The sun was behind them as they left the grave site. Wunder could feel it on his back. Ahead of him, there were long dark shadows.
He fell behind as his father and the minister crossed the grass to the path that ran through the cemetery.
“But where is the mother?” the minister was yelling, even though Wunder’s father had already explained that she had chosen not to come. “She should be here, you know!”
The other family was leaving too. The taller girl and the woman were ahead of his father and the minister. Their arms were linked, and they walked briskly, leaning into the wind.
The smaller girl was far behind them, still near the grave site her family had been gathered around. She was moving so slowly that at first Wunder didn’t realize she was moving at all. With every step, she dragged her black-sneakered toes along the grass. But when she saw Wunder coming down the path, she sped up—just slightly.
Soon they were walking side by side.
“I know you,” the girl said, and her voice was slow and dreamy, like someone sleep-talking. “You’re Wunder. We go to school together.”
Up close, Wunder definitely recognized her. She was very recognizable. She had black hair cut into a bob, and her overgrown bangs hung into her eyes, which were ringed in smudgy black, raccoon-like. She wore lacy black gloves with the fingers cut off.
And perhaps her most defining feature: She wore a long black cloak. Not just in cemeteries either. All the time. Wunder had heard Vice Principal Jefferson hollering through the halls about that cloak. It was against the dress code.
“We do,” Wunder said. “Faye.”
“That’s right,” Faye said. “Faye Ji-Min Lee. I came to the first meeting of your Unexplainable and Inexplicable Phenomenon Society.”
“I remember,” Wunder said.
What he remembered was that at the first meeting of the UIPS, Faye had been the only attendee, other than Wunder’s two best friends, Davy and Tomás. She had arrived late and had promptly climbed on top of one of the desks. After settling her cloak around her, she had sat, cross-legged, silent, and expressionless, for the entire meeting. At the end, she had climbed down, leaned closer to Wunder than he felt comfortable with, and said, “I don’t know how I feel about your excessive smiling. And I was hoping to hear more about the darker side of supernatural activity. But I’m glad you started this club. I’ll attend the next meeting.”
Wunder hadn’t been sure how he felt about her then, but he knew one thing for sure—he did not want to talk to her now.
He sped up.
But so did Faye.
“We’re here because it’s my grandfather’s birthday,” she said. “Well, it would have been. He’s been dead for a hundred and seven days.”
“Oh,” Wunder said. “I’m sorry.”
Faye waved one black-gloved hand slowly, languidly. “You didn’t kill him, did you, Wundie?”
Then she stared at him until he felt like he had to say something. “No,” he said. “No, I didn’t. And it’s Wunder, not Wundie. No one calls me that.”
Faye didn’t seem to have heard him. “Is this the funeral? Ms. Shunem told everyone about your sister in science class. Did you know we’re in the same science class? Why isn’t anyone else here? Is that a priest?” She waved her black-gloved hand ahead of her now. “There’s no priest at our church, just a pastor. Well, it’s really my mother’s church. I go sometimes, and my grandfather did too, but he was very open to other ideas, and so am I. I happen to be interested in the paranormal—ghosts, vampires, banshees, et cetera.”
This string of questions and information was delivered in a dreamy monotone, and at the end of it, Wunder found himself openmouthed but at a loss for words.
So he decided not to say anything. He closed his mouth and shrugged.
Faye shrugged back at him. “Well, your priest is extremely strange,” she said.
“He’s not a priest,” Wunder said. “He’s a Minister of Consolation.”
“Consolation? Really?” Faye’s raccoon eyes considered the minister, who was shuffling along beside Wunder’s father and yelling, “What about the other mourners, you know? Quite unusual. Why even have a funeral?”
“I wonder,” she said, “if the person who hired him knows what that word means.”
Wunder almost smiled at this, but then he didn’t. He didn’t want to smile in the cemetery, on the day of his sister’s funeral, and he didn’t want to encourage Faye to keep talking.
“We could hear him from my grandfather’s grave,” she said. “He’s very loud. But I did like that one verse, ‘Behold! I tell you a miracle’!”
This last part, Faye screamed.
Wunder’s father and the minister jerked to a stop. They turned and stared at Faye. Wunder stared at her too.
Faye stared back, seemingly unfazed.
She waited until Wunder’s father and the minister finally started walking again, then continued, “It was very dramatic, like an incantation or a spell. Almost supernatural. I’m extremely sensitive to the supernatural. I’m sure you are too.”
Wunder didn’t reply.
“With a name like yours, Wundie,” Faye said, “you have no choice but to believe in signs and wonders.”
“Well, I don’t,” Wunder said. “I mean, I used to. But I don’t anymore. And it’s Wunder, not Wundie.”
Faye stopped her sneaker-dragging walk and stood stock-still. Wunder stopped too, before he really thought about it, and watched as Faye pulled a bobby pin from her cloak and pinned her bangs back. She studied him, eyes now unobstructed.
“You’re different now, aren’t you?” she said. “At the meeting you were so”—her face morphed into a crazy, huge grin and she pumped one fist in the air—“zippy.” The grin disappeared. Her fist sank slowly back to her side. “You’re not very zippy anymore.”
Wunder didn’t answer. He turned back to the shadowy path. He knew it was true. He used to be able to talk to anyone, especially about the miraculous. But now it was as if parts of him had been erased, blacked out, like he was a checkerboard inside. He couldn’t seem to find words. He didn’t even want to find them.
“Come along, young man!” The Minister of Consolation was shouting at him now. His white robe looked gray.
Wunder hurried forward, relieved to leave Faye behind.
He stayed close to his father as they headed into the woods. He could hear Faye behind him, her cloak snapping in the wind, her feet scuff, scuff, scuffing along, but he didn’t turn around. When they passed the dirt trail, he kept his head lowered so he wouldn’t look down it, down to the DoorWay House. He didn’t want to see it.
Then, very close to him, there came a sound: Caw!
Wunder ducked and threw his arms up. Behind him, Faye let out a high, sharp laugh. Something brushed past his head, something soft, light, feathery.
When he straightened up, he saw the bird flying down the trail that led to the DoorWay House. Its black shape disappeared behind the house’s tallest tower.
And for a moment—a split second—he thought he saw the spirals shifting.
Then they were still.
But someone was there.
Not in the tower though. On the porch.
In a rocking chair made of the same black spiraling wood as the house, there was an old woman. She was dressed in white, in a sort of robe with shawls and belts, and she had long black hair that was blowing wildly around her. A newspaper was spread out on her lap. Its pages flapped like wings.
As Wunder gaped at her, the old woman looked up from her paper. Her head turned slowly until her eyes found him.
She smiled. Then she lifted one hand. And she waved.
Wunder jerked his gaze away. He turned to his father and the minister. But neither of them was looking at the DoorWay House.
Farther ahead, Mrs. Lee and her older daughter walked on, their heads bent together. They weren’t looking at the DoorWay House either.
But, behind him, Faye had stopped in the middle of the path. She had pulled the hood of her cloak up, and she was staring out from under its peak. Staring past the live oak, down the dirt trail, through the leaves and branches and vines at the DoorWay House.
The old woman was still there. Her hand was still raised. Her hair had whipped across her face, covering her eyes.
But Wunder knew she was still watching him.