Balancing a carrier full of Starbucks offerings, I strode the short distance across the reception area and set the drinks down.

“Just what the doctor ordered,” Jaelle, my dad’s office manager, said, getting up from her desk. She boxed me into one of her hugs and then initiated a hand slide, a gesture so jive I laughed out loud every time I was on the receiving end. As always, Jaelle had a way of making anyone and anything look cool. Case in point, the thick zebra-print headband, nubby green cardigan, knee-length corduroy skirt, and scuffed cowboy boots she presently sported. Jaelle had been my very first friend here, a kindness for which I would always be grateful.

“Is my dad busy?” I asked.

“He’s on the floor,” Jaelle said, sipping from her Grande bold drip with a shot of skim foam and ah-ing in appreciation. “I’ll help you find him.”

I followed Jaelle down the hallway that separated the quiet office space from the assembly area. The moment she pulled open the door, a din of machinery and voices hit me like a rogue wave. My dad’s wind turbine factory had been in business for less than a year, but already it was in full swing, with more orders than they could handle.

As we passed various stations, I noticed one or two of the workers snap to attention. It wasn’t for me, the boss’s daughter. My dad, a big softie, had done well to hire the clever and capable Jaelle. He liked to joke that she had even him kowtowing around her. Proving my point, her husband, Russ, a brawny former logger, saluted as we walked by. I inwardly preened. When I’d first met Jaelle, a little over a year ago, she was underemployed as a waitress and lamenting her husband’s travel-required back-buckler of a job. Convincing my dad to open his factory here instead of California was admittedly a self-serving act; nonetheless, I couldn’t help but gloat a little at how much it had done for Jaelle. Even though she had been one of my very first vessels — prospective mothers considered as candidates to receive a hovering soul — and I’d recommended against her, I knew it had been the right decision. At the time, Jaelle simply wasn’t ready. She’d come a long way since then, however.

We found my dad near the shipping dock. He signed a paper, handed the clipboard to his foreman, and walked toward us.

“Atta girl,” he said, taking the coffee I held up for him. “I was just thinking about how nice a little of the mermaid would be right now.”

While he enjoyed his first sip, I shrugged off the jitters brought about by his casual mention of a water creature. To him, Ariel was simply his nickname for the split-tailed siren that was featured on the Starbucks logo. Little did he know that it was responsible for the ad-lib prophecy that I’d made during my very first Stork assignment and for the difficult situation I was in now.

“A little bird must have told me,” I said, recovered enough to make a private joke. My dad had no idea that his daughter was a member of an ancient flock of soul deliverers.

“So how much is this cup going to cost me?” he asked.

Busted. Kind of. It was true enough that the last time I’d come bearing beverages he’d ended up out two hundred bucks for my car’s tune-up.

“It’s more of a trade than anything else,” I ’fessed up.

“A trade?” he asked, arching his brows.

“Can I borrow your camera for a while? Well, technically I’ll be lending it to an exchange student, our newest member of the school paper.”

“My good camera?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“And you’re lending it to a stranger?”

“Well, not a complete stranger. I met her briefly while I was in Iceland.” I left out the part about her pickpocketing my runes as well as any kind of physical description.

“It’s in my desk drawer,” he said with resignation. “Jaelle, would you get it for her?”

At times like these, I super-loved the way my easygoing, surfer-dude dad just rolled with things.

“Sure can,” Jaelle replied.

I walked behind Jaelle back across the factory. The afternoon sun was streaming through the west-facing windows; it cast a slanted shaft of light over our path. In this illuminated patch, dust motes danced like first-of-the-season snowflakes. It was fascinating, like a peek under a microscope, but they weren’t the only things catching my notice. Above Jaelle’s head, corking spirals of energy bounced. Finally. I’d been waiting a long time for the signal that Jaelle was all systems go.

As we stepped back into the calm of the office space and Jaelle retrieved the camera from my dad’s desk drawer, I, again, saw the vibrations above her head. I took it as the very best of vibes.