Wunder sat on the porch for a long time after Tomás’s dad left. He sat on the porch and stared at the tree branch. Against the white wood of the house, the branch looked dark, but it wasn’t the deep black it had seemed in Benedict. It was duller, a charcoal-gray color. Its flowers were gone. Its bark was a rough, peeling patchwork and beneath it, Wunder could see the spiraling grain.
He sat and stared at the tree branch as evening turned into night. Its wood grew darker and darker. Its spirals grew lighter and lighter.
They didn’t spin though. Of course they didn’t.
Wunder thought about what he’d told Tomás, about what Officer Soto had said—that the branch was for his sister. And it was true. He had wanted the tree branch for Milagros, for the sister he had loved and lost so quickly. Everything he had done—breaking into the town hall and entering the DoorWay House, delivering the letters and talking with the witch and stealing the branch—it had all been for her.
And also for himself. He had wanted a miracle so badly. He had wanted an answer, a sign. He had wanted to know that the world wasn’t truly so harsh and hard, that people weren’t truly so alone, that everything didn’t truly end so abruptly and awfully and heartbreakingly.
And he thought about the last entry in The Miraculous. The entry that he had not wanted to read or think about. He didn’t have The Miraculous anymore; who knew what Davy had done with it.
But it didn’t matter. He knew what the last entry said:
Miraculous Entry #1306
I was alone with her yesterday, with Milagros. She has her own room here at the hospital, and usually we’re all in it—me and Mom and Dad—but today Dad convinced Mom to have coffee with him in the hospital café. Mom wasn’t going to go—she never wants to leave Milagros—but she finally agreed when I told her I would watch her. I told her I’d keep my sister safe.
Milagros was sleeping in the incubator—that’s this plastic box with a cover to keep her warm—and there were all these machines around it. I was watching her, and she kept making these jerky movements. Her little arms would fly open and her whole body would sort of shudder, like someone was scaring her. And her little hands kept opening up and then squeezing shut like she wanted to hold on to something.
And I knew I wasn’t supposed to do this, but I felt like I had to—I opened one of the windows in the plastic cover. I put my hand in—it was clean, really clean, because they make you wash for two minutes when you come in. They even have picks for you to clean your nails.
And as soon as I put my finger next to her hand—she grabbed it! She grabbed my finger and she held on tight.
I don’t know what I expected, but I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect a baby to be that strong. Especially not a baby who everyone says is so sick. Especially not a baby who everyone says is going to die.
And then she opened her eyes, so big and round and dark—and she looked right at me.
And I’d been waiting to feel it, I’d been waiting since she was born, and I felt it then. With just the two of us there, holding hands and looking at each other, I felt the heart-bird.
There’s going to be a miracle. I’m sure of it.
He had waited for the miracle.
But it had never come.
Unless it had.
The night was dark. The tree limb was black. Everything was quiet.
Wunder got up. He was going to see the witch.