Author's Note: This is the last completed chapter from NaNoWriMo. I promise to try very hard not to make you wait years for more after this.
Partial quotes from Walt Disney and Babylon 5 in here, if you spot them. Sometimes someone else has already said something in such a perfect way that it's worth referencing instead of rewriting.
Late that night, someone knocked on the door to Willy's personal rooms. He opened the door to find Charlie in his pajamas and wearing a slightly bedraggled housecoat, clutching a certain book to his chest. The boy was practically vibrating with nervous energy and as much as Willy didn't want anyone meddling with his personal life, he suddenly realized that perhaps his reticence had seemed unnaturally harsh to his young friend.
"Come in, Charlie," he said with a gentle smile and was rewarded by some of the tension dropping from the boy's shoulders as he stepped across the threshold. Willy gestured to the seats near the warm hearth, removing his jacket and rolling up his shirt sleeves as he sat. Though his attire was still not nearly as casual as Charlie's, the attempt did cause the boy to smile gratefully as he relaxed against the couch cushions. Willy poured them each a mug of hot chocolate and then settled into his usual spot in the comfy armchair across from him.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked mildly, lifting his mug with his pinky finger extended in mock formality.
Charlie grinned and reached for his own mug, then sobered as he remembered the book he was still holding. After a moment's contemplation, he set it aside carefully and took a long drink, sighing in contentment. "This is really good, Mr. Wonka. Is it yours?"
Willy smiled around his own mug. "Special blend," he confirmed.
Charlie's eyes lit up as he took another sip and for a moment, everything was right again.
Then Charlie set down the mug and shifted anxiously on the couch as he retrieved the book. He stared at the cover, running his fingers along the edges, clearly steeling himself for something. Willy set down his own mug and clasped his hands in his lap, casually crossing one knee over the other, as he patiently waited for Charlie to speak.
"Mr. Wonka," Charlie said at last, lifting his head so that he could look directly into Willy's eyes. "I think you've made a terrible mistake." The words had come out in a rush and then he gulped, shrinking back against the cushions, but did not break his determined gaze.
Willy merely blinked and tilted his head enquiringly. "Go on, Charlie," he said softly, encouragingly. At the boy's startled expression, he added, "I know something has been bothering you for a while. You should never be afraid to talk to me, not about something important. Something that matters."
Charlie squirmed a little. "It's just…you get so angry."
Willy realized he was clenching his hands together and forced himself to relax. "I do," he admitted. "It's part of who I am. I'm sorry if it made you afraid." He offered Charlie a small, apologetic smile. "Maybe you should yell back."
Charlie laughed a little at that and Willy smiled.
"So tell me about my terrible mistake," he prodded. "It will hardly be the first one I've ever made."
Charlie ran his hands over the edges of the book again. "It's…it's about Amalda."
Willy nodded. "I assumed so."
"You know. Ever since that man, Damien, you know she didn't do anything wrong."
Willy sighed. "I was wrong to accuse her."
"You were wrong to mistrust her so quickly," Charlie said bluntly. "We all were."
Willy blinked. "You did nothing wrong, Charlie."
The boy shook his head, his jaw set with the determination of a youth stubbornly righting his wrongs. "I didn't stand up for her. I didn't reach out either. We all just let your words stand. We all wronged her."
Something deep in Willy's chest ached at the thought of his errors impacting more than just himself and Amalda. Before he could speak, Charlie rose and held out the book in both hands, like an offering.
"Read it. Please."
Willy froze, unable to move. "Charlie, I…" His voice sounded soft and broken, even to his own ears. "I don't know if I can," he finished miserably.
"You have to." Willy glanced up and for a moment, as had begun happening now and then with age, he caught a glimpse of the man that Charlie Bucket would become. His expression was forceful, but still compassionate. "At least read the dedication," he relented. "And the summary. Then decide."
