They met in the woods on Saturday morning. It was the coldest day that autumn yet, too cold for October. Wunder shivered in his sky-blue jacket; he hadn’t anticipated such low temperatures. Faye seemed toasty in a poufy purple coat covered in sparkly turquoise hearts and her black cloak.
When Wunder arrived, she handed him something small and shiny. It was a flat silver hand. The spread fingers were covered in intricate designs, and a bright blue stone eye punctuated the palm.
“I brought these,” Faye said. She held up one of her own.
“What are they?” Wunder asked, lifting the eye to his own eye.
“Hamsa amulets, otherwise known as Hands of Fatima or Hands of Miriam. They’ll protect us from spells and the evil eye and other witchcraft.”
Wunder lowered his amulet and frowned. “She’s not a witch, remember?”
“I remember that you think she’s not a witch,” Faye said. “You should remember that I still think she might be one, although there are, as we have discussed, other possibilities. When this saves you from all kinds of hexes and jinxes and curses, you’ll thank me.”
The witch was on her porch, as always. She smiled when she saw them. She had, Wunder noticed, perfect teeth, small and white and even.
“You are back,” she said in her faraway voice. “I am glad. Yes, yes, yes. I am glad. Come in.”
When they walked through the house’s door, Wunder felt the stone of his heart begin to rattle the same way it had on the first visit. This time, he wrapped both arms around himself. He was there for answers. He didn’t want to get sidetracked by his heart.
The house looked exactly the same. It didn’t seem like the witch was doing much settling in. There was no new furniture, and the dust was still thick and heavy, blanketing everything like a winter snow, burying everything like earth on a grave. Wunder could see his own footprints from five days ago in it.
“I saw you two pass my trail the other day,” the witch said as they entered the little kitchen. She gestured for them to sit at the table, which was still covered in newspapers. “Leaving the cemetery, I think.”
“We’ve been spending a lot of time among the dead,” Faye told her. “The first time we were both there was for Wundie’s sister’s funeral.” She paused and stared at the witch, hard. The witch stared back until Faye continued, “I was there because of my grandfather. But I think you know that.”
“I know,” the witch said. She turned on the water at the sink to fill the teakettle. “Yes, yes, yes. Almost everyone I see is going to a funeral. That is the sadness of living by a cemetery. The sadness and the beauty.”
This didn’t make sense to Wunder. Sadness and beauty did not go together. “What’s so beautiful about a cemetery?” he asked.
“It is where the dead are remembered by those who love them,” the witch said. She lit the rust-coated stove and placed the kettle on the flames. “It is where the living connect to the ones they love. This is beautiful, I think.”
Wunder shook his head. “The Minister of Consolation—I mean, Sylvester Dabrowski, the one you sent the letter to—he thinks that when people die, they’re gone. He said he doesn’t even go to the cemetery, because he knows his wife’s not there. She’s in a better place.”
“That is one way to think of it,” the witch said. “Did that seem to bring him some comfort?”
“No,” Wunder admitted. “He was very sad. And angry.”
“It is not an easy thing to believe the dead have gone far, far away, even if it is to a better place. No, no, no. We want them here, with us.” She came to sit across from them. Her wrinkled hands rested on the obituaries spread out before her. “But there are many ways to think about death.”
“I think death is terrible,” Faye said. One hand was tucked in her cloak, and Wunder knew she was holding on to her amulet.
“For the living, it often is,” the witch said. “But the dead may feel differently.”
Here was another thing Wunder had never thought of before. He had never imagined that the tiny, helpless baby he had spent hours watching in the hospital could have any feelings about her own death.
“You mean because they’re in heaven?” he asked.
The witch shrugged, her thin shoulders rising and falling under her white robe and shawls. “Heaven, maybe,” she said. “I have not been that far; I do not know exactly. But”—she leaned across the table toward them, and her dark eyes were bright—“how do you know that is all there is? How do you know it is death and then—zip—straight to heaven? Maybe there are other branches to climb up, other roots to follow down. Other places, other lives, other ways of being.”
“Like zombies?” Faye asked, her voice shrill. “Like ghosts? Like resurrections? What? What else happens?”
The witch shrugged again. “Zombies, I don’t know,” she said. “Ghosts, resurrections, maybe, maybe. But there is far more than heaven and earth, I think. Yes, yes, yes. Far, far more.”
Wunder knew that this was the time to demand answers. This was the time to ask the witch about the memorial stone, to ask her who she was. But in that spiraling house, with his heart shaking and the witch’s black eyes staring into his, he couldn’t seem to find the words.
