AN: After a long battle with writer's block, I'm back in action. This chapter is pretty long and features three different perspectives, but I decided that I preferred one long chapter over three small ones.
"Mum, have you ever lost anyone close to you?" Mrs. Bucket was folding linens at the now empty table, and Charlie had seated himself nearby. His question wasn't entirely startling to her. She knew that it had everything to do with Rowena, who Mrs. Bucket had already worried about a great deal. All alone in one of the guest bedrooms that Charlie had just finished describing to her, she couldn't help but worry that the woman would become lonesome in the night.
Her son's question was a kind of needed distraction despite the subject matter. "I've been very lucky, Charlie. I have you and your father, and of course your grandparents are all here with us. We even have Willy as part of our family, now. But I did have a grandfather of my own that I miss very much."
"What was he like?" Charlie watched her as she expertly folded a long tablecloth, his chin resting on his folded arms.
"Well," she began with a smile, "His name was Grandpa Robert, and he was as tall and thick as any man I've ever seen. He had a big peppery beard, and he always smelled like his pipe. When he hugged me, he would scoop me up into his arms and spin me around until I was so dizzy I couldn't even stand." She sighed happily, the memories all very pleasant. "I miss him very much."
"But you've moved on?" Mrs. Bucket paused, setting the tablecloth on the table and going to sit beside Charlie.
"Moved on? Well, I suppose that I have, but that's not exactly how I'd put it."
Charlie gave her a confused look, turning in his chair to face her. "That's what Rowena said when she told me her mother died."
Mrs. Bucket drew in a sharp breath. "Rowena told you that her mother died?"
He nodded slowly. "She said that she died with her brother. Then she said that bad things happen, and sometimes you just have to move on."
Now Mrs. Bucket thought that she was beginning to understand. So Miss Chantilly was living in the shadow of personal tragedy, whether she knew it or not. And somehow her young son had wheedled some of the details from her.
"In my heart, Charlie, I can't say that I've truly 'moved on,' because I will always miss Grandpa Robert. But everyone deals with loss in a different way."
"I think that Rowena is still sad."
"I do too, Charlie. She loved them, and so she will always miss them and will always be sad without them. But she has to live her life, has to find ways to be happy. I think that she is very brave, and probably in need of a good friend."
"That's why we're her friends." Charlie smiled sadly, and his mother reached out to rumple his hair.
"You are exactly right, Charlie. But no more talking. It's off to bed with you."
Charlie nodded as he hugged Mrs. Bucket. She squeezed him tightly, pecking him on the cheek before releasing him. "I love you, Charlie."
"I love you too, Mum. Night."
As he crossed the room to the ladder that would take him to his lofty perch above the room, Mrs. Bucket rested her chin in her hand and propped her elbow on the table. If she had been troubled about the young woman before now it was doubly worse. How on earth could she help a woman who was unaware of the great help she needed? Rowena would only be at the factory another day, so it was completely out of her hands. The best she could do, as she had hinted to Charlie, was to be her friend. She only hoped that that would be enough.
It wasn't unusual for Willy Wonka, the amazing chocolatier himself, to spend sleepless nights thinking on new ideas. In the still of the night his mind came alive, filled with thoughts and inspirations that he could barely contain. Rather than fight a hopeless battle trying to sleep, Willy spent most of his nights envisioning the marvelous creations that spun so naturally from his brilliant mind.
Tonight was no exception. Lying perfectly still in the exact center of his bed, he let his mind journey wherever it pleased. That, he had found many times over in the past, was how the best and often most stunning ideas revealed themselves. But Mr. Wonka was about to find that there was more on his mind than candy and chocolates. A certain insurance agent was occupying his thoughts.
He'd been thinking of chocolate bunnies for the next Easter. Perhaps if they actually hopped instead of just sitting in their boxes… Boy, what fun that would be! And then, somehow mingled into his thoughts of bouncing bunnies, he saw her in his mind's eye, laughing as she jumped on the bed. That laugh of hers was unlike anything he'd ever heard before. It was more of a song than a laugh, all melodious and sweet and with no harshness.
He'd thought he'd sized her up adequately the moment he'd met her, but every moment with her seemed to reveal something new. It was most unnerving, especially for a man who had hardly ever given a thought to any one woman in particular in his entire life. Chocolate was his lady love, his grand passion. What use had he for icky thoughts of romance and family?
Clearing his throat, Willy was determined to clear his mind and try again. Chocolate bunnies, chocolate bunnies…All righty then. If they hop around, they might begin to multiply. That could be a big problem-o. On second thought, no hopping unless they're kept well away from one another. They'll just have to learn to behave. His thoughts were drifting from one idea to the next, unfocused and unorganized. It wasn't long before Rowena made another appearance in his mind's eye.
