Chocolate Wishes

by Trisha Ashley

  ADMISSION: FOUR POUNDS NO CONCESSIONS NO CHILDREN UNDER 12 YEARS OF AGE PARKING AT REAR OF BUILDING

  ‘We have plenty of time to get it ready if you mean to open in early April, Grumps.’

  ‘Yes, though all the exhibits need arranging, and a guidebook and perhaps some pamphlets must be produced. But I am sure it can be done in time, and then Zillah says she will be happy to take charge of the desk when I am otherwise engaged.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it’s that much different from reading fortunes at the end of a pier, so she will probably enjoy it. And I can help out too, of course, if you need me,’ I offered.

  ‘You have your own little business to run,’ he said graciously.

  ‘Yes, but I can still give you a hand if things are really busy in peak tourist season. I’ll set up the Chocolate Wishes equipment this afternoon and then Jake’s going to see if he can reconnect us to broadband when he gets back, so I can print off my new orders.’

  That had to be the first priority, and then getting the cottage sorted out. But after that, finally, I could get at my potentially lovely walled garden!

  ‘Jake will work at the museum in his university vacations, I have spoken to him about it. For one day,’ Grumps added, with a magnificently sweeping gesture at the Old Smithy, ‘all this will be his. Except the little cottage, of course – I am arranging to have that transferred into your name.’

  Stunned, I turned to stare at him. ‘In my name? You mean…I’ll own it? But Grumps—’

  ‘But me no buts,’ he said grandly.

  ‘It’s so kind of you, Grumps!’ I stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, which he suffered me to do rather in Jake’s manner, though I know they both quite like it, really. Then an unwelcome and probably unworthy thought struck me. ‘But what if Mum comes back? Won’t she expect—’

  ‘Your mother has chosen her own path and deserves nothing more from any of us. If she returns after I’m gone, then I would strongly advise you to send her on her way again. Any share of my inheritance she might think she deserves has already gone to pay off her debts.’

  This was very true…and already I was feeling possessive about my little cottage! I was happy for it to be Jake’s home for as long as he needed it, but there was no way I could share living space with my mother ever again.

  Having finished their job the workmen packed up their tools and departed and Grumps fell back a bit, so that he could admire the sign again. The weak late February sunshine gilded his long, silver hair under the fez and shone off the bald patches on the seat and elbows of his quilted velvet robe. For the first time I noticed he had only thin, red leather Moroccan slippers on his feet and I was about to urge him to go back in, since the cold from the pavement would be striking upwards, when there was a screeching noise from the road behind us. A small white Mini had jarred to an abrupt stop and was quivering by the pavement.

  A tall, silver-haired, imposing woman unfolded herself from it and confronted Grumps: Hebe Winter, soon to be not the only witch in the village. Though actually, going by the way old Mrs Snowball had been carrying on, Hebe may have had company all along without realising it. Perhaps she was the only solitary witch in the village.

  ‘Hello, Hebe,’ Grumps said, doffing his fez again, as he had done to Mrs Snowball.

  ‘You?’

  ‘Yes, me,’ he agreed, quite mildly for him. ‘How are you, my dear? Still dabbling in the shallows of alchemy, turning herbs into money?’

  She didn’t appear to register what he had said, for she’d now spotted the museum sign and an expression of outrage appeared on her patrician features. ‘Can it be possible that it is you who have bought the Old Smithy – that you intend to live in Sticklepond?’

  ‘It can and it is. We moved in yesterday.’

  ‘We?’ She acknowledged my presence for the first time by favouring me with an unimpressed stare, but of course I was wearing old jeans and a fleece for unpacking and moving things, not dressed to receive august and slightly scary visitors.

  ‘With my family,’ Grumps explained. ‘This is my granddaughter, Chloe.’

  That didn’t even merit another glance – she had weightier matters to get off her narrow chest now she had spotted the new sign. ‘You cannot seriously expect to open such an ungodly museum in Sticklepond, nor introduce your dubious ways into my parish, and think that I would do nothing to prevent it?’ she demanded. ‘I felt the threat coming, yet I thought it concerned our lack of a permanent vicar to guide and protect us, not the establishment of a Mecca to the Dark Arts in our midst!’

