For months, Kiki Takayama had been gathering. She woke every morning with another step of the familiar ceremony in mind, picked up a pad of paper and then wrote out all the ingredients that she would need to find in order to complete it. She consulted her books, she checked all of Howl’s shelves twice over before she headed out. And then, once she was certain of her grocery list, she grabbed her brook and way she went—to find, to collect, to carry, to protect. Her room filled with little vials like dominoes. She placed them side by side lest they need special treatment—her moonlight kept in a bowl covered with a cloth, her sunlight placed in an open cup, her rainbows rolled out and draped over the back of her chair and the back of her bed. Find, collect, carry, protect. She ticked each item off her list then moved onto the next. Find, collect, carry, protect.
Until there was nothing to look for anymore.
This happened in the last few days of September. Kiki darted up at the chime of her phone and her hand reached for her notebook as it had before. But when she drew it onto her lap, she stopped. Her brain felt like a smooth, empty piece of paper. She turned back to the pages from the previous days, searching over the ingredients to see if she’d perhaps missed one. But there was all of the ingredients that would help her conjur the essence of Earth, and there was all the ingreidents for the essence of Water, and there for Fire, and there for Air, and there for the Void as well. But that couldn’t be right, could it?
She reached for the books and the scrolls next. She unbound an old one, one the Tayakamas had received from the Tibetan monks some two hundred years ago. She read over the script and checked her notes. She flipped to the indexes of the book, examined the charts. She climbed out of bed and dug deep into her desk’s drawer for a bound leather book—Jiji’s journal, which she had tried not to touch. But she touched it now, revealing his careful hand. By the time she had finished all this, her stomach ached with hunger, her mouth still tasted foul, and it was nearly noon.
But she was done. She was done. Kiki Takayama had collected all the ingredients.
She couldn’t believe it. Blinking slow, she padded down the hall and into Jiji’s old room, where Jiji now sat, locked in a cage, upon the bed. She climbed onto the bed and sank to her knees and then slipped her notebook through the bar.
Jiji hissed.
“Jiji, please,” she whispered. “What did I miss?”
Jiji stared at her with empty eyes. She reached in for her book again and his paw darted out, claws ripping at the back of her hand.
Kiki jerked back with a small gasp of breath. “Jiji,” she said, as tears filled her eyes. Jiji looked at her, unblinking, still gone. Still far away.
Kiki went back to bed, thinking over her ingredients. She dreamed about paper and pen and lists and errands. She slept until her stomach woke her again, growling, and then she wandered downstairs to find the living room empty, the sun setting outside, and Cal chewing on the logs in the fire.
She carried with her the notebook and once again slipped down onto her knees. “Hi Cal,” she greeted the spirit. Maggie Rose stirred in her bed of coals by the fire, blinking her eyes open.
“Um, can I…would you double-check something for me?” said Kiki, sounding as though she’d not slept at all—though she’d slept all day. She slipped the notebook up onto the fireplace. “I think I missed something. I dunno.”
Every day, as the sky turned soft violet, she opened her eyes from the few hours she salvaged the night before and stared up at the still-there stars clinging to sky like all they wanted to do was watch the sun rise. She slept in the dips of the land, in crevices between soft hills or up against trees. They were far from hotels or park benches or kind strangers who might house her. She rose with dawn. She licked the tip of her wand and held it in the sky to find the wind and learn the weather.
Kiki’s first words to Cal in the morning, every morning, was the weather report: Chance of rain today, early morning. Best wait it out and pick up speed after breakfast.
Clouds are coming in east, the wind’s going to be really bad today. We’ll have to fly low and slow.
Thunderstorm in the afternoon. Think we can outfly it, Cal?
She packed up her bag as she said all this and fished out crinkly gas station snacks she’d packed before they’d hit No Man’s Land. Sometimes it was a Twinkie for breakfast, other times crisps. She popped open Cal’s jar to handfeed him his share and he crackled and popped in satisfaction, his little sparks pinging against the glass like bells. This was Kiki’s favourite part of her days now-- meals with Calcifer. She didn’t talk hardly at all, just listened to him chewing, just let him talk if he wanted. Her magic stayed nestled inside her, dormant and sleepy. Kiki concentrated on Cal’s satisfied smacks and the feeling of her stomach filling up with food.
She dreaded when it was all done and she had to fly again.
