Epilogue
“Bessie doesn’t like it when you walk behind her so quickly,” I warned but too late; the normally placid cow kicked Marcellus, who looked mortally offended while clutching his injured shin.
I tried to suppress my laughter as he glared at me.
“And why are cows always named Bessie?” I mused, as I went to help him hobble back to the wooden bench in the barn.
We were three days into our weeklong holiday in the country.
Hannah and Lily were staying in a small cottage farther down the road, leaving the larger farmhouse to us.
The owners were Lily’s friends, an incubus and succubus who’d fallen in love and moved to Sussex.
Once I’d mentioned visiting the country, she’d remembered her friends and contacted them; it turned out they were overdue for a trip to London to see their respective families, so we’d swapped abodes for the week, with the understanding that we would maintain the farm.
Hence dealing with Bessie.
The Devil and his entourage had returned to Hell. Marcellus’s father had taken Marcellus staying behind with ill grace but had accepted it after a few temper tantrums. “This is nothing compared to when that Cromwell came into power,” Marcellus had informed me during one of the Devil’s rampages.
Marcellus surprised me by wanting to just stay at home while I worked, taking care of Dante, whom he’d formed a fast attachment with, and cooking tremendous meals for me and Hannah (and Lily, on her rare nights home).
We still lived with Mrs. Collins, but we’d taken a larger suite of rooms a few doors down from where Hannah still lived, and it was as though we all still lived together, with all of us popping in and out of one another’s homes.
Marcellus had gotten Mrs. Collins’s shepherd’s pie recipe and was spending hours with her in the kitchen perfecting it. He had befriended several chefs across the city and was spending his days learning techniques from them and testing them on his willing subjects—us—to our great pleasure.
It was his hope, he confided one late night, to open his own restaurant in time.
In the meantime, however, we were getting to know one another and learning to appreciate our differences.
That, I thought as I plucked carrots from the outdoor garden, was what made for an interesting life: the ability to appreciate, rather than deplore, someone else’s differences.
Did he love tea and justice the same way I did?
No. But he did respect my love for it, just as I respected his ruthless determination to keep me and his other loved ones (which now included Hannah, Lily, and Dante) safe, no matter the cost.
That was what made our imperfect union perfect.