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Chapter Text

Bruno raced through the trees, his feet snagging on hidden roots and vines as he stumbled across the leafy floor. His sandals held no grip on the slick, damp leaves, and he slid too far as he turned a corner around a random tree, struggling frantically to right himself before too much time was lost, before the space closed between predator and prey. 

His heart thundered in his chest as he reached a clearing, his pace slowing despite his panic as he ran out of breath and direction. Should he try to run back into the trees? Should he try to climb a tree? He could hear the pounding drum of paws gathering behind him, and he let out an involuntary yelp as he changed course and scrambled for the nearest branch. He didn’t make it. 

He felt something grab the edge of his ruana, and he stumbled to the ground, wincing as his palms scratched against dirt and sticks and pebbles. He rolled onto his back and threw his hands over his face in a frantic, pointless attempt at self-preservation. He felt heavy paws land deftly on his chest, pressing out a very undignified whimper. He could feel the hot, humid breath of the jaguar as it leaned close to his arms, and he pulled them tighter over his face. 

“Got you! ¡Tú la traes!” [ Tag, you're it!] shouted Antonio from the animal’s back. “You’re fast!”

Bruno lowered his arms slightly as he heard another set of feet crash into the clearing, and he turned his head just in time to see Mirabel stumbling onto the scene, clutching her side and leaning over as she attempted to catch her breath. Her glasses slid off her nose and she reached out fumbling hands, barely catching them as they fell. 

“Antonio!” Mirabel said through huffing gasps of air. She threw the arm that held her glasses out again and again, as if she could brush the jaguar aside from where she stood, hand on her knee, in the clearing. “Get–get off him!”

The jaguar’s paws retreated from his chest, and Bruno pulled his arms down from his face. He lifted his head to check that the animal had in fact moved back sufficiently far from where he lay, as directed, before letting his head fall back to the ground and covering his face with his hands instead. He let out a strangled, pitiful moan. 

“That–that–that…that is NOT what I thought you meant when you said tag,” he exclaimed, his voice muffled into his hands. He felt Antonio approach him on foot and crouch next to his head. His small hands pulled two of Bruno’s fingers apart to create a crack in the makeshift shield, and he peered through it with a concerned expression.  

“Oh. Do you want to be ‘it’ this time?” he asked innocently, and Bruno let out a high-pitched laugh and sat up on his elbows. 

“On Parce?!” he said incredulously. 

“Yeah!” replied Antonio, perking up. "He’s really strong, and you’re not all that much bigger than me, so I think you could ride him just fine!” 

Bruno scrunched his eyebrows together and looked at his sobrino with a mix of affront and horror, unsure which part of that terrifying sentence he should address first. Mirabel spared him his reply as she walked up and knelt beside Antonio. A snigger escaped her as she passed Bruno a small piece of a cold arepa.

“For your hands,” she said with an amused smile, gesturing with pointed lips at his scraped palms, and then she turned and gently ruffled Antonio’s hair. “I think we should take a break for lunch, chiquito.”

Antonio gave another slightly worried glance toward Bruno before standing and taking the blanket Mirabel handed him from her bag. He walked a few feet away to lay the blanket out in the clearing, then turned with a smile as a host of animals skittered from within the forest’s fringe to sniff at the corners of the fabric. He knelt and began to chatter happily to them. 

Bruno turned and found Mirabel’s hand in front of his face, extended to help him up. He glanced sheepishly up at her still grinning face as he popped the arepa morsel in his mouth. He brushed his healed hand along his ruana, knocking some of the dirt from it, before taking her hand and letting her pull him to his feet. 

“You are fast,” she said, laughing as she reached to pull a twig from his hair. He bent his head forward and ran a rough hand through his loose curls, sending a variety of sticks and leaves raining to the floor. 

“Yeah, y-you’d be fast, too, if you had a jaguar chasing you,” he grumbled back, but Mirabel was already walking to the blanket, pulling a wrapped bundle of food from her bag as she approached the picnic spot. He followed after her, mumbling as he went about the inherent dangers of ‘fresh air’ and ‘bonding time.’ 

That was what got him in this situation in the first place after all, being chased by a large apex predator, far away from the safety and comfort of Casita. 

“You need to get out of the house, hermanito,” Julieta had said to him gently one evening after dinner as they washed dishes together. “It’s…been a while, sí?”

“Eso se queda corto,” Pepa had mumbled as she dumped some more dishes into the soapy water, earning a glare from both of her siblings. [ That's an understatement.] She widened her eyes at them as if to say What? Am I wrong?

“I’m just saying ,” Julieta continued, pointedly moving past Pepa’s comment, “that it might do you some good, to have a little more change of scenery.”

“I-I think I’m doing just fine,” he replied a bit defensively. And he did. He went for walks with Dolores around the perimeter of Casita, down to the river where it ran past the southwest edge of the grassy lawn. Sometimes he’d wander out back behind the house, napping in the afternoon sun before it disappeared behind the mountainous wall that guarded the back of their home. Compared to the previous ten years, he was a veritable expeditionist now. 

“Of course you are,” Pepa said, putting an arm around his shoulders. He hunched them in response, glancing at her suspiciously. 

“Y-yeah?”

“Yeah! You’ve made it to the edge of the grass! That’s like, what, un kilómetro cuadrado, yeah? A completely normal amount of space for a person to exist in.” 

[One square kilometer.] Bruno’s frown deepened. “You’re mocking me.” 

Pepa winked at him. 

“A-alright, alright,” he said, waving his hands in the air beside his head in surrender. “I’ll, uh, I'll go to the banana fields tomorrow. As long as it’s not a harvest day,” he added, pointing a finger at Julieta, who rolled her eyes good-naturedly at him. “Or an irrigation day. Or you know…a-a day with other, um, other people there.” 

The busyness of rebuilding Casita last year had given him enough social interaction outside his immediate family to last him quite a while…a very long while. Thankfully, he’d been able to largely lose himself in the organized chaos of it all, and Mirabel had been particularly helpful, working as a liaison between him and anyone he’d had to interact with, smoothing the awkwardness away with her easy conversation and joyful presence. And he had managed to largely ignore the curious stares that came from, well, from pretty much everyone until the novelty of his return had worn off. Well…at least he had pretended to ignore them. 

“I don’t want to pressure you, arenoso,” Julieta said gently, putting a slightly soapy hand on his shoulder. “I just don’t want…”

…don’t want you to get lost again. She’d let her sentence trail off, but the unspoken ending hung awkwardly in the air anyway. They’d both turned back to their dishes, with Pepa standing stiffly beside them, hugging a freshly dried plate to her stomach. The cloud above her head darkened just a little. Bruno winced down at the soapy water as the silence surrounding them grew painful.

“H-hey, maybe you can spend the day with Antonio tomorrow?" Pepa offered nervously, popping the tension like a soap bubble. "He needs a…a break …from routine, too."

Bruno and Julieta looked at their sister with matching frowns, both narrowing their eyebrows in concern. It would have been comical or even sweet to see the same expression mirrored between her two siblings again…if she didn’t feel the weight of the very same concern pulling down the corners of her own mouth. 

Antonio had been struggling to find a place for himself in the Madrigal visits to town. Before his gift, he might have shyly clung to Mirabel’s skirts or played in the dirt while Pepa rained on the fields, never quite brave enough to venture out to play with the other children on his own, refusing to speak to the adults that smiled down at him. Pepa worried about his shyness.

But now a different problem had presented itself. Antonio was now more than happy to engage with anyone and everyone, possessing a newfound courage with his animal friends by his side, but his animal friends were also decidedly wild, and even Antonio could not control every move they made. Just last week, some monkeys that had trailed him into the town had wandered away and found some storage crates of fruit, working together to drop them from the roof of a nearby house until the crates smashed open and spilled out a feast that was then fit only for them. The owner of the crates had not been happy.

Most of the jungle animals had largely maintained a healthy, fearful distance from the bustling, busy streets of the Encanto for the fifty years it had occupied the valley, but Antonio’s warmth and friendship seemed to have blurred that boundary, and Abuela was struggling to find a balance between loving encouragement and civic order. And when Abuela struggled with something, all the Madrigals struggled with her, in one way or another. 

“...Mamá suggested that maybe Antonio might spend some time in the forest paths, playing with his gift,” Pepa explained, putting away the plate so she could pull at her braid. A knowing glance between all three siblings conveyed the underlying meaning of the word play—learn to get it under control. “Félix was going to take him, but you two get along so well, Bruno. Maybe you could spend some time with him, and you both could enjoy the fresh air. You know. Bonding?”

Bruno blew out an exaggerated breath, his cheeks puffing and his shoulders dropping dramatically. He pulled his mouth to the side and looked at Pepa with an expression of reluctant concession. How could he say no to a whole day with his sobrino? He loved the kid. And the very fact that Abuela had been the one to suggest the break from town…well. He knew what that felt like. No matter how nicely she put it, how lovingly she intended it, he knew it would feel like a punishment to Antonio. That thought…well that thought broke his heart a little. 

“...F-fine,” he mustered in response. “We’ll go for a walk in the–- ” he swallowed dryly“ –- i-in the forest.” 

A bit of sunlight broke through from behind the cloud above Pepa’s head, and Bruno couldn’t help but flash a small, crooked smile up at it. She pulled him sideways by his collar and planted a kiss on his cheek, which he winced at but accepted gratefully. Julieta nudged him with her hip. 

“There you go! That will be fun,” she said happily, clearly convinced this was a fantastic solution for all parties. Bruno was not so sure. “Take Mirabel with you, too, if you want. You know she’d love to join her two favorite people for the day.” 

Bruno had raised his eyebrows in surprise at that. Favorite people? Was he included in that list? Julieta had just smiled and turned back to the dishes. It had taken Bruno a moment, but he also slowly resumed his duties, finding he couldn’t put away the little smile on his own face that had arrived at the thought that he might be someone’s favorite. 

So here he was now, sharing a picnic blanket with a sloth and a capybara—among other crawling, flittering things—nursing a bruised ego after having been tackled by a six year old on a jaguar, all because he was a pushover who couldn’t say no to time with his sobrinos. 

Caray . The things I get myself into…

Mirabel moved to begin passing out empanadas from the little cloth bundle she'd just untied, but she paused and pulled her hand back when the animals around them inched forward to sniff at the food. 

"Nyah-uh! Nope. Sorry Toñito, we didn't bring enough to share today." She eyed the sloth, who had continued to move its head toward her hands in slow defiance.  

"It's okay! It's not good for them anyway. Empanadas give Alejandro—”

“Okay! Okay, no empanadas for Alejandro,” Bruno interrupted, reaching out a flapping hand to reverse the direction of the sloth’s sluggardly advance. Antonio sent a pointed look around the mischievous group and they all gradually eased back, some leaving altogether once the prospect of food was gone. Mirabel handed him an empanada. Bruno took one of his own and chewed thoughtfully, glanced down at it with a suspicious eye. 

Huh. Potatoes…no meat.  

Juli had been careful to adjust her cooking for her sobrino, who was much more sensitive to the food being brought before him, now that he, ya know, could potentially have had a conversation with it and all. She’d had more time to, after all, what with the revamped magic messing with many of their gifts. 

For one, they’d found that the food Julieta cooked held its healing powers much longer, and she no longer had to serve it from her own hand for it to take some sort of effect. A fantastic development. Except…except that that eventually drilled down to fewer hours at her table in the square, and his poor sister hardly knew what to do with the new measure of freedom. It seemed that more cooking was her current solution. Ay, Juli.

As if on cue, Bruno felt the aches and pains that had arisen from his earlier mad dash slowly fade away beneath his sister’s gentle magic. He rolled out his shoulders. 

Ooofph . He may be fast, but he wasn’t quite as spry as he used to be. I should have stretched first, he mused.

“So, the animals,” he said out loud, helping himself to another bite. “You, uh, you can talk to them without speaking now?” 

“Sort of!” Antonio replied, brightening as he always did at the chance to talk about his animals. “Most animals don’t talk with their mouths, they talk with their bodies, too, so I thought, maaaaybe I don’t always have to use my mouth either! I’ve been practicing.” 

He flashed Bruno a proud grin. 

“That’s great, Toñito!” Mirabel said, nudging him with her elbow.

“Thanks,” he smiled shyly, pleased as always with the encouragement Mirabel showered on him constantly. “I thought, maybe, if I could get good at talking in other ways, then I could…then maybe…maybe Abuela would like that.” His voice trailed off at the end. He took a bite of his empanada and looked down while he chewed. 

Mirabel frowned and looked at Bruno, who had brought his eyebrows together and lowered his food to his lap. He glanced back at her, his mouth tightening with the shared concern. 

“I-I think Abuela is plenty proud of you, kid,” he offered. 

His stomach clenched uncomfortably as he said it, almost as if he wasn’t quite sure himself. She was. She was proud of him, of them all, he–he knew that…though perhaps his heart wasn’t so easily convinced as his head. He prayed the hesitancy didn’t come across in his voice, and adjusted to take a more irrefutable route.

“You know I’m proud of you. We’re all proud of you, a-and not just because you can talk to capybaras.”

“And jaguars,” Antonio added, perking up slightly.

“And sloths,” Mirabel said, reaching out to tickle his side. He giggled and pulled away from her wiggling fingers, and his smile returned in full. 

“Tío Bruno’s right.” Mirabel continued. “I know I’m proud that I have the world’s very best primo!” She put a hand beside her mouth and added in a loud whisper, “ Just… don’t tell Camilo I said that. ”

Antonio gave a little hum of contentment and resumed eating, but Bruno did not pick back up his food. He suddenly didn’t feel hungry anymore, his stomach still tied in knots. Out of the corner of his vision, he could see that Mirabel was eyeing him with concern, but he didn’t meet her gaze. Instead, he just picked a potato carefully out of his empanada and offered it up to the bright blue and black bird that had fluttered down from the canopy to land on his shoulder during their conversation. He smiled weakly at it as it pecked curiously at the potato, but then brought his shoulders up in wincing surprise as it abruptly hopped up to perch on his head instead. 

“Not a fan of potatoes, eh?” he muttered, wincing again as the bird pulled playfully at his hair. 

“He likes fruit,” Antonio said softly, mouth still full of empanada. “Or bugs.”

“Mmm.” Bruno almost nodded, but stopped himself as the bird adjusted its footing on his head. “What, uh, what kind of bird is he?” he asked, fully aware he was opening the door for his sobrino to begin a full avian lesson. Antonio did not disappoint. 

“He’s a cotinga, and his name is Zulito,” he said, swallowing his bite. Instead of taking another, he took a breath and began rattling off a constant stream of information about the bird’s habits and preferences. “His favorite fruit is breva, if he can find it, but he doesn’t like the seeds, he spits those back out…”

Bruno listened contentedly as his sobrino rambled on, and he felt himself relax a little more–-a remarkable fact considering he was currently balancing a bird on his head and sitting within five feet of a jaguar. The bird tugged again at his hair, but not enough to hurt. It leaned forward upside-down, directly in Bruno’s field of vision, observing his human perch with beady black eyes nestled in a jewel feathered head. Bruno smiled crookedly up at it. 

Bruno had noticed that the animals seemed to warm up to those that Antonio was comfortable around, and he was no longer a stranger to the occasional bird or lemur taking up residence on his shoulder while he was around the kid, much to the aggravation of his rats. If anything, he was starting to enjoy it–-as long as it wasn’t a carnivore snuggling up to him, of course. It was almost as if he could feel the warmth of Antonio’s magic fill the space around them each time an animal came to rest unnaturally close to him, and that warmth felt like such a part of his sobrino that he couldn’t help but love it, too. 

Mirabel was smiling at him now, a butterfly landing in her own hair, and then another on her nose, making her go cross-eyed. He grinned at her, feeling the knot in his stomach loosen. Being around these two just…well, it made the world seem magical again—a sentiment he couldn’t remember having felt for a great, long while, despite having grown up with magic literally coursing through his veins. Even this far from Casita, he found he was suddenly right at home again. 

A few animals had slowly begun broaching the boundaries of the blanket as Antonio spoke, curling up on the corners or leaning heavily against the trio’s backs, some pawing playfully at the edges of their clothing. Bruno took another bite of his food and settled in to learn all about cotingas . 

—

An hour later, Bruno had reclined back on the blanket, one hand behind his head and one resting in a loose fist on his chest, settled into a rare and welcome moment of pure tranquility. He stared with relaxed eyes at the leaves of the trees blowing gently in the breeze above them, a blue sky winking through in the spaces between. Mirabel was leaning against his bent legs like a reclining chair, Antonio pulled into her lap, finally eating his empanada. After both she and Bruno had finished their food, Mirabel had made Antonio pause the bird lesson so he could actually eat his own lunch, and he’d happily crawled into her lap to do so. Now they sat in peaceful silence, listening to the animals chirping and cawing around them and to Mirabel’s gentle humming as she rubbed her hand back and forth across her primo’s shoulders. 

The animals sensed the impending vision a second before he did. 

A couple of the birds that were pecking at the blanket near his head fluttered off, and the sloth, who had clung rather oddly to Bruno’s legs and settled heavily on his stomach slowly turned to look at him until it’s head sat almost backwards on its body, fixing him with a lazily curious gaze that made Bruno quite uncomfortable. He opened his mouth, about to ask Antonio, D-does Alejandro need something or…? when he felt the gentle whispering brush of the future’s fingers against the back of his mind, and he sat up, tension instantly shooting through his body. Mirabel jumped and turned to look at him—much more quickly than the sloth had—startling away the rest of the birds that had remained near them. 

Bruno took a breath and forced his shoulders to relax, willing his chest to loosen and his heart to slow back down. 

“Is it a vision, Tío?” Antonio asked quietly, looking from him to the animals and back in a way that suggested he already knew the answer. 

“Yeah, kid. Sorry to-to-to ruin the fun, but, uh, I should…I should…” He brought a hand to the back of his head, rubbing absently, now fully distracted from his once peaceful surroundings.

“You’re not ruining anything,” Mirabel replied simply, cutting straight through his indecision. She lifted Antonio from her lap and used Bruno’s knees to push herself to standing, brushing her skirt straight. She hesitated, uncertain for a moment how exactly to proceed with the sloth that still sat on Bruno’s stomach, before reaching careful arms out to lift it. She held it out a bit awkwardly in the air before Antonio came to her rescue, coaxing it onto his back in an easy, practiced movement. All three turned to look at Bruno, who had sat up and pulled his knees into his chest. 

“We’ll be right here waiting for you,” Mirabel added gently, reaching out open hands to help him up. 

Bruno again let her pull him to his feet. She gave his hand a little squeeze before letting go, putting a reassuring hand to his shoulder for good measure. He nodded at her, returning the smile she offered him. He felt his nerves ebb slightly, and he reached up to momentarily cover her hand with his, patting it in gratitude before turning to head into the trees. He had passed another clearing not far from the one they now occupied—he remembered from his earlier frantic rush through the trees. Hopefully it would provide enough space for him to call what grains of sand he could from the soil and project the vision without showering their picnic area in debris. 

As he hiked through the misty, tree clogged forest, kicking twigs and leaves from his sandals as he went, he reflected on the vast difference between his visions now and those he had only four or five months before. They came clearer now, almost…easier. Though his body’s instinctual reaction to the call of a vision was still panic, he found that he approached the visions themselves with a bit more confidence, or–or–assuredness, maybe. There was sometimes a strange shiver, a chill of...of certainty that came when, after, he thought through how to handle the knowledge he’d gained. It was almost like…a magical intuition or something. It was a welcome change to the more familiar chill that always came when his prophecies came to pass. That feeling usually just brought dread, guilt, and mounds of regret. 

But even when that new, shivery feeling didn’t happen, he found that he walked away from his visions with the lingering feeling that, perhaps, regardless of what he saw, everything would be alright. 

A year-and-a-half ago, when Mirabel had placed her hand on her new, gifted doorknob and the miracle had returned in a glorious rush, Bruno had anticipated with dread the return of his surprise visions. He’d managed to hold them back for the first few months, only letting them through in the dead of night when he thought even Dolores might sleep through them. He hadn’t wanted to worry anyone. Besides, everyone was so overjoyed at the return of Casita and their miracle, and he didn’t want to be that guy again, putting a damper on every celebration with his disenchanting visions and worrisome aches and pains. He had a chance to be something different to the family, a chance to return their love and affection with more than just heaped on worry, a chance to…to…to not be the one that makes bad things happen, for once. 

So he’d largely tried to ignore the return of his gift, much as everyone else had, and had placated the demanding future by allowing it to run him through the wringer every couple weeks or so, always in the hidden privacy of his own room, always recovering in exhausted silence before anyone could know what had happened. He was no stranger to bearing his gift on his own, after all, and the blessed return to the welcoming arms of his family would make any burden worthwhile. 

At least, that was what he’d told himself. 

And then, just when he’d found a workable routine of suppression and avoidance…then came Mirabel. 

He chuckled to himself as he emerged into the second clearing, scanning it thoughtfully and nodding in approval. Yeah, this’ll do. He began gathering dried leaves and twigs from the perimeter and carrying them to the center of the open space. 

Oh, Mirabel . She had turned his whole world upside-down on more than one occasion, and she seemed flat out determined to continue the tradition. She refused to leave him wallowing in the pits of his own misery, refused to let him settle for good enough, well enough, close enough. She wanted him whole, healed, happy, and she wouldn’t stop until she got him there. It was such a novel, unfamiliar approach to relating to him that he sometimes felt trapped, cornered and smothered by her love. But even then, she gently took a step back; not leaving, no, no, no, just waiting patiently for him to adjust to the new level of closeness before continuing to lead him through to the light. 

Bruno sighed and sat cross-legged in front of the small fire he’d lit, taking a deep breath and centering himself. He placed his hands face up on his knees, letting his mind wander a bit more as he prepared to empty it. 

His emergence from the walls this last year had definitely been a process–heck, it was a still in-process process, and probably always would be–but Mirabel had a way of making the whole thing seem less big when she was around. More possible. Ay, the girl carried hope around like he carried salt, tossing it over her shoulders to rain down on those around her with unending optimism. 

Okay, time to focus, Bruno, he said to himself, giving his head a little shake to clear his thoughts. He shook out his hands and slowly lifted them into the air, feeling the magic rise in his chest alongside them, the sand rise into the air around him. The birdsong quieted, replaced with the deafening rush of a windstorm. The air grew cooler, raising goosebumps on his arms as the sun was blacked out by the grains of dirt and sand that coalesced in the air above him. He felt himself pulled forward, his stomach churning and dropping slightly as his mind rushed ahead and his body remained still. He felt the future push oppressively into his brain. 

"Aaaaalright," he muttered. "Let's see what you've got."

He opened his eyes. 

A woman with dark brown curls streaked in grey stood with her back to him, speaking to a man who smiled widely at her, grasping her hands and shaking them gently with what was clearly overwhelming gratitude. 

“Thank you, Señora. We are so grateful, as always,” he was saying, and the woman squeezed his hands in return. “We would be lost without you!”

Julieta, Bruno thought, but something about her was different. She held her shoulders differently, and her hair was not long, tucked into its usual loose bun. Instead, it was cropped short, the curls coiffed to sit playfully around her head and above her ears. Earrings dangled from her lobes–-little green shards of uneven emerald, wrapped tightly in the center with colorful thread to secure them to the posts.

Not Julieta. No. No, no, no it’s—

The woman closed the door as the man walked away, waving as he went. She turned, and Bruno saw her face. 

Mirabel . 

She must have been in her forties, or-or maybe fifty, perhaps his age now. She had little parentheses lines around her mouth, crows feet at the corners of her eyes, evidence of a life spent smiling and laughing. But she had a crease between her eyebrows as well, and as she turned to face him, he watched the gentle smile fade from her face and the crease deepen. She brought her hand to her heart and fiddled with her collar, biting her lip in troubled thought. 

Bruno reached out a hand, suddenly filled with the urge to rub the line between her brows away with his thumb, but she was only a vision, not yet here, and his hands only collided with the wall of sand surging around him, his fingers stinging with the grains. 

In an instant, unexpected sorrow and regret squeeze at his heart, tears pressing threateningly at his eyes. As he looked at his sobrina, so much older than she was in the present, it felt suddenly as if he was thrown back through time, back into the walls again, where they’d first met before the fall of Casita. It was as if he was again being faced with that most horrible loss—the mountain of missing years, thousands of lost moments, pieces of her life that he would never get to see. 

Again, I-I’ve missed it all again…

He shook his head roughly. N-no... That’s not right. It’s a vision…i-it hasn’t happened yet. His temples began to ache as his mind stretched uncomfortably between the past and the future. F-focus, he told himself, drawing his brows together in determination, dragging himself back to center. He took a measured breath. Focus. 

He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, wide and searching.

At the place his fingers still met the vortex, the sand had split and twisted, like a river raging past a stone in its path. The image of Mirabel’s face was distorting as the grains rearranged themselves down the stream—but the image after the break was a new image, a new moment in time. He jerked back his hand.

“W-what—” he stuttered in confusion, squinting at the doubled picture before him. His stomach churned with an unfamiliar and disorienting sensation of movement, though his feet remained rooted to the earth below him.

What is this…?

As the new image took hold, Mirabel’s aged face was before him again, but the lighting had changed. Different clothes, a small part of his brain noted, trained over the years to search out every detail almost by rote. Though the time and place had shifted, her expression of sorrow had only deepened. She wiped at her face roughly, pushing aside tears and tilting back her head to stop those that attempted to keep falling. 

The sand shifted again like a wave rolling over the shore, leaving behind another image, and Bruno was faced again with Mirabel’s sorrow, again with her tears, again a different moment. Another shift. And another. Again and again, faster and faster, her face flashed and rippled before his eyes, moment after moment, tears and sadness and heartbreak pouring out from the sand and into his own chest in a flood that stole his breath away.

“No,” he gasped, though it came out as little more than a whisper. “N-no, please. I don’t like this. I don’t want to see this.” He stumbled slightly, backing away, but the image remained as close as if he had stood still. “This is not…s-she’s not–she can’t be–-I-I-I don’t want to see this, I don’t want to see any more—” 

His thoughts weren’t making sense in the sudden overwhelming dread that sank in his gut. Fear and anxiety flooded his chest, fighting with the magic that resided there, causing his vision to grow blurry and grainy, lagging and doubling over itself. He struggled to stop the flashing stream, to anchor in a single moment, in any single moment to stop this —

WHOOOSH. 

With a sudden, disorienting gush from behind him, the vision pushed forward and broke, reshaping on itself with a deafening roar of sand. When he looked up, he was again staring at the Mirabel from the start, framed by the doorway where the grateful man stood. As if the broken interlude had not occurred, the vision picked up again from where it had begun.

“Thank you, Senora…” 

“I don’t understand! Why are you showing me this?!” Bruno cried, his voice lost in the repeating tones of vision. His chest burned at the futility of his words, unanswered and unheard.

“...lost without you!”

The man left, the door closed, she turned again to face him. He watched as she closed her eyes and took a breath, her shoulders suddenly tensing under an invisible weight that seemed to gather now that she was alone. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, her shoulders shaking with a silent sob, and Bruno sank to his knees under the weight of it. 

N-no –

Mirabel wandered past him, curving around edges of the sand dome, and he twisted in place to keep her in his sight. She came to a small desk and sat down—his mother’s desk. She put her head in her hands and Bruno watched as her shoulders began to shake with silent tears. 

A cold realization broke over him. She was all alone. 

Why is she alone? Where is everyone else? He turned around desperately, looking for someone, anyone he had missed, anyone who could come to her, but he saw only pieces of an empty room fading in and out in obscurity. 

The small burn that had begun in his chest suddenly grew, dropping down in his gut like a stone. It was aching and bitter, a smothered anger long buried.

Bruno didn’t want to see any more. 

He didn’t want to watch his beloved niece as she was crushed by the weight of the Encanto, as he'd watched helplessly with his mother, with his sisters. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to see.

He was suddenly so tired of seeing.

He let loose a loud, rageful yell as he forced the future away from himself, painfully breaking the connection and falling backward as the vision collapsed in a blinding flash of green light. He panted, watching as the blinding light faded and the vision glass formed before him. He didn’t catch it. He let it fall with the sand, looking on as it landed precisely on its own corner, sending a spider web of cracks through it. It crumbled to pieces on the packed dirt.

“I don’t understand,” he gasped, his chest tight, his lungs empty. “I-I-I don’t…I don’t…”

He bent forward, pressing his forehead into his knees, forcing breaths through his nose. He grabbed fistfuls of dirt, wishing that he could bury his hands in the cool sand of his room. 

Cálmate… he instructed himself. C-cálmate, Bruno….it’s okay…you’re–you’re okay…

His heart thundered in his ribcage, but he gradually brought his breathing under control. His arms zinged with the frayed vestiges of fear, but he felt his mind clearing as he focused on the grains of dirt in his palms.

As his body quieted, a new, more sober sense of panic began to seep in. This was Mirabel’s future. 

It doesn’t mean it’s her whole future, his heart reasoned desperately. It doesn’t mean…it–it could mean…

Bruno wasn’t sure what it could mean. These were moments of sorrow, many of them, yes, but only single moments. Every life has sorrow, he reminded himself. That he knew perhaps better than anyone. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t have joy, too. He’d seen so much sorrow in her future…but he hadn’t seen the moments in between. 

He thought of the smile lines that had curved around her mouth, the crinkles next to her eyes. 

As the initial rush of emotion faded a bit and he looked back on the vision with a measure of calm, he realized it didn’t show him much of anything at all. It could have been an anomaly, an exception in the grand scheme of a much brighter future. He’d never experienced that strange splitting and shifting of the sand before—maybe…maybe it his powers had gone awry. Or…or it could have been a warning. A glimpse of a miserable path he couldn’t bear the thought of his sobrina taking. 

He blew out the breath he was holding. He was grasping at straws, and he knew it. 

One thing he could say for sure though: as usual, when it came to Mirabel, the future was not clear. He could draw no definite conclusions. Her vision again defied the norm, just as the last one had. That meant he couldn’t say what her future would be, even with this terrible vision before him. And somehow that thought brought a small bit of steadiness to his quaking hands.

Uncertainty meant hope. 

He raised his forehead from his knees and drew his legs up to his chest instead. Resting his chin with a great, slow breath, he looked back again at the broken shards of glass that lay less than a meter away. He felt a bit raw from the intensity of it all, but he could feel that new, lingering sense of hope begin to pool around him. 

He didn’t know, and that meant anything could happen. There was always hope…she’d taught him that.

After all, Mirabel was different. 

It was true that he could see himself in her, despite his time away. Remnants of self-doubt and uncertainty, of striving and longing to be proved worthy were shaped in both of their hearts by mirrored but distinct pasts lived out in the shadowed periphery of greatness. And he worried sometimes, worried about her future as she was thrust, not deeper into the shadows, as he had been, but into the bright and searing spotlight. She was, in many ways, the new Madrigal golden child, and she had thus far blossomed in the newly bestowed sunlight. But he had also been a golden child once, long ago, and he knew that the sun could shine so brightly it blinded your vision, and that the air could suddenly become dry and arid in the heat of other’s expectations, and that it was all too easy suddenly wilt and then shrivel under the pressure of it all. 

But Mirabel was different.

She was stronger than he had ever been, gifted in ways she didn’t even fully see herself. She had a magic all her own, the source of hope itself. 

“She’ll be okay,” he said aloud, just to make it all the more real. “She’ll be okay.” 

He nodded once to cement that reassurance in his chest, and slowly rose to his feet. He looked for a moment at the scattered heap of emerald glass that still lay in the dirt, glinting in the sun. Then he turned away and walked back out of the clearing to find his sobrinos in the present. 

—

He could hear Mirabel and Antonio’s laughter long before he reached the edge of the trees. By the time he was able to see them, a faint smile had already begun to pull at his mouth, despite the lingering heaviness in his chest. 

They were chasing each other back and forth across the clearing, engaged in a more traditional game of tag. Mirabel dashed around, hopping clumsily over animals that skittered at her feet to slow her down, pulling her skirts just out of Antonio’s grasp as he gained on her. Parce pounced around them happily, giddy as a dog playing fetch. Their breathless giggles and playful shrieks echoed off the trees and lifted into the air, where birds circled and dipped, egging them on. 

Bruno leaned on a tree and clutched his arm, watching them with a wide grin. He let their joy flood his senses and push away the remnants of unease still clinging from his vision. 

He was here now. He was done with missing now because of some impending future. He let that thought linger over that hidden, smoldering anger, solidifying into determination.

For a brief moment, he thought about joining them—now that the jaguar was less of an active participant—but was somewhat surprised when something within him hesitated. It was as if he’d suddenly encountered a wall, something there that stopped that free-flow of mirth and joy that seemed to be pouring from his sobrinos. 

It was strange, as if the simple act of moving to join in on the fun was suddenly a heavy, impossibly alien task. He felt himself physically withdraw, curling back from the clearing toward the safety of the trees, his smile fading just a bit. He looked again at the kids, still flitting to and fro, and wondered at the ease and freedom of it. They laughed with such abandon. Ran with no fear of falling--ran with no fear at all. When had he last played like that?

