Chapter 10 #2
Agatha sighed and turned back toward the house, expecting me to follow.
‘Damien’s been here for a long time. Alone for most of it.
He’s done what he had to do to survive, and I’m not sure anyone else will ever understand that.
I’ve been here for a long time, and I still struggle with the idea of it all.
Being the Devil’s housekeeper.’ She laughed, the sound echoing beneath the shaded porch.
‘Sounds kind of ridiculous when you put it like that, doesn’t it? ’
It’s different, he’d said. She didn’t want her soul.
But I couldn’t imagine a reason why the light-hearted woman walking ahead of me, who could make jokes about being the Devil’s right-hand woman, wouldn’t want her soul. Was he just trying to convince himself he’d done the right thing?
We arrived at the massive double doors, carved from a solid, singular piece of wood, and Agatha paused with her hand resting on the handle. ‘Don’t let the weeds stop you from seeing what it used to be.’
I laughed. ‘The garden? The house? Damien?’
Giving me a quiet look over her shoulder, Agatha threw a sad smile in my direction. ‘All of it, maybe.’
Silently, I followed her through the doorway, unsure of what even to say in response.
Despite Damien saying he was made, I struggled to see how he could’ve ever been good.
After all, there had to be a reason he was chosen.
Knowing what little I’d seen of Clarissa, I doubted the Council just waltzed onto Earth and picked up the first fresh-cheeked do-gooder they found.
Agatha would probably know more. ‘Agatha, what do you know about the Council of Hell?’
She huffed. ‘For the most part, they keep to themselves. Damien is good at what he does, and doesn’t need to be micromanaged.
He brings the souls. Keeps the ledgers. Causes no problems, for the most part.
But when they decide to stick their noses in our business, they’re nothing but pains in the ass, really.
’ Her nostrils flared, and she gave a quick shake of her head.
‘I shouldn’t even be saying that aloud. They put him in the worst mood, though.
Clarissa especially. I’m surprised Damien brought them up willingly in conversation. ’
We wandered into the kitchen, and once more, the feeling of home overtook me, warm and comforting.
Agatha hung up her hat on a hook just inside the door, setting the carrots down on the countertop, and immediately turned to fill the kettle with water. ‘Tea?’
I hadn’t realized quite how thirsty I was. ‘Please. And Damien didn’t bring them up. The Council, I mean. They showed up while I was in his office.’
‘They did what?’ Agatha abandoned the kettle, quickly overflowing from the tap. ‘I didn’t even hear them arrive. Oh, for the love of— Damien’s got to be positively fuming.’
‘He didn’t seem thrilled when I left, no.’ I leaned against the countertop, attempting to find something to ground me. ‘Exactly how many rules did Damien break to bring me here?’
‘Enough of them.’ Agatha held my gaze for a moment longer than she needed to, and then grinned.
‘Now, I’m sure you’ll be looking for food for that cat of yours.
Archie, was it? I’m surprised Damien let you bring him.
He’s not the fondest of cats. Something about them sensing who he really is.
I don’t think it takes a cat to see that, though.
I’ll scrounge up some food for you. Oh, and I found a dress for you to wear to dinner tonight. It’s hanging up on your wardrobe door.’
Agatha rattled off about dinner, and Archie, and countless other things, but I couldn’t keep up. My mind was too busy wondering just how many rules ‘enough of them’ meant.
* * *
I tossed the ball of yarn Agatha had procured for me – ‘That poor pussycat must be bored out of his mind’ – watching Archie dart out from under my bed to attack it.
For her uncertainty, Agatha had not only found food for Archie, but a pile of blankets to fashion into a bed for him, in addition to the balls of yarn he currently chased around my room.
Luna had been scratching at my bedroom door since the moment I’d closed it. Archie was overly curious, and kept wandering to the door, crying for the bloody Hellhound until I’d distracted him with the yarn.
Watching Archie, I did my best to ignore the elephant in the room: namely, one black dress that swung against my wardrobe door as if to haunt me every time I deigned to ignore it.
I used to love dresses. Dressing up. Putting on make-up, doing my hair.
All of the things I was supposed to like.
Until my parents passed away, and I was thrust into responsibility far before I was ready.
And while I could never, and would never, resent Grace, all of the things I used to love just slipped by the wayside.
Of course, that grew even more true once Grace got sick.
It felt silly to shop, or wear anything even slightly impractical when I knew I’d be spending my days in and out of the hospital.
There was no way Damien could’ve known any of that, though. He wouldn’t have known that a simple dress for dinner would send me spiraling, no more than Agatha would’ve. They couldn’t understand that for me, this wasn’t just a dress.
This was a line in the sand. A breaking point from the only life I’d seen for myself. If I put that dress on, it made this real.
I chewed on my lip, ignoring the dress, doing my best to shut away the endless thoughts, telling me the dress was just the first step. Next thing you’d know, I’d be forgetting the color of Grace’s hair, or the only brand of toothpaste she’d use, rejecting all others on the basis of packaging.
Luna continued to scratch and Archie abandoned his ball of yarn. ‘Never mind her.’ Despite Agatha’s reassurance that Luna really was a sweetheart, I was still nervous to let Archie around her.
Had Damien had a hand in picking out the dress? Agatha said she’d found it, but I had a feeling there wasn’t much that went on inside the house that Damien didn’t know about. Maybe he’d selected it himself, imagining me in it. Or out of it.
Or maybe I was a massive freaking idiot.
I groaned and flopped back on my bed. I knew I should’ve already been dressed. Damien didn’t seem like the kind of person who enjoyed waiting.
Would you even consider him a person? He had been at one point.
Maybe it would do him some good to learn some patience. Learn how to act around another person who hadn’t been indoctrinated into his bullshit for the last fifty years. As if I hadn’t just been picturing Damien hand-selecting a dress for me.
I threw my arm over my eyes, taking myself back to my apartment. Grace and I would be in our sweats, ordering pizza. It was Friday, wasn’t it? I couldn’t remember what day it was, but it felt like a lot longer than a day since I’d been here.
But I wasn’t at home, and Grace probably didn’t even think of Fridays as pizza nights any more. I was in the Fringe, with a black dress staring daggers at me, and a handsome devil with a temper problem waiting for me.
I took a deep breath and forced myself off the bed to get dressed. For dinner. With the Devil and his housekeeper. While my cat pawed at the door, demanding to play with a massive Hellhound.
Perfectly, completely normal.