Chocolate Steam
*
The soft, sweet sensuality of chocolate. The warm sensation of the bitter chocolate melting on the tongue. It melts quickly, the bubbles in the chocolate popping in your mouth. For something so sweet and so passionate, it only lasts a couple of seconds before the chocolate is completely melted away.
Her chocolate shoppe is full of chocolates. On every plate, in every corner, chocolates. Orange chocolate; rich, dark chocolate; milk chocolate; chocolate suns on top of cinnamon-covered plates; vanilla chocolate; Venus nipples dipped in white chocolate; chocolate seashells with a drizzle of caramel on top; chocolate roses; caramel filled animal-shaped chocolates.
Her display reflects a certain chocolate scene for every month. A pot of chocolate stands on a heater in the corner of the shoppe awaiting for the customers who would ask for chocolat chaud. Silverware and ceramic plates and cups lay on top of a counter along the wall.
To a new customer, the chocolate shoppe was just like any other chocolate shoppe one might find in the big cities or the big towns. To the citizens of Lansquenet, the little village the shoppe was situated in, the chocolate shoppe was a landmark in the town.
Across from the large and imposing Church, it stood proud and small. The display window turned out onto the square, proclaiming any anouncements the small shoppe might have. The sign above the doorway, proclaiming it to be La Celeste Praline, swung in the soft breeze blowing from the river Tannes.
When a customer came in, they would be greeted by the enchanting aroma of chocolate. They would then meet the young shopkeeper, Mademoiselle Rocher, also known by the townspeople as Vianne, as she came in from the kitchen. Her long black hair curled at the ends and was tied with a bow. A cooking apron was tied primly around her waist. If one didn't look closely, though, one would miss the round bulge in her apron that was slowly growing bigger.
A little girl ran down the stairway from the apartment above, her plaits bouncing behind her. She, too, had long black hair. She wore a bright red sweater and matching skort, a combination very easily spotted against the townspeople's traditional black and grey. Her big eyes are filled with a joy and happiness that only a young girl turning seven could have.
The little girl runs out of the store to join her friends, her mother watching her progress across the floor anxiously. The mother smiles at the customer as soon as the door closes and the little girl is running down the street. She spins a large disc on the counter and asks the customer to tell her what they see in it.
The customer could see many different things if they had an eye for it. But each customer sees a different thing: a woman riding a wild horse; blood, teeth, and a skull; a cranky old woman too tired to play games; a jalapeno pepper; a mis-coloured river; a king riding into battle like in the Lord of the Rings; et cetera.
For each object the customer sees, the shopkeeper prescribes to them a certain type of chocolate that she feels is their favourite. Her predictions are nearly never wrong and the customer always walks out of the shoppe, satisfied with their purchase. The customer will then proceed to return everyday, ordering the same purchase and no other.
When the day was over, and the chocolate was nearly gone, the young shopkeeper would go into the back of the shoppe where the kitchen was situated and cook more chocolate to replenish the plates in the storeroom.
The smells of the baking and melting of chocolate would fill the kitchen and seep into the front of the store. The steam from baking would take the shapes of people and bunnies and kangaroos. The steam would fill the small kitchen and the shopkeeper would be surrounded by it, a little island in mutlitudes of steam.
She was a witch, and being a witch, she would use the steam to scry, a form of looking for answers to questions she asked. Sometimes, she didn't get the answers she was looking for. Sometimes, she did. This was something that the town did not know anything of, not even the shopkeeper's best friend, Joséphine.
*
Today, she was looking for answers as to the baby growing inside of her stomach. She wanted to know if the baby would be healthy, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she wanted to know if the father would be okay with her having his baby even though he was in love with somebody else.
She stirred the chocolate that was melting on the stove top. She kept an eye on the steam milling around her and watched as it thickened in some areas while thinning in others. She looked for shapes that the steam was forming and concentrated on what the shapes meant. Inside her, she felt the baby move apprehensively, perhaps getting into a better position to scry with her too.
She smiled, thinking about the baby. The steam around her formed a picture of a baby, melding with her thoughts. In the back of her mind, she pictured Armande, a small little hunched over figure saying, "Whee!" and telling her that she would never get anywhere by asking the steam what it thought. She knew exactly what Armande would say.
"You might as well get a cat," Armande would say to her if she had ever caught Vianne scrying with the steam. "They are more loyal and usually give you the better answers if you ever asked them what to do and gave them options. Not that I'm saying you should ask them questions in the first place."
'What came to pass, came to pass. Whatever happened next is out of my hands,' Vianne thought. She might as well stop scrying if it wasn't getting her anywhere since the steam hadn't begun to form any more new shapes since the baby shape. She shook her head and looked down at what she was doing, making sure the chocolate was stirred correctly.
The baby moved again and Vianne immediately put a hand to her womb, feeling the kick. She then looked up at the steam and saw a small shape of Armande. As it moved across the room, it seemed to wink at her. It always seemed to Vianne that whenever she thought about the baby, her mind would instinctively wander to Armande. It was like Armande was influencing the spirit of the baby, or at least a part of it. Which brought her mind back to the special name she was going to call the baby when she was born.
Armande. She would name the baby after the 80 year old woman who became her mentor when Vianne had first stepped into the little village and began a sort-of war against Père Reynaud. And the baby would grow up to know the woman who influenced the village and would carry the craft just like Anouk does, and like Armande had.
But Vianne didn't know what she should do about the baby's father. Sooner or later, word was going to get out to the village that Vianne had had another child and questions would be asked. She would have to answer them of course, but she didn't know if she could face Roux or Joséphine when she told them that it was a baby she had had a one-night stand from. And Roux would quickly guess who that one-night stand was. He might not be able to live with himself for getting her pregnant, and if Joséphine found out, it would jeporadize the relationship between her and Vianne as best friends.
Plus, what would the village think of her? She knew what would happen. They would avoid her for awhile, telling their children awful stories about her until they felt that it was stupid to keep continuing on like that and revert back to seeing Vianne everyday when she first opened the shoppe. She also knew that by assosciation, Anouk would get hurt because Jeannot would not be able to see her publicly and would have to sneak around his mother's back just to play with her.
Vianne sighed and continued with what she was doing. She took her eyes off the steam and poured the melted chocolate into some moulds. She heard the door open and saw that Anouk was standing in the doorway. Vianne looked at her expectantly and found that she could see her mother's eyes in Anouk. It took her awhile before she finally spoke to her mother.
"Maman," she said. "Are you having a baby?"
Vianne paused. Some part of her was telling her that Anouk was still too young to handle the situation, but another part of her, a bigger part, told her that Anouk should be the first one to know. She took a deep breath before slowly nodding.
Anouk handled it well like she had always done whenever Vianne uprooted her and moved her to another town several months after settling down. But this was a different situation with different rules and Anouk handled it the same way she did when Vianne moved her: she smiled and ran over to her mother. But instead of helping her mother pack, somewhat resentfully, like she had done during the other times, she threw her arms around her mother's waist and hugged her.
"I've always wanted to be a big sister," she said, smiling delightedly. She looked up. "Is it going to be a girl?"
Vianne nodded and asked, "What do you think of the name 'Armande'?" Anouk smiled again and they stayed like that for awhile, holding onto each other while the steam from the chocolates revolved around them before escaping out the kitchen door.