Wunder usually rode his bike to Golden Fig Middle School, but that day he felt like walking. He decided not to take the route through the woods either. He didn’t want to see the cemetery. He didn’t want to see the DoorWay House. He headed straight to school.
It felt strange to be going back after being gone for two weeks. Much stranger than returning after a vacation. It wasn’t just that time had passed. He was different now. He thought about how Faye had described him—not zippy. He didn’t like the word zippy any more than he liked excessive smiling, but he knew what she meant. He had always been happy.
Now his insides were a checkerboard and his room was bare and he was planning on getting rid of his life’s work. He was definitely different.
At school, his best friends, Tomás and Davy, were waiting by his locker.
“Hey, Wunder,” Tomás said, flipping his hair back. Tomás had been doing more things like that since they started sixth grade, things like styling his hair very carefully and matching his shirts to his sneakers. “What’s going on?”
Wunder couldn’t think of an answer to this question. He hadn’t talked to Tomás during the past two weeks—he hadn’t talked to any friends—but Tomás’s mother had come to the house the day before the funeral. She had brought flowers and a card and a huge casserole, and she had talked quietly to Wunder’s father, had even knocked on Wunder’s mother’s door.
And Faye had said Ms. Shunem had told their class about the funeral. So Tomás knew. Everyone probably knew.
“Some things, I guess,” Wunder finally said. “I mean, nothing. I don’t know.”
His voice sounded like it didn’t belong to him. It sounded flat, like it had been squashed under something heavy and cold.
Standing a little behind Tomás, Davy didn’t speak but gave a half wave and a half smile. Davy had not changed since they started sixth grade. His hair was as curly and unstyled as ever, he was still quiet and cautious, and he still carried his schoolbooks in the mailbag he used on his morning paper route, Branch Hill Broadcast written in bright red on the side.
“Do you want to go to the Snack Shack after school?” Tomás asked. “They got a new arcade game last week. It’s like that super-old one, Space Invaders, but with a huge screen and lasers and stuff.”
Wunder turned back to Tomás. “What?” he asked.
“The Snack Shack,” Tomás repeated slower. Louder. “My mom said she’ll drive us.” He glanced over at Davy. “You’ve got to come. Otherwise it’ll just be me and Davy again.”
Davy gave an apologetic smile.
“Maybe,” Wunder said. He put his hands in his pockets. “I might be able to do that. I might not, but maybe.”
Tomás seemed satisfied with this. He flipped his hair and headed toward English class. Wunder and Davy followed. Davy still didn’t say anything, but he kept sneaking looks at Wunder, front teeth gnawing on his bottom lip, both hands gripping the strap of his bag.
Wunder had been worried that they would ask him about his sister. But he hadn’t thought about what he would do if they didn’t.
He wasn’t as surprised about Tomás. Tomás almost never asked about Wunder’s weekend or his family or anything that didn’t have to do with Tomás. Wunder wouldn’t have said this aloud, but he sometimes thought that if he and Tomás hadn’t met when they were little, they would never be friends now.
But Davy—Davy’s mom had gotten cancer when they were in third grade. She didn’t die, but she had been really, really sick. And Wunder had talked to him about it. Not a lot, but he hadn’t pretended like it wasn’t happening. He hadn’t pretended like Mrs. Baum didn’t exist.
All day, Wunder waited for one of them to say something, but they didn’t say anything.
In fact, no one did.
Kids did look at him a lot more than usual—sneaky glances out of the corners of their eyes. A few gave him sympathetic looks, their mouths turning up slightly, sadly. And in science class, Ms. Shunem said, “Oh, Wunder, welcome back! I almost didn’t recognize you without your smile!”
But that was it.
Until the end of the day.
“Wundie, we need to talk.”
Faye Ji-Min Lee was at his locker. She wore her black cloak and her lacy fingerless gloves, but instead of the black dress she had worn at the funeral, she had on jeans and a bright-yellow-and-pink-flowered blouse. It was, Wunder thought, a very incongruous ensemble.
“It’s Wunder,” he said. “Never Wundie. No one calls me Wundie.”
“Wundie. Listen. Could you be quiet for two seconds, please?” Faye said. “It’s rude to interrupt. And this is very important.”
“Okay, but it’s Wunder,” Wunder said. “What’s so important?”
As if in slow motion, Faye reached into her cloak, pulled out a bobby pin, and pinned back her bangs. Her eyes scanned the hallways—left, right, then left again. “About yesterday.” She leaned toward him.
This was it. Someone was going to talk to him about the funeral, about his sister. Wunder felt himself simultaneously reaching forward and shrinking back.
“About the witch,” Faye whispered.
This was not at all what Wunder had expected her to say.
“The witch?”
“At the DoorWay House,” Faye said. “You saw her. I know you did.”
Even when he had believed in miracles, Wunder had never spent much time on Faye’s reported paranormal interests: ghosts, vampires, banshees, et cetera. So he hadn’t thought of the porch-sitting woman as a witch. But now that Faye said it, he realized that was exactly what she looked like.
But all he said was, “I saw an old woman. There’s no such thing as witches.”
“Oh, she’s a witch,” Faye said, waving her gloved hand in lazy dismissal. “She lives in the DoorWay House. She wears hangy scraps of white cloth. She smiles and waves at mourners. Et cetera. If that isn’t witch behavior, I’ll eat my cloak.” She held up one side, then dropped it for unenthusiastic emphasis. “So obviously we have to go to that house.”
This was even more unexpected. “No, we don’t. We don’t have to do anything.”
“She’s. A. Witch.” These last words were punctuated with even-longer-than-usual pauses and uncomfortable stares. “And you’re the president of the Unexplainable and Inexplicable Phenomenon Society. You must want to meet her.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t care about her.”
“Wundie.” Faye leaned closer to him, much closer than he wanted her to be. He could see little lines of skin through the black smudges under her eyes. “I know you’re going through a hard time right now. I know you’re very sad. But listen—you don’t think it’s a coincidence that we saw this witch now, do you? The day of the funeral? On my grandfather’s birthday? And your creepy priest screaming those verses? That deranged bird diving at your head? Et cetera? These are miracles, Wundie!”
Faye’s voice had grown faster, faster and higher, as she recounted all the things that had made Wunder so confused last night, all the things he had been trying not to think about.
“They aren’t miracles!” he said. “They aren’t anything. There isn’t—”
“Miss Lee!” Vice Principal Jefferson was barreling down the hallway. “Miss Lee, you are in violation of the dress code. Take off that cape!”
“We’ll talk later, Wundie.” Faye spun away from him, moving faster than he had ever seen her move. “It’s a cloak!” she shrieked.
Then she ran down the hallway, her black cloak streaming behind her.