2. Chapter 2
D elivery prep started promptly at dawn. Some days. The days when Zephyr’s alarm managed to actually wake her. Gods, she used to be a morning person. A really obnoxious morning person.
Luckily, if her alarm failed her, there was something else up to the task.
The chirping was anything but pleasant, and it was directly into her ear. Claws landed in her hair as her familiar, a brilliant red cardinal, thrashed until she woke.
Zephyr covered her face with her hands and whisper-screamed, “Dale! That’s enough! You little hellraiser.” Her familiar looked as if he belonged on a holiday card, but he acted like a demon sometimes.
The cardinal hopped off her head, his reign of terror a success. Dale tweeted a victory tune as Zephyr grumbled and pawed through her closet for her work uniform.
WITH DALE ON HER SHOULDER and her new, agonizingly slow broomstick in her hands, Zephyr flew through Pumpkin Hollow’s quaint streets until the coffee shop, Enchantresso, rose into view through the early fog.
Fighting the urge to rub her sleepy eyes and smudge her eyeliner, she dismounted her broom and stumbled inside to order a very dirty chai latte.
She left her red motorcycle helmet on, flipping up the visor so she could chat with the barista.
After a concerning number of espresso shots were poured into her drink, the warmth of the paper cup bled into her hands as she left the shop and returned to the air, flying a little faster to the post office.
She preferred Pumpkin Hollow like this. Quiet and empty sidewalks with streetlights filled with floating, orange witchlights that dimmed as the sun rose. She passed the Finnegans’ repair shop, the garage door halfway raised as someone inside played quiet music.
At the Pumpkin Hollow Post entryway, Zephyr hopped off her broomstick and carried it inside, leaning it against her shoulder with the bristles pointing upward.
It didn’t take much to keep the post office running.
Zephyr handled all deliveries on her broomstick, and Lyle, a vampire, spent the night organizing the mail and doing all the accounting.
Lyle was still at the office, scrambling to shove his travel mug and lunchbox into his messenger bag.
The sun had yet to rise, but Lyle was running out of time to make it home before daylight.
“I can give you a ride home,” Zephyr offered. She gave her broomstick a meaningful shake. “She may not be racing material, but she’ll beat that sunrise.”
“How undignified,” Lyle said with a frown.
He adjusted his black necktie as if her very suggestion made him feel disheveled.
He avoided the bright post office uniform in favor of a suit tailored more for a funeral director than a post office manager.
Lyle added, “Hanging on for dear life as you race that death trap around the Hollow is no way to end one’s night. ”
She pouted her lower lip. “You’re hurting my confidence.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” he sniffed. “You’re the most overconfident witch I know.”
“ Over confident?” Zephyr scoffed.
A woman came between them. Tawny, the owl shifter who handled the front desk, held out her hands peacefully. She possessed the ability to change between her human body and her owl form. Zephyr liked Tawny. It was nice to talk to someone who also enjoyed flying.
Tawny said diplomatically, “Lyle, Zephyr, if you don’t quit bickering, Lyle won’t be able to leave and he’ll have to sleep in the breakroom again. Lunch isn’t as enjoyable when you know there’s a vampire sleeping inside a locker.”
“And I brought honey- garlic chicken for lunch today, Lyle. Better get moving,” Zephyr teased.
“ Hilarious . I’ll see you at closing,” Lyle said to Tawny as he left. His dull voice seemed softer. Zephyr rolled her eyes at him.
Tawny just nodded and yawned, returning to the front desk to begin the opening tasks. Zephyr dropped her broom behind the counter and grabbed a cloth for dusting. Tawny liked a clean space before they opened their doors.
“We really need another body,” Zephyr whined. “It’s not fair that Lyle never does bathroom duty.”
“He’s a vampire. He doesn’t even use it.”
“Are we sure about that?”
“Well, I’m not asking him,” Tawny said as she giggled.
“Anyway,” Zephyr continued, “we need someone. Desperately . I can’t keep cleaning the bathroom every other day, and when you do it—”
“I got confused and accidentally grabbed your broom for cleaning once ,” Tawny argued.
“I hope I wasn’t hired just for this,” a woman said from the doorway. Zephyr nearly jumped, but she hung onto the counter to keep herself from floating away. She hadn’t even heard the new woman enter.
Tawny elbowed Zephyr and pointed. “Look, you don’t have to talk to the customers anymore. Karah is starting today.”
“Hi, Zephyr. I’ll be behind the counter with Tawny and apparently also cleaning the bathroom,” the woman, Karah, said, while holding her hand out to introduce herself.
