“The same,” I answered, kissing the top of her head. Eventually I would carry her up to the bathroom so she could do what she needed to do, but for the moment, the world was just us and her afterglow. “Absolutely perfect.”
Epilogue
Cherry
Hudson purredin my lap as I typed away contentedly. Iwouldhave preferred to have been outside jumping on the trampoline my neighbors just got, but as it were, I needed to finish up my report on my last big case.
I hadn’t expected it to turn into such a crazy happenstance that had spanned a month, but when a leprechaun came in trying to find the thief who stole his pot of gold, how was I supposed to know it would end up leading to a cult run by a literal wolf on Wall Street?
But debatably virginal sacrifices for finances or not, that case was done and dusted with the leprechaun getting his clan’s gold back just in time to fund the college tuition for his triplet nieces, who decided that they were going to be a doctor, a dentist, and a lawyer, respectively.
Maybe I could just finish typing this tomorrow.
That’s what you’ve said for the past two weeks.
True.
But that doesn’t mean Iwon’tdo it tomorrow…
Did I take my meds today?
It was a fair question, and I stood to go check the little calendar Paul had set up for me in the kitchen. However, I didn’t quite make it there before a knock sounded at the door.
Curious, I paused, reaching out to sense if there was hostility on the other side of the door. Unfortunately, in the year since confessing to being an empath on the nightly news, I’d learned that not all company was good company. We had certain precautions in place—security cameras and the like, shutters that could seal over every entrance to lock the house down—but when Paul had suggested me having permanent security on the VanMarches dime, I politely declined. Sure, it might have been the wise decision, but I could not imagine a more choking way of existing. And not in the fun way, either.
“Hello?” I asked, wracking my brain to try to figure out who the energy signature belonged to. I felt like it was just on the very edge of my brain, but my recall was totally giving out.
“Miss Psychic lady?” a young voice Ialmostrecognized asked from the other side of the door.
“Uhm, it’s Miss Empath, actually,” I said, crossing to the door and opening it to reveal a young preteen and his insanely huge dog. “Do I—wait a minute!”
It clicked right as he opened his mouth to show a full smile rather than the gap-toothed one from a little over a year ago.
“Hi. I was just taking my dog on a walk and I thought you might want to meet the guy you helped save!”
“Holy shi-guacamole!” I quickly corrected. “Did you grow, like, a foot?”
The kid laughed like I was utterly hilarious, which made him good in my book. “No, but the doctor says I’ve definitely got more than that in me! Sorry I didn’t come by before. My auntie made life kinda... you know.”
I nodded, all too familiar with how dysfunctional family dynamics could spill out to everyone in the surrounding area. “Iunderstand. Time can really get away from you. But hey, since you’re here, why don’t you come in and give me an update on how the whole situation went down? That is, if your mother would be okay with it.” Because althoughIknew I was a good guy, essentially, I was some rando adult the kid had met on the internet.
“Oh, she’s the one who sent me. She saw something about you saving some swans that had been stolen from the zoo for a crazy sacrifice?”
“Nene, actually.”
“Huh?” The kid’s face scrunched up in the way that young ones often did when they weren’t sure if an adult was imparting obscure knowledge or teasing them. Man, I did not miss being that young.
“It was Nene, aka Hawaiian geese. Rarest in the world.”
“Why would anybody want to sacrifice a goose?”
“Well, it’s a bit abstract, but have you ever heard of the golden goose fromJack and the Beanstalk?”
“Jack and the who?”
He doesn’t know Jack and the Beanstalk?
What are they teaching kids these days?