Dark Chocolate and Death

by Samantha Silver

  Ashley eyed me carefully. “What on earth did you do to make your potion explode like that?”

  “Let’s just say I’m a little bit too stressed out to make a calming potion properly,” I replied with a small shrug. Ashley shook her head.

  “You are absolutely ridiculous.”

  “Well, now that your sister’s back here, I’m going to leave you, since I’m sure you’re going to want to go see your parents. If you’d like, I can come by tomorrow morning and we can have another lesson.”

  “Can we make it tomorrow afternoon?” I asked. “I want to spend the morning finding all of the employees and letting them know what’s going on.”

  “Of course,” Grace said with a nod. “You’re handling this whole situation like a real professional, and I’m very proud of you.”

  A small blush crawled up my face as I thanked Grace, helped her pack up her things, and saw her out. When I made my way back to the kitchen, Ashley was looking at me with her hands on her hips.

  “What’s going on? What do you have to let the employees know? When can the factory reopen?”

  I sighed and sat down on the couch. “I went and saw Chief Enforcer Lupo today. He said that as part of the agreement that our parents signed, the town is taking over the factory, and it’s not ours anymore. So the factory is never going to reopen. At least, not as a chocolate factory.”

  Ashley let out a gasp, and I could see the tears welling up in her eyes. Ashley had more of a connection to the factory than I did; when we were both at the Academy, she cared a lot more about being able to buy the latest magical fashions, and she loved reading books in her spare time, so she always wanted more money than our parents were willing to give her. As a result, she managed to convince our parents to let her work at the factory two nights a week after her classes at the Academy had ended so that she could afford to buy herself the books and clothes she wanted.

  “Closed? For good?” Ashley asked in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.

  I nodded. “I’m sorry, Ash. I know how much that place meant to you. How much it meant to all of us.”

  Ashley nodded glumly. “This sucks. This whole situation sucks. But why are you learning to make chocolate if the factory is gone?” she asked, motioning to the cauldrons of ganache and happiness potion and the cocoa powder that Grace had left on the table.

  “I’ve decided that I’m not going to let Chief Enforcer Lupo bully our family any more than he already has,” I replied firmly. “All of this is bull, and we are going to find who framed our parents, and we are going to prove it. But until then, the Numa family makes chocolates. That’s what we do. They can take away the factory, but they can’t take away our ability to keep making chocolates. So, I introduce you to the first batch of Phoenix Chocolates.”

  “Are you serious about this?” Ashley asked in a whisper. “Aren’t you going to go back to Spellford and finish your Healer studies?”

  I shook my head firmly. “Not until I’ve proven Mom and Dad’s innocence. I have my entire life to study to become a Healer. Taking a semester off isn’t the worst thing in the world, but our parents being in jail for fifteen years is. I’m not going to let that happen, and I’m not going to let anybody try to ruin our family name.”

  Ashley made her way over and took me into a huge hug. “You’re the best sister ever, you know that?”

  I smiled as I breathed in the scent of my sister’s hair. “You’re not too bad yourself.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Andrea made her way back home as well, and after explaining to her the developments of the day, the three of us decided to make our way over to Spellcatraz, the main paranormal prison. After all, our parents should have been moved there by now, and we were now able to visit them.

  None of us had ever been to Spellcatraz, and as we walked toward the main portal in town, the three of us were silent, each caught up in our own thoughts.

  Spellcatraz was located on a tiny island south of Hawaii, completely isolated from the rest of the magical and human world. There was one portal to get in or out, and it was guarded more heavily than any of the other portals in the world. That much I knew. Other than that, I had no idea what to expect. I knew that Spellcatraz was where all paranormals sentenced to serve time for a crime were sent. That was basically it.

  We made our way down to the beach and toward the piece of driftwood that acted as the portal here. Pacific Cove was such a low-traffic area that the shifter in charge of guarding the portal was currently sitting on the sand, leaning against another piece of wood, and playing on his phone.

  “Where are you going?” he asked without bothering to even look up from his phone.

  “Spellcatraz,” I replied, and he raised an eyebrow, our destination apparently interesting enough that it warranted moving his eyes off the screen for a second.

  “The Numa sisters,” he said, nodding as he recognized us. “I hear your parents have been particularly naughty. Well, don’t let me stop you,” he added, motioning to the piece of driftwood.

  Ashley went first, followed by Andrea, and when they had both disappeared, I let a few seconds pass and stepped onto the piece of driftwood myself. I said “Spellcatraz” and a moment later found myself in the craziest-looking place I had ever seen.

  Spellcatraz was definitely a small island. The portal was right at the tip of one end, and I could see from the wet sand that at high tide the water came to within just a couple of feet of the portal, which was a large, round piece of metal that almost looked like a sewer cover, but with an elaborate drawing of the tower that stood in front of us, surrounded with text letting us know where we were.

  The whole island was supremely tropical in feel. The temperature had to have risen at least forty degrees between Pacific Cove and here, the heat dulled by a cool saltwater breeze. The ocean around us was a perfect turquoise color and palm trees waved slowly in the wind.

