“‘Behold! I tell you a miracle’!”

Wunder turned from the empty hill and the girl with the black-flag clothing.

“‘We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed’!”

The minister bellowed these words. The sun was behind him, lighting up his halo of gray hair and his white robe.

Wunder felt the stone of his heart—cold, dark, and heavy—grow suddenly, slightly warmer.

Then the sun disappeared behind a cloud. The world became dark again.

Wunder glanced over at his father and found that he was crying. Silent crying, tears drip, drip, dripping. Wunder watched as one teardrop slipped off the end of his nose, past the papers he clutched, which read RITE OF FINAL COMMENDATION FOR AN INFANT. Down fell the teardrop, down toward the ground, down where Wunder had been trying not to look.

There was the grave.

And there was the casket—bright white, shiny, so small. He hadn’t known they made caskets that small. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected exactly—a normal-size one maybe, like there were at funerals in movies.

But, of course, that wouldn’t make sense. She wouldn’t need all that space.

As long as there were caskets so small, there were no miracles.

The stone of his heart went cold, cold, colder than cold again.

“Consolation, you know, and comfort and peace and good things!” the Minister of Consolation cried.

“Amen,” Wunder’s father said.

Wunder was silent.

“I have found that it can be consoling,” the minister said, “for the bereaved to put some dirt on the casket. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, as they say. So you can do that now, if you want.”

Wunder did not want to do that. He did not feel like it would be consoling, not at all. But his father’s hand was still on his shoulder, and there were still tears drip, drip, dripping from his eyes. So Wunder went with him.

There was a pile of earth on the other side of the grave. Wunder and his father each took a handful and placed it on top of the casket.

Like they were planting something.

Like something alive was going to rise out of the ground.

But it wasn’t.

She wasn’t.

His sister was dead.

Chapter 4

The sun was behind them as they left the grave site. Wunder could feel it on his back. Ahead of him, there were long dark shadows.

He fell behind as his father and the minister crossed the grass to the path that ran through the cemetery.

“But where is the mother?” the minister was yelling, even though Wunder’s father had already explained that she had chosen not to come. “She should be here, you know!”

The other family was leaving too. The taller girl and the woman were ahead of his father and the minister. Their arms were linked, and they walked briskly, leaning into the wind.

The smaller girl was far behind them, still near the grave site her family had been gathered around. She was moving so slowly that at first Wunder didn’t realize she was moving at all. With every step, she dragged her black-sneakered toes along the grass. But when she saw Wunder coming down the path, she sped up—just slightly.