He felt old worries begin to creep like vines along that invisible wall that held him back, worries dug deep into his soul long, long ago. They were rooted in the need to be alert, vigilant, to be the one who couldn’t stop watching out, because if no one looked, how would they be protected from the unknown dangers? W-who would warn them? Who would keep them all safe? It was his duty, his responsibility, his God-given gift. Where had there ever been any space for play in all that?

He thought again of the vision. He felt the vines begin to wrap around his lungs. 

“Tío!” 

Antonio spotted him and ran full-force in his direction. Bruno had a split second to prepare for the impact, raising his hands slightly in defense, before Toñito plowed into him, burying his face into Bruno’s stomach and muffling his laughter there. Bruno steadied himself on a nearby tree and then wrapped his sobrino in a tight hug. 

“You okay?” Mirabel asked, her voice still breathless from the running. Her smile clung to her face even as she examined him closely, scanning him with a scrutinous eye. 

“I’m great,” he replied, and he tried to mean it. He took a breath. Now. Be here, now.  

F-future…future be damned.

“What was your vision about?” Antonio asked with wide eyes.

“Antonio--!” Mirabel began, about to admonish him, but Bruno raised a hand to stop her. Eh, he’ll learn not to ask soon enough . There was no need to squash his innocent curiosity now. 

“A-actually, it was about Mirabel,” he said, looking off at the ground rather than at his sobrina. 

“Me?” Mirabel said, pointing to herself. She sounded a bit worried. She’d been around his visions long enough now to know she probably should be worried. 

“Yeah, you, uh, you...helped the Encanto. A-a man will thank you, he was really happy. It’s way in the future though, years and years from now. Nothing, nothing, nothing to-to worry about now,” he said, intentionally vague on the details. Mirabel tilted her head a bit, catching the shape of what he had not said, but she let the topic fall away and linked her arm through his instead, guiding him back into the clearing.

“Well, you missed an excellent game of tag,” she said, giving his arm a little squeeze when they reached the blanket. “...even though Antonio cheats.” 

“I do not!” he shrieked with outrage.

“Mmhm. How many lemurs did I trip over?” she said, raising an eyebrow at him as she rolled up their picnic blanket. 

“One!” he shot back, crossing his arms in a way that very much mimicked his older brother’s haughty gesture. “You just kept tripping over her again and again.” 

Bruno surged forward to help Mirabel, quickly taking the bundled blanket from her and holding out his hand for her bag. She passed both to him with a slightly confused nod of thanks. He slung the bag across his back and tucked the blanket inside, and as Mirabel stood, he reached his arm around her shoulders, planting a quick kiss to her hair and giving her a sideways squeeze. 

She eyed him curiously, her mild concern clearly still lingering after his earlier dismissiveness, but she didn't question him. Instead, she just leaned into his side as they walked from the clearing toward home. Antonio grabbed Bruno’s free hand, tugging at it gently as he half-skipped, half-walked energetically alongside them.

"We could ride Parce home!" he said gleefully. "He–"

"No!" Bruno's voice came out as a squeak. He cleared his voice to try again. "N-no, it, it's such a nice evening, let's, um, let's enjoy the walk, okay, Toñito?"

Mirabel stifled a cough that sounded a lot like "coward" and Bruno shot her a glare. Antonio shrugged and began rattling off a recap of the game of tag Bruno had missed instead. 

As they walked, Bruno took a deep breath, one that almost reached the bottoms of his lungs. He closed his eyes for just a moment, reveling in the closeness of these two wonderful miracles, his dear sobrinos. A trail of animals flitted behind and around them, the afternoon air humming with warm magic and pleasant comfort. 

Yes, I’m ready for more of this, he thought, though Mirabel’s aged face lingered for a moment in his mind. He shook it away and tightened his arm around her shoulder. It was high time he spent more time in now. 

Chapter Text

“That’s it,” Antonio whispered reverently, craning his neck to look up higher. “That’s the one. It’s perfect.”

Mirabel stood beside him, tapping her mouth thoughtfully with her finger. After a moment, she nodded in agreement. 

“You’re right, Toñito. It’s the perfect tree.” She held out her fingers in two L’s, creating a frame to admire the tree through. “Low branches to start, sturdy branches all the way up, leaning just a little to help with the climb but not enough to make it precarious once you’re up there–”

“I-I’m sorry, the climb?” Bruno interjected, leaning his head forward to try to catch their eyes.

Mirabel dropped her arms and tilted her head toward Antonio. “You may need a boost to get started; you okay with that?” 

“Yeah, Parce can help me!” Antonio said, clapping his hands with delight. 

“W-wait–” Bruno stammered. “Wait, I thought, I thought we were looking for a tree to sit under, you know, have a picnic, maybe read—”

“Should we race?” Mirabel said, grinning down at Antonio. “I think we should race.” 

“I brought a book,” Bruno added, his voice trailing off mournfully. He was clearly realizing his concerns were making no headway. 

Antonio crossed his arms and leaned back against his tío’s legs. “It’s okay, Tío Bruno, bring your book with you. We can read when we get to the top!”

Mirabel looked over at her tío with a slightly more sympathetic smile. He was gazing with wide eyes at the very top branches of the ancient mango tree, looking a bit like he might pass out. She laughed and bumped his shoulder with her own, sending a wince across his features. 

Over the past couple weeks, Tío Bruno had spent almost every day with Antonio, and in that time, Mirabel had watched him venture farther from Casita than she’d ever seen in the whole year since his return. He’d wandered forest paths, waded knee-deep into rivers, even allowed himself to be chased by a jaguar ( once , and she doubted it would happen a second time).

It’s so good for him , she thought, to get out and live.

There was no doubt in anyone's mind that her tío had a soft spot for Antonio, and she'd noticed that he was almost incapable of saying no to any of the boy’s grand ideas, especially when he looked up with his little round face full of excitement. And though Bruno often followed along with a shaky reluctance at best, he always managed to find some enjoyment in the adventure in the end. Antonio seemed oblivious to his tío’s hesitance, just happy to have another buddy who showered him with an abundance of attention. For his part, Tío Bruno seemed equally pleased with the attention he received back. 

It was all very sweet, actually.

Tío Bruno and Antonio spent most of their afternoons in the jungle, where Mirabel would happily join them after spending the morning with Abuela in town, finally able to carve a place for herself, finally feeling useful. She’d only just begun shadowing her abuela around, asking questions about how the town was run now that questions were allowed to be asked. Now that her questions were viewed with proud approval and not exasperated contempt. 

She’d spend her mornings learning and helping and feeling like she was making a difference, and her afternoons settled in the safety of her tío and primito’s easy companionship, and it had made for an ever-growing string of happy days that Mirabel could hardly believe were real. She hadn’t realized how much melancholy she’d actually carried around each day before, just below the surface, carefully parceled away from even herself. Now that the weight had been lifted and she had a taste of what real belonging felt like, she looked back with pity on her old self, glad to have grown into someone new. 

“You can do it, Tío! I saw you climb in the walls, I know you’ve still got it,” she urged with a teasing wink. He looked at her flatly. Yeah…he definitely got her “you can do it, Tío!” speech at least three times a week now, and maybe it was beginning to lose a bit of its potency. “Come on, just watch how Antonio does it and follow where he climbs.” 

Right on cue, Parce pawed a circle around them and then leaned his side into the trunk of the tree. Antonio scampered up onto his back and stood, and it gave him just the extra height he needed to hook his leg over a sturdy, low-hanging branch and leverage himself up into the tree. 

“Mirabel, the kid sleeps in a tree.” Tío Bruno’s eyes followed Antonio’s swift ascension. “I don’t sleep in a tree. I’m fifty-one years old. I could die.” 

Mirabel scowled at him. 

“What?” he said, throwing his arms out and shrugging. “It’s not a prophecy, relax. It is true, though.” He pointed a warning finger at her.

“You’re not going to die,” Mirabel said, rolling her eyes. She reached down and bundled her skirts to one side, tucking the bottom hem into her waistband and freeing her legs to climb unencumbered. “I’ve got emergency arepas if you break something, though.” 

“Ha!” he shouted after her as she strode to the tree and put her foot flat against the trunk, testing her weight against the lowest branch. “Ha! Y-you are so funny.” 

Mirabel pulled herself up with a grunt, her foot slipping slightly as she maneuvered from hanging on the branch to sitting on it. She heard Bruno let out a strangled noise behind her, and she looked back to see him take a step forward with his arms raised as if to steady her, his eyes panicked. She just smiled at him and wiggled until she sat securely on the branch, then reached out her hand to him, nodding encouragingly. 

“Come on,” she said gently. “I’ll help you.” 

He eyed her apprehensively, shifting his weight between his feet. He held his own hands, nervously weaving and unweaving his fingers. Mirabel waited. 

He inhaled and held his breath at the top, seeming to fortify himself as a look of shakey determination hovered on his face. He reached a practiced hand into his shirt pocket and cast a fistful of salt over his shoulder, then took a quick step forward and put his hand in hers. Mirabel braced herself against the tree trunk and pulled, gripping tighter to keep from falling as Bruno clumsily tugged on her arm to scamper up the tree, hauling himself across the branch beside her and hanging over it on his stomach. He went limp there, as if that short effort had drained him completely. She laughed and gave a tug to his ruana. 

"You should take that off. If you snag it I'm not fixing it." 

He grunted. They both knew that wasn't true. 

"Are you guys coming?" Antonio's joyful, piping voice cascaded down from above, though Mirabel could no longer see where he was among the highest branches.

Mirabel pulled herself to her feet on their branch and looked up, planning her next move. She made a small little hop, growling with the effort as she caught the branch above her head and walked her feet along the main trunk to lift herself higher. She paused again when she'd situated herself on another branch, wiping her sweaty hands on her blouse. This was actually a lot harder than she remembered it being, but she wasn't about to admit that after all her lofty talk to Tío Bruno. 

When was the last time I even climbed a tree? she thought as she struggled upward again. She couldn't remember. With Camilo, probably; they used to climb trees all the time, but it had grown increasingly less fun once Camilo was able to use his power to shift into bodies with longer arms, trouncing her to the top every time. He'd cut back on using his power when she complained that his wins didn’t count on that unfair technicality, but it hadn't mattered in the long run, anyway. In a few years, he'd been too busy in town to climb or play with her anymore, and she'd been too busy trying to be useful to play much on her own. Mirabel felt the old melancholy grab at her ankles and she pushed herself to clamber faster up the tree to escape it. 

She didn't make it to the top like Toñito, who she could now see poking his head out of the leafy crown, waving at the sky to his bird friends. But she had made it high enough to earn herself a view. 

Through a break in the leaves, Mirabel could see the glistening rooftops of the Encanto, and just beyond that, the colorful walls of Casita rising benevolently above the town. She could have sworn she saw a shutter wave at her. She waved back, just in case. 

The town looked stunning, lit golden in the afternoon light. The bright clay walls and floral balconies all wound around the plaza in miniature, spreading out like petals from a fallen flower, bursts of green trees sprouting between. If she tried, she could name who lived under every rooftop, could remember watching some of the homes be built. Further down below, the river peeked out from around the edge of the town, curving around it like a glistening ribbon. Huge silver-blue agaves dotted the space between. 

Home . The word made her heart swell and her chest lift with pride. She loved her home with all her heart. She loved all the people who gave a dancing pulse to the winding streets. She loved their love for her family. 

Whenever she thought back to the memory of the entire town—every single man, woman, and child—gathering together up the broken road to help them pick up the pieces of their fallen Casita, she could feel tears start to prick at her eyes. They had come through, no questions asked, willing to do whatever it took to get them back on their feet. For all their faults and failings, her people were her people, and she felt her love for them growing even deeper as she learned to see them through her Abuela’s eyes. 

She knew the story, everyone did, of the remnant of her grandmother’s village making their way through the mountains to find a new home, but the weight of that thought hadn’t really sunk in until she’d truly begun to understand what Abuela had been through. What they all had been through. They were a people united in grief, and their children were united in hope, and their children’s children—Mirabel and her cousins and all the young people now emerging into civic life—they were something entirely new, too. A new kind of hope, a new kind of love. United in pride for their history, for how their beautiful way of life had come to be. 

She owed so much of who she was to this town and its people, to her friends and neighbors and family, both blood and not. She'd begun to see that Abuela was the soul of their town, the living center that held them all together…and it made Mirabel think about how Tío Bruno had called her the heart of their family. In their morning teas, where she and her uncle still gathered before breakfast everyday, Tío Bruno was always making sure she knew that meant she was special, just in who she was, by being herself. And under his unrelenting encouragement, she was beginning to believe it, too. That perhaps she, too, could help, not just her family, but her town, her people—that perhaps she could help them thrive just by loving them dearly. 

Her mamá had always told her she had nothing to prove, a sentiment echoed enthusiastically by Pa. But maybe, just maybe, she had something to give. Maybe she could learn to be the heart of the Encanto, too. Like Abuela.

As she gazed down at the small town that was her beloved home, she was struck with a sudden weight. Not that she wasn't good enough, no longer that familiar lie, but rather the new question of if she could do enough. If it would ever be possible to love them enough, give them enough, to pay back all that she had been given from them. Generations of pain and labor and sacrifice lay at her feet, lifting her higher, and she wasn’t sure how to thank them now that she was up there at the pinnacle. 

Whatever the case, she knew that she would never stop trying to love them better, and to love them more.

Mirabel sat straddling a branch, situated in a smaller V where the single branch split into two. She leaned forward slightly, propping herself up with her hands resting on the smooth bark in front of her. She took a breath and let the breeze push her hair away from her face, closing her eyes. 

Bruno's huffing breath cut through the quiet, rising up from below her, and her branch bounced a bit as his hands grasped it. She opened her eyes and brought one ankle up to rest on the branch in front of her, pulling it close to make more room. Bruno had slung his arms over the branch she sat on, his feet standing on another below. He caught his breath, running his hand through his hair. 

"I did it," he said breathlessly. "I made it. I'm alive." He closed his eyes and hung himself limply by his underarms, letting his arms dangle and resting his chin on the branch. Mirabel patted the top of his head and he cracked his eyes open to glance at her. 

"N-now what do we do?" he asked. 

Mirabel gently turned his head with her hand, and smiled when Bruno gave a quiet Oh as he caught sight of the view. He crossed his arms atop the branch and rested his chin on them. 

"Well I suppose that is worth it, isn't it?" he muttered softly.

They looked on in silence for a while, the only sounds the peaceful fluttering of the leaves and the quiet murmuring of Antonio up above, speaking as always to a bird or ant or monkey. Mirabel kept a hand resting on her tío's head. He didn't seem to mind.

"How can it be so big and so small at the same time?" she absently wondered aloud. 

Bruno glanced toward her without turning his head.

"Lots of things are like that," he replied, his shoulders sagging a bit as he thought. "The-the future is like that." 

Mirabel nodded but didn't say anything more. Bruno looked at her again, his eyebrows narrowed. "You okay, kid?"

Mirabel tensed and pulled her hand back into her lap. Tío Bruno raised his head from his arms so he could turn to look at her fully. 

"Am I doing enough?" she whispered, her words almost lost in the sound of the leaves.

Bruno straightened, the abrupt motion causing his feet to suddenly slip below him. Mirabel jolted as he grappled at the branch to remain upright. She grabbed a handful of the back of his shirt and pulled him forward unhelpfully until he steadied himself. 

"I-i-it's not about how much you're doing, Mirabel," he stammered, his voice a bit shakier than before. "You are enough. Just you. C'mon kid, you know that." 

She nodded, pulling a weak smile back onto her face. She shook herself a bit to knock away the heavy thoughts. "Yeah, I know, Tío. Thanks." 

He nodded back, but his look of concern only deepened. He opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted when Antonio came sliding down from the branches above. 

"Sorry, the ants were talking my ear off,” he said as he backed down onto Mirabel’s branch. Bruno shot out a hand to rest on his small back, providing completely unnecessary support as he wiggled down to sit on the branch, facing Mirabel. Antonio moved through the tree branches as easily as he moved across the ground. 

“C-careful, kid, you’re making me nervous,” Tío Bruno mumbled as Antonio scootched closer along the branch. He finally settled in front of Bruno, who wrapped a protective arm around him. He’s much more likely to fall if you’re holding on to him , Mirabel mused…but she thought better than to say it out loud. 

“Did you bring your book, Tío?” Antonio asked, and Bruno let go of the branch with his Antonio-free hand to pat at his pockets. Now it was Mirabel’s turn to be nervous, reaching out but stopping herself just short of grabbing his shirt again. 

“Aha!” he said, pulling a tiny, thin volume from his back pocket. “I did! Obras Poéticas de María Rosa de Gàlvez, Volumen Uno . No pictures this time, but, eh! We have the nice view to look at, anyway. Who needs pictures, right?" 

"I like pictures," Antonio challenged, and Tío Bruno gave him a squeeze. 

"There are no better illustrations than the ones painted by your imagination," he replied in a grand voice. He tapped his own head with the corner of the little book before grabbing hastily back to the branch to steady his wobbling stance. 

"You've gotta sit down if we're going to read, Tío," Mirabel said, her voice colored with laughter. "You're going to fall, and I didn't bring that many arepas."

Bruno glanced down, his edginess returning as he seemed to remember he was standing high in a tree. He shivered. Knock knock knock…  

—

"...y como de la fuente cristalina, los humildes raudales aspiran a llegar al Océano, cayendo de los montes entre colinas desiguales…" [ …and as if from the crystalline fount, the humble streams aspire to reach the Ocean, falling from mountains between uneven hills… ]

Tío Bruno's warm, scratchy voice resonated in her ears as she leaned her head on his shoulder, listening to him read aloud from his book of poetry. 

They'd retreated to the center of the tree, piling together in the hand-like middle where the trunk split into many strong branches and splayed outward. Tío Bruno had settled with bent knees into the crook of branches, and Mirabel had squeezed in next to him, Antonio snuggling close against his tío's chest. They were pressed so close together within the embrace of the thick branches that the threat of falling was all but gone, and the muffling effect of the long, whispering leaves that fluttered around them wrapped them up like a cocoon, giving the impression they were in a world all their own. 

Mirabel adjusted her head on Bruno's shoulder and took a sighing breath, filling her nose with the comforting smell of sage and smoke that frequently clung to his clothing and hair. He leaned his head down on top of hers without pausing in his reading. 

If Mirabel closed her eyes, here in the otherworldly space of the tree, tucked close to her Tío and surrounded by the soothing sounds of a voice gently reading to her, she could almost feel like a child again, content to just be without worrying of what was to come tomorrow or this evening or even in the next hour. She let her mind drift on the breeze, imagining the happiness of flowing streams that emerged into glittering oceans. And just for now, she let her concerns about the Encanto and her people and her place among them drift like a fallen leaf to the forest floor, left among the roots until she returned.

Chapter Text

Alma gingerly sank down onto the back step of Casita, extending her leg out straight and wincing as she rested her tender ankle on the stone step beside her. She leaned her back against the arching doorway to the veranda and let out the breath she'd been holding. Not a very dignified position to find herself in, but she was unlikely to encounter anyone back here. The only witness to her defeat was her small son, who was only three. He, at least, would forget her weakness before too long. 

It had only been an hour into her morning rounds through the town when Alma had stepped backwards down from a step at Señora Juana's home, placing her foot down on an errant pebble that slid from beneath her and twisted her ankle harshly as it clattered away. She'd managed to catch herself from falling into an embarassing heap on the floor, but the small cry of pain that slipped from her mouth before she was able to muffle it had sent her children into a tizzy. Julieta began lifting at her mother's skirts to see her ankle, asking desperately if she was alright, and Pepa simply burst into tears. Bruno had rushed forward and wound both his hands into hers at the commotion, shrinking in on himself with wide, staring eyes as he always did when he was uncertain.

Despite her many tense assurances that she would be fine, Doctor Rivaldo had been summoned and her ankle carefully wrapped, and she'd been dispatched from her duties for the day with the gentle but stern instruction to soak her foot in the river for 20 minutes and then remain off if it for the next two days. She'd tersely conceded to resting for the rest of today only, and allowed Señora Juana to keep her girls until dinner time. She'd tried very hard not to look at their wide, wet eyes as she hobbled with as much dignity as she could muster back toward Casita, stubbornly refusing all aid. Her cheeks burned with shame, but she'd held her head high. Brunito still clutched her hand, but with more care this time, walking in a stumbling sideways gait as he attempted to lead her home. He'd clearly taken Señor Rivaldo's charge to get his mother home safely as seriously as a three year old could. 

She'd made it as far as Casita before giving up on any hope of reaching the river, sinking instead to the back porch where she wouldn't be pestered with more worried glances and fussing. She disliked being fussed over. It made her feel so incredibly small. So helpless.

Brunito stood beside her now, his eyes darting nervously across her face. He fidgeted with the end of one of her braids in childish unease.

"Mi amor, I am fine,” she assured him testily, and at her harsh tone, his eyes dropped away from hers. She carefully softened herself before speaking again. “All that fuss was over nothing. I'll be back up on my feet tomorrow. Run off and go play, I will watch you from here."

Though he'd still looked a bit anxious, he knew better than to disobey. He'd hopped clumsily over the remaining steps and ran off to chase bugs or dig in the soil as children did, leaving Alma to grit her teeth against the discomfort in peace. 

But after a few moments, he was back, tapping on her shoulder insistently. 

“Sí, Brunito? ¿Qué necesitas?” [What do you need?]

She moved her ankle into a slightly more relieving position and turned to look at her son. Bruno was grinning at her in his sweet crooked way that reminded her so much of his father. His eyes, always somehow too big for such a small face, were alight with the morning sun, glinting as green as the forested mountains behind him as the sun pulled verdant joy from the muddy hazel. He looked so much like Pedro in moments like these that it took Alma’s breath away.

“I-I know, Mamá!” he exclaimed. “I-I know how to make you all better!” 

Alma watched as he ran off again into the grassy lawn before them, snatching at the dandelions scattered around the base of the tree that grew wide and strong behind Casita. He returned to her, a bunch of slightly crushed flowers in his small fists, and hopped up onto the step beside her. 

“I will make, I-I-I will…I will,” he clenched his fists tighter for a moment as the frustration of getting out his words passed through him. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his small arms with an angry grunt. 

“Despacio, hijo.” [Slowly, son.]

He started again–-this time more slowly, as they’d been practicing. “I…will…make…you into una princesa, Mamá. And I will be a king, and you will be all better!”

Alma couldn’t help but smile at his flawless logic. Of all her children, her son most adored the romantic tales of knights and princesses, of downtrodden maidens who stumbled upon magical palaces and enchanted trees. 

“¡Ah una princesa! Qué lindo, Brunito. And how will you do that?” [A princess! How lovely.]

He reached out and pulled carefully at one of her braids, and she obligingly dipped her head closer in his direction. Still clutching her braid, he nudged his other closed fist at her hand where it rested in her lap until she lifted it face up, allowing him to release his bundle of dandelions into a small crumpled pile on her palm. Slowly, one by one, he picked up the ruffled flowers and began to tuck them into the twists of her hair.

"Flowers, flowers," he mumbled to himself in a singsong voice as he worked. "Princesa más hermosa de toda la tierra…" [… most beautiful princess in all the land.] He was always repeating lines from the stories she read them. 

And with remarkable precision, Alma noted to herself.

Bruno worked carefully with his clumsy, inexperienced fingers until Alma’s braids fell across her shoulders in a cascade of yellow blooms, and when he'd exhausted the dandelions, he replenished the pile with the maroon bracts of the bougainvillea that climbed up and around the doorway, using them to fill in any unadorned spaces in each braid. I’ll be brushing petals from my hair for days, she thought to herself, her chest warming at the thought.

"Gracias, mi vida," she cooed as he finished with a small, satisfied smile. Alma cupped his round face in her hands. His cheeks were rosy and smeared with dirt, as they always inexplicably were, no matter how frequently she scrubbed them. His hair was mussed by wind and running, his short curls forever defying order even as she brushed them back into place with combing fingers. 

"¿Se-se-se se siente mejor, Mamá?" He asked, pulling at his own sleeve as he spoke, shy under her glowing attention. [D-d-d-do you feel better?]

Alma smiled. She truly did. Mi Brunito. Her son was absolutely beautiful. The most beautiful sight in the world.

"I feel so much better. Thank you, cariño."

Bruno clapped his hands happily and bounced on his toes. “Tu eres la princesa y yo…yo soy, I-I-I am el rey!” [You are the princess and I…I am…I am the king!]

“Ah, the king!” Alma exclaimed, peppering his face with kisses until he laughed and pulled away. “Ay, pues, necesitas una corona! Bring me more flowers, hijo. Nice long stems, sí? I will make you your crown.” [Ah, well, you need a crown!]

Alma watched as he ran off to collect a new bounty, delighting in this rare moment of unwavering attention from his mother. Alma shared his delight. Part of her was so often absent from the present—worrying about the future, haunted by the past. The present was a pesky distraction, pulling her from her thoughts of more important threats that might yet come, that refused to fade away. But this moment, this rare moment where she was forced into stillness was like dipping her feet into still waters surrounded by green pastures. She was eased by the playful magic of her son, soothed by the quiet of the slowly passing morning. It was a moment of pure and utter indulgent joy, and she wondered at its simplicity. She tried to anchor the memory, solid and clear, in her mind, that she might return to it even after she stepped back into the demanding rapids of everyday life. 

“Here, mamá!” Bruno exclaimed, dumping the flowers into her lap. Alma patted his cheek and turned her hands to the flowers, weaving them expertly together into a chain as she had learned to as a girl. She strung the ends into each other to form an infinite loop of sunny yellow blooms, then placed the finished crown on Brunito’s head with a flourish. He grinned goofily at her. 

“I am a king!” he whispered, his voice filled with wonder and delight, as though she had truly just made it so.

“Sí, Brunito. Mi pequeño rey de las montañas.” [My little king of the mountains.]

She opened her arms to him and he ducked inside, curling against her chest as she wrapped him in a tight hug. 

“Mamá?”

“Sí, Brunito.”

“Will you tell me the story of Papá, otra vez?”

Alma tensed. Inwardly, she felt at herself, testing to see if she could reach far enough into that broken place to speak of him without falling apart. Some days she could, and she’d regale her children with a cherished memory of her too brief time with her dearest love. Most days, she could not even come close. 

“N-not today, mijo,” she whispered, and Bruno grew quiet in her lap, nodding against her chest. 

Alma felt her heart clench with guilt. If she could not find the strength to tell her son about his father, how would he ever know all that he could be?

She took a breath and held Bruno tighter, burying her face into his curls and breathing in the musky smell of his hair and skin. His head was warm against her face, and his small body snuggled comfortably against her, as if it was always meant to fit there.

“He loved stories,” she whispered with closed eyes. Bruno tilted his head up slightly, listening. “He loved cuentos románticos and fairytales with adventures and magic, just like you.” 

“Just like me,” whispered Bruno. 

“Sí, Brunito. Just like you. You are so much like him already.” 

Bruno lifted his head to look at her with bright, happy eyes, speckled with the golden reflection of the flowers in her hair. To him, Pedro was still just a king in a story from a far away place. 

Perhaps that is all he will ever be, she thought, and her chest clenched tightly.

“When I am bigger and bigger, I will have a beard like Papá también,” he informed her excitedly.

Alma laughed wetly, using the moment as a pretense for wiping at her eyes with the corner of her shawl. 

“Sí, you will.” 

“And I will be strong and brave and handsome.” He drew out each descriptor, as Alma did when she read to them of knights seeking their maidens. She hummed in agreement. 

“Ah, but Brunito, your father was so much more than that,” she added quietly, putting her hands on her son’s small shoulders and not quite meeting his eyes. “He was also gentle, and loving, and he always put others before himself. He was…he was…”

Alma’s voice trailed off as she reached too close to her broken heart, the words seizing in her chest. Bruno reached up and cupped her face in his hands, as she so often did to him. His palms were warm and slightly sticky against her cheeks, the way children’s hands always seemed to be.

“I will do that, too,” he said with great conviction and a wide seriousness in his innocent eyes. He looked for all the world like a little Don Quixote, about to embark on the greatest mission of his small life. “I will make you proud. And Papá!”

She smiled shakily down at him, her heart swelling in her chest. “Sí, hombrecito. I know you will.” 

Alma closed her eyes as she felt the tears threaten to fall again. She suddenly sniffed and shook her head clear, the movement freeing a few flowers from her hair to flutter down to the steps below. That is quite enough of that, she told herself firmly. No sense getting lost in what could have been when there was plenty enough to do now. They were not living in un cuento de hada. [A fairytale.] There were things to be done, responsibilities to be met. 

She took her son’s hands from her face and held them securely in her own, leaning toward him with her eyes locked on his, invoking a sober gaze to pull in his attention from far-off fantastic tales and back into the needs of reality. She watched his small mouth tighten to mirror her own seriousness. 

“Okay, Brunito. Ahora. Enough pretending; we have responsibilities calling to us! We will need to make lunch for ourselves, and you will help me, yes? I will sit on a stool and you and Casita will bring me the ingredients, and we will make arepas. Sprained ankle or not, we will be strong and resourceful, like the Lord calls us to be.”

“Okay!” he exclaimed excitedly, pulling his hands free from hers so he could clap them together. “Okay, okay, okay…” He was already out of her lap, chattering to himself as he took off into the house, carried away by the promise of this new wonderful adventure. 

Alma rose to her feet with a wince, nodding in gratitude as Casita extended a railing out of nowhere to meet her hand. Limping, she followed the railing inside where it seemed to magically extend to the kitchen, allowing her to take the weight from her injured ankle until she could make her way to a stool. I am not in un cuento de hada, she reminded herself wryly as the house clinked it's tiles in lively motion around her.

“Okay,” Alma said, straightening her shoulders and steeling herself against the pain. She stepped forward to meet her son in the kitchen. “Okay. Ahora, arepas.”

Chapter Text

The air around them was toasty and humid. As he meandered down the path, taking three of his own steps to every one of Tío Bruno's, Antonio imagined they were floating down the river in the poem from Tío's little thin book, twisting and churning through mountains toward the ocean. Every so often, he spun in a circle with his arms out wide, swaying dizzily forward in the invisible current. 

Tío Bruno made his own, less winding way along the path. 

“...so–so–so, what, the animals, they just, uh, they just hear it?” he was asking.

Antonio tilted his head thoughtfully. “No, more like feel it. Like…when you shake out a blanket and it moves the air.”

“A blanket? My gift is–is like a blanket?”

“Yeah. Or maybe, kinda like water. Like when you drop a rock in it? And the water goes woowoowoowoo. ”

Antonio spun in another pretend whirlpool. Tío Bruno blinked at him. 

“Woo…woo?”

“ ...woowoowoo, yeah, like that.” 

Antonio stopped spinning and dipped his hand in a wave-like pattern, illustrating the sensation that resonated through the air when Tío Bruno used his power. The rats had told Antonio all about what it felt like when it happened. Tío Bruno raised his arm and imitated the gesture, observing his own hand curiously.

They walked together in amiable silence as Bruno considered the new revelation. Antonio spotted a pebble laying in the path in front of him and kicked it, sending it skittering forward. When their steps brought them to where it landed, Tío Bruno nudged it forward again with his left foot, sending it back to Antonio’s side of the path and turning it into an impromptu pelota de fútbol. [ Soccer ball'] Antonio smiled and kicked the stone again, continuing the new game.

“Huh, woowoo,” Tío Bruno finally mused, stretching his mouth to one side and nodding in appreciation as he took another swipe at the stone. He added a little hop to his approach to give his kick extra gusto. “Well, there you go.” 

Antonio kicked the stone back with a happy hum. Sometimes it was hard for Antonio to put into words what the animals told him. They didn’t always tell him things in words: sometimes it was more like feelings, or even thoughts before you wrap words around them to give them to someone else. But Tío Bruno was pretty good about listening carefully even when Antonio didn’t have the words yet for what he was trying to say. He liked that about his new Tío. 

Today, they were out walking in the forest again, his absolute favorite thing to do. They weren’t too deep this time though, to Antonio’s slight disappointment. They'd had much more adventurous walks in the past month than this one. The paths weren’t overgrown with fern and roots to skip between, and if he turned and walked backwards he could still make out the roof of Casita looming behind them. 

That's okay, he was still having fun.

This time, Tío Bruno had asked to pick the day's activity. 

Not that I don’t love climbing trees or chatting with fish in the river or…or…or other, you know, terrifying, life-threatening, fun like that , he’d explained with a goofy smile. 

Instead, Tío said he needed his sobrinito's help with something special, and that had piqued Antonio's interest. He felt like one of his big-kid primos, entrusted with an important task only he could do. He wanted to make sure he did a good job, so he'd even asked Parce to go play somewhere else today, since he knew Parce made Tío Bruno a little nervous...though really he wasn’t sure why because Parce was the snuggliest of all his friends, and made him feel the safest. But sometimes his Tío Bruno was weird. Antonio didn’t mind, though. 

