The Miraculous Read online

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  For my father,

  who believed in this story

  and in me

  from the very beginning,

  and who taught me

  to approach this miraculous world

  with curiosity, humility, and a sense of wonder.

  here is the deepest secret nobody knows

  (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

  and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

  higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

  —E. E. Cummings

  Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood.

  —Mary Oliver

  Part One

  THE BIRD

  Chapter 1

  On the night before the funeral, Wunder Ellis stopped believing in miracles.

  Before that, he had really and truly believed. In fact, he had been a miracologist.

  He became a miracologist when he was five years old. It happened like this:

  It was dusk, and he was walking with his mother and father through the woods on the edge of Branch Hill. He had been in the woods before—the woods full of sprawling oaks and knobbly kneed cypresses and Spanish moss that cascaded down branch after branch like so many gray-green waterfalls.

  He had been in the woods before. But he had always stayed close to his parents.

  That evening, full of after-dinner ice cream and end-of-the-day adventurousness, he ran ahead.

  He ran down the path that was potholed and cracked, but paved nonetheless. Above him, a bird cawed out a sunset song.

  Then he came to a particularly toweringly tall live oak. It was covered in brilliant green resurrection fern, and beside it there was a dirt trail.

  From the path he could see that the trail led to a house, a house in the middle of the woods. He could still hear his parents not far behind him—his father’s voice low and slow, his mother’s faster and full of dips and rises. They were so close that he felt brave.

  Brave enough to turn down the trail.

  The house was like nothing Wunder had ever seen—a ramshackle, crumble-tumble collection of widow’s walks and towers and sagging porches and broken windows. It was made of a wood that looked black in the fading light.

  Except for the grain of the wood, which was circular and so pale that it nearly glowed, covering the house in bright white spirals.

  There was a sign hanging in the overgrown clearing in front of the house. Wunder couldn’t read yet, but he knew his letters, and he had found D, W, and H when he heard the bird from above cawing again.

  The bird from above now cawing below.

  Cawing very close to him.

  Before he could duck, he felt something brush past the top of his head, soft, soft, feather soft, and then the bird was above him. A white shape soaring up to the peak of the very tallest tower.

  And as the bird landed, the wood-grain spirals—from the top of the house to the bottom—began to turn. Slowly at first, then faster and faster until they were spinning so wildly that Wunder felt dizzy.

  Spinning like thousands of clock hands. Spinning like thousands of tops set off at once.

  Wunder had heard about miracles his entire life. He had been one, after all—the baby who should not have been born. But he had never seen one himself until right then.

  And as he watched with wide blue eyes, he felt something lift off inside him. It was as if that bird hadn’t flown past him but instead had burst out of his own heart and was now fluttering through him, making his fingertips and the end of his nose tingle, muffling sound with its feathers. He was suddenly aware of how marvelous, how mysterious everything around him was, suddenly aware of how he was a part of that. He was filled, he knew, with a miracle feeling.

  Then the bird cawed again.

  The spinning stopped.

  And up in that tallest tower, Wunder saw something move. A shadow in the window.

  He turned and ran back down the trail.

  “The house!” he cried. “Spinning! Someone’s in there!”

  His parents were only a few feet ahead of where the dirt trail met the paved path. They listened as he told them what had happened.

  “That’s the DoorWay House,” his father said. “But no one lives there.”

  “It does look pretty magical though, doesn’t it?” his mother said, peering down the trail herself.

  Wunder tried to explain again. His parents smiled and nodded some more. He could tell they didn’t really believe him.

  But he knew what he had seen. He knew what he had felt. And more than anything, he realized, he wanted to have that feeling again.

  The heart-bird feeling.

  He wanted to find another miracle.

  “I want to be a miracler,” he told his parents. “I mean, a miraclist. No, a mira … mirac…”

  “Miracologist?” his father suggested.

  “Miracologist,” Wunder said slowly, testing out the word. “Miracologist.” He nodded. “That’s it. I want to be a miracologist.”

  His mother laughed and put her arm around him. “Well, of course you do.”

  “I bet Father Robles knows all about miracles,” his father said. “We can talk to him on Sunday.”

  “And I’ll help you learn about the not-church ones,” his mother said as they started back down the path in the fast-falling darkness. “There are miracles happening all the time, all around us. And if anyone can find them, it’s you, my Wunder.”

  They bought him a journal the very next day—black leather with silver-edged pages and the title he had chosen stamped on the cover in white:

  THE MIRACULOUS

  As the years passed, Wunder filled The Miraculous with stories—his own and those he collected—with interviews of neighbors, with newspaper articles, with verses from holy books, with quotes from philosophers that he didn’t fully understand.

