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.