There was something special about her, something unique. And, dear heavens, how unnerving that was. He didn't know what it was, couldn't place the mysterious element at all. If he wasn't careful, she'd start to notice how he couldn't keep his eyes off of her, or the way he actually hung on her every word. It wasn't like him at all, and he had a certain reputation to uphold.
Was she lonely? He wondered, thinking of her all alone in the guest wing. She was a grown woman who could take care of herself, of course, but would she be comfortable? She obviously knew how to put on a brave front, but what if… His curiosity was aroused. Sleep would never find him now, and he'd never be able to continue his brainstorming in peace.
His mind was made up immediately after that. Rolling from the bed, he sought his hat in its usual place, sitting on his desk across the room. He wrapped himself in a purple velvet robe, hiding his crimson pajamas beneath. Slippers on, he was ready to go, and left his room in a hurry.
The warm waters of the lake were a perfect sapphire blue, glimmering in the midday sun that shone brightly over the dense trees that surrounded them. Fitz was already in the water, diving and frolicking with boundless energy. Standing on the banks beside her father, a young Rowena laughed at his boyish antics. "You look like a fish, Fitz!" she called to him, and he grinned at her in return.
"Come on, Ro! Jump in!" Her father, chuckling beside her, nodded with a smile when she glanced up for permission. Needing no further urging, the golden haired girl jumped into the cool waters with great aplomb, still wearing her favorite green sundress.
"Hurry up, Ro!" Fitz urged from the middle of the lake. With small but expert strokes, Rowena began to swim for him. With each breath of air she was laughing still, like a young glittering mermaid enjoying a playful day on the surface of the water. Fitz was treading water, waving and waiting for her.
She should have reached him long before, but somehow the distance between them was widening. Why was her brother not alarmed? Couldn't he see that something was keeping them apart? "Fitz?" she called out tentatively, her laugher gone and her smile fading.
But the boy that had been in the lake before was gone now, and an older version of Fitz was left in his place. "Good bye, Ro," he told her calmly, that devilish half-grin of his teasing the corner of his mouth. "We're going out for a bit. We'll be back later." And then he dove beneath the surface, and all was still.
"Fitz? Fitz!" She stroked through the water as quickly as she could, desperation eating away at her belly. "Fitz, please! Come back! Don't go, Fitz, I'm frightened for you!" He was gone and she couldn't reach him, no matter how hard she struggled. Where was father? Why wouldn't he help them? This couldn't be real, it couldn't be happening!
"Fitz, please! Fitz!"
"Fitz!"
Rowena bolted upright, gasping for breath in the cool night air. It wasn't real. It had been a nightmare and nothing more, a dear childhood memory transformed into something twisted and painful. Clutching the smooth sheets to her, she waited for her breathing to return to normal. The images were fading away now, as they did following every nightmare she'd endured for the past six years. Soon she'd forget it enough to slip back to sleep, and by morning the event would be forgotten entirely. Forgotten until the next nightmare, that was, though they were fewer and farther between anymore.
She knew very well why the nightmares had followed her this night. Revealing some of her story had brought the pain back to the surface, the very reason she chose never to speak of it. It didn't matter, she promised herself, wiping away cold sweat clinging to her brow. By tomorrow evening she'd be home, safe in her little world where she could focus solely on her work. She'd be safe from the nightmares then, at least for a time.
Ready to lie back and try to sleep again, Rowena was suddenly aware of the sound of footsteps outside in the hallway. She'd been surrounded by impenetrable silence all night; there was no mistaking the steady footfalls that came from the hallway beyond. Alert and fearful, Rowena was reminded of the attempted break in earlier that afternoon. Were the footsteps those of the culprit, trying yet again to penetrate into the factory?
Something had to be done. Surely whoever it was couldn't know she was sleeping in the room, but that didn't mean they wouldn't enter it looking for valuables or whatever it was that criminals did. And even if they didn't, someone had to alert Mr. Wonka and the Bucket family. No one could be safe with some foul villain afoot in the factory. Creeping from her bed, Rowena tried unsuccessfully to ignore the pounding of her heart. This was no time to be afraid; like it or not, heroics were called for. In another time and place, another life entirely, she'd been no stranger to danger and adventure. She had only to channel her younger self, grasp onto those few remaining threads from days gone by…
It wasn't working. Nothing would quench the fear that filled her, yet she moved quietly for the door despite its voracious appetite. Pausing only to take up the hairbrush she had found in the armoire and left on the table, she was at the door much sooner than she would have liked. Wrapped in a royal purple terrycloth bathrobe that sported a rather large golden W, she was hardly dressed for a confrontation with some sort of baddy.
