The Inventing Room held no charms. Willy had thought it wouldn't, but you never knew; modifying the Eatable Pillow recipe certainly held its charms. Striding into the room, using sign language, Willy asked that an eatable pillow be brought to him, and a station set up, featuring the paraphernalia and ingredients the recipe called for. Oompa-Loompas scurried to make it so, and Willy strode deeper into the room, stopping at his desk. Unlocking the drawer where the recipe lived, he closed and locked it again as he eyed the chaise lounge so lately graced by Terence. A lovely lounge it was, with plenty of room to stretch out on, and rising, sans recipe, Willy shed his frock coat, and sat upon the chaise. Not a second later, in a smooth motion, he swung his legs from the floor, and shifting onto his side, lay down, arranging his frock coat as a blanket. It was only for a minute. The recipe would wait, and anyway, nothing could happen until the pillow prototype arrived.

The thought faded. Thought faded. As lost in sleep as he was, Willy didn't remember his cheek touching the tufted fabric. He did remember the dream.

It started with points of light: hundreds of them, thousands maybe, dots of white, streaming out of the darkness of the Inventing Room, beyond his makeshift bed. They flowed as a river does, parting and rejoining as table and chair legs got in their way. Nearing, in the middle-distance, the dots, like floor-bound fireflies, joined with their dot neighbors, growing as they advanced. The shapes they were making were squared-off cylinders: small they were, but growing, as the river they made flowed toward him. Willy shifted in his sleep, the better to track the incomings, their joining and growing ceaseless. Larger now, they were forming columns, in lines as dressed as a battalion on parade. The marching of the blobs was disconcerting, and in his sleep, Willy's hand clutched the hem of his frock coat more tightly. I'm safe, his brain told him. I'm out of their way, above them; the river will part when it reaches the legs of the chaise, and they'll pass below me. Would that it were so! When they reached the legs of the chaise, the army of white chased their way up them, swarming over the fabric in what was now a blanket of white. Willy curled into a ball, feet kicking at the invaders, with no effect at all, the tears he made in the whitish mass healing and reforming instantaneously. As close as they were now, Willy could smell them. He knew them! They were marshmallows! Marshmallows forming a pillow, heading towards his head! He whimpered in his sleep, gloved-hands cupping to defend his face.

It was no use. The marshmallows were a mass by now, not a shred of light between them, a mass of pillow they were, thick and spongy, closing over his mouth, his nose, his eyes! He couldn't breathe! The sugary smell, the soft dry texture, the smothering! They were smothering him!

With a cry, Willy sat up, Oompa-Loompas scattering like mice before a cat. Hearing the noise of their feet, Willy's eyes focused. There was the white—the culprit—skittering away.

'We brought this, as you asked,' said the Oompa-Loompa, signing from a safe distance. The Oompa-Loompa, eyes downcast, was holding the eatable pillow.

"Heh," Willy managed, with dismayed chagrin. His legs drawn up under him, Willy held his perch. "Thank you. I can see that. Please take it to the station, and put it there. Today, I think, is not a good day for me to work on this. Thank you, just the same."

The Oompa-Loompa, and the others with him, were happy to oblige, melting into the shadows.

Willy took a breath, calming himself. Has Dede gone and ruined my dreams? Rot the sod! Willy didn't think he'd been asleep fifteen minutes. The Inventing Room was no place to be in this state. He'd go and learn about his other state: the state he'd entered this world. Collecting himself, Willy rose from the chaise. With frock coat in place, Willy sailed from the room, signing as he went: 'If anyone is looking for me, they can find me in the library.'


Eshle stood with Makila, watching Willy sleep. "I hate to wake him up."

"Then don't," she said, her library not her priority at the moment. "He was doing some research when he came in, but it didn't last long. He's been in that chair for almost two hours now, dead to the world."

They both wondered how anyone could sleep so soundly, sitting with their feet tucked, but otherwise upright, in a winged-backed armchair, but Willy seemed able to do it, in well, his sleep. He held his head with a stillness that bordered on stiffness, as if his head were encased in something, but there was nothing they could see.

"He asked me to find him if Mrs. Bucket took a wander, and she has, and she's gotten herself lost again."

"I'll bet," said Makila, keeping the rest of her thought to herself. Lost in the Factory was a novel way of getting the boss's attention, she had to admit.

The two stared on, reluctant to disturb so sound a sleep, and another five minutes drained away.

"You bet what?"

"I'll bet Mrs. Bucket isn't lost. I'll bet she's pretending, to get Willy's attention."