  And with every page, Wunder was full of the feeling that the world was wonderful, the feeling that he was not alone, the feeling that he was not just himself—not just Wunder Ellis—but something else too.

  Something lighter, something brighter, something lifted.

  He was filled with the heart-bird feeling.

  So yes, Wunder Ellis had believed in miracles. He had really and truly believed.

  Until the night before the funeral.

  Chapter 2

  On that night, the night before the funeral, Wunder still believed in miracles as he tried for the hundredth time to start the schoolwork he had missed over the last two weeks. His earth sciences book was open in front of him. It had been open for two hours, and in those hours, he had read the title of the chapter—“Trees of the World”—and he had stared at the pictures.

  Live oak. Sacred fig. Yew. Ash.

  Wunder stared at the pictures until branches and leaves and trunks blurred together, until greens and browns faded into a dark gray spot.

  Then he closed the boo
k.

  He still believed in miracles as he said good night to his father, who was sitting on the living room couch, a blanket and pillow beside him. His father had spent the evening staring at papers of his own—not “Trees of the World” but hospital bills and bank statements and a list of expenses for the funeral that Wunder’s mother did not want to have. When Wunder said good night, his father reached out his hand, but he didn’t look up from the paper-strewn coffee table.

  Wunder placed his hand in his father’s for a moment.

  Then he let go and left the living room.

  He still believed in miracles as he walked down the hallway, past his parents’ bedroom. The lights were off, the room was silent, and Wunder knew the door was still locked. His mother was inside. She had spent most of her time in her room since there was no longer any reason to spend most of her time in a hospital room.

  Wunder paused. He pressed his hand to the door frame.

  Then he went to his door, and he opened it.

  And it was then, at that exact moment, that he stopped believing in miracles.

  For the last five nights, Wunder had slept out on the couch. He had gone into his room only when necessary—to grab a new shirt, to put away his pillow.

  But he couldn’t sleep on the couch tonight, because his father was sleeping out there. His father was sleeping out there because when he told Wunder’s mother that he had arranged the funeral she did not want, she had locked the door to their bedroom.

  Wunder had been sleeping out there because of what was in the far corner of his room.

  And looking at it now, his heart absolutely did not feel like a bird. His heart felt like a broken promise. His heart felt like a stone, hard and cold and heavy.

  Then he looked around the rest of his room. It was, he realized, a miracologist’s room. But now, he wasn’t a miracologist anymore.

  He knew what he had to do.

  He went to the walls first. Down came the framed picture of himself as a baby, the words Where there is great love there are always miracles inscribed along the bottom. Down came a drawing of the Twin Miracle of the Buddha that he’d traced from a library book. Down came the Calendar of the Saints, still showing September 26, as if time had stopped on that day.

  Then he cleared off his desk, which was covered in the newspapers he scoured daily for stories of miracles. He tossed an old clipping from the Branch Hill Broadcast about his miracology. There was a copy of the speech he’d written for the first meeting of the Unexplainable and Inexplicable Phenomenon Society there too. He’d started the club at the beginning of the school year, and so far that first meeting was the only one he’d had.

  Now he was sure he would never have another one.

  From the bookshelf, he took down the eleven angel statues his father had given him, one for each year of his life. Then he started on the books—poetry, philosophy, scriptures from many faiths—all filled with miracles, all given to him over the years by teachers and family and neighbors.

  He tossed them to the floor, one by one.

  Then there was only one thing left. On his nightstand, worn black leather with a peeling white title—The Miraculous.

  He picked up the book. He ran his fingers along the silver edges, along the letters stamped on its front, then opened it to the first page. The writing there was his mother’s, because he hadn’t known how to write yet:

  Miraculous Entry #1

  My name is Wunder Ellis, and I am a miracologist. My mother says my birth was a miracle, but I don’t remember that. The first miracle that I remember happened yesterday. I was in the woods, and there was a bird—

  Wunder slammed the book shut. He didn’t want to read about miracles. He didn’t want to read his first entry, and he definitely didn’t want to read his last entry—the entry he’d completed five days ago, before he knew there would be a funeral.

  He didn’t want to read The Miraculous. So he threw it into the pile of discarded things.

  He threw it as hard as he could.

  Then he rolled everything up inside the rug and shoved it into his closet, behind his shoes, behind his laundry hamper, in the very back where he wouldn’t have to see it.

  Now his room felt like the stone of his heart. Cold. Bare. Dark.

  Except for the far side of the room.

  The far side of the room, where the bright, soft promise of something new stood.

  The crib.

  The crib was still there.