As they wandered, the forest around them whispered with a hundred different voices, and if he tried, Antonio could listen in on any one of them. Usually, he would go chasing after whichever conversation piqued his interest the most. For now though, he tried to focus on the conversation he was having with his Tío. He kicked the stone back to Bruno again. 

"The rats also said your gift is different now. Not as…um, everywhere? Not as big and scary. They like it better now."

Bruno returned the stone and nodded as if he knew exactly what the rats meant. 

Then something caught Tío's attention and he suddenly paused on the path, crouching down in front of a tall leggy plant with wide, bumpy green leaves and spikes of bright red flowers. 

“Ah! Here we go, here we go. Kid, you see this?” he said excitedly. The plant grew in a bright patch of sunlight that peeked through the canopy above. Antonio gave one last kick to their stone and moved to huddle next to Bruno. 

“This is salvia—or, or, sage—and I-I like to use it when I use my gift.” 

Tío Bruno rubbed a leaf between his fingers, releasing an earthy, mint-like smell into the air. It smelled good, but didn’t smell much like what Tío always smelled like. Tío Bruno sometimes smelled like he’d just been sitting by a fireplace.

He knew Tío Bruno must like fires though, because he'd watched him get ready for a vision once, when they'd used his room on the scary day last year, and he'd made a little fire to sit by. He imagined Tío making a little fire with sticks and leaves from the plant in front of them.

Antonio reached out and poked at one of the flower spindles, setting it rocking back and forth in the breeze. 

“Oh, I know this plant!” he said brightly, his memory suddenly jogged by the swaying motion. “The hummingbirds love it! They say it tastes extra good, even better than jacaranda flowers.” Sometimes they’d bring some of the red blooms as presents when they came to visit him, but Antonio didn't really like the taste like they did.

Tío Bruno smiled and nodded encouragingly at him. “Well, that's what I thought we could do today. You, uh, want to help me? Find some more of this stuff, I mean?”

Oh, so that’s the special thing! Antonio perked up excitedly, clapping his hands together. A quest to find a magical plant! It sounded like the stories Tío sometimes told him, like an adventure. 

"I'll ask Túcu!" he replied eagerly. He put his hand on Bruno’s shoulder, pulled his lower lip against his teeth, and sucked in air, creating a squeaking, chirping sound that mimicked the speech of the hummingbirds. He felt his magic alight in his chest, wrapping into the noise.

Tucusito! Are you busy? Can you play today?

After a moment or two, Tucusito flitted into view, spinning lightning-fast laps around their heads before hovering down low in front of the red blooms. He tucked his long beak into the face of one of the flowers and sipped a quick drink of the nectar, his wings a blur of motion around his tiny shimmering-green body.

What do you need? Quick! Want to play? Want to race? Want to see who’s faster? Tucusito’s thoughts were always swift and impatient. 

Antonio squeezed his eyes shut tight and tried to focus on what he needed to say. Lately, while he was out playing in the forest with Tío Bruno, he was starting to notice that he could talk to the animals in lots and lots of other ways. He could move like them, or try to think like them, and sometimes he could make himself more clear and connect with them better. They liked when he used his gift like that, he noticed.

But figuring out how to talk without words took time, and he wasn’t very good at it yet. There wasn't time to slow down when he was working in town with his family—there were always things to be done right now, no dawdling, Toñito! The señora is waiting! We need this done now!

But here, out in the forest with his Tío, he could always take his time. Even with speedy Túcu. 

With his eyes still closed, Antonio imagined he was a hummingbird, tiny and quick like Túcu. He imagined he could feel the whiz of his wings at his sides, the thrum of his heart three times as fast in his chest. Can you show us where more of this plant is?   he tried, this time without his people voice. He imagined his head tilting like Túcu's did when he spoke, his body twisting just right, chittering and squeaking with his mouth. 

He opened his eyes. Túcu was hovering in front of him, listening carefully. 

"We need to get some of the leaves for Tío Bruno, please," he added with his people voice, just to be sure. Tucusito chirped a quick affirmation and spun off into the trees to search around. 

“He’ll be back,” Antonio translated. “He’s going to go look for us and tell us where to go.”

Tío Bruno nodded at him, his eyes soft and warm in that way that made Antonio feel like he was doing something absolutely amazing, and he couldn’t help but grin back. 

It really wasn’t hard to use his gift, even when he was trying to talk in different ways. Most of the time, it was really just like talking to anyone else. Sometimes his gift didn't even feel very special, especially when he was helping in town. In town, it really just felt like chores. 

Antonio, can you tell the donkeys to stay in the stables while I fix the gate? Antonio, why is my fish swimming more slowly? Antonio, can you tell your monkeys to stay out of the papaya? 

Antonio liked helping, he really, really did. He liked when Abuela cupped his cheek in her hand and smiled at him, when he felt like he'd made her proud. He liked knowing he was helping people. Even if his gift wasn’t all that fun to use in town, he tried really hard to use it the right way, anyway. But sometimes it was hard to use it the right way, or to even know what the right way was. Sometimes his gift wasn’t helpful—sometimes it caused trouble instead.

But when he was out with Tío Bruno for the day, he found that he could make his Tío proud just doing what he would normally do—playing with his usual friends, meeting new ones, chatting about whatever came to mind. Even trying out new ways of speaking, whether to the animals or to even Tío himself. Sometimes he’d be telling Tío about something he learned from talking to the ancient old tortoise or the snarky capybaras, and suddenly Tío would be looking at him in that same proud way Abuela did, even though he hadn’t been trying hard at all. 

Túcu sped back to them and dropped a bright red flower spike at their feet. He chirped out quick directions before taking off again into the trees, calling after them to follow me! Follow me!

“This way!” Antonio shouted to Tío Bruno before crashing off through the trees in pursuit. 

“Wha–wait, where? A-Antonio!”

He could hear Tío’s clumsy steps behind him, and he giggled at the sudden game of chase. He loved days in the jungle with his new Tío. 

—

They hunted for sage for hours, following Tucusito off the beaten path to the lushest plants with the juiciest flowers. Now they were on the path back home, pockets stuffed full of herby leaves and bellies growling with hunger. Whenever Mirabel joined them, she always remembered snacks, but sometimes Tío Bruno forgot, and Mirabel didn’t always join them. Fantasies of Tía Julieta’s warm sopa crowded Antonio’s thoughts. 

“Thanks for all your help, Toñito,” Tío Bruno said, putting a hand down on his sobrino’s head. Antonio took the opportunity to grab at the edge of Bruno’s ruana and wrap himself up in it like a blanket as they walked. Tío’s ruana was much bigger than Camilo’s, and it was really good for snuggling in. 

“Did I make you proud?” he asked as he wrapped the fabric around his shoulders.

Tío stopped walking for a moment, and Antonio lagged as his makeshift ruana-blanket pulled him to stop as well. He looked up at Tío Bruno, who was giving him a funny look that Antonio didn’t quite like. His heart sank. Maybe he hadn’t done a good job after all. 

Tío Bruno knelt down in front of him and put a hand on his shoulder. He leaned in and locked eyes with him, a very serious expression on his face. Antonio shuffled his feet nervously. 

“I’m always proud of you, Antonio,” he said, his eyebrows drawn together and his mouth frowning like the face on his old door. His eyes weren't scary though, like the door. They were just Tío's soft, friendly eyes. 

“No matter, no matter what you do, or-or how you do it. I'm proud of you, of, of, of who you are. Okay?” 

Antonio felt something strange in his stomach, almost like an ache, but…nice. He wanted to say something, but his words were suddenly stuck in his chest again, which was all tight like it sometimes got. When his chest got tight, the words got trapped there and just wouldn’t come out. 

Tío Bruno smiled gently, and Antonio felt the tightness loosen up a little bit. He smiled shyly back. Tío squeezed his shoulder and stood, resuming their slow walk toward home. Antonio snuggled into the ruana refuge he’d made, pulling close until he was leaning against Tío’s side. Tío Bruno reached down and put his hand back on his head, giving it an awkward pat before letting it come to rest around Antonio’s shoulder. They continued on in silence, but Antonio didn’t really mind.

When they were almost home, the air began to shift, taking on a wet, salty smell. He could hear the squirrels in the trees muttering about water and wind and hidden seeds and nuts. 

“Mamá said it’s going to rain tomorrow,” he said quietly, his voice finally loosening from his chest. He could feel the dismay weighing down his words. “We won’t be able to play outside.” 

“Ah, that’s alright, kid. There’s lots of stuff for you to do inside, too.” 

“Will you still play with me?” he asked hopefully. 

Tío Bruno didn’t answer right away, but Antonio felt his arm tighten around his shoulder. 

“O-of course, always,” he finally answered, and his voice sounded a little funny. Antonio glanced up at him, but he couldn’t see his face past the folds of the ruana. Tío cleared his throat.

“...u-unless you get sick of me, of course, heh.” His voice was back to normal, and Antonio could feel Tío’s fingers flutter where they rested on his shoulder as he spoke. “You know, I think you’ll get sick of me long before I get sick of you, in any scenario. But, I-I’m always down for a day with you, kiddo. Even if it does involve…jaguars.”

“Parce is a very nice jaguar,” Antonio reminded him. 

“Mmmm, yes, yes, of course, of course he is,” Bruno replied, convincing no one. "The nicest."

—

As predicted, the next day was a rainy day. 

Antonio really didn't like rainy days. They usually meant something was wrong with Mami, and though he knew that wasn’t the case today, he couldn’t help the weird tight feeling around his heart every time he focused on the sound of the raindrops falling on the roof of Casita. He tried not to listen too closely. 

He carefully curved the scissors around the thin graphite line Mirabel had drawn for him, freeing the wings of his paper butterfly from the rest of the page. The edge still emerged a bit jagged and uneven, and he frowned at its messiness. He unfolded its wings and held it up for examination in the gloomy light that cascaded down from Bruno’s tower. 

Most of his friends liked the rain, and sometimes he tried to think more like them. The animals on the ground liked the fruit that fell under the weight of the droplets, and the bugs that emerged from water-logged soil. His friends in the trees liked the juiciness of the leaves that came after the rain. They all liked the clean feeling that came over the jungle as sheets of water came tumbling down and refreshed the world. 

But regardless of if they liked the rain or not, few of his friends remained indoors when it began to pour. Something about it made them feel antsy and trapped by the confining space, even if they were in Antonio’s magical room, and he kind of understood the feeling. When rainy days came around, Antonio was often left filled with jittery worry and melancholy, discovering a strange and uncomfortable kind of loneliness surrounding him. 

Luckily, he wasn’t completely alone today. Tío Bruno was playing with him, as promised, and Tío seemed to be rather enjoying the day inside. It was hard to be grumpy when Tío was in such bright spirits. Mirabel was playing with them today, too, and so Antonio was able to leave his icky lonely feelings outside his Tío’s glowing door. Instead, he carefully cut paper butterflies and let soothing, scratchy music from Tío’s newly-repaired gramophone hide the sound of the harsh raindrops. Tío Bruno kept jumping to frantically remind the rats that it wasn’t for running on anymore, now that it actually held fragile records, and his flailing made Antonio giggle every time. 

It was turning out to be an okay day, as far as uncomfortable days inside could go.

“Hey, you’re getting better with each one!” Tío Bruno observed, nodding approvingly at Antonio’s latest butterfly attempt and nudging him with his elbow. Antonio glanced at him skeptically, his mouth pulling to one side as he smooshed his eyebrows together into a scowl. 

“Aw, don’t look at me like that, parlanchín,” Bruno urged. [ Chatterbox ] Antonio’s expression relaxed a bit, warming at the special nickname only Tío used. "You gotta practice to get good at stuff, ya know? It takes time. Trust me, I-I’m obliged to only tell you the truth. It comes with the, uh, ‘prophet of the future’ territory. Rules of the trade and all that.” He winked as he unfolded his own perfectly shaped butterfly.

Antonio turned back to his own misshapen creation and blew out a raspberry—a very satisfying habit he’d picked up from his tío—and sent the butterfly gliding down into a pile of its lopsided brethren. Maybe Tío was right, but it didn't make it any more fun right now. 

Tití climbed up onto his shoulder and shook another folded sheet of paper in front of his face, chittering a slew of encouragements in his ear. Antonio took the paper and gave the tiny monkey’s chin a grateful scratch. She scampered off, crossing Bruno’s shoulders like a bridge before disappearing to some unseen corner of the room. 

To Tío’s credit, he barely even flinched as the saimiri climbed across him like a branch. Antonio was very proud—Bruno was really loosening up around some of his smaller friends. 

“Tití!" Bruno called after the monkey, wagging a finger in her direction. "You stay out of my bookshelf!” 

A high-pitch screech sounded back in affirmation, and Bruno grumbled something incoherent. Antonio smiled and leaned against his tío’s side, setting to work cutting out another set of small paper wings. Tío always remembered his friends’ names, every single one. Maybe he was good at it because he had to keep track of so many of the rat’s names. Or maybe he just had a good memory. Whatever the reason, it was one of his favorite things about his tío. But he had a lot of favorite things about him. 

“....twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight…” Mirabel sat cross-legged above them on Tío Bruno’s bed, the end of her pencil bouncing through the air as she ticked off a tally of all the butterflies cut so far. She held her glasses closer to her eyes with one hand, squinting at the piles that lay around the room.

 “....thirty-one…sheesh how many of these are we making?” she asked, tucking the pencil behind her ear and collapsing forward, her chin landing wearily on her fist as she rested her elbows on her knees. She was antsy and restless like the animals, and Antonio thought maybe his prima didn’t like being stuck inside either. Mirabel didn’t sit still much, unless she was sewing, and a rainy day meant a lot more sitting still than normal.

“Well…a-as many as we want!” said Bruno happily, intentionally ignoring Mirabel's bored tone. “I used to make these all the time as a kid, with your mamás. Abuela was the one who taught us, actually.” 

He held up another butterfly and admired the light glowing through the semi-translucent wings. 

“Pepa’d get a wind blowing in the room and— fwoosh —they’d fly like the real thing.” He slid a flat hand through the air to illustrate, grinning wistfully. “Sometimes Juli’d make some kinda something to snack on while we made ‘em. You know, in case of paper cuts and such, you know how she is, heh.”

Mirabel smiled at him, her cheek still smooshed against her fist. “Yeah, that sounds like má,” she said, adding an eye roll for good measure. 

“You guys must have been bored a lot,” Antonio mused, and then raised his shoulders and giggled when Bruno sent a butterfly careening off of his flattened hand and into Antonio’s nose with a huge puff of breath.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, kids these days,” Bruno grumbled good naturedly to the rat who came to perch on his shoulder. She squeaked in prim agreement. “They can’t enjoy the simple things in life, eh? Mmmm.” 

He shook his head mournfully and shrugged, and the rat scrambled to keep her footing. 

“Ah well. Alas, I find myself but a-a-an old fart amongst youths.” He cast out a hand into the air in front of him and dropped it in a gesture of dramatic lament.

Mirabel snorted at him, engaging another, larger eye roll as she straightened back up and dropped her hand into her lap. Manolo, who’d been asleep in a tight ball in her lap, squeaked out an irritated complaint and nipped at her thumb, eliciting a yipe from Mirabel. She pulled back her hand and shook out her fingers, glaring at him. Then she dropped her hands to the bed and sighed greatly, looking up at the endless rising ceiling in exasperated boredom.

Manolo scampered up to her shoulder and stood to sniff at her face. After a moment, Mirabel’s expression suddenly brightened. 

“...hey, you know what we need on a gloomy day like this?” she began, her eyes glinting behind her glasses in the way they did when she had a really good idea. Mirabel always had really good ideas. 

Antonio perked up straight and listened eagerly. Beside him, he felt Tío Bruno pull back in apprehension. 

She picked Manolo off her shoulder and passed him to Bruno, then the leaned forward with a conspiratorial smile, letting the anticipation build. 

“¡A bailar!” she whispered. [ To dance! ]

Antonio clapped his hands gleefully as Mirabel rose and moved to rifle through the pile of records on Bruno's desk. Tío Bruno’s shoulders dropped and he shook his head, mumbling to himself again. Tití reappeared, climbing up his back and piecing through Bruno’s hair with grooming fingers. He glanced at her dismally.

“Ay, Tití, you think you’re going to get a quiet day in and then boom . These two. Eeeeevery time.”

Antonio snickered. He knew Tío Bruno really liked spending time with him each day, even if he pretended to complain sometimes. The rats told him everything. He gestured for Tití to come over with a wave of his hand. The monkey chittered and left Bruno's shoulder, climbing happily into Antonio's lap instead. 

While he waited for Mirabel to pick the perfect music for their dance party, Antonio picked absentmindedly at Tití’s back, mimicking what her brothers and sisters would do in the trees outside. She chirped low in appreciation. It was nice to have Tití around on this rainy day, and he was glad she’d agreed to stay with him. 

Tío Bruno didn’t really like having Antonio’s animal friends in his room—he said it was the rat’s 'safe haven' and they needed a place to relax without the fear of being eaten. Antonio wasn't sure what a haven was, but whatever it was, he was always allowed to bring in Tití. She was small and well behaved, relatively speaking, and Antonio has a feeling that Tío Bruno was starting to like her. She got along well with the rats; she wasn't much bigger than them in size, after all. She would chase them playfully around the room, and sometimes she would groom them, scratching at their silky backs with her human-like fingers. Plus, she was smart, and Tío Bruno always liked the smarter animals best, as long as their teeth weren’t too big. 

Tío watched him groom Tití with his eyebrows raised slightly, gentle curiosity evident on his face, but he didn't tell him to stop. Antonio knew Tío didn't mind when he did stuff like that—stuff the animals taught him. Mami would scold him for sure if she saw him. You are a person, Antonio. You can be friends with animals, but you don't need to act like one, por favor! His papá was more forgiving, but usually sided with Mami. And Abuela…well he knew better than to do stuff like that in front of Abuela. He didn’t think she would scold him or anything, especially not now that everything was different. But he didn’t think it would make her proud, either. 

Antonio felt his stomach tighten at the thought of a disappointed Abuela. His conversation with Mamá last month came rushing back into his mind, uninvited. 

When Mamá told him he was going to have a break from helping in town, he’d asked her if he was in trouble. 

“No, mi amor!” she exclaimed, a cold wind blowing past as she reached out to him, letting her hands hover over his shoulders; not quite touching. She pulled her hands back, letting one rest on her mouth a moment before setting both to work pulling at her braid. The wind relented. 

“Abue—um, Papi and I just think you could use some more practice with your gift, getting the hang of it. Sometimes…sometimes your animals can get a bit mischievous, you know? And well, we think you could learn to control them better. To control your powers better. And if you did it in the jungle, nothing could go wrong! No one to bother, and there’s nothing to break or spill in the trees. Lots of room to practice. It will be fun, cielito, like playing!” 

Antonio tried to smile at her, but the heavy thing in his stomach wouldn’t let him. She bit her lip. 

“Tío Bruno is going to watch you…” she tried gently, her eyes wide and hopeful. He looked up at her then, and the room got warmer as the sun peaked out above her head. “He was so excited to get more time just you and him.” 

“He was?” Antonio asked, smiling a bit in spite of the heavy thing in his stomach. It didn’t feel quite so heavy all of a sudden.

The scratch of a record broke Antonio out of his thoughts, and he jumped as Tití screeched and sprang from his lap, responding to the high sound. 

“Ay, careful, Mira!” Tío Bruno exclaimed.

“Sorry, I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” she shot back, holding out one hand behind her to shoo away his advance as she reset the needle down on the record, more carefully this time. Tío Bruno ran hand nervously through his hair, but didn’t interrupt her. He fidgeted a bit, watching over her shoulder, before throwing his hands up and shaking his head, walking away to collapse in his red chair and fiddle with his fingers there, instead. 

Mirabel shooed a rat off the handle of the gramophone and began to crank it rapidly. After a moment, the strong beat of a tambor rang throughout the room, joined by the lively song of a pillet and the scrape of a guacharaca. The vallenato picked up, and Mirabel spun around with a clap, shimming her shoulders to the rhythm of the music. 

Antonio cheered joyfully and ran to her, clapping as Mirabel spun in front of him. He threw out his arms and began to move his feet in quick steps to the beat, just like Papá taught him, barely even thinking about the moves as his body fell into the familiar motions. His prima swished her skirts and began to match his steps, and he grinned and quickened his pace. Even though he was small, he knew he could outdance her—it was one of the few things he was best at as the smallest of the primos. After a moment or two, she threw up her arms and laughed, wiping at her forehead exaggeratingly with the back of her hand.  

“Geez, Antonio, you’ve gotten even better! What am I going to do now that a six year old is a better dancer than me?” She let her shoulders sag in defeat, and he laughed and grabbed her hand, lifting it and spinning beneath her arm. 

He paused then to look back at Tío Bruno, still sitting in his chair. He was leaning forward now and resting his forearms on his knees, watching them with a crooked smile on his face. Tití was perched on the arm of his chair, hopping with excitement. Tío seemed much more relaxed now, but he still wasn’t joining in the fun. 

Antonio could fix that.

He reached out his hands to grab Bruno's, whose face fell into an anxious grimace. 

“N-no, no, kid, I-I don’t dance.” 

“Come on, I bet you could dance if you tried!” 

“Mmmm…you see I can dance, but I won’t. No, thank you.” 

“Pleaseeee?” Antonio begged, taking a step closer and opening his eyes wide. He took one of Tío Bruno’s hands in his and held it close to his heart, begging like Parce when he wanted to snuggle together in his hammock. 

“Yeah, come on, Tío, show us those suave moves!” Mirabel teased from behind him, shaking her fists in front of her with imaginary maracas. She didn't sound like she believed him.

Tío Bruno looked like a cornered rat. His eyes were big and rueful as they looked at his sobrino's pleading face, his mouth still stretched in a bare-tooth grimace. Antonio pouted out his bottom lip. 

"AY niño, cut it out!" he beseeched, clutching his heart dramatically and tipping his head away. "Th-that's not, that's not fair…" 

Antonio gave a tug to his arm and he reluctantly stood, allowing himself to be pulled onto their makeshift dance floor. Antonio kept hold of Bruno's hand, swinging it in wide arcs back and forth to the music to try to loosen him up. He let go with one of his hands and began to step into a quick champeta beside Bruno, his feet crossing each other with ease. Bruno had yet to start moving, standing with Antonio's hand in his, his shoulders tense as he shrunk into himself. Antonio let go of Bruno's hand.  

"Relax, Tío!" Mirabel urged, bumping him with her hip. "It's just us! We're only judging you a little."

He squeaked out a nervous laugh and grabbed at his own fingers. He reluctantly began to bounce his shoulders a bit, movements almost too small to notice.

Antonio approached him again, more slowly this time, like he would a scared animal. He carefully untangled Bruno's hands from where they gripped each other and squeezed them reassuringly. He stood still this time as he swayed their arms back and forth to the music, smiling as Tío Bruno relaxed a little more. 

Bit by bit, Antonio watched his Tío let go of his nervousness and let himself move to the music. By the end of the third song, he was dancing—stiffly, awkwardly, with a funny red color across his face, but dancing nonetheless. Antonio sent a victorious smile toward Tití, who was swinging a grumpy rat around in the air on the cushion of Bruno’s chair in her own version of a dance. 

The needle skipped slightly as a new song came on, and Tío Bruno suddenly paused to listen. As the music came pouring out of the horn, his eyes widened.

“Ah," he muttered, smiling a bit to himself. "T-this is one of my favorite songs.” He tilted his head to listen, his shoulders softening along with his expression. “I haven’t heard it in years.”

"Oh, Tío." Mirabel approached him, her eyes full with a deep empathy. She wrapped him in a tight squeeze, pinning his arms beneath her own. Tío Bruno chuckled and shook his head at her fondly, patting her back as best he could. 

"I'm alright, kid. I just like it, that's all. I won't fall into the pits of despair, I promise." 

Antonio snickered into his hand.

She let go and put her hands on her hips, scowling at the two of them. 

“Well, you have to dance to this one then. If it’s your favorite . ”

Tío Bruno seemed to think for a moment, scratching at his beard. He glanced at his two sobrinos, and then it was like something shifted, like something in him came to life. 

Antonio loved when this happened, when Tío would suddenly brighten and the shadows in his eyes would drop away, and he'd spring into motion like someone had lit a lamp up inside him. Antonio was never sure what made it happen, but it always reminded him of his mamá, when her sun would break through her grey clouds and wrap everyone in warmth.

Bruno took a deep breath, then put one arm behind his back and tipped an invisible sombrero at Mirabel, who laughed brightly and fanned out her skirts in a small curtsey. The rolling music picked up and she twirled in a showy spin, holding her skirt wide in one hand and lifting the other in the air, flicking her hand out with flourish as she returned to face him. Antonio dropped to the floor on crossed legs, watching curiously.

Tío Bruno grinned and replaced his imaginary hat on his head, holding out his hand to his sobrina. Mirabel immediately grabbed it and yanked him into a quick cumbia, to Antonio’s delight. Tío yelped, wincing again and again as he struggled to remember the moves, but Mirabel continued to step forward and back to the lively beat without mercy, even as Bruno tripped over his feet to keep up. 

Tío Bruno’s stumbling just sent Mirabel laughing all the more, until she began to trip over her own feet as well, and Antonio had to stand and step back to avoid their antics. Mirabel and Antonio’s laughter only seemed to goad Tío Bruno into a more determined attempt to shake off his rusty dance skills, and he shot the occasional glare at Mirabel's malevolent giggles. 

"Oh that's–that's funny, is it, mija?" he said, affecting a slight bite to the endearment even as he chuckled back at her hysterics. "Okay, okay…" 

Tío Bruno paused his steps and nodded to himself, thinking. He suddenly turned and pointed to Antonio, his eyes glinting. 

"Aha! Y-you see the, the, the problem is we forgot to invite Hernando to the party, eh?" 

Antonio clapped with delight. I love Hernando! Tío Bruno pulled his hood up over his head, winking at Antonio, and turned back to his traitorous dance partner. 

Tío suddenly grasped her hand and spun her, eliciting a surprised shriek as she turned like a top, and when she stopped again to face him, Tío Bruno was leaning forward with an emboldened expression, a mischievous smile visible from beneath the shadow of his hood. He nodded and once more held out his hand to Mirabel, his brows furrowed in playful challenge. Mirabel bit back a grin as she placed her hand back on his. She brushed her skirt open to the side, and nodded smuggly, ready. 

This time, Mirabel let Tío lead, stepping quickly in time with his movements. They emerged much more gracefully now than his first attempt. Bruno seemed to have dropped any remnant of his nervous inhibitions, his whooshing ruana swirling with the music as he attempted gradually more advanced moves. He mumbled along with words of the song as he danced with more abandon, tossing in cross-body turns and grand flourishes that eventually had Mirabel bursting out with peals of laughter again. She gripped his hand tightly, dragged along by his fluid, if gangly, movements as she did her best to keep up with his rapidly shifting improvisations, her skirts flowing forward and backward and splaying out widely like the wings of a colorful bird. 

"¡Wepa!" Antonio shouted, barely able to get the words out between his fits of giggles. "¡W– hehe –Wepa!"

Antonio watched them dance and spin with joy bubbling in his chest. Their paper butterflies, still strewn in mounds on the floor, lifted into the air in ground-skimming flight at the brushing breeze made by Mirabel's skirt and Bruno's ruana. Some of the rats skittered circles around the room, chased by a squealing Tití, their antics sending more whispy-white butterflies quivering into the air. The pattering rhythms of the raindrops high up on the tower roof mixed with the sweeping footsteps of his tío and prima, and Casita gleefully thunked the floorboards in a matching rhythm. The beat resonated pleasantly in Antonio's chest. 

For once, the sounds of the rain soothed his ears, as comforting as Parce's deep, familiar purr. That old tight feeling around his heart was long forgotten.

Antonio snagged a passing rat and began to dance in and out of Mirabel and Bruno's bridged arms with the tiny partner, his laughter joining theirs as the sounds ricocheted off the rising walls of Tío's tower. 

As it turned out, Antonio really loved rainy days.

Chapter Text

The door to Bruno’s room was ajar, as it almost always was. No matter how many times Alma pulled it shut as she swept past throughout the day, Casita or Bruno would go behind her and silently crack it back open. 

It made the house look unkempt. It suggested laziness or carelessness. It allowed wisps of sand to creep out on the odd, mysterious breezes that so often curled playfully around her son's feet. When it came down to it, the constantly cracked door was just plain disorderly. But the boy and the benevolent house that roomed him seemed to care little for her opinion on the matter. 

Brunito had always wanted the door open, ever since he was just a toddler in the nursery. It was as if he couldn't bear the thought of being in any way closed off from their small family. At first she allowed it, feeling much the same way. But his desire had only intensified over this last year when he was given his own room, separated for the first time from his sisters, if only for the night, if only while asleep. It was then that his babyish requests to p-please leave the door crackeded, Mamá had gradually grown into the current silent battle of never ending openings and closings and surreptitious reopenings. She'd given in when he was younger, unable to deny her niño precioso when he looked at her with his big, sweet eyes, but as he grew she realized it was becoming a crutch that she must free him of. He was so dependent on her and his sisters...she worried he might not grow to be the strong man he must learn to be. 

Ah, but with Casita apparently siding with the almost-seven-year-old rather than the head of the household and the entire Encanto, as was to be expected…well, it was a war Alma was grievously losing. 

And so it was no surprise that when she approached Bruno's room for their daily gift practice she found her boots crunching grains of sand against the hall tile. He is too old for this, she thought to herself. He must learn independence, responsibility...

Her son's voice, endlessly jabbering and mumbling to himself, wafted out through the open doorway to meet her. 

" Ay, Brunito," she muttered as she stepped into the room, shaking her head at the chaos of clothes and books and odd debris that gathered in abandoned assemblages across the floor. A pile of rocks and twigs. Spoons pilfered from the kitchen. Bits of fabric from who knows where. All likely building materials hoarded for the miniature castles and forts and cottages he was always building for his little wooden figurines, which she was endlessly tripping over in the courtyard. 

Casita tilted the floorboards in a fruitless attempt to tuck some of the detritus under the bed. Alma tsked in mildly amused irritation.

"It is a rat's nest in here, Casita. Do not encourage him."

The floorboards ruffled, then settled, and she heard the door shut itself compliantly behind her.

"...the robbers will find us!" Bruno's voice was calling nearby. She followed the sound. 

"We must cast a magic spell to hold them back! Cooooolita de Logartoooo, Encuuuubra El Cuaaaarto! Look, look, look, it's working, it's working! Here comes the sandstorm to blind the cabrónes—" [Tail of the lizard, cover up the room...blind the bastards!]

"Bruno!"

Across the room, through the shadowed hourglass archway and the wide round doorway (open, of course, he would never learn), she finally spotted her son. He jumped at her approach. Bright pink shame flooded his face at her harsh tone; he was clearly horrified at having been caught using the filthy language of the gruff men in town. He was nestled in the sandpit in the center of his domed vision sanctuary, half buried and clutching a pair of small wooden people. The thin veil of swirling sand that had been rising around him dropped quickly to the floor, and he stumbled to his feet, grabbing at his arm anxiously. 

"Mamá! I–I–"

"That is not language befitting a servant of the Lord," she scolded.

"Sí, Mamá, lo siento, lo siento—"

"And spoken in your vision sanctuary! This is a sacred place, hijo. I have told you not to play here. It is for your work, a space to be honored, respected."

"Yes, Mamá, I-I know, I–I–I, I…I…"

Alma let out a sigh through her nose, softening slightly as her son became once again entangled in his words. She held up a halting hand.

"Despacio, hijo." Slowly, son. 

Bruno took a shaky breath. "I–I–I w-was, I was practicing! With the sand, I-I was practicing lifting it! For the visions, Mamá, I was working at my gift, I p-promise."

She fixed him with a steely gaze, and he offered back his sheepish grimace—a crooked, toothy grin, eyebrows drawn together and raised, that seemed to both plead innocence and forgiveness at the same time. He knew perfectly well that it worked to assuage her anger more often than not. He knew perfectly well that he held her heart in his small hands. Her expression softened.

"I don't want to hear that filth from you again. I can't have our people hearing you speak in such a way. What futures coming from such a foul mouth could be trusted?" she reached out and lifted his chin gently with two of her fingers. "You have a responsibility to uphold now, Brunito."

"Sí, Mama. I am responsible, I am. I-I will make our family proud."

Her lips twitched into the smallest of smiles, and she watched his shoulders relax ever so slightly.

"I know you will, mi vida. Now, clean up your room. I don't care how busy you get; your treatment of your room is a reflection of your respect for Casita and our Miracle. I will wait while you make it right."

"Right! Right, o-okay, Ma," he called as he jumped to obey. She waited primly, hands folded in front of her, as Bruno rushed about to tidy his room, aided heavily by Casita. He stumbled every so often on his new ceremonial ruana, long and flowing like the priest's robe. At least he had remembered to put it on before their practice this time. Somehow that instruction had made it through the fluffy clouds and fairy tales that filled his distracted head, milagro de Dios. She shook her head and chuckled, despite herself.

