Dreaming in Chocolate

by Susan Bishop Crispell

  “I didn’t do it to them,” Penelope had said, unable to quell the defensive tone in her voice.

  “Oh, I know that. Everybody knows that. Don’t you worry.” Ruth Anne patted her on the shoulder and scuttled out as quickly as she came in.

  But Penelope was worried. There was no guarantee she could reverse the magic that had stolen their memories. She had to hope the table would take a cue from her and forgive them. Otherwise, well, she didn’t want to think of that possibility yet.

  She tried to remain calm, objective, when reassuring everyone she would do whatever she could to help get the boys back to normal. And she succeeded rather well until the mayor came in. Henry strode right past the two women standing in line, his shoulders hunching in his wool coat and his thick fingers thumping on the counter as he waited his turn to talk at her. Because, like with everyone else that day, it wasn’t going to be a conversation.

  No one wanted to hear her side.

  They only wanted her magic. And they wanted it to work the way they expected it to.

  “Save your breath, Henry,” she said before he could speak. She didn’t let her eyes stray from the pot of water she was filling to steep peppermint tea. The less worried she pretended to be, the more it would calm others down. At least that was the hope. “I promise you that my mom and I are trying to fix it.”

  He leaned toward her, angling his back to the women whose tea she prepared. “People are scared, Penelope. And I need to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”

  “Well, if you can keep idiot kids from breaking into my business, I think we’d have a better shot at it.”

  “I thought the magic had some sort of self-defense mechanism to keep this kind of thing from happening.”

  Penelope handed off two steaming cups of tea and a plate of toffee to the women behind Henry. They’d done a poor job of pretending not to eavesdrop and took their time settling on a table so they didn’t miss what Penelope said in response. She smiled at them and resisted waving as they finally sat down in the chairs closest to the counter. “Nothing’s foolproof, Henry. If someone wants something badly enough, they’ll find a way to get it.”

  Well, almost anything. The line seemed to be drawn somewhere before curing inoperable brain tumors.

  Thinking about Ella reminded her of the matching looks of hopelessness on the Avery sisters’ faces that morning. Penelope didn’t have a clue how to reverse the table’s magic, but she had to believe she’d find a way.

  “Some people are calling for an ad hoc town meeting,” he said. “To figure out what to do about this situation and the festival.”

  “What good is that going to do? I mean, if someone thinks they know how to fix this, by all means, tell them to speak up,” she said. “But if they’re looking for a venue to all gang up on me at once so they don’t have to come in here one at a time and tell me how this is all my fault, you can forget it.”

  He flapped the two halves of his unbuttoned coat against the warmth of the shop. “No one is blaming you.”

  “Maybe not yet. But they will if Justin and Patrick don’t get their memories back.”

  No one would point out that the boys had stolen the magic. That they’d done this to themselves. That detail would be glossed over in favor of the fact that Penelope refused to let her magic be a part of the festival.

  And they would never let her forget it.

  20

  For three nights in a row, the doorbell woke Penelope and Ella with five rapid rings that tore through the silence of the house. Each time, Ella launched out of bed, Noah’s name trailing after her as she booked it downstairs to the front door. Penelope, who hadn’t so much been asleep as she was simply lying in bed with her eyes closed as her mind conjured up a dozen different scenarios for how to reverse the table’s magic, followed a few paces behind. Each time she had to threaten to take away Ella’s necklace to keep her daughter from flinging the door wide in her haste to see if Noah was outside.

  And each time, the porch was empty when Penelope flicked on the light and peered out the window. Save for a dozen pieces of paper, fighting against the cold wind, that had been tied to the branches of the magnolia tree in the yard.

  Every one of the notes said the same thing.

  We’re sorry.

  * * *

  Penelope left the Closed sign up on the front door of the Chocolate Cottage and locked the door for good measure. The Avery sisters had been waiting on the sidewalk with their sons when Penelope arrived at work, just like she’d requested every morning since Justin and Patrick lost their memories. Her mom had joined them a few minutes later, her curly hair still wet and hanging, with considerably less volume than normal, down her back. Sabina’s eyes were bright and glassy when she apologized for being late. Her smile a touch too wide to be natural.

  Her mom must have eaten one of the Bittersweet truffles the night before so Penelope wouldn’t find out. The effects of the chocolate had diminished some but were still messing with Sabina’s head. Lucky for her, Penelope could only focus on one magical crisis at the moment.

  They’d had two sessions with Justin and Patrick already with no luck. The table was being stubborn. Or maybe the boys were. But whichever was at fault, it resulted in them remaining “cursed” as their moms had told anyone who would listen over the past few days.

  During the first attempt to reverse the magic, Penelope had suggested remaking the brownies that had caused their problem in the first place, but using ingredients from the table that could hopefully counteract the bad magic. Nina didn’t even let her finish the sentence before vetoing it. She grabbed the boys, shot a death-look at her sister, and left before Penelope or Sabina could stop them.

  When they arrived for the second try, Nina seethed silently while the boys ate chocolate after chocolate that Sabina fed them.

  After the fourth one, Patrick turned to Penelope, dark chocolate smudged on his top lip, and asked, “Did you get our notes?”

