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 maybeRumple 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.
