Chadwick Rye

My name is Luna Brightwhisper and I am eight years old and three-quarters, which is very important because three-quarters means I’m almost nine and that’s practically grown-up. Mama says I have the most active imagination in all of Lumenvale’s Enchanted Quarter, which I think means I’m very good at dreaming up the most wonderful things that could possibly exist.

Like my perfect chocolate bar.

I’ve been thinking about it for weeks and weeks, ever since Papa took me to Madame Rosewing’s Confectionery Emporium where all the candy floats in glass jars like tiny trapped stars and the chocolate sculptures move when no one’s looking. Madame Rosewing has hair the color of spun sugar and fingers that smell like vanilla dreams, but even her most magnificent creations aren’t quite right.

My perfect chocolate bar would be exactly as long as my forearm from elbow to fingertips, which is the perfect size for sharing with my best friend Pip (he’s a talking mouse who lives behind the wainscoting in our parlor, though Mama pretends she can’t see him). The wrapper would be made from crystallized moonbeams—not the harsh white kind that hurts your eyes, but the soft silver ones that pool in water basins during the full moon and taste like whispered secrets when you catch them on your tongue.

When you peel away the moonbeam wrapper, it wouldn’t just tear like ordinary paper. Instead, it would unravel like flower petals opening to morning sunlight, each piece floating gently downward while humming a melody only you could hear. The tune would be different for every person—mine would sound like the lullaby Grandmother used to sing about brave little girls who tamed dragons with kindness and honey cakes.

The chocolate itself would be the deepest brown imaginable, like the rich earth in our garden where Mama grows her healing herbs, but shot through with veins of pure golden light that pulse gently like a sleeping dragon’s heartbeat. It would be smooth as river stones but warm to the touch, as if it contained its own tiny sun that never quite went out.

But here’s the most important part—the flavors would change depending on what you needed most that very moment. If you were sad, it might taste like fresh strawberries picked on the happiest summer day, with bubbles of laughter that tickled your tongue. If you were frightened, it would become rich and comforting like hot cocoa by the fireplace, with little bits of courage dissolved inside that made you feel brave enough to face anything.

When I’m missing Papa during his long trips to the Crystal Spires for his diplomatic work, my perfect chocolate would taste like his warm hugs and the stories he tells about far-off kingdoms where the trees grow upside-down and rain falls in colors instead of water. And when I’m angry at Mama for making me practice my penmanship when I’d rather be exploring the Whispering Gardens, it would taste like forgiveness—sweet and light like flower nectar, with tiny sparkles that reminded me why I love her even when she’s being particularly motherly.

The very best thing about my dream chocolate bar is that it would never get smaller no matter how much you ate. Each bite would somehow make the bar complete again, like magic that understood how unfair it is when wonderful things have to end. Pip and I could share it forever and ever, sitting in the secret alcove behind the garden trellis where the honeysuckle vines create a perfect hiding spot from grown-up concerns.

Sometimes, late at night when the Crystal Spires are singing their evening song and the house settles into its sleepy creaks and sighs, I hold my pillow tight and imagine that somewhere in Lumenvale’s vast markets there exists a chocolate maker wise enough to understand what children truly need. Not just sweetness, but sweetness with purpose. Not just flavor, but flavor that heals the small hurts and celebrates the daily wonders that adults seem to forget matter terribly much.

I’ve been saving my allowance copper pieces in a little silk pouch embroidered with dancing butterflies, and when I have enough, I’m going to commission this chocolate bar from the most magical confectioner I can find. Even if it takes a hundred years to save enough coins, even if I have to search through every bakery and candy shop from here to the Sunset Kingdoms, I know it exists somewhere.

After all, if chocolate can’t be magical in a place like Lumenvale, where can it be?

And when I finally find it—or when some kindly chocolate mage finally understands my vision and creates it—I’ll share the very first bite with Pip, and the second with Mama, and the third with Papa when he returns from his travels. Because the most perfect chocolate bar in all the realms would be completely wasted if you had to eat it all alone.

That’s the most important ingredient of all: someone wonderful to share it with, someone who understands that some dreams taste better when they’re experienced together.