8. Chapter 8
“ Y ou let your bird attack Neil?” Tawny said, her disappointment thick. She wagged a finger at Dale, watching as the cardinal stopped hopping on the post office counter to shoot Tawny a smug look.
“I don’t let Dale do anything. He’s uncontrollable.” Zephyr patted her mail delivery bag fondly.
“Is that all that happened when he walked you home? You’re holding back on me,” Tawny accused. “I gave you every detail about Lyle.”
“And you gave me several details I begged you not to.” Zephyr wished Tawny would believe her.
Securing Lyle’s attention had shifted Tawny’s focus.
Now she was a self-proclaimed matchmaker.
And Zephyr wasn’t ready for anything like that.
Pumpkin Hollow was too small. She didn’t want to take home someone she was certain to see again.
Tawny pushed her round glasses up to the top of her head. “If something else happened with Neil, I’m just saying it’s not a bad idea. He’s a loner, but he loves this town.”
And that was exactly why she and Neil were a terrible idea. She had been there for months and still hadn’t fully unpacked her moving boxes. And she couldn’t pretend that was just from laziness. She thought about leaving every other day. Just couldn’t decide where she’d even want to go.
If Neil ever left Pumpkin Hollow, even temporarily, it wouldn’t be for someone as flighty as her.
Zephyr grabbed her mailbag and slung it over her shoulder. Dale hopped into the tiny front pocket of her blouse. Tawny tried to block her way out the door, but Zephyr childishly ducked under her arm.
“I have more deliveries!” Zephyr lied. She grabbed her broomstick and slipped out the door as Tawny called her a chicken. Dale shrieked at the insult on Zephyr’s behalf.
THE THIRD TIME ZEPHYR LOOPED through Pumpkin Hollow’s main street, slowing her flight past the garage, made her feel like an idiot. She muttered to herself, “He could be watching you through his window right now, wondering if you’re stalking him .”
Dale chirped in agreement.
“You’re right. I need to save what’s left of my dignity.
” Zephyr abandoned Main Street to complete her mail route.
Trying to “accidentally” run into Neil again was a bust. And that was a good thing.
What would she even say to him? She didn’t want to date anyone right now.
Just a year ago, she had been engaged . She just liked Neil’s attention, even if his attention had mostly annoyed her in the beginning.
It wasn’t fair to make demands of him when everything was confusing.
What she actually wanted, Zephyr realized, was to be his confidante.
Neil had revealed a lot about himself and his family the other night, and he wasn’t the type to share so freely.
It made her feel…good. She had developed a party-girl reputation in her racing days.
It had been a long time since anyone had shared such fragile things with her.
Finished with her route, Zephyr turned away from the town and took a well-cleared path into the dense forest surrounding Pumpkin Hollow.
She picked up speed once she remembered the twists and turns of her old high school racing track.
The track looped through the woods, filled with ups and downs and sudden turns.
The sport could be dangerous; hence, the helmet.
But professional broomstick racing could be deadly.
As she gained height, ascending until the tips of her toes dragged across the tops of the trees, her heart pounded in her throat.
Her last race had taken place in a canyon with a terrible wind tunnel, but it was a route she had conquered so many times before.
She had been so sure of herself. Before the race, she was laughing and planning her victory celebration.
She had invited her favorite reporters, too.
Hours later, the healers of the Emergency Response Coven had finally found where she had fallen.
Zephyr broke off the path, diving around trees with Dale chirping a frightened protest. The ground blurred beneath her feet.
She flew until the trees vanished, leaving her in an empty meadow.
The soft, waving grass looked so inviting, and Zephyr simply let go.
Tumbling from her broomstick, Zephyr fell two feet before rolling in the grass until she stopped against a tree stump.
Her lungs heaved, and her vision swam, until she shut her eyes tight. It was several minutes before it felt safe to open them again. Zephyr sat up, rubbing her temples and checking herself for injuries. The stitch in her side was the worst of it.
“What the hell happened?” she whispered, but she really wanted to scream. She forced herself to think about that last race, though her stomach fought her. If she could figure out what she had done wrong, what mistake she had made, would that give her some peace?
“I didn’t make a mistake,” she insisted. She looked up into the sky, feeling as if she were spinning, though she remained on the ground. Dale caught up to her and landed on her heaving chest. Sharp blades of grass tickled her ear, an ant crawled up her arm, and a girl on a broomstick flew overhead.
Zephyr sat up. The flying girl, with a broomstick with red bristles under her, looped around the meadow. She was speeding far over the tops of the trees and fighting the wind currents above. She was also going to fall.
There it was. The girl’s shaking arms gave out, and the broom twisted in the middle of her next loop. She lost her grip, fell with her hands grasping nothingness, and the broom flew on without her.
Zephyr knew what that tumble felt like. Spinning out of control while her air magic failed to save her.
She was on her feet and sprinting to the falling girl before her mind knew what her body had planned.
Her right arm made a whipping motion, sending out an arc of air.
She mimicked the motion with her left and repeated it, sending wave after wave of air until a twister, ten feet tall, appeared.
The witch-made tornado tore grass from the ground as Zephyr struggled to control it.
She had never created a twister this size, and her magic wanted freedom.
“I don’t think so!” Zephyr shouted. She kept the twister spinning right where she wanted it.
The twister caught the girl, and she was stuck in its grasp as Zephyr slowly made the cyclone smaller and smaller until the girl fell safely onto the grass.
Zephyr ran clumsily to the girl, exhausted from adrenaline and having used so much of her magic. “What were you thinking?” Zephyr demanded. “Gods, you scared me half to death.”
The girl tore off her helmet with a groan. “I am so, so, so sorry!” Her face was bright red, but Zephyr suspected that had nothing to do with her fall. “Please don’t tell my uncle! Oh, or my mom.”
Now Zephyr knew who she was dealing with. And she was still wearing the knockoff version of Zephyr’s racing jacket. Zephyr asked carefully, “You’re Levina, right? Neil Finnegan is your uncle?”
Levina nodded as she stretched out in the grass. “This is not how I wanted to meet the Zephyr McAllister. Oh gods, that hurt .”
“Of course it did,” Zephyr said with a snort. “You could have died .”
“ You didn’t die,” Levina returned.
That threw her. Zephyr tried to remember what she had been like as a teenager and all the stupid things she had said. Dale was not as forgiving. He flew by and dropped a white bomb on Levina’s shoulder. She gagged and tore her jacket off.
After a few moments, Levina sensed her earlier mistake. “I didn’t mean… I meant… Can I just thank you and go home now? And maybe you can sign a few of my posters? No, wait. That’s asking too much. How about just my jacket?”
“Not so fast,” Zephyr countered. She waved a hand, and Levina’s red-bristled broomstick came zooming out of the sky and into Zephyr’s waiting hand. “For your age, you were flying way too high. And, yeah, I took the same risks when I was sixteen and an idiot, but I’m not letting you off the hook.”
Levina stood, brushing grass off her legs. Her magic might have taken after her air witch father, but the rest of her was all Finnegan. Down to the red hair and the scowl. “Dammit.”
“I won’t tell Neil about that ,” Zephyr offered. “And I’ll sign the jacket and one poster, but if I catch either for sale on the internet, I swear—”
“I won’t! I would never .”
“Okay. Now lead me back to your uncle’s workshop. I have no idea where we are.”
“Sounds like I’m saving you ,” Levina muttered.
“Keep talking like that and I’ll send your broom on a one-way flight to Everest.”
Levina did the rest of her sulking silently.