She could hear nothing now. Either the footsteps had passed by, or whoever was out there was waiting on the other side of the door. That thought alone nearly sent her flying back to her warm, soft bed, where she could hide beneath the blankets and pretend that this wasn't happening. Yet it was happening, and no amount of hiding and cowering would change that fact.
Her fingers quivered as she reached for the door handle. She had two choices: open the door slowly and pray that whoever was out there was far enough away not to hear her, or throw it open as quickly as possible, giving her the element of surprise if the intruder was still there.
She chose the latter. Before she could change her mind, she grasped tightly onto the door handle and threw the door wide open. A shadowy figure stumbled back and raced away from her in the darkness and a quick, shrill scream escaped her lips. Adrenaline and terror were fueling her now, pushing her to move forward, to act! Dashing into the thick, ominous darkness of the hall, Rowena could just make out the lone figure fleeing away. Drawing her arm back, she hurled the hairbrush with all her might, watching it disappear as it flew hard and fast away from her.
There were three very strange sounds that echoed through the hall immediately after she released the projectile. First, there was a dull thud. The hairbrush had miraculously found its mark. The second was the strangest of all; a loud, solid thwack reverberated past her, and finally the whoosh of a body collapsing to the ground preceded an eerie stillness.
Rowena waited, breath abated, heart pounding high in her throat. She had felt for one brief moment like a true Amazonian warrior. Now she was reduced yet again to a frozen, frightened thing, unable to move from where she stood. Silence was all around her, and then…
"Ouch!" a man's voice gasped. Rowena's hands flew to her mouth. She knew that voice. There was no vile intruder lingering in the hallway, only Mr. Wonka, the factory's owner in the flesh. Taking a few shaky steps forward, her eyes fought to adjust to the deepening darkness.
"Mr. Wonka?" she called out tentatively, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Uh, yeah, starshine…" was the hesitant reply, sweeping away any lingering doubt. Rowena was all action again, swiftly searching out the light pull. Locating it, she blinked her eyes several times to adjust to the blinding light of the illuminated chandeliers high above them.
Finally able to see clearly, Rowena was absolutely positive that she was dreaming. Willy Wonka was standing a few feet ahead of her, hat firmly on his head despite the fact that he was in pajamas and robe, and he was leaning ever so casually against a very solid, very invisible wall. "I'm dreaming," she muttered, voicing her doubts aloud in a dizzy sounding voice.
Willy looked at her queerly, his brows furrowing momentarily. Realizing the problem, he hastily straightened up, taking a step closer toward her. "Oh, why of course you're not," he hastily assured her. "It's just my Glass Elevator. I always forget where I park the darn thing."
"Glass…elevator?" Rowena repeated slowly, shaking her head as if to clear her thoughts. "I…don't even want to ask," she finally declared, sagging against the wall.
"Probably best that you don't," Wonka replied cryptically, slowly closing the space between them. There was embarrassment and uncertainty written plainly across his pale, pale features, and Rowena wasn't really sure if he wanted to say something or simply turn around and bolt. He looked very much like a young boy who had gotten into some sort of mischief and was now facing the judgment of a very irate authority figure.
Shaking her head bemusedly, she turned on her heels and returned to her room, burningly aware of Willy following uncertainly behind her. She found the light switch once inside, filling the room with more bright light. "Y'know, you sure do have a powerful throw, Rowena," Willy announced as he hovered unsteadily in the doorway.
Running a hand through her hair, Rowena felt a waterfall of guilt pour down upon her. "Mr. Wonka, I'm so sorry about, um, striking you," she sighed, facing him with a small guilty smile.
"And with a hairbrush, of all things," he huffed.
"Of course I didn't know it was you; I assure you that if I had, I would never…" She swallowed hard, shivering despite the warm robe she wore. Finally making his mind up, Willy came further into the room after shutting the door behind him. The room was beginning to feel very, very small.
"Mind if I sit down, kiddo?" he asked as he moved toward the table, settling himself onto one of the cushions before she could answer. Rhetorical question, apparently. And what, Rowena wondered, was with the nicknames? Kiddo? Starshine? Anything was preferable to hearing her proper name spouted off again and again, but this was a new dynamic that she didn't know how to react to.
"I heard someone in the hall," she told him, trying her best to explain her behavior. "I thought about the attempted break in earlier, and I thought that it might be the intruder coming back."
Mr. Wonka shook his head, glancing at her sharply like she was quite frankly out of her mind. "If there was an intruder, you would have heard the alarm, silly."
"But there's always a possibility that someone could bypass the alarm."
"Not this alarm. I designed it myself. Unless they're invited into the factory, no one can get inside without the alarm being triggered. It's just that simple." He paused, regarding her curiously as she sat on a cushion across from him. "But if you thought someone had broken in, why on earth would you run towards the bad guy and not away from him?"
