"For the same reason?"

The words were out before Charlie could call them back. He'd only ever heard about Willy's father, and that not from Willy. Araminta Harriet Ross Tubman, of Underground Railroad fame, was long dead, and if Willy's Araminta, his mother—his real mother—couldn't try Swudge for the same reason, it wasn't a happy one. Charlie dropped his head, sorry he'd spoken, his eyes clouding. He hadn't meant to bring up something sad, it had simply happened.

Pretending not to hear, Willy turned away, leaving them behind, as he tapped his walking-stick in a slow rhythm along the narrow tunnel. The sound echoed back to Charlie and Terence like the tolling of a church bell. Feeling lost, Charlie took a step to follow, but Willy had come to some conclusion, and turning back, they both stopped where they stood.

"I think so. I don't know so."

Willy's voice fell on Charlie's ears like the rays of the full moon, falling to Earth, but without their proper light.

"Are you coming?"

Charlie, having looked down again, looked up, and took a hesitant step. He took another, not quite as hesitant, and Willy sighed to himself. An apprentice on eggshells would never do. If questions asked by either, cued up a queue of sharpened shards of broken calcium carbonate crystals under foot, why would Charlie want to stay? Down that path lay no future for either of them.

"I have her snapshot. Would you like to see?"

Charlie didn't know if he wanted to or not. Maybe it was none of his business. Maybe it was. He didn't know. Willy seemed to read his mind.

"If I'm only going to teach you about this sort of thing," Willy gestured to the Factory underpinnings that lined the walls of the tunnel, "and not greet you when you get home—which I can tell you now, I won't be able to do every day, or even most days, but that doesn't mean what you think that means—then you are right to call me Mr. Wonka. But I've said I'd like you to call me Willy, and if, as I'd like, you'll do that, then I'd like to show you this."

Willy had removed from his frock coat pocket the silver, folding case Terence had seen produced, but not shared, in Willy's office. Charlie, reaching out with trembling hand, took the object. But Charlie wasn't looking at it. He was looking into the eyes of his benefactor, his own eyes shining. Willy was speaking to him in the way adults spoke to each other. As if he and Mr. Wonka were equals. Charlie knew they weren't, the same way he knew he felt better calling Mr. Wonka Mr. Wonka in his head most times, but that was only because, in a fast changing world, it helped Charlie keep his mental balance. Words Charlie hadn't properly listened to at the time, floated back to him.

"You said, 'again'. You said you needed your coat again," Charlie breathed, elation dawning. There'd been a reason… a good reason. "Were you out of the Factory when I got home today?"

With an insey smile, the man who everyone knows never leaves his Factory, nodded.

"I was."

"With this? Is that why you have it with you?"

"With the this that you have, yes, and yes, it otherwise lives elsewhere."

Charlie ran his fingertips over the engraved silver, tracing the design. It was curvy, and complicated… some kind of leaves, filling and overflowing a multi-lined border. Though highly polished, it looked old. Charlie didn't need to see what was in this, if it were something private. The feeling that had enveloped him when he returned from school—that though invited, he was nevertheless an interloper—had vanished with what Willy had already said. Hearing it, Charlie felt like a friend… a real friend. Would a friend look at this? They were in the middle of going to fetch his Grandpa George. Looking at this now would hold them up.

As if not finished with reading Charlie's mind, Willy sank to the floor, sitting cross-legged, the Nerd filled cane across his lap. When their eyes were of a level, as Willy sank, Charlie sank with him.

"Go on," Willy said, when they were comfortably settled on the floor, a floor as spotless as the rest of the Factory. "We have time. Open it."

Breaking the eye contact he'd maintained, Charlie opened it. And studied it, his cough suppressing his gasp. His finger hovered above the snapshot's left hand side. Before he went any further, his eyes searched again for Willy's. Anticipating, knowing, Willy leaned forward, nodding encouragingly, the fingers of both his hands entwined in the spiraling glass ridges of his walking-stick; as if he knew if they weren't, they'd reach out for what Charlie was holding, to snatch it back.

Charlie looked down. His finger delicately hovered above the long, diagonal tear he found there, tracing it without touching it, respecting the wound that it was, his eyes returning to Willy's when he was done. How had the photo torn? Willy must know. It must make him sad. The tear wasn't in a good place. Was this all Willy had? Of his mother? Charlie let his eyes do the asking. Willy could answer, if he wanted to. And he did. By way of a silent exchange; subtle shifts in face and body, a back-and-forth, that Terence, forgotten in the shadows, was content to watch. Having remained where he was, Terence, in the dim light, could see nothing of what was in Charlie's hands.

Charlie looked again to the worn photograph. Willy's mother was in it, if Willy said so, but so was Willy, by dint of his youth, standing in front of her. He looked so different. He was smiling; smiling with boundless optimism. Smiling as if he took for granted that the world held only wonderful things, especially put there, for him to discover. And he was happy. Truly happy; as if he took for granted that everyone he would ever meet would be his loyal friend. Intent, Charlie didn't bother to look up.

