Burnt toast and lousy coffee, a typical morning for Dr. Dimitri Sirin. Up at the ass crack of dawn, he had to open up the clinic since Dinah his vet tech called out. Again. For the hundredth time, he thought about selling his little country animal hospital practice and heading back to Portland. Walking to the clinic’s side entrance Dimitri was deep in dreams of neverending bookstores and civet coffee when he noticed the woman perched on his mailbox.

Perched that was the only word for it: Her heart shaped face poised on her knees; her slender fingers gripping the mailbox. She was wearing a billowing cotton dress and an impatient expression. Screaming out shock, he dropped his coffee. Graceful she plucked it from the air.

“I take it you’re not a morning person,” the woman said. “Dr. Sanford, I presume.”

She landed on the gravel driveway with a nimble hop. Dimitri always parked in his late wife’s spot. He could bear to take her name down.

“No, that was my partner. She’s—I just do surgeries Wednesday mornings. Could you come back in the afternoon?”

“No need. It’s surgery I need. I have a wing issue.”

Drinking his coffee, the stranger followed him inside. Unusually he wouldn’t see unknown clients solo for security reasons, but for some reason Dimitri was at ease. Dimitri hit the lights. Butters, the ginger office cat, uncurled from the top of the filing cabinet and yowled good morning.

“So is your bird in your car in the front?”

Dimitri turned. His client was naked in the lobby, giving Butters scritches. A meter wide, a pair of French grey wings extended from her back. Catching the vet’s expression, the stranger curled her wings around herself modestly.

“I’m an alkonost, not an angel. I’m not going to teach you any life lessons or introduce you to any gods. I am just an ordinary mythical creature on vacation. You can call me… Betty. I had my wings bobbed back home but they suddenly sprouted back last night. Wings are awkward in a compact. I followed the leelines here. Your cat is lovely. Your coffee was terrible. Tell me the words you need to cut my feathers so I can be on my way.”

Dimitri’s mouth hung open like a fish’s. Butters yowled it was breakfast time. He’d heard of the legends of the people of the sky from his grandfather but Dimitri always thought it was Oompa’s high functioning alcoholism. Out habit, Dimitri headed for the cat food.

“Surgery is back this way. First tell me where you’re heading?”

“Portland, I love secondhand bookstores.”