“The one about my mom getting better is my favorite,” Davy said. “But that’s my second favorite.” He wasn’t biting his lip. He was smiling.

Wunder smiled back at him. “It’s one of my favorites too.” Then his smile faltered as he remembered again how just two days ago, he hadn’t been friends with Davy. “I really am sorry about how I was. Before.”

Davy shrugged. “It’s okay, Wunder. You were sad. I’m still your friend. I’ll always be your friend.”

“Wundie. David.” Faye’s voice was slow but very, very loud. “We get it.”

Wunder turned to Faye. “You’re my friend too, Faye,” he said. She flipped her hood up over her head. “I hope you know that. Without you, I would never have figured out about the memorial stone and I would never have gone to see the witch and I would never—”

“Wundie! Enough!” Faye yelled, her voice shrill and deafening even through the hood. “I’m your friend too. Now read us another miracle. Something about people coming back from the dead. I think we need some more information on how that traditionally works.”

So Wunder read about Lazarus. Then he read about Bodhidharma and about the daughter of the centurion and about a woman from Mississippi who was dead for three days and then sat up in her coffin at her own funeral and asked for some sweet tea. He read about holy men who were taken up into the sky and saints who climbed out of their graves and how all of nature was reborn each spring. Every time he thought there were no more dead-coming-back-to-life entries, he would turn the page and find another. As it turned out, The Miraculous was full of resurrections.

Faye and Davy were a good audience. They asked questions and gasped at the right parts and said, “Next!” after each one. And as Wunder read, he felt more and more like he used to, like the miracles he was telling them were true, like the miracles he was telling them were proof that the world was full of love and full of mystery, a mystery that he was a part of, a mystery that never ended.

Almost like he used to, but not quite. He knew now that wasn’t the whole story. He knew there was more: darker things, painful things. But for that time, on the train, on the way to get the branch from the DoorWay Tree, all he was thinking about was the miraculous.

Chapter 34

When they reached Benedict, they rushed off the train before the conductor could come and escort them to Faye’s father who, of course, would not be there. The tool-filled wagon clang-clanked as they raced through the station.

“We made it!” Wunder cried as they burst through the doors and into early-afternoon sunshine. The train station was located in what looked like the center of the town. There was a library and a post office and a large stone town hall in front of them, then lines of shops. There were a lot of people too, going in and out of these places.