At the cemetery, Wunder flung open the black iron gates, then rode through them. He rode up the paved path, rode as far as he could, until he came to the base of Branch Hill.
Then he got off his bike. He pushed one end of the tree branch from the wagon, then lifted the other end. He started up the hill, dragging the limb along behind him.
He didn’t have a shovel. The shovel was in the duffel bag along with his father’s other tools that had never made it back from Benedict. The earth was hard at the top of the hill, but the rain had softened it. He pressed his hands into the mud and began to dig.
It was hard work because for every handful of dirt he scooped out, the rain washed some back in. But he didn’t stop. Down into the earth his hands went, down and down and down, until he had a hole that he thought would do.
Now the tree branch seemed even heavier. He wrestled one side into the hole, then put his hands under the other end and pushed up. But his fingers slipped and the branch came crashing to the ground.
He bent down again. He wrapped both arms around the branch and pulled it close. Then he lifted it up, all the way up this time, and he settled it down, the branch of the DoorWay Tree, down into the earth.
Into the earth that held the dead. Into the earth that held Florence Dabrowski and Quincy Simone and Avery Lazar and Faye’s grandfather. Into the earth that held the hundreds of loved ones of the people of Branch Hill.
Into the earth that held Milagros, his sister.
He held the branch there, upright, reaching high above his head. He held on to it as tightly as he could, with all the strength he had, as the rain fell and the moon shone and the gravestones around him looked on.
And then he had to let go.
Because the branch began to spin.
It was like the world was on fast-forward, like time-lapse photography. The branch rotated, slowly, then faster and faster, shedding its sickly gray bark. Underneath, the wood was a vibrant, dark ebony. Underneath, the spirals that covered the wood were as white as ever, as bright and light as ever. Wunder watched as the branch spun. He watched as the spirals began to spin too.
The branch grew taller, thicker—a trunk. And then limbs unfolded, as if they had been inside the whole time, waiting to stretch upward. Branches sprouted from the limbs, twigs from the branches, until there was a tangle of wood, a maze of new growth, extending out and up, high, high, higher than high. And Wunder couldn’t see it, but he could feel the same thing happening under the earth, could feel the roots tunneling down deep, deep, deeper than deep.
The spirals spun.
And then came the flowers, bursting from the ends of the twigs. Pure white and startling in the darkness, they blossomed. Each one sent a jolt through Wunder, one after another, until the branches were covered, until the tree was full.
Then one flower fell.
It came floating down, coasting gently, as if on wings, petal wings, circling in tighter and tighter spirals until—
The flower landed right in Wunder’s outstretched hands.
The spirals stopped spinning. The tree stopped growing. It stood there, reaching up to the sky, reaching down into the earth. It stood there as if it had always been there, as if it was right where it was supposed to be.
Here among the dead.
Here in front of a living boy.
And suddenly Wunder understood.
Everyone was connected. The living to the living, and the living to the dead, and the dead to the dead too. And no one was ever alone. And no one was ever truly gone. And nothing ever ended.
Because love never ended.
And no one knew—no one could ever know all that was happening. In this life or after.
There were truths that couldn’t be measured. There were connections that couldn’t be traced. There were mysteries that couldn’t be unshrouded. There were ways to hold someone’s hand even when that hand was buried far under the ground, even when that someone was lying in a small white box.
There was sadness, there was never-ending sadness, sadness that left you motionless in your bed, sadness that chased you away from home day after day, sadness that could make your heart feel like a stone.
But there were miracles too.
There were miracles.
At the base of the tree, there was a hole. A hollow place. Wunder found it because instead of being dark, the hole was lit, lit by a soft, pulsing white light.
He climbed inside.
There wasn’t much room. He had to pull his knees up to his chest to fit. But it was warm in there. Warm and the wood at his back felt softer than he’d thought it would.
And waiting for him there was the feeling that he had felt in the DoorWay House. And something else—someone else.
She was there. He couldn’t see her, couldn’t touch her, but he knew she was there. The one he had been waiting and waiting and waiting for. The one he’d thought was never coming.
His sister, Milagros, was there.
And his heart, that stone that had warmed and rocked and shook and cracked, it split wide open.
Because it hadn’t been a stone.
It had been an egg.
And finally, finally, the heart-bird was reborn. It burst free and soared through him, feathers brushing his veins, his heart, the insides of his fingertips and the soles of his feet. It soared and sang, and it was different—it wasn’t all light and bright and lifted, there was loss and loneliness and darkness too—but it was beautiful all the same.
Wunder felt it. He felt it all, but he was tired. He was so tired and he ached. Not just his hands or his back, but everywhere. He ached everywhere.
And so, hidden inside the DoorWay Tree, with his cheek pressed against his knees and his arms wrapped around his shins, with the heart-bird flying and the soft light surrounding him and the white flower clutched in his earth-covered hands, Wunder cried.
He cried and cried and cried.