“Who comes here?”
“Jujube,” says a man’s voice. “Open now. We must speak.”
The man’s voice is deep and gurgling, like his throat is filled with bubbles.
Franklin, lying in the dark, hears the front door open.
“I do not want you here, Licorice,” she says to her visitor.
The man lets himself in.
Franklin crawls to the edge of the bed. The mattress smells like banana and has the texture of chewed gum. He peeks his eyes out from under the rubbery sheets and realizes the bedroom door has been left open a crack.
“Float is missing,” the candy man says. “We think he’s dead. The passage to the upper world is filled with blood. We think a human did it.”
“That’s impossible,” Jujy says.
The candy man paces the room and Franklin is able to get a good look at him through the cracked door. The man has black hard candy skin from top to bottom. He wears sweet tart jewelry and a tootsie roll hat. He seems to have no hair on his head, but he has a goatee made of cocoa butter.
“Not only that,” Licorice continues, “but we think his murderer is down here somewhere. We found a human weapon by the soda pond.”
“It is forbidden to bring human items into our world,” Jujy says.
“That’s why I believe a human brought it down here,” Licorice says. “We also trapped some wild gum-goblins that had meat in their bellies. If the meat is that of a human then we will be able to relax, but once it is examined I believe we will discover that the meat belongs to Float. It is likely that the human killed Float and his body was then eaten by the gum-goblins. The human might still be down here somewhere.”
“If there were a human down here he would have gone back to the surface by now,” Jujy says.
“Not necessarily,” Licorice says. “It is possible that
someone found him and took him home with them.”
“Who would do such a thing?” Jujy tries to laugh.
“I only know one person who would,” he says. “You.”
“Me?”
“If anyone would do such a thing it would be you,” Licorice says. “You were always the troublemaker when we were kids. You never liked to follow the rules. You always liked to visit the human world just because you thought it was fun.”
“I was a kid then,” Jujy says.
Franklin sees her nervously looking at him through the door, then looking back at Licorice.
“I would never hide a human in my home,” she says.
“Do you mind if I search it, then?” Licorice says.
“No, you can’t,” she says, stepping in front of the bedroom door.
Franklin crawls out of the covers and reaches for his cane. Because of his clouded mind, he isn’t able to be as careful or as quiet as he intended. When he touches the handle of the cane, it bounces off of his fingers, slides down the wall, and makes a loud clang as it hits a chocolate chip.
“What was that?” Licorice says.
“Nothing,” Jujy says. “Just my guest.”
“You have a guest?”
“He’s from the northern cave and needed a place to stay.”
Franklin falls onto the floor. He feels along the cookie wall in the dark, trying to find his cane.
“How long has he been here?” he asks.
“He just got here today,” she says.
“It seems funny that he arrives today of all days,” he says. “I think I better meet him.”
Licorice reaches for the door, but Jujy blocks his path.
“You can’t,” she says. “He’s sick.”
Franklin leaves the cane and crawls under the bed to hide.
“He has the cheese flu,” she says. “If you go in you’ll catch it.”
Licorice steps away from the door. “Cheese flu? So is he going to die?”
“I’m not sure,” she says.
“How long do you plan on keeping him here?” he asks.
“At least three days.”
“Three days?” Licorice yells. “He’s not taking you as his mate, is he?”
“No,” she says.
“He better not take you as his mate,” he says.
“I’m just helping him get better.”
Franklin hears footsteps as Licorice returns to the front door.
“I will return in three days,” Licorice says, “once he is well. But let me tell you this, Jujube, if you have lied to me in any way you will be sorry.”
“I am not lying,” she says.
“Of course you are not,” he says.
They say their goodbyes and the door closes. Neither Jujy nor Franklin make a sound until the candy man’s footsteps are too far away to hear.
The light turns on. From under the bed, Franklin watches Jujy’s stiff candy cane legs cross the room. If he had his cane sword, he would have been able to stab her in the feet, knock her down, and then slash her throat right there. But his cane is too far away. She kneels down and peeks at him with her dead doll face.
“He’s gone,” she says. “It would have been a waste if they fed all your meat to the lemon hogs.”
At this range, her strawberry aroma smoothes his senses so softly that he finds himself smiling at her.
At night, Jujy makes him a bed on the floor and then goes to sleep. He is still chained to her bedpost. Her snores sound like she’s blowing into a candy whistle.
Lying on gummy pillows and brown sugared blankets, it dawns on Franklin that he is sleeping in the same room as the monster that plagued his nightmares as a child. She’s the same monster that killed Laura, Hillary, and Andrew. She’s the same monster he has spent his entire life trying to find so that he could get his revenge.
He debates whether or not to kill the candy woman in her sleep. His cane is within reach. He could do it easily. Just stab her through an eye into the brain. But he’s not sure if he should kill her just yet. She is protecting him from the other candy people for some reason. Franklin believes she’s just hiding him like a dog would hide a bone. She obviously doesn’t like the taste of him, but perhaps she feels bad about wasting any kind of food. Franklin knows she will kill him eventually, but at least she wants to keep him alive at the moment. Without her protection he’s more likely to be killed by the other candy people. He wonders if it is worth taking the risk. Even if he dies, he’ll at least die satisfied.
His muscles are too loose and relaxed to do anything about it tonight. His eyes droop shut and his mind drifts. Before he falls asleep, the marshmallow puppy curls up next to him. It is soft and warm against his arm. It smells so delicious that he almost takes a bite out of it in his sleep.
Franklin awakes to incredible pain. He squeezes the stump where his leg should be. The candy woman is nowhere in sight. He can’t smell the strawberry fragrance. She’s gone. Now that her intoxicating pheromones are nowhere in the vicinity, Franklin is sobering up. His mind is clearing and his pain is gushing in. The pain is so great that he can’t even move. He screams and squeezes Jujy’s tootsie roll bedpost so hard that his fingers make indentions.
The marshmallow puppy cocks its head, and watches him with black jellybean eyes as he writhes on the floor.
The candy woman returns, carrying a large white bag over her shoulder like Santa Claus. Franklin breathes her fragrance as deep as he can to calm the pain as quickly as possible. She notices him vigorously inhaling her scent and it makes her blush. The pain doesn’t go away quickly enough. The fragrance just makes him dizzy at first. She sits down next to him on the floor and squeezes her toes in the air. Then she drops her bag between her candy cane legs and digs through it like Santa digging for presents.