Dee-dee’s hand is soft and cool and I feel my tension ebb almost magically as soon as she touches me.
“All right, thank you. I’m Irena,” I say, as I let her lead me into the kitchen of the house. “Oh—it’s candy in here, too,” I remark, looking around at the candy cane stove and the chocolate cooling unit.
“Indeed—candy is my favorite and my parents wanted me to be happy,” Dee-dee says.
“But how can you make tea on a candy stove or bake in a candy oven?” I ask, since she doesn’t seem to mind talking about it. “I mean, wouldn’t everything melt before you even got the water to boil?”
“Oh, no—for it’s magic,” she assures me. “The candy is spelled to renew itself constantly—that’s why it never gets dirty or sticky or nasty. And you can eat as much as you want of it. Look.”
She leads me over to the tall chocolate cooling unit and takes a bite of the rectangular side. I see her dainty white teeth sink into the dark chocolate and for a moment I see the teeth marks where she took a chunk out of it. But then, magically, the chocolate fills itself in and the unit is whole once more with no sign that anyone ever took a bite out of it.
“Of course, I have other foods as well—eating candy all day wouldn’t be good for me,” Dee-dee explains. She opens the cooling unit and I see a gorgeous huge ham, studded with cherries and cloves as well as a block of cheese as big as my head. There are other foods too, but that’s where my eyes linger. Now that all the terror of being chased has died down, I realize that I’m really hungry. The few illicit bramble berries I ate are long gone and my stomach is gnawing on itself angrily.
She gives me a sunny smile that seems to warm me right down to my toes. What is it about her? She just seems so sweet and kind and innocent—so very trustworthy.
“But…don’t you get lonely here all alone? I mean, if you are all alone,” I say.
“Oh, I am. And yes, I do get lonely. I’m so glad you’ve come to keep me company.” She smiles sweetly. “Would you like to clean up and then have some lovely ham and cheese? I have some freshly baked bread too,” she adds.
My stomach rumbles but I can’t shake the feeling that I shouldn’t eat anything, no matter how hungry I am. After all, it was eating those bramble berries that got me into this mess in the first place. And now look at me! But it can’t hurt to take her offer to freshen up—I’m an absolute mess and I need to tend to the wounds Old Man Oak’s thorns left all over me.
“You are so kind,” I say politely. “I’d love to clean up some, if you don’t mind.”
“Well of course not, silly!” Dee-dee smiles at me with genuine, melting warmth in her big brown eyes. “Come—let me show you to the bathing room.”
She leads me through the candy house—which is much bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside—until we come to a sumptuous bathing room, all made of chocolate.
“Here we have a lovely bathing pool so you can have a soak,” she says, nodding at a deep, dark chocolate tub with a white chocolate faucet and taps.
“Er…the warm water won’t melt the chocolate?” I ask uncertainly.
“Oh, of course not! The magic keeps that from happening.”
She gives her delightful, lilting laugh and turns the taps, causing clear, hot water to rush into the tub. She directs me to a towel, which—thank goodness—appears to be made of fabric instead of candy, and bids me take my time.
“I’ll get a nice plate of food ready for you for when you come out,” she promises me. “Ham and cheese and apples and fresh bread and honey and, of course, all the candy you can eat for dessert.”
I try to tell her I’m not hungry, but she only laughs at me.
“Come now—of course you are! Now take your bath and come see me in the kitchen afterwards.”
When she closes the door behind her, I take a deep breath—the room has the rich, chocolaty smell of a candy shop—and decide to at least clean up. I slip out of my shift and panties and do my best to wash off the blood stains in the sink—which is milk chocolate with white chocolate taps. After wringing my shift out, I hang it over a dark chocolate towel bar and step naked into the chocolate tub.
The water is clear and warm, but the smell makes me feel like I’m taking a bath in a pot of hot chocolate. It’s not unpleasant—just a little strange. I take my time and wash my body and hair with chocolate-smelling soap and shampoo. I even use a chocolate comb—which must be magically hardened—to comb out the tangles in my long golden-brown hair.
But the whole time I’m getting clean, my stomach is growling. I try to ignore it as I finally drain the tub and reach for the towel. My naked body is covered in scratches and furrows from the thorns, and my left nipple especially is tender where a thorn pierced it.
I hate having to put back on my still-damp shift, but I have nothing else to wear and I can’t walk out into my host’s house wearing nothing but a towel.
I shiver as the clammy fabric molds to my skin. It’s unfortunately rather see-through and I feel extremely self conscious about the way my nipples poke at the damp material.
I’ve just decided that I’ll take the shift off again and let it dry some more when I hear a knocking at the bathroom door.
“Hello?” Dee-dee’s sweet voice calls. “Are you all right in there, Irena?”
“Oh, er, fine—just fine. Thank you,” I say, pulling my shift back down again. I go to the door and open it partway, making certain to hide most of my body and just put my face through the crack. “Sorry, it’s just, my clothes are still wet,” I tell her.
“Oh, of course. Here, let me get you something.”