  It all made the prison building in front of us look all the more ridiculous.

  Spellcatraz looked like some sort of old English castle, which absolutely did not suit the environment in any way whatsoever. Built of brown brick, it rose at least a hundred feet into the air, with four large turrets in each corner topped with silver domes.

  What was most surprising, however, was the fact that I couldn’t see anybody around. I had thought for sure that the portal here would have had at least five or six shifters watching it, interrogating anybody who arrived on the island. But there was no one here.

  In fact, this entire place seemed deserted.

  “This place is creepy,” Andrea said, as if her thoughts mirrored mine.

  “Let’s go inside,” Ashley suggested, and the three of us found ourselves practically rushing along the dry sand toward the entrance to the tower. As we got closer, reaching a small Roman arched door surrounded by two bulging round towers, the sense of unease rose. There were no shifters guarding here, either. The three of us looked around nervously.

  “What if something’s wrong?” Andrea asked. “What if there’s been, like, a prison riot or something, and all the paranormals are escaping, and the guards are hiding, and we’re about to get caught up in an angry mob?”

  “Yes, panicking definitely feels like the right thing to do right about now,” Ashley said, rolling her eyes. “I’m sure everything is fine. Let’s just go in.”

  At Ashley’s words, it struck me for the first time that maybe this was how things were supposed to be. Maybe the whole point was to make visitors here feel uncomfortable about the lack of people, rather than piling on a giant collection of riot Enforcers to intimidate.

  After all, I imagined almost everybody who visited here must have expected to see a lot more security.

  As soon as we stepped through the gate, a voice ordered us to stop. The three of us looked around as we did as was ordered, trying to see where the voice was coming from, but it appeared to have been magic; there was nobody in sight.

  “What is your business at Spellcatraz?�
�� the voice asked again.

  “We are here to visit our parents, Jeremy and Aurelia Numa,” Andrea announced in a loud voice.

  “All right, all right, there’s no need to yell,” the voice muttered, and Andrea looked a little bit embarrassed. “Please stand there while we cast a few spells to ensure that you are bringing in no weapons or the desire to cause trouble.”

  The three of us stood, rooted to the spot, looking at each other. This was all very strange. Still, having spells cast on us to see if we were carrying anything bad was absolutely the kind of security check that I expected from a place like this.

  About two minutes later, the voice spoke again. “Alright, you have cleared the tests. Please continue into the main building, where you will sign in and leave your wands, and the guard will take you to see the prisoners you are here to visit.”

  This was it. We were in!

  Chapter 19

  The three of us did as the mysterious voice ordered and stepped through the gate toward the main building. As we approached, the huge wooden door with metal accents swung forward with a loud creak, as if it could sense our approach. We made our way into the brick building, and I had to admit, the interior was not at all what I had expected.

  I had thought the interior would look a lot more like some sort of medieval castle, matching the outside. But instead, the decoration was more like what I would expect from some sort of spaceship one thousand years in the future. The walls were made of a sort of black glass, and the floor was a shiny stainless steel. To our right sat a desk, a single long piece of white metal about three inches thick that floated in the air without legs. Behind it, sitting in a completely clear chair, was a bear shifter with brown hair and black eyes who looked at us with feigned interest.

  “Here to see the Numa couple?” he asked, and the three of us nodded.

  “Right. Please put your wands in here,” he said, motioning toward a small plastic tub sitting on the desk. “You’ll be able to pick them up when you leave. Then you’ll have to sign your names in this book, along with the time.”

  A minute later, the three of us were finished, and the bear shifter nodded to nobody in particular. At that exact moment, however, another shifter came out from the door hidden in the glass walls and made her way toward us.

  “Please follow me,” this new shifter said. She was tall, thin, and very efficient-looking. Definitely a lion shifter. She led us through the door from which she’d just come, and we found ourselves walking down a long hallway where everything—floors, walls, ceiling—was made from that same black glass. It reflected the light just enough to give a very creepy kind of look to the whole place.

  “If this is just glass, can’t the prisoners break out of here?” Andrea asked, running her hand along one of the walls as we walked. The shifter shook her head and replied without turning back to look at us.

  “Absolutely not. Every inch of this building has been carefully designed to prevent escape. For one thing, spells do not work at all on this island, except for those cast by staff. The entrances are also laced with wards that check for potions, brooms, and anything else which might have magical properties. It is therefore impossible to enter Spellcatraz with anything that can create magic, so spells are out of the question. The glass is reinforced as well, to prevent breakage, and there has never been a successful escape by a paranormal from Spellcatraz in the nine hundred years that this tower has stood here.”

  I looked around, a little bit in awe. They certainly had thought through the security here.

  A couple of minutes later, the shifter passed her hand over a section of the wall that looked like all the others, but as she did so, a small green light appeared where her hand had been, and the wall disappeared. It was obviously another one of those mysterious doors.

  “In here,” the shifter told us. We found ourselves in a room that looked much like the hallway, but with a handful of those same clear chairs on which the shifter who took our wands had sat. In the middle of the room was a small round table, this one with legs, made of metal. The three of us took chairs and sat down around the table, and the shifter stood in the corner, without moving. About a minute later, the wall on the other side of the room opened as well, and I got my first look at my parents in a few months.