She used to love flying. Up in the sky, her magic never hurt anyone and never faltered, just helped her glide over tree tops, giving her the best view of the great big world. But now she flew ten, eleven hours and her magic gave shaky jerks by the end. In the sky, she fought with the unfamiliar patterns of wind and weather and even animal, trying to stay on track. And every now and then, the track would change and Cal would tell her to switch a few degrees-- Howl on the move.
It felt endless, pointless, this chase. And she couldn’t sleep very well anymore. Lying down felt...weightless, like she’d been in the air too long and her body didn’t realize it wasn’t falling. She gripped at the ground, stopped breathing, jerked awake, and remembered getting blown off her broom in Suliman’s clouds and the terrible explosion of pain as she hit the ground.
But still, every night, she managed to get to sleep long enough to have magic to fly in the morning. And every morning, she’d mount her broom and her magic would take her up.
We’re almost there, Kiki, Cal said after a week of flying. Everything looked the same to her though, like they’d made no progress at all.
Kiki just kept north. North, north. No matter the way the wind blew. Kept north. Kept pushing onward.
Two weeks in, they’d reached the sea cliffs of Scotland, waves crashing against the jagged rocks. Cal glowed brighter in the jar, pressing the hand-shapes of his flames against the walls like he could see Howl now. His sparks danced in the jar.
He’s here! he told her. He’s somewhere here!
And even Kiki’s exhausted, underfed heart floated a little in her chest.
“I’ll take the broom closer,” she told him. Kiki gripped the handle and leaned to the side, dipping through the air toward all those rocks. She dared fly lower, and lower, keeping her eye on the green waves as they smashed and clawed at the cliff side. She chewed at her lip and squinted at those walls.
“What am I looking for, Cal?” she shouted over the waves. All she saw was rock and water. The wind grabbed at her, tougher out here on the water. Kiki’s muscles tensed as her magic kept her from getting jerked too badly. “Cal?” she repeated, louder. “Cal, I said, what am I looking f--”
“THAT!”
And as Kiki rounded a bend, she saw it.
A nest.
“How-- how am I... where am I going to land?” she shouted. Part of her wanted to pull the broom back and lift in the air. Her heart thumped painfully. Even from here, she could taste the black magic, seeping from that nest like a warning. What if she swooped in and Howl snatched her in his talons and--
Kiki shook those thoughts away. He wouldn’t do that. He’d see Cal’s light and know that his heart was here. He’d recognize Kiki because...
Because...
“Just go slow!” Cal shouted to her. He was still pressed against the jar’s walls, sparking madly. She knew how much he must miss him.
And Kiki missed him too. Her vision blurred and she realized she was starting to cry a little behind her goggles. She blinked faster, took a deep breath of all that salt air and cleared her throat. She wasn’t going to get eaten like the Zephyr sorcerer. Howl wasn’t Melaenis. She wasn’t there to harm him. He’d know her. And she’d know him.
Gritting her jaw, she clenched her fingers around the broom again and leaned in. They drifted toward the nest, fire demon and sorcerer apprentice, as the sea spray spat up at Kiki’s feet. She entered the tangled threads of broken tree limbs and landed softly, without a sound, on the cave ground.
Right away, Kiki pulled down her googles. They rested on her collar bone. Then she slipped the thread from around the jar that held Calcifer and held the jar in the crook of her arm. Staring into the dark cave, she thought she heard a soft growl-- but it sounded like a moan to her ears. Like Howl was crying.
Kiki bit at her lip and took another step forward.
“H-hello?” Her voice echoed. “H-Howl? Howl, it’s me, Kiki. I’m here to take you home.”
Really, there was only one bag-- her backpack, long ago enchanted with an expandable charm that let her carry as much as she could fit into a little Mundus volkswagen. It had been one of the many gifts that her mother had given her when Kiki first embarked on her mission to find a new mentor, a whole two and a half years ago. And inside it, she’d backed all her books, all her potions, all her family heirlooms. She’d packed up the last bit of hope she had that maybe, just maybe, Kiki would realize her full potential away from the bustling, too crowded streets of Ingary.
Two and a half years later...and had she?
Kiki thought this and looked at her bare mattress, where she’d laid out the crushed pieces of her family broom. It was the last thing she had to put away.
It was hard to look at the splintered wood and scattered twine and not think that, when arrived in Ingary again after two and a half years, her mother would be very disappointed in her.
