Then, after one of the knocks, his bedroom door opened. His father was standing there. And behind him were Davy and Faye.

Davy was wearing his rock costume again. There were holes in the trash bag with pieces of newspaper sticking through.

Faye wasn’t dressed as the witch. She had on her cloak with the black dress she had worn to the funeral underneath. Her face was expressionless as usual, but Wunder knew that she was not serene.

“You’re not allowed to go out, Wunder,” his father said, “but I thought you could use some company.”

He left the door open, but Faye shut it firmly after him.

“Your room is very spartan,” she said.

“What happened to your pictures?” Davy asked. “And your books and your statues? You got rid of everything?”

“Except that,” Faye said. She pointed a gloved hand to the corner of the room. To the crib. “Why is that still in here? That’s awful.”

Wunder wanted them to leave. He got up from his bed. “Why are you here? You heard my dad. I can’t go trick-or-treating.”

“Wundie,” Faye said. “We’re not here about candy collecting. We know you’ve been avoiding us because the police took the branch, but we’re not mad. We understand. What were you going to do, fight the hair-flipper’s dad? But listen. You need to go see the witch. She’s been asking about you.”

“She’s not a witch,” Wunder replied.

“I know,” Faye said. “She’s not. I know who she is. And you do too.”

“An old woman,” Wunder said.

“Who she really is.”

“Probably a con artist. Or a lunatic.”

“What are you talking about?” Faye said. “Her name is Milagros.” She held up one finger. “She showed up the day after your sister died.” Another finger.

“She looks like your sister!” Davy said. “Well, like the picture I saw in the paper. Her eyes or something.”

“And she asked David all those questions about you,” Faye continued. “She had you deliver the letters, get the tree branch. And she—”

“The witch is not my sister!” Wunder yelled, angry that they were making him say those words, angry that they were making him even think them. “How could she be my sister? It doesn’t make any sense!”

“It’s a miracle, Wundie,” Faye said. “It doesn’t have to make sense.”

Wunder shook his head. “She was using us. She was trying to see what we would do for her!”

“Now you don’t make sense,” Faye said.

“Officer Soto said that tree we chopped up is really rare,” Wunder told her.

“Yeah, she told us that,” Faye said.

“Rare and expensive. She just wanted to sell it!”

Davy gnawed nervously on his bottom lip. Faye stared at Wunder, her face completely still, like she had been frozen. Shocked, Wunder thought. As shocked as he had been.

But he was wrong.

“Are you crazy?” Faye’s words exploded, high and sharp and loud. “That’s what you think? You think she was trying to run some kind of—of botanical-theft ring? That’s ridiculous!”