Milagros was dead. His sister was dead. She wasn’t going to come back. There was no way for her to come back. Nothing he had ever believed in was true, and his family was shattered into pieces, and the world was dark, dark, dark, and there was no brightness to be found anywhere.

Miracles did not exist.

He didn’t have any dreams that night. Not even one.

Wunder didn’t go to school the next day. He slept in, and no one came to wake him up. He spent the day lying in bed, his face turned toward the wall. The Miraculous was in his backpack, and he didn’t get it out.

He heard the phone ringing that afternoon and into the evening. His father was at work and his mother was almost certainly in her room, so no one answered it.

He didn’t go to school on Tuesday either. He didn’t stay in his room though. He spent the day biking around town. He knew someone would probably see him—after years of miracology and weeks of letter-delivering, almost everyone in town knew him by now—but he didn’t care. He biked past St. Gerard’s. He biked past the town hall. He biked past Safe and Sound Insurance and past the Lazar house.

He didn’t go past the cemetery though. He didn’t go anywhere near the woods.

He came home that afternoon, before school let out, before kids filled the streets, heading to their houses. He got enough snacks to last him the evening and then headed to his room.

But he stopped on the way there.

The door to his parents’ room was open. And no one was inside.

He heard the front door close about an hour later. Then the door to his parents’ room closed.

It was the first time Wunder’s mother had left the house in over a month. He wondered where she had been, but he was too tired to wonder for long.

Then his father came to see him after work that evening, another first. He hadn’t been in Wunder’s room since Milagros was born.

“How was school today?” he asked.

Wunder shrugged. He was back in bed. He was staring at the ceiling. He was trying his best to think about nothing.

“Fine,” he said.

Wunder’s father stood there in the doorway with his chin in his hand. He was frowning, and Wunder was sure he was going to tell him that he knew he had skipped school. He was sure that he was angry.

But then his father looked into the corner of the room. He looked at the crib there with its white flowered sheet, still made up, still ready and waiting and waiting and waiting.

Wunder’s father sighed. “Tomorrow, you have to go to school, Wunder,” he said gently. “And then you have to come right home. You’re grounded. For a long time.”

And the next morning, he was back.

“Time to get up.” He watched as Wunder sat up and swung his legs around. “I know you haven’t wanted to go to church, but I was thinking we could go together on Thursday, for All Saints’ Day.” He paused. “Or Friday. Friday is All Souls’ Day.”