The Land of Ingary Trilogy. Diana Wynne Jones

spiders. ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.’ I keep trying,” he said with great sadness. “But I brought it on myself by making a bargain some years ago, and I know I shall never be able to love anyone properly now.”

      The water running out of Howl’s eyes was definitely tears now. Sophie was concerned. “Now, you mustn’t cry—”

      There was a pattering outside. Sophie looked round to see the dog-man oozing himself past the door in a neat half-circle. She reached out and caught a handful of his red coat, thinking he was certainly coming to bite Howl. But all the dog did was to lean against her legs, so that she had to stagger back to the peeling wall.

      “What’s this?” said Howl.

      “My new dog,” Sophie said, hanging on to its curly hair. Now she was against the wall, she could see out of the bedroom window. It ought to have looked out on the yard, but instead it showed a view of a neat, square garden with a child’s metal swing in the middle. The setting sun was firing raindrops hanging on the swing to blue and red. As Sophie stood and stared, Howl’s niece, Mari, came running across the wet grass. Howl’s sister, Megan, followed Mari. She was evidently shouting that Mari should not sit on the wet swing, but no sound seemed to come through. “Is that the place called Wales?” Sophie asked.

      Howl laughed and pounded on the coverlet. Dust climbed like smoke.

      “Bother that dog!” he croaked. “I had a bet on with myself that I could keep you from snooping out of the window all the time you were in here!”

      “Did you now?” said Sophie, and she let go of the dog, hoping he would bite Howl hard. But the dog only went on leaning on her, shoving her towards the door now. “So all that song and dance was just a game, was it?” she said. “I might have known!”

      Howl lay back on his grey pillows, looking wronged and injured. “Sometimes,” he said reproachfully, “you sound just like Megan.”

      “Sometimes,” Sophie answered, shooing the dog out of the room in front of her, “I understand how Megan got the way she is.” And she shut the door on the spiders, the dust, and the garden, with a loud bang.