The newspaper on the table was open to Milagros’s obituary. Wunder’s father had put it in the paper the day before her funeral, although Wunder’s mother had not wanted him to do that either. In the picture, Milagros was wearing the little white knit cap that they had given her at the hospital. She was surrounded by tubes and wires, and she was looking at the camera with serious eyes, black eyes.
“They’re all open to the obituaries,” Faye whispered to him.
“The tea is almost ready,” the witch said from the counter where she was selecting teacups. “And I have much to talk about with you two. Yes, yes, yes. There is much to discuss.”
Wunder looked from his sister’s eyes to the other newspapers. More faces gazed up at him. Family pictures and individual portraits, a man in a military uniform, a young woman smiling in front of a red-roofed house. Faye was right. They were all obituaries.
“I have to go,” Wunder said. “We have to go.”
He stood up. Faye stood up too.
“I see,” the old woman said. She was holding two teacups, one in each hand. “But you will return? I would like for you to return. Both of you.”
“Maybe,” Wunder said. He edged toward the kitchen door. “I guess. Sure. We’ll come back. We just have to go now.”
The old woman started forward. “Before you leave,” she said, “I have something for you.” She set the teacups on the kitchen table, shifted around some of the newspapers, and then held something up.
Something black with white letters.
The Miraculous.
“I think you lost this,” she said.
Wunder took the book, wordless, wide-eyed.
“And I also wondered,” the witch said, “if you would do me a favor.” She reached into the folds of her white clothing and pulled out an envelope. “Would you deliver this for me?”
She held it out to Wunder.
“‘Deliver this,’” Wunder echoed. “Sure. I can do that.” But he didn’t take the envelope. He kept his grip on The Miraculous.
“What is it?” Faye asked, her voice high and tight.
“It’s … an invitation,” the witch said.
“For what? A party?”
“A party? I suppose it will be a party of sorts,” the witch said. “But also something else.” She leaned closer to them. She smelled like the woods. “You will see. I have letters for both of you too. When you are ready for them.”
Her black eyes gleamed. And Wunder stared back, stared into those eyes—until Faye jabbed him in the side.
Then he grabbed the envelope, shoved it into his pocket, and ran.
He ran through the dining room where the chandelier swung ever so slightly and through the parlor with its vacant shelves and through the long fun-house-mirror hallway.
For a moment, the front doorknob wouldn’t turn under his sweat-slippery hand, and panic rose up in him. But then it did and the door opened and he flung himself through it and into the brightness of the outside.
Faye was right behind him. She slammed the door shut, and as she did there was the sudden sound of spinning.
But the sound came from the path ahead, not from the house behind. Through the trees, Wunder could see a head of curly dark hair and a neon-green bicycle zooming away.
“What was that?” Faye gasped. “What’s going on?”
“Davy, I think,” Wunder replied. “He must have followed us.”
They hurried down the dirt trail, then onto the path, where the woods pulled them in. The cool breeze blew over them, the green light—now tinted, tainted as the leaves turned—washed over them. Wunder wondered why Davy had come there; he was terrified of the woods. The only time he ever ventured in was when Wunder helped him on his Sunday paper route.
Then Wunder stopped thinking about Davy. Because there were far more pressing issues at hand.
“Now we know for sure that she is a witch or”—Faye gave him a sideways look—“or someone else.”
Wunder started to say what he always said, that she was just an old woman, but then he stopped.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t feel what I felt in that house,” Faye said.
Wunder wiggled the fingers of the hand that had been clutching his side. He let his breathing slow as his heart grew stiller and stiller.
And he listened as above them a bird cawed and cawed and cawed.
“I don’t know what I feel,” he said.