"How old are you?"

"Now?" The joke rang hollow, and Willy dropped it almost before it registered. The shadows rustled. "Then? Who can remember?" Willy murmured. "Half your age, I should think."

Younger, Charlie thought. Slight, and thin, and pale, the sort of kid a bully would pounce on, with short hair, and short bangs, as short as they are now, and no gloves, and… and Willy Wonka was a wisp of a creature in this picture. Why, he's as thin as me! Charlie stole a glance. All those layers of clothing. He was probably still thin. Maybe it ran in the family. His mother was thin. She had delicate arms, with dainty hands, and long, tapering fingers. They trailed down Willy's upper arms, her palms resting lightly on his shoulders. Willy wasn't paying her any attention. With his arms at his sides, his hands relaxed, fingers curved, Willy was enthralled by the workings of the camera, its lens the magic entrance to yet another enchanting dimension.

"Do you hate being cooped up here?"

Charlie had no idea where that question had bubbled up from.

"No," answered Willy, as if he'd been expecting it. "I quite like it. I don't feel cooped up at all. Do you?"

"No," said Charlie. "I feel safe."

"Watch out for the machinery," Willy shot back, at once. "And for where you put your feet. And your hands. And for loose clothing. And for what you're doing."

Charlie's head snapped up, his mouth an 'o'. Willy sounded exactly like Grandma Josephine, but unlike her, he was silently laughing as he scolded. The happiness that sprang from within him, so evident in this picture, was unquenchable for long. Safe, Charlie knew, was a feeling, not a reality, anywhere, and Willy was only making the point. Charlie added his laugh to Willy's silent one.

"I mean that," Willy frowned, afraid Charlie wasn't taking him seriously. Machinery, and the rest of it, was fun, but not funny. "And don't eat anything if you don't know exactly what it is, and particularly if you don't know its provenance. I mess around with things all the time. All sorts of things."

"Pro…ven… ance?"

"Where it comes from," said Willy. "It may not be entirely invented yet."

"You mean safe?"

A glance to the shadows, and then, "Erm… something like that."

"I will, and I won't, then," said Charlie, solemnly nodding. He took one last look at the photo. The pose in it seemed familiar, as if he'd seen it recently. 'Course it was a pretty common pose: two people, one in front of the other. And then Charlie realized he had seen the pose recently. In a photo at Dr. Grant's house, last night. A photo of Willy with Willy's other mother; his mother after this mother. There was something though… something different… Charlie couldn't put his finger on it. He closed the protective case, and handed it back to Willy, who took it eagerly, his pale, beaming face expectant of a comment. Charlie cast about in his mind, coming up with something he hoped wouldn't hurt.

"Your mother has beautiful hands."

That satisfied.

"Thank you. I think so too. And now we are done with this dally. Charlie? Terence? Onward!"

Leaping to his feet, Willy whirled, and soon he was far ahead, the velvet hem of his frock coat fluttering out behind him. And so they followed: Terence mulling over the use of the word 'provenance', and candies he'd eaten that looked like pollens; Charlie, illusory or not, savoring the sweetness of feeling safe, and snug. He'd seen the light in the boy in the photograph; the light in the man he was following now. He'd seen the tear in the creased, yellowed paper. Between the three things that were two things—the tear, and the boy, and the man—Charlie Bucket believed there wasn't anything that Willy Wonka faced, he couldn't overcome.


Thank you readers and reviewers.

dionne dance: Araminta, a name I first heard watching National Velvet, and otherwise a name I've never heard. I discovered the Harriet Tubman connection in connection with putting a woman's face on United States currency. She was one of the five women being considered. Why? I looked her up to find out, and darn if she didn't have the name. Some coincidence, eh? I thought I'd use it.
Linkwonka88: Thank you, I'm quite fond of
The Addams Family, myself, and apparently, we're not alone. The hands Thing in 1971, the Hair Toffee visual in 2005... Does that Oompa-Loompa not remind you of Cousin Itt?
Squirrela: Isn't that always the way? You're into something, and then you run into someone else, and suddenly you're off on a tangent? Life is like that. And aren't you a good sport, to smile at my reference. Referencing that film, I'd relish having more of
your story to read.
07kattho: There
is a lot of nuance in the Oompa-Loompa situation, isn't there? It might be a story in itself. One thing's for sure: There's nothing cut-and-dried in Willy Wonka's world. And the end of the last chapter is sad, isn't it? I had no idea how sad this story was gonna get, or how creepy. It hardly seems appropriate. But as Mr. Wonka says, it's all bound to come out in the wash. It always does. I hope. Thanks for reading, and I'm glad to hear from you.

I do not own Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in any of its many forms, and there is no copyright infringement intended.