Soon they were walking side by side.

“I know you,” the girl said, and her voice was slow and dreamy, like someone sleep-talking. “You’re Wunder. We go to school together.”

Up close, Wunder definitely recognized her. She was very recognizable. She had black hair cut into a bob, and her overgrown bangs hung into her eyes, which were ringed in smudgy black, raccoon-like. She wore lacy black gloves with the fingers cut off.

And perhaps her most defining feature: She wore a long black cloak. Not just in cemeteries either. All the time. Wunder had heard Vice Principal Jefferson hollering through the halls about that cloak. It was against the dress code.

“We do,” Wunder said. “Faye.”

“That’s right,” Faye said. “Faye Ji-Min Lee. I came to the first meeting of your Unexplainable and Inexplicable Phenomenon Society.”

“I remember,” Wunder said.

What he remembered was that at the first meeting of the UIPS, Faye had been the only attendee, other than Wunder’s two best friends, Davy and Tomás. She had arrived late and had promptly climbed on top of one of the desks. After settling her cloak around her, she had sat, cross-legged, silent, and expressionless, for the entire meeting. At the end, she had climbed down, leaned closer to Wunder than he felt comfortable with, and said, “I don’t know how I feel about your excessive smiling. And I was hoping to hear more about the darker side of supernatural activity. But I’m glad you started this club. I’ll attend the next meeting.”

Wunder hadn’t been sure how he felt about her then, but he knew one thing for sure—he did not want to talk to her now.

He sped up.

But so did Faye.

“We’re here because it’s my grandfather’s birthday,” she said. “Well, it would have been. He’s been dead for a hundred and seven days.”

“Oh,” Wunder said. “I’m sorry.”

Faye waved one black-gloved hand slowly, languidly. “You didn’t kill him, did you, Wundie?”

Then she stared at him until he felt like he had to say something. “No,” he said. “No, I didn’t. And it’s Wunder, not Wundie. No one calls me that.”

Faye didn’t seem to have heard him. “Is this the funeral? Ms. Shunem told everyone about your sister in science class. Did you know we’re in the same science class? Why isn’t anyone else here? Is that a priest?” She waved her black-gloved hand ahead of her now. “There’s no priest at our church, just a pastor. Well, it’s really my mother’s church. I go sometimes, and my grandfather did too, but he was very open to other ideas, and so am I. I happen to be interested in the paranormal—ghosts, vampires, banshees, et cetera.”

This string of questions and information was delivered in a dreamy monotone, and at the end of it, Wunder found himself openmouthed but at a loss for words.

So he decided not to say anything. He closed his mouth and shrugged.

Faye shrugged back at him. “Well, your priest is extremely strange,” she said.