  “She’ll be in our room at first,” his mother had said just two months ago. Her face had been pink and glowing. “But once she outgrows her bassinet—once she’s sleeping through the night—what do you think about her being in your room?”

  Wunder had been expecting this question, and he was ready with his answer.

  “Yes,” he had told his mother. “Yes, I’d like that.”

  And the heart-bird had soared through him.

  But she never slept there, in the white crib with the flower-patterned sheet that his mother had washed over and over to take the scratchiness out of it.

  She never slept in the bassinet either, the bassinet next to his parents’ bed, ready and waiting for someone small.

  She never made it home.

  And if that wasn’t proof that miracles didn’t exist, Wunder didn’t know what was.

  Chapter 3

  The next morning, Wunder and his father walked silently through the woods together. Wunder had his hands in the pockets of his black pants. He was cold in the early-autumn air, especially in the shade of the trees, because he hadn’t worn his jacket. His jacket was sky blue, and sky blue was not a funeral color.

  His father was wearing khaki pants and an olive windbreaker, but he couldn’t help it. Wunder’s mother still had not unlocked the door.

  Wunder had now been in the woods hundreds of times. He rode his bicycle through them to and from school every day. They weren’t really on the way—in fact, they were very much out of the way. But he liked to stop at the toweringly tall live oak and stare down the dirt path, stare through the leaves and limbs at the DoorWay House.

  Just looking at the house had always been enough to give Wunder the heart-bird feeling. And he had always hoped that one day, he would see the spinning again. Or even hear the cawing bird.

  What he had never thought much about was what was on the other side of the woods—Branch Hill Cemetery.

  Now that was all he could think about. He didn’t even glance at the DoorWay House as they walked past. He knew there would be no spinning today.

  The woods ended at the cemetery gates. Inside them, a man in a long white robe was waiting. The man was very, very old with a stooped back and a frizzy halo of dark gray hair and glasses with thick black rims. In one hand he clutched a wooden cane. In the other he held some papers. With a scowl, he thrust them toward Wunder’s father.

  “Are you Mr. Ellis?” he cried. “You’re late, you know! And where is the mother? Where are the other mourners? Here, take these.”

  Wunder’s father took the papers, then stood, staring in confusion at the old man.

  “Where’s Father Robles?” he asked.

  “What?” the old man yelled.

  “Father Robles!” Wunder’s father said, louder. “He’s supposed to be here.”

  “Father Robles is out of town, you know! Come along!” The old man began to hobble down the cemetery path.

  Wunder looked up at his father, who was frowning now.

  “Well, then, where’s Deacon Brannon?”

  “They’re together! Meeting with the bishop, you know. Very important. That’s why I’m here.”

  “But who are you?”

  The old man didn’t answer.

  “Who are you?” Wunder’s father yelled.

  “I’m the Minister of Consolation, of course!” the old man cried over his shoulder. “I’m here to minister, you know. I’m here to console. So let’s get started!”

  The minister turned off the path and into the gr
ass at the base of the cemetery’s hill. Wunder’s father seemed like he was about to protest further. But then he sighed a deep sigh and followed the minister, his hand on Wunder’s shoulder.

  “Maybe it’s a good thing your mother didn’t come,” he said.

  Wunder had to agree. This very unconsoling Minister of Consolation would not have changed his mother’s mind. He certainly wasn’t changing Wunder’s.

  Wunder hadn’t understood before why his mother was so opposed to the funeral, why she had sent her parents and her sister home, why she had refused to speak to visitors, why she had shut herself in her room. But after last night, he understood. Because now he felt the same way.

  He didn’t want to listen to anyone read verses or pray or talk about how his sister was in a better place. He didn’t want to see the casket or the grave. He was glad no one else had been invited. He didn’t want to be there at all.

  So when the minister tapped his fuzzy temple and yelled, “I have the whole rite up here! The beginning is ‘Dear friends, death shows us how little we truly know’ or something like that,” Wunder shoved his hands into his pockets and tried to stop listening. He didn’t look at the minister. He didn’t look down. He stared, instead, at the top of the hill.

  The cemetery’s hill was the Branch Hill, the hill the town was named for. There were, however, no branches on top of Branch Hill. No trees. Not even a bush. While the minister yelled his way through the greeting, Wunder imagined each of the trees of the world up there, one after another.

  When he ran out of trees, he let his gaze drift back down the hill. There was another family there, a short, dark-haired woman and two girls standing in a semicircle around a gray gravestone. They were the only other people in the cemetery. All three wore black, but the smallest girl’s dark clothing billowed around her, like a flag, a black flag. Wunder thought he recognized her.

  “‘Behold! I tell you a miracle’!”

  Wunder turned from the empty hill and the girl with the black-flag clothing.