Dreaming in Chocolate

by Susan Bishop Crispell

Then she gave the drawer another little shove for good measure. Bottles of extracts and flavored salts and dried lavender petals in some of the other drawers rattled against each other traitorously. She threw a quick glance over her shoulder and met her mother’s curious gaze as Sabina leaned around the doorframe separating the front counter from the kitchen. There was no use pretending nothing had happened. Her mom was attuned to the table’s quirks and always knew when it had gifted a new recipe or ingredient.

  When they’d first opened the shop, it had been like Christmas every day, both of them giddy with excitement to see what new bite of magic they’d be able to offer their customers next. Now it was a daily disappointment.

  Penelope walked out front, opting to get the impending argument out of the way as quickly as possible.

  “Did it give you something new?” her mom asked. A fresh wave of hope curved the corners of her mouth up. “Something that might help Ella?”

  “Yes, it did. But it’s not for Ella.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Penelope curled her fingers around the card in her apron pocket. With just a little pressure she could crush it into a tiny knot of pointless words and numbers. “It’s not for you either.”

  “Something new for the shop then?” Sabina asked.

  “No, this one’s for me. And since I don’t plan on using it, there’s no need for you to get worked up over it.” It didn’t do Penelope any good to let it affect her either. The magic of the apothecary table could only do so much. This was just its way of reminding her of its limits. She relaxed her grip, letting the paper fall back out of reach.

  Her mother cupped the side of Penelope’s face with one hand. “But maybe it’s—”

  “Mama, you really have to stop hoping that the chocolates will fix everything. If there was a way to save her, the doctors would have found it,” Penelope said. She laid her hand over her mom’s and squeezed.

  “There is still so much life in her,” her mother said, the whisper stealing the ends of her words. “I think you stopped too soon. Gave up.”

  Since Ella’s first seizure almost two years ago, Penelope had tried everything to make her daughter well. Neurologists at Duke. Acupuncture. Recipes for healing truffles made with fennel seeds and white chocolate. Writing the future she wanted for Ella on a piece of paper at last year’s Festival of Fate and tossing it into the bonfire along with the futures of the rest of Malarkey’s residents.

  Deciding to stop Ella’s treatment was the hardest decision Penelope had ever made. And as a twenty-seven-year-old single mom, she’d had her fair share. But she and Ella agreed it was the best choice out of the crappy ones they’d been given. And she wouldn’t let anyone guilt her into questioning it.

  “A point you’ve made abundantly clear over the past week,” Penelope said. “But this is what Ella wants.”

  “She wants a lot of other things too. Her list is proof enough of that. She adds something new every day. And when you both realize she deserves more time to do it all, it will be too late.”

  Penelope flicked her eyes to her daughter who was tucked into the corner of the sofa at the front of the shop. With her notebook leaning against her propped-up legs, she scratched out a list in pink magic marker of all the things she wanted to do before she died. In her case, the list was necessity, not daydreaming.

  Bucket lists should’ve been reserved for overachieving teenagers and people in the throes of midlife crises. Not eight-year-olds. Yet there they were, left with only six months—a year if they got lucky—all thanks to an inoperable tumor embedded deep in Ella’s brain. On a good day, it caused nausea and migraines that sent her home from school. On a bad day, Ella suffered from localized seizures and prolonged hospital stays.

  “It’s already too late.” Penelope pressed her lips together and took a steadying breath. Falling apart so soon after the final diagnosis would only make things harder. She had to stay focused on Ella. “So I’m going to do whatever it takes to make her life as happy and full as I can. If you can’t do that too, I need you to tell me now.”

  “Of course I will do that. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for her. And for you.” Sabina’s voice wobbled as the first tears fell. “I just wish we had more time.”

  “I do too, Mama.” If the apothecary table had given Penelope a recipe that would allow her to trade years of her life for Ella’s, she would’ve started collecting ingredients as soon as she’d finished reading. But it hadn’t. And it wouldn’t.

  This time when her fingers slid over the smooth surface of the recipe in her apron pocket, she crumpled it in her fist.

