The Miraculous Page 10

  The witch raised her eyebrows and studied them with her black eyes.

  “Not yet,” she said finally. “Soon, I think. Yes, soon, soon, soon. But deliver these first, then come back for more. I have many, many more. And I am running out of time.”

  Wunder and Faye took the letters and The Miraculous and set off. They didn’t have to discuss where they were headed. They both knew that the cemetery was the only place to do this work.

  “There may be quicker ways to find these names,” Wunder said, opening The Miraculous on the bristly brown grass at the top of the hill, next to the memorial stone. “But if they’re in here, then I want to know about it.”

  And they were. As the afternoon wore on, Faye and Wunder found that every name on every letter had a corresponding entry. Every person was connected, somehow, to a miracle. And, Wunder was sure, every person had also lost someone, someone they loved.

  Wunder cut the entries out of The Miraculous, and Faye stapled them to the envelopes. Then they delivered the letters, the entire stack, that day.

  And the next day, they went back to the DoorWay House for more.

  Every day that week, the witch gave them letters. Letter after letter after letter. Letters to teachers and letters to neighbors. A letter to the owner of the Snack Shack and a letter to Wunder’s mother’s boss, Mrs. Atkins. A letter to Ms. Shunem and a letter to Vice Principal Jefferson. Letters to workers at SunShiners and letters to doctors at the hospital. A letter to Father Robles, who hugged Wunder and didn’t say a word about the Sundays he’d missed, and a letter to Faye’s pastor, Pastor Chung, who accepted it with a look of weary resignation at Faye’s cloak.

  Often, Wunder wouldn’t recognize the name on a letter. But then he would open The Miraculous. He would turn page after page after silver-leafed page until he found the miracle connected to the name. He would read the story and remember the first time he’d heard it.

  Most letters, he and Faye would leave without a word. Wunder would tape the envelopes to the doors, because he didn’t want them to blow away.

  But sometimes, the recipients were there.

  “I don’t know what this says,” Wunder would say, “but I know you’ve seen miracles and I know you’ve seen loss. And I think this letter has to do with both.”

  He would stay sometimes while they read The Miraculous entry, while they read the letter. And he would feel the ghost of that old feeling, the feeling that he was connecting the dots of people’s souls.

  It was different though. Before, he had collected the miracles for himself. Now he was sharing them.

  One afternoon, he and Faye were in the cemetery, searching through The Miraculous for the most recent batch of names.

  “I wonder if my mom will get a letter,” Faye said. She was lying on her stomach in the stubbly grass next to the stone, her cloak streaming behind her like a parachute.

  “Your mom?” Wunder asked. He had in fact been thinking of his own mother ever since he realized who was getting the letters. He had been thinking about delivering a letter to her, an envelope with Austra Ellis written on it, the black tree reaching out.

  “Yes, my mom,” Faye said. “Her father died, remember? My grandfather?”

  “I know,” Wunder said, although he hadn’t remembered in that moment. He tried to make it up to her by asking, “But you were closer to him than she was, right?”

  Faye was quiet for a long time, even longer than she was usually quiet. “I was close to him in one way,” she replied, “and she was close to him in another. But we don’t really get along, my mom and me. My grandfather never liked that. That was something he said to me before he died. He said, ‘This will bring you closer together. That’s what losing someone does.’” She wrapped her cloak around herself, tight, tight. “But I don’t think it has.”

  “Maybe you’re close to her the same way she was close to him,” Wunder suggested.

  “Hold on, Wundie. Let me think about that for a minute,” Faye said. Then she sighed. “No, I don’t think we are. She thinks I’m a weirdo. What about you and your parents? Are you close?”

  “We were,” Wunder said. He thought about how his father had been trying to be around more but still worked late most nights. He thought about how his mother had come out of her room a few times to watch television or eat with him, but how she didn’t talk much or smile and how she always went back to her room, how she always shut the door again.

