If you ask someone what Heaven looks like, they'll probably tell you it's bright and sunny and there are clouds and everything has gold or silver accents on solid white. They are quite mistaken. Colors swarm me, almost too many to take in at once. A bright pop of red overlaps a vibrant green that shades into bright blue with swirls of lemony yellow and soft purple. My eyes are drawn to a tree with a candy striped trunk and clumps of gumballs instead of leaves. Then I catch sight of a bridge with candy lining and transparent sugar glass flooring. Charlie tugs on my arm and points to a section of wall that is almost completely covered in what appears to be gummy vines. Large mushrooms with cream pockets line one walkway and little orbs of shell with goo inside line another. My eyes finally wander to the biggest and most noticeable piece in the room, the chocolate waterfall. Gallons and gallons flow out, splashing merrily onto the banks.
The splashing and bubbling sounds of the river reach me even though we stand a good ways away, on a hill. A calm rush of wind and the swish of liquid chocolate swirls around me. A song seems to be in the air, a song of joy and elation. There is no music, but it fills me. Entirely and wholly. Mr. Wonka is saying something about staying calm, but I can't concentrate on words when there's so much else to focus on. How could anyone not feel calm here?
I inhale sharply and it is then the smells hit me. All sorts of smells pervade the air, and I can't tell which one's strongest. The rich, creaminess of the chocolate is there, constantly churned through the air. I can tell what Mr. Wonka meant by keeping the chocolatiness inside. The aromatic scents of sugary fruit are also in the air. Sharp and tangy, some. Sweet and mellow, others. A vanilla and cinnamon breeze floats in front of me and I inhale deeply. I let a small smile creep onto my face as I close my eyes and take a few more deep breaths.
When I open my eyes, I see Mr. Wonka smiling softly, watching me. Pride shines through him and excitement shimmers in his eyes. We move farther into the room, and I am able to see more and more. A bush with little chocolates for flowers, a tree with red and white pods of jelly, a great many more trees made of spiralling, twisted candy that droop over with an odd curl to them. There are all sorts of candies on the ground, some look like fantastical coloured gourds, others look like little plants with leaves or buds.
Charlie voices all of our thoughts saying, "It's beautiful."
Mr. Wonka looks at Charlie as if just remembering he is there. "What? Oh, yes. It's very beautiful. Every drop of the river is hot melted chocolate of the finest quality. The waterfall is most important. It churns the chocolate, mixes it up." I nod, listening intently to his spiel. "By the way, no other chocolate factory in the world mixes its chocolate by waterfall, my dear children. You can take that to the bank!" I don't think anyone but him would even think of a method like that. A machine catches my attention, lowering itself from the ceiling and dropping a pipe toward the chocolate. Mr. Wonka claps his hands, explaining, "People, those pipes suck up the chocolate, and carry it all over the factory. Thousands of gallons an hour, yeah." He's trying to hard to contain his excitement. Trying and failing, it shines through brighter than the sun. Giddiness shows itself through a restless twitching in his hands and darting eyes, searching for the next thing to talk about. His attention shifts as he points to the grass. "Do you like my meadow? Please have a blade of grass, please do. It's so delectable and so darn good looking."
I finally look to the other guests to see how they're taking everything. Augustus and his mother are gaping, totally and completely overwhelmed. Veruca and her father are eyeing Mr. Wonka skeptically and glaring at everything else. Mike's eyes are glazed and he wears a bored expression of his face while his father seems genuinely interesting in the mechanical interworkings. Violet and her mother are surveying the landscape around us greedily. Charlie is struggling to take in everything and glances at me with an exuberant smile.
"You mean you can eat the grass?" Charlie asks, amazement in his voice, disbelief in his eyes.
Mr. Wonka nods. "Everything in this room is eatable. Even I am eatable, but that, my dear children, is called cannibalism, and is, in fact, frowned upon in most societies. Yeah." I giggle and clamp a hand over my mouth to stifle the annoying trills. Mr. Wonka smiles in my direction and distractedly waves his hand in the general direction of a majority of the beauty. "Enjoy!"
