The Miraculous Read online

  Miraculous Entry #322

  Yesterday, I lit a candle at church for my dad because he really wanted the engineer job.

  Then today, he came home and told us he got it! There were a lot of other people trying to get that job, but they chose him. He’s really happy about it, and so is my mom, and so am I.

  Everyone said Wunder was like his mother—always smiling, always asking questions, always wanting to know more. They even looked alike, both tall with freckled noses and blue eyes and dark brown hair that would never lie flat.

  Wunder’s father, on the other hand, was quiet and serious, and even though he didn’t mind Wunder’s and his mother’s questions, he didn’t ask many himself. He was satisfied, he always said, with the answers he had.

  They were so different, Wunder and his father.

  But every week, they went to church together, sitting and standing and kneeling side by side. And Wunder had been sure that he had helped his father to get the job he loved. That miracle, he had felt, connected them to each other.

  Now, sitting alone at the kitchen table, eating casserole made by, the card said, Jairus Jefferson, Wunder knew that he hadn’t had anything to do with it. And now that he had shoved his angels into the closet, now that he never wanted to go to church again, now he wondered what would connect him to his father.

  He was almost finished with the casserole—which wasn’t so bad, a sort of taco salad—when his mother wandered into the kitchen.

  “Wunder.” She said it like she was surprised to see him, like she hadn’t expected him to be there. “Are you alone?”

  Wunder struggled to find the words to say. He wasn’t sure which ones would be right. “Dad had to work late,” he finally said.

  “He should be here with you,” his mother replied. She looked older and more tired than he had ever seen her.

  “He missed so much work,” Wunder said. “And I’m okay. I’m fine. I’m doing fine.”

  “I know you are.” She took out a can of soup, opened it, and poured it into a bowl. “But he should be here. And I should be too—I know that.” She wasn’t looking at him anymore. She was looking at the floor, gripping her soup bowl. “I know I should have let your grandparents stay—for you. And Dad’s family—I know they want to come so badly. But I need—I just need a little more time.”

  Then she hurried out of the room, taking the bowlful of cold soup with her. Wunder kept waiting for her to come back to heat it up, to come back for a spoon, but she never did.

  And he was left wondering what would connect him to his mother too.

  When he went to bed hours later, his parents’ door was shut again. He put his ear to the wood, but he couldn’t hear anything. His father wasn’t home yet. And the crib-bar shadows were already reaching toward his bed.

  Chapter 10

  The next day, Wunder stood at the bike rack after school. Around him, kids were climbing on buses or pedaling off on bikes, but he couldn’t leave yet.

  Not until he decided if he was going back to the cemetery or not.

  He knew he shouldn’t go back. He had told himself he would never go back.

  But last night, the cemetery had been all he could think about. The cemetery and The Miraculous, discarded so hastily, so unceremoniously.

  The cemetery, The Miraculous, and other things. Other things that he was trying his best not to think about.

  He could go back, he finally decided, but only to put The Miraculous in a final resting place. He could go back once more, then never again.

  He was about to head that way when Faye came meandering over.

  “Wundie,” she said. She wore pressed white pants and a magenta sweater. Her black cloak fluttered behind her. “We need to talk.”

  “It’s Wunder,” Wunder said. “Never Wundie.”

  “Wundie. Listen. I’m going to stop you right there,” Faye said. Her cloak was slipping off her shoulder, and she paused to adjust it. It took a long time. “We have more important things to discuss. I think you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t want to go to the DoorWay House,” Wunder said firmly, hoping that would end the conversation.

  Faye’s smudgy eyes widened. “Why not, Wundie?”

  “It’s Wun—never mind,” Wunder said with a sigh. “Because I don’t. There isn’t—there’s no witch.”

  Wunder said this, but when he thought of the woman sitting on her porch, it was now the word witch that popped into his head. That was what he was calling her to himself, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

  “How can you say that, Wundie?” Faye’s dreamy voice was starting to wake up. “After everything we’ve witnessed?” Her voice was growing louder, sharper. “The priest’s incantation! The killer bird! Et cetera! How can you refuse to investigate these inexplicable and unexplainable phenomena?”

