For the first time in the conversation, Wunder felt like the minister might actually have something to offer him. He noticed that Faye had scooched to the front of her seat. Maybe this was what the witch wanted to talk to the minister about. Maybe Faye had been right. Dark, terrible things had happened—his sister had died, and Florence had died—but maybe the minister knew how to find miracles in that darkness.

“Do you ever feel,” Wunder said slowly, tentatively, “like she could? Like she might be able to come back?”

Then he held his breath.

But the minister shook his head right away, his halo of gray hair bobbing his answer: no, no, no. “I don’t,” he said. “I feel like she is far away, very, very far away.” He looked back down at The Miraculous, back at Entry #603. “I feel, sometimes, like everyone is very far away, you know. Like I am the only person on the earth.”

Wunder let out his breath. Faye sat back in her seat. The room was silent.

Then Wunder did something he’d never done before. He pulled The Miraculous back to himself and very, very carefully ripped out Entry #603. “So you remember the miracle part,” he said. “And here’s your letter.” He held both out to the minister.

The minister took them. He set the Miraculous page gently, reverently at the center of his desk. Then he opened the envelope with a silver letter opener.

The paper he took out had the same aged look as the envelope. When he unfolded it, the light shone through, and Wunder could see words scrawled in the same script as the name on the outside. He couldn’t read them though.

The minister put his gold-rimmed glasses back on. Wunder watched as his eyes moved down the entire page, then went back to the top again. When he had completed his second reading, the minister yelled, “Who gave you this?”

“A woman from the DoorWay House,” Wunder replied.

“The DoorWay House?” The minister took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Have you read this letter?” he asked.

“No,” Faye said. “It was sealed when we got it. But we’re supposed to get one soon.”

“And we know it’s an invitation,” Wunder said.

The minister nodded a few times. “Yes, but an invitation to what?” he said. He looked very old and very, very tired. “I suppose we shall see.”

It was the quietest Wunder had ever heard him.

Chapter 23

The next day, Wunder didn’t go past the cemetery. He didn’t go into the woods. Delivering the letter hadn’t given him the answers he’d hoped for. The Minister of Consolation—even with his knowledge and his position at the church—seemed to be as angry and confused as Wunder. The minister didn’t have the answers.

But Wunder’s questions hadn’t gone away. In fact, they were louder than ever.

That was why he stayed away from the DoorWay House. He was afraid of how much he wanted to know what the witch was up to. He was afraid of how much he wanted to be wrong, how much he wanted the minister to be wrong. He was afraid of how much he wanted to believe in miracles again.