The problem with creating a new world, as Joshua discovered during the first week of his vacation, was that people kept asking him questions.
Not big questions. Not cosmic questions. Not "what is the meaning of life" or "why is there suffering" or any of the other heavy theological lifting that he had gotten used to over the millennia. No, these were practical questions. Administrative questions. Questions about zoning laws and resource distribution and whether the new creation was going to have mosquitoes (answer: no, definitely not, he had learned his lesson on that one).
"You're not supposed to be working," Constance said, finding him on the beach on the seventh day, surrounded by tablets and scrolls and something that looked suspiciously like a celestial spreadsheet. "You're supposed to be resting."
"I am resting," Joshua said, not looking up. "I'm just... resting productively."
"That's not resting. That's management with a view." She sat down next to him, kicked off her shoes, let the sand warm her feet. "Delegate."
"I did delegate. I delegated everything. That's why there are so many questions—nobody knows what I want because I keep telling them to figure it out for themselves."
"Good."
"Frustrating."
"Also good." She took one of the tablets, scanned it, set it aside. "The coven can help. That's what we're for. That's what we've always been for. Not just teaching, but... organizing. Managing. Making sure the practical details support the grand vision."
Joshua finally looked up, really looked at her. She was different now. They all were. The weight of the curse was gone, but the wisdom remained. The knowledge of six thousand years of persistence, of teaching against the odds, of keeping faith when faith seemed impossible.
"You want jobs?" he asked.
"We want purpose. There's a difference." She smiled. "Besides, we're good at this. We've been managing the resistance for six millennia. Managing a creation should be easy by comparison."
"And if I say no? If I insist on handling everything myself?"
"Then you'll burn out. Just like He did." She gestured vaguely toward the retired God's beach house, where the former Almighty was currently learning to surf, with mixed results. "Power shared is power multiplied. Power hoarded is power diminished. That's Article the Second, remember?"
Joshua laughed, a real laugh, full and free. "When did you become a theologian?"
"When I died seventeen times and kept coming back anyway. You learn things. You learn that the divine isn't in the thunderbolt, it's in the persistence. It's in the refusal to give up. It's in..." She paused, looked out at the sea. "It's in the margarita, honestly. The willingness to stop and enjoy what you've created. The wisdom to know that the work will wait."
Joshua stood up, stretched, let the tablets and scrolls fall into the sand where they belonged. "Margarita?"
"Margarita," Constance agreed.
They walked to the bar—The Mirage, still there, still serving—where Del was practicing her mixology skills and Magda was keeping the books and Tabitha was arguing with a quantum physicist about the nature of entanglement. The coven was at work, but it was work chosen, work freely given, work that could be set aside when the sunset was particularly beautiful.
"To the new creation," Joshua said, raising his glass.
"To rest," Constance added.
"To us," said the coven, together.
And somewhere, in the spaces between the stars, the universe expanded a little more gently, a little more kindly, breathing with the rhythm of partnership rather than the strain of hierarchy.
The business plan was working.