WITCH CHOCOLATE FUDGE

by HANNA, H. Y.

  “Where did you find him?”

  “Look how small he is!”

  “Needs a good feeding up, he does.”

  “Give him a mixture of evaporated milk mixed with cool boiled water, a teaspoon of glucose, and a small egg yolk. Works a treat every time.”

  “Yes, you’ve got to get the weight on him now, otherwise he might never catch up.”

  “Er… thank you,” said Caitlyn, overwhelmed by this wealth of feline care information.

  “Were you wanting to buy anything in particular for the little mite?” asked the postmistress. “We do have some tinned cat food and a couple of boxes of the dried kibble but if you’re after the special kitten formula, we don’t stock that, I’m afraid.”

  “Actually, I was wondering if you might sell cat carriers?” Caitlyn looked at her hopefully.

  The postmistress shook her head. “No, sorry, luv. I do sell a couple of collars and cat toys, but I’m not really a pet store. You’d have to go to one of the bigger towns around here.”

  “Oh… Okay, well, maybe I’ll just get a collar for him then.”

  The postmistress pointed to the other corner of the store. “All the pet things are over there.” She looked doubtfully at the kitten. “Might be hard to find something that will fit him though. What you can do is pick the smallest collar you can find and I’ll help you add an extra hole, if you like.”

  “Thanks, that’s really kind of you,” said Caitlyn with a smile.

  Pomona followed her to the other side of the store and they found a small nylon collar in lime green, with a bell attached. Back at the front counter, Caitlyn held the wriggling kitten while the postmistress measured his neck, then used a punching tool to add an extra hole for the buckle—whilst the rest of the women gathered around and watched and offered their opinions.

  “There you go—that should keep him comfortable for a while, until he grows a bit bigger,” said the postmistress, standing back and smiling with satisfaction.

  “Hey, that lime green really suits him,” said Pomona admiringly.

  Caitlyn silently agreed with Pomona. The lime green of the collar stood out against the jet black of the kitten’s fur and seemed to make his yellow eyes glow even more. He gave a little shake, causing the bell to tinkle, and Caitlyn laughed.

  “Hopefully it’ll be easier to keep track of where he is now,” she said.

  Pomona winked at Caitlyn. “Seriously, you’ve gotta let me give you a makeover. Even your cat is more stylish than you now.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  They arrived back at Bewitched by Chocolate to find the Widow Mags sitting at her usual place behind the counter. Caitlyn was pleased to see a few tourists browsing in the store. Still not as many as she would have liked—it seemed a terrible shame that a shop selling such delicious chocolates should have such poor business—but it was an improvement on when she had first arrived.

  A lot of that was down to Pomona, who had enthusiastically convinced the Widow Mags to let her do a “makeover” of the store last week, cleaning up the dusty shelves and creating a beautiful window display to tempt passers-by. The problem was, there weren’t actually many passers-by. The chocolate shop was situated at the edge of the village and most of the villagers weren’t that helpful about directing tourists down this lonely lane to find it. In fact, their prejudice against the Widow Mags because of her “witch” reputation made many of them seem to actively sabotage her business.

  “What’s that?” the Widow Mags demanded, pointing at Caitlyn’s chest as the two girls approached the counter.

  Caitlyn smiled as she held up the little black bundle. “It’s a kitten I rescued in the woods last week. Lord Fitzroy has been looking after him at Huntingdon Manor but the little monkey managed to stow away in Pomona’s bag.”

  “Well, I can’t have him here, getting under everyone’s feet,” snapped the old woman.

  “Pomona will take him with her when she goes back to the Manor, but in the meantime he won’t be any bother,” promised Caitlyn.

  As she spoke, the kitten wriggled out of her grasp and dropped to the floor. He shook himself and immediately trotted off to explore his new surroundings, nearly tripping a tourist.

  “Oh sorry!” cried Caitlyn as the man stopped himself crashing headlong into the counter just in time. She scooped up the kitten again and met the Widow Mags’s accusing gaze.

  “Put him in the kitchen,” said the old woman. “At least he won’t cause any accidents in there.”