Everyone scatters. Everyone but me. I'm much too frozen with awe to do much else but gaze around at the incredible feats around me. Mr. Wonka stands not far from me, doing much the same. I study him silently, seeing the way he fiddles with his cane and surveys everything with such pride. He turns to look at me, so I look away, pretending not to have been watching him.
He takes a few steps toward me and leans in, taking on a very conspiratorial tone. "So, what did the Gloop do?"
I huff out a little laugh and shake my head. "Nothing, don't worry about it."
"Oh, but I know a murderous glare when I see one. And you, milady, were staring 18th century France at the boy." He smiles knowingly at me. His shoulder brushes mine, and out of instinct, I lean away. Mr. Wonka doesn't notice, just continues. "I should like to know so I don't make the same mistake he did. I don't have the protection of youth, you know. I don't want to be found belly up in the chocolate river." He snickers, more to himself than to me. "So tell me, dear lady, what did he do to anger you so?"
"Well..." I hesitate. Should I tell him? Would it be ratting the kid out? What will Mr. Wonka do? I banish the questions from my mind before they consume me. "If you must know, he was extremely rude to Charlie. He offered Charlie some chocolate, then recinded the offer, laughing the whole time. That boy is rotten, just like the others here."
Mr. Wonka has an agitated frown on his face and a furrowed brow. His hands are clenched into fists and he looks at me with sincere eyes. "I am terribly sorry that happened. I apologize with everything in me, really."
"It's not your fault. I'm kind of over it now, so...Thank you, though!" He nods, still appearing to be deep in thought. I pace a few steps to a tree neaby and put a hand on it. If it weren't for the rich chocolate color, I might think it was a regular tree. I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that everything here is edible.
"Break off a piece. Try it!" Mr. Wonka looks at me, smile returned to his face. He nods to the tree encouragingly.
I shake my head and look down, stepping away from the tree. I wrap my arms around myself in a defensive gesture. "No, I don't think I will."
"Whyever not? It's delicious!" His face falls, slightly offended, hurt curiousity in his eyes like asking his best friend why they just hit him.
Charlie wonders by, hearing part of the conversation and answering, "She doesn't like chocolate. I think she's crazy." He puts a sliver of chocolate and marshmallow into his mouth and runs off to explore more of the sugar landscape.
Mr. Wonka's mouth falls open as he looks at me with incredulous disbelief. Great. Now he's going to think I'm some brat like that Mike kid. I jump to my defense. "It's not so much that I don't like chocolate...I just...just..." I shrug and hug myself tighter. My eyes don't leave the ground. He can't know. He'll think I'm a weirdo. A poor, cave-dwelling weirdo.
Mr. Wonka closes the distance between us and tentatively, gently tilts my chin up. His fingers are warm and his touch is like butterfly wings. Heat sears my skin were he touched me. "Just what?"
"Just...I've never...never had chocolate before."
He looks surprised, not disgusted or pitiful. Just surprised. His eyes bore into me as if I'm the only person with answers that he desperately wants. No. Needs. He steps back and spies Charlie picking chocolate flowers from a bush and clearly enjoying them. A thought occurs to him. "And Charlie? He hasn't had-"
"No!" I cut him off. "Charlie has had chocolate before! He gets a bar every year for his birthday, I make sure of that." I really don't want Mr. Wonka to think we're some charity case, only here for the treats.
"And he doesn't extent the same courtesy to you?" Since when is getting someone chocolate a courtesy? When you're talking to the king of all things cacao, my brain answers. I shake my head a little, still refusing to look directly at him. "Surely he can take care of that small task once a year?"
"No! Charlie doesn't have to take care of anything. I do everything so he doesn't have to." I pridefully inform the peculiar man in front of me. "No one takes care of me because I take care of myself."