But what her mother didn’t know was that Kiki had other plans too. She would bring the broom, bring little Jiji, back to the Takayama household, but then Kiki would not stay. Swynlake had taught her a lot, even if it had not improved her magic. Howl had taught her a lot too-- he’d shown her that she was capable of way more than she thought she was. Sure, she might not be a Great Wizard one day like her Master Pendragon.
But she could be something else. Howl showed her that she had the courage to look for that something else.
And so she moved forward, gathering up the pieces of her broom. The magic still tingled, alive even in its broken state. She felt it in every part of her. She felt her mother there, her Baaba Mei, her great-grandmother, her great-great grandmother before that. Years and years of Takayamas still connected all because of this little broom. It had taken her far. And though she couldn’t fly it home, she knew that was where it took her anyway. Any next steps she owed to this little broom, and to the adventures she had while riding it through the air.
“Don’t worry,” she spoke to it now, soft and loving, like the broom could hear her (she believed it could.) Kiki smiled as she put the pieces in her bag. “You’ll be all fixed in no time. Good as new.”
And I will be too.
Kiki headed downstairs after, her footsteps creaking on the stairs. She was faced with a familiar scene, one that had become her day-to-day over all these years: Calcifer crackling in the fire, a busy kitchen, Maggie playing with her little nest, and Howl at the table.
She smiled at Howl and tucked a strand of her black hair behind her ear. “Um, hi Howl. I’m uh, ready to go.”
HOWL:
These days, Howl found himself by the fireplace even more.
The old wives’ tale of demons staying with their hosts, of bonds that lasted even after the deal was broken, those were true, it seemed, and there Calcifer was in the hearth (though now he could leave it, as Howl’s heart no longer bounded him -- but that was a tale for another time, what becomes of Calcifer and of Howl. This story, right now, is for Kiki).
Howl was waiting, now, in the downstairs area of his home, newly fixed from the ruckus that Melaenis had caused earlier this year, and he stared into the fire, unable to move for the weight in his chest bore him down ever so much.
Kiki was leaving today. There came a time in every master’s life when he said goodbye to his apprentice. Howl had pictured this day a few times during Kiki’s training, but in retrospect, his imagination had always been...detached. He pictured her leaving, closing the door behind her, and then turning back to his spells, pouring over his books.
But now, as he heard her shuffling around upstairs, he glanced at her shoes by the door, at her plate on the sink, and that deep, aching throbbing feeling in his chest permeated all through him.
“It’s hard,” said Calcifer from the flames.
To that, Howl groaned and slumped over on the dining table, burying his perfect golden waves in his arms.
“Why does it have to hurt though?” whined Howl. “I don’t like this. Not one bit. This is not what I want.”
“Get a hold of yourself, you big baby,” Calcifer said, reaching for another log.
Howl turned his head so that his cheek was pressed against the wood of the table. He was still lying like that when Kiki came down the stairs and it was only when she spoke that he lifted his head up a few centimeters from the table, palms still flat on it.
“Kiki!” said Howl, a charming smile splitting across his face. “Darling -- have you got everything you need? I’ve made you sandwiches for the journey. A dozen, since I wasn’t sure what you’d be in the mood for.” From the kitchen, a picnic basket of wrapped sandwiches flew in and Howl sat up straighter so he could retrieve it as it landed on the table.
“There’s a bacon sarnie and an egg salad and also cucumber and cream cheese. And chopped watercress and also salmon and cranberry chicken and just a good ol’ ham and cheese, jam and butter if you’re in the mood for something sweet. Oh what were the last three? I suppose it will be a surprise.”
KIKI:
Kiki smiled as Howl smiled, even though she knew that part of it was for show, just for her.
But not in the way that it had been for all these years. Before Howl had no heart and so when he smiled, it was mostly because of something he had to say or wanted to show her, or, very rarely, something that Kiki did that might impress Howl-- or make him proud. She’d wanted very badly to make him proud and so it hadn’t mattered as much as it maybe should have that those smiles, the little ones she managed to pluck like flowers, had once come from a heartless man.
She still thought they meant something. Actually, she knew they did. She could still procure one of Howl’s smiles and mix it into a charm. It might not have the same oomph, but any smile-- every kind of smile-- had magic.
The one that Howl forced on his face for her now, though, looked especially beautiful for Kiki. It was the first one that was all for her. If only Kiki could take that smile with her.