It seemed to take the greatest force of will to unlace his fingers. It felt like hours passed as he forced his hands to reach for the book. Halfway there, Charlie took pity on him and simply set it on his lap. Willy stared down at the cover. "The Macaw's Message" it proclaimed. "Decide what?" he asked absently, taking in the colorful bird in flight, its brilliant wings spread wide as it soared through a jungle of every shade of green imaginable.
"How we're going to undo it."
And with that, Charlie let himself out.
The only sound in the room was the crackle of the fire in the hearth. The firelight cast a warm glow on the blues and purples of the book's cover. Willy traced his fingers over the gold-embossed letters of the the author's name.
"A.L. McCaine," he murmured. And then, "Amalda."
A shiver ran through him as he said her name for the first time since…since everything.
He hooked his fingers around the edge of the cover and slowly lifted it.
There was an inscription inside. Willy blinked. Charlie and Belinda had both mentioned a dedication, but neither had said anything about an inscription.
Dear Willy, it read, in Amalda's tidy handwriting.
When we first met, I was a lost child without any idea what my future might bring. Visiting your factory, meeting you, helped me realize what my dream was and find the courage to chase it. Without you, there would be no A.L McCaine. A pseudonym which, by the way, my publisher encouraged me to use due to the ambiguous (i.e. presumptively male) nature of the initials. However, now that I have established my reputation, there is no need to continue this ruse of anonymity. Indeed, the dedication will force the truth to be revealed. My publisher was against it, but I'm ready for the world to know who I am. And I want them to know who you are to me. This story is for you.
All my love,
Amalda
She had signed her name in a large, looping script and Willy could easily imagine her sitting at a table, books piled high on either side, as she signed autograph after autograph for her hordes of young fans, the curves of the A's and M's rolling easily from her pen.
With some trepidation, he turned to the dedication page, and everything around him fell away as he read the words.
For the one who invited me into his dreams. I may hold the key to your home, but you hold the key to my heart.
A tear dripped onto his thumb where it was pressed to the page and Willy hastily leaned back before he accidentally marred the page, resting his head on the back of the chair as he stared at the flickering patterns of light reflected onto the ceiling. He flicked the tear from his thumb and touched his fingers to his face, but they came away dry. His eyes burned, nonetheless. One tear.
But he couldn't even remember the last time he'd cried, the last time he'd cared enough about anything or anyone to do so. When he'd shut down his factory so many years ago, he hadn't cried; he'd felt cold, so cold. While everyone had expected him to be raging, his temper had abandoned him, leaving him with…a vast empty nothingness.
The pit inside of him had only begun to fill again when a penniless young boy with chestnut curls placed an Everlasting Gobstopper on his half-desk and walked away from a dream of wealth that could have changed his family's lives.
And it had overflowed, leaving him giddy, as his relationship with Amalda blossomed.
He had thought that he could perhaps go back to that emptiness, so much preferable to the pain that had been his constant companion of late. But it seemed he was beyond that point.
But perhaps not beyond the point where he could replace the pain with something else.
Amalda's illustrator, Damien, had said she's heartbroken. As in, presently. Not past. Not over mourning their broken relationship. Which was…horrible really, if she'd been feeling anything like the pain that Willy had, all this time.
But it also meant she hadn't moved on. He still had a chance. A chance to, as Charlie said, undo it. No ordinary apology would do, not when they lived such fantastic, fantasy-esque lives. No, he would need something…fantabulous.
And first, he had a story to read.
Amalda had unwittingly turned her life into a public soap opera.
She'd expected some of it, ever since she penned the dedication in "The Macaw's Message". The "Macaw Declaration", as it had become known. She had made a plan with her publisher, to arrange a select few interviews, with reporters carefully chosen as those who would be supportive of a female author. She had planned to discuss it with Willy, after she surprised him with his own personalized copy; it would make it more difficult for them to see each other for a bit until the furor died down, unless they were prepared to go public with their relationship, something she was fairly certain neither of them wanted. It would happen eventually, inevitably, likely when they got engaged. She had blushed to herself that she was thinking in terms of engagements and marriages.
How foolish her daydreams seemed now.
