Wunder didn’t want her to say the other possibility again. “Yes, I do!” he cried. “But we’ll get caught. We’ll get in trouble.”

“We won’t,” Faye said. “Because I have a plan. And if we do get caught”—she raised her voice to a scream again—“I will place the blame squarely on the shoulders of Eugenia the Pink Priss!”

Chapter 14

Wunder had always marveled at kids who snuck out of their houses in movies. They made it seem so easy—opening their unsqueaky windows, shimmying down very sturdy drainpipes. He never thought he would be brave enough to do something like that. He was sure if he tried, he would be caught.

But on Saturday at midnight, he crept out of his room, left through the front door, and biked off down the street.

No one noticed.

Faye was waiting for him at the corner a few blocks away. She stood in a bright circle of streetlamp light, making it look like she was about to be abducted by aliens. Or like she had just been zapped down to earth.

“Wundie, turn that flashlight off,” she said as he rode up.

“We need it,” Wunder said. “How else will we see where we’re going?”

“There are streetlights some of the way,” Faye said. “And there’s the moon, the stars, et cetera. We’re going to break into a government building, Wundie. We need to be discreet.”

“Discreet like you were with Eugenia?”

“I’m sorry, what was that, Wundie? I can’t hear you when you mumble,” Faye said.

Wunder turned off the flashlight with a sigh and stuck it into his backpack.

But as they pedaled off, he wished he had kept it out. The darkness was so dark that he didn’t understand how Faye could see where she was going. He rode behind her, concentrating on the little red reflector on the back of her bike.

He knew that in another time, in different circumstances, this would be an adventure—riding his bike in near-total darkness while everyone was asleep, stars burning bright, bright above, sharp autumn air waking him up again and again.

But it wasn’t another time. It was now, and he was going to break into the town hall to prove that a stone in a cemetery wasn’t a miracle.

And not just that. Wunder knew that what he was really proving to himself was that none of it—the witch, the bird, the DoorWay House—none of it was a miracle. After tonight, he wouldn’t have to force himself not to think about those things, because he would know that they meant nothing.

After tonight, the stone of his heart would never warm again.

They rode their bikes to the back of the town hall and hid them in the bushes. Then Faye led him down a small flight of stairs to a basement door.

“How are we going to get in?” he whispered.

He had to wait for his answer while Faye slowly pinned back her bangs, then searched through the many pockets of her voluminous cloak. Finally, she held up a silver key. “My mom’s been setting up the chairs for church every Saturday afternoon since before I was born,” she said. “So she has her own key. Take that, Eugenia the Pink Priss!”