Eshle considered the proposition. "I doubt it," he murmured. "She seems more like the send-a-note type. How should I wake him up? I don't want to startle him."

"I have a torch in my desk. You could use it to shine a light on his eyes."

"There's a good idea."

"How about," said a third voice, "standing and talking about how to wake me up, not two feet from where I'm sleeping?"

"We're talking too quietly for that to work."

With up-stretched arms, and a huge yawn, Willy uncurled his legs and sat up. "I heartily disagree. Voices carry. Why, prey tell, am I waking up?"

The motion pulled the two Oompa-Loompas from their tête-à-tête, and they colored like beached lobsters. Eshle took a step back, but Makila, before Willy could say, 'boo!', or anything else, scuttled off. "Those books won't shelve themselves," they heard her mumble from the stacks, and Willy laughed.

"Chicken," he grinned. "You're made of sterner stuff, Eshle. What's up?"

"You wanted to know if Nora wandered. She has."

Willy stood, smoothing his frock coat and retrieving his walking-stick and hat.

"Show me."


Nora looked to the ceiling, waiting for the corridor lights to dim and the ceiling lights to lead her. It hadn't taken this long yesterday for her cardboard creation to get her results, and she wondered if she'd found a place in Willy's giant Factory that wasn't surveilled. Her palms were beginning to bead with sweat, the cardboard feeling mushy where she held it. The tap, tap, tap of a nearing walking-stick quelled her fears of isolation, but gave birth to new fears, a development she hadn't expected. It was Mr. Wonka himself come to fetch her, and she wondered if that might not be a—what was the word he had used?—a disruption. The homemade sign in her hand seemed silly suddenly, and she tucked it away in the pocket of her skirt.

Willy, gallant to a fault, doffed his hat as his approached. "May I help you, Mrs. Bucket? Lost are we? Something I can help you find?"

Nora bit her lip, darned if she'd stammer, her brain darting about like a minnow to come up with an answer. She didn't like the sound of that silky 'Mrs. Bucket', and truth be told, sign notwithstanding, she didn't know if she wanted to be found. Best to sound reasonable she decided, and she bowed to the inevitable.

"You may, Mr. Wonka, and yes, there is." Willy arched a brow, but Nora feigned not to notice. "Charlie informs me that you boast a most useful library, and I was hoping to find it. Perhaps you would be so kind as to show me to it." The bad taste in her mouth from the stilted formality she'd adopted persuaded her to stop the affectation. "Would you?"

Willy grinned, none too convincingly, still playing the gallant. "I would, dear lady, but not today. Today, I would like to show you something else that Charlie may have mentioned to you he has seen. Shall we go along, and find out?"

Willy didn't wait for her answer, but turned on his heel and strode down the corridor. Nora jogged to catch up, and when she had, Willy slowed to a stroll, as if reaching his mysterious destination were the last thing on his mind. Whenever Nora looked his way, she found him looking down the corridor, but whenever Nora looked where they were going, she felt his eyes on her. Try as she might, Nora couldn't catch him at it. Giving up, she wondered if she should make conversation. Should she bring up the matter of his father? The hospital? Pretend she knew nothing about it? Tell him she knew all Charlie knew? It was quite the dilemma. She never got further than taking the breath to start before she thought the better of it. Her mouth was dry, her stomach was in knots, her pulse was doing a pitter-pat that couldn't be good, and Willy's concentration on everything other than her made for poor opportunities. In the end, Nora chose silence, with the rising tension making her squirm. The rub was, with every ratchet up of the tension she was feeling, Willy seemed all the more carefree and happy. By the time they reached the door he was after, he was beaming.

"Wasn't that awful?" Willy said, in that high, sing-song voice of his, rounding on her with glee. He was grinning like a shark. "Wasn't that uncomfortable?"

Nora stared, and Willy chuckled, fingers dancing on his walking-stick.

"Didn't that wander just get longer and longer? All that silence, during all that walking, and all the time not knowing where or how to break it, because you don't know if I know that you asked Charlie to tell you who was in the hospital, or if I know that Charlie told you who it was, or if Charlie told me anything about what you asked him at all, and dear me, with affairs in this state, and even the way they are here, who can keep all these knows and not-knows straight? And why, my dear lady, are we having to?"

Willy smiled at her expectantly, happy to wait, and Nora, realizing the question wasn't rhetoric, shook her head.

"I don't know?"

Willy laughed in the back of his throat at her feigned ignorance, and stepped through the round door he had pushed opened as she uttered her timid answer.