And when Faye spoke, her voice was quiet again, slow and dreamy. “My grandfather used to do these ceremonies for the dead,” she said. “He would set out special foods for his parents on the anniversaries of their deaths and on holidays. Jesa, that’s what it’s called. I helped him sometimes, but my mother never did.” She pulled her cloak tighter around herself. “My grandfather believed in a lot of things.”
The witch nodded slowly through this pause-filled discourse. The teakettle began to whistle, and she rose gracefully to her feet. “There are many ways to think about death,” she repeated as she took the kettle from the stove. “I prefer the ways that remember the dead, like your grandfather’s, like so many beautiful celebrations and rituals and rites from around the world and throughout history. I prefer the ways that do not forget the great powers of memory and love.”
While the witch prepared the tea, Wunder tried to focus on what he wanted to ask her, but instead he found himself thinking about his sister again, his sister and memory and love. He remembered her—of course he did. He thought about her every day. And he had loved her. He had loved her more in her eight days of life than he would have thought possible.
But he had not wanted to go to her funeral. He had not wanted to do the celebrations and rituals and rites. He had not wanted anyone to do them. He had not thought they would help.
Because in the end, death was still death. Wasn’t it?
“It is good that you should come here to share these things with me,” the witch said, bringing Wunder out of his thoughts. She set two steaming cups in front of them. “Because it has everything to do with what I want to share with you. There is something that I need, something to do with the DoorWay Tree. Let us have some tea, and I will tell you about it. Yes, yes, yes. I feel that you two may be the ones who can help me.”
“What is it?” Wunder asked. He reached for his cup, eager to hear what the witch would say next.
“Stop!”
Faye had shrieked this word. Her hands were out of her pockets and she was gripping her amulet in plain sight.
“Faye—” Wunder started.
“No!” Faye used her other hand to pry his fingers from his teacup and moved it to the other side of her. “No tea! No weird, witchy favors!”
The witch seemed startled, but she held her hands up. “I understand,” she said. “You are not ready. I can wait. Not for long, but I can wait. But tell me”—she smiled, her perfect teeth shining white in her wrinkled face—“what makes you think I am a witch?”
“I don’t think you’re a witch,” Wunder said quickly.
Faye frowned at him and then at the witch. “Really?” she asked her. “Have you seen yourself? Have you seen this place?”
“I don’t know much about witches,” the witch admitted. “But I suppose I can see why you might think such a thing.” She sat back down across from them, still smiling. “The invitations though. Perhaps you will not do any new favors for me, but I have more letters. Many more…” She trailed off, a question in her silence.
“We can deliver more letters,” Wunder said. “If that’s what you want.”
“That is what I want,” she said. She reached into her layers of clothing and pulled out another envelope. “That would help me very much.”
Wunder took the letter and tucked it into his pocket. Maybe he wasn’t ready to demand answers from the witch, but her words had given him something already. His mind was buzzing with these new ideas, new possibilities, new questions. And he could do this. He could deliver her letters. He could keep searching through the dark this way.
“Come back after you deliver this one,” she said. “If your hesitations are gone, if you are ready, I have more. I have many, many more. Yes, Faye?”
Faye pushed the teacups a little farther down the table. Then she put her hand and the hand-shaped amulet back in her pocket. “I suppose,” she said, “that we can do that.”
When they left the witch’s house, there was a flurry of movement, the same as last time. Except it wasn’t on the path ahead but in the bushes on the dirt trail. Davy ran his bike past the live oak, then pedaled off without looking behind him.
“Is he spying on us?” Faye asked. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I think he misses me,” Wunder said, watching as his friend disappeared from sight. “Davy is—well, he was one of my best friends.”
“He doesn’t seem as bad as the other one—what’s his name?” She flipped her hair, but in slow motion.
“Tomás,” Wunder said.
Faye nodded. “That’s the one,” she said. “Davy doesn’t seem as bad as him. Maybe you should let him deliver letters with us. Isn’t he a paperboy? I bet he knows where everyone lives.”
Wunder didn’t answer. Davy seemed like part of another life, the best friend of another boy. A boy whose father had been home in time for dinner every night. A boy whose mother always had a smile and a hug and a new book to share. A life where everything was connected and bright. He wasn’t sure where Davy would fit into his new life, where everything seemed separate and strange.
He hardly knew how he fit into it himself.
That night, he took out the envelope. It was the same as the first—cream-colored, timeworn, sealed with the spread-out tree.
And scrawled in that same black handwriting was a name that made him shake his head in disbelief.
He knew exactly where to deliver this letter.
Then he got out The Miraculous. He flipped through it until he found what he was looking for.
When he was ready to sleep, he set them both—the letter and the book—on his nightstand.