"Done!" he announced as he skidded back to a stop before her, slightly out of breath. His ruana hung twisted across his shoulders and his face beamed with a bright eagerness. She cast a scrutinous eye around the room and, having found it tolerable, straightened Bruno's ruana on his shoulders and then nodded. He gave an excited little hop and rushed to stand beside her as she turned and approached the doorway to the sanctuary. Alma made the sign of the cross, and Bruno echoed her motions, and then they both stepped inside to begin the morning's work. 

---

"Bien, mijo. Look how your control is growing!"

She squeezed his hands and he gave her a pleased smile. He let go of one of her hands to push his mussed curls aside from his forehead with the back of his hand, but quickly slid his palm back into hers. They sat facing each other as they had come to always do, legs folded beneath them in the sand. She found that if she faced him she could better gauge when his focus was drifting, could read his small face for signs his resolve was weakening. Holding his hands seemed to help keep him grounded as he called on his gift, and it certainly kept her steady as the sand-filled winds around them grew increasingly powerful. 

After nearly two years of having his gift, her son still struggled to look into the future on his own, though he was still presented with...surprise...visions as the miracle saw fit. He needed to learn better control of his powers, for his own safety as much as the towns. If he could master this...this...projection of the visions that he sometimes stumbled into by accident when the future came to him all on it's own...Alma thought perhaps the burdens of his gift might be lighter.

"I-I think I almost saw something that time!" he exclaimed proudly. 

"That is good, Brunito. But almost is not enough! I know you can do better. We will keep working, yes? You will learn to fully master this blessing you've been given, and you will use it for such good things, to help our people and make us strong."

"Yeah, I—" 

"'Yes,' Bruno."

"I-I mean, yes , Mamá."

Thus far, he'd only managed to pull the sand into a sputtering, if still powerful, vortex, tinged with blurred green light that revealed no discernable messages from the future. The visions still came to him on their own, unprompted, gracias a Dios para esa misericordia, thank God for that blessing, but Alma knew there was so much more to his gift. She knew in her gut that he could learn to use it at will, and the benefits of such power would be…simply miraculous. Their people would never again have to fear. He could just look and see, and they would never again be caught vulnerable and defenseless. 

It was imperative he learned to control it. 

Before her, her son blinked fatigue from his eyes and gave a little shake to his head. She could see he was tired—he had pushed himself harder than normal today, perhaps to make up for his earlier verbal misstep. They had been working for more than an hour now. 

"You look tired, mijo," she said gently. "Perhaps we should stop for today." She reached out and ran her fingers through is hair, gently brushing it back into place.

"N-no, Mamá! I can do it. I can try one more time." He nodded resolutely and stood up on his knees. She smiled proudly at him. He would be strong, like his father. He would lead their family and their people.

"Well done, Brunito. That is the dedication I like to see in my boy. Very well, one more try. Here we go now, clear your mind. Focus."

" Focus," he muttered, closing his eyes. He swayed slightly and she tightened her grip on his fingers, inching ever so slightly closer to him in the sand. He took a deep breath and blew it out in an obnoxious raspberry. Alma tightened her mouth but did not interrupt. 

Gradually, the sand around them began to lift in curling tendrils. They danced about the round room, picking up momentum intermittently until they'd conglomerated into a semi-transparent wall. The light dimmed, casting a shadow over his small, serious face. His frowning mouth twitched slightly in the corners, and his brows bunched together in concentration. 

"You can do this, mijo. Focus. Don't let it go," she called over the sound of the raging winds. It made her uncomfortable how helpless she was to provide guidance to him in these moments. How was she to know what to say to help her seven-year-old son call on incomprehensible magic to somehow grip a vision of the future more firmly? It sounded like nonsense! A fantasy. And yet, it was all too real, and all she could do was hold his tiny hands tighter and urge him forward when she sensed him drawing back with hesitation. All she could do was hope that was enough. 

Brunito opened his eyes, round and impossibly large, glowing fearsome and vibrant. Alma steadied her resolve, always shaken ever so slightly at the haunting, sightless gaze on her child. It always reminded her that he was still so young. It was so easy to forget that.

"I–I see…"

"Yes?” she asked breathlessly. “What do you see, mi vida?"

"I see…I–I see…"

The sand began to stutter and drop around them, and the wind began to weaken. Bruno's pupils widened and constricted rapidly as he attempted to focus on something only he could fathom. 

"Hold on to it, Bruno! Be strong. Hold firm."

"Oh! Oh!" he gasped, pointing frantically, and for just a moment the green light around them condensed into a fuzzy, nondescript shape. A chill ran down Alma's back, and she rose on her knees as well, straining desperately to make sense of the blurry mass. But just as quickly as it arrived, it vanished, and the sand suddenly showered down around and on top of them, stinging their eyes and covering their hair. 

Alma sighed. They had been so close that time. She closed her eyes, imagined Pedro's hand on her back, imagined him sitting beside her, equally covered in sand. Equally a part of this confusing, miraculous life she now navigated. Have faith, my love, she imagined him saying in her ear. He'll get it. You'll be safe. 

Soon, they'd be safe.

"Lo siento, Mamá," came Bruno's quiet voice. She opened her eyes and looked at her son, sand sticking to his face and covering his tousled hair. He avoided her gaze. "I let go. I-I couldn't hold it…I-I had to stop."

Alma took a breath and composed herself, tucking away the disappointment behind the sturdy wall that held back all the other useless things that only served to weaken her resolve and hinder her ability to fulfill her duties. 

She looked closer at Bruno, face pulled away from her, head bowing in disappointment of his own.

Ay, mi niño. Her son had not asked for this responsibility.

But then again, neither had she. Neither had her daughters…neither had Pedro. The world gave you responsibilities, impossible tasks that you neither asked for nor wanted, and all you could do was be strong enough to bear them. All you could do was endure. 

All she could do was make sure he was strong enough to carry the responsibilities that life would continue to place unbidden in his lap. She couldn't let him be crushed under them, as she almost had.

No, Brunito didn't need to apologize—he'd done well today, better than he had yet. But he did need to learn to stay strong, to endure, to not give up, no matter what. No matter the cost. 

"We do not say can't, amor," she finally replied, her voice tighter than before. "We say not yet. You'll get there, I know it. We will just try again tomorrow."

"Sí, Mamá," he whispered. He still wouldn't meet her eyes. 

She reached out and combed her fingers through his matted hair again, tidying it the best she could. He looked up at her then, his tired eyes hopeful and adoring, so much like his father's. Her heart clenched painfully in her chest. She paused her combing and slowly cupped his cheek in her hand instead, and he smiled that small, sweet smile that his father had smiled at her across the square all those years ago. 

Sweet Brunito. Her son would be great. He would be strong and brave, just like his father. Oh, how she wished Pedro was there, to show him how. She would give anything to make it so, for herself, and even more so for her children. 

But he wasn't here, and wishing wouldn't change that. So she would show him instead, and she wouldn't let him down. Either of them.

Alma quickly stood, shaking off the heavy thoughts along with the sand in her skirts. She glanced at the watch that hung from her waist, and did not wince as it clanked against the locket that held Pedro’s picture when she let it go. She brushed what sand she could from her hair, her mind already jumping ahead to the myriad of responsibilities that awaited her in town. She sighed. There aren't enough hours in the day...

"I must go change now, Brunito; I have my duties to attend to in town. You did well today, amor. I will see you for lunch, sí?" 

"...oh, uh, o-okay, Mamá."

"Make sure you clean up before heading out. Can I trust you to do that or should I ask your sisters to help?"

"No, I-I can do it."

"That's my boy." She paused and locked eyes with him one last time. She smiled, and he smiled warmly back. "I love you, mijo. Make me proud."

He nodded at her, and she turned to leave. 

"Hasta luego, mi vida."

"...bye, Mamá."

She shut the door behind her as she left.

Chapter Text

Bruno watched Antonio sprint ahead with a joyful shout. He launched himself into Pepa’s open arms, and she swung him around in circles, covering his face with kisses as she squealed out adorations and praises of her pequeño hombrecito tan guapo ¡ Ay, que maravilloso…   [sweet little man, so handsome, oh, how wonderful are you!]

A shimmering rainbow broke out above them. 

Bruno chuckled at the display, taking his own slow time to walk the remaining distance to the steps of Casita. Some rusty part of his brain whispered mischief, and he briefly thought about sprinting the rest of the way like his sobrino, just to get a rise out of Pepi. 

He glanced at the far edge of the lawn, where several people still milled about at the edge of town.

Nah…adults don't run , he reminded himself wryly, and the urge was firmly dismissed. Kids run. When kids run, it's invisible. You don't even notice when they sprint down the street instead of walking, because that's, well, that’s just what kids do! But adults don't run, especially adults who see the future. When adults who see the future run, everyone gets scared, thinks there is some kind of emergency, the world is ending, maybe they should be running, too, 'oh no, ¡AY! ¿que destino terrible nos ha sobrevenido hoy?! ' What terrible fate has befallen us today?!

One of the townspeople looked up and spotted him, and for a brief moment they held each other's gaze. Bruno felt his stomach drop in trepidation. But the man just nodded and gave an awkward smile. Bruno returned it, adding an equally awkward wave. 

Yeah…adults who tell the future don't run. As a matter of fact, kids who tell the future don't run either.  

“How was he today?” Pepa asked when Bruno finally reached the steps. Antonio had long since slipped through Casita’s front door, taking the rainbow with him. The smallest flurries of snow floated down around them now. Bruno blinked up at them and brushed a couple off his shoulder. 

“Bien. He was fine. We had fun, we had fun, we uh, we played leapfrog with some actual frogs, so, heh, that was something…” Bruno rubbed the back of his neck, smiling. “I-it’s harder than it sounds actually.”

Pepa grasped her hands together and grinned, moving down a few steps until she stood on the step below Bruno's. She still towered over him, but he appreciated the sentiment. But then, without warning, her smile sharpened and she reached out a quick hand to roughly muss his hair, completely ruining all previously established goodwill. 

"¡Ay, que caramelito!" she cooed, in much the same voice she had used with Antonio. [ What a sweetie!]

He cursed and raised his shoulders, batting her hand away.

“Pepa! Qu–quit it, you— cerilla , stop it! We aren’t ten anymore!” [ Matchstick .]

“Ah, but you’re acting like it!” she shot back, poking a finger into his chest with a smug grin. “Leapfrog, la traes, climbing trees…Antonio tells me, you know.”

He glared at her and ran combing fingers through his hair, as if he could return it to some semblance of order. As if it was orderly to begin with…but hey, he had some dignity. 

Pepa suddenly reached out again and Bruno flinched, but this time she just cupped his cheek in her hand. It was a much more gentle gesture, completely unexpected from his most ornery sister. He raised his eyebrows in surprise, lifting his gaze to meet hers. She had dropped her joking pretenses and was looking at him with eyes that were warm and soft…disarming. He felt something tighten in his chest, around his heart. 

“I think it’s sweet, hermanito,” she said gently. “And I’ve never seen Toñito so happy. I–” she paused and pulled her hand back, putting it to her heart instead. A fine mist condensed around them. “I-I’m just, thankful. Yeah?”

“I-it’s no problem, Pepi. Really.” He rubbed the inside of his elbow awkwardly. “You…well, you know I love that kid.” 

Pepa nodded at him, and then her hands flew to her braid and the air cleared around them. Bruno’s lip curled slightly as he felt the air warm unnaturally. 

“I, uh, I thought you weren’t doing that anymore. You know. Clear skies …” He wiggled his fingers in the air and pitched his voice higher to imitate hers. She smacked his shoulder. 

“Cállate. [ Shut up .] I just don’t always want to change my clothes five times a day, okay?”  

She shook out her shoulders and sniffed, and Bruno knew that signaled the end of that conversation. He wasn’t about to push it-–he didn’t really feel like calling down a lightning storm today, if he could help it. 

“So, did you guys work on… his gift ?” she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper at the end as if Antonio might pop out and burst into accusing tears if she said it too loud.

Bruno tensed, casting his eyes up and away to carefully study the butterflies carved into the arch of Casita. 

"Well—well, well, yes and, and no …I mean did he use his gift? Yeah! Sure! Only one way to get a bunch of frogs to leap over your head, you know, heh heh. Would be difficult without the whole 'talking to animals' thing. But, uh, but I guess it depends on what you mean by work on, exactly…"

“Bruno…”

“Look, I-I-I just don’t think he’s got anything to worry about.”

The flurries returned, larger and more frequent. They melted before even reaching the ground, but some gathered on Pepa’s hair like a white crown. 

“Bruno, that’s the whole point of taking him out to the jungle every day! It's been two months. You know he should be starting his studies, right? Mamá is delaying his studies so he can get control of his gift, and if he’s not any better off than he was before, then he’s just behind in his studies and still struggling with his gift, and then…and then what is this all for?” 

She threw out her arms in exasperation before pulling them in to hug herself, rubbing her arms against the chilled winds that now brushed briskly around her.

Bruno tightened his jaw against the sinking feeling in his stomach. He took the smallest step back. Pepa’s eyes grew wide and the flurries turned to snow.

“Ay, I didn’t mean— of course you spending time with him is important, too, but—I just mean he needs to figure this out, you know? If he doesn’t, he’s never going to be able to go into town without a fiasco. You…you get it.”

Bruno nodded. He did get it…better than anyone—except Pepa herself, perhaps. And here he was, failing his sobrino and his sister because he selfishly wanted…what? to just play and be goofy? 

To just be with him. To make up for lost time. 

Really, really , If he was honest with himself, he knew he was just stealing time from Toñito to fill in his own gaping holes. That's really what it was. He felt the shame pool in his gut.

“Yeah, lo siento, I-I get it,” he muttered, voice low. He startled as Pepa pulled roughly at his arm, breaking the connection between his hand and his elbow. She brought his hand close and wrapped his fingers in hers. 

“Hey,” she said firmly, using her free hand to wave away the clouds and clear the flurries. The warmth returned again. “I’m not blaming you. I said I was thankful, right? Don’t go all quiet on me, tonto. Just…I don’t know, maybe make time for the gift stuff too, okay?”

He gulped and nodded at her. She squeezed his hand. After a moment, he squeezed it back. Then she sighed and looked beyond him toward the clouds where they settled like a soft grey ribbon above the forests and the mountains beyond.

“It’s going to rain again tomorrow,” she said, and the corners of her mouth twitched upward— was that smile? He could have sworn the air warmed a little around them all on its own. “...so have another day of fun. We’ll worry about all that later this week, okay? We'll sort it out, together?”

She released her grip, and he quickly drew his hands back into his chest. 

“Yeah, that’s uh, that’s great, good plan. I’m, um, I gotta, you know, and well, heh…things to do!...and stuff. Um. I-I’ll see you around, Pepi.”

"Bruno—"

"Yep! Sounds good!" he called over his shoulder without looking back. He hurried up the stairs and slipped through the front door before Pepa could form a reply, slinking his way across the courtyard and ignoring the tiles that Casita clinked at him. 

His mind whirled as he made his way up to the safety of his room. Dusty memories of his own wayward visits to town, of angry glares and impassioned shouts echoed in his head, and he hunched his shoulders against them as he climbed the stairs. 

What do you mean the corn crop will fail?! I've done everything I can to make sure everything will go well…look again, maybe you just…

No, not Rosalín, that couldn't have been Rosalín, you MUST have it wrong…

I thought we had so much more time…I thought...

No! There must be something else. Something you're not seeing…

You're wrong. That can't be my future…Y-you've cursed me! This never would have happened if you…

Brunito .

Hijo, sometimes the best way for some of us to help is to step back, to help from a distance. I think you should stay with Casita today. Anyone who needs to will come see you so you don't have to bring so much…agitation…into town. Just until you can improve your…

Brunito, mi vida, I just think you can do so much better with your gift. Why, now, do you only see the bad? We have a responsibility to do what is best for the Encanto…

"I’ll do better," Bruno assured himself, shutting his bedroom door firmly against the voices of the past. A few rats scurried up to his feet. He nodded down at them. "I’ll do what’s best for Antonio, n-no matter what, always." 

The kid deserved the best, after all. Ay, he deserved the world. 

—

Mirabel ran her hand across the surface of the sand, smoothing it into a flat plane. It was soft when it was all together, not as gritty as when the particles were separated and clung with scratchy edges to your fabric and skin. The grains seemed to round each other out somehow, when they were all bunched together. She realized that in all the times she'd been in her tíos vision cave, she'd never stopped to just look at the sand—she was always focused on the glowing vision and green sparking magic and crazy wind and all that. Go figure. 

Now though, Tío Bruno had opened some unseen vent in the top of the domed room ( all that smoke has to go somewhere, heh… ), letting in a stream of grey light from outside. With the normally dark room awash in a natural glow, the sand sparkled as if it was a taupe sky filled with glittering stars. The mounds were peppered with small reflective grains, different from the rest, that captured the light and twinkled as she moved her eyes across them. She picked up a handful and admired it as it cascaded in a waterfall from her loosened fist. It was actually pretty cool. 

“Tío, your sand is really beautiful.”

He turned from where he stood in the big round doorway with a rat cupped in his hands. He raised his eyebrows in surprise and then quickly shrugged away the compliment, laughing awkwardly.

“Oh, well, heh. It’s uh, it’s not so bad, yeah. I never really minded it.”

She smiled and turned back to the sand, where Manolo was currently digging a small hole. He pressed himself into the hole, going as flat as an arepa. She picked up a pinch of sand and sprinkled it along his back, chuckling as his fur quivered from the sensation. 

Then she dropped her hand again and sighed.

Another rainy day, and Mirabel found herself once again trapped inside, dispelling her nervous energy by distracting herself with the antics of Tío and Antonio, the newly inseparable pair.

She was thankful for the rainy days, truly she was. It meant only good things for Tía Pepa, who long deserved a chance to let go of control every once in a while. After all, It was only a month ago that Mirabel had discovered the truth: that the almost perpetually sunny skies of the Encanto were not in fact a naturally idyllic weather pattern, but the result of careful, near constant control by her Tía. 

It really shouldn't have been a surprise; she should have realized it a long time ago. And yet, she had not made the connection until Antonio had told her in passing all about his conversation with some ancient old tortoise he’d found deep in the forest. The tortoise was apparently old enough to remember a time in the early days of the Encanto. 

“She said it rained a lot more when she was little,” Antonio explained, passing Mirabel the spool of thread she’d asked for. He wiggled on his chair next to her sewing table, his feet dangling. “She said she misses the rain.” 

Mirabel frowned and set down her sewing. “Why would it have rained more before…?” Mirabel began, but stopped as the realization hit her. Of course. Tía Pepa.

She’d always known her tía kept most of the storms away from the Encanto for safety, allowing them to hover over the surrounding forest but never quite to broach the borders of town. Mirabel knew Tía watered the fields twice a week to keep the crops growing strong. But she’d never thought about the toll that must take, the effort of perpetually sunny skies not just above her own head, but above all their heads. She never thought about the odd contradiction of her tía both creating rain and keeping rain at bay—rain only where they wanted it, when they wanted it, at all times.

She’d mentioned the conversation to her tía, and for a moment Pepa hadn't even understood what Mirabel was talking about. She was so used to it that she didn't even think about it anymore, and she said so. 

"Don't worry, Mija," she said with a small laugh, brushing off the suggestion. "I've been doing this a long time. No need to shake things up now."

But as Tía Pepa had walked away, a subtle icy hail had begun to patter to the floor behind her, and that had been all Mirabel needed to see. The next day, she had approached Abuela, who nodded solemnly as she listened to all Mirabel’s concerns. 

At first Abuela had resisted. We have days off for that now, mi vida, we still have a responsibility to care for our people. You don't have a memory of what it was like before our gifts—

“But Abuela, Tía Pepa doesn’t get a day off, not with this. Can you imagine what it’s like for her? To push down a part of herself, always, without any relief?”

Abuela stiffened, and Mirabel saw something deep and vulnerable emerging unexpectedly in her eyes. Abuela quickly looked away.

“You…can imagine what that feels like,” Mirabel said softly.

“I…I imagine it would be very difficult,” she replied, her voice tight. She sniffed and raised her chin proudly, any remnant of the pain in her expression all but gone. 

To Abuela’s credit, the change was made almost immediately. Tía Pepa no longer held back all the rain. As far as the needs of the town were still able to be accomplished, and an incoming storm wasn’t too destructive, Tía Pepa now watched passively, joyfully even, as a rain that was not her own poured down over the town. She didn’t have to water the crops as often either, now that they were in a rainy season. She met with the farmers once a week to plan for the days ahead and only intervened with her powers as planned, and so she had more time to just…be. 

After a few weeks, the effects were clear. Tía Pepa was so much more relaxed. 

Rainy days meant good things for the rest of the family, too, as the more heavy days of rain often meant a break from all the normal duties in town. Camilo had energetically high-fived Mirabel during their first stormy day off, and Pa had hugged her proudly. She was actually pretty proud of herself too, not to be braggy or anything. And she was definitely glad to have helped her Tía, who had certainly helped her over the years. 

She was thankful for all the rain and all that it brought, really. 

But…it also meant she couldn’t do anything. Not anything useful , anyway. No rounds with Abuela, no work in town, just…stepping aside for the day. She fidgeted with a stubborn loose thread on her skirt. 

“Mira, look at the hole I dug!” Antonio sat on his knees beside her, sunk up to his shoulders in a hole in the sand. His hair was strewn with the glittering grains. Mirabel didn’t envy whoever had bathtime duty tonight. An old petulant part of her hoped it was Isabela. 

“Wow, that is impressive. You see this hole, Tío?” she called over her shoulder. Tío Bruno approached and plopped down cross-legged beside them. 

“It’s a marvel!” he exclaimed, spreading his hands wide in front of him as he took in the wonder of his sobrino’s sand hole. Antonio giggled and began digging more. 

“I want to find the bottom!” he said eagerly, throwing sand over the edge of the pit and into his Tío’s lap. A couple rats leapt from Bruno's shoulders to avoid the shower, scrambling across the sand and up onto Antonio's back instead. 

“Ah, good luck, kid. Peps and Juli and I have tried that before. It just goes on and on and on…”

“ Ugh, like this day…” Mirabel muttered, and Bruno tossed a handful of sand at her. 

"Hey!"

“ Relax , Miracita. What’s the big rush anyway? Got somewhere to be?” His voice was light and joking, but as always with Tío, something oddly heavy hung in his eyes as he looked at her. 

“I just…” she began, but trailed off. She just didn’t like having her hands still. She never had. It let too many thoughts catch up with her. “I’ve just liked helping out around town recently. I miss it, that’s all. I like being helpful.”

Tío patted the sand next to him and she scooted closer. He dumped a rat in her lap—his solution to all of life’s anxieties. She scratched behind the rat’s tiny ears and begrudgingly felt herself relax a bit. She leaned against Bruno's shoulder, wincing as more sand flew from the hole in front of them and onto their legs.

“You’re doing great, kid,” he said softly, bouncing his shoulder to nudge her. “Really. You should let yourself take a load off every once in a while, you know? Just, just be…well, be a kid. Y-you've done plenty." 

Mirabel frowned and leaned her head down on his shoulder. Be a kid . Her stomach clenched at the thought. She was sixteen—that ship had sailed, and she didn't even think she wanted to be on it anyway. She was sick of being a helpless kid, always in the way, never able to do anything that mattered. The things she did mattered , now.

She knew Tío was just trying to help, though. He tipped his head forward to catch a better look at her face, frowning at her frown.

"Hey, just, just look at Antonio!" he tried again, lifting his splayed fingers to gesture at the boy in question, still just a blur of motion and sand. "You practically helped raise him, and now he’s the greatest hole digger in all the land! Your legacy in the great history of the Encanto is secure.”

She snorted. “Okay, Tío.” 

“Mmhmm.” He brought his arm around her and gave her a little squeeze. They watched Antonio's eager digging, rats clinging to his back and crawling in and out of his hair.

“...hey, Tío Bruno?” Mirabel began, suddenly unable to help herself from asking the question that had been nagging at her all month.

“Hmm?”

“About that vision you had, about me?…What—”

Through the big hourglass archway, a knock sounded at Tío’s door.

“¡Ven!” he shouted— come in! —and Mirabel ducked her ear away from the volume. 

“Gah, come on!” she muttered at him, giving him a small shove. He recoiled, pulling his curled hands up toward his chest.

“Sorry, sorry!” 

Tía Pepa peeked her head around the door. 

“We’re in here, Tía!” Mirabel shouted, purposefully aiming her voice at Bruno’s ear. He scrunched his face at her, growling quietly. Mirabel smirked. 

Pepa appeared in the big round doorway, half-smiling, half-grimacing at her son immersed in a sea of sand. 

“This looks fun,” she said, crossing her arms and leaning against the door jamb. 

“Mami, look at my hole!” Antonio shouted, now sunk neck-deep.

“Yes, I see it. Is Tío Bruno doing bath time tonight?”

“Erm,” Tío Bruno replied, clearing his throat and scratching at the stubble on chin. “I-I think it’s Félix’s turn.”

Tía Pepa shook her head in amusement, and Mirabel felt a sudden surge of contentment at the simple moment unfolding. Her Tío was here, joking with his sister. Her primito was giggling loudly, not hiding, the bright sound echoing off the walls of Tío’s normally solemn vision cave. Her Tía was smiling whole-heartedly, filling the round room with a golden sunlight that warmed away the pale grey light from outside. It was a small reminder that her family was whole and healing, and she’d had a hand in that. 

Maybe she could take it easy for the day, like Tío said. Maybe she had done enough, for now. 

“Mirabel, Abuela is asking for you,” Tía said as she moved into the room. She held out her hand to help her sobrina up, but Mirabel bounced to her feet before she could register the offer. “Oh! She, um, she said she needs help with something in town. Want me to clear up the rain for you?”

“Nope! We’ll be fine! Thanks, Tía!” Mirabel put the rat on Bruno’s shoulder and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “See you, Tío! Have fun, Toñito!”

She was out the door before any of them could reply. She breathed a deep, relieved breath as she slid down the stairs, flattened into a ramp by Casita. Ah, something important to do. She felt better already. 

—

Bruno watched her go with a heaviness in his stomach. It was that same feeling he got when he knew he was watching someone walk off to some unlucky fate, knew they were going to spill their coffee or, or, or, sit on their glasses, or break their leg. It felt like sending a loved one off to battle, except you were in charge of the war and you knew they were going to lose. He hated that feeling. 

He hated even more that his sobrina was the one he felt was dashing off to some sort of doom that he'd inspired.

She’s fine, tonto, quit panicking. That, that, that vision was so far in the future, you don’t, you don’t, you-you shouldn’t start trying to worry about every move she makes right now, okay? Just relax. Tranquilo…

“I know that face,” Pepa said, fruitlessly brushing at the floor with her foot in an attempt to create a spot clear of sand. She raised her eyebrows at him meaningfully, lips pursed. He watched as she gave up on any attempts to avoid the sand and sat down in Mirabel’s abandoned spot instead, close next to Bruno, directly in the sand itself. Apparently, Pepa was staying awhile. Bruno forced back the involuntary tightness in his shoulders.

Pepa tossed her long braid behind her back and hugged her middle as she settled in. “So, who’s got it coming today?” 

He scoffed at her and grabbed at his ankles, pulling them closer to himself. His mouth made a tight line. 

“It’s not Mirabel is it?” Pepa suddenly asked in a low whisper, her eyes wide. Something in Bruno’s expression must have given him away because she gasped and gripped his shoulder tightly. “Ay, what is it?! Is she going to sit on her glasses again? Because Agustín just—”

“Gah, Pepa, leave it okay?” he grumbled. “She’s fine, nothing’s going to happen to her today.” 

Pepa dropped her hand from his shoulder and tucked it into her lap instead. 

“Sorry,” she muttered. But she kept glancing at him nervously nonetheless. Bruno stuck a finger in the sand and drew circles, watching the sand collapse back into the lines as soon as his finger left them. For a moment, the only sound was Toñito’s delighted shrieks echoing off the cavern walls. His digging had devolved into some kind of sand battle with the rats.

“Do you remember when you used to tell me all your visions?” Pepa suddenly asked softly. Bruno glanced at her. She was staring off in the middle distance. “Even the ones you didn’t tell Mamá. They were like, our secrets.”

Bruno gave her a small smile. “Nah, I never told them all to you. I just let you think I told them all to you so you’d quit bugging me about them,” he joked, earning himself a haughty glare. 

“¡Mentiroso!” she exclaimed, punching his arm. [ Liar!]

“Hey, hey, I told you most of them, okay?” he laughed. “They weren’t that bad back then anyway. What was it going to hurt to tell you Señor Zapata was cheating at dominoes?” 

“ Hur t ? It used to be the highlight of my day! You had the best gossip in the whole town! Remember we used to meet in the nursery after everyone went to bed, and eventually Julieta would find us and tell us we were going to get in trouble if Mamá found out? Rajona…” [ Tattler.]

Bruno snickered. “She was right.”

“Gah!” Pepa brushed her hands through the air dismissively and leaned closer to Bruno until their shoulders were pressed together. Bruno tensed slightly at first, but then carefully leaned closer. 

“R-remember when I had that vision about José pushing me down, a-and you chased him with sleet until he apologized, before it even happened?” 

Pepa crossed her arms stubbornly. “Psh, he was a jerk. Still is. He had it coming, anyway.” 

“Yep, that’s when I learned about self-fulfilling prophecies,” Bruno mused, his voice filled with facetious wonder. Pepa stuck her tongue out at him. He grinned back at her, but his grin faded as her face suddenly shifted, taking on a tinge of sadness. The sunlight coming in from the vent faded out to grey again. 

Ah, what did I do wrong?

“I miss this, you know,” she whispered, glancing at Antonio to see if he was listening in. Bruno checked too—he didn't seem to be. The battle raged on, and the rats appeared to be building trenches. “I miss the dumb stuff. Gossiping. Just hanging out without it being…”

“...a complete disaster,” Bruno finished. 

“I was going to say difficult, Bruno.” 

“Ah, right, right, sorry. Well, you know me,” he shrugged. “Difficult is just my style. I-it's my lot in life."

"Hm," she chuckled amusedly. "Sure is."

After a pause, she reached out and snagged his hand in hers, pausing his circles. 

"But it's mine, too," she added, leaning toward him conspiratorially. "That's why I miss it."

"Huh." He looked at their hands held together, peppered with sand. "Yeah, me…me too."

—

Mirabel found her abuela waiting for her at the front door of Casita, a single yellow umbrella in her hand. 

“Hola, Abuela!” she called cheerfully from the stairs. Abuela turned and smiled lovingly at her, alighting a glowing feeling in Mirabel’s stomach. It had been a year, but she still was thrilled by Abuela's warmer demeanor. Ever since that moment in the river when they’d finally seen each other clearly, they’d only seemed to grow closer. 

For Mirabel, it was like knowing her for the first time, this warm and affectionate woman who had taken the place of the cold and distant matriarch she had come to expect. Part of her still feared that old Abuela—and still flinched around those old wounds that she’d gained through the years. Sometimes Mirabel found herself grasping desperately at every smile, and every touch, like she used to before, desperate to fill the holes that Abuela’s distance had worn into her. 

“Mi vida,” Abuela replied, cupping her cheek gently.

Every moment spent with Abuela now though…it helped. And maybe it hurt, too. Maybe both. 

“Tía Pepa said you needed help with something in town?” She took the boots that Abuela handed her and knelt down to put them on. 

“Actually, I may have lied about that,” Abuela murmured down to Mirabel from behind her hand, her eyes glimmering with a bit of very uncharacteristic mischief. 

“Abuela! You lied to Tía Pepa?” Mirabel whispered back in shock. 

“Well, perhaps I just stretched the truth. I thought we could go for a walk. I have something I’d like to discuss with you.”

Mirabel grinned. She plucked her hat off the wall and jammed it onto her head. Casita had graciously carried it down from her room for her. She put a hand to the wall in quick thanks. 

Abuela lying and taking walks in the rain?

“Sounds lovely,” she replied happily, slipping her arm through Abuela’s and taking the umbrella. She shook it open and together they stepped out into the showers. 

They meandered down the path, huddled close together beneath their yellow shelter. The air smelled like salt and the rosewater that Abuela always wore. Mirabel didn’t really like the smell—it somehow reminded her of Isabela and getting in trouble all the same time—but today she tried to let it recall feelings of usefulness and purpose. Of belonging. 

“Mija, I wanted to thank you for coming to me about your Tía Pepa.” Abuela patted her arm gently as she spoke. “There are so many things I still cannot see, but you are blessed with eyes that see what others can’t.” 

“Oh it was nothing, I’m glad to help,” Mirabel replied, but her heart squeezed tightly with the praise. They walked on in silence for a few more minutes. Occasionally, Abuela stopped to examine a wall or plant with a scrutinous eye, and Mirabel often wondered what she was looking at. If Mirabel had eyes that could see what others couldn’t, she thought perhaps Abuela did too, but in a different way. It seemed Abuela had eyes for things that needed to be done, for the needs of the future, far more discerning than anyone else she knew. Maybe that was why she was more prone to missing what was happening right in front of her. 