  Ella’s happy shouts of “Mama!” and “Grams!” had them both smiling before the words had even completely left her mouth. There was now a limit on how long they would have to hear her call their names. And they both cherished every one.

  “Do you want to see what I’ve added to my list?” Ella asked.

  “You didn’t put get a tattoo back on there again, did you?” Penelope asked.

  “Nope.” She scratched the marker back and forth on the paper to cross something off the list. “It’s something even better.”

  The list had been the doctor’s idea. A way to ensure Ella’s final months would be filled with all the things she loved. Which meant most of what Ella wanted were typical eight-year-old requests: eating cake for breakfast, going to Disney to meet Elsa and Anna, and adopting a kitten and naming her Truffles. A few were on there simply because they were things Penelope would normally say no to, like piercing her ears or dyeing her hair purple. And Ella was smart enough to try and play the terminal illness card to get everything she could.

  Penelope crossed the room and leaned over the back of the couch, resting her chin on Ella’s fair hair. Ella’s handwriting was oversized and sharp-edged. A few letters were adorably missing, as Ella had sounded out the words she didn’t know how to spell and improvised. She skimmed the all-too-familiar list until she found the newest entries at the bottom.

  16. Go to scool with zro sick days for one hole month.

  “I think it’s the best one yet,” Penelope said.

  But if Ella managed to do that, it would be nothing short of a miracle.

  * * *

  Just as predicted, Ella’s full day of school and snowman-building wiped her out. She was sound asleep within minutes of being tucked into bed. Penelope tried to tell herself it was a good kind of tired, the kind that meant her daughter had enjoyed every second of the day. But looking at how thin and pale Ella’s face was against the pillow, all Penelope could see was how the day had taken its toll.

  Penelope watched for the subtle rise and fall of Ella’s chest before leaving the room. Even then, she lingered in the hallway before finally shaking loose some of the worry and going downstairs.

  With just the two of them in the house, Penelope had never seen a need for a formal dining room. They ate most meals at the island in the kitchen and on some lazy Saturday mornings they cuddled together on the couch in the living room with a shared plate of French toast dusted with powdered sugar to finish watching whatever movie Ella had fallen asleep during the night before. So the open area off the kitchen that would have been the dining room had become Penelope’s sewing space.

  Like the rest of the house, it was an eclectic mix of antique and modern. Two wingback chairs in a palm green and cream damask pattern flanked the sewing table she’d made by attaching a thick slab of dark-stained oak to her grandmother’s early-1900s cast-iron sewing machine base. Her sewing machine, built within the last decade, sat gleaming white on top. The room had become her sanctuary when she couldn’t sleep. Which was more often than not these days.

  Penelope turned one of the chairs and scooted it over to the table. Sinking into it, she scrolled through the playlists on the iPod attached to a speaker dock on the far corner of the table. The mixes were categorized by mood to create the perfect soundtrack to her current state of mind. She bypassed Frustration—loud, passion-fueled hard rock that
temporarily drowned out her own problems—and paused on Melancholy—mostly indie singer/songwriters with acoustic guitars and pianos that called for sitting in a dark room and pretending the outside world didn’t exist. Then she backtracked to Inspired. It was a compilation of her favorite songs and could trick her into smiling and singing along as quickly as three songs in.

  That was exactly the kind of distraction she needed tonight.

  So was the stack of half a dozen triangular hair scarves she and Ella had cut and pinned together the weekend before. They’d picked a mix of fabrics in vibrant colors and patterns to bring some much-needed brightness to the pediatric oncology unit where they were donating the scarves when they were done.

  She pressed Play on the iPod, letting the first few notes of the Athenaeum song chase the rest of the tension from her shoulders. Grabbing the coral chevron fabric from the top of the pile, she secured it in place beneath the machine’s presser foot and applied pressure to the pedal under the table. She guided the fabric past the needle, pivoted when she reached the corner, and started up the next side. Penelope could just make out the music over the steady buzzing of the sewing machine. She bumped the volume up a notch. Then she eased back on the pedal to slow the needle and her progress.

