“Florence isn’t Sylvester,” Faye said for the tenth time.
They were riding their bikes across town, away from the woods and cemetery, toward St. Gerard’s.
“I know,” Wunder said for the tenth time. “But they have the same last name, and I don’t know any other Dabrowskis. Maybe they’re related.”
“So we’re going to go to the church and ask for Florence Dabrowski?”
“Why not?” Wunder asked. “It’s worth a try.”
St. Gerard’s was an old building, the oldest in town except for maybe the DoorWay House. It was, however, in considerably better shape. The outside was made of silver-flecked light stone that gleamed in the sun. A bell tower rose above the main building, its top a soft blue. The front door was blue too.
“Can we go in the sanctuary?” Faye asked as Wunder pulled the door open.
“In the church?” Wunder said. “We can, I guess. But I don’t want to.”
“I do,” Faye said. “I’ve always wanted to see what it looks like in here.”
She went in ahead of him, straight to the glass double doors that Wunder had not been through since his sister died. He followed her reluctantly, which seemed to be how he spent a lot of his time lately.
The inside of the church was even more beautiful than the outside. The stained-glass windows shone with rainbow light, dappling the wooden pews and white columns. Winks of gleaming gold added to the illumination, especially beyond the altar rails, in the sanctuary, where everything seemed to glow. There was a faint scent of incense, sweet and sharp and ever-present. And, like the door and the top of the bell tower, the vaulted ceiling, behind its wooden arches, was blue.
Wunder had always liked that about his church, that the highest places and the way in were the color of the sky. He sometimes imagined that all the words in the sanctuary—all the prayers and verses and songs—were carried up to the sky-blue ceiling, carried up and then out, out, streaming from the bell tower and flowing through the cracks in the front door, like wind, like smoke, rising up from the sky-blue paint into the sky-blue sky.
Where the sun shone. Where birds flew.
He wasn’t surprised to see Faye pinning her bangs to one side and craning her neck this way and that, like she wanted to see every possible nook and cranny.
“It feels very supernatural in here, doesn’t it?” she asked with a little shiver.
“I don’t think so,” Wunder said. He stayed at the back, and he didn’t look up at the ceiling. “It just seems that way because of the decorations and the light.”
“Wundie, you know that’s not true.”
Wunder didn’t answer. And he still didn’t look up.
Instead, he turned and went back through the glass doors.
Faye could stay for as long as she wanted. But he wasn’t going to stay with her.
The church offices were not beautiful. They looked like normal offices, like the ones at Safe and Sound Insurance. There was a woman sitting at a desk at the front. She was folding bulletins that read All Souls’ Day and pictured white flowers and candles, but she stopped when they came in. Wunder knew her—Mrs. Ceiba. She had led his Sunday school class when he was in preschool. She used puppets in her lessons and gave out tiny cups of animal crackers.
“Wunder,” she said. She gave him a sad smile. “I’ve been meaning to come by. How are you?”
“I’m fine,” he said. He didn’t want to talk about himself—not one bit—so he quickly continued, “We’re here to see Florence Dabrowski. Do you know her?”
Mrs. Ceiba’s expression went from sympathetic to distressed. “Florence?” she whispered. “You’re looking for Florence? Well, I’m so sorry, but—did you know her? I’m so sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Faye asked. “What happened?”
“Lydia, are you talking to me?”
A creaky bellow emitted from the door off to the side of Mrs. Ceiba’s desk. Wunder recognized the voice. It was very recognizable. There was the sound of shuffling feet and a cane tapping, and then a shaggy, gray head leaned out the door.
It was the Minister of Consolation.