She spun around so fast she actually wobbled. The woman standing in front of Everest was foreign to me, her face did not match Auryn’s or Saber’s, but I knew it was her with every fiber of my being. For the first time in my life, my new life, I understood all those sayings about how a mother always knew their children. This body had not given birth to her but the soul inside of it had. This Auryn had long pin-straight black hair that fell down to her hips. Her skin was a deep tan that reminded me of Tennessee’s. Her eyes were jet-black. Actually, she looked like an ideal casting for Pocahontas.

“Mother?” She squeaked, her hands shaking.

I smiled and nodded and threw my arms open. She let out a whimper then charged for me. I met her halfway. We tackled each other, falling to our knees on the ground as we cried and held onto each other. She sobbed harder than the night she saw my dead body, though I understood. I would’ve given anything to see my parents again. So, I held her as her body shook and her breaths hitched. Over her shoulder, I watched Everest try to hold in his emotions and then lose. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and turned away. I squeezed my eyes shut and held onto her tighter.

Finally, a few minutes later, she pulled back to look into my face. “Mother. It is you.”

“It is me.” I cupped her face. “I’m here.”

“He told me, he told me, but my heart was afraid to believe it.” She sniffled and used her sleeve to wipe her nose. “I don’t even look like me right now, let me change⁠—”

“To me, you will always look like you.” I pressed my hand to her cheek. “I feel you, and I do not need my eyes for that.”

She crashed into my chest again. “He told me the night after you died that you had come to him. That you promised we would get you back⁠—”

“I see you in March of 2019. And my, what a woman you become.” I tucked her hair behind her ears. “Wait until you see you in the future.”

She giggled and wiped her eyes. “I am counting the days.”

Everest twirled the ring I’d given him around his finger absently.

I smiled and held my hands out between us. “Pick a ring. Any ring. Or two. Or all of them. I want you to have something of me in the future so that when the days are hard, and the time seems not to move, you can remind yourself that I am coming back to you.”

“How do I pick?” She ran her fingers over them. “Did father get one?”