Gwendolyn Gobstopper's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Gwendolyn knelt beside the woman with raw knuckles. She pressed the wish-candy into her wet hand and closed her fingers around it. "Eat it," she said. "It will grant one wish." The woman stared at the glowing sweet, then at Gwendolyn's fine hat. She did not believe her. But she was too tired to argue. She put it in her mouth. Her eyes went wide. She dropped her scrub cloth and ran, wet skirts flapping, gone before Gwendolyn could speak. The candy was given. The choice was made. Gwendolyn stood alone. She had done the thing she came to do. Now she wanted only to go home. She turned to walk back to her shop. But the street forked into three, and each fork forked again. She had never walked these lanes. For seventeen years she watched them from her window. She had no idea which way led home. She tried the widest lane. It bent and dumped her in a narrow alley of shuttered doors. Fog crept along the stones. She tried another turn, then another. Each one looked like the last. Cold water soaked through her fine shoes. Her grand hat felt foolish now. She was lost, and no one on the street would meet her eye. A door stood open, spilling yellow light. A sign above it read Curio Inks. Gwendolyn stepped inside. A big man leaned over a chair, needle in hand, tattooing a sailor's arm. His own arms were covered in ink, sleeve to knuckle. He did not look up. "Shop's for customers," he said. "I'm lost," Gwendolyn said. "I run a candy shop. Clockwork Candies. I don't know the way back." The man wiped his needle and studied her hat. "Long way from your counter." He set the needle down. "First time out?" "Seventeen years," she admitted. He grunted. It might have been a laugh. "Jack Dredge," he said. He jerked his chin at a shelf crammed with dusty clocks and brass odds and ends. "I collect what people forget. Streets included." He pulled a scrap of paper toward him and drew a rough map. Three lines, two turns, an X. "Follow the water sound backward. You'll hit the wide square. Your shop's off it." Gwendolyn took the paper. "Thank you. I don't have coin to spare, I—" "Didn't ask." He picked the needle back up. Then he paused. "That candy of yours. The one that hums." His dark eyes fixed on her. "Word travels the docks fast. A washerwoman shouting about a wish." He turned back to the sailor. "You gave something dangerous to a stranger. People will come looking for more." Gwendolyn's stomach dropped. She had thought the candy was the end. Now she saw it was a rumor loose in the city. She clutched the map and stepped back into the fog, no longer only lost, but marked.