Page 10 of Devils Don’t Deal

My heart beat faster as I faced him, someone I’d never really had to stand up against. He did not look like a nice goblin. “It’s a really good deal.”

His brows lowered, eyes turning into hard chips of gold. “You need to leave now.”

“Where should I go? I’ve been evicted, but even if I hadn’t, the goblins came and…” I swallowed hard while his eyes narrowed.

“The goblins came? To your apartment?”

I nodded and shivered. “I shrank long enough to get out the window then they ripped my wing, and I cut my leg and…” I took a deep breath and tried to straighten up. I wasn’t a child. I’d paid for the apartment my dad had stayed in while my mom had been at the Bell so much over the past year. “It’s the best solution going forward. I’m going to have a bakery.”

His glower darkened. “The cursed shop? He’s putting that on you? And the cursed rabbit, I suppose you get that burden as well. What a deal!” He shook his head. “They shouldn’t have disturbed you at home, not when the debt is mine. Unless the goblin king gave the okay. Which is possible considering how interesting he’d find you. The goblins won’t leave you alone as long as my debt…”

“I asked the devil to take care of it, as part of my deal. I figured I should get as much as I could out of it.”

He stared at me long enough that my eyes watered in sympathy. “He’ll deal with the goblin king? What’s the deal?”

I pushed the stack of papers across the table toward him then picked up the rabbit and snuggled him. He smelled like festering sores and old urine. First thing, I’d give him a bath then rub a nice lotion on him that would help with wounds and wrinkles. I used it myself for its anti-wrinkle properties, but it was good for wounds too. Healing was healing.

My dad put on his spectacles and went through the contract quickly, page by page, nodding as he went. When he was finished, he knocked it with a knuckle and said, “Do you see the catch?”

“The rabbit’s going to die before my five years are over then I’ll be forced to work in his bakery forever. But you see, it’s in a bakery, not in a mine, or as a dancer in a cage, or something else I couldn’t bear. I’m still guaranteed a place to stay along with everything I’ll need to continue working.”

He shook his head soberly. “I forbid it. It’s not your debt. A child doesn’t pay the debt of the parent. You do not inherit my slavery. Your mother would…” He spasmed as he remembered that his reason for living was no longer with us.

I grabbed his calloused green hand. “She’d be happy that my bakery is being funded by the most attractive man in Singsong. Maybe he’ll fall in love with me and destroy the contract, insisting that I only bake for him.”

His eyes hardened. “Don’t joke about that. Love? A devil? You must have a soul to love, and the only souls he has belong to those who made deals with him, thinking they had no choice. You have a choice.”

I nodded as I stroked the rabbit. “Yes. I have a choice. And I’m choosing to have a bakery and a pet rabbit, and dinners with a devil, and you not in a cage. That’s what I’m choosing.”

“My freedom for yours?” He shook his head, eyes anguished. “If you care about me, you’ll take care of yourself. Leave Singsong! Find another place where no one knows who or what you are. I’ve taught you how to disappear. Run, hide, and be free!”

I cocked my head as I stroked the sad rabbit’s head, studying my father, a goblin who’d given up his freedom to extend my mother’s life. “But then I’d lose you and Mom in the same week. I don’t think I’d be able to survive that.” I pressed my lips together and tried not to cry again. My eyes were already going to be puffy. “And this way, I’ll be able to do more than survive. I’ll get my own bakery. And who knows, maybe with enough love and care, the rabbit will live longer than five years. He’s a magic rabbit.”

He shook his head. “I beg of you…”

“Like Mom begged us to let her die a year ago when she was diagnosed with iron poisoning? I wouldn’t trade the time we had with her for anything. Everything has a price, and the cost of this comes with a convection oven.”

“And dinner?” He shook his head. “Devils are not to be trusted. He could provide another deal after you sign this, once you’re accustomed to him. Perhaps you would actually believe the lie of love he’d feed you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Give me some credit. Even if by some weird fluke I fell in love with him, I’m not taking a bad deal. Not after he put you in a cage. In feathers.” Some of my goblin growl came through, enough to make him pause. It was infuriating that the devil could do that to us the week my mother died. Who took someone away from a funeral? Even gangsters respected funerals. My inner goblin wanted to bite the devil. Hard. And he’d taken my strawberry shortcake. He’d better not stick it on a shelf somewhere to get stale instead of eating it.

My dad searched me with his yellow eyes, glowing gold in their intensity. He finally shook his head. “I will never agree to this.”

“Then we agree to disagree.”

He glowered. “I do not agree to disagree. You’re making a grave error!”

“Like you did when you made a deal with the devil? And the goblins? And who knows how many other people?” I shook my head, tsking. “Let’s just say I inherited my father’s cleverness and leave it at that.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing.”

I crossed my arms and stared at him stubbornly. “Like father like daughter.”

“You’re making a big mistake!”

“Life is about making mistakes. Failing forward. Or is it falling forward? I’m trying to think of good bakery names. What about Powdered Sugar Rush? It’s terrible. What about Donut Hole?”

He took a moment to switch from glaring at me to the rabbit. “The Rabbit Hole. And you can make the whole thing an extension of Wonderland, with the whole Alice thing. Because if you’re going to walk toward the madness, why not embrace it? You know nothing of the devil!”