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“Can’t . . . breathe,” I wheezed into his shoulder, and he loosened his grip immediately.
“I can’t tell you what a surprise this is,” he said, a pleased smile breaking through the shell-shocked expression. “I thought Gilbert was the last, you see. But now here you are, and you’re just so beautiful. Look at you!” He took my face between his hands and scrunched up my cheeks. “You—you’ve got Gilbert’s eyes. And his nose! Look at that, Andi! She has his nose! Isn’t she gorgeous?”
Jane cleared her throat. “Dick?”
Dick gave me an apologetic smile. “Crossing a line?”
I nodded, my eyes wide and alarmed, like one of those upsetting anime characters.
“Dick and Mr. Wainwright were really close,” Andrea told me, carefully removing Dick’s hand from my face.
Dick looked in Jane’s direction and seemed to be thinking furiously at her, which was rather funny to watch. Dick would squint. Jane would make a vague gesture. Dick would squint even harder. Jane would shrug.
Meanwhile, Andrea retrieved the sleeve of sketches I’d dropped on the floor during Dick’s hugging tirade. “These are beautiful, Nola. Even if they weren’t of historical value, your nana had a wonderful eye for detail.” She carefully shuffled through the old papers. “So each of the artifacts represents one of the four elements?” she asked, while Jane tried to give a Dick a brief summary of why I was in the Hollow and what the hell Andrea was talking about.>“I thought panda bears were supposed to be all sweet and cuddly,” I muttered, stepping carefully around an outcropping of jagged rock.
“In my experience, they can be nasty little sneaks,” a slightly creaky voice said. My head snapped up, and I found a thin, elderly version of Mr. Wainwright sitting before me on the outcropping. He was sitting cross-legged, wearing the same sort of quilted pajama-style jacket and trousers I’d donned. “Especially if they think you have something edible on your person. Lost a pair of pants to a panda once. Lesson learned: do not keep beef jerky in your front pocket.”
My jaw dropped, and my eyes flicked toward the panda, whose baleful expression now said, “Don’t look at me. I’m only here for the buffet.”
“What is this?” I whispered.
“This is a dream,” he said, stretching a cool, dry hand toward mine. And when I was unable to respond, he shook it gently. “And I’m your grandfather, or at least, your subconscious’s idea of what your grandfather would look and sound like. Can I just say it’s wonderful to meet you? I have to say I’m a little surprised it took you this long to show up. But no matter, we’re here now, and we can get to know each other under the watchful eye of that gluttonous panda.”
“Mr. Wainwright? Really?”
“I never thought—I never dreamed I would have this opportunity.” As he smiled broadly, his eyes disappeared. “Do you think you could call me Grandpa?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t think I can,” I said, my face still frozen in an expression of shock and confusion. “Can you tell me where you stashed the Elements, so I can pick them up and can go home?”
“No, I told you, I’m not really your grandfather. I’m a figment of your subconscious. I don’t have any answers or information that you don’t already know.”
“That’s supremely unhelpful.”
Mr. Wainwright frowned. “Isn’t there anything you’d like to ask me that’s not related to the Elements?”
I stared at this sweet-faced old man with his conical straw hat. There were a lot of questions running through my head at the moment, most of them more hostile than I’d anticipated. How could he have abandoned my grandmother, who loved him? Did he realize how different my mother’s life would have been—how different she would have been—if he’d stuck around? Did he really want to know me, or was this only his way of socializing now that he was dead?
I kind of wanted to slug him, which was just confirmation that the panda was right to judge me.
“No,” I told him. “I didn’t come here for a family reunion. I came here because Nana left the task to me. I didn’t have a choice.”
Mr. Wainwright eyed me speculatively. “Well, I see Fiona passed her obstinate nature on to you. Good for you, I suppose. I guess I wouldn’t want you to make this too easy for me.”
“What exactly is ‘this’?” I asked, gesturing at the rural Chinese landscape.
“It’s whatever you want it to be,” he said. “It’s your dream. It’s your way of processing all of the information and emotions you’re absorbing. Sometimes people know the answers to their own questions, but they’re either unable or unwilling to express them.”
“So you’re my id’s bitchy spokesman?”
“I’m not comfortable with that label,” he said, wincing.
“Well, it’s my label, and I’m sticking with it.”
Mr. Wainwright lifted a bushy gray eyebrow. “Just to annoy me?” I nodded. “Good girl. Now, since you seem single-minded in your line of conversation, I have a piece of advice for you.”
“What’s that?”
He grinned impishly, hopped to his feet with surprising spryness, and slung a heavy rucksack over his shoulder. “You’re trusting the right people, for the most part.”
