Hanna had been on the phone with her grandfather, Johan, while Mia and I set up Hanna’s laptop in a quiet corner of the house. After quite a bit of back and forth, Hanna thought she’d finally gotten Johan to understand how to video chat.

The three of us sat on the couch, with Hanna’s laptop across from us, propped up on some wooden blocks on top of the coffee table. The laptop screen was black, except for the lime green phone icon in the center, and the only sound was the electronic da-da-da of the ringing.

“He hasn’t answered yet,” I said.

“I told him to answer when it rings,” Hanna said wearily.

“Maybe you should call him on the phone,” Mia suggested.

“No, Mom, he’s got it. Give him a minute.”

Finally, the ringing stopped, and an old man squinted at the screen through his small oval spectacles that sat on the end of his nose. The salt-and-pepper hair on his head was slightly darker and thinner than his bushy beard.

“Oh, hello,” he said. “I can see you all. Can you see me?”

“Yes, we can.” Mia smiled. “It’s nice to see you again, Johan.”

“Hi, Grandpa,” Hanna said with a lackluster wave.

His smile deepened. “It’s so nice to be able to see your face when we talk.”

“I thought you’d enjoy video chatting,” Mia said.

“Yes, it seems like a wonderful invention,” he agreed. “Now, I don’t think I quite understand what you were asking about earlier. Something about a book?”

“I had some questions about the book you wrote,” I said. “The one you showed me when I tried to drop Hanna off back in June, about Jem-Kruk.”

“Why?” he asked in surprise. “You can ask me anything you want, of course, but I can’t imagine that old fairy stories are of that much interest to you.”

“But is that all they are?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Johan asked.

“Is any of it true?” I asked.

He laughed, a warm chuckle, and readjusted his glasses. “No. They’re only stories.”

“Were you inspired by anything from your life?” Mia tried.

“Well, I’m sure I was, the way I imagine most authors are,” he said. “But I feel like you’re trying to find out about something in particular. Perhaps it’d be easier if you just asked straight out.”

“She met Jem-Kruk,” Hanna blurted out.

He shook his head. “What?”

“I met someone named Jem-Kruk,” I clarified. “And he seemed to match the description in your books.”

“It’s an unusual name, to be sure,” Johan said. “But I taught at a tracker school, and I had students named Iago, Artemis, and Dartha. Naming a child after a character from a children’s book is a fairly common occurrence.”

“But there was other stuff,” Hanna persisted. “My friend Eliana came from a land of three suns and pink skies.”