“Are you Mr. Ellis?” he cried. “You’re late, you know! And where is the mother? Where are the other mourners? Here, take these.”

Wunder’s father took the papers, then stood, staring in confusion at the old man.

“Where’s Father Robles?” he asked.

“What?” the old man yelled.

“Father Robles!” Wunder’s father said, louder. “He’s supposed to be here.”

“Father Robles is out of town, you know! Come along!” The old man began to hobble down the cemetery path.

Wunder looked up at his father, who was frowning now.

“Well, then, where’s Deacon Brannon?”

“They’re together! Meeting with the bishop, you know. Very important. That’s why I’m here.”

“But who are you?”

The old man didn’t answer.

“Who are you?” Wunder’s father yelled.

“I’m the Minister of Consolation, of course!” the old man cried over his shoulder. “I’m here to minister, you know. I’m here to console. So let’s get started!”

The minister turned off the path and into the grass at the base of the cemetery’s hill. Wunder’s father seemed like he was about to protest further. But then he sighed a deep sigh and followed the minister, his hand on Wunder’s shoulder.

“Maybe it’s a good thing your mother didn’t come,” he said.

Wunder had to agree. This very unconsoling Minister of Consolation would not have changed his mother’s mind. He certainly wasn’t changing Wunder’s.

Wunder hadn’t understood before why his mother was so opposed to the funeral, why she had sent her parents and her sister home, why she had refused to speak to visitors, why she had shut herself in her room. But after last night, he understood. Because now he felt the same way.

He didn’t want to listen to anyone read verses or pray or talk about how his sister was in a better place. He didn’t want to see the casket or the grave. He was glad no one else had been invited. He didn’t want to be there at all.

So when the minister tapped his fuzzy temple and yelled, “I have the whole rite up here! The beginning is ‘Dear friends, death shows us how little we truly know’ or something like that,” Wunder shoved his hands into his pockets and tried to stop listening. He didn’t look at the minister. He didn’t look down. He stared, instead, at the top of the hill.

The cemetery’s hill was the Branch Hill, the hill the town was named for. There were, however, no branches on top of Branch Hill. No trees. Not even a bush. While the minister yelled his way through the greeting, Wunder imagined each of the trees of the world up there, one after another.

When he ran out of trees, he let his gaze drift back down the hill. There was another family there, a short, dark-haired woman and two girls standing in a semicircle around a gray gravestone. They were the only other people in the cemetery. All three wore black, but the smallest girl’s dark clothing billowed around her, like a flag, a black flag. Wunder thought he recognized her.