“I wonder if you could help me with something,” Abuela finally asked when they’d reached the town mural. The wall shone wet with rain, making the whole family glisten in the grey light. “If it is not too much to ask, of course. I don’t want to create a burden for you beyond what you can handle.”

“Of course, Abuela, whatever you need.” 

“We have all had such a difficult year. We lost our home, and rebuilt it. We are all learning to care for one another better, to see each other. Your Tío Bruno...is home.” she reached out a hand to touch Bruno's painted face, then brought her fingers back to rest on her lips. 

"Mirabel, I have made so many mistakes, created so much unnecessary pain." She turned to look at Mirabel, and her eyes were shining with the weight of her words. She tightened her mouth against the emotion, blinked, and looked away again. For a moment, Mirabel thought she could again see that young woman, not much older than herself, who had first stepped foot in their blessed town all those years ago. 

"Abuela—" 

She held up a hand and Mirabel swallowed her words. 

"I want my children to know how much I love them," she continued, her voice now the more familiar firm and commanding. "I want them to know that they are the most important thing to me in this world, and I'm afraid I've failed at making that clear in the past.” Abuela turned and gripped Mirabel’s free hand in both of hers. “My children’s birthday is coming soon, and it’s always been a…difficult time for me. This year, I want to celebrate the right way. I want to surprise them with a celebration that they will enjoy. Not for our people, not for me, but for them.”

Mirabel grinned. “I think that’s a great idea!”

Abuela nodded and patted her hand, but Mirabel could see she wasn’t done. “I worry that I may not be able to see what they would truly want. It’s been so many years and—well. You know our familia much better than I ever could, and you’ve shown yourself to be so responsible beyond your years. I thought perhaps you could help me arrange it? It would be a chance to work with our people directly, to again demonstrate your leadership in our town, in a more…joyful context. I thought it would be a fitting task…and a chance to spend more time together, as well.”

Mirabel thought her chest might just explode. She was pretty sure she was beaming brighter than Tía Pepa’s sunshine. It took her a moment to get her words past her swelling heart.

“I can’t think of a single thing I’d rather do,” she finally replied, with much more decorum than she would have thought herself capable of at the moment. “I’d love to help you.” 

Abuela beamed back. She wrapped her arm around Mirabel’s waist, and together they turned to look one more time at the image of their beloved family before continuing up the glistening street toward home.

—

Bruno watched as Pepa brought their joined hands to rest on her knees. Her eyes still watched her son, her brow slightly furrowed, but with her free hand she absently began to tap at each of their fingers, one by one along the knuckles that sat in a woven ridge above their pressed palms. 

Bruno huffed a quiet chuckle at the almost forgotten habit, something she used to do all the time as kids when she was thinking something over. When she wanted to say something to him but needed to think first, to gather her thoughts and cool her emotions. 

Their joined hands served many purposes: it was always calming to him, too—her light tapping touch on his knuckles, their hands pressed warmly together— aaaand it made sure he couldn’t slip away until she was ready to let him go. Now, though, he found it set his chest aglow in an odd, unfamiliar way. It was a strange, comforting ache. 

He looked up at her, her face pouting and drawn in troubled thoughtfulness. He sighed.

“What’s on your mind, Pepa?” 

He hadn’t meant to sound so tired, but the trepidation of a dangerous path oft traveled wound its way into hid words nonetheless. 

She paused in her tapping, letting her hand cover their fingers instead. 

“What happened to us, Bruno?”

His stomach dropped a little. “Whaddayamean?”

She scoffed at him. “What do you think I mean? We used to be so close.” She turned away and resumed her tapping. “You were my best friend, you know.” 

Bruno stared at her helplessly. He felt like a rat running in a wheel. Round and round and round they went—him opening his dumb mouth and saying the wrong thing, her anger sparking far too quickly. No matter what they did, the wheel seemed to roll on, without actually going anywhere. 

“I know,” he whispered. “...I–I don’t…I don’t know.”

Her mouth quivered just slightly, and the air became just a little humid around them. 

“No?” she whispered. She sounded…disappointed. His shoulders tightened as he braced himself. The calm before the storm.

“H-hey,” he stuttered, “i-if this is about the wedding thing—”

“It’s not about the wedding thing.”

“I– yes , I know, but, but if it is —”

“Bruno, I’ve told you, nothing is about the wedding thing. I don’t care, this isn’t about the wedding thing.”

“I just—I really am sorry about that Peps—”

“ Bruno, it’s not about that.”

“Well… what is it then?”

“I don’t know!” The air crackled a bit and Antonio paused in his digging to look back at them with wide eyes. Bruno and Pepa simultaneously flashed him over-the-top everything’s okay! grins, and Bruno added a thumbs up with his free hand for good measure. Antonio slowly turned back to his digging, his expression not entirely at ease. 

“It’s that…I missed you, Bruno,” she whispered, her voice heavy. “I miss you. I still do.”

Bruno’s heart twisted painfully. He looked away, back at the sand, wishing he could burrow down into it like the rats and let the cool grains pour in over him. He often felt like this—somehow both wishing he could be here, his sister holding his hand, close and together, and yet…and yet have a wall between them, too. The walls were cold and lonely, but they were safe —a promise that he couldn’t do any more harm. 

“Look,” Bruno said wearily, his voice lowered to a murmur, below the range of his sobrinito’s hearing. “I’m sorry, Pepa. I really am. For all of it. I know I've said it before and I know you’ve said I don’t need to say it again but I do say it again and I am saying it again, and I know you don’t like that either….but—but, but I don’t think I can ever tell you how much I really am. Sorry. F-for… everything. ”

He felt her turn to look at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to look back. 

“I’m so sorry too, Brunito.” Her voice was barely audible over the scraping, scratching sound of falling sand. “For everything.”

The swelling in his chest rose again, making it hard to breath. He twitched, shaking out his head and pulling his hand back into his own lap. She let it go and brought her hands to her braid instead.

“Don’t be,” he said after a moment, an awkward, dry chuckle escaping him. He squirmed uncomfortably in his seat and stole a quick glance in her direction. “You don’t need to. Really. I-I love you, Pepi. Always will.”

She sniffed, her voice fraying at the end. “Me too.” 

He nodded and smiled in a way that he hoped was reassuring. She smiled weakly back. They turned to watch Antonio, the silence heavy and full between them. 

Gradually, the air lightened, the moisture thinning and lifting as if Pepa’s fingers were raising it like a curtain as they ran through her braid. After a few minutes, she sighed deeply, and leaned forward, covering her face with her hands. 

Bruno closed his eyes tight and breathed out hard through his nose. Round and round the wheel we go…

He was mid-thought, grappling with the conundrum of what plausible excuse he might make to get himself out of his own room, when Pepa suddenly made a very unflattering snorting noise into her hands. Bruno startled and turned to stare at her. She… is she laughing? Ay dios mio, I am so lost…

“ Ay, Bruno, ” she said, her voice muffled behind her hands. “We are a mess, aren’t we?” 

Bruno raised his eyebrows at her incredulously. She peeked one eye out from behind her hands to look at him, and he felt a smile pull at the corners of his mouth, despite himself.

“Yeah, we are not the best,” he replied dryly, though laughter of his own hid just behind the words.

Pepa snorted into her hands again before lowering them into her lap and tipping her head back to stare at the ceiling, as if it somehow held all the answers. As Bruno watched her, he felt something stir in his gut. It felt like a nudge, like when Mirabel poked him in the side to get him to move.

“Yaknow,” he offered, tentatively following the inkling. “It could be a lot worse. We could be like the, uh, like the Garcia sisters.” 

Pepa tipped her head back down to look at him curiously. He pressed on. 

“Yeah, y-you hear about that? I hear they are both pining after the same guy, and it’s starting to get a little…eh, a little messy. Vicious even.”

Pepa’s face lit up and she leaned back on her arms, grinning widely at him. 

“No, de verdad?” [Really?]

“Te juro! Según mis fuentes—” [ I swear! According to my sources…]

“Your source is Dolores.”

“-- Según mis fuentes, la vieja Señora Garcia has now caught word of the whole deal and is throwing her hat in the ring, too.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“Do you even know who the Garcia sisters are?”

“Sure don’t!”

Pepa let out a hearty laugh, one hand to her heart as if to keep it from bursting, and the air around them warmed pleasantly. Bruno grinned crookedly at her. He hesitated for just a moment before tipping to the side, leaning his shoulder back into hers. She returned the gesture.

“Ay, te quiero, hermano,” she sighed. “De verdad, eh?” [ I love you brother. Truly.]

Bruno pulled his mouth to the side, failing to stifle his grin. “Yo se, cerillo.” [ I know, matchstick.]

Pepa hummed softly in response. 

“You know, I-I wasn’t trying to get an apology out of you,” she said softly. The laughter was gone from her voice, but her tone was still tender. “I don’t want you to be sorry or guilty or…any of it. Not anymore. I just…I've been thinking about you and Antonio and all the things you've been doing together…” 

She paused and shook her head, gathering her thoughts. 

"Bruno, maybe it's not too late. To get some of that back, what we had as kids. To get back…to get back…I don’t know, my super annoying best brother." 

Pepa’s breath hitched and she flashed him a gentle smirk that he swore hadn't seen on her in over a decade. It made him want to both duck for cover and belly-laugh in anticipation. It made him want to hug her with a huge, tackling hug that knocked them both to the ground. It made him want to sneak out to share harmless secrets and gossip while the rest of the world was asleep. 

He opened his mouth to respond but found he didn't quite know what words to send back out. Pepa just shook her head knowingly and reached out to tuck his hair behind one of his ears, patting his cheek twice affectionately. He closed his mouth and simply nodded. 

Me too. 

She held his gaze a meaningful moment longer, and then suddenly gave an exaggerated sigh and leaned forward, resting her forearms on her bent knees. She tipped her head to the side and looked back at him thoughtfully.  

"So where does that leave us then, hermanito?" she mused. "We are fifty-one years old and a grand mess. Now what."

He laughed. "Well, I guess…I guess we just press on, yeah? T-together?"

Together, it can get better, Mirabel had once told him. The faintest of rainbows shimmered in the space above their heads.

"Hm," she replied, her voice as warm as the sun. "I think I can do that."

Yeah, me too. 

—

“…and the tricky part will be making sure it’s fun for all of them. We’ll have to find a way to make sure Mamá relaxes, and Tío Bruno will want to sneak away if we make it too loud or busy, so maybe we don’t invite everyone, or OH! Maybe we could have part of the party before and…”

Mirabel chattered excitedly as they made their way back toward Casita, and Abuela nodded along attentively, an amused smile on her face. The rain had lightened to a drizzle, and a few people in town were emerging to set out empty milk bottles or let fresh air into their houses. Abuela nodded politely at each person they passed, and Mirabel mirrored the gesture, adding a bright wave every so often.

They were almost back up to the house when Senor Murillo called them to a stop, the drizzle gathering in his hair as he lowered his hat in respect. 

“Señora, Señorita,” he said, dipping his head in greeting, “I wonder if I might have a quick word?”

“Of course, Andres,” Abuela replied without hesitation. “Let’s step out of the rain, shall we?”

They moved into Señor Murillo’s open doorway, pausing at the threshold at Abuela’s insistence so they did not track in mud with their wet boots. After some pleasantries and delicate urging, he finally spilled his concerns before them. 

“...it’s the capybaras,” he gushed, his voice full of exasperation. He winced as he spoke, as if he was hesitant to even bring up the subject. At the mention of animals, Mirabel felt her shoulders stiffen. 

“The…capybaras?” Abuela asked, shaking her head in confusion and narrowing her eyes. Her tone was still polite, but her expression made it clear that he better get to the point fairly soon.

“They got into my storehouse and–and–and nested down in there. It was a whole…a whole troop of them, maybe ten in total, babies, and mothers, and everything. With all the rain, they must have been driven out of the jungle to find shelter and they found my storehouse and have eaten just about every melon I had in there. Señora, it’s a full season of work, gone! I chased them out, but—”

He paused and held his breath. Abuela inhaled and closed her eyes, as if already reacting to what he was going to say. She nodded for him to continue. 

“Go on, Andres.” 

“...they’ll be back. I know it. Lately it’s like the animals are drawn to town. I mean no disrespect to your family, you know how grateful we are but—”

“But they would not have felt comfortable wandering into your storehouse if not for my grandson’s gift,” Abuela finished bluntly. 

The man was visibly uncomfortable. He shrugged and nodded acquiescently. “It’s never happened before, not in my thirty years of farming, Señora.”

“I understand. I will speak to Anton—”

“He’s only six, Señor,” Mirabel suddenly blurted out. She bit her lip when both adults turned to look at her, Abuela with a warning glint to her eyes. “...I’m just saying, he’s only had his gift for a year. He’ll get better! It was just an accident.” 

“An accident that has lost our people an entire season of food, Mirabel,” Abuela replied tersely. Mirabel felt the familiar knot form in her gut at Abuela’s tone. She pushed the rising emotion aside and steeled herself. She would fight for Antonio. 

“Señor,” she began, turning back to him with what she hoped was a kind and understanding expression. She clasped her hands diplomatically in front of her and tipped them toward him in rhythm with her words as spoke. “I am so sorry for your loss, but we’ve got to be patient with Antonio. His gift is going to help all of us, I know it, but he needs time to figure it all out, time for himself. He’s just a kid! And we can’t expect him to be more. I know this is frustrating, but really, they’re just melons right?”

“Mirabel!” Abuela’s tone startled her into silence. She dropped her hands and looked at Abuela with surprise and chagrin, and the woman’s face softened slightly. Just slightly. The main expression was still do not say another word Mirabel or I swear…

“Andres, we understand that it is not just melons, it is a full season of labor and time for your family.” Though Abuela spoke the words to Señor Murillo, she continued to look at Mirabel. Mirabel felt herself shrink back a little more at each word. “I will speak with Antonio, and with my daughter. We will make sure this does not happen again.”

Mirabel snuck a glance at Señor Murillo, who was staring at them with wide eyes and mouth agape. He looked utterly horrified at the direction the conversation had taken. 

“T-thank you, Señora,” he stammered. “But really, we will be fine. I don’t want this to cause…tension in your family.” 

The air hung thick with a terribly awkward silence. Neither Mirabel nor Abuela seemed to have a response. Of course. Of course he didn’t want to cause tension. Of course he didn’t want another catastrophe like the one last year. 

“You have caused nothing,” Abuela finally replied, her voice gentle and reassuring. She smiled at Señor Morillo, and he seemed to relax a bit. “We will talk. That is…what we do now. You don’t have to worry. We will sort all this out, in due time.”

They exchanged overly polite goodbyes, and Abuela and Mirabel turned back up the street toward home. Mirabel still held the umbrella for them, but they stood stiffly beneath it now, their shoulders bumping uncomfortably as they walked. When they were almost back to Casita, Abuela took in a breath to speak, and Mirabel winced, bracing herself for the scolding she knew would follow. 

“Mirabel.”

“...yes?” 

Abuela sighed. “I know you love your cousin. That is your gift, mi vida. Your unconditional love, so much like your Abuelo.”

Mirabel turned to look at her, relaxing the smallest bit but still unsure that a tongue lashing wasn’t yet to come.  

“I also love Toñito, more than I could ever express to you.” She brought her eyes to meet Mirabel’s, and in that moment she knew it was true. 

“But,” Abuela continued, “I also love our people, and it is my responsibility to make sure they are taken care of as well. You are young, mariposa. You haven’t yet had to balance the complexities of our people’s needs and our family’s well being. You have not been responsible for an entire village and every life in it. The Good Lord knows I am not perfect at finding that balance, as do you, but I do have a lifetime of experience that you, my dear, do not.” 

Mirabel gulped as the weight of her words sunk in. They were spoken gently, with love, but they were heavily weighted with a truth that made Mirabel feel that sickly feeling of insufficiency. 

“I would like to know, though,” she quietly. “I would like to learn, Abuela. I love our people, too.” 

Abuela raised her eyebrows in surprise, though Mirabel wasn’t quite sure what was surprising about what she’d said. Something like realization, or maybe recognition, passed through her creased and time-worn face. 

“Yes, that is true. I know you do.” 

They looked at each other a moment longer, and most of the tension seemed to drift away. Mirabel dropped the umbrella to the ground and clasped her grandmother’s hands. 

“Will…you let me help?” she asked carefully. 

After a pause, Abuela smiled at her. “Yes, mi vida. Let’s discuss a solution after dinner, in my study. I’ll hear what you have to say, and you can perhaps hear me, too.”

—

 "You know," Pepa began, breaking the comfortable silence they'd fallen into. Her tone had lifted, her voice rising to a louder volume that Antonio could hear, "for all your big talk about how smart these rats are, they have no idea how to dig a proper a trench." 

Bruno turned to stare at her.

"Huh?"

Then she winked at him. Though her mouth still twisted in a petulant smile, her eyes were soft earnest hope. She stood, brushing her hands against her skirt and tiptoed across the sand. When she reached the edge of Antonio’s now rather wide hole, she clumsily slid down to her son's side. 

"H-hey now!" Bruno called after her, completely lost in the confusion born of this sudden change of subject. He was still caught in the tenderness of the previous moment, disoriented in the affront of having his rats directly insulted. 

Pepa was crouched beside Antonio in his hole-turned-trench, whispering something into his ear with a strange, impish expression on her face. Toñito nodded along with a serious expression, eyes glinting with excitement. Bruno gulped.

"Well, i-it's not like you know how any better!" he finally shot back, a horribly weak comeback dished out far too late. He yelped as a handful of sand sailed in his direction. 

"Oh, yeah?" called Pepa through entirely uncharacteristic bouts of laughter. "How— snicker — how's that for know-how?"

Antonio giggled high and loud, and Bruno's frown deepened. 

Who — what, what in the world just happened? What impostor had replaced his sister?!

He squinted carefully in her direction to rule out the possibility of a Camilo farce. He was met with another near-faceful of sand and more raucous giggles.

He sat stunned for a moment longer before his brain caught up to the situation. I’ve been thinking about you and Antonio…maybe it’s not too late to get some of that back. Realization clunked clumsily into place, and he felt his heart begin to beat harder in his chest.

Some of what they had. His sister wanted to… p-play.

He scrambled to his feet and looked blankly at his hermana and her son, both peeking over the edge of the sand with anticipation. That same earnest, fragile hope was still mixed into the laughter in Pepa's eyes. 

But the familiar hesitance and doubt began to wind its vines around Bruno's lungs again. He felt frozen to the spot, his breathing shallow beneath the battering of his heart. He took a smallest step back and grabbed at the edges of his ruana. 

No, I-I can’t do this. 

Playing leapfrog with the kid and joining his adult sister in… whatever was happening now…well, those were two VERY different things. And, and, and, in here? His chest tightened. These walls echoed with so much pain and frustration and tears and anger and…

A well of guilty fear began to fill like sand in his gut, rising higher and higher each moment like the bottom of a turned hourglass. No, this wasn’t right. I—I—I can’t do this. He took another step back. 

“Bruno?” Pepa called from the sand hole. “… ¿Estás bien?” [...You okay?]

He glanced down at a sudden tugging on his pant leg and found Manolo climbing quickly up to his torso and then his shoulder. The rat sniffed at his ear and placed a tiny paw against his cheek. 

The familiar tickle of his whiskers captured Bruno’s attention. The distraction snapping a single tendril of the anxiety's hold. 

Bruno blinked rapidly, shook his head. He locked eyes with Pepa’s, who had risen ever so slightly over the edge of the hole, a concerned frown pulling at her mouth. 

He felt himself teetering on the edge of a choice, and he wasn't quite sure what he was choosing. His heart leaned a little more in the direction of that comfort he'd felt only seconds before next to Pepa. That long lost, but not forgotten, familiarity. Their hands clasped together, the hope in her eyes setting something alight in his chest…

Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe it’s not too late.  

He felt another vine snap. For just a moment, the anxiety released just enough to allow his mind to re-engage…and he desperately gripped that bit of freedom like a liferaft. 

He flashed Pepa a weak smile and then squeezed his eyes shut tight. He took the deepest breath he could muster and reached behind his head, grasping at his hood and yanking it down over his head. The shadowed closeness around his senses settled his nerves and lifted some of the shame from his gut. He blew out some of his fear with his breath and let the muffled darkness shroud him in a sense of emboldening anonymity. 

Come on, Bruno. Come on. You can do this.

He dug deep inside himself and somehow, somewhere deep in a long abandoned part of him, grabbed hold of…well, of what turned out to be a pretty fantastic evil laugh, if he did say so himself. You know, given what he had to work with.

"MWAHAHA," he bellowed, his voice a bit horse as his lungs tightened with fear and embarrassment. He tried to push the feeling aside, and instead tented his fingers together in front of his chest to underscore the maniacal sound. His voice had echoed satisfyingly around the room and a couple of the younger rats went scurrying for cover. Oops . He faltered a bit. 

"N-no… wait, no, uh, n-no-NO FORTRESS OF SAND CAN…can, um…C-CAN HOLD BACK THE TERRIBLE...the, um, the terrible...W-wizard! The Wizard of Darkness! That’s right, that’s who I am! I command the very sand you hide in, foolish mortals! You will not defeat me!" He pointed a menacing finger into the air, for good measure.

Antonio gave a delighted shriek and disappeared down into the hole. Pepa beamed at Bruno, and he let the warm sunlight shimmering through the room wrap into his bones like a bear hug, smothering the embarrassment until it was barely an ember. He felt the strange prodding in his gut again. 

Maybe. Just maybe… 

Without thinking too hard lest he change his mind, he closed his eyes and did something that he hadn't dared try in a very, very long time. He expanded his chest and let the space fill with his power, but he made no accompanying call to the future. In fact, he made it known that the future was most unwelcome… um, you know, with all due respect and everything.  

Instead, he focused on the present, on Manolo curling into his neck and on the giggles of his nephew, on his sister’s hope and on the stone ground beneath him, and he felt flecks of sand lift and spin around his toes.

Gently, gently, don’t scare the kid, he thought, and when he peeked an eye open, he found the gusts of sand playfully prodding around the edge of the sandpit like the wake of water on the riverbed, ebbing and flowing but not rushing. A few curls eased into the air, teasing, not menacing, tinted with sparkling green. Antonio stood up in the hole and gasped, clapping his small hands and tugging at his mother’s sleeve excitedly. Bruno winked at him through the veil. 

“Oh no!” Antonio squealed, ducking down again until out only his bright eyes and his springy curls to breach the surface. “He’s going to get us!”

"We'll see about that!” Pepa shouted, rising to her full height within the hole, hands on her hips. Bruno was pleased to find that he still stood taller. “A nice light show, wizard of darkness . Truly impressive.”

“T-thank you,” he said in his wizard voice.  

“But…I think you forgot about one thing.”

The sand dropped a bit, along with his raised hand and his character. “I-I did?” he stammered. 

“I,” Pepa said smugly, pointing to her chest with a decisive finger and a mischievous grin, “can make it rain .”

It was a pretty swift defeat. Pepa summoned a regiment of clouds that gathered menacingly above Bruno’s head and released a thirty-second downpour that followed him around no matter where he ran for cover in the room. All of Bruno’s floating sand came crashing down in one sloppy wet mess, and his ruana became thoroughly drenched, making it cling to him a particularly pitiful slump of sopping wool. Antonio was doubled over in laughter by the time she relented, and when the clouds cleared, Bruno harrumphed at the pointedly dry patch of sand that surrounded his sobrino and hermana. Not a drop had hit them. He’d accepted the loss with grace and dignity. 

“T-that was a low blow, Pepa!” he screeched in an embarrassingly high tone. “I was going easy on you!”

“Ah, the great Wizard has spoken!” Pepa snickered. 

Bruno was secretly a bit glad that it all had ended sooner rather than later. He was pleasantly surprised at his own ability to jump into the game, but he wasn’t sure how long he could keep it up. It had felt oddly strained even as it felt freeing, like it was a muscle he’d allowed to atrophy into frailty then tried to command into movement. By the time it was over, he’d somehow felt exhausted. 

At least he’d found the sandcastle building that followed in the then-perfectly-damp sand to be a bit less difficult to partake in. Gradually, the rats had returned at Antonio’s gentle beckoning and began to inhabit the small sand structures, to Bruno’s amusement. 

After much encouragement—or, more like pestering—from Pepa, Bruno had narrated a simple story for them, and with Antonio’s gift to prompt the rats into movement, it turned out to be quite a show. It had some good plot twists toward the end, too, especially when the rogue knight Manolo had revealed himself to be the prince in disguise. Antonio’s shocked gasp had put a smile on Bruno’s face that hadn’t left for hours. 

Eventually, Pepa had dragged a very unwilling Toñito away from the fun for a bath (“You OWE me for this one, arenoso,” Pepa added pointedly as they left), and Bruno had returned to his bedroom to hunt down some dry clothes. 

“Tío Bruno!”

Toñito, apparently having wriggled free from captivity, poked his head back through the doorway. 

“Yeah, kid?” 

“Can we have a sleepover tonight? In my room? I think it will be super fun, and Mamá said it’s okay, and I told her she could come, too, if she wants, and Mirabel! Dolores and Isa are always having sleepovers without me, and I want to have one, too. I’ll even invite Parce! Please?”

“Oh,” Bruno blinked a few times at the rush of information. Sleep, fun, Parce. He struggled to connect the vastly disparate ideas. Without fully thinking it through, he’d just agreed. 

“O-okay. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you then.” Toñito pulled a fist pump and disappeared again from view. 

…aaaand that was how he found himself, not in his own quiet room as night fell upon the house, but standing under an ancient and gnarled magical tree, clutching a pillow and a blanket as a jaguar curled around him with loud, guttural purrs. 

He suppressed a shiver and tried to breath slowly without making any sudden movements. He'd forgotten to put salt in his pajama pocket.

Okay, okay, I’ll just come in and hang out for a while until the kid falls asleep, and then I can get back to my rats and my bed and my jaguar-less room, and everyone will be happy…

“You came!” Toñito cheered, crashing into him with a gripping hug. “Come over here, we made a nest, like the mierolos do! Come on!”

As he followed Antonio further into the room, Bruno half expected to find an actual nest of twigs and leaves to settle into. Instead, on an open platform just higher than the entryway, he found Pepa and Julieta laying down pillows and blankets in an already heaping pile. He stood there awkwardly for a moment before they spotted him, at which point Pepa immediately grabbed him by the elbow and steered him into the middle of the pile. She plopped down unceremoniously into the great mound and then pulled him stumbling down beside her. He watched as she tucked a few whisps of her bright orange hair back into the handkerchief that was wrapped neatly over her head. Parce pawed his way behind her, settling in like a seat cushion for her to lean back on.  

Huh. Apparently Pepa and Parce are close now, he mused. Well, it was nice knowing her. 

“Here,” Juli said, her voice as warm as the cookie she pressed into his hand. She dropped a plate filled with more galletas into his lap, then patted his head with a smile and turned to leave. 

“You’re not staying?” he managed through a mouthful of polvorosa. Toñito settled next to him, then gasped with delight and grabbed a cookie from the plate. 

“ Some of us have to get up early,” she replied, tugging teasingly on a strand of his hair, but her smile softened the words. In fact, she looked positively overjoyed at the sight before her. “But you have fun. I’ll send Mirabel over when she’s done with Mamá.” 

She bent down and nuzzled an obnoxiously loud kiss into the top of his hair, shared some sort of knowing look with Pepa that was irritatingly incomprehensible to him, and then made her way to the door. 

“Mawm–mmmee,” Antonio began, his mouth now full of cookie as well. He swallowed his bite and tried again. “Mm-mami said, she said that you can tell us about the stars, Tío. Will you?”

He looked at Pepa, who sat in repose, scratching Parce’s ear absently like some sort of jungle queen. 

“You do know all the stories,” she shrugged. 

“It’s been a while.” 

“That’s okay,” Toñito replied, helping himself to another cookie. “If you can’t remember, just make it up.” 

Bruno chuckled and reached out to tug playfully at Antonio’s ear. He grinned and brushed Bruno’s hand away with a duck of his head.

“Okay, parlanchín. I-I’ll see what I can do.” 

They settled into the pile of pillows, sinking deeper and deeper into the fluffy nest as Bruno relayed story after story, tracing the outlines of the celestial figures with his outstretched finger as he went. By the time he heard Mirabel crack open the door and tiptoe into the room, he was already well into the story of Dionisio and Ariana and the Corona Boreal she’d tossed into the skies on her wedding day. 

He’d always thought that the Greeks really knew how to tell a story.

When he caught sight of her tiptoing into the room, Bruno gave a beckoning nod. But as she began to make her way up to the platform, he narrowed his eyes and his narration stalled. 

She looked…worn. Toñito wriggled impatiently beside him, and Bruno quickly returned his focus to his words, though he continued to send concerned glances in Mirabel's direction. 

Pepa smiled up at her when she finally arrived at the nest, and Mirabel returned it with her usual bright grin, easing away most of Bruno's worry for the moment. She surveyed their mound with raised eyebrows and an amused expression on her tired face. 

Bruno supposed they were quite a sight in their tangled nest of cushions. He was lying right in the center with his head on his pillow, his hair splayed wildly out above him. The little ball that was Antonio was curled snuggly into his tío’s side, his eyelids growing heavier with each constellation they explored. Bruno could feel the rise and fall of his sobrino’s small chest gradually slowing under his arm. Above them, Pepa lay with her back pressed against Parce and her body curved around her brother’s pillow like a rainbow, her head resting on her arm. She played carefully with Bruno’s hair while he spoke, curling each strand around her finger and then gently pulling it away again and again. 

Bruno shrugged and grinned at his sobrina. All-in-all, he was surprised to find this whole sleepover thing surprisingly comfortable, and…and comforting. Maybe that's why the kids were always doing it. Something about the pressing closeness of his family around him stirred some deep-set need he didn’t think still existed after decades getting used to solitude. In fact, if Mirabel had not walked in, he might have drifted off soon, too, right in the middle of telling his story, all plans of sneaking away forgotten. 

Ah, and then sweet Mirabel climbed quietly into the pile and settled in on his other side, pulling his storytelling arm tight around herself and resting her head on his chest like a pillow, and he realized with certainty he wasn’t going anywhere that night. He would indeed participate fully in a real, all-night Madrigal sleepover for the first time since he was a child—complete with jaguar. He would indeed fall asleep mid-sentence, though it wouldn’t matter anyway, since at that point everyone around him will have long since drifted off already.

The next morning, he awoke with his sobrinos in his arms, a crick in his neck, and his sister’s smiling face shining down at him with the morning sun, wisps of her frizzy hair tickling his nose. He returned her smile with a groggy one of his own, not quite sure if it was all real or if he was still in some unusually wonderful dream in his drafty hammock in the darkness of the walls. 

Parce’s startling, humid yawn right next to his face quickly proved that it was in fact quite real, and his involuntary yelp served as a regretfully rude awakening for everyone else in the room.

“MIERD...ah...olo! Mierolo! I meant...sorry, sorry. Um, b-buenas, everyone, heh.”

But after all was said and done, as they headed down to breakfast together, yawning and stretching their stiff backs, he thought that it truly was worth it. Huh, who would have thought. In fact, it was the best sleep he’d had in a long, long while.

Chapter Text

Bruno was tired. Very tired.

Okay, so not news for him by any means, sure. Nevertheless, he'd dared to hope it was a condition that was becoming a part of his past—that before time that was blissfully slipping back behind the layers of close-pressed, if slightly desperate, love and affection, heaped almost unceasingly in his direction by one family member or another. 

After that night spent piled together with his familia in Antonio’s outside-but-inside treehouse room, closed in on all sides by his sobrinos and hermana, he’d thought that perhaps his chronic tiredness was gone for good. For days after, his surprise visions had all but ceased. He’d slept deep and dreamless, like a rock steeped into a cool and pleasant pool, emerging refreshed in a way that he’d forgotten was even possible. Each morning felt like an invitation instead of a personal assault. It was amazing! Miraculous, even.

Heh, miraculous. He’d probably jinxed it by even thinking the word.

Surprise, surprise…little over a week had gone by before a slew of dream-visions hit him at full force, accosting him every night without fail and swiftly draining away all vestiges of the energy that his nights of rest had earned him. He awoke almost every night to a bed filled with sand, a mouth filled with sand, a room filled with sand, all pulled frantically from his vision cave as he subconsciously fought with his gift in his sleep. Even the nights he didn’t awaken fully were fitful and confusing, filled with anxious half-sleep that didn’t quite piece together into rest. 

“What changed? What are you doing differently?” Mirabel finally asked one morning, a bit accusingly, when she joined him for their morning time together. “There has to be a reason you’re suddenly not sleeping well again.” 

Bruno hadn’t said anything to her of his vision dreams, but in true Mirabel fashion, she’d inferred enough from his dragging shoulders and increasingly darkened under-eyes to bring him a pot of coffee instead of tea today. God bless her, un angel de Dios , he’d thought as he greedily grabbed a cup from her tray.

Bruno was careful to clean up the sand long before his sobrina knocked on his door, erasing all evidence of the visions keeping him awake at night, even if it meant even less sleep in those wee morning hours. She didn’t need to know that most of the visions that haunted him were a cruel repeat of that months-ago vision of a sorrow-laden, older Mirabel. He knew he’d never be able to keep it from her if she asked.

