The Miraculous

by Jess Redman

  But then his father looked into the corner of the room. He looked at the crib there with its white flowered sheet, still made up, still ready and waiting and waiting and waiting.

  Wunder’s father sighed. “Tomorrow, you have to go to school, Wunder,” he said gently. “And then you have to come right home. You’re grounded. For a long time.”

  And the next morning, he was back.

  “Time to get up.” He watched as Wunder sat up and swung his legs around. “I know you haven’t wanted to go to church, but I was thinking we could go together on Thursday, for All Saints’ Day.” He paused. “Or Friday. Friday is All Souls’ Day.”

  “I don’t want to go,” Wunder replied.

  “Okay,” his father said. “Okay. Fine. Maybe we can do something else. Together, I mean. The two of us.” He glanced at the corner of the room. “There are a lot of things we need to do.”

  Wunder didn’t answer.

  At school that day, he didn’t want to talk to anyone, but he especially didn’t want to talk to Faye or Davy. They both kept trying to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look at them. He went to each class late and left each one early. He ate lunch in the stairwell.

  Finally, in science class, Faye got up in the middle of the lesson and walked right over to him. “Wundie, we need to talk,” she said.

  “Faye,” Ms. Shunem said. “You know I usually don’t mind social interaction during this class, but not while I’m teaching. Please sit down.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Shunem,” Faye said without moving. “I’m just trying to make sure that Wundie heard me.”

  “I heard you, Faye,” Wunder said. But five minutes before the bell rang, even though Ms. Shunem was still talking, he grabbed his backpack and left the class.

  He hurried down the halls, toward the front door. He didn’t stop at his locker. He wanted to leave as fast as he could. He wanted to run out the school door and back to the safety of his room, where no one would talk to him about anything. He thought about locking the door too. Maybe his father wouldn’t bother him if the door was locked. He didn’t seem to bother Wunder’s mother.

  “Hey, Wunder, wait up!” It was Tomás’s voice.

  Wunder stopped and turned before he really thought about it. Tomás was jogging toward him. He must have left science class early too.

  “My dad told me about—about what happened,” Tomás said. “He wanted to know if I had anything to do with it.”

  “Did you tell him that we’re not even friends anymore?”

  Tomás looked hurt. “We’re friends,” he said. “We are. But with everything that happened—and you haven’t been, I don’t know, yourself—and I’ve been busy with soccer and everything.” He paused and flipped his hair, a gesture that suddenly looked self-conscious. “I mean, what were you doing with that tree anyway?”

  Wunder searched for an answer, but his insides were a checkerboard again, and all his words had been blacked out, especially those words, words about this most recent, most raw loss.

  He realized that he had been silent for a long time. Tomás was staring at him, craning his neck forward, brow furrowed, like he was trying to see if Wunder had gone comatose.

  “It was for Milagros,” was what he finally said.

  “Milagros?”

  “My sister,” Wunder said. “It was for my sister. It was a mistake though.”

  The bell rang. Wunder left the school and headed back home to his room.

  Chapter 39

  Wednesday night was Halloween. Wunder stayed in his room, listening to the doorbell rings and knocks as children came for their tricks and treats. His father had asked him if he wanted to help pass out candy, but he had said no.

  Then, after one of the knocks, his bedroom door opened. His father was standing there. And behind him were Davy and Faye.

  Davy was wearing his rock costume again. There were holes in the trash bag with pieces of newspaper sticking through.

  Faye wasn’t dressed as the witch. She had on her cloak with the black dress she had worn to the funeral underneath. Her face was expressionless as usual, but Wunder knew that she was not serene.

  “You’re not allowed to go out, Wunder,” his father said, “but I thought you could use some company.”

  He left the door open, but Faye shut it firmly after him.

  “Your room is very spartan,” she said.

  “What happened to your pictures?” Davy asked. “And your books and your statues? You got rid of everything?”

  “Except that,” Faye said. She pointed a gloved hand to the corner of the room. To the crib. “Why is that still in here? That’s awful.”

  Wunder wanted them to leave. He got up from his bed. “Why are you here? You heard my dad. I can’t go trick-or-treating.”

  “Wundie,” Faye said. “We’re not here about candy collecting. We know you’ve been avoiding us because the police took the branch, but we’re not mad. We understand. What were you going to do, fight the hair-flipper’s dad? But listen. You need to go see the witch. She’s been asking about you.”

  “She’s not a witch,” Wunder replied.

  “I know,” Faye said. “She’s not. I know who she is. And you do too.”

  “An old woman,” Wunder said.

  “Who she really is.”

  “Probably a con artist. Or a lunatic.”

