Page 8 of The Mechanics of Broomstick Racing

“Is it?” he pressed. His tone was too serious, and she tensed. Neil added, “I haven’t seen you anywhere outside of your delivery route. Not at the town halls—”

“Those are boring,” she said with an eye roll. “And how are you so sure I’m not at these super interesting town events?”

“Because I look for you,” he answered, and he somehow didn’t sound at all embarrassed to admit that. It was just a fact. What button did she need to push to make him show some real emotion? He added, “You’re hiding. That’s why you came back to Pumpkin Hollow. To hide.”

Zephyr stared down at the floor. “Wow.”

He risked speaking again. “Racing through town is part of your hiding, too. If you slow down, you’ll get attached. To the town. Or your job. Maybe a person. And you won’t risk that anchor.”

She bristled. She hated being seen accurately. Especially since she had worked so hard on her outward, confident persona. It was fading away, and Zephyr didn’t know how to lose the woman she’d made. “I don’t need to be analyzed by someone as repressed as you,” she hissed.

His eyes flashed, and his left hand sparked with a quick run of lightning up his arm. He closed off his expression instantly, and the electricity vanished. “I’m not the only one who sees your recklessness.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“Never mind.”

Oh, that infuriated her. She wanted to shatter that calm. So. Damn. Bad. Zephyr hopped off the workbench, pushing past Neil as she made for the exit. She made a grabbing motion with her hand, muttered a quick spell, and her broomstick flew from the corner Neil had left it leaning in and into her palm. She had to weave around a truck with the hood propped open, a multimeter resting on the engine cover. And she suddenly had an idea.

This was her hometown, too. Maybe it was time Neil Finnegan remembered that.

DALE CHIRPED EXCITEDLY as Zephyr marched outside to the paint-stripped garden shed to the right of her home. She bent down to grip the bottom of the shed door and wrenched it open. The shed was a sad thing, leaning and dusty and one good windstorm from collapse. What was inside, however, was anything but sad.

It was gorgeous. Expensive. It had taken her an entire year to find the exact one she wanted. And then she had waited another month while it was being painted candy red.

The Pontiac Firebird started flawlessly, and Zephyr blew a grateful kiss to the engine. Dale flew over, nesting in a cup holder as she pulled out of the shed and headed into town. She circled downtown twice, until a parking spot opened right in front of Finnegan’s Repairs.

Zephyr parked, avoiding the garage and heading into the small front office instead. But it wasn’t Neil behind the counter. Instead, Zephyr found his grandmother, a white-haired witch with large round glasses that bore a telescoping attachment. Hattie Finnegan focused on a small hand mirror. She shined the mirror with a cloth, and it suddenly shot scary red beams all over the room until Hattie smacked the side of the mirror on the counter. The beams vanished, and she placed the mirror glass-side down next to the old-fashioned register.

She looked up at Zephyr, her eyes keen and curious. “Don’t look into that mirror, dear. It will steal your lovely face.”

“Uh, okay,” Zephyr replied, approaching the counter far less confidently than she had planned.

Hattie glanced out the front window, eyeing the unmissable red car parked out front. “Engine trouble?”

Zephyr hesitated. “Well, I…I mean… Doesn’t Neil handle the cars? And you work on enchanted items, right?”

Hattie nodded, a knowing smile tugging at her lips. “Is it something else? Your broomstick needs balancing? You carry that old mail satchel as well. I’ve worked on it many times throughout the years. It swallowed the last mailman for three days. He must have been happy to pass the mantle off to you.”

“He was unusually chipper, even for a man at his own retirement party,” Zephyr agreed. “But no. It’s just the car, so I thought—”

“You want to talk to Neil.” Hattie stood up, cracking her back with a twist. “I’ll go fetch him.”

“Don’t tell him I want to talk to him!” Zephyr called after the witch as Hattie vanished through a side door into the attached garage. “This is strictly business!”

As Zephyr waited, she played with a stack of business cards left on the counter. She was careful to avoid the mirror. It was bad enough that her face was still used for advertisements. She didn’t need an enchanted—or perhaps cursed—mirror stealing it, too.

“What do you want?” someone grunted behind her.

Zephyr dropped the stack of business cards, wincing as they fell behind the counter like a failed magic trick. She turned around to see Neil already pinching the bridge of his nose. Good.

“My car’s making a weird noise,” she lied.

He seemed startled to hear a valid reason for her appearance. “I see.” He leaned back against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Go on. Make the noise.”

“I don’t think so,” she replied sweetly. “You can hear it for yourself. It’s right outside.”

She left without looking back to see if he would follow, but she was confident that he would. Men could not resist the siren call of her car.