The Chocolate Collection. Trisha Ashley

maybe that’s what gave Felix the idea in the first place? I suspected it was because Jake was about to fly the nest and felt guilty at leaving me alone, but little did he know how much I was looking forward to some me-time!

      Anyway, it was pointless, because I simply couldn’t feel that way about Felix – he was more like family. Wilde’s Women finally folded in the early seventies, when Janey suddenly married and had Poppy and then, as I’ve said, Mum had me for her own dubious reasons. Felix was a few years older, having been Mags’ teenage mistake, so he was always a protective older brother figure to us.

      So, you see, that’s why I loved my friend like a brother, my brother like a son and my mother…not at all. Was it any wonder I’d always had trouble with relationships?

      ‘Poppy’s only a couple of miles out of Sticklepond on the Neatslake road, so I can see a lot more of her too,’ I added pointedly.

      Jake looked at the clock and rose to his feet. ‘I’d better go. Ben’s picking me up in a minute.’

      ‘Well, remember, Jake—’ I began warningly.

      ‘I know, I know,’ he interrupted me good-humouredly, shrugging himself into the long, black leather coat it had taken me ages – and hundreds of Chocolate Wishes – to save up for. ‘No drugs or drinking to excess, and safe sex – I should be so lucky!’

      ‘Jake!’ I exclaimed, but he was gone.

      I felt like every exhausted mother of a teenager, trying to walk the fine line between keeping him safe and coming across as boringly old and uncool.

      And the irony of it was, I wasn’t even a mother.

      I rang Stirrups up later and told Poppy about Grumps buying the Old Smithy.

      ‘But that’s amazing!’ she exclaimed. ‘We were only discussing it at the last Sticklepond Parish Council meeting, because my cousin Conrad told me it had been sold and it was going to reopen as a museum. Didn’t I tell you?’

      ‘Well, you might have done, but I’d forgotten.’ She and Felix are both on the Parish Council so they often tell me what they have been discussing, but it had never seemed either interesting or relevant – until then.

      ‘I can’t think why Con didn’t tell me who was buying it!’ she said.

      ‘Grumps probably swore him to secrecy, you know what he’s like. And why were you discussing it at the meeting? I wouldn’t have thought it would need planning permission, since it’s already been a museum. And the shop in the little cottage shouldn’t either, because that was Aimee Frinton’s doll’s hospital.’

      ‘I don’t suppose either of them will need permission and we weren’t so much discussing it as chatting at the end about how many tourists the Shakespeare manuscript find at Winter’s End brings to the village, which is why we’ve got all the new gift shops and cafés and the Witch Craft Gallery to cater for them. Even Stirrups is doing much better and Marked Pages gets lots more passing trade. So everyone was really pleased the Old Smithy is going to be both a family home and museum again. They hope it will be something suitable, like the doll’s—’

      She broke off abruptly, so I expect she’d tried to put dolls and Grumps into the same mental picture frame and failed dismally to marry the two.

      ‘No, of course it won’t be dolls, will it? Silly me!’

      ‘The only sort of doll Grumps might have in his museum is a poppet.’

      ‘Poppet?’

      ‘An image of someone used in magic.’

      ‘You mean like a voodoo doll? Pins and stuff?’

      ‘Sort of. They can be used for good things as well as bad.’ I paused. ‘So, do you think perhaps a museum of witchcraft and paganism might not be quite what the Parish Council is hoping for?’

      ‘Well…no, not exactly. But I’m sure it will be hugely popular,’ she added hastily, ‘though I don’t quite know how Hebe Winter will take it.’

      ‘You mean that having been the only witch in the village for so long, she might take umbrage when Grumps arrives?’

      Poppy giggled. ‘Chloe, you can’t call her a witch. She goes to church and everything!’

      ‘But Winter witches do, don’t they? In any case, she’s a much whiter witch than poor old Grumps. I’m pretty sure he strays across the line into the grey bits from time to time, though always with the best of intentions.’

      ‘I think your grandfather is scary.’

      ‘You know he’s all bark and not a lot of bite, really.’

      ‘I can’t forget that when I was small he used to look at me as though he would like to turn me into something froglike. The fear has never quite worn off.’

      ‘He doesn’t see any point in babies and children until they’re old enough to hold a sensible conversation,’ I explained. ‘It isn’t that he doesn’t love us, in his own way.’

      ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ Poppy said, not sounding totally convinced. ‘But your granny was adorable.’

      ‘She was, wasn’t she? And though Zillah couldn’t take her place, I’m very fond of her, too.’

      ‘Hebe Winter calls herself a herbalist, rather than a witch,’ Poppy said, reverting to the previous topic. ‘I’ve heard some of the potions, like the love philtre, really work – and actually, I bought one!’

      ‘Poppy! Who are you thinking of trying it on?’ I demanded, because although neither of us had been lucky in love, Poppy still hadn’t totally given up hope of finding Mr Right, and she was such a truly special person she deserved all the happy-ever-afterness going.

      ‘Oh, no one,’ she said hastily. ‘It was just an impulse, Chloe. You know me – I can’t love anything without four hoofs and a mane.’

      ‘I think that’s a slight exaggeration. You just haven’t met the right man yet, that’s all.’

      ‘I think I often have, it’s just that they don’t think I’m the right girl. And nobody at all wanted to meet me from that internet dating site I joined.’

      ‘Probably just as well, because you can’t tell what kind of men you’re in contact with. They could be really weird.’

      ‘I suppose you’re right and at least if you’re going to be living nearby we can meet more often, so that will be fun.’

      ‘And Felix too – we can be three singletons together,’ I agreed. ‘The Lonely Hearts Club of Sticklepond. Meanwhile, perhaps you’d better keep the news about who’s bought the Old Smithy to yourself for a bit, Poppy, if you think it might make an upset. Let it suddenly burst on Sticklepond as a fait accompli.’

      ‘But you’ll tell Felix, won’t you?’

      ‘Yes, I’m going to ring him in a minute, but I’ll swear him to secrecy too. In fact, the reason why I’m ringing you now is because I’ve arranged to get the keys to the Smithy from Conrad tomorrow, and I thought you might be able to get away and meet me for lunch in the Falling Star afterwards, so I can tell you all about it.’

      ‘Hang on, I’ll just ask Mum how we’re fixed.’

      She covered the phone, but I could still hear her shouting: ‘Mum! Chloe wants me to meet her for lunch tomorrow – could you manage? What…?’

      But although Poppy’s mother has an equally healthy pair of lungs (despite being a chain smoker), the other end of the conversation was just a faint noise in the background, so she must have been upstairs.

      Poppy came back on. ‘Mum says that’s OK. It’s a quiet day for lessons and the work experience girl can help her muck out and clean the tack.’

      ‘About twelve then