But she’d settle for all the other gifts that Howl had given her...which wasn’t settling, by the way, at all. What other apprentice could say that they’d created moving-picture pumpkins or magical tie-dye shirts? Or faced off with Madame Suliman and lived to tell of it? Or flown all the way to the cliff sides of Wales? Or helped raise a little baby dragon-demon from the time she hatched from her egg?
How many other masters would go to karaoke with their apprentices, listen to their kpop, and make them breakfast every single day?
Even when Howl didn’t have a heart-- he had cared for her, better than her own mother. She’d miss him. She’d really really miss him.
That missing surged through her like a powerful wind. She couldn’t help it; Kiki darted forward and slipped her arms around Howl, squishing her cheek against his chest and hugging him tight. He was so willowy and skinny, but as warm as Calcifer’s fire now. She heard that heart of his beating strong, if not a little fast. (She wondered if he was just a little nervous to see her go too.)
“Thank you Howl,” she said, squeezing him tight and then tighter. “Thank you so much. You’re the most wonderful master I could ever have.” That heart thump-thump-thumped. Kiki squeezed her eyes shut and listened to it, as if it were speaking directly to her.
“I love you, Howl. I’m going to miss you.”
HOWL
It is perhaps of not much surprise that Howl had not often heard the words “I love you” spoken to him a lot. Actually -- Howl could not recall the last time he’d heard that phrase, especially since his own heart had been missing from him for so long. His parents hardly said it past his childhood and even in his childhood it was few and far between.
(He’d not heard it out loud, but he still had seen Jared’s face light up when he had gotten a particularly tricky spell correct; he’d still seen the way Calcifer’s flames danced when he tossed him a slice of bacon; he’d still heard Belle’s laugh as he delighted her with little spells; he’d felt Maggie nuzzle his fingers and playfully nip at them; he’d heard Mel murmur in his ear late at night; and he’d danced with Kiki and sang with her -- so, he’d not heard it out loud, but perhaps had he had his heart, he would’ve felt it around him).
It was unfair, thought Howl, that Kiki was leaving after he’d finally been restored to humanity, after he could finally be a proper teacher and a proper guardian.
He hugged her close, pressing his face to the top of her hair.
“Oh, it’s going to be much quieter without you and that old man cat around,” he teased, ruffling her hair a little. “Maybe I’ll get some sleep in at last.”
That did nothing to help the knotty warm awful feeling that was knotting and warming up in his chest, so he cleared his throat some. He tried to remember what Calcifer had told him in their “How to deal with having a heart and human emotions” lessons about how it was bad or something to not talk about the knotty warm awful feelings inside of one’s chest.
“Kiki,” said Howl, after clearing his throat. “Having you around here has been -- it’s been wonderful, truly. I didn’t realise how empty this little house was till you filled it up and -- it will be quiet, yes, but I will miss you. I...love you.” Oh blast it -- here were the awful watery things in his eyes now and he blinked rapidly. “I’m sorry -- have you got a handkerchief?”
KIKI:
Howl’s words made her just a little sad and just a little happy and something in-between that Kiki was rather certain didn’t have a name. There were many reagents that had so far gone unnamed. You could see them in tiny glimpses or feel them as they wiggled inside you, but of course it was very hard to collect something if it didn’t have a name. Which made these kind of reagents the rarest of all-- the most valuable, the most mysterious, maybe even the most powerful, if you managed to capture one for yourself.
Kiki wished she could package up that strange sad-happy feeling and leave it behind for Howl. Now that he had his heart, she figured it would be safe with him. Oh, he’d do the most wonderful things.
She was sorry that she wouldn’t be able to see all those wonderful things for herself.
And so for the last second of the hug, Kiki let herself just be sorry and grieve all those memories yet-to-be-created. She knew there would be breakfasts without her-- new customers with new, creative projects-- new parties and events, new outfits for Howl to try. She wondered how big Maggie would get (she was almost the size of a donkey now) and if she would ever talk like her parents or like the dragon.
She wondered if Mel would be good to Howl. She worried. She hoped that even if Mel wasn’t, Howl would be good to himself. He’d remember that he was loved.
She pulled away, sniffling herself and giggled at Howl and his own little tears. She could see the magic in each one, sparkling every colour in the spectrum (you could use tears, sometimes, to build rainbows-- did you know that?)
She reached into her pack, which had everything she had ever needed, and she pulled out her little handkerchief.