  Like Ella, Penelope was determined to get as much happiness out of the day as she could.

  3

  Penelope had found all of her recipes in the apothecary table’s drawers. Espresso truffles that gave a jolt of energy. Jasmine tea caramels that calmed frenzied nerves. Spicy hot chocolate that sparked dreams of true love. The recipes came in different languages with ingredients and measurements that were indecipherable to everyone but the owners of the apothecary table. When her granddad had acquired the table at an estate sale to put in his antique shop, no one in the previous owner’s family mentioned its unique traits. The first recipe her grandparents discovered was for the Kismet hot chocolate, a dark-chocolate-and-lavender mixture that gave the drinker the ability to change their future on just one night a year—the winter solstice.

  No one in town believed them, of course. Not until her grandparents held the first Festival of Fate and invited everyone to share in the magic. What could it hurt, they all said. At worst, it was a night spent sharing their dreams and drinking hot chocolate around a bonfire in the town park with their neighbors. But at best, they might all be able to decide their own fates.

  After a few months, when all of their wishes for the future came true—or so the story went—there wasn’t a doubt in anyone’s mind about the power of the chocolates.

  Penelope’s grandparents had an open-door policy when it came to sharing their chocolates. Whenever someone in town needed a boost of magic, all they had to do was ask. It wasn’t until Penelope wound up pregnant at eighteen that she and her mom decided to use the recipes as a source of income. And the town had rallied behind the idea of having access to the magic every day. In the nine years since, the Chocolate Cottage had become an indispensable part of life in Malarkey, North Carolina.

  When the shop door swung open, Penelope pasted on a smile so her anger at the festival’s magic failing to save Ella didn’t show. Pretending that everything was fine was the only way to ensure Ella got to live like a normal, healthy kid. She would deal with the fallout of her lies … after.

  Eliza Rose tamed her copper hair with both hands as she stepped inside out of the wind. “Hey, Penelope. Is your mom here?”

  “No, she’s off today. Is there something I can do for you?” Penelope asked.

  “I wanted to tell her the chocolates were a success,” Eliza murmured. She pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle. “Like, a major success. Philip only ate one before he asked me out. Can you believe it? The guy I’ve had a crush on since freshman year just asked me out. And it’s all because of you and your mom. I feel like I owe you our firstborn or something.”

  The girl’s enthusiasm was impossible to ignore. Penelope grinned back. “Lucky for you, we don’t take children as payment,” she said. The teen giggled again. “And I’m happy it worked out for you. Be sure to come back in after the date. I know my mom’ll want to hear all about it.”

  Eliza tugged her hair over one shoulder, twisting it a few times as she looked back at the door as if she could will Sabina to walk in by sheer determination. “Oh, I definitely will. If I could bring Philip by on the date I would. But I don’t want him to know about the chocolates, you know? I mean, not that using the chocolates on him was wrong or anything ’cause I did dream about him, so it’s totally legit, right?”

  Sighing, Penelope nodded. “Don’t worry. The chocolates didn’t make him ask you out. They just put him in the right mood to finally make a move. So, you’re off the hook.”

  “That’s what I thought!” She slid her phone out of her back pocket and pulled her ID and a couple of folded dollars from the card slot built into the case. “While I’m here, can I get just a normal hot chocolate?”

  “Sure.” Penelope handed her a to-go cup and pointed her to the pantry. “You want the jar with the white label. Grab one of the caramels too. They go really well with the dark chocolate.”

  The open-air pantry was a small, octagonal room between the kitchen and the sitting area with built-in cabinets and shelves in a vibrant white that ran from floor to ceiling. Customers ordered at the front counter and took their cups to the pantry to select the hot chocolate base and add-ins, such as individually wrapped bite-sized caramels; mini marshmallows; jumbo chocolate-dipped marshmallows; hazelnut rolled wafer cookies from Uprising Bakery down the street; and fresh peppermint leaves picked from a potted plant on the second shelf. A tiered chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling, which was painted a metallic gold to complement the deep chocolate paint of the rest of the shop. Despite the hazy gray light pushing in through the front windows, the shop was bright and cozy.