  “You still are,” Faye assured him. “I’m sure you still are.” He hoped she wouldn’t say that Milagros’s death would connect them. And she didn’t. Not exactly. What she said was “Maybe we haven’t gotten to the close part yet. Maybe it takes a while.”

  “Maybe,” Wunder said doubtfully. “But the people we’ve delivered letters to, so many of them seem sad and lonely. And we never see them here, in the cemetery. Everyone stays away. It doesn’t seem like losing someone brings people together. It seems like it pushes them apart.”

  When Faye didn’t answer right away, Wunder looked over to find that her hood was up. She was completely hidden, a wind-blown, black cocoon.

  “My mom never talks about my grandfather,” she said, barely audible. “She didn’t even want to come to the graveyard on his birthday. How can his death bring us closer if she’s afraid to think about him?” The next thing she said was so soft, so near-silent that Wunder had to put his head down next to hers to hear it. “I think about him a lot.”

  Wunder didn’t sit back up. He stretched out on the ground, his hands fiddling with the blades of dry grass, his eyes on the black velvet of the hood. “I think about Milagros too,” he said. “Even though at first, I didn’t want to come to the cemetery either. And now I am, but my dad hasn’t been back and my mom has never come. And they don’t talk about her. They don’t talk about anything.”

  There was no answer from the cocoon.

  Wunder worried suddenly that he had offended her. He thought of what Tomás had said, that he’d known Milagros for only eight days. Faye had known her grandfather for her whole life. What if she thought he couldn’t possibly understand how she felt?

  “I know—I know it’s different,” he said, fumbling for words, “losing a baby sister and losing a grandfather. But I think some of what we feel is the same.”

  Faye pulled her hood off and got to her knees. Her face was flushed and her eyes were bright and wet. “Of course it is, Wundie,” she said. “That’s why we’re doing this together. Eight days or eight hundred years doesn’t matter.” She reached into her cloak and pulled out a bobby pin.

  When her hair was back, she stared down at him, right into his eyes, and asked, “What does time have to do with love?”

  And Wunder found himself smiling the tiniest smile back up at her. He didn’t need to worry about offending Faye. They had both been beckoned to the DoorWay House. They were both waiting for their letters. They had become friends in a cemetery. Faye understood. Even if she did call him Wundie.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Nothing, Wundie,” Faye agreed. Then she took the next letter out of a cloak pocket. “Now let’s get back to work.”

  Chapter 27

  The Miraculous was back on Wunder’s nightstand all the time now. He found himself reading through it even when he wasn’t searching for letter recipients. He never went to the last entry—he couldn’t do that yet; he didn’t want to do that ever. But he read everything that came before.

  He told himself he still didn’t believe in the miracles, but his heart seemed to think otherwise. While he read, the stone of his heart would grow warmer; the stone of his heart would stir and shift.

  And he was getting braver, delivering letters and sharing entries. He was getting closer and closer to being ready, ready to ask the witch for the truth, the whole truth, about who she was and what she wanted.

  After dinner one night, Wunder was flipping through a new stack of letters. He separated them into names he recognized—Alex Lin, Susan Holt, Mateo Ramos—an
d names he didn’t—Margot Arvid, Charlie Darrow, Afnan Khan. He knew the names he recognized must have entries in The Miraculous, but he couldn’t think of any of them off the top of his head.

  Until he came to the last letter in the pile:

  Mariah Lazar

  He knew Mariah Lazar. She wasn’t in The Miraculous exactly, but her children were.

  She had twins. Wunder had interviewed them at school last year. They had been in first grade, and he had been in fifth. Their teacher, Mr. Raavi, had once been Wunder’s teacher. He had listened to Wunder talk about his miracology, and he had seen The Miraculous once when Wunder brought it in for show-and-tell. After that, he had often brought Wunder stories to add to his book. The Lazar twins’ story had been one of them.

  Wunder found it in The Miraculous. It went like this:

  Miraculous Entry #1003

  Wunder: I am here with Jayla and Jayden Lazar to hear their account of their miraculous birth.