  “I did,” Penelope said. They meant well, so she tried not to be too annoyed about being woken up at 1:00 A.M. Though she still couldn’t understand why their moms let them out of their houses so late at night after everything that had happened. “You found your way to my house. Does that mean some memories are starting to come back?”

  “No, nothing yet. Our moms had to draw us a map.”

  Justin glared at his mom and aunt. The lack of recognition did nothing to soften his look of annoyance. Even though he couldn’t remember who he was, some habits were too ingrained to lose. “They won’t let us drive until we get our memories back so we had to ride bikes over there. They won’t really let us do anything.”

  Sabina clucked her tongue. “And what do you think you should be allowed to do with no idea of who you are or what you might be capable of?” She looked up at them, as they both towered over her tiny frame, and scrutinized them. They were smart enough to look contrite.

  “We don’t know what else to do, ma’am.” Patrick’s attempts to make up for his cousin’s attitude seemed just as natural. “They said we needed to apologize and something about a table that really didn’t make much sense, so we figured we’d go for the first one and see where that got us.”

  If they didn’t remember the apothecary table held magic, it would be much harder to prove they were sorry for what they’d done. If they were truly sorry at all.

  So for attempt three, they all crowded into the kitchen and took turns opening random drawers in the apothecary table. It wasn’t the most scientific method, but Penelope had run out of ideas.

  “What if this doesn’t work either?” Justin asked after a string of empty drawers.

  “Then we come up with something else,” Patrick said.

  “No,” Penelope said. Four sets of eyes—the moms’ blue and the boys’ brown—fixed on her. Before they could yell—or worse, walk out again—she clarified, “This has to work. It’s how you found the recipe to begin with.”

  Sabina, who
had sat in a chair beside the table without saying one word since they began, finally piped up. “If you believe it will work, then it will work. If not, then you may as well go home now and start your lives over.”

  Heather’s fingers paused on a pearl knob. Closing her eyes, she moved her lips in a silent plea. Patrick nudged her hand away.

  “I got this, Mom. I think it has to be one of us anyway,” he said. When he opened the next drawer, the one that usually held the dark chocolate, a piece of paper waited for him. He held it out for them all to read.

  “It’s just gibberish,” Nina said. She tried to pluck it from her nephew’s hand, but he curled his fingers up to protect it.

  “Not to me,” Penelope said. She knew exactly what it would take to fix them now.

  * * *

  Penelope didn’t have the right equipment at the shop to make the spicy rosemary brownies the recipe would yield. And while the table had given her a few of the key ingredients—like ground cayenne pepper, fresh rosemary, and dark cocoa powder—she was on her own for the more basic things like eggs and flour. All of which meant she couldn’t cure the boys that very instant. Much to the Avery sisters’ displeasure.

  But they didn’t dare argue with her. Not when she held their sons’ futures—and technically their pasts too—in her hands.

  By the time they arrived at Penelope’s house after lunch, the brownies had been cooling on the counter for less than five minutes. The not-quite-set middle still jiggled slightly as she tested the pan.

  “They’re almost ready,” she said when Heather and Nina crowded her at the island. “Feel free to sit.”

  No one moved. They all eyed the brownies, but with varying states of hope lighting their expressions.

  Patrick picked up the recipe by the edges and examined the foreign words. “Do you think it’ll work?”

  “There’s no reason it shouldn’t.” And there were so many reasons why it couldn’t fail. Penelope focused on the positives—on Patrick and Justin regaining their memories, on the magic working when she really needed it to, on the town seeing that she was still a team player.

  “That’s not an answer,” Justin said, rapping his knuckles on the stone countertop.

  She picked up a sprig of rosemary and tore off leaves to sprinkle over the top of the brownies. “I wish I could promise that this will fix everything, but I can’t. There’s never a guarantee that the magic will work.”

  “But you think it will?” Heather asked. She turned her penetrating gaze to Penelope.

  “I do,” Penelope said.

  Nina picked up the table knife and handed it to Penelope. “Then let’s find out.”

  Penelope cut the still-warm brownies into nine large squares. The dark, decadent scent intensified as she extracted two pieces and scattered rosemary and sea salt on top as the recipe instructed.

  Handing each boy a plate, she said, “Dig in.”

  Nothing happened for the first few bites.

  The boys side-eyed each other, polished off their respective brownies, and went for round two. Halfway through the second square, Patrick paused. The chunk of chocolate trembled in the air an inch from his mouth.

  “I told you it was a bad idea,” he said.

  Mouth full, Justin mumbled, “Then why’d you go along with it? It’s not like I forced you.”

  No wonder it wasn’t working. If Patrick and Justin didn’t believe it would, why would the magic help them? Penelope hugged her arms across her chest and sent a silent plea out to the universe.

  Please don’t give up on them.

  Patrick licked a rosemary leaf from his top lip. “I did it because it would have been a jerk move to make you deal with the consequences on your own. But I’m done with your crazy ideas. The next time you try and talk me into something, all I’m going to say is ‘Hey, remember that time we lost our memories for a week?’”

