Chapter 2
A quick glance at the package told me that it belonged to a lady down on Goldilocks Lane. With another exasperated sigh and a quick prayer that she wasn’t gaping at the beast outside of town, I made my way toward the old crone’s house.
The people were sparser the further down her street I got, which didn’t bode well for me. If the client wasn’t home, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I couldn’t leave it at her doorstep, and the thought of hunting her down outside the town walls where that beast was made my stomach churn.
As I approached the house, my spirits sank at the closed drapes and darkened windows. In complete denial, I stepped up to the door and clacked the knocker. I waited one minute... two... three... then knocked again... and still nothing.
My eyes sank closed as I pressed my face against the door. Why me? Why couldn’t I just tell people no? Helping Joe was one thing, but I had my own work to do. I couldn’t run around town searching for this lady just to help Patrick. His work was his problem, not mine.
I blew out a breath and stepped back from the doorstep. Oh, who was I kidding? I’d have helped him even if he hadn’t shoved it on me.
Shoulders drooping, I shuffled down the street and toward the sound of the growing crowd outside the town walls.
The candy forest lined the dirt pathway.
Its colorful trees and foliage should have been comforting, but the darkness spilling out between the trees gave it more of an ominous presence watching my every step.
A hair-raising roar shook the area. Several people screamed and ran back toward town. A large, furry beast appeared in the middle of the crowd, jerking at the ropes wrapped around him.
“It’s going to get loose!” someone screamed.
I threw myself to the side and directly into some viridian-colored bushes. I gasped and grimaced, shifting in place but only making the branches of the bush poke and scratch me more. Whimpering with every move, I got caught on something at the same time liquid dripped down my forehead.
I swiped at my forehead, my hand coming away red.
My stomach twisted at the sight of blood, then another blood-curdling roar shook through me.
Refusing to die here, I grabbed at the ground and yanked until something ripped, and I finally stumbled out of the bushes.
Scuttering to my feet, I found a large tree and hid behind it, my chest heaving with each breath I took.
I didn’t know how long I stood there, clinging to that tree and waiting for the sounds of pain and terror to fill the air. When the rumbling horde of panicking townspeople didn’t appear, my bunched shoulders eased. Breathing out, I flexed my hands, wincing as I assessed the damage.
Red still colored my fingers. A closer look showed that it was too bright a color to be blood, and a quick lick found it to be sweet. I glanced at the bushes I’d fallen into and found a scatter of cherry-colored candy balls on the limbs and across the ground.
I shoved my hair behind my ears and looked around for the package I still needed to deliver. The longer I searched for it, the more my pulse raced with a growing panic.
“Come on,” I grumbled, crawling around on the forest floor. “I don’t have time for this. Rumple is going to kill me.” I shook my head. “Nope. He’s going to make me an example to the others and then he’s going to kill me. I should be so lucky to have a quick death—”
“Hello?” a faint voice called out in the shadows.
I froze.
I wasn’t prejudiced by any meaning of the word, but nothing good came out of answering a mysterious voice in the middle of the candy forest. I had every intention of saying screw the package and bolting back to the factory, knowing I’d be punished severely for it when the voice said the three words I couldn’t resist.
“Please,” a gravelly voice croaked out. “Help... me.”
By the Milky Way’s shore, why me?
Heart in my throat, I inched toward the direction of the voice. “H...hello?”
Branches cracked under my feet, making my pulse jump and dance. I blinked into the dim light of the overhanging canopy until my eyes were able to focus on the edge of a wide fudge pit.
Everyone knew that one foot in one of those, and you would be dragged to a slow, agonizing death buried in fudge. That should have been enough for me to turn my back on whoever was calling for help, except my eyes caught my missing package.
I raced over to it, scooping it into my arms with a sigh of relief. Finally, I could get back on track, and maybe, just maybe Rumple wouldn’t notice I was gone and everything would be fine.
“Plea...se.”
Crap. I forgot about them.
My gaze skimmed over the surface of the thick, dark brown semi-liquid until it landed on a shadowy blob of pink.
