Sophie said, that being the first high number that came into her head.
“So old?” Mrs Pentstemmon said with what may have been slight, stately envy. “How lucky you are to move so nimbly still.”
“Oh, yes, she’s so wonderfully nimble,” Howl agreed, “that sometimes there’s no stopping her.”
Mrs Pentstemmon gave him a look which told Sophie she had been a teacher at least as fierce as Miss Angorian. “I am talking to your mother,” she said. “I daresay she is as proud of you as I am. We are two old ladies who both had a hand in forming you. You are, one might say, our joint creation.”
“Don’t you think I did any of me myself, then?” Howl asked. “Put in just a few touches of my own?”
“A few, and those not altogether to my liking,” Mrs Pentstemmon replied. “But you will not wish to sit here and hear yourself being discussed. You will go down and sit on the terrace, taking your page boy with you, where Hunch will bring you both a cool drink. Go along.”
If Sophie had not been so nervous herself, she might have laughed at the expression on Howl’s face. He had obviously not expected this to happen at all. But he got up, with only a slight shrug, made a slight warning face at Sophie, and shooed Michael out of the room ahead of him. Mrs Pentstemmon turned her rigid body very slightly to watch them go. Then she nodded at the page boy, who scuttled out of the room too. After that, Mrs Pentstemmon turned herself back towards Sophie, and Sophie felt more nervous than ever.
“I prefer him with black hair,” Mrs Pentstemmon announced. “That boy is going to the bad.”
“Who? Michael?” Sophie said, bewildered.
“Not the servitor,” said Mrs Pentstemmon. “I do not think he is clever enough to cause me concern. I am talking about Howell, Mrs Pendragon.”
“Oh,” said Sophie, wondering why Mrs Pentstemmon only said “going”. Howl had surely arrived at the bad long ago.
“Take his whole appearance,” Mrs Pentstemmon said sweepingly. “Look at his clothes.”
“He is always very careful about his appearance,” Sophie agreed, and wondered why she was putting it so mildly.
“And always was. I am careful about my appearance too, and I see no harm in that,” said Mrs Pentstemmon. “But what call has he to be walking around in a charmed suit? It is a dazzling attraction charm, directed at ladies – very well done, I admit, and barely detectable even to my trained eye, since it appears to have been darned into the seams – and one which will render him almost irresistible to ladies. This represents a downwards trend into black arts which must surely cause you some motherly concern, Mrs Pendragon.”
Sophie thought uneasily about the grey and scarlet suit. She had darned the seams without noticing it had anything particular about it. But Mrs Pentstemmon was an expert on magic, and Sophie was only an expert on clothes.
Mrs Pentstemmon put both gold mittens on top of her stick and canted her stiff body so that both her trained and piercing eyes stared into Sophie’s. Sophie felt more and more nervous and uneasy. “My life is nearly over,” Mrs Pentstemmon announced. “I have felt death tiptoeing close for some time now.”
“Oh, I’m sure that isn’t so,” Sophie said, trying to sound soothing. It was hard to sound like anything with Mrs Pentstemmon staring at her like that.
“I assure you it is so,” said Mrs Pentstemmon. “This is why I was anxious to see you, Mrs Pendragon. Howell, you see, was my last pupil and by far my best. I was about to retire when he came to me out of a foreign land. I thought my work was done when I trained Benjamin Sullivan – whom you probably know better as Wizard Suliman, rest his soul! – and procured him the post of Royal Magician. Oddly enough, he came from the same country as Howell. Then Howell came, and I saw at a glance that he had twice the imagination and twice the abilities, and, though I admit he had some faults of character, I knew he was a force for good. Good, Mrs Pendragon. But what is he now?”
“What indeed?” Sophie said.
“Something has happened to him,” Mrs Pentstemmon said, still staring piercingly at Sophie. “And I am determined to put that right before I die.”
“What do you think has happened?” Sophie asked uncomfortably.
“I must rely on you to tell me that,” said Mrs Pentstemmon. “My feeling is that he has gone the same way as the Witch of the Waste. They tell me she was not wicked once – though I have this only on hearsay, since she is older than either of us and keeps herself young by her arts. Howell has gifts in the same order as hers. It seems as if those of high ability cannot resist some extra, dangerous stroke of cleverness, which results in a fatal flaw and begins a slow decline to evil. Do you, by any chance, have a clue what it might be?”
Calcifer’s voice came into Sophie’s mind, saying, “The contract isn’t doing either of us any good in the long run.” She felt a little chilly, in spite of the heat of the day blowing through the open windows of the shaded, elegant room. “Yes,” she said. “He’s made some sort of contract with his fire demon.”
Mrs Pentstemmon’s hands shook a little on her stick. “That will be it. You must break that contract, Mrs Pendragon.”
“I would if I knew how,” Sophie said.
“Surely your maternal feelings and your own strong magic gift will tell you how,” Mrs Pentstemmon said. “I have been looking at you, Mrs Pendragon, though you may not have noticed—”
“Oh, I noticed, Mrs Pentstemmon,” Sophie said.
“—and I like your gift,” said Mrs Pentstemmon. “It brings life to things, such as that stick in your hand, which you