“Nothing changed! It’s just bad luck,” he replied dismissively, earning himself a smack on the shoulder that was hauntingly like one Julieta might give. He yelped and glared at her. 

“You’re not bad luck,” she intoned. He waved a hand in the air and took a long swallow from his cup. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know, don’t start—I didn’t say I am bad luck, right? I said it is bad luck. Note the difference. S-sometimes la suerte just has it in for you. She’s a fickle mistress that one. I’ve long ago given up on reading into her–her–her wild inclinations .”

“A mistress.” Mirabel tilted her head toward him and raised her eyebrows. “Tío, are you having an affair with fate?”

He snorted into his coffee. “Ah, if only it were such a loving relationship. Nah, nah, it’s more like ‘mistress’ in the sense of…eh, indentured servitude.”

Mirabel grinned at him and shook her head, and he winked back. 

Ah, but… What has changed? He found himself tossing her question around long after she’d left for breakfast. Maybe she was right. Maybe there was a reason.

He plucked a rat from his pocket and slumped into his red chair, scratching it behind the ears absently.

If he really thought about it, some things had changed. The loose structure of his days spent with Toñito was mostly the same, and yet…there had been a shift in the tone of his time with his sobrino. Maybe Pepa had talked to her son about getting more serious with his gift, or maybe it was Bruno’s own anxieties projecting out after the tense conversation on the steps of Casita, but the duo’s days had grown slowly, almost imperceptibly less playful.

Somewhere in the past couple weeks, their time had gone from unpredictable adventures through the winding paths of the forest to a more tense, focused foray into Tío, look what I can do. 

It was like each day for Antonio brought a new self-imposed challenge to be met. Can he get all the ants to march in a circle? How long can he get the hummingbirds to stay perched on his finger? How many papayas can he convince the monkeys to bring him? Toñito would scrunch his little nose up in concentration, bartering and weedling and finally retreating with quiet defeat into Bruno’s lap when he inevitably reached the end of his ability to contain the wild creatures around them. He'd wrap himself tightly in his old tío’s ruana, nodding along to Bruno's fraught attempts at encouragement. 

It was a subtle shift in the kid’s behavior, but it settled a well of unease somewhere in Bruno’s gut. Though…he wasn’t quite sure it was something he should discourage. Antonio needed to practice control, after all. That’s the point of all this, right? It was good, it was good. But something about it still felt…off.  Ah, but what does crazy old Bruno know?

Parce would often sit idly by, only adding to Bruno’s discomfort, radiating feline boredom but never wavering in his devotion to his small human. Sometimes Bruno would turn to find those piercing yellow-green eyes staring at him expectantly. Or… hungrily? No, no, expectantly. He wasn’t sure which interpretation made him feel worse. 

So, change indeed there was. And--AND--there was the pressing matter of Bruno's own gift. If he was honest with himself, Bruno had to admit that he had changed, though he wasn’t quite sure how. That day in his vision cave, hurling green-infused sand fruitlessly at his sister while his sobrino doubled over with giggling delight, had opened something in him that he hadn’t realized was closed. It was like a nagging pebble in his shoe that he was unable to shake loose. If-if-if I can tell the future to hold off, if I can stay in the present instead when I use my gift…what else can I do?

What else can I do?

—-

Bruno dipped his toes into the river, wincing at the bright coolness of the water as it pressed unhesitatingly past his skin. He eased his feet the rest of the way in until he was submerged up to his ankles, then breathed out a prolonged puff of air, allowing it to carry some of the tension that perpetually bunched in his spine up and away into the warm, humid breeze. 

He dug his fingers into the grass on either side of him and adjusted his boney seat against the hardness of the rock he’d chosen to perch on. Okay, whwoooo, not so bad, not so bad. Not as cold as I thought, it’s refreshing actually, and…peaceful. It’s nice out here. Nice, it’s nice…

After his morning tea—erh, strike that, coffee— with Mirabel, Bruno had found himself quite unexpectedly without something to do. It was Sunday, and Sundays were typically the busiest days for Bruno. It had become a firm tradition that Sunday would be a day of rest for the Madrigal family, so the entire familia was usually home and free from all pressures to help in town. That meant the odds were eleven-to-one that one of his family members would seek him out for some sort of activity—reading with Luisa, walking with Dolores, some kind of craft with Mirabel…even Camilo, who had remained his most distant of sobrinos, had begun poking curiously around his Tío lately, joining his cousins or siblings as they sidled up to Bruno for the day. 

Saturdays, now those were different; Bruno could be expected to be left to his own devices most Saturdays, as the Madrigals attended to lingering duties in town or chores around the house. Antonio, his little weekday buddy, would spend the day with his padres or hermanos…but Sundays were for la familia, for rest. Bruno found himself looking forward to the quiet chaos of a house full of his loved ones bustling around him.

Today, though, the sun was shining bright—a break in the sheets of rain that had stretched intermittently across the Encanto for the past few weeks—and most of his family had headed out, chattering cheerfully in duos and trios, to soak up every moment of it they could. Suddenly, Bruno had turned around after breakfast to find himself in an empty Casita on the one day it was usually teeming with activity. 

He’d read for a bit, played with the rats, sketched and napped in the noon-day sun. It hadn’t been a bad day by any means. But by the time the afternoon shadows had begun to stretch long across the courtyard, he had begun to feel a bit antsy. The emptiness of the house had somehow begun to stir at the settled, dusty, inward places of loneliness, of boredom and purposeless suspension under the pendulum of ticking time, and it made his skin itch and his brain squirm like it had on those most difficult of days in the walls. 

After the upteenth handful of salt cascaded over his shoulder, he’d finally forced himself out of Casita’s golden-glowing front doors, the echoes of Mirabel and Dolores’ sweet voices in his head spurring him on like some sort of self-caring conscience. 

You look like you could use some fresh air, Tío. 

Let’s go for a walk!

The sunlight will warm you up; want to head out for a bit?

And so, against all his ordinary standards of functioning, he’d taken himself out, past the borders of Casita’s lawn, down to the river’s edge where it curved around the southwest side of their home, where he and Dolores would sometimes wander together. He’d followed the winding river for a while before, on a whim, plopping himself down to dip his feet into the water. The deviation in the expected rhythm of his day was both agitating and…refreshing, despite his aching fatigue. The longer he sat, the more he found that the muddy concoction of ease and apprehension roiling in his chest wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Ease seemed to be winning out, at least, little by little. Maybe. 

Bruno closed his eyes and turned his face toward the sun, already steadily crawling down across the domed sky toward the westward mountains. It was still high enough to offer some warmth, and he let it wash pleasantly over him, still a treasured blessing even after a year of uninhibited access to the outside world. 

He had to admit, he’d had no shortage of sun in the past few months with Toñito. Just this week, Julieta had pressed her forearm comparatively to his with a hum of delight, remarking happily at his darkened skin and poking at the renewed freckles that had apparently sprouted along the vast expanse of his nose. 

It suits you, hermanito, she’d murmured as she pinched playfully at his upper arm. 

It suits you. He thought back to last week’s slumber party with Pepa and his sobrinos, to the time spent playing in his vision cave, that cold, “sacred space," as Mamá used to say. Twelve, thirteen years ago, he never would have used his powers like that. He wouldn’t have dared. What if he lost control? What if…what if the miracle got mad at him, that he was wasting such a precious blessing on frivolity. What if, what if it cursed him more than he already was cursed?!

But…maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t cursed. This past year, he’d felt less like a curse than he had in decades. You’re not bad luck, Mirabel liked to chant to him. He’d begun to feel… knock, knock, knock … like a welcome presence. Perhaps even like he was…needed. 

Huh.

Bruno had to admit that he was in fact changing, and not just the tint of his skin and the rhythm of his days…though he couldn’t really put his finger on how. Something…something in him was shifting. He could feel it. 

Ease and apprehension fought harder for footing in his chest. 

Rosa leisurely poked her head out of the neck of his ruana, sniffing at the air and crawling cautiously from his shirt pocket onto his shoulder. He picked her up and set her on the grass beside him, watching her sniff and nip at the tender blades. Then he closed his eyes. 

What changed? What else can I do?

He took a shaky breath. Carefully, he let his magic fill his chest once again. Almost immediately, he felt the sand dragging itself from the riverbed toward his feet. He felt it lift slightly from the soil around his fingertips. He felt the future step forward, and he took another, more steady breath. 

Not…not right now. Not you…not, not now. 

To his surprise, he felt the tingle of the future in the back of his mind bow away, leaving that same odd void that he had tapped into as he played with his sobrino and his sister. The present; now. He dug his fingers gently into the ground, felt the dirt press back. He felt Rosa’s warm body press into the side of his leg. He felt the water around his feet. Anchored firmly in the present, he let his focus drift, pulling playfully at the sand around him, willing it into shapes and patterns that he could feel brushing into existence in the air, even without opening his eyes to look. 

The corners of his mouth twitched upward into a tentative smile. This was … well, this was… wow . Different. Using his gift like this, without the future yanking him this way and that, without the overwhelming press of information filling his mind, without the weight of look, look, look, look …it felt…it felt… free . He’d forgotten…he’d forgotten it was even possible.

He guided the sand this way and that, testing at his own nascent powers, catching the grains clumsily when they began to fall, chuckling inaudibly at the impossibility of his own agency and control. 

But then something shifted. He suddenly felt a push, not in the back of his mind as the future always called, but in the front, as if someone had placed their fingertips against his brow and pressed him carefully, delicately, backward. 

He startled, overreacting to the sensation of falling, and threw his hands backward to catch himself though his body had not moved. He felt the wind pick up and the sand swirl once, swiftly, around him, disorientingly counter-clockwise in its motion. The sound of his own blood pumped deafeningly in his ears. Bruno pulled back, breaking harshly from his magic in alarm. The abrupt shift sent pain shooting into the backs of his eyes, and he gasped and dug his palms into his eye sockets, gripping at his head. With a small growl, he slammed the door firmly shut on his gift. 

He took a couple shuddering breaths, suddenly aware again of the sound of the river below him and of Rosa squeaking distressingly in his lap. He was uncomfortable, like something was stopped up in his head, pressure mounting, and he could feel a headache forming, but the backward sensation was gone. 

After a moment, he dragged his hands weakly down his face and reached for Rosa, who quickly scrambled into his palms. Her small body quivered, and he pulled her close, pressing his face into her fur. 

What…what…

“What was that? ” he whispered, and Rosa chittered back, high and fearful. 

“Did…did my power feel different to you?” he asked. He pulled her back and searched her small furry face. Antonio had told him before that the rats could feel it when the future called to him. Maybe, just maybe, they could feel whatever this was, too. Rosa’s round, shining eyes looked up at him imploringly and her nose twitched. “It did, didn’t it! You could feel it, you could feel it, too! D-do you know—? I wonder, c-can you tell me…?”

He stared into Rosa’s glistening eyes, somehow certain that she held the answers and was on the cusp of revealing her secrets to him. He lifted his palms higher and leaned closer, eyes wide and lips pulled in tight, breath held. 

“Tío Bruno—”

Bruno yelped, his whole body jerking wildly in fear. He fell sideways off the rock and sent poor Rosa squealing through the air as he threw his arms up in shock. A hand clapped firmly down on his shoulder. He looked up to find Isabela’s dirt-smudged face peering curiously down at him.

“Tío! Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you! I was just coming to find you and—didn’t you have a rat a minute ago?”

Bruno squinted up at his sobrina blocking out the sun above him, willing his distracted brain to register her words. He felt his brain lurch back into gear.

“Ay! Rosa!” Bruno scrambled to his knees and looked frantically around himself for his jettisoned rat. “Ah, there you are! I’m so sorry chica, I didn’t mean to heh, send you flying there…” 

Rosa squeaked angrily at him, but allowed him to pick her up and tuck her back into his shirt pocket, where she continued to voice her displeasure. Bruno winced apologetically. 

“Was I, uh, interrupting something?” Isabela asked. She raised her eyebrows at him and glanced down to the rat in his pocket. 

“No! No, I, uh, I mean, yes, we were talking but uh….I–I–” he gulped and looked at Isabela nervously. “Did…did you say you were looking for me?”

Isabela’s mouth quirked in amusement, but she gracefully allowed him the subject change.

“Yes, I was hoping you could come help me with something. I thought you might be getting bored up at the house by yourself.” 

Bruno blinked at her and rubbed absently at the rat-lump in his shirt pocket. “M-me? You…you want my help?” he asked. 

“Yes, your help,” she replied patiently, but her eyes glinted with something he thought was more akin to ‘No, I wanted Rosa’s help, you big goon. Obviously I’m asking for your help.’

“Oh-okay. Sure, o-of course.” He rose to his feet and did his best to brush the mud off his pants. 

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” she said with a mischievous smile. “You’ll only be getting muddier.” Bruno stopped his futile attempts and narrowed his eyes at her. She tilted her head innocently and turned without a word, leaving him to stumble, confused, after her. As they made their way up to the house, he shot one last glance back to the unmoving sand at the river's edge.

—

“Pull that one; it's a weed.”

“What?” Bruno sat back and wiped his dirt-covered hands on his pants. His back was killing him, but he ignored it. “How–how could you possibly know that, chica. It looks exactly the same as the others.”

“Its leaves are beginning to spike and its stems are longer than the rest. The leaf shape is totally different. Pull it."

Bruno stretched his mouth to the side and looked down at the dirt in front of him, where a smattering of little sprouts had pushed their way up through the dirt. He frowned at the sprout in question.

"It looks the same.”

"Tío!”

“Okay, okay!” He obediently yanked the little sprout from its place in the soil. It came up with no resistance, its single root only half an inch long. He tossed it over his shoulder and wiped at his forehead, pushing the straw hat on his head askew. Isabela sat cross-legged a few feet away, her hair neatly tucked up under a hat of her own. The corners of Bruno's mouth twitched up at the sight of the smudge of dirt spreading wider across her cheek. 

Isabela’s request had turned out to be working in the garden that she had carved into the earth on the east side of Casita not long after their home's rebirth. The plants around them grew in wild bursts, boundless and intermixed in a blur of different greens. The little bare plot of dirt Bruno and his oldest sobrina now sat in would soon be similarly overrun…though apparently weeds were not to be a part of the verdant chaos. 

“Why are you cutting that?” he asked, using the question as an excuse to sit up straight and stretch his back. He slumped back in on himself and watched as she ruthlessly snipped away at the poor plant before her. 

“It's not producing. I'm making room for healthier branches,” she replied primly. She wielded her shears without mercy. Bruno had no idea what the plant was, but something about her words itched at an odd spot in his chest. 

“Well, well, what’s to say it won’t make something later?” he blurted. “Maybe—maybe it’s just not ready. I-it doesn’t seem fair to just hack away at it like that, I mean, give it a chance, kid. Why does it need to make something anyway? Maybe, maybe, it can just…” 

His voice trailed off as she sat back on her heels and turned to look at him. She narrowed her eyes and smirked, the expression somehow both sharp and gentle in its amusement, penetrating and also affectionate. 

“We're not going to prune you, Tío Bruno. It's not a metaphor. It's just a plant.”

Bruno pressed his mouth in tight and flat, cheeks squished out. He squinted at her. 

“I-I know. I'm not talking about me. I…I was talking about…the plant.”

She grinned and turned back to her pruning. 

Bruno sighed and brought his legs out from underneath him, carefully stretching each one out over the tops of the sprouts before settling cross-legged instead. 

He wasn’t being much help, really. He’d mostly agreed to join her because, well, how do you say no? He didn’t often spend time one-on-one with Isabela. When she’d finally gotten him back up to Casita, she’d presented the offer with her sweet politeness, a perfected skill. At first, he'd declined, unsure if she was asking out of obligation or genuine desire, but certain he'd find a way to mess up her lovely plantings. She’d eventually grabbed his arm and dragged him out to the garden forcibly.

It was nice, though, being outside in the afternoon sun, yet still within the tame, quiet boundaries of Casita’s lawn. He always enjoyed being out here, and the company of Isabela was surprisingly easy and enjoyable. In the year since his return, he’d interacted with his sobrina plenty of times, but he hadn’t leaned into the connection as easily as he had with the other girls. Dolores had sidled up to him in her own quiet way almost like no time had passed, and their walks around the perimeter of Casita—often silent and yet somehow still full—had materialized as a regular habit almost without his realizing. Luisa, shy but sweet, seemed to gravitate toward the times when he sat and read aloud to her, just like when she was a little girl. 

Isabela, though…she’d known him the longest of all his sobrinos. She surely had many memories of him from before, and he wasn’t sure how hurt she had been by his leaving. The idea was enough for him to be more than a little hesitant around her, though she’d been nothing but kind and welcoming since his return. His room was full of plants she potted and grew just for him, and that little gesture of forgiveness, of love, meant the world to him. In fact, it was the past year of those little spiked green gifts pressed into his hands that made it possible for him to set aside his anxious fears and follow her out into her flourishing garden, just the two of them.

“Tell me again, retoño,” he asked after a moment, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. [ Sprout .] “Why do all this by hand? Why not just, ya know, fvooop , make it all happen with your gift?” He wiggled his fingers over the sprouts as if he could somehow channel the power himself. They swayed sweetly in the breeze, unphased. 

“Because…” she said with a sigh, turning in the dirt to face him and resting her arm and chin on her knee, bent toward the sky, “sometimes things that are worth getting take time. Waiting for them is part of the getting.” 

He raised his eyebrows and nodded at her appreciatively. “Hey, those are some pretty wise words, kid. Not bad.”

She smiled softly at him, her eyes glinting with something he couldn’t quite read. “You told me that.”

Bruno blanched, and they stared at each other for an awkward moment. Awkward for Bruno at least. Isabela seemed perfectly at ease, snaring him in with that bright, barbed gaze of hers. 

“Well…I–heh, I uh—” he stopped, swallowed, and looked back at her again, not sure what to say. “Oh.”

She stood and tiptoed her way around the various plantings, falling back into a seat at his side. He pulled his knees in and watched her warily as she took off her hat, letting the breeze tease loose the small hairs from her bun.

“You told me that,” she continued, looking off ahead of them to the purpling mountains in the distance, “after you gave me my vision.”

He stared at her, frozen in the unexpected turn of the conversation. Something in her expression had changed, but, ay, she was so difficult to read. He was never sure what she was thinking, her face an impenetrable mask of careful indifference. 

“I was mad at you, you know. For a really long time.” Her voice was almost a whisper now. She spun the straw hat in her hands, passing the edge forward between her delicate fingers, each covered to the knuckle with dirt. “You lied to me, I thought. You told me to wait for this wonderful future, and then you left. And all that ever came to me was…flowers and more flowers. I was drowning in flowers, and your vision, your promise—it was just a cruel story you told me to…I don’t know. To make me try to be something I was not.”

Bruno’s heart thudded in his chest. No, no, no, he thought. No, no, no. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…

“I—” his mouth was dry. He tried again. “It, it wasn’t a story, i-it wasn’t a lie. I never should have… I-I’m so sorry...” 

She blinked and turned to look at him, the strange detachment gone. Her expression softened, and she smiled warmly at him again, reaching out to tap his temple. A flower bloomed there, hooked behind his ear. It was fragrant, the petals soft against his skin. 

“Well, we know that now, don’t we?” she said, grinning generously, and he winced. 

Ah, yes—hindsight, the brutal bane of my existence. 

“Don’t be sorry, Tío. You were right. The waiting…it was part of it, like you said. In all that time being who I wasn’t… that stupid vision kept nagging me about who I maybe was. I’m glad you told me, you know? If you hadn’t, I never would have wondered. I never would have dreamed of being anything more.” 

He let out a strangled laugh, and she put her arm around his shoulders, tugging him in for a rough sideways hug. 

“Thanks for helping,” she said. 

He looked down at the sprouts in front of him and cleared his throat. “I d-don’t know if I—I mean, I don’t think—”

“Just say 'you’re welcome,'” she commanded.

“Y-you’re welcome?” 

She nodded approvingly. They sat there together, Isa’s arm wrapped firmly across his shoulders, watching the imperceptibly-slow growing garden sway in the warm breeze. 

—

He was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming, even as it was happening. He didn’t usually know he was dreaming, not right away, not from the start.

Sing through my voice. Play through my hands. 

Everything was green and fluttering, flickering warm and glowing like a candle flame…or maybe like a butterfly’s wings. A thousand resonant voices surrounded him, bodiless, singing all at once. 

Let the way be open. 

A fluff of brown hair under his hand, the flash of a smile. Big mahogany eyes, bright and laughing. 

Sing through my voice, play through my hands. 

Eyes looking up into his, looking down into his. The flutter of wings, the flicker of a candle. 

Let the way be open. 

A hand in his, small and wholly enveloped. Another flicker, a larger hand, leading, guiding.

Sing through my voice, play through my hands, let the way be open. 

A man in the distance, standing tall, strong and sure, surrounded by fluttering green resplendence, glowing. Movement all around, shuffling, scuffling, purring, cooing, calling. Now closer, the umbre skin of his face warm with golden sunlight. Eyes serious, but lit deep within from a joy that was somehow familiar. 

Let the way be open. 

That joy, glowing, on a smaller face, in the same eyes.

Sing through my voice. Play through my hands. 

A hand in his. 

Let the way be open. 

Let the way be open.

Bruno gasped himself awake, sputtering on sand and wincing at the sharp scrabble of tiny claws across his body. He sat up, a hand to his chest, rubbing at the scrapes left behind by the startled rats, rubbing at his heart. The glow of his magic was dimming in his chest, fading like after a vision. 

Was that a vision?

With a groan he shook his head, sand raining down around him, and let himself fall back onto his pillow. He stared at the ceiling. 

Well, that was a weird one. 

It was most certainly a vision-dream, of that at least he could be certain. He was familiar enough with them these days, so he should know. It played out exactly like this each night; when his defenses were down, when he was finally in a deep enough sleep that all his inhibitions were left at the wayside, then his gift would strike. He’d be pulled into a confusing and overwhelming world, glowing green at the edges, always difficult to understand. Always half-remembered. In his sleep, he would subconsciously reach for his sand, pulling it around himself to try to project the oppressive images that wrapped themselves around his mind like a smothering cloud. He would awaken disoriented, head throbbing, to a mountain of sand in his bed and the nagging, unshakable feeling that he’d somehow missed something important. 

But this dream was different. What changed? What changed?

Bruno sighed and threw back the covers. He rose to his feet with a precarious sway, steadying himself against the bedpost and murmuring reassuring noises to the rats that gathered there. He ran a hand through his hair, then began the tedious process of shaking sand out of his bedsheets. He'd sweep the rest up in the morning.

In the past, in his younger days, the vision dreams would usually come when some impending event was particularly pressing…or when he was pushing back against his gift. More often when he was pushing back against his gift. 

That explained the usual subject of these vision dreams. The vision of Mirabel had been pushing on his mind for months, calling him back to the sand circle, calling him to come see, come see, come see … but he’d seen enough. He’d done all he could to block out the call, walling it away, refusing to relive what he knew would be the same upsetting vision. He had no idea why it wouldn’t go away, and he’d seen enough. He was done with being a ragdoll in the rough hands of time.

So it had entered his dreams instead. Typical . La suerte, la senora veleidosa. [ Fate, the fickle mistress.]

He now faced night after night of Mirabel’s aged, sorrow-filled face as he’d first seen it in the forest months ago. He had no idea what it meant, and it was infuriating. Why give me the gift of premonition when you’re going to show me things I can’t do anything about? he thought for the millionth time in his weary life. 

Now it had become a matter of principle. Stubbornness. He refused to look again because it was the only thing he could do that still felt like a choice. And so the vision-dreams kept coming, at first once a week or so, but with renewed vigor after his brief week of blissful reprieve. Now they came every night.

He paused in the motion of re-tucking his bedsheets and furrowed his brow. Tonight’s dream though…that had been different. It had been filled, not with fear and resistance but…something like comfort. Familiarity. Maybe even…peace. The man’s face was fuzzy, already fading, but it had looked so much like…

NOPE. 

He waved his hands by his head, brushing away the already fading images. Nope, nope, nope. Nice try, but you’re not pulling me into another spiral of gibberish right now. It’s the middle of the night, por el amor de Dios. Give an old man a break. 

He heaved a heavy sigh and bent to lean his hands against his bed, letting his head hang heavy. At least now his sheets were sand-free. Mostly, anyway. 

Sometimes, on nights like this, he would get up and go for a walk, to shake the anxious feeling he was always left with. He’d sweep the room, clearing the evidence of the wretched dream before his sobrina arrived for their morning tea, letting the mundane task guide him back to fatigue. 

Tonight, he just climbed back into his bed, curled around the small huddle of rats that came to pile on his mattress, and stared into the darkness. 

Play…through my hands, the voices had said. Open. Let the way be open.  

He tucked himself tighter around the warm, furry bodies in his bed and gradually drifted back off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Sing through my voice. Things worth getting take time. Play through my hands. Take time. Thank you for helping. I was mad at you for a long time. We will just try again, mijo. Almost is not good enough. Then what has this all been for? Thank you for helping. Let the way be open. Let the way be open.

Bruno’s mind was an anxious whirlpool, spiraling around and around with disparate voices that all pulled at his attention, stretching it achingly thin. 

I’ve never seen Toñito so happy. What has this all been for? Your vision, your promise. You left. Just say 'you’re welcome.' What are you going to do?

“--ío? Hey! Anyone in there?” 

Bruno startled and focused back on Mirabel, who was leaning forward across the low table between them to wave a hand in his face. Her furrowed brow loosened slightly when his eyes finally connected with hers. 

“Geez, Tío. You okay? You were in another world for a minute there.”

He shook his head rapidly to empty it and guiltily cleared his throat.

“I-I’m sorry, kiddo, I’m listening, I’m listening. Just uh, just tired I think. Need more of this top-notch coffee you brought! Heh…ehhh.” He reached clumsily for his abandoned cup, pausing momentarily to pull away a rat, whose head was dipped down past the rim to sniff curiously at the liquid within. He took a quick sip and winced at the now cold coffee. Mirabel frowned at him and didn’t lean back into her seat. 

“T-tell me again, I promise I’m listening,” he urged. “What…what were you saying?” 

"I asked what you and Antonio are going to do today. You are taking him out again, right? To practice with his gift?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I uh, I think we’ll go out into the forest again. But we’re going to try…something different today. Maybe. See, I-I’ve been thinking—”

“No kidding,” she mumbled dryly, and he paused to scowl at her. 

“I’ve been thinking,” he continued, “that maybe we’ll try to practice with his gift more...directly. Phvvoop. Head on.” He drove a flat hand straight in front of him, narrowing his eyes at it with precision. “But also, not so, ya know, woah!” He drew his hands back and waved them as if to stop the progress of something speeding by. Mirabel squinted her eyes at him in confusion. 

“Heheh, we’ll uh, ya know, we’ll focus, a-and slow it down a bit in some ways, too. Eh…I-I’ve got a few ideas about it.” 

He shrugged and waved away at the air as if he could disperse his jumbled explanation. Mirabel tucked her mouth to the side and nodded as if she was actually thinking through the gibberish he’d just spewed out. 

“Ideas...like what?” she prodded curiously.

“Eh…Idaknow. Just–just things that used to help me. You know, back when my gift was new.” 

“Ah, yes, eons ago.” Mirabel nodded as if with sage understanding. He dropped his face into a deadpan glower at her sarcasm.

“Ay, you are in rare form this morning, aren’t you?” he scolded. She laughed brightly and finally leaned back into her chair. He found her easy laughter pulling a smile to his own face effortlessly. 

“Just trying to get you to relax, Tío,” she replied with a satisfied grin, her mission accomplished. "You haven't been sleeping well, you're literally lost in your thoughts, and I'm pretty sure your rats are developing a serious caffeine addiction."

He followed her pointed gaze down to the arm of his chair, where Manolo was shamelessly taking a sip from his mug. Bruno grimaced and glanced back at Mirabel.

"Honestly kid, I've been much worse off than this…"

Mirabel tsked at him. "My point is, it’s good you’re changing things up with Toñito. Really good, and important, like super important, believe me. But don’t get too worked up, okay? You’re starting to look like your old door.” 

"Oh am I?" he chuckled. Challenge accepted. At that, Bruno pulled his face into a somber frown, folding his eyebrows together and staring at her intently—a well-practiced, perfect replica of the gloomy wooden doppelganger that had haunted his doorway his entire life.

“Ay, cut it out,” she said with a mock shiver.

“ I see… ,” he muttered, his voice low and sinister. He reached toward her with a quivering hand. “ I see… I see you getting kicked out of my room. Now. It’s happening now.” 

She rolled her eyes and rose from her seat, reaching out a hand to pull him to standing as well. He stood and wrapped her in a crushing hug. 

“Ugh, Tío,” she grumbled happily into his shoulder, but she squeezed him back just as hard. “I’ll see you at breakfast, okay?”

“Yep, see you down there, kid.” 

She pulled open the door and stepped out, but then paused and poked her head back in to look at him.

“Hey, I think it’s a cool idea, to show Antonio what helped you. You know a thing or two about a thing or two.” She shrugged, that now familiar look of kindhearted certainty shining within the round frame of her glasses. “You’ve got this.” 

He nodded at her, and she withdrew from the door, closing it behind her. The room grew still and quiet in her absence, as always. Her vibrant energy was tangible whenever she was around; it was his favorite way to start the morning. He smiled fondly at the closed door and turned to get ready for a day with his sobrinito, toeing carefully around that whirlpool of voices that still hovered at the edge of his mind. 

Yep, something new today, I think. Eh…it’s worth shot, anyway. 

Alas, when he found himself in the forest clearing later that morning, Antonio hopping energetically between the roots of the trees, the morning's certainty had definitely waivered.

Ah, who am I kidding? I can't teach the kid anything. I brought nothing but misery with my gift for years, then hid in the walls of my own home for a decade. Not exactly a shining track record. M-maybe I should just—

You've got this. Mirabel's voice cut straight through the chatter of his insecurities. You've got this. 

"Okay," he mumbled to himself. "I-I've got this."

He moved to the center of the clearing and called Toñito over. The kid froze mid hop, balancing on one foot, then expertly swiveled on his toes and changed direction, landing in front of Bruno with a couple more leaps. 

"What are we doing today, Tío?" he asked curiously. Bruno sat down cross-legged in the dirt and opened his mouth to respond, but at that moment, when he looked up at Toñito's big brown eyes, a familiar shiver went down his spine. Like deja-vu—the future becoming the present. He blinked away the disorienting sensation. 

"Uh, come, c'mere kid, sit down across from me, yep, just like that, good. We're uh, we're gonna try something different today, to help with your gift."

Antonio tensed at his words. His face pulled into an expression of apprehension and worry, his lips pressing together tight and his eyebrows wrinkling. Bruno waved his hands frantically in front of him, backtracking desperately at his sobrino's distress. 

"No, no, no, you're not in trouble kid, you're okay! It's gonna be fun, fun and new! I'm just going to show you some, uh, some old Tío tricks that used to help me when I was younger, yeah? Nothing scary about that…right?"

After a pause, Antonio nodded carefully. Quietly. Bruno hated when he got quiet…it meant he was anxious. 

"Tell you what, kiddo. Is Parce nearby? Want to call him over to play, too?"

Antonio's eyes brightened at that, and he twisted around to whistle shrilly at the treeline behind them. In an instant, the jaguar bounded into the clearing, sprinting a circle around them before skidding to a stop next to Antonio. He pressed his forehead to Toñito's in greeting, purring deeply. Bruno began to sweat, but persevered. 

"Ah–hahaha, was he here the whole time? Watching? Silently?"

"He doesn't like to go too far from me," Antonio replied, his voice low. A small, comforted smile played on his lips now. 

Ay, that's just great. Perpetually stalked by a predator. At least the kid is smiling now…okay focus, focus. 

"A-alright, P-parce is here. Carnivorous friends…check! You feel better about working on your gift, now?" 

Antonio thought for a moment, then nodded resolutely. Parce curled up against his back, and Antonio sat up a little straighter. 

"Okay, good, good, uh, let's see now. First things first I guess. Can you tell me what it's like to use your gift? What it feels like, I mean. Like, like in your body."

Antonio’s lips pouted out in a confused frown. Bruno was fairly certain that no one had ever asked him that before.

"Ay, okay, okay, like, uh, for me, I-I feel my gift in my chest," he offered, thumping his chest roughly with a flat hand. "Right here. It's like, it fills up there, and then…I can, I can open a door, in my mind, and…let the future in."

Antonio brightened and bounced eagerly onto his knees. "Yeah, yeah, me too!" he replied, tapping his chest like Bruno. Parce nudged his way under Antonio's other arm so it slung across his thick, muscular neck. Antonio continued, unphased. "It gets all warm and tingly right here. Like my heart is…lighted up, or something."

"Yes! Good! Okay, so, remember that feeling, okay?"

Antonio scratched Parce's ears cheerfully, clearly more relaxed now. "Okay."