  “What are you talking about?” Faye said. “Her name is Milagros.” She held up one finger. “She showed up the day after your sister died.” Another finger.

  “She looks like your sister!” Davy said. “Well, like the picture I saw in the paper. Her eyes or something.”

  “And she asked David all those questions about you,” Faye continued. “She had you deliver the letters, get the tree branch. And she—”

  “The witch is not my sister!” Wunder yelled, angry that they were making him say those words, angry that they were making him even think them. “How could she be my sister? It doesn’t make any sense!”

  “It’s a miracle, Wundie,” Faye said. “It doesn’t have to make sense.”

  Wunder shook his head. “She was using us. She was trying to see what we would do for her!”

  “Now you don’t make sense,” Faye said.

  “Officer Soto said that tree we chopped up is really rare,” Wunder told her.

  “Yeah, she told us that,” Faye said.

  “Rare and expensive. She just wanted to sell it!”

  Davy gnawed nervously on his bottom lip. Faye stared at Wunder, her face completely still, like she had been frozen. Shocked, Wunder thought. As shocked as he had been.

  But he was wrong.

  “Are you crazy?” Faye’s words exploded, high and sharp and loud. “That’s what you think? You think she was trying to run some kind of—of botanical-theft ring? That’s ridiculous!”

  “It’s not ridiculous!” Wunder found himself shouting back. “It’s the most rational explanation!”

  “So what?” Faye shoved her bangs from her face. She pinned them up with fast-fingered fury. “I can’t believe you’re still not convinced! You really think everything that’s happened is a coincidence? What about the spirals? What about the letters? Why would she tell everyone to come to Branch Hill?”

  “Officer Soto said she’s been inviting other people into the DoorWay House,” Wunder said. “Other funeral-goers. She’s probably asking them to steal things for her too. Or asking for money. Or maybe she’s”—he struggled to think of another reason, a non-miraculous reason—“starting a cult.”

  Faye pulled her hood up. She glared at him from the shadows of its peak. “You don’t believe that.”

  “Why not?” Wunder cried. “What has she actually done? She hasn’t done anything for me! She’s a—she’s a fake!”

  “I don’t think that can be true.” Davy spoke up for the first time. “When we were in her house—” He was quiet for a moment. “When my mom was sick—really sick—I would go in her room late at night sometimes. And you know we
’re not—we’re not very religious or anything. But I would feel something in the room. Something that would make me feel better. And I felt that in the house. In the DoorWay House.”

  “It’s what we wanted to feel,” Wunder said. “That’s what everything has been. She’s not what we thought she was. That’s just who we wanted her to be, who I wanted her to be.” He crossed his arms. “I’m not going to see her. I never want to see her again.”

  “Well, just because you’re not going back doesn’t mean Davy and I have to stop!” Faye said. “If you’re not going to believe in your miracle, that’s fine. Maybe there will be one for me! Do you even remember my grandfather?”

  Wunder stared at her. “What do you mean? I never met your grandfather.”

  “Do you remember that he died? That I was close to him? That I’ve been”—she pulled her hood down even farther, covering her eyes, before continuing—“that I’ve been sad since he died?”

  “I did know that,” Wunder said. “And I’m sorry. But he was old! He lived a long time! He was—”

  “He wasn’t old!” Faye screamed, shoving her hood back. “He was fifty-nine! He was young! He was really young to die. And he knew there were miracles at the DoorWay House. He saw the spirals spinning, just like you did, and he knew about the shadows I saw there. He would have believed that Milagros is a miracle, and I do too! She said she was going to help everyone who had lost someone. She said she was going to help me! And she’s going to, I know she’s going to!”

  Wunder was too angry to feel bad about what he’d said. He was too angry to do anything except yell back, “She can’t help anyone! It’s all lies!”

  Faye glared at him. Then she swung her cloak around herself. “Here you go again, Wunder,” she said. “Something bad happened, so now you don’t believe in anything anymore, right? Well, not me. I’m going to find my miracle. I’m not afraid of the dark.”

  She strode from the room. Davy stayed, biting his lip and looking torn and miserable.

  “Milagros said to tell you that when you’re ready, she’ll be there,” he said softly.

  Wunder’s backpack was next to his bed. He grabbed The Miraculous out of it. “Take this to her,” he said. Then he threw the book at Davy.

  Davy stepped out of the way just in time. Then he picked the book up and left.

  And the stone of Wunder’s heart felt colder than it ever had, heavier than it ever had.

  And empty too. His heart was empty.

  Chapter 40

  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.”r />
  “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.”

  Chapter 41

  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