  Eliza prepped her cup and brought it back to the counter to finish. The steam wand on the espresso machine screamed when Penelope submerged it in the milk. She tilted the metal pitcher and dipped the wand in and out of the liquid until the sound settled into a low rumble. She let it bubble for a few more seconds, stirred it into the hot chocolate powder, then sent Eliza off with a wave and a promise to tell Sabina the good news.

  And this time when Penelope smiled, she had no ulterior motive. Just the simple joy of knowing her chocolates had done their job.

  * * *

  As far as hole-in-the-wall towns went, Malarkey took the cake. Nestled in a valley in the Appalachian Mountains, the town was one where people found themselves in one of three ways—they were born there, they knew someone who was born there, or they’d gotten themselves good and lost.

  Penelope considered herself one of the lucky ones. She was Malarkey born and raised. The uneven brick roads that mapped out the heart of town and the bells of the old wooden church that chimed a few minutes early or late, but never on time, were as much a part of her life as the townspeople who offered their opinions as quickly as their smiles. With a population of thirteen hundred—give or take a dozen—she knew most of the town’s residents on a first-name basis. The rest she knew by sight.

  It was rare that anything happened in Malarkey without it becoming common knowledge within ten minutes. The current topic of most conversations was how Tucker Gregory had crashed his motorcycle late the night before. Penelope had heard half a dozen different accounts of how bad his injuries were and figured the truth was somewhere in the middle.

  If it had been someone other than a Gregory, she might have sent a get-well care package over. But the less interaction she had with that family, the better. For both her and Ella.

  So Penelope left her mom to chat with the customers while she spent the better part of two hours holed up in the kitchen replenishing the inventory of chocolates. Every so often, Sabina would swing into the back to give Penelope a triumphant smile from making another customer happy.

  “Your turn,” Sabina eventually said. She nodde
d toward the front when the next pair of customers entered.

  Of course Penelope would get to help two of the biggest gossips in town. Though to be fair, almost everyone in town talked about everyone else. That was just how small towns worked. Or at least how Malarkey worked. Penelope had never been anywhere else long enough to know if things—or people—were different there.

  “Karma,” she muttered and went out to greet the women.

  Ruth Anne Lockrow bustled up to the counter, the collar of her wool coat pulled up over her chin to keep the cold out. Her gold-shadowed eyes flicked to Penelope, a smile tugging at her lips in lieu of a proper greeting. She turned back to her companion, continuing their conversation without missing a beat. “It’s a shame Noah doesn’t live closer. I’m sure Tucker could use his brother’s help right about now.”

  Noah’s name rarely came up in conversation these days. He’d been gone for so long there was little reason for people to gossip about him. So when they did talk, it was hard to ignore. No matter how much Penelope wanted to.

  “I took a casserole over there this morning and Layne said they’d asked Noah to come home to help with the bar until Tucker’s up and moving again,” the second woman, Delilah Jacobs, said as she looked over the menu written on blackboards behind the counter.

  The possibility of Noah Gregory coming back to town nine years after walking out of Penelope’s life for good was not even something she wanted to consider. As she brewed a pot of tea for the women, she had to remind herself there was no point in getting worked up over something that would never happen.

  She was grateful for the distraction when another customer came in.

  Penelope passed off the tea and plate of assorted chocolates to the customers still talking about Noah then turned her attention to the woman with a wide-eyed nervousness, which manifested in fingers that worried the hem of her coat as she made her way to the front counter.

  “Can I help you?” Penelope asked.

  The woman dropped her hands to her sides. She looked equal parts desperate for and wary of the magic. Her round face was pale—freckleless cheeks, a dab of colorless lip balm, eyes so light blue they almost seemed unnatural. But her features sparked to life when she said, “Oh, hi. Yes, I hope you can.”