The sky fumed to an uneasy red like a wisp in a wizard’s head. A comet was about to fall and break little Howl’s sleep. It had always been like this on nights nearing his birthday. When Howl was about to turn thirteen, the fiery vision recurred more often and strong. He woke up with a trickle of cold sweat and a desire for the other half of the dream. It made him ache for the visibility of the being beyond the bleeding heavens―the absence.

 

Howl lay on the rocking chair beside the fireplace on a bleak night in Porthaven, Wales, waiting for the spell of sleep to take over him again. He intended to cross midnight and the first hour of his thirteenth birthday, and attempted to reach unfamiliar places of the dream world. The lone wind whined against the creaking window, waking Howl for awhile. He caught sight of a turnip-head scarecrow waving at him from the outside and dozed back to sleep in a blink or so. Embers rose up in a slow dance against the gloom and the fire seemed to whisper in a brittle voice, “hearth” which can be confused with “heart” or was it the other way around. The firelights condensate into murky clouds of cerise, and there came Howl waiting for the phantom comet to land and crash, but there was still none.

 

He was awakened by the thump of the scarecrow against the glass as if it was knocking. He rubbed his eyes to shove away the fog in his head. The pounding of stick and hay against glass ceased and the scarecrow disappeared. Both of Howl’s parents had gone on a trip to the Capitol to attend a convention on steam engine and magic as prime investors, and he was left home alone. Howl had no one to ask to about his recurring dreams that night and his parents might had intended it for Howl to skip over his boyhood. This had been a faltering tradition of the wizards, to leave their young alone on Deisiram, the eve of the thirteenth birthday.

 

That night, Howl went before the vintage mirror again as he usually did whenever he felt confused. Rarely did he fail to look at his reflection and compare it to the ethereal. He had dyed his hair starlight bright from black with coiffure potions to compete with the glow of heavenly bodies. Howl had a fascination for stars, or can it be said that he had a curiosity and ambition for beings on the upper hand. He had always thought of stars as the eyes and legions of the skies, spying on the nooks and crannies of the world. He wondered if a little boy like him was a spectacle to the the specters above as the stars were to him. This made him lust to be a glorious panopticon himself but his frail wizarding abilities kept him frustrated. The astrophil wanted to become what he loved.

 

When Howl looked at the figure in the mirror that night, he felt as if he can’t see himself. He thought that if he looked up, he would face a genuine facade. Howl went out to the fields with a longing to meet his kismet. Against the furious wind, Howl seemed feeble, but he housed a heart filled with yearning for everything above and to be everything beyond. As he went further, the air became sultry and his body humid. He heard teeny thomps chasing him and he ran until his lungs burned. When he looked back, he saw the turnip-head scarecrow now wearing a black suit and a magician’s hat. The scarecrow grinned at him with a pipe between his turnip teeth, and went pass him. Crickets chirped and the orchestra of night sunk in his hearing. It had never been louder than before. His neck stiffed from looking above and a delirious grin froze on his face. He stayed struck for awhile, but as ever, frustration came after fascination. Slowly, Howl looked down. He closed his eyes and a tear fell.

 

A faint light lustered through his thin eyelids, and in a while, a translucent play of colors waltzed. A muted firework display took place when he opened his eyes. He realized that they were stars falling and with a net that is his bare hands he attempted to catch one. He clawed a red one and it was a moment of wonder until it burned against his palm. He screamed in pain but the star cooled down and speedily healed his skin. He was left with an empty clasp. He searched everywhere for the star, but he there was only darkness. He felt as if he woke up and found himself on the edges of an unfinished dream again. The play of lights and the song of the night had left him. He hunkered down, hopeless. The blades of grass tickled his leg and he itched it. An unscratchable itch desperately made him venture his crust, but he eventually gave up.

 

“What is the problem, little boy?” A shrill voice asked from behind. Howl looked back and saw a pale sinewy man clothed only with an orange mirage and a dark hair reaching his knees. He felt a sudden uneasiness and his gaze scavenged on the man, trying to figure him out in details.

 

“Are you the star I caught?” He asked, dumbstruck.

 

“So you say,” he smirked.

 

Howl was humbled by his magnificence and asked for his name in the coyest way he can.

 

“Calcifer,” he answered, “Cal would do.”

 

“And I am―” but before Howl could tell him his name, the man cut him, “Howl.”

 

“How did you know?” Howl felt like he already knew the answer to his question, but still he asked.

 

“We had been sharing the same dream space for long.” This was the answer Howl was waiting to hear.

Howl’s pure thoughts brought him to say, “I see no point in living if I can’t be as beautiful.”

 

“You can be as beautiful,” he paused and Howl waited anxiously in silence. The man took the silving ring with a ruby solitaire off the chain wrapped around his wrist. “Let me tell you about the future, Howl, if you ever decide to take this ring.”

 

“Tell me,” Howl broke in another pause of silence.

 

“You will be as beautiful as the stars you long looked up to and loved  for you and I will be one. My powers and glory will be yours if you would bargain your heart.”

 

“And why does it cost my heart?”

 

“I need the heart of the human I share the dream space with to keep me from floating back into the heavens.”

 

“And what is it about the future?”

 

“Your parents will die before the brewing of the war and all their inventions on steam engine and magic would be credited to the enemy for they will steal from your nation. But if you would give me your heart, your kismet would change. You will walk around the face of the earth in a moving castle powered by me and everything will be visible to you like you’ve always wanted, for you can be anywhere in a flash and time will cease to be a bane.”

 

“I can only see good things.”

 

“Well, there’s always a risk. If you die, I die. If my flames be extinguished, so will yours be.”

 

Howl had lived for this moment and rejecting the offer was death to him. He took the ring from Calcifer and put it on his ring finger. Calcifer let out a smirk at the sight of it. “The deal is set,” he told Howl and kissed him, and burned inside him. Howl’s eyes flared an orange mirage as he gasped for breath for the searing pain he felt. In a little while he scratched his nape, his blades, and the hemispheres of his skull. Black feathers and a wide of  wings grew out, and he flew. He flew his way home and brought himself before the vintage mirror. He gazed at an unfamiliar figure, and cursed and blessed Calcifer’s name.