Wunder reeled at these words—but because Tomás was right. They always used to meet at Tomás’s locker, never his. And Tomás had been asking him to do things. Wunder’s anger started to die down.

Then, with one thought, it flared up again. “That may be true, but you haven’t said anything—not one thing—about my sister. You haven’t mentioned her once, neither of you! You’re both just pretending like nothing happened!”

“What are we supposed to say?” Tomás cried. “If you wanted to talk about it, you should have brought it up. And anyway, it’s not like it was your dad or someone you really knew. She was alive for what—a day? Two days? What’s the big deal?”

It seemed like the hallway went silent after these words. If there was noise, Wunder couldn’t hear it. All he could hear was the sound of his blood rushing past his ears and the sound of his own breathing, fast and tight. He saw Davy’s face, hands pressed to his mouth, aghast.

“Eight days,” he said. He might have been screaming or whispering, he couldn’t tell. He could hardly hear his own voice. “It was eight days.”

Then he left.

As he went out the front door, he felt someone touch his arm.

“Wunder. Wait.” He turned to see Davy following him. He looked like he was about to burst into tears.

And Wunder never would have thought that he would make Davy cry, not Davy, who had been his best friend his whole life, who brought him newspaper cuttings of miracle stories, who would do anything for him. Never, ever, not in a million years.

But he did.

“Just leave me alone!” he yelled.

He ran to the bicycle rack, where, of course, Faye was waiting for him. She watched impassively as he unlocked his bike chain and yanked it off, as he jerked his bike free.

“Wundie,” she said. “We need to talk.”

Wunder didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to keep asking himself question after question. He didn’t want to keep trying not to ask himself question after question. He didn’t want to wander around his house, the cemetery, his town like a ghost, angry and lonely and confused.

He was ready for some answers.

He shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out the letter.

“Not now, Faye,” Wunder said. “We need to deliver this.”

Part Four

THE LETTERS

Chapter 21

“Florence isn’t Sylvester,” Faye said for the tenth time.

They were riding their bikes across town, away from the woods and cemetery, toward St. Gerard’s.

“I know,” Wunder said for the tenth time. “But they have the same last name, and I don’t know any other Dabrowskis. Maybe they’re related.”

“So we’re going to go to the church and ask for Florence Dabrowski?”

“Why not?” Wunder asked. “It’s worth a try.”

St. Gerard’s was an old building, the oldest in town except for maybe the DoorWay House. It was, however, in considerably better shape. The outside was made of silver-flecked light stone that gleamed in the sun. A bell tower rose above the main building, its top a soft blue. The front door was blue too.