The ticket agent considered this, his head bobbing back and forth. “Well, I don’t follow any particular religion, but yes, I’d say I’m a man of faith.”

“Then you have to believe that we need this tree branch,” Wunder said. “And we need it in Branch Hill.”

The agent didn’t answer right away. He studied Wunder and Davy and, for quite a bit longer, Faye and her cloak. He studied the branch in the wagon. Then the train whistled from somewhere nearby.

“Good luck then, I guess,” he said with a shrug.

When the train pulled up, he watched as they climbed aboard. He was still watching as they pulled away.

“Can you believe that?” Wunder cried, collapsing onto a seat. “Can you believe us? We did it! We got it! Look at this thing!”

“Yeah, great,” Faye said. “Now we can plant it for the witch so she can grow some kind of magical child-eating tree or harvest some kind of fruit for her spells.”

“She’s not a witch,” Wunder said. “She’s—she’s—”

He stopped talking and grinned. He didn’t know what she was. He didn’t know who she was. But he would know soon.

The conductor came around, but this one seemed even less devoted to the welfare of her young passengers. She didn’t ask questions, just checked their wristbands and marked their tickets. They ate the last of their sandwiches and apples and some jelly beans that Faye found stashed in one of her many pockets, as the train chugged toward Branch Hill. After a few hours, Faye and Davy fell asleep, Davy leaning on Faye’s cloaked shoulder.

Wunder didn’t sleep. He watched the dark world blurring past his window. He thought about the houses they were passing, the people who were surely asleep as the hour grew later and later. He thought about the lives that were being lived just outside that piece of glass, and the lives that had ended in those very same places. He thought about the pain and the love that was unfolding all over, all around him, everywhere, everywhere. Even inside himself.

And he wondered what would happen when he planted the branch. He wondered what the witch’s miracle would be.

He fell asleep, only for a minute. And he had a dream.

In his dream, he dug a hole on Branch Hill, in front of the memorial stone, its silver words glinting in the moonlight. He stood the branch up in the hole. It rose high above his head, white flowers swaying in the night breeze.

But then instead of growing, the branch began to shrink, smaller and smaller and smaller. Flowers fell to the ground. Little branches pulled back in until there were only four sticking out, each one ending in a cluster of tiny twigs. A wooden knot swelled at the top of the branch. A hole opened there and a cry came out.

It was a baby. A DoorWay Tree baby. It was Milagros.

“‘Behold!’” the baby said, and her voice sounded soft and far away. “‘Behold! I tell you a miracle. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed’!”