  “And I’ll say, ‘Hey, remember that time we got our memories back?’ And then you’ll have to come up with a better reason for nixing my ideas.” Justin grinned at his cousin like the whole thing was one big joke.

  Patrick dropped his head, shaking it, but when he looked up, he was smiling too.

  The tightness in Penelope’s throat eased. “Wait. Are you saying it worked? You remember?”

  “Yeah. Feels like everything’s back to normal,” Patrick said.

  “Do you remember breaking your arm when you were five and Justin convinced you to try and fly off the roof of the house?” his mother asked.

  Justin wiped his fingers on the thighs of his jeans, transferring smudges of chocolate to the dark fabric. “Hey, I was gonna jump too, Aunt Heather. You and Mom just came outside before I could.”

  “One of these days you two are not going to be so lucky,” Nina said.

  “But today is not that day,” Justin said, grinning.

  Then the sisters started talking at once, their words stumbling over each other. Penelope couldn’t make out what either one had said. But then they were hugging her at the same time, their arms tangling around her shoulders and their cheeks pressed to both of hers, locking her between them.

  The crush of bodies would have been suffocating without the rush of relief buoying her from the inside.

  This time, the magic had worked just the way it was supposed to.

  21

  The people of Malarkey were done waiting. Despite Penelope returning the boys’ memories, Henry called for a town meeting. Now the only objective was settling the issue of the Festival of Fate once and for all.

  Town meetings typically brought out a hundred or so residents. About a third of those treated it like a social occasion, only there to gossip while the municipal business happened around them. The rest wanted a say in what went on in town.

  That night, the meeting room they usually used had been filled within ten minutes and they had to move the meeting to the recreational room, where Jada Lin taught yoga on Saturday mornings and Frank Rollins held free paint-by-number classes two nights a week. They unloaded folding chairs from the storage closet and set up row after row after row across the basketball court.

  No one had bothered to turn on the heat, and the air crackled with static electricity as people removed their hats and gloves and got shocked when their skin made contact with the chairs. Half a dozen different perfumes mingled as the group continued to grow and overpowered the scent of coffee that had been left on the burner too long.

  Penelope stood alone off to one side of the room. Ruth Anne and a few others had stopped by long enough to greet her and ask how she was doing, but no one wanted to be seen with her for any longer than that. If the meeting went their way, they’d all act like they hadn’t been avoiding her for days. And if things tipped in her favor, well, they might all never talk to her again.

  Either way it felt like losing.

  She smiled as people passed, tried to look like this was any other town meeting. Like the outcome didn’t affect her personally.

  “They’re still doing these things?” Noah asked, his face poking over her shoulder.

  Penelope jumped, jamming her shoulder into his chin to encourage him to give her a little more room. When he stepped around to face her, she said, “I can promise you it’s not nearly as entertaining as when we were younger and made up drinking games to go along with it.”

  “That’s only ’cause you grew up and got all responsible and shit.” He flashed the inside of his coat where he had stashed a silver flask in the pocket.

  “This coming from the guy who took it upon himself to fix my door handle the other day?”

  His lips parted, sliding into an easy grin. “That wasn’t being responsible. That was being chivalrous. Big difference.”

  Penelope laughed, and for the first time since she’d arrived at the town hall she forgot to be worried. If he didn’t stop finding ways to slip through her defenses, she might be done for. A small voice inside her head asked if that would be the worst thing to happen. Yes, she silently an
swered, her conviction wavering more than she would have liked.

  “So, where’s the kid?”

  “She’s with my mom.” Though it had taken a lot of convincing to get her to stay. Ella usually slept through the town meetings, her head on Penelope’s lap and her legs curled up on Sabina’s, but she’d wanted to be there tonight in case Noah showed up. Penelope had promised her there was no chance of that happening. Why would he go? He didn’t live in town, so what happened there shouldn’t have mattered to him.

  Yet there he was.

  “Not sick again, is she?”

  And just like that her anxiety returned. He sounded genuinely concerned about Ella’s health and Penelope couldn’t bring herself to lie to him about it. So she did the only thing she could when it came to him. She avoided it. “Do you even know what this meeting is about?”

  Noah shrugged. “Town stuff.”

  “Town stuff that involves pretty much everyone here being on one side and me on the other. That’s not exactly something I want my kid to have a front-row seat for.”

  “So, it’s the big Festival of Fate showdown tonight, huh? I kinda like the festival, but I’ll sit on your side if you want. Make everyone think they haven’t won yet.” Even as he said it, he scanned the room to see what she was up against.

  Not wanting to know how many more people had come out for this, she kept her eyes locked on him. “As sweet as that offer is,” and it was actually kind of sweet, “that’s not necessary. I know it’s a long shot. But with recent events I think I’ll find a few more people who agree that a little less magic around here might be a good idea.”

  “All right, all right,” Henry shouted to get the room’s attention. His voice boomed without the need of a microphone. “Everybody find a seat.”

  Noah buried his hands in his coat pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Okay, well, I’m here if you change your mind.” Instead of sitting, he leaned against the wall next to the emergency exit. He rested a hand on the push-bar as if he was just waiting for her signal to turn the place into a chaotic rush of bodies scrambling for safety.