Rowena laughed shakily, trying to remember the reasoning behind her actions. "I wanted to warn you and the Buckets."
"My, that's awfully noble of you." He was examining a white piece of lint on his immaculate purple robe, grasping onto it and flicking it away with a distasteful glower.
"I didn't think I had it in me anymore."
"Anymore?" Wonka pressed, tilting his head quizzically. Drat, she hadn't meant to say that. And he was watching her again, which she already knew had the strangest effect on her.
"I was braver in my youth," she told him as nonchalantly as possible, examining her fingernails in order to avoid eye contact. If she met his gaze, she knew full and well she'd be done for.
"But you're still in your youth," he insisted calmly.
"But I'm not as young as I once was. I'm older and wiser now."
He paused, thinking over her words. "You don't think it's immature and foolish to be brave and valiant, do you?"
He had her there. "No, of course not, but I don't go chasing after danger any more, either."
"Which is to say that you were once a seeker of danger?" Rowena shut her eyes tightly, trying her best to calm her racing thoughts. She was giving away too much, more than she'd ever given to any other person she knew. Hadn't she put all of this away long ago? She had only one choice now. It was time to change the subject again.
Opening her eyes, she dared to glance at him. "Mr. Wonka, what were you doing lingering outside my door?"
A tiny smile appeared on his face as his white complexion flushed. Rowena's dark eyes held a challenge in them, daring him to give her a proper excuse for such strange behavior. "Well, I was just, um, walking."
"Walking? Whatever do you mean?"
"Hard of hearing there, Rowena? Yes, I was walking, as any upright bipedal man often does."
She took the opportunity to glance at a large gold apple-shaped clock on the wall. "You're telling me that at two in the morning you just happened to be taking a stroll along a pitch black hallway, and in a guest wing that you purportedly never use?" Now she had the upper hand. His smile grew into a larger sheepish one, and he started looking at his hands. Rowena realized with a start that they were gloveless. Oddly, her heart seemed to skip a beat as she studied them. They were absolutely perfect hands, as pale as the rest of him and without any flaw of any kind. She tore her gaze away from them, searching for something, anything else to focus on.
"Well, it is my factory," he reminded her rather flippantly. "I can do as I please. If I wanted to lead a parade of dancing monkeys through the halls, I could. If I wanted to broadcast the Russian national anthem through the whole factory, I could. And if I wanted to make sure my guest was sleeping soundly, well, I could most certainly do that, too."
"You came-you came to check on me?" Rowena sputtered, hardly able to believe such a thing. "So you were going to knock on my door and--"
"Knock on your door? Don't be ridiculous. Then I might have woken you up."
"Then you were just standing there in order to…"
"Listen. To make sure you weren't still awake."
Rowena was confused again, but apparently so was Willy. "How would you have known if I was awake? It's not as though I would have been speaking aloud."
"Well, you were, actually, but you most certainly weren't awake, little dreamer."
None of it really made sense to Rowena, but then again, Mr. Wonka was an enigma to her. With the way he was looking at her now, she was sure he thought the same of her. "I sometimes talk in my sleep," she finally admitted, hoping there would be no more talk on the matter. Naturally, she was wrong.
"How strange," Willy said softly, his eyes never leaving her face.
"It's not, not really," she tried to assure him unconvincingly. "Lots of people talk in their sleep."
"Yes, but not everyone shouts."
She'd been shouting? Oh, no, what had she said? Surely nothing incriminating, she desperately hoped. She couldn't bear to ask him what she'd said, and her face was growing terribly warm as a blush crept across her cheeks. Mr. Wonka seemed terribly pleased at her blush, smiling that wide, childish grin of his. "Y'know, you look just like a strawberry when you blush," he giggled, and Rowena's pink face turned crimson.
Willy popped up from the floor, straightening his robe and adjusting his hat. "I think that about does it, then," he said saccharinely, marching straight for the door. "Boy, did we cover a lot of ground tonight." Rowena watched him go, perplexed by his words. Of course they hadn't covered any ground. What ground was there to cover?
"Sleep tight, little dreamer. I'll be back for you first thing in the morning, and then we'll really have some fun. Ta!" And then he was gone for the second time that night, the door slamming shut behind him. Sighing heavily, Rowena fell back on the plush sitting cushions, her arms flopping on either side of her head. She would never, ever understand the factory's reclusive owner. Childish and unbearable one moment, darkly mysterious the next. The dizzy woman seriously wondered if the man suffered from some kind of personality disorder.
"That can't possibly be right," she whispered aloud, idly twirling the remains of a curl around her finger. Willy Wonka was not unstable, she was almost positive. On the contrary, she had a sneaking suspicion that he was playing an elaborate game of some kind, sporting an elaborate facade to keep the world at bay.
In other words, he was just like her.