  *giggling from Jayla and Jayden*

  Wunder: Jayla, Jayden, can you tell me how old you are?

  Jayla and Jayden (together): Seven.

  Wunder: And where were you two born?

  Jayden and Jayla (together): Branch Hill Hospital.

  Wunder: Would you please describe the circumstances of your unusual birth?

  Jayden: We only know what our mom told us—

  Jayla: Because we were babies! We don’t remember.

  Wunder: I understand. Please tell me what your mother has told you.

  Jayla: Well, we were born early—

  Jayden: Really early. Only twenty-six weeks. It’s supposed to be forty weeks—

  Jayla: Twins come early most of the time, but not that early. And we were really, really tiny, not even two pounds. We were the smallest babies ever born at Branch Hill Hospital. We weren’t breathing when we came out and they had to hook us up to machines—

  Jayden: Like robots! And we were in the hospital for a long time, like months and months. But Jayla was in longer … something happened to her.

  Jayla: Something in my heart, my mom says. So I had to stay, but Jayden got to go home.

  Jayden: But then she came home too. You came home, Jayla.

  Jayla: I did. I came home too. We both did.

  At the time, it had just been one more miracle. There were always miracles about babies—babies born to mothers who thought they would never have babies, like his own mother; babies who survived horrible catastrophes unharmed; babies who lived when doctors predicted they would die. If you only read about miracles, you would think that babies always defied the odds.

  Wunder knew now that they didn’t. But Jayden and Jayla had.

  So why was their mother getting a letter?

  Wunder left his room and went to the kitchen. The visitors had stopped after a few days, the casseroles after two weeks, but the cards kept coming in, even now. There was a huge pile of them on the kitchen table. He sifted through until he found what he was looking for.

  It was the card that had come with the casserole on the day of the funeral. It read:

  No one can ever know exactly what another person is going through, but I do know about loss. When you are ready, please reach out to me. I would love to connect.

  It was signed Mariah Lazar. Her phone number and address were there.

  Wunder decided to go right away.

  Chapter 28

  The Lazar house was across town. Wunder rode his bike. He pedaled fast and with every rotation of the wheels, a new question came to him. It seemed to him that this was the letter he had been waiting for, the one that would hold answers. Here was a mother whose children had been saved. Here was a mother who had written to his own mother. Here, he hoped, was the end of his search.

  When Jayla opened the door, he felt like a primed pump. He felt like an overwhelmed dam.

  “Hi, Wunder!” Jayla cried. “Are you here to interview me and Jayden again?”

  “No, Jayla,” Wunder said. “Not this time. I need to talk to your mom.”

  Mariah Lazar was younger than Wunder had expected her to be, tall with long dark braids. She smiled when she saw him, the small, sad smile that Wunder was used to seeing now. She leaned on the door frame.

  “Wunder Ellis,” she said. “It’s so good to finally meet you.”

  “You brought us a casserole,” Wunder said.

  She nodded. “I did. Sorry about that; I’m a dreadful cook. I also lead a grief group at the community center, although there aren’t many people in it.”

  Wunder thought of the letters he had delivered, the dozens of people around town who had lost someone. “Why aren’t there?” he asked, surprised.

  “It’s easy to connect over the things that make us happy. It’s much harder to reach out when we’re sad. Even though that’s what we need.” She held her hands open. It looked to Wunder as if she was inviting him to hug her and also showing that she wasn’t hiding anything up her sleeves. “I’m hoping your parents will come and join us. When they’re ready, of course.”

  “My dad has been working all the time,” Wunder found himself saying. “And I don’t know if my mother will ever be ready.”

  “People handle grief in different ways,” Mariah replied. “Some want to be surrounded by friends and family. Some want to keep busy. Some want to be alone. Which is fine—for a while.”