  “He wasn’t a priest,” Wunder replied. “He was a Minister of Consolation. And the other stuff is—it’s ordinary stuff. Just a bird. Just an old lady living in an old house. That’s all.”

  Faye glared at him. “An old lady living in the DoorWay House. That’s not ordinary, Wundie. I hardly ever see anyone there!”

  Wunder was so surprised that he almost gasped. Other than the shadow in the window and now the witch, he had never seen anyone in the DoorWay House—or heard of anyone who had. He started to ask, What do you mean hardly ever?

  Then he remembered. He didn’t believe in miracles, even the ones that had happened when he was five. He didn’t want to know anything about the DoorWay House.

  “Not hardly ever,” he said, shaking his head. “Never. No one has ever lived there.”

  “I’ve seen things,” Faye insisted.

  Wunder shook his head again, this time harder. “You probably imagined whatever you think you saw,” he said, as much to himself as to her.

  “Don’t tell me what I have and have not seen, Wundie!” Faye shrieked.

  “Shh!” Kids were staring at them. He wanted to leave, but he was pretty sure she would follow him. She wasn’t going to give up. “Fine.” He sighed. “What is it you think you’ve seen?”

  Faye gripped the sides of her cloak and leaned toward him. “Shadows crossing the windows,” she said, her voice soft again, like they were telling secrets. “And my grandfather—” She stopped suddenly and threw the hood of her cloak over her head. She was silent, dead silent, for almost a minute. Wunder wondered if he should say something, do something. Then she flipped the hood off. “My grandfather said he saw those spirals moving once, spinning around.” She gave a nod of victory. “What about that?”

  For the first time since the day of the funeral, Wunder felt the stone of his heart warm. Faye had seen shadows in the DoorWay House, like he had. Faye’s grandfather had seen the spirals spin, like he had.

  But he didn’t want any of it to be true. It couldn’t be true. “No one has ever lived in that house before!” he cried. Now he was the loud one, he was the one kids were staring at.

  Faye held up one finger menacingly. Wunder was sure she was going to scream again. Or maybe jab him in the eyeball.

  Instead, she took a deep breath through her nose. Her expression melted back into blankness. Her finger dropped. “Fine,” she said. “There’s absolutely nothing supernatural going on at the DoorWay House that we need to investigate. So let’s just go on a nice, ordinary, boring walk instead, okay?”

  Wunder thought about telling her that she couldn’t come. But then he didn’t.

  Chapter 11

  As they started through town, Wunder was trying not to do three things.

  He was trying not to hear Faye’s words in his head: He saw those spirals moving.

  He was trying not to notice the stone of his heart, still not-so-cold inside him.

  He was trying not to wonder if the witch would be on her porch again, waving at him.

  He was trying, but he was failing on all three counts.

  But Faye, unsurprisingly, was not going to let him stay in his own though
ts. “Where are we walking, Wundie?” she asked after less than a block of silent strolling.

  “Just around,” Wunder said vaguely.

  “Around? What for? Exploring? Meditating? Achieving enlightenment? I know a lot about enlightenment. My grandfather and I talked about it sometimes. My mother didn’t like that, but my grandfather was very open. He said that if you want enlightenment, you have to accept that nothing in this life is permanent.” She paused. “I don’t think I’m very enlightened.”

  Wunder thought about his sister. What was more impermanent than an eight-day-old baby? But did he accept that?

  “I’m not trying to achieve enlightenment,” he said. “I’ve been—” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “I went back to the cemetery yesterday. I was thinking about going again.”

  “Three days in a row among the dead?” Faye shook her head slowly, her bangs brushing past her eyebrows and back. “That’s pretty morbid, Wundie.”

