Things were getting worse, not better. Things were falling apart. His house used to be filled with love, but it seemed like that love was being washed away, was being buried, deeper and deeper every day.

“Listen, Wundie—” Faye began.

“I don’t want to go!” Wunder cried.

But, of course, Faye was waiting next to his bicycle that afternoon.

“I’m just here for another one of our walks,” she said. “Just walking. No witch talk.”

Wunder sighed. “You’ve said that before.”

“I mean it this time.”

“I doubt it,” Wunder said. But he went with her anyway.

It took only a few minutes of walking for Faye to break her promise.

“I know why you don’t want to go to the DoorWay House,” she said.

“Just walking,” Wunder reminded her.

“I lied,” Faye said. “Remember the first meeting of the Unexplainable and Inexplicable Phenomenon Society?”

Wunder sighed. “Of course I do.” It had been only four weeks ago, although it felt like much, much longer.

“Remember what you said at the end?” She pasted a huge grin on her face and stuck her hands into the pockets of her pastel-green-and-blue sweater dress. “‘To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle … unspeakably perfect miracles’!”

“I was quoting Walt Whitman,” Wunder said. “And I don’t smile like that.”

“Well, not now you don’t,” Faye said. “But that is a very accurate imitation of the way you smiled before.” She took her hands out of her pockets. “Like you really meant it.”

“I meant it then,” Wunder told her. “But I didn’t know then what I know now.”

Faye fixed her unblinking stare on him. “You didn’t mean it then,” she said. “You only thought you did because nothing bad had ever happened to you before. And now something bad has happened.”

Wunder waited to answer her as they passed the town hall. He didn’t see any police officers around, but he felt nervous anyway.

“I’ve had bad things happen to me before,” he said once they were a safe distance away.

“Like what?” Faye asked.

“My grandmother died.”

“That is sad,” Faye said. “Did you know her well?”

“No,” Wunder admitted. “She died right after I was born.” He thought for a moment, hands in his pockets. “I broke my arm when I was five. That’s how I met Tomás. In the emergency room. He’d broken his arm too. I thought it was a miracle at the time.” It was in The Miraculous, Entry #97.

“That must have hurt,” Faye said. “But I bet your mom held your hand and then you got ice cream or something. I bet you’ve never had anything really bad happen to you until now. That’s why you believed in miracles before and now you don’t.”

Wunder frowned at her. “Well, then, I guess you’ve never had anything bad happen to you, since you believe in all kinds of stuff.”

“Oh no, I have,” Faye said. “Don’t you remember my grandfather died?” She waved her hand through the air. “And my dad left when I was little. And my mother thinks I’m a weirdo. So does my sister, Grace.”