Instead of her carefully laid plans, Amalda had found herself with hundreds of printed books proclaiming her love to a man who had shut her out of his life.
The public revelations had played out with a wild cacophony:
First, that A.L. McCaine was a woman. For the one who invited me into his dreams, the line read. Julia had teased her with waggling eyebrows about what an even bigger scandal it would have been if she had turned out to be a man.
The reporters made short work of public records to match A.L McCaine, rising star author, with Amalda McCaine, owner of a small bookstore. They came in ones and twos at first, begging for interviews that Amalda was no longer willing to give. The more she resisted, the harder they tried.
It didn't take long at all for one of them to notice that she wore no wedding band.
From there, the scandal was born. Amalda McCaine, aka A.L. McCaine, author, business owner, single, but clearly involved with a mysterious man who she was either living with or visiting frequently on the sly, per the I may hold the key to your home line.
Mothers would either berate her for sullying their children with her sinful ways, never mind that the books were obviously perfectly appropriate for children and had nothing to do with Amalda's love life, or they would cast her sly smiles and lean over the counter to chat quietly with her, trying to suss out who the mystery man was.
Men stood across the street, watching through the windows as she worked. Amalda had never been so grateful that she lived upstairs and didn't have to leave the safety of the building very often. Damien would stop by and escort her to Julia's, Julia would send her home with enough food to last several days, and Damien would expound loudly the whole way how he wasn't dating Amalda but if any lovely ladies were looking for adventure with a starving artist, he was absolutely single and available. He also made very certain not to stay at Amalda's too late into the night and that someone on the street saw him leaving.
Things did begin to calm down eventually. Reporters had paychecks to earn and watching Amalda quietly sit at the counter, reading (or pretending to read) a book, or tidying up the shop, or shelving new arrivals, grew boring fairly quickly.
Unfortunately, a few of the more stubborn ones were still lingering in the area when Belinda arrived.
It was somewhat miraculous that, up until that point, no one had suspected that Amalda's ill-fated visit to Willy Wonka's factory could have any connection to her mysterious beau. Belinda Stolp stepping out of a cab onto Amalda's doorstep, fresh off the heels of appearing as an important witness in Wonka's trial against Slugworth, along with her being another participant in the second golden ticket contest, suddenly set some wheels turning in new directions. Connections were made, suspicions were formed, and two men scribbling hastily on notebooks left Julia's in a hurry, rushing back to their typewriters, eager to be the first to reveal this new information and propose a whole host of scandalous new rumors.
Belinda Stolp considered herself to be a very practical person, and not at all creative. Even her baking sometimes felt more like a scientific experiment than an artistic expression; she kept detailed notes of what combinations of ingredients she'd tried and what the results were, not only when it came to flavor but also texture, density, bake time, and more.
Therefore, when she'd been contacted by the solicitor for Wonka Industries via what had to have been a very expensive phone call, she was immediately prepared to present her neatly archived collection of letters from Mr. Wonka and did not hesitate at all when asked to appear in person as a witness. She thought the solicitor sounded fairly relieved to have found someone with a personal connection to Willy who not only lived outside the factory but was also fairly normal by common definitions.
She didn't entirely understand what had transpired between her friends. In one letter, Amalda had spoken glowingly of her developing relationship with Willy. In the next, she mentioned him not once and indeed her letter was unusually short and almost terse. Belinda had not had any personal correspondence from Willy since this all started, but it was clear from their conversation at the factory the other day that something was not right between them. And as probably the only normal person who could claim an equal friendship with both parties, Belinda felt it was her solemn duty to get to the bottom of things.
She reached for the shop door, then paused. Inside, she could see Amalda sitting alone at the counter. She had a tattered notebook in front of her and a pencil held loosely in one hand, but her expression was distant, vacant. Lost.
As Belinda pushed open the door to the sound of tinkling bells, Amalda's eyes refocused, a politely cheerful expression appearing on her face as she turned to greet her customer. The professional charm melted immediately into a genuine smile as she realized who had entered. She hopped off her stool and hurried around the counter.