"I do. Follow me. This, is a Caramel Lake Room."

"A room? Not 'the' room?"

"I have more than one. This one uses white sugar."

Nora followed, not as awestruck as she would have been had she not seen the Chocolate Room, but awestruck nevertheless. "Beaches," she breathed.

"Yeah, beaches, cuz this sugar is white, and caramel is made out of sugar. I have three more of these lakes, and each one has a beach of a different color. The degree to which the sugar is refined effects its color and flavor. I have a fifth and sixth, where I play with combining the refinings—" Willy giggled. "That rhymes."

If ever Nora wondered how to get Willy out of a funk, she knew the answer now: get him to talk about his work. They were standing on a sloping boardwalk that wound down into the room through sand dunes covered with beach grass, and low bushes with bright fruit on them. The boardwalk ended at a pier that extended to the center of a vast, concentrically swirled lake, creamy and golden, the color deepening as it moved toward the center. At the center was a slight depression, and Nora thought she heard a gentle sucking sound, as the lake's caramel descended into a pipe that carried it away. Nora knew there was a depression, because the steam that rose in wisps at first, but was a cloud at the center, was lower there.

"It's beautiful!" Nora's hand went to her throat, as she took it in. "Are those beach plums? Are they edible? Is the grass? Can I walk on the dunes?"

"I know; yes; yes; yes, it's Swudge in beach grass form, with salt added, cuz beaches are salty places; and I think you can, your leg's not broken, ya walked here, and, the question you really wanted answered, you may."

Nora stepped off the inedible wooden planks and onto the sand. It was made of specks of rock candy, glittering where the light caught it, and it shifted under her feet, just like real sand. Climbing a dune, she sampled a beach plum, savoring its juiciness. "Oh, look! Rose hips!" She darted to the bush and plucked one. "My mother, when I was very, very little, would take us to the shore, and she'd pick rose hips, and make jelly. I really don't remember much about those days, but I remember the heat of the sand, and smell of the saw grass, and the bushes, and the breeze, and I remember picking rose hips from amongst the thorns, and they smelled just like these: earthy, and like autumn."

Nora stood, holding the rose hip, lost in her past. Willy, watching from the boardwalk, let her be, knowing what it is like to remember scents and breezes, and the happy times they brought to mind. When Nora looked his way again, his eyes were kind.

"Eat it. It'll be tangy, and sweet, and delicious."

She did, and he was right.

"Come and see the caramel."

Willy strolled down to the pier, and Nora joined him.

"Careful now; the sugar is off limits. It mustn't be touched by human hands, or anything else for that matter. As you can see, the circle that is the beach is moving, and that movement delivers the sugar to the lake proper, at this point, where it begins to be heated. Paddle wheels move the heating sugar to the center, mixing it, and by the time it gets there, it's caramel! Neat, huh?"

The farther out on the pier they walked, the hotter the lake became. Nora could feel the warmth, rising up at her. Soon, wisps of steam touched her legs. Feeling her surroundings were getting too hot, she stopped. "What are the other colors I saw? I don't see them anymore."

"Those were the other ingredients, being added by capillary pipes. Don't want to ruin the lake effect, or the shore. They'll all be in by now, being mixed."

"Aren't lakes fresh water?"

Willy waved a dismissive hand. "Details. My caramel has salt in it. Consider this a brackish lake. Wanna go for a ride?"

"A ride?" Nora didn't see a ride, or a boat, or anything like either nearby.

"Ready or not," sang Willy, crouching on one knee. "Hang on!"

And he touched a button on the side of the pier. With her eyes wide, Nora dropped into a hasty crouch, there was no telling with Willy, but there was no danger. The motion was slow and smooth, the pier pivoting from the center, moving like the big hand of a clock over the surface of the lake.

"Ha! Like it? This is how we check for consistency and temperature, and also how we access the paddle wheels for the few problems that we can't solve from underneath."

Nora nodded.

"Good! Aren't ja glad ya didn't fall in? Cuz it woulda been one hot mess if ya had, and we don't want that now, do we?"

Nora shook her head, and Willy reversed the direction of the pier. He was going somewhere with this, and not just across the lake. The knot in the pit of her stomach that had disappeared, but was back, told her so.