  ‘Oh, come off your high horse, Hebe,’ Grumps said testily. ‘You know I am not a threat to anyone, even if I am opening a museum of witchcraft. Does it not seem a good idea to you? I had thought you would approve.’

  ‘Approve of you bringing your dubious practices to Sticklepond? I think not!’

  ‘Then you may be pleased to learn that some of what you would prudishly consider to be my more dubious practices have, unfortunately, currently been curtailed by cold weather and old age.’

  This was all very interesting and there was obviously some history between them. In an unusually expansive moment Grumps once let drop that when he first moved to Merchester and started his coven, one or two local witches he had invited to join him had taken exception to the nudity aspect of his rites. I expect it was an innovation too far, even though they must have seen that he was a scholarly, rather than an any-excuse-to-have-an-orgy type of warlock.

  ‘Be that as it may, I cannot approve of your ungodly ways,’ Hebe said firmly. ‘And there is nothing to celebrate in paganism!’

  ‘It would have been far worse if Digby Mann-Drake had bought the place. He wanted it, you know – only I clinched the deal with the Frintons while he was unable to act, due to a septic appendix. Dear girls, the Frinton sisters – we sorely miss them at our meetings.’

  Her bright blue eyes widened. ‘The Frintons? You mean they were…?’

  ‘If you will practise in solitude, it is hardly surprising that you don’t know these things, Hebe,’ Grumps chided, but she didn’t seem to hear him, because another thought seemed to have struck her.

  ‘What was that you said about Mann-Drake?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘You have heard of him, then?’

  ‘Of course. He’s an even bigger charlatan than you!’ she said rudely.

  ‘You must not underestimate him, my dear Hebe – nor me. He is not just a harmless exhibitionist, but uses what powers he has for unworthy ends, corrupting and debasing impressionable young people.’

  Hebe was now looking worried. ‘A Mr Drake snapped up the title of Lord of the Manor when it came up for auction – for a hugely inflated price, even though it confers no benefits whatsoever – and he has purchased an isolated house at the edge of the village, Badger’s Bolt. Drake is not an unusual name and I thought nothing of it, but now I wonder if it could be Mann-Drake?’

  ‘It is quite possible, for though the Old Smithy is in the most fortuitously powerful position, the whole village is, as you might say, magically wired,’ Grumps said thoughtfully. ‘That would be very bad news for us all, believe me, Hebe. My presence would be the least of your problems.’

  ‘It may not be him and so we will deal with that situation if it arises,’ she said, rallying. ‘But even if it does prove to be true, although you may be the lesser evil, we still do not want you or your museum in the village. But I expect our new vicar, when he arrives, will know how to deal with you!’

  ‘Bell, book and candle?’ he smiled. ‘My dear Hebe!’

  ‘Wait and see. I myself am not entirely without power around here, dabbler in alchemy or not,’ she snapped, so obviously that barb had pierced her armour.

  ‘Same old Hebe – and what a very angry aura!’ Grumps said admiringly as she drove away after some clashing of the gears. Then he turned back to the matter in hand. ‘The signs are satisfactory, so let us go back indoors, Chloe. I have work to do.’

  ‘But Hebe
Winter, Grumps – won’t she make trouble for you? I mean, she’s very important in Sticklepond, isn’t she? She seems to run the place, according to Poppy. Poppy and Felix are on the Parish Council and they tell me about things.’

  ‘The museum will be good for the village and, in any case, she has no teeth in this matter. Nor does the vicar, if he should try to interfere. They will have much more to worry them should their Mr Drake turn out to be Mann-Drake.’

  ‘Is Mann-Drake his real name?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘He was plain Drake when we were at Oxford, but I believe he later hyphenated it with his mother’s maiden name.’

  ‘Jake mentioned that he was researching him for you and he didn’t sound like good news.’

  ‘He was always a nasty piece of work, though his great charm of manner initially fools many people. But do not fear: I know how to protect my own,’ he assured me, and then went off to see if the removal men had finished with his study so that he could reoccupy it.

