But there was nothing.

There was only the witch, watching him from across the table with her black eyes.

“Who are you?” he whispered to her. “What do you want with me? What do you want with us, with all of us?”

“Only to help,” she said. “Only to show you—” She stopped and pressed her temples again. She shook her head slowly, back and forth. “Maybe it is wrong, maybe it is more than I am allowed, but I couldn’t go on without doing this. You may not understand, but I want you to believe—I want you to believe that there are miracles.”

“I don’t,” Wunder said. He was holding on to his right pointer finger with his left hand, squeezing it as if to stanch blood flowing from a cut. The stone of his heart was so heavy and so cold and his thoughts were spiraling, and he didn’t understand, and it wasn’t enough. “I don’t believe in anything!”

He fled from the room, fled into the darkness. He could hear the witch behind him, calling his name—“Wunder, Wunder, Wunder”—but her voice had grown so soft that it was only a whisper, a faint sound that the pounding of his feet covered up.

He was going so fast that he crashed into the dining room table. He struggled back to his feet and kept going. Through the parlor and into the hall where, off balance, he careened into walls that he could not see.

Outside, the weather had grown even wilder, the winds gusting even more strongly. Rain poured down and thunder cracked, close now. If the bird was still cawing, Wunder could not hear it over the storm.

He ran past the DoorWay House sign and down the dirt trail. He ran down the paved path and back into the neat row of homes that bordered the woods. The streetlamps were on there. The world looked so ordinary.

He stopped under a light and he took out the envelope. The rain turned his name into a blurry gray puddle, then erased it entirely as he opened the flap and removed the letter:

“Behold! I tell you a miracle. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed.”

Come to the highest point of Branch Hill Cemetery at sunrise on the second of November. In this place of remembrance and love, we will experience miracles, and we will all be changed. Together.

It was the same as the other letters. Exactly the same. Except for two words, scrawled at the bottom.

For Milagros.

Wunder put the paper, now soft and soaked, back into the envelope. He put the envelope into the pocket of his jeans.

He walked back on the main street. He didn’t care if anyone saw him.

When he got home, he climbed the stairs to the porch. He dragged the DoorWay Tree branch down the porch steps and to the side of the house. His bicycle was leaning there. The wagon was there too, the rope still hanging from its handle. His father had picked both up from the police station.