When Wunder arrived at school on Monday morning, Faye was standing at his locker. She didn’t say Good morning or How was your Sunday? or anything like that. Instead, she said, “We have to go to the DoorWay House. Today.”
“I don’t want to go,” Wunder said.
After waking up from his dream on the night of the break-in, Wunder hadn’t been able to get back to sleep. The crib-bar shadows had reached his face, covered his mouth and his eyes, crept up the sides of the wall next to him, and still he had not slept.
The next morning, his father had knocked on his door. “Time to get up, Wunder,” he had called. “And hurry—we’re going to be late for church.”
Wunder had gone to his door and opened it. “I’m not going,” he had said, before he had really thought about what it would mean to say this.
But once he’d said it, he hadn’t changed his mind, even though his father had been confused, then upset, then angry.
Finally, after his father had said very loudly, “We go together every week, and this week is no different. You have to go with me, and that’s that!” Wunder’s mother had come out of her room and into the hall where they were arguing.
She had looked exhausted, like she had on the soup night, but Wunder knew it was a good sign that she was coming out of her room. And he knew that she would understand, she would explain to his father that things had changed.
And she had. “If Wunder doesn’t want to go,” she had said, “then he doesn’t have to.”
But his father had said, “Yes, he does. Wunder isn’t allowed to give up on everything like you.”
He had started apologizing almost immediately, but Wunder’s mother had gone back into the room, shut the door, and locked it. Wunder’s father had stood there for a long time, trying to get her to come out again. But she hadn’t.
Finally, he had left. Alone.
And standing by his locker now at school, Wunder had realized that there was no reason to go to the DoorWay House, no need to keep asking questions. He had his answers.
Things were getting worse, not better. Things were falling apart. His house used to be filled with love, but it seemed like that love was being washed away, was being buried, deeper and deeper every day.
“Listen, Wundie—” Faye began.
“I don’t want to go!” Wunder cried.
But, of course, Faye was waiting next to his bicycle that afternoon.
“I’m just here for another one of our walks,” she said. “Just walking. No witch talk.”
Wunder sighed. “You’ve said that before.”
“I mean it this time.”
“I doubt it,” Wunder said. But he went with her anyway.
It took only a few minutes of walking for Faye to break her promise.
“I know why you don’t want to go to the DoorWay House,” she said.
“Just walking,” Wunder reminded her.
“I lied,” Faye said. “Remember the first meeting of the Unexplainable and Inexplicable Phenomenon Society?”
Wunder sighed. “Of course I do.” It had been only four weeks ago, although it felt like much, much longer.
“Remember what you said at the end?” She pasted a huge grin on her face and stuck her hands into the pockets of her pastel-green-and-blue sweater dress. “‘To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle … unspeakably perfect miracles’!”
“I was quoting Walt Whitman,” Wunder said. “And I don’t smile like that.”
“Well, not now you don’t,” Faye said. “But that is a very accurate imitation of the way you smiled before.” She took her hands out of her pockets. “Like you really meant it.”
“I meant it then,” Wunder told her. “But I didn’t know then what I know now.”
Faye fixed her unblinking stare on him. “You didn’t mean it then,” she said. “You only thought you did because nothing bad had ever happened to you before. And now something bad has happened.”
Wunder waited to answer her as they passed the town hall. He didn’t see any police officers around, but he felt nervous anyway.
“I’ve had bad things happen to me before,” he said once they were a safe distance away.
“Like what?” Faye asked.
“My grandmother died.”
“That is sad,” Faye said. “Did you know her well?”
“No,” Wunder admitted. “She died right after I was born.” He thought for a moment, hands in his pockets. “I broke my arm when I was five. That’s how I met Tomás. In the emergency room. He’d broken his arm too. I thought it was a miracle at the time.” It was in The Miraculous, Entry #97.
“That must have hurt,” Faye said. “But I bet your mom held your hand and then you got ice cream or something. I bet you’ve never had anything really bad happen to you until now. That’s why you believed in miracles before and now you don’t.”
Wunder frowned at her. “Well, then, I guess you’ve never had anything bad happen to you, since you believe in all kinds of stuff.”
“Oh no, I have,” Faye said. “Don’t you remember my grandfather died?” She waved her hand through the air. “And my dad left when I was little. And my mother thinks I’m a weirdo. So does my sister, Grace.”
In Wunder’s opinion, Faye was kind of a weirdo. But he also knew that some people probably thought he was too. Miracology was not exactly a typical childhood pastime.
His parents hadn’t seemed to think he was weird though. They had bought him The Miraculous. They had read every entry, searched through old newspapers with him, bought him books, driven him to the sites of local phenomena. Back when he had believed in miracles, he had been sure that his parents would always be there, listening to him and supporting him. Loving him.
But now everything had changed. If his sister’s death was the worst thing that had ever happened to him, his parents’ grief was a close second. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
“Then why do you believe in that stuff?” he asked Faye. “Witches and werewolves and zombies?”
Faye stopped midstep to pin her bangs back. Wunder waited for her, although he wished he hadn’t when she finished and stepped very close to him.
“Because I know enough to know that I don’t know everything,” Faye said, staring into his eyes. “I know you liked your sunshine-and-sparkles miracles, Wundie, the ones where the bad thing doesn’t happen, where life is always perfect. But sometimes the bad thing does happen. People hurt your feelings and disappoint you. People die.” She was silent for a moment. Wunder thought she would flip up her hood, but then she took a deep breath and continued. “But sometimes the brightest miracles are hidden in the darkest moments.” She nodded, almost to herself. “That’s right. But you have to search for them. You can’t be afraid of the dark.”
Then she unpinned her bangs and started walking again.
“I’m not afraid,” Wunder said when he caught up to her. “I just don’t believe in miracles anymore.”
He was thinking about Faye’s words though, thinking about the light and the dark as they entered the woods where the color was creeping up the green of the leaves, taking them over, bit by bit. Wunder hadn’t even realized they were going that way, but of course they were. And now that they were there, he felt himself speeding up, moving faster. Soon they were at the head of the dirt trail where the live oak and the resurrection fern were as green as ever.
And there she was. He could see her through the branches, sitting on the porch. The spiraling house rose up behind her, crooked and crumbling. The spiraled chair rocked back and forth, back and forth. The newspaper flutter, fluttered on her lap.
She saw them right away, almost like she had been waiting for them. She waved.
And then she stood up and she beckoned.
“Do you think we should go over there?” Faye asked out of the side of her mouth.
And Wunder knew what he had said. There was no reason to talk to her. She was just an old woman. Nothing she could say would make anything better.
But he was also still thinking about what Faye had said. He was thinking about the darkness in his house, the darkness inside of him. And he was wondering if she could possibly be right about the miracles hidden there. Maybe that was why he still had so many questions. Maybe that was why he kept coming here, day after day.
And so, as he stared at the witch waving them toward her, he found himself saying, “Maybe. I guess. I mean, of course. Of course we should. To ask about the memorial stone. Just about that though. Nothing else.”
Next to him, Faye pulled her hood over her head. He heard her swinging her cloak around herself, the black material swooshing as it cocooned her completely. “Okay,” she said, her voice muffled by a layer of velvet. “But follow my lead. You don’t know about witches. I do.”
“She’s not a witch,” Wunder said.
“Wundie. Listen,” Faye said. “You’re the miracle expert. When someone turns water into wine, I’ll ask your opinion. But I’m a student of the paranormal. When a mysterious ancient woman wearing a robe summons children to a haunted house, you should listen to me. Now let’s go.”