The two women met in the middle of the aisle, Belinda startling a laugh out of Amalda as she embraced her in a fierce hug.
"Oh my dear," Belinda said as she stepped back from the embrace to eye Amalda appraisingly. "You have done so well for yourself. I am so proud of you."
Amalda blushed, ducking her head. "And you as well! Your bakery has certainly been flourishing."
"Well," Belinda preened. "I would say that's all due to Mr. Wonka, but I know my own talent. He helped, I suppose." Her words were light and teasing but though Amalda laughed, Belinda could see that her smile had grown brittle, frozen awkwardly as she tried to hide…whatever it was that had hurt her. Her eyes darted to Belinda's and away, as if hoping the other woman had not noticed, but knowing that most certainly she had.
Belinda let her keep her secrets…for now. "When does your shop close?" She asked instead, patting Amalda on the cheek and then taking her by the arm as they strolled back to the counter. "May we talk here, or would you rather I wait somewhere? You are free this evening, yes?"
"Oh, of course!" Amalda stepped aside long enough to produce a second stool. "I'm done in an hour. Sit with me here and we can catch up; we'll both be able to see if anyone comes in." And they would be able to talk with some assurance of privacy, even in the open heart of the shop. Belinda nodded her understanding, then peered at the open notebook Amalda had left on the counter. It was riddled with scratched out lines and doodles, and very little of what Belinda imagined actual writing would look like.
"I wouldn't want to take you away from your creative work," she said with a nod at the notebook.
Amalda flushed and hastily slapped the notebook shut, shoving it into a drawer under the counter. "It's…not finished," she stuttered, then sighed. "That's not true. It's not much of anything, really." She settled on her stool again, drumming the pencil idly on the counter. Belinda drew up her own stool, resting an elbow on the counter and keeping her expression open, friendly, curious. "I started with my father's stories, but now I have to make up my own. The first one was easy, but now…now it just feels so hard to…to imagine something so…fantastic."
Belinda scoffed softly. "This from the woman who swam in a chocolate river, seeded the sky with stars and befriended a race of munchkins and their king?"
"They're not munchkins and he's not their king," Amalda corrected, then saw Belinda's grin and laughed. "Well when you put it that way, it does sound pretty magical."
Belinda laughed with her, glad to have given her friend some cheer. "We have seen miracles, my dear, and now we are part of the fantastic story ourselves."
Amalda's smile dimmed. "But not every story has a happy ending."
A silence fell between them. Amalda stared at her hands in her lap while Belinda studied her friend.
Eventually, Belinda said quietly, "You know, there is a saying, something a wise man once said, about storytellers. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again." Amalda glanced up timidly and Belinda caught and held her gaze. "That is what you do, my friend. Reality is full of miserable people who never found their happy endings. But you, you don't walk in their reality. You don't see the same world the rest of us see. In your world we are better than we are, we care more than we care. We act towards each other with compassion." She leaned closer and whispered conspiratorially, "I much prefer your world to reality."
A small smile quirked across Amalda's lips.
"Your stories give us the best version of ourselves, the best version of reality. Restore order. The world as it should be. Instill hope. Show us how to get there. Remind us that we can be better than we are."
Tears pooled in Amalda's eyes. "Belinda, I…" Her breath hitched and she took Belinda's hands in hers. "They're just…they're just children's stories."
Belinda scoffed again. "All the better. We were all children once, full of hopes and impossible dreams. Some of us could do with a reminder of that." She squeezed Amalda's hands and pulled her into a comforting hug. "Have hope, my dear. Things may not be as desperate as they seem."
Amalda sniffled into her shoulder. "I hope you're right."
Belinda patted her friend's hair and silently hoped that as well. She hoped that Mr. Wonka had enough magic up his sleeve to fix this mess he'd made.
Or if not, well, some delicious, home-baked brownies and a few days with a good friend would do much to ease Amalda's pain and hopefully set her on the path to move on.