“Here Howl,” she said. She dabbed his tears for him, one after the other. “You can keep this if you want,” she pressed the handkerchief into his hand. “So you have something to remember me by, yeah? Or-- well, if not-- you’ll at least remember how pretty tears can be.”
And they were lovely-- dotted there on her handkerchief like diamonds, every colour of the rainbow indeed.
Kiki took a deep breath and smiled at her master. “O-okay. I-- I think I should go now, huh? Will you walk me out?”
HOWL
He knew this moment would come the minute he let Kiki into his house that fateful February evening. Apprentice learned and then they grew up, and went on to have their own lives. It was the circle of life, that whole shebang, and back two years ago, Howl had thought nothing of it and even as he got to know Kiki and even as she wormed her way into his life, that day felt so far removed and out of touch that Howl never really thought of it (it also helped that back then, he had not had his heart, and now it was weighing on him extra hard -- he thought of all the lessons he may have been able to teach if he’d had it in the first place).
Howl dabbed his eyes with the handkerchief, holding it close to his cheek as Kiki spoke. His chest felt like it was wobbling, like there was a water balloon that someone kept poking and that if that someone kept jabbing their finger, it would burst and spill over and he’d start crying again.
The handkerchief was beautiful though, sparkling with his tears.
“Of course,” said Howl, beneath his sobs. He’d managed to quiet them a bit, so that they did not shake through him like a leaf in the wind.
There wasn’t a long walk to the door, just the steps that led down towards it. As they passed the hearth, Calcifer popped out, floating towards the edge [1], and reaching a fiery arm-like tendril out towards Kiki.
“I’m gonna miss ya, kiddo,” he said, floating a bit upwards. “You gotta visit us when you can!” He drifted towards Kiki, lowering his voice. “And thanks for your help around here, Kiki. We would’ve probably blown up in smithereens without you.”
He drifted alongside them now, nestling on Howl’s shoulder as they walked down the stairs and to the door.
“Well,” he said, resting a hand on Kiki’s shoulder. “You’re going to be just fine -- more than just fine, most excellent, really.” He inhaled a shaking breath, the handkerchief clutched in his other hand. “So long, darling. I’ll miss you.”
[1] he can float now
KIKI:
Howl sobbed once again into the handkerchief, and it was so strange wasn’t it-- more than two years as Howl’s apprentice, and she’d never seen him quite like this. Most times when people cried, it made Kiki awfully sad herself. But this time, Kiki smiled as her own tears gathered in her eyes and then fell, one by one, in a little quiet stream down her own cheeks.
And all around them blossomed love. She could not explain this reagent if she tried to for it never looked the same when it came, you simply had to know what it was by the feeling in your chest: sort of warm, sort of pink, sort of blue, and very, very, very big.
Love grew around them now, like a wind that spoke their names. She breathed it in and breathed it out and knew she’d carry it with her on the journey home.
And then it was time to go.
They traveled down the stairs, Calcifer fluttering out of his hearth like a little firefly. He whizzed and puttered, little embers falling like rain drops (though they disappeared when they touched the ground; they were not a type of fire that burned.) Kiki smiled at him and her tears swelled up fresh in her eyes. She was glad that Cal would be sticking around-- Earth suited him.
She paused at the door, turning on the balls of her feet toward Howl and Calcifer now. Her hands wrapped around her bag. This was one of those moments were she was supposed to have something big and important to say, you know? So they’d remember her, or something.
But Kiki didn’t think there was anything she could say that they didn’t already know, huh?
“I’ll miss you too, Howl. And you too, Calcifer.” She leaned in and kissed the little fire demon on the cheek, then kissed Howl on the cheek one last time too. “I’ll um-- call, okay? And write! And send you emails and texts and new songs to listen to. And I’ll visit, I promise, as soon as I fix my broom,” said Kiki, nodding. And as she spoke all these things, her smile lifted.
The future didn’t seem so big and scary anymore, did it?
“Okay, um-- I’m not gonna say good-bye so-- yeah. Yeah. See you soon!” she chirped. And she strode out the door, down the same cobbled path that she’d walked for the past two years, the same path that had originally taken Kiki to Howl’s door. Halfway down the path, she turned, stopped, lifted her hand and waved back at Howl and Calcifer-- Howl a shadow in the door and Calcifer a little light.
“I love you!” she called back to them. The wind fluttered around her hair and through her dress, and she felt it lift her toes off the ground. “Be good, okay! Don’t forget me! Promise!”
And then she turned again, light as a feather, and she floated on home.
