hicsqueak + charlie and the chocolate factory au
i’ve never seen/read charlie and the chocolate factory so here is a chocolatier au instead? sorry bb!
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It takes Pippa six months to gather enough courage to actually walk into the chocolate shop. She passes by it every day on her way to class, sees the outline of Hecate in the window - still tall, still slim, still dressed all in black, her hair done up in a bun. Still beautiful, the way she’s always been, but they’re older now, and Pippa knows despite her best intentions, distance has only made her heart grow fonder.
She has a million questions - how Hecate ended up here, in the little French village where she’s been studying abroad. How she got into confectionery, of all things. Whether this is all just happenstance or coincidence or fate. Whether there’s some divine intervention screaming at her to take this chance, to go in, to find out how and when and why. Why she left. Why she disappeared. Why she broke Pippa’s heart.
Every day, she passes by, smells the rich cocoa and sugar, and her mouth waters. Somedays, she pauses by the window and stares. Somedays, the older woman who runs the shop smiles at her from the window, and beckons her inside. It takes her six months, but one bright day, the older woman smiles, and holds up a piece of chocolate - a truffle, or a biscuit, she isn’t sure - and Pippa takes a deep breath. Opens the door. Walks inside.
It’s cool and clean and smells so good. The older woman smiles. “I was wondering when you might come in,” she says, and Pippa nods.
“Actually,” she says, tries to keep her voice steady. “I was hoping I might speak to your assistant?”
The woman smirks, like she knows. “I’m certain she’d quite like to speak to you, too,” she says, calls back into the shop in French - Pippa pieces some of it together, but her accent is heavy and Pippa’s brain is short circuiting, her heart trembling, throat dry as there’s a shuffle in the back room, a soft voice, and then—
She comes out from behind the counter. Smiles shyly at Pippa. Holds out her hand.
Pippa stares. Heart stalls.
It isn’t her.
Isn’t Hecate.
The girl is tall and slim and dressed in black and beautiful but it isn’t Hecate, has never been Hecate, and Pippa feels all the color drain from her cheeks, feels light headed and weak and she barely manages to stammer her apologies before she flees.
She finds a new route home, one that doesn’t smell as sweet.
