“Though if I were you, I’d be in Upper Folding making sure to catch Lettie on the rebound,” Sophie told him.

Howl was in and out of bed all the next day. When he was in bed, Michael had to tear up and down the stairs. When he was up, Michael had to race about, measuring the castle with him and fixing metal brackets to every single corner. In between, Howl kept appearing, robed in his quilt and clouds of dust, to ask questions and make announcements, mostly for Sophie’s benefit.

“Sophie, since you whitewashed over all the marks we made when we invented the castle, perhaps you can tell me where the marks in Michael’s room were?”

“No,” said Sophie, sewing in her seventieth blue triangle. “I can’t.”

Howl sneezed sadly and retired. Shortly he emerged again. “Sophie, if we were to take that hat shop, what would we sell?”

Sophie found she had had enough of hats to last a lifetime. “Not hats,” she said. “You can buy the shop, but not the business, you know.”

“Apply your fiendish mind to the matter,” said Howl. “Or even think, if you know how.” And he marched away upstairs again.

Five minutes later, down he came again. “Sophie, have you any preferences about the other entrances? Where would you like us to live?”

Sophie instantly found her mind going to Mrs. Fairfax’s house. “I’d like a nice house with lots of flowers,” she said.

“I see,” croaked Howl and marched away again.

Next time he appeared, he was dressed. That made three times that day, and Sophie thought nothing of it until Howl put on the velvet cloak Michael had used and became a pale, coughing, red-bearded man with a large red handkerchief held to his nose. She realized Howl was going out then. “You’ll make your cold worse,” she said.

“I shall die and then you’ll all be sorry,” the red-bearded man said, and went out through the door with the knob green-down.

For an hour after that, Michael had time to work on his spell. Sophie got as far as her eighty-fourth blue triangle. Then the red-bearded man was back again. He shed the velvet cloak and became Howl, coughing harder than before and, if that was possible, more sorry for himself than ever.

“I took the shop,” he told Michael. “It’s got a useful shed at the back and a house at the side, and I took the lot. I’m not sure what I shall pay for it all with, though.”

“What about the money you get if you find Prince Justin?” Michael asked.

“You forget,” croaked Howl, “the whole object of this operation is not to look for Prince Justin. We are going to vanish.” And he went coughing upstairs to bed, where he shortly began shaking the beams sneezing for attention again.

Michael had to leave the spell and rush upstairs. Sophie might have gone, except the dog-man got in the way when she tried. This was another part of his odd behavior. He did not like Sophie to do anything for Howl. Sophie felt this was fairly reasonable. She began on her eighty-fifth triangle.