  I went back to the cottage, plugged in my radio, and began sorting out my chocolate-making supplies and stock. All the little drawers and cupboards were really handy for storing moulds, packaging, sacks of couverture like big, richly fragrant chocolate buttons, ribbons and Wishes.

  I’d printed out a fresh copy of the Mayan chocolate charm Grumps had given me, with the new part added, and now Blu-Tacked it to the front of one of the cupboards over the Bath. If Grumps and his Spanish friend ever manage to translate the last bit, I might frame the whole thing.

  I stacked my entire stock of gold boxes of Chocolate Wishes on the shelves around the shop area, along with the empty boxes for the large chocolate angels with personalised readings inside, which I made to order: it was lovely to have enough room for everything, at last!

  All the time I was working, my mind was still running on the conversation between Grumps and Hebe Winter, so when everything was shipshape I got out my Angel oracle cards and shuffled them.

  They seemed to indicate major problems to overcome, but that success would be entirely possible.

  Felix closed his shop in the afternoon and came to offer any help I needed – he is so sweet! I’d been out for masking tape and paint by then, so I got him to help me finish the pentagram on the museum floor.

  I told him about Grumps and Hebe and he said the sparks would probably fly. Already Hebe had called an emergency meeting of the Parish Council tomorrow, now that the cat was out of the bag.

  Grumps wandered back in just as we’d almost finished our task and regarded Felix with approval. While we were children Grumps tolerated his presence around the house, just as he had Poppy’s, but now that Felix goes to huge lengths to find the obscure volumes he wants, he has moved up several rungs in Grumps’ estimation.

  ‘I came to tell Chloe that Zillah has a huge pan of stew ready and Jake has rung to say he will eat at a friend’s house and be back later.’

  ‘He didn’t ring me!’ I said suspiciously. ‘And which friend? I hope he isn’t going to drink when he has to drive back, and—’

  ‘There is no need to panic, Chloe. He did try to call you earlier, but there was no reply, so he left a contact number with Zillah. I don’t need the car tonight and he is a sensible boy. You,’ he added to Felix, more in command than invitation, ‘may join the rest of us for dinner. We don’t dress.’

  ‘Not at all?’ Felix blurted, and then went pink.

  ‘He means you can come as you are,’ I explained, and he stopped looking aghast, just scared but gratified. He’d often eaten with Jake and me in the flat, of course, but had never before been invited to dine with the whole family.

  But if he was expecting some kind of Addams Family frog stew, he must have been very pleased to discover that it was just a solid lamb hotpot with suet dumplings, followed by sultana-stuffed baked apples and custard. In my opinion, the baked apples would have been better for a little grated chocolate in the stuffing; but then, as far as I am concerned, almost anything would.

  Chapter Ten

  Comparative Evils

  I turned the Bath on for the first time the following afternoon, so that the cottage became filled with the lovely, familiar smell of chocolate as it was heated and stirred. I find the soft chugging noise it makes very soothing, too…

  Later Poppy, on her way home from the latest Parish Council meeting, sat on the worktop watching me coat the Wishes moulds with chocolate using my large pastry brush, a technique I learned through trial and error. I can get the chocolate shells just the thickness I want this way and, after making so many, it comes automatically to me.

  Since she was wearing the breeches, gilet and paddock boots in which she had presumably earlier mucked out several horses, this might not have been the most hygienic idea, but it was a bit late to point this out. Anyway, I was too grateful at having a mole on the Parish Council to quibble at a few germs.

  ‘I thought Miss Winter had called the emergency session to finally tell us who the new vicar was – I’m dying to know! But it was all about your grandfather instead,’ she said, finishing a quick résumé of what had been said, for my benefit.

  ‘Felix and I knew what it was about, but I assumed he would have told you.’

  ‘No, and I don’t see why it couldn’t wait until the regular meeting on Thursday, because none of us felt there was anything urgent about it and anyway, there was nothing we could do to stop your grandfather opening his museum, even if we wanted to!’

  She giggled. ‘Poor Mr Merryman said there already was a witchcraft museum up at Winter’s End, and I thought Miss Winter was going to turn him into stone.’