  Caitlyn took the kitten into the back of the cottage and, after making sure that he had a soft blanket on one of the chairs to sleep on, left him happily romping about, exploring the kitchen. When she stepped back out into the front, she noticed a familiar face pressed against the shop window. It was the little girl from yesterday. This time she was looking wistfully down at the delectable chocolate truffles and bonbons laid out in the window display.

  Caitlyn glanced over at the counter, where Pomona and the Widow Mags were busily engaged with a tourist, then walked over to the shop doorway.

  Leaning out, she smiled at the little girl and said softly, “Hello.”

  The girl jerked back from the window and stared at her with huge, scared eyes, her hands clenched in fists at her sides.

  “It’s all right—I won’t hurt you,” said Caitlyn gently, crouching down so that she was more on the girl’s level.

  The little girl hesitated, shifting from foot to foot, as if deciding whether to run away.

  “My name’s Caitlyn—what’s yours?”

  The little girl stared at her. Then, in a tiny, almost inaudible voice, she whispered, “Molly.”

  Caitlyn smiled warmly. “That’s a nice name. And how old are you, Molly? I’m twenty-two.”

  The little girl held up six fingers.

  “Six?”

  She nodded.

  “Wow, you look really grown up for a six-year-old.”

  The little girl gave her a shy grin. She started to say something, then froze as they heard footsteps approaching the door from inside the shop. The next moment, the Widow Mags loomed in the doorway.

  The girl gave a strangled cry, turned, and ran off down the lane as fast as her little chubby legs could carry her. Caitlyn sighed as she slowly stood up again and glanced surreptitiously at the old woman next to her. It was a shame that the Widow Mags looked so fearsome with her hooked nose, hunched posture, and hands gnarled by arthritis—unfortunately, she fit the stereotypical image of the “evil old witch” too perfectly!

  The rest of the morning passed uneventfully, and after lunch, with no more customers in sight, the Widow Mags retreated to the kitchen. The two girls followed.

  “Wow…” Pomona eyed the mountains of chocolate fudge piled in various trays on the wooden table. “That is a serious amount of fudge!”

  “There’s even more here than yesterday!” observed Caitlyn.

  The Widow Mags looked slightly embarrassed. “Well, I didn’t want Lord Fitzroy to go short.”

  “Can I taste one?” asked Pomona.

  “In a minute. First, I want you girls to help me make some chocolate bars.”

  Pomona frowned. “I thought you just bought chocolate bars from the supermarket.”

  “Not these kinds of chocolate bars,” said the Widow Mags with a smile. She nodded to Caitlyn. “Bring me a bowl of tempered chocolate.”

  Caitlyn hurried over to the large cauldron sitting in the hearth and ladled out some of the smooth melted chocolate into a smaller bowl. She took this over to the Widow Mags, who was standing at one end of the wooden table, surrounded by plastic moulds in an assortment of shapes and sizes.

  “Take a few of the rectangular moulds each,” the Widow Mags directed the girls. Then she pointed to several small bowls filled with different ingredients. “Sprinkle some of those in the bottom of each mould—different ones for each. Don’t mix them up.”

  Pomona made an excited noise as the two girls stepped up to the table and be
gan to work. Using her thumb and forefinger, Caitlyn picked up a pinch of roasted almond flakes from the first bowl and scattered that in the bottom of one of the moulds. Then she repeated it with the other moulds, using a pinch from each of the bowls: tangy candied orange, chopped pistachios, toasted coconut, crunchy toffee chunks, and a drizzle of salt flakes. Pomona was doing the same with different ingredients: roasted hazelnuts, tart red cranberries, tiny little marshmallows, brightly coloured M&Ms, and swirls of buttery caramel.

  “Ooh, these look so delicious, I wanna try one right now!” said Pomona, licking a finger.

  Caitlyn laughed. “We haven’t even filled them with chocolate yet.”

  The Widow Mags inspected their work and nodded with satisfaction, then she showed the girls how to pour melted chocolate into the moulds and scrape off the excess with a spatula.