A worried and confused look appears and disappears on his face so fast I wonder if I imagined it. He purses his lips and thinks hard for a second. "I've talked it over with myself, and we've come to the conclusion that that's not fair." Oh, good. I'm not the only one that sincerely talks to myself, expecting a second opinion. "Why does Charlie get chocolate on his birthday and you don't?"
I appreciate the effort to understand me and my life, but that might just be a little too personal. I shrug and consider telling him. It's not like he'll tell anyone, not that they'd care. It's not that awful of a secret anyway, just sad.
"Dawn..." Mr. Wonka prompts. He wears a serious expression with kind eyes. He nods slightly. "You can tell me."
Oh, what the heck. "Well, Mr. Wonka..." I hesitate. Should I really tell him? Should I give him this much information? I won't even see him again after today. Maybe that's exactly why I should tell him though. Get it off my chest for once in my life.
I've just decided how to go about explaining it when I hear a soft, "Will."
"What?"
He's looking down shyly, fingering his cane restlessly. "You can call me Will."
"Oh." I've only known the most famous candy maker in the world for twenty five minutes, and already we're on a first-name basis. "In that case, Will, um...my birthday has never been a big deal at my house." I shrug. "It hasn't since I was two. On my second birthday, my father walked out on us. Just up and left. Eleven years later, he came back, apologizing and begging forgiveness. My mother forgave him easily, I think she just wanted him back so bad, she would have done just about anything to make him stay. I never bought it. They were both pretending and they knew it." I spit bitterly. I pause and look away. "Anyway, they...made up for lost time...and nine months later I was a big sister. Oh, I forgot to mention, he left the day after he came back." Mr. Wonka...I mean, Will, looks personally offended as I say that. "My birthday has always reminded my family of my arse of a father, so we never celebrated it. We pretend like it's just another day. Because if we don't, we might not make it through the day."
I breath deeply, tears threatening to spill over. I clear my throat and steel my gaze once again. Mr. Wonka...Will doesn't recover so easily. He still looks on with worried eyes and a deep frown. His nose flares angrily and his gloves are stretched as his tightening fists pull at them.
"That...that's awful." He reaches out and wraps warm arms around me. Memories rip through my mind and send piercing pulses of pain to my temples. Panic rises in my throat and I gasp sharply, pushing him away. I struggle to pull myself away from the edge and not fall into that terrible state of hallucination and memory. I succeed after what felt like hours and hug the coats to my chest, ducking my chin into the reassuring softness. Mr. Wonka has a concerned expression when he looks at me as if I'll break if he says something more. He points to a bench and I sit, grateful for the small relief of knowing I at least won't fall over. He sits as well, being very careful not to touch me.
A minute goes by in silence as I stare, shaken, at the ground. "I have the feeling your father's not the only person who hurt you." I don't respond. "Well, I can't solve those problems. Not now, at least. But I can solve your little chocolate problem." I look at him sideways and watch his careful movements. He pulls a little, shiny gold box out of his pocket. Of course, he just has chocolate with him. Despite everything, I grin. He grins back and holds it out, and I let him drop it into my palm. I open it gingerly and see a small square of dark brown. "That is the most perfect piece of chocolate I've ever made. I do hope you like it." I hesitate. "Go on."
"What if I actually don't like it?" I don't want to hurt his feelings. I really want to like chocolate, I do.
"Then you don't like it." He smiles, making his eyes sparkle, and shrugs. "And I spend the rest of my life trying to make a chocolate good enough for you."
I giggle and pick up the little cube. I look at him one more time, seeing hope and eagerness. I close my eyes and sink my teeth into the chocolate.
My eyes fly open.
Sorry there was no warning for a**e, but I wasn't sure how to tell you where it was. Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter, I really loved writing it. I also love Willy Wonka. Don't forget to comment on your favorite thing he did here and drop a vote!
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Thank you so much for reading! I can't believe people are reading my crazy thoughts! You're incredible!
xoxo, Tilly