  Wunder thought about telling her how his father seemed so lost and so lonely when he was at home. He thought about telling her how his mother still spent most of her time in her room, about how she would try to ask him about his day, then end up crying. But then he remembered why he was really there. He remembered that he was looking for answers.

  “Jayla and Jayden were miracles,” he said. “But you run a grief group. And I have a letter here for you. So I know that something else must have happened to you, something very unmiraculous.”

  Mariah took the letter. She let out a small sigh. “It was before the twins,” she told him. “I lost a daughter, like your mother lost your sister.”

  Wunder knew who it was. It came to him right in that moment. He could picture the gravestone: no dates, the flying bird.

  “Avery,” he said.

  Now it was Mariah who looked surprised, but she didn’t ask him how he knew. “Avery.”

  Then he couldn’t hold back anymore. “But do you think she’s gone?” he said. His voice sounded strange, not the flat, crushed voice of the last few weeks, but jagged and sharp, a broken voice. “Forever? Have you ever felt like she could come back? Or do you just feel sad? Do you just feel angry? Do you just feel lonely and confused all the time?”

  He was out of breath. He stared up at Mariah Lazar, gasping in the cool air, and she looked down at him, no longer smiling, but not upset either.

  “Those are a lot of questions,” she said. “And I would have to say that the answer to all of them is yes.”

  “How can it be yes?” Wunder asked. “How can it all be yes?”

  Mariah straightened up from the doorway. She leaned toward Wunder. “I have to believe,” she said, “that there are things I don’t fully understand about life and death. When I lost Avery, yes, it felt like she was gone. Gone for good, gone forever. And then some days”—she bent her neck so that she was even closer to him—“some days I will hear a bird sing or feel a raindrop and it will seem, for a moment, like she’s here. But it’s so quick. It’s not much.” She opened her hands again. “But some things help. Jayden and Jayla help. And that’s why I started the grief group.”

  “That’s how you remember the dead,” Wunder said.

  “That’s how I remember Avery,” she agreed. “There are so many beautiful and true ways to feel close to our lost loved ones.”

  Wunder felt tired. He felt too tired to ask more questions. He liked what Mariah Lazar had said. But it wasn’t enough. None of it was enough. “Thank you for talking to me,” he said.

  “You’re welcome, Wunder,” she said. “Anytime.”

 
She waited until he was on his bike before she shut the door. She shut it very gently. He didn’t even hear it click closed.

  And Wunder knew as he pedaled home that the answers he was looking for weren’t going to come from the families of the miraculous dead. He knew that he had spent enough time trying not to believe and he had spent enough time trying to find answers on his own. The only thing that would be enough was to talk to the witch—to ask her why she was there and what she wanted from him and who she was. To ask if she was his sister.

  But still, still, still he didn’t know if he could.

  Because if none of it was enough, then she was his last hope. She was his very last hope.

  Chapter 29

  Halloween was on a Wednesday that year, and Golden Fig Middle School had a costume party on the Friday before. Wunder wasn’t planning on going, but Faye had insisted.

  “Listen, Wundie. We have to go,” she’d said. “I have the best costume, but you’re the only one who will get it. So if you’re not there, no one will get it. Which I’m used to, but it would be nice to have someone get it. For once in my life.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll go. I’ll get it,” Wunder had said. “But I’m not wearing a costume this year.”

  “Mine will be supernaturally spectacular enough for both of us,” Faye had assured him.

  And when she walked into the school gym that Friday night, Wunder had to admit, her costume was pretty supernaturally spectacular. And he had to agree: No one else would get it.

  Faye wore a white dress. Around her arms, torso, and waist, she had wrapped white cloth napkins, a white bandanna, and even white toilet paper. She had a wig of long black hair, and her face was covered in painted-on lines—lines from her nose to her mouth, lines around her eyes, lines across her forehead. Wrinkle lines. She was carrying a stack of envelopes in her hand.

  Wunder laughed. “Everyone probably thinks you’re a mummy,” he said.

  “With this hair?” Faye tossed her inky-black locks back. “Not a chance.”