Howl's Twisted Castle

1: Rumour has it. . .

Whoever said  that cities were the place to find romance never lived in a place like Market Chipping. Our little town is located just on the outskirts of the capital, out of reach of commercial influence. A place where people like our family could own a successful little hat shop. 

My father built his business from the ground up with only sweat and determination as his tools. It was through this store that he met the first great love of his life, my mother. With her eye for detail and his passion for creating, they had made a living in this quaint little town. Shortly after that, my sister and I came into the world, and it seemed like everything was perfect.

Well . . .

 At least we still had the hat shop.

With a knot on her face like she'd smelled something unpleasant, my stepmother, Gerta, kept a constant eye on my sister and I. She licked the pad of her thumb, counting what I assumed was a shockingly small amount of money in the till. I shook my head and sighed, turning away from her scowl and fixing my attention instead to our shop.

Doll hats, beaver hats, top hats, Gainsborough hats and every other manner of headpieces adorned our shelves. Only a few remained that my father created. The rest were proudly my own. I had a knack for design and an eye for colour, having spent so much time watching my father whip up masterpieces from scratch.

I busied myself stitching the last flower into a deep mauve doll hat and trying to ignore Gerta's petty attitude. We always argued about the pricing of our goods; she insisted we charge double because our hats were of superior quality, but I refused to budge. I wanted to keep things the way my father would have wanted them, on peoples heads instead of displays but trying to explain my view to her always resulted in a fight. Sadly her attention was fixed solely on profit margins.

Thankfully, my older sister was all the support I needed when it came to our business. Lettie at the moment was bustling about the room, tending to this customer and that, offering her million dollar smile to all the young men who came through the door. It was an oddity seeing so many male patrons at a hat shop, but one look at them told me their admiration was more for my sister and less about the merchandise.

She had inherited all of our mother's good looks and charm. It was a mystery that she wasn't tied down by now, but that's how Lettie wanted it. No man could persuade her to settle down when she had so many dreams of her own to fulfill. If Gerta had her way, Lettie would have been married off to the first wealthy suitor that walked through the door, but thankfully Lettie was too strong-willed to let anyone dictate how she lived her life. I smiled at her as she glided past the counter. Lettie winked back at me, fluffed her golden locks and straightened out her petty coat to continue her walk about the room. Waltzing past patrons, she offered sincere compliments to the ladies trying out our new line of sun hats.

I focused my attention on the stitching I had finished on a little red hat, pulling it neatly with a knot before trimming the ends. I hopped off my stool and grabbed the mauve doll hat next to it before edging my way past a few people to display them on awaiting mannequins. As I adjusted the fit on the last one, a couple of hushed voices caught my attention.

"I heard he's in town again," one of them giggled.

"You mean Howl?" Another clapped her hands together, dreamily.

The third hushed the second with a slap on the arm. "Don't say his name too loud; you don't want him to show up! I heard he steals hearts."

I fought hard not to roll my eyes as they gasped in mock horror. How many times had I heard that ridiculous story before? The apparently handsome, yet oddly never seen in person, wizard Howl had been rumoured to steal women's hearts to replace the vacancy of his own. I smiled inwardly at the thought. I could only imagine that the real Howl was a pervert who thrived on these rumours to court women into his bedroom at night.