  ‘He’s quite right though, Poppy. They do have a large display about Alys Blezzard and witchcraft, we saw it when we visited last year, do you remember? So I don’t know why she’s so against Grumps, except they seem to have had some kind of disagreement years ago.’

  ‘She said he practised the Dark Arts. She’s very keen the vicar meets your grandfather.’

  ‘Well, it takes one to know one and, honestly, from the way she went on you’d think Grumps was a Satanist!’

  ‘I expect she sees herself and what she does differently. The Winter womenfolk seem to manage to combine the occult and Christianity quite successfully somehow: you can tell that just by the way Hebe wears a cross and a pentacle round her neck all the time!’

  ‘Well, Grumps doesn’t do that, but he’s perfectly harmless, and even when he does try some of the dodgier stuff it never works out right, so she’s no need to worry. In fact, it seems that if Grumps hadn’t bought the Old Smithy, someone who really does walk on the dark side would have done!’ And I told her what I knew about Digby Mann-Drake.

  ‘But of course magic doesn’t really work anyway, even if Grumps is genuinely deluded that it does – and presumably this Mann-Drake is too. Grumps told Miss Winter about him trying to buy the Smithy and then she remembered that it was a Mr Drake that had purchased the title of Lord of the Manor and was also buying Badger’s Bolt.’

  ‘Oh, I see!’ Poppy exclaimed, enlightened. ‘It might be the same person and that’s what she meant about us perhaps having to deal with a greater evil than your grandfather. She said the Mr Drake who’s bought Badger’s Bolt could turn out to be even more undesirable, though she didn’t say why.’

  ‘According to Grumps the village is a magical hotspot, being on the junction of two ley lines, so even if he failed to buy the Old Smithy, Mr Mann-Drake might still want to come here. I can’t imagine why he would want to be Lord of the Manor, though!’

  ‘Perhaps it is a different Mr Drake after all,’ she suggested. ‘Let’s hope so. By the way, Felix and I confessed that we knew you and I told them you made and sold Chocolate Wishes. They couldn’t have any objection to that.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so. And where did you say Felix has got to?’

  ‘He had to go back and open the shop. One of his special clients is coming and anyway, he can’t keep shutting all the time, even if it is off seas
on, or he’ll never make a living.’

  ‘I think he’ll always do most of his bookselling via the internet, like me with my Chocolate Wishes, even if I let the public into the workshop when the museum is open. Passing trade is just the icing on the gingerbread, but I can have jars of chocolate lollies on the counter for the children, and I thought about making treacle toffee witch’s cat ones, too. Do you remember when I used to make them for Jake and his friends on Hallowe’en and Bonfire Nights?’

  ‘Yes, that’s a good idea. It’s quiet for passing trade up this end of the High Street, but once the witchcraft museum opens, you’ll probably get a lot more.’

  I finished coating the last heart moulds and gave Poppy a couple of ones I’d made earlier that had broken while I was taking them out.

  ‘Oh, yum,’ she said. ‘You are clever, Chloe, making such lovely chocolate!’

  ‘Well, you make brilliant Yorkshire puddings, don’t forget, while mine come out like crispy cowpats and I have to cheat and use frozen ones.’

  ‘But your fruitcake is wonderful too, so you’re multi-talented.’

  ‘Anyone can make a fruitcake, Poppy. It’s dead easy.’

  ‘Maybe, but yours tastes extra special.’ She licked the last of the chocolate off her fingers and added, ‘And your chocolate always tastes different too, especially since you started using that spell your grandfather gave you. You do always say it while you’re mixing up the chocolate, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted, ‘but only because it was so kind and thoughtful of him to find it for me, not because I think it affects the taste! He gave me a couple more lines recently that he and the friend he corresponds with about it have managed to decipher. He said that might be all of the original and the rest of the document may be a later addition – a sort of added bonus. Not that I really believe any of it is some ancient Mayan charm passed down through the conquistadores, of course.’

  ‘I do and I think the spell works,’ she declared. ‘I mean, you made good chocolates before, but now they’re on a different plane.’