"Okay, now, now, now, next you need to empty your mind. I mean, open it. Empty your mind to open it."

"Huh?" Antonio scrunched up his face in confusion. He then broke into a fit of high giggles as Parce nuzzled his ear with his wet whiskered nose. 

Hooo boy, Bruno thought desperately, running a hand through his hair. Maybe I should have planned this out better. 

"You know what?" he said suddenly, following a small inkling of something that was perhaps intuition. He couldn’t be sure—any intuition he had usually took the form of overwhelming dread. "Never mind, never mind all that. C'mere kid."

He opened his arms, and Antonio immediately scampered over and curled into his lap. For a moment, Bruno just squeezed his sobrino tightly, marveling at the trust and comfort that this little person lavished on him so freely. The thought brought an ache to his heart, a wonderful, warming ache. 

Bruno released his grip and turned him around instead, so Antonio sat facing Parce, who had put his head down onto his giant paws and closed his eyes lazily. Antonio leaned back against his tío's chest, and Bruno set his hands on his small shoulders. 

"Let's try it like this," he said gently, slowing down his speech and lowering his voice now that it was close to his sobrino's ear. "When I was younger, and my gift was still pretty new, I learned that being still, i-in your body, but also in your mind, and-and even in your heart, in that place where you feel your magic," he put his hand on Antonio's chest, feeling his fluttering hummingbird of a heartbeat, "i-if you can be still in all those ways, you can see your gift more clearly. Like, when a room gets all quiet and you can hear a person's voice much better. D-does that make sense?"

Antonio tipped his head up and smiled sweetly. "Sort of."

"Waddayasay, want to try being still, together?"

Antonio squirmed in his lap, as if even the suggestion of stillness made it even more irresistible to move. "Okay."

"Okay." Bruno settled into his seat, tuning into that part of his vision ritual that helped to calm his incessant, fear-filled inner monologue. It was a well-worn mental path, made smooth with repeated use. 

He rolled his shoulders back, closing his eyes. In his lap, he felt Toñito imitate the motion, rolling his shoulders back against Bruno's chest. Bruno took a slow deep breath and blew it out through his mouth. Toñito took a much smaller deep breath to match. Bruno let his hands rest gently on his own knees, face up and limp, and smiled to himself when two small hands settled into his open palms. He gave them a brief squeeze.

"Are your eyes closed?" he asked. Toñito nodded.

"Alright kid," he said softly. "All I want you to do now is listen. Listen to all the sounds around us, a-and focus on that. Tell me what you hear."

Antonio fidgeted and briefly lifted his hand to scratch his nose. He replaced his hand on Bruno's and took another long, resolute breath. And then, to Bruno's surprise, he actually grew still. 

Around them, the jungle was alive with soft noises. Birds called high and distant across the whispering air, leaves fluttered and rustled above them. Twigs snapped in the distance, and, if Bruno really strained his ears, he could just barely make out the mumbling hustle of the town. 

He suddenly wondered how different the jungle sounded to someone who heard conversations in every branch. He imagined it would be pretty distracting, like trying to focus in the middle of a crowd. Ehhh...maybe this won't work after all…

"I hear…your breathing," Antonio began carefully. His voice had quieted to almost a whisper. "I hear my friends. I hear Parce purring, and Chispi walking around in the trees behind us, and Tití and Sami snapping branches up there." His hand lifted briefly from Bruno’s to gesture toward the canopy.

Antonio paused, listening again. "I can hear the leaves, and I hear the wind, too." 

He leaned heavily back against Bruno. His small hands were light in Bruno's palms, his fingers twitching ever so slightly as his focus drifted to the sounds around them. The rise and fall of his breathing had gradually begun to slow.

"That's really good! You're doing really good," Bruno lauded gently, almost hesitant to speak and break the kid's uncharacteristic stillness. "Now, remember that feeling you told me about before? The–the glowing, in your heart? Let it start. Call on your gift, and just, just see what happens."

Antonio began to tense almost immediately. His open hands closed into fists, and he sat up straighter in Bruno's lap, concentrating.

"Easy, easy, don't worry about what you're going to do with your gift yet." Bruno lifted a hand and placed it carefully over Antonio's heart. "Try, try to stay still, inside and out. Just focus on that feeling in your chest, and on what you hear around us. Let everything else just…fall away."

Bruno took a few deep, exaggerated breaths, prompting Antonio to do the same. After a moment, Antonio's hand loosened again where it still sat against Bruno's palm, and Bruno nodded, almost imperceptibly. Good, kid! Keep it up, now, don't lose it…

For a long while, they sat in silence, and nothing happened. In fact, enough time had passed that Bruno was pretty sure the kid had fallen asleep, and this had been a big exercise in how to bore your poor sobrino to death. He opened his eyes, intending to lean forward and check, but froze at the sight before him. 

All around them, animals had silently gathered to watch. Birds perched on jaguars heads, capybaras sat between their feet  Masses of ants curled in concentric rings around them and butterflies clung in striking patterns to the bark of the trees, their wings spread wide, shimmering in the sunlight. Monkeys and lemurs hung by lanky arms and legs, swaying slightly, eyes locked on Antonio. They all were looking at Antonio. But that wasn't the remarkable thing; after all, animals gathered around the kid all the time.

What was remarkable was that they were still . Unnaturally still, as still as Toñito himself. It was like the forest had taken in a breath and held it, motionless. Silent. Waiting. 

"T-toñito!" Bruno gasped, grabbing the boy's shoulder in what was most definitely a concentration-breaking motion. 

"What?" he asked, cracking open his eyes and craning his head to look up at Bruno. Bruno nodded pointedly to the gathering around them, eyes huge, and Antonio slowly turned to take it all in. A grin spread wide and bright across his face. 

"Hi friends!" he called eagerly, and in that instant it was like all the energy that had been pressed carefully into stillness was released in one explosive burst. A great kerfuffling chaos broke loose as every creature jumped into motion. Bruno threw his arms up to his face as they were accosted by a fur-and-feather laden wind stirred up by dozens of wings taking flight at once. Half the animals pressed toward them and half retreated, and when the dust and movement finally settled, Bruno found himself squeezing a raucously giggling Antonio tightly with both arms, hiding his face in the springy mass of curls on top of the boy’s head. 

Antonio squirmed in his grasp and Bruno quickly freed him, only to have the kid turn around and grab his tío’s cheeks with both hands, smooshing his lips into a goony, fishy pout. 

"That. Was. AMAZING!" Antonio cried, and Bruno beamed back, smiling as widely as his pressed face would allow.

"Soo ambayzin!" Bruno answered through his smashed lips, throwing his fists into the air in triumph. He let the motion tip them backwards, and they tumbled down to the ground in a laughing, jubilant heap. Bruno barely even noticed when Parce bounded up to nuzzle them both with his massive head. 

"Did ya see that, Parce?! The kid's a natural!" Bruno cheered, nudging the animal with his elbow. Parce let out a low grumble, and Bruno quickly retracted the gesture. "Yep, yep, you saw, g-got it." 

Antonio raised his head, digging his boney elbows into Bruno's chest to lift himself. His eyes were filled with a joy that tugged strangely at Bruno's memory. 

"Can we do it again, Tío? Can we?"

Bruno propped himself up on his arms, thinking. The kid had done so well, better than Bruno would ever have imagined on his first attempt. Should he push him harder? Challenge him to see what else he was capable of, how far he could go? It was still morning, they might even be able to try a few more times before lunch…

The whirlpool of voices from the morning returned, leaking forward over Bruno’s thoughts.

…we will just try again, mijo. Almost is not good enough...

"Nah," Bruno finally answered, still following that curious intuitive feeling that perhaps was actually on to something. "That was a lot of new stuff to try already, and you nailed it, kid! Let's take a break instead. Wanna… build some ant casitas?"

Antonio frowned at his Tío and shook his head scoldingly. "Tío, ants don't live in houses. They live in hills. Ant casitas don’t make any sense!"

Bruno nodded sheepishly. "Oh. Right, of course."

Antonio scrambled off Bruno’s chest, already reaching to gather twigs and leaves. "We'll build beetle casitas!" 

—

On the way back up to their Casita that evening, Bruno felt almost as bouncy as his sobrino. He couldn’t help it. Something he’d done had actually helped. His time with Toñito had been more than just a selfish indulgence; it had brought real progress, real results for his sobrino. He’d actually taught something useful. To a person. A real, non-rat person. 

They chattered happily the whole way home, trading grand ideas for structural improvements to the beetle casititas and laughing for the third or fourth time at the rat joke Bruno had told. (What will a rat never tell you? A squeakret. Antonio had found it to be the height of humor, much to Bruno’s delight.)

Bruno was in the midst of a spirited defense of why the beetle casitas needed reinforced balconies when they finally came to the house. As they approached the shimmering front door, his rambling began to trail off into silence, his attention pulled away by the frantically clacking tiles on the steps. 

“¡Hola, Casita!” Antonio sang, letting go of Bruno’s hand to race up the steps, but Bruno reached out and snagged the back of his shirt before he could climb more than one. 

Something wasn’t right. The intuition had reverted back to dread in Bruno's stomach. Even after 50 years, he was no expert at reading Casita, but something about the way the tiles were moving…it wasn’t a greeting. It was a warning.

“H-hang on kid, I—”

Suddenly, sharp voices shot out from behind Casita’s doors. They were quick and angry, growing louder as they approached the other side of the door. A crack of thunder shook the walls from within, and Antonio lept from the stairs in response, stumbling backward into Bruno's legs. Casita clinked the tiles louder, but before Bruno could decipher the house's cryptic gestures, the front door swung wide and a man stepped out, shoving a black and white sombrero roughly onto his head as he went. 

"---ppose to help the Encanto, but it's only brought about more harm! I understand he is just a boy, but Señora we lost an entire field today. Gone! Something must—"

The man froze on the steps as he caught sight of the two figures blocking his way. Señor…Rojas , Bruno suddenly thought, from the dredges of his memory. A granjero. Antonio was pressing further back into Bruno as if he could shrink from sight. Bruno put his hands on his small shoulders to steady him, pulling him closer as if he could somehow help to hide him away. 

Señor Rojas' furious eyes fell quickly to Antonio, and his hardened expression suddenly softened. He tightened his mouth as if chewing on his unfinished words, but then straightened his shoulders, gathering a measure of composure. He shifted his gaze to Bruno, pausing a fraction of a second too long, before nodding brusquely in greeting. Bruno just stared.

Señor Rojas turned back to the doorway, which was now occupied by a stern-faced Abuela and an agitated Pepa. When he spoke again, his voice was lowered and tersely courteous. 

"Mis disculpas, doña, señora. I spoke out of turn. I am just…anxious…about my family's welfare. As I'm sure you understand." 

A multitude of ominous grey clouds had begun to spill from the doorway above the women's heads. Abuela put a steadying hand on Pepa's shoulder.

"I understand, Carlos. Your family is a treasured part of our community. We will resolve this, you have my word. Please, give our best to Belinda."

The señor grunted in affirmation and tipped his hat, and with that took his leave, his face pointedly bowed. The sounds of his boots crunching the soil faded away behind them, leaving the Madrigals standing in an uncertain silence. 

Antonio finally broke the stillness, sprinting from Bruno's grasp into the waiting arms of his mamá and burying his face in her stomach. The air crackled, and Pepa cast a glowering stare between Bruno and Abuela before ushering her son into Casita with soothing murmurs. The clouds followed behind them, draining swiftly through the doorway.

Abuela and Bruno's eyes met, but Bruno looked away, wilting under her unwavering gaze. Was that, was it…sadness he saw in her eyes? Disappointment? He felt sick. 

He glanced back up at Abuela, but she'd already turned to look at someone else, someone standing just out of view beyond the doorway. She gave them a meaningful look, then turned to follow after Pepa. 

After a moment, Mirabel stepped forward from the edge of the doorway, eyes following after Abuela, shoulders slumped in defeat. Bruno watched as she moved her hand to her collar, fidgeting nervously with the embroidered edges. Suddenly, she took a sharp, resolved breath and drew back her shoulders, dropping her hands firmly to her sides. When she turned to face Bruno, her expression was still concerned, but also somehow…closed. She'd tucked something away, composed herself, before turning to him. The Mirabel of his vision flashed in his memory. Alone.

In the present, she held out a hand to him and tilted her head, motioning him inside. Bruno willed his legs into motion, dragging himself up the stairs instead of hiding under them, like every fiber of his being was calling him to do. When he reached the top step, he took her hand and pulled her in, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and giving her a shaky squeeze. She patted the space between his shoulder blades reassuringly, and they walked wordlessly into the courtyard together, Casita shutting the door behind them without a sound.

Chapter Text

Alma stood in the center of Casita’s courtyard, staring up at the blank walls that loomed above her. For the first time in two years, she was completely alone in her home, and the weight of it felt heavier in the cool night air than she ever thought it could. Alone. She was alone. She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

The past two years were a blur of sweat and fear and hope, of frantic lullabies and sleepless nights, of the unforgettable sounds of anguished cries around her, echoing the unceasing one in her own heart. 

On that terrible night two years ago, as she lay in a broken heap on the cold earth, she could remember hearing the gasps of her people behind her. She had raised her head in fear to face what she was certain was her own death, the death of her newborn children. But instead of machetes falling on their heads, she and her people had watched together as mountains rose above them and around them. Together, they had felt their fear settle quietly in their chests, deeply and immovably within them. Together, they’d watched with bated breath as walls, not of a fortress against invaders, but of a house had unfurled from the ground like the petals of a flower in the light of a new day. A house that waved a shutter to their terrified faces in gentle greeting.

When the golden magic had settled and the house had ushered them all inside like a mother hen gathering her chicks beneath her, Alma and her people had found within it the unexplainable, unbelievable warmth of a place that was familiar, but also foreign. As they slowly moved to open the doors that stood in endless lines, crammed into every possible space of wall on both stories of the house, each family had found behind whichever blank puerta they opened a magical facsimile of the home that lay in ashes behind them. Behind each door were pieces of their own lost casita, remade in part. Together, they had collapsed with the awe and wonder of it all, at the terrible relief. 

They had taken a week just to take stock of their wounded, count their losses, recognize the blank spaces left by their dead. Huddled within this very courtyard, what remained of her people had gathered together and tried to catch their breath–breaths they didn’t think they’d still have. Children played in hushed voices with tiles that played back, while adults looked on with haunted, empty eyes–some moving without ceasing to do something, anything, to have their hands busy so as not to fall apart…some unable to move at all. But they all were haunted. 

The strange contrast of the immensity of their collective grief and the awe of their sudden miracle had taken an entire week to take in. And then came the moment when Alma realized what needed to be done. 

“This is La Casa Madrigal,” Raymundo had said to her one evening, placing a heavy hand on her shoulder as she clutched the smallest of her infants to her chest. She sat in the courtyard of Casita, as many of the people did in the evenings, finding solace in the nearness of fellow survivors. Elisa, Raymundo’s wife, held Alma’s other two babies, looking at her with a sadness that was much too deep for her young face. Elisa nodded at her in gentle agreement, and Alma turned back toward Raymundo. 

Alma looked up at him blankly, uncomprehendingly. La casa Madrigal? Such a place no longer existed. La casa Madrigal, the tiny two-room casita that had held her whole world, lay unreachable, broken, behind the mountains. Though the room she slept in each night looked almost exactly like the one she had left behind, it was missing its most important piece. The person that had made it home .

“ This is La Casa Madrigal ,” Raymundo repeated, gently emphasizing the words so they could sink in. “This home is meant for you and your young family. You were given a miracle, for your…great sacrifice. But this home was not meant to hold us all.”

Alma blinked at him. She was exhausted, sleeping in forty-minute shifts at all hours of the day, awoken by one of her newborns almost as soon as her eyes fell closed. Awoken by nightmares that didn’t go away when she wrenched her eyes open. Held awake by the numbing fear that she might yet lose the smallest child, her son, who seemed to struggle to stay warm no matter how tightly wrapped he was unless he was held close to her heart. She was exhausted, an empty shell, and her raw mind couldn’t understand what Raymundo was trying to say. 

“The miracle…the miracle is for all of us, Ray,” she replied shakily. She looked up to the window where the candle stood in its protective vigil. Her wedding candle, shining brightly in the window of her room. 

“Alma, the miracle came to you . This home is meant for you, for your family. We all cannot continue to live here, an entire village under one roof. We should start to make plans to build? To settle.” He spoke the final words like a question, like it required her approval. She blinked at him again, then turned to look back up at the candle. 

And then she understood. 

Each family had been blessed with a place to sleep for the night, a magical room that brought forward a few pieces of a home that was lost to the flames, but only Alma’s door had borne her name, glowing in golden firelight that seemed to be lit from within. Only Alma’s door held her face, eyes closed with a peace that she could not fathom, hands holding the candle that shone like grace from her window. 

The miracle had saved them, protected them, given them what they needed to survive in their darkest moment. But every moment after would be up to them, up to her. Tomó, pues, Jehová Dios al hombre, y lo puso en el huerto de Edén, para que lo labrara y lo guardase. [So the Lord God took the man, and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it.]  The miracle was their survival, but it would be squandered, lost if she did not guard it, if she didn’t strive every minute to protect it. If they lost this, Pedro…Pedro’s sacrifice would…would be for nothing. It could not be for nothing. She could not let their people, her people, lose this paradise they’d been given.

Alma looked inward at the fatigue that dragged at every inch of her, and she carefully folded it, pressed it down. She looked at the grief that seemed so dark and empty that it would devour every inch of light that still remained, and she pressed it down, too. She looked at her fear, that seemed so strong it would suck the very breath out of her lungs, and she pressed it down. 

Then she looked up at her daughters, held in Elisa’s arms, and reached out to gather them into her own. She looked at the three small faces of her children, sleeping peacefully, filled with innocent, unending trust.

And then she stood, pressing her feet into the tile with strength that came from that foundation within her of things pressed and pressed and pressed until they were hard as stone, tapia pisada, and she looked again at Raymundo with something new in her eyes that he had never seen there before. 

“You’re right,” she said with an authority in her voice that sounded much more like Pedro’s than her own. “Gather the heads of all the households. Tomorrow, we’ll begin to move forward. To build our home.” 

As the houses rose from nothing, walls pressed into existence by blood and sweat and the sheer unwavering spirit of those who had lost everything and then been given a chance to regain it, the many doors within the La Casa Madrigal had slowly begun to disappear. Over the next two years, they had all worked together to build homes for each other, no one exempt from the labor and no one wanting to be, and the walls of Casita had grown less and less cramped. They tilled the earth to plant fields, and re-dug them when the unpredictable rains had flooded them. They felled trees and shaped the wood into doors and windows and chairs and tables. They cleared thorned bramble and planted lush cafeto. They dredged rivers for clay that became roofs and pots and tiles. 

Slowly, their magical valley became their home, and Casita became her home, and her home only. And now, Alma stood in her Casita’s empty courtyard, staring up at the doorless walls, and the only other face she could see was a wooden reflection of her own, shining down beneath the golden halo of the candle…and she was alone. 

“Pedro ,” she whispered. She had not spoken the name aloud in two years. My husband, she would say. Señor Madrigal, her people would reply, out of respect. But not his name. She could not bear to bring his name to her lips, because it would send cracks through the very foundation she’d pressed into existence with all that she had left within her. But now, as she spoke it aloud, the emptiness and loneliness that lay just on the other side of those carefully pressed walls burst out, and a sob broke loose from her throat that sounded much more like a wounded animal than a human cry. 

“ Pedro.” She choked his name out again as she sank to her knees on the tile. She was dizzy with the force of the grief that suddenly came rushing forward, and now she couldn't keep his name from her mouth. It was as if all the hushed mentions that had tempted her over the past two years now were catching in her throat, pouring out with a vengeance at having been silenced. “Pedro.”

A sudden sound cut through the air, making Alma’s breath catch in her chest. She grew stiff and silent, listening. Behind her, a single, small cry had rung out into the night, one of her children calling out in their sleep. She cut off her tears abruptly and held her breath, turning and staring tensely at the turquoise door that loomed behind her. The nursery. Her niños preciosos. She listened fiercely in the gripping silence. When no further noise came forth from the door, she released one final shaky sob. 

She was not alone. She had her three babies, her milagros, her family, depending wholly and completely on her. Three pieces of her heart, pieces of Pedro, blessed into her arms–the most beautiful sustaining memory of his life that God could craft. 

And she had her people. They were no longer there beside her, pressed together in comfort and fear, but they were with her nonetheless. They’d been with her through it all, and they understood her grief, carried pain like her own. And they looked to her now, to the miracle she carried, for guidance, for stability.

“Pedro, she whispered at the sky. “Pedro, please give me strength. I can’t do this alone.” 

The cool air moved slowly around her in a gentle breeze, ruffling the tassels of her shawl, dyed black as the sky. The night was quiet, the only noise the faint crackling of the candle wick that carried almost imperceptibly down from the window up above. The clouds that had drifted into the sky throughout the day condensed slowly above her, and sporadic drops of rain began to fall around her onto the tile with gentle pattering.

The tile beneath her hand tipped gently, nudging her in concern. She nodded slowly to the floor, to Casita, to herself. 

Alma rose to her feet, pulling her shawl tighter around her against the biting air, and went to her bed, alone, and yet surrounded as well. 

Chapter Text

Mirabel twisted in her bed, kicking her legs in frustration to untangle them from the blankets and settling in to stare with unfocused eyes at the pale turquoise wall beside her. Her talk with Abuela last week after their interrupted walk in the rain replayed again in her head, an endless loop pressing down on her conscience. 

“—but what about Antonio?” Mirabel beseeched, exasperation and exhaustion rising as their conversation circled itself once again. “You have to know this is all too much for him. He’s only six! We can’t expect him to suddenly have it all figured out!”

Abuela hesitated, her mouth tightening. "Again, I hear you, Mirabel, but I'm afraid his gift…complicates things. Our people—"

"Have dealt with wild animals before Toñito's gift!"

"Not like this,” Abuela replied firmly. “The problems have increased tenfold since he began speaking to the animals, we both know this. His gift is from the Miracle, and that means it is a blessing, but he must get it under control, and soon."

Under control. The words churned uncomfortably in Mirabel’s stomach. She thought about her Tía Pepa, pulling at her braid, praying for clear skies. She thought of Isabela, tucking herself away behind a perfect façade, like a self-imposed prison. She thought of her Tío Bruno, hiding from his gift with so much fear, constantly fighting against it, even now. Too much, too soon. They never had a chance.

But Mirabel had helped them. She’d made a difference, changed the way things were, and she would do it again for Antonio.

"Abuela, there has to be another way!” She paused to take a calming breath and tried again. “What if there is another way?"

Abuela was watching her thoughtfully. If Alma was at all fatigued by their lengthy debate, she didn’t show it. Through it all, she had sat there, stoic and still, immovable. Now, though, as she looked at Mirabel, her face was gentler, creased with tenderness. 

"Another way...what do you see, Mirabel?” she asked gently, patiently. “Open my eyes, mi vida." 

Mirabel just shook her head in frustration. I don’t know! she thought desperately. 

What did she even want to say? It’s not like she had a solution to the whole debacle. She knew Abuela was right, that Antonio’s animals couldn’t be allowed free reign of the Encanto’s food supply. But she also knew, with an abiding conviction deep in her chest, that she couldn’t let Antonio fall victim to the overwhelming weights that were all too common to La Familia Madrigal. Luisa’s confession about her gift echoed in Mirabel's mind, still fresh even after a year and a half. 

All we know is pressure, Mirabel, and it never stops! No mistakes, just…just pressure .

Antonio needed to be allowed to make mistakes. Mirabel knew the feeling of always being wrong; the pain of never getting it right. She couldn't let Antonio feel like that, too. She thought back to when she was six, still reeling in the void of her missing gift. The effort of trying to make up for that lack, of trying to somehow recapture the connection with her Abuela and her family that had broken the moment her door disappeared…it had been so much, and she’d been so young. She couldn’t even really remember a time before. 

They all had been young when the responsibilities of their family had demanded they grow up, suddenly, mercilessly. Until Antonio’s gift came along, she hadn’t really realized the implications of such a heavy shift in all of the Madrigals’ lives. Now though, now that she could see Antonio teetering on the same precipice, it tugged at her stomach with aching worry. 

But the needs of their people could not be dismissed. That was a fact Abuela had reminded her of again and again and again, all with the patient persistence of an adult trying to explain something complex to a petulant child. Farmers worked diligently to feed the entire Encanto, and their work must be honored. Their losses couldn’t be ignored.

They were both right, Mirabel could see that, but she could see no way to make sense of muddled mess before them. It was once again the people’s needs against their own, and they couldn’t seem to reconcile the two. No matter what path she tried to take to convince Abuela, it had just rounded back to the same impassable roadblock. 

I just need to think! There had to be some other way for Antonio to have the space to remain the sweet, unburdened little boy he was now and still protect the interests of the Encanto. Everyone was always looking to Abuela for guidance, but maybe Mirabel could help, too, in her own way. 

Gaaaah, but that would have required her to actually come up with a solution, and she was no closer to a tangible plan than she’d been when they’d begun the conversation an hour before!

… one thing she did know, though. Antonio had been different in the past year. He’d been outgoing, joyful, confident. No more hiding under beds, no more shying away from people. His gift had been part of that, for sure, but that hadn’t been the only change in his life. Even before their gifts had returned, one other addition—one person—had made a consistent and abiding impact. 

Maybe there was something to that.

"Tío Bruno,” Mirabel blurted suddenly, conviction growing steadily in her heart. “They’ve been spending so much time together, he and Antonio, just playing and, and bonding, and I think it’s been helping. It's like…something was missing from our family before, and now, now it’s not.”

Abuela’s eyes softened at the mention of her son, as they always did these days. Mirabel felt a little hope bloom in the air around them. She took a step forward, taking one of Abuela’s hands in her own. 

“Antonio is happy, Abuela. There may still be…incidents…with his gift, but they are less frequent now. You have to admit that.” 

Abuela hummed softly, a small concession. For the first time in their endless conversation, she seemed to be moved by her nieta’s words. 

“I know they are working on his gift together, too,” Mirabel added softly, cajolingly. “And Tío Bruno has the most complicated gift of us all. Who better than to teach him, to help him? Maybe Antonio just needs more time."

"Perhaps you are right,” Abuela replied carefully. “But time is not an endless resource, mija. Today, we lost an entire harvest of melons, and in previous months, even more food and property. All small things perhaps, but I fear that if we wait too long, the combined consequences will not be so easy to overcome. For us…or for Antonio."

Mirabel bit her lip. She knew what Abuela meant. For all their love and loyalty, the Encanto was still so easily plagued by fear. 

"Alright, mi vida. For now, we will wait.” Abuela finally concluded, rising to her feet. Mirabel released her grandmother’s hand, pulling her fingers to her collar instead to fidget at the embroidery there. “We will allow him to keep working with Bruno and his padres, and pray that is enough. But Mirabel, if it happens again, we must take action. You want to help our people, to help the Encanto? Leadership is sacrifice, amor. Sometimes, the needs of the many must come before our own."

Mirabel yanked roughly at her covers and flipped to face the other direction. The alarm clock on her nightstand ticked irritatingly onward toward sunrise. She squeezed her eyes shut tight.

Abuela had spoken of leadership, of sacrifice and responsibility, but those words, repeated as the family’s golden standard her entire life, landed differently now against her ears. What if Abuela had meant more by them? 

Mirabel had spent so much time with Abuela lately, watching her closely, carefully transcribing her grandmother’s practiced habits into her memory as they moved through the town like blood through its veins. Abuela had stood quietly beside Mirabel, again and again, smiling proudly as she spoke to this or that craftsman about their needs for the birthday celebration. And the more Abuela stepped back, the more Mirabel watched as people she'd spoken to her entire life suddenly began to look at her differently. 

You’ve shown yourself to be so responsible beyond your years, Abuela had said. It would be a chance to work with our people directly, to again demonstrate your leadership in our town. A fitting task.

What if Abuela was training her, guiding her toward a far more important role than a simple party? What if Mirabel was on the door, in the center, for a reason? What if she was meant to be— destined to be more? 

As the months had passed since Casita’s rebuilding, a single tentative thought had begun to burrow its way into her mind, too shaky to voice aloud. What if…what if she was meant to take Abuela’s place? To lead their Encanto?

Mirabel picked at the embroidered edge of her pillowcase, eyes narrowing, gut twisting. It felt so good, having her voice heard, to be valued . She wasn't just Mirabel, the clumsy giftless kid who can never quite get it right. She'd finally felt like Mirabel, a true Madrigal, the heart of the family. 

….buuuut then, yesterday had happened, and it all had gone horribly wrong. 

Mirabel huffed a deep sigh and threw back the covers of her bed with exasperated finality. Casita immediately clattered a soft good morning, bouncing her glasses on the shelf above the bed in her direction. Pale golden sunlight broke into the room as the shutters cracked themselves open, and the breeze that accompanied it felt like Casita mirroring her tired sigh.

Yeah...yesterday had been rough, and she couldn't help but feel that this whole thing was maybe more than just a little bit her fault.

Of all the complaints about Antonio's gift, Carlos Rojas' blow up was the worst yet. He'd pounded on Casita's door, fresh from the fields, all frustration and fury, and his convoluted shouting had only roused Pepa into a defensive storm, her formidable wrath rising to meet his own. Mirabel had desperately tried to calm the situation, putting herself between them and drawing on all the diplomatic skills she possessed to try to soothe both parties, but it was only when Abuela descended into the courtyard, face stern and eyes bright, that both Pepa and Señor Rojas had stepped back, momentarily subdued.

"What is happening here?!" she'd demanded, pulling her maroon shawl around herself testily. 

"A stampede, doña Alma! A dozen different animals all charging through the fields, maniacal! I've never seen anything like it! It was a disaster. The southern field is completely destroyed, months of labor and sweat and planning, and that boy's ñeros just —-" immature friends

"That boy?!" Pepa shrieked, clouds crackling. “That boy is my sweet son!”

"Well, he just sweetly ruined the Encanto's entire corn crop!"

Pepa took a threatening step forward, cursing sharply under her breath. "Cobarde, a que los burros se coman las grandes orejas—"

"Pepa! Calm yourself."  

Pepa shot Abuela an angry lour, but took a breath and began running sharp fingers across her thick braid, glaring all the while at the farmer. The clouds had retreated to roil menacingly over her head.

After a time, with expert skill and patience, Abuela had almost managed to settle the situation into a tense sort of truce. Then Mirabel, trying once again to prove herself capable, had opened her big dumb mouth. 

"With all due respect, Señor Rojas," she'd interjected, treading carefully. "Antonio is a kid, you know? And the fields…well, they are the adults' responsibility, y-your responsibility, specifically, as an adult who, you know, farms, so we can't expect the child in the situation to—"

"Are you blaming me for este enredo?! You are just a child!" Mess . 

"No, no, I—"

Crackaboom. "Don't you speak to her like that!" 

It had only devolved from there. 

When Mirabel thought about poor Toñito's face when he'd stumbled into it all moments later, it made her stomach ache. And Tío Bruno...she'd stuck closely to him for the most of the evening, if only to make sure he didn't melt back into the walls. And maybe to make sure she didn’t melt into the walls, either. Ugh . 

Mirabel groaned and brought her pillow over her face.

“This is not going weeeell,” she complained into the muffling fabric. Casita lifted the floorboards under her bed, tipping it back and forth slightly with a comforting creak. 

“I know I did my best,” she replied crabbily, lifting her head and glaring at the window, where the shutters clattered with Casita’s wordless conversation. “But it still sucks.”

Clackity clack click clack. Clickty clock clack. 

"Sure, I guess that's true, but even if I am new at all this, the stakes are too high! I can't keep messing up!"

The shutters opened and closed sharply.

"Okay! Okay. Fine. You win. I'll talk to Abuela after breakfast, alright?"

Mirabel sat up and slipped her glasses into her nose. 

"Maybe this doesn't have to be as big deal as it seems. Maybe I can convince Abuela to let it slide. I mean, after all, we only use corn for like...like…errrggggh everything."

She dropped her face into her hands one last time, before rising with a groan as Casita tipped her forcefully from her bed. 

A few minutes later, dressed and groomed, she stood hesitatingly before her door, straightening her bag on her shoulder and taking a steadying breath. She shook herself out, brushing off the heaviness of the day before. She pressed her worries carefully down, donning optimism in their place. Today was a new day, a new chance. She could fix this. 

Casita jiggled the doorknob, prompting her forward. 

“Okay,” she said, letting her voice carry the confidence she wished she felt. “New day, new chance to make things right. Let’s go make some coffee.” 

—

Mirabel hummed softly to herself as she climbed the stairs to her tío’s room, balancing the tray with the usual two cups of steaming liquid precariously between her arm and her hip, so she could pull away a loose thread that hung from the hem of her blouse. Casita tsked a tile at her. 

“Alright, alright, two hands,” she mumbled, bringing the tray back into a more secure hold as she approached the steps to Bruno’s tower. “I totally had it, though.” 