  “Make sure you give each mould a couple of good taps, once it’s filled with chocolate, to ensure that there are no air bubbles,” she instructed, rapping the spatula several times against the moulds to demonstrate. The melted chocolate shuddered and shifted in the hollowed-out sections, spreading evenly across from rim to rim.

  “Now you try,” said the Widow Mags.

  Biting their lips in concentration, the two girls tried to copy her. It wasn’t as easy as it looked! Melted chocolate kept going everywhere and they didn’t have the Widow Mags’s deft, experienced fingers. Still, although it took them a while, they finally stood back and proudly surveyed their work: all the moulds were filled with rich dark chocolate or creamy milk chocolate.

  “Now what?” asked Pomona eagerly.

  “Now we wait,” said the Widow Mags. “We let them set. Because these are solid bars, the chocolate will take a while to cool down.”

  “Why don’t we just put them in the fridge?”

  “We can—but it’s cool enough in that corner. I like to do things naturally, if I can.” The Widow Mags waited until they had transferred the moulds to the corner to cool, then she beckoned them over with a smile. “While we’re waiting, I will show you something to decorate the chocolate fudge cake I’m baking tomorrow for the party.”

  She picked a new mould—this time in the shape of a butterfly—and brought it near the bowl of tempered chocolate. But instead of filling up the mould completely with chocolate, she used the spatula to drizzle a thin trickle of the melted chocolate across the inner surface, so that it formed a sort of filigree pattern across the shape of the butterfly.

  This time the thin chocolate layer cooled and set quickly and, after a few minutes, the Widow Mags turned the mould over and gave it a gentle tap. A delicate chocolate butterfly fell into her open palm. She laid it carefully on a piece of wax paper, and the delicate swirls that made up its wings almost looked like chocolate gossamer.

  “That’s beautiful,” breathed Caitlyn.

  “Yeah, it’s like magic!” said Pomona.

  The Widow Mags gave a raspy chuckle. “Oh no… this is magic.” Reaching out a hand, she touched the butterfly with her forefinger and chanted softly:

  Dormant creature,

  Of magic partake;

  Heed my words,

  Arise and awake!

  The two girls watched in amazement as the chocolate butterfly suddenly trembled, then the two wings lifted slowly, folding until they touched together at the top. Then they unfolded and lowered again. Folded and unfolded. Folded and unfolded. The next moment, the chocolate butterfly took flight, transforming somehow into a real butterfly as it rose up from the wooden table.

  “Omigod…” Pomona whispered, watching open-mouthed as the butterfly fluttered around the kitchen.

  Caitlyn put out a hand and the butterfly landed on her finger. She stared at it in wonderment. Its wings were a beautiful dark brown, with creamy swirls in a pattern that somehow resembled the chocolate filigree… but it was real, not made of chocolate.

  “You brought it to life!” she said, looking at the Widow Mags in awe.

  The Widow Mags handed her the spatula. “Now you try.”

  “Me?” Caitlyn was taken aback. “Well, I can make a chocolate butterfly but I can’t enchant it and bring it to life—”

  “Yes, you can.” The Widow Mags looked at her intently. “You are a witch.”

  Caitlyn swallowed. She took the spatula and copied the Widow Mags’s movements, drizzling the melted chocolate onto the inner surface of the mould and letting it set, then turning it over to tap out a delicate chocolate butterfly. She laid this nervously on the wax paper and looked at the Widow Mags.

  “I… I don’t know the words.”

  “The power of the spell is not in the words themselves; magic is simply the ability to cause change by force of will. The spell works because you will it to, with your mind. However—” the old woman conceded, “—as humans are verbal creatures, spoken words help you to have something to focus your mind on, especially when you are young and inexperienced.”

  She repeated the words of the spell and Caitlyn said it silently in her head. Then she took a deep breath and chanted the same words that the Widow Mags had said. Pomona leaned forward eagerly, staring at the chocolate butterfly on the table.

  Nothing happened.

  “Try again,” said the Widow Mags.

  Caitlyn took another breath and said the spell again. This time, she thought she saw the wings of the butterfly tremble—ever so slightly—then the illusion was gone, and it was once more just a dainty piece of chocolate sitting on a piece of baking paper. Caitlyn felt a deep stab of disappointment.

