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I smiled at her and moved my hand to her neck, cupping it and then leaning in to kiss her forehead.

“The wilderness does things to a human we can’t explain at times, but now you know that you’re not alone having such vivid dreams. It’s normal.”

She kept her eyes on me for a moment before her lips curled up into a smile. “We’re normal,” she stated.

“Exactly. And all these other people fooled by society aren’t.”

*

“What do you need my quad for?” Jason asked as we stood in front of his front door.

“Papa wants to cut down some trees to build a cabin for himself. We need it to pull the wood to camp,” I explained.

“Need my chainsaw too?” he asked, already knowing it was necessary for us unless we wanted to spend hours cutting a tree down with a handsaw.

“Yes, sir.”

He moved his eyes from me to Vespyr who was playing with Sitka.

“She doing okay up there?” he asked, walking down the steps to head over to his shed.

“Vespyr? Yeah. She’s just fine. It’s where she’s supposed to be,” I told him.

“Didn’t think she’d spend more than a week with you. Can’t imagine how your mother feels about her family living out there.”

“Mama’s okay with it. She’s got her own life,” I explained, not that it was any of his business anyway.

“My offer still stands. If she ever wants to go back home, I’d be happy to drive her.”

I gave him a nod, knowing Vespyr didn’t want to leave our home in the forest. But we would need a ride if we wanted to surprise Mama in Fairbanks.

“We could all use a ride to spend Christmas with Mama. We have yet to ask her, but we’d like to spend Christmas with her this year.”

“Your father too?” he asked, obviously surprised by this.

“Yeah, guess so.”

“Well, you can use my phone if you wanna go ask her,” he suggested.

“Ask who?” Vespyr walked over to us with Sitka jumping up and down behind her, wanting her to throw the tennis ball.

“Ask Mama if she’s okay with us going to visit her for Christmas. Wanna go call?”

Her eyes widened with excitement. “Yes! Oh, she’d be so happy to have us over for the holidays.”

“She sure will. Go call. Use Jason’s landline.”

She quickly nodded and turned to pet Sitka on the head before they both headed inside.

“You should go say hi to your mother too. It’s been a while, I believe.”

Not sure why he would care how long it’s been since I’ve last heard my Mama’s voice, but he was right.

“Go talk to her and I’ll get the chainsaw and quad ready for you.”

I nodded, pushing my hands deep into my pants’ pockets before heading inside Jason’s cabin where Vespyr was already dialing Mama’s number.

“She’s going to be so happy to hear from you, Fennec,” Vespyr said with a bright smile.

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