Wunder sat on the ground next to Milagros’s stone at the top of the branchless Branch Hill. He still felt dizzy and small and cold, even though the sun was back out. Faye sat cross-legged next to him, her magenta sweater hidden beneath her cloak.
“There are a number of possibilities,” she was saying, her voice slow, contemplative. “Ghost is the most obvious and likely, I think.”
“It’s not obvious,” Wunder said, “or likely.”
“Your sister’s spirit was not at rest for some reason, so she ordered herself a rock thing and put it here. If that’s the case, maybe she’s happy now.”
“I’ve never heard of a ghost ordering itself a gravestone,” Wunder said.
“Another possibility,” Faye continued, “is that your sister has been reincarnated.”
“When you’re reincarnated, you get reborn right away,” Wunder said. “So my sister would still be a newborn baby. How could a newborn baby order a gravestone?”
“Reincarnated and a time traveler, then,” Faye said with a shrug. “You’re not being very open here, Wundie.”
Wunder frowned at her. “She wouldn’t have the same name if she was reincarnated either. She’d be born to a totally new family with a totally new body. I don’t think you know anything about reincarnation.”
“I know some things,” Faye replied, “but reincarnation is very complicated.” Then her eyes widened. The smallest smile lifted the edges of her mouth. “Must be a zombie, then. I love zombies.”
“My sister is not a zombie!” Wunder cried. “This isn’t anything supernatural. This is—” He tried to think of an explanation, a rational explanation. “A coincidence. There must be more than one Milagros in Branch Hill.”
“I’ve never heard that name before,” Faye said.
Wunder traced the silver etching on the stone. “I chose it,” he said quietly. He’d spent hours researching, tabbing name books from the library, compiling lists, saying each possibility aloud. When he finally found the right one, he’d known instantly. “It means miracles. Like my name.” He stopped tracing the letters and put his hands in his lap. “Another explanation is that someone thought they were being nice—maybe someone my dad works with or my aunt Anita—and they had this memorial stone made as a—a tribute or something.”
Faye gave a gloved-hand wave of dismissal. “You’re really reaching, Wundie,” she said. “I prefer my explanation. I know you were into happy, fuzzy-feeling phenomena, but I’ve always said there was something dark and malevolent about Branch Hill. Now we have a zombie and a witch.” Then her eyes widened again and her mouth dropped open. “The witch!” she shrieked.
Wunder looked across the cemetery toward the woods. The tallest tower of the DoorWay House was visible over the tops of the gold-tipped trees. But with the sun in his eyes, he couldn’t make out the spirals. The wood seemed black.
“What about her?”
“Come on, Wundie! Think about it!” Faye leaped to her feet. “This graveyard is practically in her backyard. She can’t be some random woman who just happened to move into the DoorWay House right now. She must have something to do with it! What if she has everything to do with it? What if she can talk to the dead? What if she can raise the dead? Or what if—” Faye stopped pacing and leaned over him. Her cloak blocked the sun. “What if the witch is your sister?”
“That’s ridiculous!” Wunder cried, his voice loud, louder than the thoughts that were now spinning through his head. “And even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t make any sense. My sister was a baby, remember? Not an old woman.”
“It’s a miracle, Wundie,” Faye said. “It doesn’t have to make sense.”
“It’s a coincidence,” Wunder replied angrily. “That’s what miracles are! Coincidences. Or lies.”
“You know you don’t believe that, Wundie,” Faye said.
“I do!” Wunder stood up. “Because it’s the truth! Did you know—did you know that Thomas Jefferson made his own Bible? He cut out every single miracle, chopped them right out with scissors because he knew they were lies. And did you know that there’s this principle—the law of truly large numbers—that says that with a big enough sample size, anything is possible? The things that seem like miracles are actually random events.”
“I know about those things,” Faye answered him, “because you talked about them at the Unexplainable and Inexplicable Phenomenon Society meeting. And then you told us that there are all kinds of miracles and all kinds of ways to believe.”
“Well, I don’t think that anymore!” Wunder paced the hill. He no longer felt small or cold or dizzy. He just felt angry. “And I’m going to find out who put up the stone somehow, and it’s going to be an ordinary person. And I’m going to tell them that they should take it down because even though it was a coincidence—even though they have the same name or they were trying to be sympathetic or whatever—it’s upsetting people. And that’s that.”
Faye shook her head at him. “Rationality does not suit you, Wundie. But have it your way. We’ll look up who ordered it.”
“Look them up? Where?”
“Probably the town hall,” Faye said. “This cemetery is owned by Branch Hill. My mom had to file all kinds of forms with them when my grandfather died.”
“Fine!” Wunder started down the hill. “I’ll go there now.”
“It’ll be closed soon. Tomorrow, Wundie. We’ll go tomorrow afternoon.”
“I’ll go tomorrow afternoon,” Wunder said.
“That’s what I said, Wundie,” Faye said. “We’ll go tomorrow afternoon.”