When Zephyr accepted the handshake, a small spark of electricity made her jolt.
Karah blushed. “Sorry. I’m a little nervous.
I haven’t worked since my daughter was born.
And that was, uh, a decade and a half ago. ”
Oh, gods. Zephyr recognized that magic. Karah was a Finnegan . Neil’s older sister. “Don’t worry about it,” Zephyr said when she realized she had been silent for too long. “I’ve had worse accidents than that at my last job.”
Both Karah and Tawny’s faces fell.
Stop bringing up your crash , Zephyr inwardly screamed at herself. Outwardly, she smiled a little too wide. “It’s great to get an extra pair of hands. The register hates me.”
“You just refuse to sweet-talk her,” Tawny joked. “She needs a gentle hand and a lot of praise.”
“Sounds like me,” Zephyr said. This time, her joke hit, and the women giggled together.
Even if she had returned to her hometown with her tail metaphorically between her legs, Zephyr couldn’t deny that she didn’t hate the new company.
Her racing days had been filled with so much aggression—something she had taken part in herself.
It was nice to be around softer spirits again.
Strange, but nice.
WITH HER POSTAL SATCHEL slung across her chest and her helmet back on, Zephyr mounted her broomstick.
Dale remained inside the Post, nestling in Tawny’s wild brown hair.
He could be a lazy bird, and some days, he didn’t accompany Zephyr on her race through the town.
Zephyr shivered and shook out her hands before she gripped the broomstick’s pale handle.
Tawny waved a quick farewell through the large picture window before she resumed Karah’s tour of the post office.
Once Zephyr pressed the START button on her stopwatch, she was off.
The magic satchel was a godsend. At every mailbox, Zephyr simply whispered the address and reached inside her bag. The correct mail found its way into her hand without fail. It did wonders for her time. Despite the wind fighting against her, she was on track to beat last week’s record until…
Neil Finnegan got in her way.
He stood on the sidewalk, arms crossed, wearing a worn, grease-stained navy-blue jumpsuit. The black boots he wore were only half-laced, so when Zephyr failed to stop her broomstick in time and struck Neil smack in the chest, his boots flew off entirely.
His grandstand against her was not so grand anymore.
Zephyr rolled on the ground, bringing herself to her hands and knees. She fought to catch her breath, and she heard Neil doing the same nearby.
“Dammit, Finnegan,” she rasped. She kicked at him as he struggled to stand and missed. “I could have killed you!”
“Exactly my point!” He wasn’t nearly as breathless as she was.
Upright again, Neil grabbed the back of her shirt and yanked her to her feet.
At least her red canvas sneakers were still on.
He scolded her. “You can’t fly that fast so low to the ground.
If you want to race, Zephyr, you need to get some damned height. ”
A year ago, that wouldn’t have been a problem. But how could an air witch admit that she now had a fear of heights?
Maybe a more mature one could, but not Zephyr.
“If you wanted to knock boots,” she snapped, nodding toward his lost footwear, “buy me a beer first.”
He froze before he returned, “Be serious.”
Never , she thought. Zephyr squirmed. “Now let me do my job before I headbutt you. You’ve ruined my time,” she warned him, tapping her motorcycle helmet.
She flipped her visor up and dug in her delivery bag until she felt the weight of his mail appear magically in her hand.
Pulling the bundle out, she waved the envelopes at him until he accepted them from her.
“Here’s your mail. Looks like it’s all bills. Good.”
He used the envelopes to point at the metal bench in front of his shop. “This isn’t over. I’ll be there every morning except Sunday to make sure you don’t run someone over.”
“You jumped out in front of me,” she protested. “If it gets you off my ass, I’ll use the road next time.”
“And get hit by a car?” he argued. “Just stop flying so close to the ground. You’re safer in the air.”
Safer in the air? She wanted to scream at him. No, not at him. Zephyr just wanted to scream. Period. Her helmet felt too heavy, her jacket too tight.
She knew that if she stayed a second longer, Neil would start asking questions. Questions like “Are you okay?” or, better yet, “What is wrong with you? Didn’t you use to be somebody?”
So, she simply snapped her face shield down and grabbed her broom. She took off without another word or a glance backward. Fine. Neil could wait for her every morning if he had nothing better to do. That didn’t mean she had to show up and take her scolding like a good girl.
Pumpkin Hollow was small. She’d redraw her mail route to avoid him until after his garage opened. He’d be too busy doing his actual job to criticize her flying then. Easy.