At school the next day, Wunder didn’t even have to try to avoid Faye and Davy. Davy waved at him once, but mostly he stayed next to Faye, who acted as if Wunder didn’t exist. Which was fine with Wunder. He hadn’t asked for any of this.
By the time he got home, he felt exhausted, which didn’t make any sense. He hadn’t done anything. But he went straight to his room and lay on his bed. He wondered if it had been like this for his mother, if the less she did, the less she felt able to do. If the more she was alone, the more she wanted to be alone.
He must have fallen asleep when he heard someone say, “Wunder.”
He looked up to see his mother in his doorway.
Wunder jumped out of bed. Only six weeks ago—it seemed like years ago, how could it have been so recently?—having his mother in his room was nothing unusual. She was always in there, after school to sit at his desk and talk to him about his day, at night to tell him to sleep tight, on Saturday mornings to read his new Miraculous entries.
But now—now his first thought was that she needed to leave. Not because he was angry at her, although he was. She needed to leave because of what was in the far corner of the room.
He wondered frantically how to hide the crib, if he could throw a blanket over it or position himself in front of her somehow. He knew she wouldn’t want to see it. That was why it was still in his room. The crib was a reminder of what had happened, and she did not want to be reminded.
But there was nothing he could do. She saw it right away, and she stood there, as silent as Wunder had been with Tomás, rooted in place, petrified, ossified.
When she finally spoke, her voice was loud and tight sounding, spooled-up sounding. “Dad has to work late tonight. And I have to go out for a little while. I have something to do. Please don’t go anywhere.”
Then she turned and almost ran from the room. Wunder went to the hall and watched as she fled out the front door, slamming it behind her. She hadn’t stopped to change from her slippers into her shoes. She hadn’t brought her coat. She hadn’t even taken her keys.
Wunder stayed in the hallway, watching the door, waiting for her to come back in. She didn’t, but he couldn’t bring himself to go back into his room. It was suddenly the last place in the world he wanted to be.
It was less than an hour later that the doorbell rang.
Wunder was sure it must be his mother, keyless and cold. He went to the front door and opened it.
But it wasn’t his mother on the other side.
Standing on the porch was Officer Soto.
“Hey there, Wunder,” the officer said.
“Oh. Hello,” Wunder said.
Officer Soto wasn’t wearing his uniform. He was wearing jeans and an old blue letterman jacket from Oak Wood High School. The patch on the front showed an oak tree. Two of the branches, spreading up and out, ended in hands. Wunder knew it was supposed to look like the tree was about to catch a football, but there was no football on the jacket. It looked, to him, like the tree was reaching up toward a blue sky.
“You don’t have to invite me in,” Officer Soto said. “I can talk to you right here for a minute.” He cracked his knuckles. Pop, pop, pop, they went, like little exclamations, little bursts of emotion leaving him. “Sure is weird to see you without a smile.”
Wunder waited. Whenever he saw Officer Soto lately, there was bad news. He wondered what the bad news would be this time.
“Tomás told me that the tree—” Officer Soto said. “Well, he told me that you wanted the tree for—well, for your sister. He said that maybe the old woman wanted it too, but that really it was for you and your sister and he thought I oughta—” The officer paused. He tried to crack his knuckles again, but they were already popped. “Well, I know—I know things have been tough for you. For your parents too. When my dad died—” He paused again. “Well, that thing’s been sitting in my office for days. It’s starting to fall apart. And I thought—you weren’t planning on selling it or anything, were you?”
Wunder shook his head slowly, cautiously. “No, sir,” he replied.
“And you’re not going to give it to the, uh, the DoorWay House lady, are you?”
Wunder shook his head again.
“Well, then, anyway, there’s no reason I can see that you can’t—I mean, no charges were filed, so it’s not evidence. Benedict didn’t ask for it back or anything. And after everything you kids went through to get it … Well, we were just going to throw it away. So…”
“You’re going to let me have it?” Wunder asked, even though he knew he shouldn’t. Officer Soto seemed to be trying very hard to not say exactly that.
The officer shrugged. “Well, you know,” he said.
He turned to leave. And Wunder knew that he should let him leave, he shouldn’t push things, not with all the trouble he’d been in, all the trouble he’d caused. And anyway, he didn’t care, but he found himself asking, “Have you heard anything else about the witch—I mean, about the old woman? The DoorWay House woman?”
Officer Soto shook his head. “She’s been real quiet there. We’ve been keeping an eye on her, doing a patrol past the house every now and then. Had to tell your friend—the one with the cape thing?”
“Faye,” Wunder said.
“Yeah,” Officer Soto said. “Had to tell her to leave yesterday. She called me ‘Officer Mundane.’ Said I was an agent of the banal and humdrum. Sort of screamed it at me, actually.”
Wunder nodded. “That sounds like her.”
“Well, anyway, there it is.” He gestured toward the other end of the porch, where Wunder now saw the tree branch had been all along, leaning against the house, listening as its fate was decided. “Like I said, do what you want with it, but don’t give it to the DoorWay House lady. That wouldn’t look good—you know, for me. And anyway, it’s for your sister, right? Whatever you were planning to do with it, do that. For her.”