Further inspection let me make out the pale pink was actually the pinched face of a man with so much fudge on him I couldn’t make out the color of his hair.
His hands were clinging to a large, emerald-colored branch that had half fallen into the pit.
“Frick!” I cried out, setting the package aside and rushing to the other side of the pit where the tree branch lay. “Hold on, I’ll get you out of there. Just hold on!”
A groan answered me, the fudge pit bubbling around his form.
My hands wrapped around the branch, and I pulled with all my might. It didn’t budge. I wasn’t a large person — most people loomed over me — and all my arm muscles were from stirring the clothing batches. Yet I wasn’t strong enough to move the branch and his weight on my own.
Anxiety filled me at the prospect of not being able to save him in time.
Pain burned through my palms, reminding me of the scraps I’d already acquired from doing the first person’s favor.
When my back started burning and still I’d made no progress, I released my hold on the branch and sagged onto my knees.
“I’m sorry... I can’t...” I heaved in a breath, shaking my head. “I’m not strong... enough.” I wrapped my arms around myself, my eyes burning with tears. How did my life turn out like this?
Oh, I knew how.
Rumpelstiltskin.
I’d moved to Candiopolis to get a job in the castle.
After being turned down by every royal department, I’d been directed to what I’d been told was a lucrative businessman who could help me get a job.
One confusingly worded contract later and I was bound to Rumple for the rest of my life or when I paid off my debt to him, whichever came first.
But, seeing as my daily cost of living was more than what I made from working at his factory, I was never getting free.
My whole life belonged to one evil little man, and it always would. I’d never find my happily ever after.
Another groan from the man in the pit made me lift my head.
But he could.
This man could have the happily ever after I would never get, and I could give it to him. I just had to... I searched around for something to help me.
That! My eyes landed on a long black vine coming from one of the licorice trees. I jerked on it until the long length of it fell into my hands, and I hurried to tie it around the end of the fallen branch.
Shoot. I needed something to break the trunk of the tree.
I found a pile of sugar rocks and searched through them until I found one with a sharp edge. Rushing back to the tree, I called over my shoulder.
“Hold on, I’ll get you out of there soon.” Then added quietly to myself, “I hope.”
Using the sharp rock, I sawed at the base of the licorice tree, letting out a little squeal when it actually started to work.
I just had to cut into the tree trunk until I’d compromised enough the integrity of the tree that I could push it over.
Hopefully, the weight of the tree was enough to counter the weight of the man and pull him from the fudge pit.
With a deep breath and a prayer, I kept working on the trunk until it started to creak and sway. Jumping to my feet, I pushed with all my weight against the tree, directing it to fall away from the pit.
Finally, the tree crashed into several others, sending small animals skittering out of their hideouts.
Spinning away from the tree, I breathed out a relieved breath at the sight of the man now collapsed on the ground, no longer trapped in the fudge pit. Scrambling over to his side, I brushed his messy hair away from his face.
His eyes were closed. His thin lips pressed into a tight frown as his pointed nose sucked in ragged breaths. After a moment, he groaned, and his eyes fluttered open, revealing eyes so dark that the pupil was swallowed in the color. His mouth opened and revealed two sharp fangs.
I gasped and yelped, scrambling away from him.
A vampire. He was... I’d saved... Darn it, Mara, now you’d done it. If Rumple didn’t kill me, I’d just saved a creature that would have no problem turning me into his meal. Who knew how long he’d been in that pit? It could have been days, and now he was not only a vampire but a starving one.
“Wa...it,” his voice growled, his hand reaching out toward me.
I shoved to my feet and grabbed my package. “Look, I’m glad you’re okay now, but I have to go before I’m eaten... I mean, late. I... uh... bye.”
Not waiting to see if he decided not to kill his savior, I bolted out of the woods and back to the safety of the town’s walls. Thankfully, the beast uproar was over, and I was able to deliver the package and get back to the factory in record time.
I’d only just gotten back to my station, earning me some curious looks from the others at my appearance, when an oily voice cut through the factory.
“Mara, my office. Now.”