  “I can’t do it!” she burst out. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to bring it to life.”

  The Widow Mags gave her a long look. “That… is why you failed.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. By the time the Widow Mags declared that they were done for the day, Caitlyn and Pomona were both smeared with chocolate and slightly high from all the sweet cocoa treats they had consumed.

  “I think I’d better head back to the Manor now,” said Pomona reluctantly, taking off her apron. She scanned the room. “Where’s the kitten?"

  Caitlyn looked around in surprise. The kitten had been scampering about, pouncing and stalking around their feet as they worked, and she thought he was still there, playing under the table.

  She frowned. “I don’t see him anywhere. Do you think he might have got out? We’ve kept the door of the kitchen shut—”

  “He’s here on my lap,” the Widow Mags spoke up.

  Both girls stared at her in surprise, then leaned over to look under the table. Yes, there he was, the little black kitten, curled up in the old witch’s lap, sleeping soundly.

  “Aww, he looks so sweet,” said Pomona. “Shame I have to wake him up.”

  “You can leave him,” said the Widow Mags gruffly. “He can stay the night if he likes.”

  The girls exchanged startled looks. This was a change of tune! Caitlyn hid a smile. It looked like the little kitten had won even the cantankerous Widow Mags over!

  “Have you decided what you’re gonna call him?” Pomona asked Caitlyn.

  She shook her head helplessly. “I have no idea. I mean, I suppose I could go with one of the usual names for black cats… Sooty? Inky? Jet? Blackie?”

  “Nibs,” said the Widow Mags suddenly. “That’s what he reminds me of. Cocoa nibs. Dark and tiny but packing a punch in flavour.”

  “Nibs,” repeated Caitlyn, a slow smile spreading across her face. “Yeah, it suits him!” She looked at Pomona. “Tell James I’ll bring Nibs back to the Manor tomorrow.”

  ***

  Caitlyn and the Widow Mags had just finished an early supper when they heard the sound of footsteps at the back door and, a minute later, a middle-aged lady wearing a voluminous purple kaftan and a matching purple turban atop her frizzy red hair came bustling into the kitchen. She was followed by a lanky teenage girl of about eighteen, with similarly frizzy hair and an eager smile.

  “Caitlyn! How n
ice to see you, dear,” said Bertha. She surveyed the chocolate pieces laid out across the table. “My, I see that you have been busy, Mother. Is this all for the Garden Party?” She blinked. “Don’t you think you’ve made a bit too much?”

  “Better too much than too little,” said the Widow Mags. She looked at the girl and waved a hand at the trays of fudge. “Have some fudge, Evie.”

  “The dark chocolate caramel is amazing,” Caitlyn said as the girl hesitated over which flavour to choose. “Although Pomona thinks the peanut butter swirl is the best.”

  “Pomona’s here?” asked Evie, looking around eagerly.

  “She was but she went back to the Manor a couple of hours ago.”

  Caitlyn smiled inwardly as she saw Evie’s face drop. In the short time since Evie had known Pomona, the teenage girl had developed a serious case of hero-worship and most of her conversation now centred around what Pomona wore and what Pomona said. In fact, she was wearing a large satin flower in her frizzy hair now, in a slavish imitation of the way Pomona wore hers—except without the same aplomb, since Evie kept fiddling self-consciously with hers. The thing most people didn’t realise was that Pomona looked gorgeous not so much because of the outrageous things she wore but because of the confidence with which she wore them.

  “Are you ready, Mother?” asked Bertha, glancing at her watch. “We don’t want to be late.”

  “All right, all right—don’t fuss,” said the Widow Mags, rising from the table. She placed the sleeping kitten gently onto a folded blanket nearby. “I don’t see why I have to keep doing this anyway,” she grumbled.

  “Mother, you know why—the physiotherapy is good for your arthritis.” Bertha came to stand behind her mother and draped a shawl around her shoulders.

  The Widow Mags twitched irritably. “What do I need a shawl for? It’s the middle of summer!”

  “It’s quite chilly outside, Mother. I had goosebumps as soon as I stepped out—”