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At lunchtime on the day of the New Moon in Gemini – her sign, her season – I cleared my mind and invited my Mercury to appear. I thought I might design a new moon ritual to help us get reacquainted, and invite her to help set the intentions for this cycle… if that seemed agreeable to her.

I winced a little as I called, because I knew this was long overdue. I had wondered if she’d answer, but immediately, like a sudden gust of wind, like the Queen of Swords, there she was.

And she was me at 22 or 23, dressed to host a fundraising breakfast. Vintage sheath dress – thrifted – alice band and cardigan, consulting a seating chart, greeting a sponsor. Except, like me, she was older now.

Her hair was longer. Freshly cut and curled. There was still a knee-length sheath dress, and Mercury still wore at least a three-inch heel in shining patent leather; I gave up wearing those every day years ago. iPhone and laptop and leather-bound padfolio in hand, she smirked at me over the rim of her cat-eye glasses.

“Great! If you’d like to see each other outside work again, yeah… put in the time. Send me a calendar invite.”

She looked and sounded like a hypothetical, more corporate version of me. A version of me I like to think I could have been if I wanted to.

As I looked at my Mercury – at the clothes and the image she had chosen for herself – I considered that I’ve taken a whole lot of pride in not wanting that to be me.

She turned to go, and walked a few steps back toward the ether, and then she spun on her heels and faced me again. Still smiling, walking backwards like a well-trained Victorian servant, obliged to face her master as she exited the room.

“And you’re welcome, by the way. For all the scholarships and writing awards and landing exactly the kind of job you said you wanted. All those accolades, and the fact that we can pay the bills now, and so forth… no problem, no need to thank me or anything.”

The words weren’t particularly warm, but she winked as she said them. She tilted her head to one side and whispered primly.

“If you want to know who I am aside from all that, and all this-” she gestured to her immaculate business attire – “make the effort to find me when I’m off the clock.”

And I wondered, all of a sudden, when I last let Mercury clock out.