The next morning, Goodman took Woody and Jessie to the direction of the factory. An exceedingly peculiar part of the journey was how dim-witted Goodman seemed to be, trying to remember Remy's instructions.
"You're supposed to take us to the manager," Jessie reminded him after the third time. "Not the building."
"He can't help it, Jessie," Woody reasoned. "He'll make us thieves out of us sooner or later."
As Goodman struggled with his memory of Remy's instructions, he did not notice that Woody and Jessie had disappeared. He was soon frightened by the footsteps of something much smaller than him.
"Who is that?"
The footsteps belonged to Molt, still wearing his blue cape of white stars.
"Oh it's you."
"Yes," Molt nodded. "And I don't suppose you would want to see your fortune, would you?"
'Not today. Besides, I already know you're a phony."
Then he noticed Woody and Jessie escaping. They were about four feet away from him by the time his legs gathered their strength and ran after the duo.
"Hey, you two come back here!"
Both the grasshopper and the rat caught up with them.
"So we meet again," said Molt. "Perhaps I can get a second chance at reading your fortune by reading your hand. Who wants to go first?"
Jessie held out her left hand and Molt examined it.
"A praying mantis would tell me if the person in question had a long or short life-life through their veins, but I can't make out if your length is short or long."
Goodman thought that this was getting nowhere, but he decided to play along with it.
"Suit yourself, I need some time to think."
As Goodman went to sit down five feet away from the dolls, Molt paced back and forth, trying to muster up his hopes of searching for the duo's future.
"Now where were we? Oh, yes. Ahem, the future can be anything you like."
"Anything?"
Jessie pondered the thought, her mind going back to all of the toys becoming one big happy family.
"I want Bo Peep to be my mother and Rex to be my older brother. I would also like to see Mr. Potato Head as my uncle…and the rest of us can all live together in the toy store."
Woody was stupefied by his girlfriend's words. They were not even related by blood or their case, company/manufacturer.
"I think that's a pretty tall order," Molt chuckled. "And what would you like, Mr. Cowboy?"
"It's Woody and I don't think I'd want anything, thank you very much."
"Oh, well then, perhaps I can see what fate has in store for you."'
His wings opened to reveal a ten-piece string of paper clips, setting it on the ground in a rumpled mess.
"Now the two of you step over it."
Woody and Jessie had to be quick, Goodman's memory was coming back at a rapid pace and they had to ensure that their fate was sealed for the better of them. Holding hands, Jessie walked backwards, pushing the chain caught in the rear of her right boot while Woody's left boot caught a piece. They had been walking without even noticing the chain changing shape. Once their boots were free of the clips, Molt inspected the shape.
"Strange, I have never seen it become a circle before."
Then suddenly a flash of lightning lit up the morning sky, which frightened his audience and a spotlight represented by the sun came upon Molt, bathing him in the light of the lord. The grasshopper seemed…hypnotized.
"The road is long….very hard. Bitter winter…shattering spring. A winding road to scattering, a broken path to re-gathering…the enemy you flee at the beginning awaits you at the end."
Then he fell on his legs, closing his eyes. Woody was confused.
"What does it all mean?"
"I'm am not so sure about their either," Goodman said standing up. "Now let's go, we have work to do."
An epiphany soon came across Molt as the three were out of his field of vision, but the vision that he was now thinking of was a prophecy that spoke of an ominous fortune for the two dolls.
"IT WORKED! I CAN SEE THE FUTURE! I SPOKE THE TRUTH!"
He was practically screaming to the world about his breakthrough in his talent. He hopped and flew away, willing to tell some of his other friends in much quieter tones.
"Now let's see…" Goodman said to himself by an old tree. "I go to the…what was it again."
Woody and Jessie decided to use the rat's limited intelligence to their advantage.
"I don't remember either," Jessie shook her head, mustering up a silly smile.
"Me neither," added Woody.
But Goodman somehow knew. He found a four-inch stick lying there by the roots and went inside, remembering that it was the trust company Remy had told him to go and get the brittle.
Outside, Woody and Jessie could hear voices, the second one belonging to a female squirrel with Goodman being the first.
"This is a stick up, doll. Where's the treacle brittle?"
"Right in here."
Without even looking through the door, Woody and Jessie could hear a sound that no one ever wished to hear: a scream and a chomp telling them that Goodman had been eaten alive. The scream had dissipated to the whistling of the female voice.
"Wanna break for lunch?" the female voice asked to thin air.
"No thank you," replied a deep voice. "I just ate."
Woody and Jessie faced each other.
"No what do we do?" the cowboy asked his gal.
Out of nowhere, Molt appeared. Jessie was surprised and relieved with zeal.
"Mr. Molt!" she cried.
"Uncle Molt now. I want to be friends with you."
Jessie turned to Woody, excitement and cheerfulness in her reply.
"Did you hear what he said?!"
"I sure did Jessie. Mr—Uncle Molt, can you help us?"
"Of course, I can. The seeds of our destiny our bound eternally, even if the road is long and dangerous. I can keep ya company and you will keep me company. Now let's go find you a T-Rex for an older brother."
Little did they know about the blue jaybird watching over them from the lowest branch of the tree. This bird in particular was always searching for news, acting as the forest's equivalent of a newspaper hawker. When he saw the three leaving, he shouted to a mother sparrow, who was sitting in a nest with her babies, reacting in surprise when he shouted the recent events right into their ears. The news soon reached Remy, who woke up just in time to hear that Goodman had been eaten alive.
"How can I regret that he is dead?" the rat said to himself. "I can't let those dolls get away. And If I can't have my treacle brittle, those guys are going to make me the laughing stock of the dump."
He walked to his red remote control car which resembled a Bentley.
"Soon, I'll have those toys back, THEN I will make that turncoat Molt write and I'll hang him by his antlers until he becomes bird bate."
The first snow of winter lay just beyond, with a log crossing over a river of ice. The log was hallow as Molt had described it and he went first, sliding across the ice followed by Woody and Jessie who performed a figure eight as they went down. They circled around Molt as he wiped the snow off of his head once he came to the other side of the stream. But before either of them could at least one foot down on the bank, a red car had rolled up with Remy as the driver. His smiling faced looked innocent, but held back his true anger towards the trio.
"Out for a stroll are we?" he asked. "I think you two deserve a ride in my Bentley. It's better than being out in the cold."
Woody and Jessie shivered from a mixture of the cold and Remy's presence.
"We prefer to walk," Woody said trying to be strong.
"And what about your friend Molt? Would he like to join us?"
Before the duo could correct Remy that he was their uncle, Molt thought of a distraction to get Woody and Jessie away from the rat as quickly as possible.
"How about I read your fortune, Remy? It won't take a moment.
Remy clasped his hands together, enjoying himself.
"Why not? I am the only one here who has one."
And Molt tried to go into the same tone and position of his trance from earlier, going onto his knees.
"I see a dog, at dawn she'll rise. At rat, will fall."
And his hands reached for Remy's hands, throwing him over his antlers and to the ground, his skull landing hard on the ice that left a crack. Throwing his cape off, covering Remy entirely, Molt, Woody and Jessie, jumped into the Bentley with the grasshopper throwing his right foot down on the gas pedal and the remote-controlled car drove out into the open reaches of freedom. Still under the cape, Remy woke in time to find that his car was gone, infuriating him even more.
"One more trick from him and I swear to my ancestors that I am going to cut his throat open."