  “No, it’s not,” Wunder protested. “I’m not—I had something to leave there, and I didn’t get to—”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being morbid,” Faye said. “Why not spend time in a graveyard?” She spread her arms out, a side of her cloak clutched in either black-gloved hand. “Let’s go.”

  In the woods, the tips of the leaves were just beginning to turn red and gold. It was quiet there, and Branch Hill Cemetery was empty too, as usual.

  “So what should we do?” Faye asked as they passed through the iron gate. Her voice was hushed, and Wunder wondered if she was feeling the same way he was—like they really shouldn’t be there. “Aren’t you supposed to visit graves all the time and pray for the dead in your religion?”

  “I guess,” Wunder said, although so far Faye’s family was the only one he had seen there. “But I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to pray.”

  “I’m not here to make you pray, Wundie,” Faye said.

  Now that they were there, Wunder felt like he wanted to leave. The feeling of loneliness, of separateness he’d felt yesterday came over him again. All around were hundreds of monuments marking hundreds of dead bodies, each one sealed off, each one alone. It was terrible, almost too terrible to stand.

  “We’re surrounded by dead people,” Faye said, almost as if she could read his mind. She pulled the hood of her cloak up.

  “We are,” he said.

  “What’s even stranger to think about,” she said, “what I thought about when I saw you at the funeral, is that almost everyone buried here has a family living in this town. Branch Hill is filled with families of the dead.”

  Wunder nodded, remembering. He remembered what he’d thought yesterday—that each grave was its own sad, lonely story. If each of those stories belonged to a family in Branch Hill, then his town must have hundreds of people like him and Faye, hundreds who didn’t get their miracles.

  Which was further proof, Wunder thought, that miracles didn’t exist.

  They were near the base of the hill now. This was where he had dropped The Miraculous yesterday.

  But it was nowhere in sight.

  He was turning in a slow circle, searching for it, when Faye interrupted him.

  “What’s up there?” She was pointing to the treeless Branch Hill. Her cloak caught the wind, making her look like some great bird. “A grave? That wasn’t there the other day.”

  At the top of the hill, there was a shining spot, a glimmer that Wunder hadn’t seen before.

  “It can’t be a grave,” he told her. “There aren’t any graves up there.”

  Faye didn’t respond. She was already heading up the hill. Wunder followed her, trying not to think about his lost book, trying not to feel such a terrible weight in his stomach as he realized that it was gone, really gone.

  They climbed the hill, Wunder gaining on Faye and her slow gait. As they neared the top, Wunder saw that the glimmer came from a stone, like a gravestone, with silver writing on it and carvings of flowers in the corners.

  “It’s that verse!” Faye had reached the stone. “‘Behold! I tell you a miracle,’” she read aloud. “‘We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. Let us, then, change together. With great love, Milagros.’”

  Wunder was right behind Faye, but now he stopped. He gaped at her. Then he gaped down at the stone.

  The sun shone on it, like a spotlight, and the letters seemed to glow white-hot. The words were right there for him to see.

  “Wundie. What’s wrong?”

  Faye had come over to him. She held on to his arm and peered into his eyes. Her bangs were pinned back.

  Wunder pointed to the stone. “The verse,” he said. His voice sounded high and thin now, like he had suddenly become smaller, shrunken. “Milagros.”

  Faye gripped his arm even tighter. “Yes. Who’s Milagros?”

  A cloud passed over the sun and the words stopped glowing. In fact, Wunder couldn’t even make them out anymore. He squeezed his eyes closed. He blinked them open, hard. But the words were still a smudge of silver.

  “My sister,” he said. “My sister was named Milagros.”

  Chapter 12

  Wunder sat on the ground next to Milagros’s stone at the top of the branchless Branch Hill. He still felt dizzy and small and cold, even though the sun was back out. Faye sat cross-legged next to him, her magenta sweater hidden beneath her cloak.

  “There are a number of possibilities,” she was saying, her voice slow, contemplative. “Ghost is the most obvious and likely, I think.”