"Good! Cuz hot messes don't interest me, and this one woulda been sticky, to boot. A lot like that walk that we took getting here: awkward and sticky. So let's agree to avoid hot, sticky messes between us, shall we? We'll begin with you agreeing to stop sending spies to find out my thoughts. I'm not particularly into spies. That would be Terence on the one hand, and Charlie on the other. Why put them in that position? Speculate to your heart's content, but if you wanna know what I think, or what I know about whatever, don't send someone else. Ask me yourself. I'll answer, or I won't, but I've told them, and now I'm telling you, I don't play telephone. I'd have told you sooner, but things got busy. Got it?"

The pier clicking into place at the boardwalk drowned out Nora's gulp.

"Got it."

"Good! Then we can get. I have more sleeping to do before I meet Charlie."

"At the Factory?"

"Yes, at the Factory, where else would I sleep?" said Willy, turning to face her as he walked back towards the boardwalk. "But if you're talking about meeting Charlie, then that would be near the school."

"Why are you doing this? You said Charlie was safe now."

"I said the watcher we were watching hasn't been seen watching at the Factory since the night we watched him. This morning I discovered the watcher we were watching is watching Dede, at the hospital."

"Dede? Do you mean your father?"

They were halfway to the door, and Willy sighed. Couldn't these people keep up?

"That's the one. The watcher is watching him, presently—"

"Watching him do what?" If Willy were going to tell her to ask him herself, Nora determined to get right on it. He was being amazingly forthcoming, but perhaps that was because he was worried about Charlie. Worry was growing in her.

"Die, I'd guess, but Dede's not dead yet, and he claims he has plans for me. I want whatever scheme that may be, to not include Charlie. The watcher, whose name is Felix Ficklegruber, by the way, is the son of a spy, and he may serve as Dede's cat's paw." Willy paused, to be sure Nora was hearing him. "Feel the chill, yet?"

Nora stopped beside him, in that warm room, with its cloud of caramel steam, and let the shudder she'd been fighting take her. "I do."

"I'm sorry for this; I'm not into drama, as much as I admit I am into costumes, and I thought that man and I were done with each other. It's been years since he's picked at me, but signs are he's picking it up again. I can't think why."

Nora's eyes lost some of their focus. "Is anyone ever done with family?"

Willy declined to answer, and Nora surveyed the room. There were a hundred things she wanted to ask Willy right now, the first and foremost being whether she should come with him when he picked up Charlie. She knew the answer. It was no, or he'd have suggested it. The churning of the paddle wheels—moving the caramel, but unseen on the surface—made her think that Willy must have some end in mind with these repeated walks to and from the school. It must be as obvious to him, as it was to her, that people would catch on: would know it was him. Charlie was in a sticky position. First forgotten, now famous, once it dawned on people how his circumstances had changed. Perhaps Willy had determined to handle that sticky mess himself. He was the cause. The thought made Nora feel better about Willy; that he'd take on the responsibility. It couldn't be easy for him. The lapse in conversation had taken on a life of its own. Nora decided to slay it.

"Willy, did you bring me here to let the room make the sticky mess metaphor for you?"

"Why, yes; yes I did; I hate confrontations. I had a doozy of a one, once. It wasn't enjoyable. And I hate arguing. This room gets my point across, without engaging in either, though Mike Teavee tells me my Factory has no point. I didn't argue with him at the time, though I disagreed. So why not do it this way? Mike managed to find a room, all by himself, that pointed up my thoughts about him: a small-minded know-it-all."

"Why not, indeed?" murmured Nora, not listening to the doings of a ticket winner she'd all but forgotten about. She was thinking of the Lot, and the confrontation that Willy described as a 'one, once, doozy'. "Willy, do you mind if I wander around the Factory?"

"No, you live here now," said Willy, not expecting that to be her next question. "Where I don't want you, you won't be able to get, but you do get lost a lot. Is there a reason you don't ask an Oompa-Loompa the way? Any one of them could direct you."

Nora stepped away from him, towards the dunes with the rose bushes on them, with their rose hips, and the memories of her youth, waiting to be plucked. The future was the future, not hers to know. Charlie was as safe as any one can be in an uncertain world. She'd trust Willy to do what was needed, as he was showing her he was willing to trust her.

"I don't want direction in paradise," she said, not caring if she was speaking too softly for Willy to hear. "I just want to get lost in it. I might find myself."

Willy heard, and understood.


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

spacetea: Yeah, the strangest things, collapsible top hats, made for Opera goers, and brought to my attention by Fred Astaire, who was as masterful at making his hat appear as he was at dancing. Thanks for your review. Squirrela: So glad you liked the scene, and so sorry it's taken me so long to post more. But here it is. Thanks for reviewing.