  As soon as I saw them, I nearly burst into tears. It was like they had aged twenty years since I had last seen them. My father, always a tall man with excellent posture, now let his shoulders droop. His hair—so dark that it was almost black—was now streaked with gray throughout, and new creases lined his forehead. The last few days had obviously not been kind to him.

  My mother, whose chestnut-brown hair the three of us had inherited, looked unkempt and ragged for the first time in her life. This was a woman who thought she needed to look decent when she went grocery shopping, and now, it was like she had completely given up. Her small frame swam in the oversized, lumpy one-piece suit she wore, and she slouched as she looked toward us. Even her eyes—blue, and once so full of energy—seemed dull and lifeless now.

  “Mom, Dad,” Andrea said, immediately jumping up and rushing over to them, taking them both into a huge hug. Ashley and I got up and joined, and the five of us stood there for a minute, just holding each other.

  By the time we pulled away, tears were streaming down Ashley’s face, and I was definitely fighting to hold mine back. I didn’t want my parents to see me cry; I didn’t want them thinking that I was crying because of the situation they were in, even though that was definitely the case. It broke my heart to see them like this, and if anything, it increased my resolve to find who had framed them and get them out of here. There was no way my parents were going to survive a ten-year prison term. Absolutely none.

  “Girls,” my mom said, motioning for us to take a seat. That was absolutely my mom; treating this prison visiting room like it was just our own living room, and immediately taking charge. The three of us did so, and Mom and Dad sat across from us at the table.

  “How are they treating you? Are you alright?” Ashley asked in a voice barely more than a whisper.

  “We’re fine,” Mom replied, and her lips curved as she tried to smile reassuringly, but she didn’t quite manage it. “Don’t you worry about us. How are you girls doing?”

  “Things are completely fine,” I said. “We are managing. But we need to know: who do you think might be framing you for this? We know you didn’t do it, we know you have to be innocent, but we need to find out who’s framing you if we’re going to get you out of here.”

  Dad’s eyes fluttered toward the guard for a second before moving back to meet mine. “I’m sorry, Meg. We did it. We committed the fraud, and we’re going to take the punishment for that.”

  What? There was no way this could be true. My already shattered heart fractured into an even greater number of pieces as I realized what my father was saying. He was admitting that they were guilty, and that they had done all of the things they were accused of. But I knew my parents. I knew they would never do anything like this. So there had to be something else going on. Something was definitely wrong.

  “But the company,” Andrea said. “Did you realize that they were going to take away the company?”

  A small sob escaped Mom’s throat, and she quickly put her hand to her mouth to stifle it. I reached across the table and grabbed her other hand with both of mine, which Mom squeezed tightly.

  Dad simply sighed, a deep sigh that signaled that he had truly given up. “I know. We had no choice. It was part of the agreement that we signed. All those years of hard work, vanished with one signature. But we deserve it; we needed to be punished for what we did.” His voice was robotic, not at all like the happy sound of the man that I had grown up with.

  Mom moved her hand away from her mouth and placed it on top of mine. Suddenly, I felt something strange being shoved between my fingers. Was it a piece of paper? I looked up at Mom, and she gave me an intense look, shaking her head ever so slightly so that only I coul
d see. I nodded just as subtly, understanding completely. She didn’t want me to point out the piece of paper. We separated, and I quickly crumpled up the piece of paper and shoved it into the pocket of my pants.

  “Thank you so much for coming, though,” Dad said. “It can’t have been easy for you.”

  “Of course we were coming,” Andrea said. “And we’re going to come and visit again. I promise.”

  Dad nodded, and I couldn’t help but realize that he actually didn’t want us to come. He was embarrassed about this whole situation, and I suddenly felt like I wanted nothing more than to shake my parents and tell them that no matter what, they were our parents, and we would love them even if they were admitted criminals.

  After all, nobody could take away the years that they spent caring for us, raising us to be good witches, and teaching us the ways of the world. Nobody.

  “So, Meg, how are things going at Spellford?” Mom asked. “I hope this hasn’t interrupted your studies too much?”

  “Not at all,” I lied. “I’ve taken a couple of days, but I was ahead on most of my coursework anyway, so I’m sure I’ll be quick to catch up once more.”

  “Good,” Dad said with a nod. “It’s important to us that the three of you continue to live your lives the way you want to. We don’t want you sitting around moping because of what has happened to us. We signed that agreement, we deserved what we got, and it might have ruined our lives, but we don’t want it to ruin yours as well. Keep working for your dreams.”

  “Ashley, things are going alright for you at work? Nobody is giving you too hard a time?”

  “Of course not,” Ashley said with a smile that absolutely didn’t reach her eyes. Still, our parents didn’t seem to notice that she was lying through her teeth. Hopefully that meant they had bought my lie, as well. “Everything is completely fine, and everyone is totally understanding. They all think you are hard done by and can’t wait for you to come back to town.”