  “It’s not obvious,” Wunder said, “or likely.”

  “Your sister’s spirit was not at rest for some reason, so she ordered herself a rock thing and put it here. If that’s the case, maybe she’s happy now.”

  “I’ve never heard of a ghost ordering itself a gravestone,” Wunder said.

  “Another possibility,” Faye continued, “is that your sister has been reincarnated.”

  “When you’re reincarnated, you get reborn right away,” Wunder said. “So my sister would still be a newborn baby. How could a newborn baby order a gravestone?”

  “Reincarnated and a time traveler, then,” Faye said with a shrug. “You’re not being very open here, Wundie.”

  Wunder frowned at her. “She wouldn’t have the same name if she was reincarnated either. She’d be born to a totally new family with a totally new body. I don’t think you know anything about reincarnation.”

  “I know some things,” Faye replied, “but reincarnation is very complicated.” Then her eyes widened. The smallest smile lifted the edges of her mouth. “Must be a zombie, then. I love zombies.”

  “My sister is not a zombie!” Wunder cried. “This isn’t anything supernatural. This is—” He tried to think of an explanation, a rational explanation. “A coincidence. There must be more than one Milagros in Branch Hill.”

  “I’ve never heard that name before,” Faye said.

  Wunder traced the silver etching on the stone. “I chose it,” he said quietly. He’d spent hours researching, tabbing name books from the library, compiling lists, saying each possibility aloud. When he finally found the right one, he’d known instantly. “It means miracles. Like my name.” He stopped tracing the letters and put his hands in his lap. “Another explanation is that someone thought they were being nice—maybe someone my dad works with or my aunt Anita—and they had this memorial stone made as a—a tribute or something.”

  Faye gave a gloved-hand wave of dismissal. “You’re really reaching, Wundie,” she said. “I prefer my explanation. I know you were into happy, fuzzy-feeling phenomena, but I’ve always said there was something dark and malevolent about Branch Hill. Now we have a zombie and a witch.” Then her eyes widened again and her mouth dropped open. “The witch!” she shrieked.

  Wunder looked across the cemetery toward the woods. The tallest tower of the DoorWay House was visible over the tops of the gold-tipped trees. But with the sun in his eyes, he couldn’t make out the spirals. The wood seeme
d black.

  “What about her?”

  “Come on, Wundie! Think about it!” Faye leaped to her feet. “This graveyard is practically in her backyard. She can’t be some random woman who just happened to move into the DoorWay House right now. She must have something to do with it! What if she has everything to do with it? What if she can talk to the dead? What if she can raise the dead? Or what if—” Faye stopped pacing and leaned over him. Her cloak blocked the sun. “What if the witch is your sister?”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Wunder cried, his voice loud, louder than the thoughts that were now spinning through his head. “And even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t make any sense. My sister was a baby, remember? Not an old woman.”

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

  “It’s a coincidence,” Wunder replied angrily. “That’s what miracles are! Coincidences. Or lies.”

  “You know you don’t believe that, Wundie,” Faye said.

  “I do!” Wunder stood up. “Because it’s the truth! Did you know—did you know that Thomas Jefferson made his own Bible? He cut out every single miracle, chopped them right out with scissors because he knew they were lies. And did you know that there’s this principle—the law of truly large numbers—that says that with a big enough sample size, anything is possible? The things that seem like miracles are actually random events.”

  “I know about those things,” Faye answered him, “because you talked about them at the Unexplainable and Inexplicable Phenomenon Society meeting. And then you told us that there are all kinds of miracles and all kinds of ways to believe.”

  “Well, I don’t think that anymore!” Wunder paced the hill. He no longer felt small or cold or dizzy. He just felt angry. “And I’m going to find out who put up the stone somehow, and it’s going to be an ordinary person. And I’m going to tell them that they should take it down because even though it was a coincidence—even though they have the same name or they were trying to be sympathetic or whatever—it’s upsetting people. And that’s that.”