Casita nipped at her heels with another hall tile. Mirabel yipped and hopped up the steps, pulling her feet out of reach and sticking her tongue out at the wall for good measure. She smiled at the haughty response of clanking tiles and leaned her head closer to Tío Bruno’s door to announce her presence. 

“Gooooood morning," she called with a musical rap on the door. A muffled cacophony of scrapes, thumps, and curses sounded out from the other side, then silence. The door didn't open. Mirabel's smile wavered in slight confusion. She tried again.

"Hello? Tí—oh!” Bruno abruptly opened the door, only to startle at Mirabel’s startle, leaving them both staring at each other in a frozen moment of wide-eyed surprise. After a pause, she raised her eyebrows and gave an amused smile, tilting her head expectantly. He seemed to come back into himself, blinking a few times.

“Ah, hey kid. G’mornin,” he yawned, scratching at his stubbled chin and glancing nervously back at the room behind him. He seemed a bit groggy, though Mirabel wasn't any earlier than usual. 

"...can I come in?" she asked, trying unsuccessfully to peer over his rat-laden shoulder into the room beyond. He winced.

"Uh, no."

"No?"

"No, I-I mean, yes, but, uh…"

He closed his eyes and took a breath, knocking softly on the backside of his door. 

"You know what, yes, yes, of course, sorry, just, uh, just c-come on in kiddo."

"Okaaaay…" she replied, chuckling cautiously at his jittery demeanor. He reached out and took the tray from her hands, tipping his shoulder down toward her as he did so to offer the rat that sat there. Mirabel reached out and happily scooped a squeaking Manolo from his perch. She planted a quick peck to Tío Bruno’s cheek before nuzzling Manolo’s whiskered face and murmuring coddling praises in an absurdly high voice. Tío Bruno smiled fondly at her and turned to lead the way into his room. 

“Did you sleep well, whisker face?” she cooed into the rat's furry neck.  “Hmm? Didja? Did— woah .” Mirabel halted in her path to her usual chair as she finally caught sight of the room. 

It was sandy. Crazy sandy. Sand, sand, and more sand; sand on the desk, sand in the bed…especially sand in the bed. It collected in little miniature dunes around the bedposts, flowing in a windswept path that meandered in lengthy, heaping piles back to Bruno’s hourglass arch and, finally, through his open vision door. The room looked more like an archaeological site than a bedroom. 

“Tío…” she said breathlessly. “What happened?”

“Waddayamean?” he asked absently, setting the tray down on his short little table and scratching at his hair, sending a shower of more sand down to the floor. He followed her eyes to the miniature desert that was his bedroom and chuckled nervously. “Oh, oh, that, heh. Yeah, that’s, uh, that’s nothing, nothing. Kinda hoped you wouldn’t notice…um, just sand! You know me, always with the sand, heheh…”

He picked up a broom that was leaning against his red chair and began to sweep jerkily at the mess. The various piles of sand around the room suggested that he’d already started working at it, but whatever this was, it was clearly not a one-broom job. 

Balancing Manolo up on her shoulder in one practiced motion, Mirabel turned on her heel and strode back out the door.

“Hey, where—?” she heard him call after her. 

A minute later, she returned with another broom, immediately putting it to work on the swirl of sand by the foot of his bed. She brushed the grains swiftly into the pile that lay at Bruno’s feet. Bruno was still standing right where she’d left him, holding the broom and watching her curiously. 

“So,” she said, pausing momentarily to set Manolo down in her green chair. His little nails were sharp; she didn’t know how Bruno tolerated them on his skin as he moved around all the time. She returned to her sweeping, glancing up at her tío with a raised eyebrow. “You going to tell me what happened here, or do I have to start guessing?”

He harrumphed at her, finally prompted into motion but not into speech. He quietly started adding sand to their growing pile. She pulled her mouth to the side in determination.

“...you got bored and decided to redecorate,” she tried. He gave her a look that aimed at annoyed but was clearly amused. 

“...you built the rats little wheelbarrows and they got really excited to use them?”

“Huh.” He raised his eyebrows and frowned thoughtfully, tilting his head as if he was tucking the idea away for later. “That actually…”

“ You… ” she interrupted before he could get too caught up in the wheelbarrow idea, “made Tía Pepa mad and she sent a windstorm into your room.”

Bruno reached out and knocked rapidly against the wooden frame of his bed. Knock, knock, knock…

“Don’t,” knock, knock, “even say that.” Knock on wood. 

“Come on, Tío, just tell me. Obviously something happened. Are you okay? Is your gift okay? Because if something is happening with the miracle again—”

“No, no, don’t get going down that road, now.” He waved his open hand frantically at her, cutting her off. He sighed and rubbed a tired hand down his face. Now that she looked…the dark circles under his eyes were even more noticeable today, the wrinkles framing his mouth deep and pronounced, sad parenthesis pulling his face into a weary frown. He looked even more exhausted than usual. And now that she thought about it, when was the last time she’d found him with paint smeared on his face from his latest project? When had he last shown her a sketch or a story or…anything he’d made? Lately, it seemed like all of those little things her tío loved had fallen to the wayside, though she hadn’t thought much of it until now.

“If you must know,” he huffed, leaning on his broom with both hands, “which I know you must because you are no better than your mother and you’ll sweet-talk your way into knowing anything once you set your mind to it… sigh… if you must know, it’s from having a-a vision. In my sleep. Happens sometimes, but it’s not a big deal, so, so, so don’t, don’t think it’s a big deal because it’s really not a big deal. J-just a bunch of sand a-and a bit of a headache, but nothing some of your coffee won’t clear up.” He smiled wearily at her and shrugged. “Happens to the best of us.” 

She stopped sweeping and frowned at him. “Happens to the best of…you prophets. Of the future. Just a normal old thing.”

“Yup,” he replied, popping the ‘p’ and swooshing the broom in time with the sound. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. After she continued to stare at him, he finally paused again and looked around the room, mouth tight and eyes bright with anxiety. “L-look, look let’s, uh, just, just leave all this for later, okay? I’ll clean it up after breakfast. We’re letting our coffee get cold.”

He reached out and snatched the broom from her hands before she could think to tighten her grip on it. He strode to his vision cave and sent the brooms clattering inside as if it were just a closet, shutting the door firmly behind him with a loud snap. He returned to the main room, this time sweeping her toward her chair with nudging flaps of his hands and muttering something that she could barely make out about waste of time and have to clean it again anyway. 

Mirabel reluctantly settled into her seat, joined almost immediately by Manolo, who wriggled into his usual spot in a ball in the center of her lap. She accepted her cup of coffee when Bruno offered it, watching carefully as he collapsed heavily into his own chair and took a long swig of from his cup. He sighed contentedly and closed his eyes. 

“Subject change,” he announced without opening his eyes. He took another sip. “Tell me what’s new with you, chispa.” [Spark.]

She pursed her lips at him. “You’re not getting away that easy, you know.” 

He peeked at her from one barely open eye. “I know.” 

Mirabel blew out a breath, unwillingly setting aside the subject for now. She knew she would be much more successful rounding subtly back to it rather than grilling him directly. They both did. 

“Well, yesterday morning I—” she began, but she stopped short, biting back the description of yesterday morning's visit with the town baker that she’d been about to let slip. Nope, that’s a secret party thing, can’t share that. That was a close one. It was weird, keeping parts of her day from Tío Bruno. She’d gotten into the habit of talking his ear off about just about everything happening in her day-to-day life over their morning teas, and leaving out key portions of her days was now an exercise in classic Madrigal deception—tiptoe around it but don’t touch on it, and it will be like it doesn’t exist. She’d never been good at it. 

“I—uh, I talked to the candlemaker! About the memorial for Abuelo. The candles should be ready soon, and that means the planning is pretty much done.” She smiled at him. “Now I just have to figure out a birthday present for you. I’ve already got Tía Pepa and Mamá figured out.”

Bruno chuckled. “You don’t have to get me anything, kid. You planning this whole memorial thing is present enough; I-I never meant to just dump the whole thing on you when I had that vision. I just didn’t really think about the fact that to, you know, plan a town memorial, I’d have to actually go to town… heh, anywho ... The day shouldn’t be about birthdays, anyway. L-let’s just focus on, on, on y-your abuelo.”

“We can do both. Your birthdays are the day before, so it won’t even be a problem.”

Bruno made a strange face, blinking rapidly as he tipped his cup toward a rat on his shoulder. “Mmmhhmm, yep, that’s…that’s true.”

Mirabel narrowed her eyes, watching him carefully. His wincing expression set off warning bells in her mind.

“You’re lying!”

“No I’m not!” he shot back, far too quickly, then winced again at his mistake. 

“Tío, you are terrible at lying, don’t even try. What about what I said isn’t true? It won’t be a problem, because your birthdays are the day before we got our Miracle.”

Bruno drummed his fingers on his cup where he held it in his lap. He winced again. 

“Aha!” Mirabel cried, pointing at him. Manolo jumped from her lap, chittering angrily. 

“Okay, okay, okay, tranquila, chispa, ay! Yes, the day before we got our Miracle is the day that Julieta and Pepa were born.”

He paused and glanced warily at her. Mirabel’s eyes widened, realization slowly dawning. 

“B-b-but… technically, ” he continued, “ and I mean it really is a technicality, you really got to be a stickler for details….um, technically, my birthday is the same day as the Miracle. The day after theirs.”

“WHAT?” Mirabel screeched, and Bruno waved frantic hands to make her lower her voice. She complied, scooting to the edge of her chair so she could lean toward him. “ How is that possible? You are triplets.”

“W-well,” Tío said, scratching at his chin nervously, “y-your mamá and Pepa were born at 11:30 and 11:50 that night...and I… was born at twelve-oh-one.” 

Mirabel let her jaw drop. “So…your birthday is the same day as the Miracle? The same day that Abuelo Pedro…”

“Y-yeah,” he said. He began to pull nervously at the neck of his ruana, a sign that Mirabel had come to learn meant he wanted to throw salt but was trying not to. He suddenly looked at her with wide eyes and leaned forward as well. “ You can’t tell anyone. I don’t even know if Juli and Pepa know. Mamá always told us we all had the same birthday, and why wouldn’t it be? I mean what are the chances? B-but this one time the old midwife came to see me for a vision and as usual it wasn’t a good vision and she was mad and she…uh…she may have let slip that I was born under, um, unlucky circumstances. She didn’t mean t-to, to—I-I mean, she didn’t mean anything by it, she was upset and everything, but, but, y-yeah. It’s not really a pleasant thing to, you know, remember, and so I’ve always celebrated the same day as Peps and Juli, and so there you go. It might as well be the same day.”

He held his face in a strange, tense expression as he delicately rubbed the translucent-pink ear of the rat in his lap between his thumb and his pointer finger. The rat shivered and shook out her head. Mirabel reached out a leg and gently nudged his foot with her own, and he finally looked up at her. 

“But it’s not the same day,” she said slowly, her voice full.

“No, it’s not.” 

For a brief moment, as he spoke those words, the tension fell away, and he looked incredibly sad and tired that Mirabel felt her heart lurch terribly. But as soon as it was there, it was gone, and he blinked and shrugged his shoulders, reaching up to scratch at the chin of the rat on his shoulder as a small wry smile spread across his face. 

“Myeh, whaddaya gonna do. ‘Truly I was born to be an example of misfortune, and a target at which the arrows of adversity are aimed! ’ ” He laughed quietly to himself and shrugged. “It is what it is.”

Mirabel leaned back into her chair, watching in stunned silence as Manolo cautiously hopped back into her lap. She pulled a small fold of fabric from her skirt over the rat, tucking him in comfortingly. 

Bruno leaned forward and nudged her foot, a little more roughly than she’d done for him. 

“Hey,” he said, leaning an elbow on his knee. “Subject change.” 

Mirabel nodded, but tucked the revelation away to mull over later. Born under unlucky circumstances. No, she didn’t like that one bit. Just one more thing to separate ‘creepy’ Bruno and his familia. Just one more arrow of adversity. She took a sip from her coffee and tried to think of another topic of conversation, only to stumble back into the cycle of anxious thinking that she'd try to leave in her room that morning. One more broken thing to fix.

The silence slowly stretched out between them, though it really wasn’t uncomfortable. They often sat in silence in the mornings, each working on their own hobby or just mulling through their thoughts in the easy presence of each other’s company, but when Mirabel finally reached the bottom of her coffee cup, she cleared her throat softly. 

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Shoot,” he replied. He was passing his hands one below the other again and again to catch a rat that was running along them like a water wheel. 

“You know that vision you had a couple months ago? The one about me?”

His shoulders tightened, but the rat kept running and his hands kept moving. Mirabel continued cautiously. 

“You, um, well, you said that it was about me helping the town. You said they were happy with me, with…whatever I’d done.” 

Bruno glanced at her and glanced away. That was about as close to an affirmation as she was going to get. 

“That’s not a question,” he said stiffly. 

“I know.” 

She didn’t continue. She didn’t really know what she was asking. After a moment, she tried again, a slightly different path.

“I, um…I helped you, right? With your gift? I mean, I know I don’t help you anymore, like with the actual visions and everything, but before…did it, did it make a difference?”

Bruno set the rat down on the arm of his chair, watching her carefully as he leaned forward to rest his arms on his knees. His hands clasped together in front of him, fingers fidgeting.  

“You’ve helped me with my gift more than anyone ever has,” he said, his voice low and serious. “You’re a miracle, kid.”

Mirabel nodded. Somehow that didn’t make her feel better. 

“What’s this all about?” he asked softly, sitting up a little straighter. “What’s eating you, Mira?”

“Right now? A rat.” She nudged Manolo with her knuckle and he immediately stopped chewing at the folded edge of her skirt, shrinking guiltily. 

“I’m serious.” 

“I don’t know, Tío!” she exclaimed with a sigh, throwing her hands up a few inches in the air and letting them fall heavily beside her. “I think…I think it’s just this whole thing with Antonio. Yesterday— ugh yesterday was awful, and it wouldn’t have been as bad if I hadn’t jumped in and tried to get involved. Now I feel like I should be helping, fixing it somehow, and I just don’t know how!”

Bruno shook his head and sighed, leaning back into his chair. “Yeah, that’s a whole mess you don’t want to get yourself into, niña.” 

“I do if it means sticking up for Antonio!” she shot back, and that seemed to give him pause. “Tío, Abuela wants him to get a hold of his gift, but he’s only six! He’s barely got a hold of counting to fifty. How is he supposed to figure all this out right now when what he really needs is time to learn and explore?”

“Well–”

“But I totally get why Abuela is worried, I really do, because we can’t just have wild animals rampaging through town all the time. Well, that’s not fair—there was one rampage, but you get what I mean. Señor Morillo was so upset about his stupid melons, and fine, sure, that’s a lot of work to grow a whole storehouse of melons, but maybe…I dunno… put a lock on the door, Señor!”

“But—”

“And Carlos Rojas was so angry. I didn’t even know how to begin handling something like that. And Abuela calmed him down and everything, but, I mean, there has to be some kind of compromise, an in-between, something! Something that isn’t all on Antonio, you know?”

She took in a deep breath and looked at Bruno, who was watching her with a finger resting on his mouth, eyes wide.

“Do…do you need me for any of this?” he asked, lifting his finger to reveal a small, wry smile. 

“Tío!”

“Alright, alright, sorry, no joking. You’re right, Miracita. On…a lot of what you just said. But, a-and I only repeat this again because y-you weren’t listening the first time, this isn’t something you have to fix. Let the grown ups handle it."

Mirabel's bristled at his words, but didn't comment. YOU are just a kid!--- Señor Rojas' words still stung fresh in her mind. 

"Look," he continued, "all I’m saying is that there are already plenty of people helping Antonio out, so you don’t have to worry yourself about it, ya know? Peps is an amazing mamá, a-and I’m sure she and Felix have it under control. They'll figure something out, a-and I’m sure it will only get better anyway now that they've um, you know, now that they’ve, now that they’ve, they’ve…taken over and everything.” 

Mirabel softened her irked expression and dropped her shoulders. “Taken--Wait, what do you mean…‘taken over’?”

Tío shrugged, not meeting her eyes. “Well, Pepa and I talked last night, and I told her, um, I-I just don’t think I’m the right person to, uh, to you know. Teach him about controlling his gift. Heck, I can’t even control mine half the time. And with the stampede and all…” He gave a dry little laugh and scratched at the back of his head. “Well. A-anyway, Pepa and Felix are going to start taking him out every day instead so they can actually practice instead of just playing around, and I’ll…um, I-I’m sure I’ll see him around in the afternoons and stuff, bedtime stories here and there, you know. We’ll still hang out. It’s good, it’s good, he'll get more time with his padres, and it's, uh, it’s for the best.” 

Mirabel felt her heart squeeze unpleasantly in her chest. This most certainly was not good. Tío Bruno and Antonio spending their weekdays together was the best thing she’d seen happen to both of them. It was like she’d told Abuela; Antonio was more outgoing, confident…happier. And Tio Bruno…

“Tío, I’m so sorry.”

He looked up at her then, his mouth drawn into a tight frown, but then he suddenly stood up from his chair in a bout of nervous energy, his mop of grey-wound curls obscuring his face as he turned away from her. 

“Gah, it’s fine, it’s fine,” he mumbled, waving away at the air. He wandered over to his desk and began to shuffle the sandy papers that sat on it. “It’s not like I’m never gonna see him, heh. Besides, he’s not my kid, he’s not my…Y-you don’t have to be sorry, kid. I’m fine.” 

Mirabel rose silently from her chair, Manolo cupped in her hands, and went to stand beside him at the desk. He stopped shuffling the papers but didn’t look at her; he just stood with his shoulders stiff and wary. She set Manolo down on the desk and nudged Bruno gently with her elbow. 

"Hey," she said, her voice soft. "Subject change?”

Bruno nodded stiffly, watching Manolo sniff around the table, his fist knocking a barely perceptible beat against the surface. 

“I almost forgot,” she added, brightening at the sudden realization. “I brought you a surprise."

Bruno watched as she snagged her bag from where she'd deposited it, setting it on the desk with a hollow sounding clunk. He raised an eyebrow at her and cautiously reached inside. 

With the quiet scrape of wood on wood, he pulled an ornately carved bowl out onto the desktop. She heard him inhale softly in surprise, and his shoulders gave the tiniest of shivers beside her. She smiled. It was the bowl from his vision of the memorial, the one he'd sketched for her months and months before. She'd taken his sketches to the woodcarver that same week, and the first bowl had finally been ready yesterday morning. She'd forgotten to show him in the chaos that ensued yesterday afternoon, but now she was thankful she'd waited. Hopefully it would work to cheer him up.

Bruno ran a careful hand along the rim of the bowl, feeling the smoothed wood with the pads of his fingers. His expression lightened ever so slightly, his mouth just barely forming a small, distant smile. 

"You know," Mirabel said, putting her arm around his back now that his shoulders had relaxed a bit. She patted him gently between the shoulder blades. "The woodcarver really liked your design."

The corners of Bruno's mouth quirked up a little more, but he made a dismissive noise. "I saw it in a vision, it's not like I made it up."

"Julio said ," Mirabel continued, as if Bruno hadn't spoken, "and I quote, 'He really has an eye for detail. It's a beautiful design.'"

"You're making that up."

"Swear it!" Mirabel raised a hand into the air to accentuate the point, her face a portrait of honesty. Bruno grinned at her. 

"Oh!" he suddenly exclaimed, jumping into motion and crossing the room to his bookshelves. He muttered to himself as he searched the jumbled collection of items there. "I've got just the thing, let me just get…"

A moment later, he came back carrying a half-burned candle, which he set carefully in the center of the bowl. In a motion so fast Mirabel almost couldn't follow it, he pulled a match from somewhere in his sleeve and struck it alight, lending the flame to the candle and then extinguishing it with a flick of his wrist. Then he stood back and slung an arm over Mirabel's shoulders. 

The warm glow from the candle seeped into the curved edges of the carvings, the motion flickering the wooden curls and flourishes to life with an almost magical air. Manolo put his paws up on the edge of the bowl, sniffing at the flame and sending it wavering in a mesmerizing dance. 

As they stood together, watching the candle jump and dance in it’s wooden cradle, it was as if Mirabel could suddenly see her tio’s vision flickering to life. Dozens of lights afloat on a river of darkness, hope and healing blooming in each little flame; the beginning of a miraculous transformation. Beside her, Bruno took a deep, bolstering breath. 

Mirabel gave a small tug to his ruana. "Hey, let's go get some breakfast before Camilo eats it all."

Bruno tore his eyes from the candle and nodded in affirmation, so Mirabel grabbed her bag and looped her elbow through his. He gave one last lingering look to the candle on his desk before gesturing for her to lead the way downstairs. 

As they made their way out the door, Bruno hummed thoughtfully to himself. 

"What?" Mirabel asked curiously.

"So, this woodcarver," he mused, patting her arm in time with his words. "Think he can make tiny wheelbarrows?"

Chapter Text

“Abuela?” 

Mirabel leaned her head tentatively toward the crack in the door, her hand on the knob but not yet moving to open it further. 

“Vente, mija.” [Come in.] 

Her heart tightened in her chest in trepidation. 

I can make this right. I can do this, she reminded herself. 

After her conversation with Tio Bruno this morning--knowing that Antonio wouldn't be going to the jungle each day anymore and that Tio Bruno thought his sobrino was better off without his help...well, she felt it was all the more important to figure out what to do about this whole mess. She had no idea what to do, honestly, but she couldn't help but feel guilty for the ways she'd managed to make the whole issue worse. So, she had to try.

She straightened her glasses and stepped fully into the room. 

Abuela sat at her small, neat desk, scrawling careful lines of looping words across the pages of a notebook. Mirabel crept forward until she was by her side, and only then did Abuela place her pen flat on the page and look up toward her granddaughter with a sigh. 

“You’re here to talk about Antonio, yes?”

“...are you busy?”

“Not for you, amor. Sit down.”

As Mirabel settled slowly into the chair to the right of the desk, Abuela took a breath, straightening her spine and folding her hands into her lap with closed eyes. It was the same gesture she’d often take before launching into a lecture about the importance of familia and responsibility and doing one’s part as it had been assigned to them . Maybe it was a silent prayer for patience, or just a way to focus her mind before a long talk…but Mirabel couldn’t help but feel like she was once again in trouble. A heaviness settled into her stomach.

Abuela opened her eyes. “I’m listening, Mirabel.”

Mirabel frowned into her lap. “I–I don’t really know where to start,” she admitted. 

Abuela hummed thoughtfully. “Then perhaps I can begin?”

Mirabel nodded without looking up. 

“Mija, this is not your fault.” 

Mirabel startled, finally looking up from her lap to meet Abuela’s eyes. She didn’t look mad. Just…tired. 

“Our home is a miracle, there is no doubt,” she continued. “But with all blessings come responsibilities—”

Mirabel winced. Here we go…

“--responsibilities that I don’t think you are ready to bear. Not yet.”

Mirabel’s hands shot to her sides, gripping the edges of her seat as she leaned forward with a jerking, clumsy motion. 

“Abuela, that’s not true! I can do this, I can help, I–”

She held up a hand, and Mirabel stopped. 

“Let me finish. Please.” 

Abuela turned and carefully picked up a framed picture that sat in the corner of her desk. She looked at it for a moment, touching the glass with feather-light fingers before handing the frame to Mirabel.

“I was not much older than you when my responsibilities found me,” Abuela said slowly. “And even then, it was…so much for me to bear. Perhaps too much. And in turn, I passed my burdens onto my children, expecting so much of them when they were still so young. I can see that now.”

Mirabel looked down at the heavy wood frame, worn smooth on the edges from years of being held. It was a wedding photo. A young Alma smiled back at her, her eyes glowing from the light of the candle she cradled together with her new husband. Abuelo Pedro held her close, his head leaning on hers, a gentle smile on his lips. Both of their faces shone with pure happiness. She’d seen this photo before, marveled at the novelty of a young Alma, but she hadn’t looked at it since… everything . Not since that moment at the river with her Abuela.

Now, when she looked at it, Mirabel couldn’t help but think of the grief-filled future that loomed just outside of the frame. They couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. 

“I am thankful for everything that the Lord has brought me,” Abuela said carefully, her brow knitted together with an old, long-worn pain. “But I did not have a choice in the responsibilities I was given. Or when I was given them. Mirabel, you are blessed with that choice, and I will not take that away from you. I will not make that mistake again.”

Mirabel set the frame down in her lap and looked at her grandmother. She drew her mouth in tight, chewing on her words. When she spoke, she tried to measure her words with the same care as Alma. 

“Abuela, I understand. You were so young, and so much was expected of you. You…you were a new mother, to three babies, a-and you just lost Abuelo, and your home, and suddenly, you had to build this whole new town. Everyone was looking to you with all these expectations and for answers when you probably didn’t really have them and it was all so so much and—” 

Mirabel paused as her words started to get away from her. Slow. Go slow. Tío Bruno was always telling her to slow down. She tried again.

“I-I just, what I’m trying to say is, you’re right. You were given so much so soon, and that wasn’t fair. But Abuela, I am not you. I…I have been waiting for something like this my whole life. I want to help! I can help, you’ve seen that. Maybe I’m making a mistake here or there, but I’m learning—”

“Mirabel—”

“I just need a chance!”

“What you need, mija, is more time. I know you want to help, but you’re not ready to—”

“I don’t need more time!”

“Then what do you need?”

“I need you to trust me!”

Mirabel inhaled sharply, drawing back at the words that had come out far too loud. She froze, half expecting Abuela to shout back, the walls to break, the house to crumble, everything to fall apart again just like it had the last time she’d lost her temper with her grandmother.

But Alma was just looking at her with a deep sadness settled in her eyes where the light of her wedding candle had once glowed, her hands still folded patiently in her lap. Mirabel felt tears pushing at her own eyes, but she refused to let them out. 

“I do trust you. But I think that perhaps you don’t yet know what you need.”

“I–,” Mirabel tightened her mouth, struggling against the lump in her throat. She breathed in sharply. “I don’t know what we are even talking about…I-I came in here to talk about Antonio.”

“I will take care of Antonio.”

“Abuela—”

“Mirabel. I need you to trust me, too.”

“I do trust you, Abuela, but you’re not always going to be here! What happens when…when you aren’t here to–to fix everything?! I have to learn, or I won’t know how to—”

Mirabel bit her lip. Abuela raised her eyebrows . 

“To…what?”

Mirabel opened her mouth, but her words failed her. Abuela waited, watching her carefully.

“You said…” she began, finally able to force out her voice, though it came out quiet and shaky. “You said I was responsible beyond my years. You said that I–I could see things that other people can’t, you—Abuela, I am on the front of the door, right in the middle, and I think all that means something. Maybe I'm supposed to be doing more...helping you more. Doing...doing what you do. For our people.”

“Ay, Mirabel, when I said that I only meant—” Alma sighed, shaking her head. “Planning a party is very different than leading the entire Encanto, mija.”

“I know that, but I thought it was…I don’t know, a test or something. A chance to prove myself. To finally prove that I’m not just…” 

Her words trailed off. She felt her face burning under the weight of her assumptions, now being torn apart. It was becoming increasingly difficult to hold back her tears.

Abuela reached out and placed a hand on her knee. When she spoke, her voice was firm and final. “You are enough, Mirabel. Just as you are. You don't need to prove that to me anymore."

Mirabel nodded absently.

"You are responsible and wise, and you have much to give. Perhaps one day, a larger role in our community might be something you can bear...perhaps. But that time is not now or anytime soon. You have more growing up to do first, mija, and that is enough business in itself.”

Mirabel’s chest was tight, and it was hard to bring in a breath. She nodded silently. Abuela withdrew her hand and the silence between them grew tense. Finally, Abuela rose to her feet, signaling the end of the conversation. 

“Why don’t you take the day to yourself, amor. You can do more party planning if you’d like, but I will handle the duties in town. Give yourself some time. We’ll revisit it tomorrow, okay?”

Mirabel rose and walked to the door in silence, her shoulders tight and her chest burning.

When Abuela’s door shut with a soft thunk behind her, it felt as though it was severing something heavy that she’d desperately been trying to keep hold of. Whatever it was, without it, she suddenly felt completely and utterly adrift. 

Without this, the...the one thing...the one time she'd actually felt she had a role and a purpose and some kind of place in the Encanto...what was she supposed to do? She thought she'd finally known what she was supposed to do. 

Take the day to yourself, amor.

As she stood there, she realized she couldn't think of a single meaningful thing to do with herself, and that old, terrible purposelessness began to grab hold of her lungs and squeeze tight. 

She shook her head and pushed firmly back at the feeling.

"I’ll prove that I’m ready," she muttered to herself as she wiped roughly at her face and made her way toward the stairs. Across the hall, Casita cracked open the door to her room, but she shook her head. She had work to do. The party and the memorial were in just over one week.

I’ll take what Abuela's willing to give me, for now. I’ll plan this party, I’ll arrange this memorial. And then she’ll see that I can do this. That I’m ready. That I can help Antonio, that I can lead the Encanto, that I can make a difference. 

I can do this. I can do this. 

—

“…the miracle is dying because of you!” The words flew out of her mouth before she could think about the consequences. She watched them strike her Abuela, watched the light dim from her eyes as the accusation settled in her chest. Mirabel reached out, but Abuela was already fading before her, a hand on her heart, her edges shimmering and shivering as if Mirabel had dropped a stone into a pool that reflected her. 

BECAUSE OF YOU. BECAUSE OF YOU. Her own words echoed around her, her voice distorting as it layered over itself again and again, growing in intensity until it was deafeningly loud, incomprehensible and terrible. 

CRACK. Behind her, the echoing words converged into a single point. When she turned to look, all she saw before her was a huge void where the magical candle should have been, a split forming down the middle of Casita, yawning away from itself and then suddenly caving inwards in a cascading avalanche of destruction. The dust filled her lungs and made her cough, it stung her eyes. She blinked rapidly, desperately trying to clear her vision so she could see…she needed to be able to see to–to find them, to help…

The horrific, ear splitting sound of cracking plaster and crumbling stone echoed around her, so loud it felt like her chest was breaking apart along with it. She covered her head and ran forward, feeling debris pummel her arms. She skidded to a stop on her knees as the sound reached a crescendo, bending forward to protect the precious thing that was suddenly in her lap.

Her arms had been empty only a moment ago, but suddenly they were full of something precious and she knew she had to protect whatever it was with all she had, with her life. 

Then silence. Complete and total silence.

She looked down in her arms. It was Antonio, she was holding Antonio. He lay there, covered in dust and dirt, unmoving. A sob broke from her chest. She shook him but he didn’t wake, she was too late, she didn’t save him. She looked up in horror, searching for someone, anyone to help her. She was surrounded by the broken body of Casita, and in the rubble before her she could see buried faces peeking through. Her mother. Her father. Abuela. Camilo and Luisa. Tía Pepa, Tío Felix, Dolores, Isabela. Tío Bruno. 

They were all gone. She could see it in their blank, uncannily still faces that all seemed to look toward her, accusingly. They were all lost, buried in the brokenness and destruction around her, and it was all her fault. It was all her fault. It was all her fault. 

And she was alone.

Through it all, though she yelled and screamed with all her strength, until her throat hurt from the effort…all that came forth from her chest, all that surrounded her, was silence. 

Mirabel bolted upright in her bed, a strangled cry bursting from her throat as she grabbed frantically at the blankets and sheets that lay bunched in her lap. She clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide, slowly realizing it was only a dream. 

It was a dream, it was a dream, it was a dream… she repeated it to herself, squeezing her eyes shut with a single, quiet sob. 

She was shaking. She tried to take a deep breath, but it was shaky, too. She wiped at the tears on her face and blinked rapidly at the ceiling, trying to dispel the haunting images from her head, to keep them from jumbling with the very real memories of that horrible night almost two years ago. Behind her, Casita opened her bedroom shutter with a squeak, reaching toward her in concern, but Mirabel jumped away in response, wincing. The sound was too similar to the echoes in her dreams. 

“I-I’m okay, I’m f-fine,” she said to the window, trying to reassure Casita, but each attempt was more a sob than a sentence. She repeated it until she could say it more steadily. “I-I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.” 

It had been a while since she’d had this dream, and the shaky aftermath wasn’t entirely unfamiliar…but tonight was altogether different. Tonight, she’d been holding Antonio. Not the candle, not some fuzzy half-realized version of their miracle—instead, her sweet, beautiful primo lay lifeless in her arms. 

All her fault .

She could still feel the ache from the thundering cracks in her ear drums; her throat felt dry with the layers of dust. She could still feel the weight of him in her arms. He was so heavy.

It had all felt so very real. 

In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to race to Antonio’s room and see him with her own eyes, hug him, touch his face, kiss his cheeks, reassure herself that he was in fact safe and well and…and… alive. She needed to touch him, to feel his realness and his solidness in order to convince herself that the dream was not. 

She sniffed as a new round of tears escaped down her face. She wiped them away angrily. 

She was not going to do that. 

Antonio is fine. She knew that, she did, and she wasn’t going to wake him up and scare him just because she was terrified from a nightmare, like a child.

…still though. Her room still felt too stuffy, the walls too close, and her chest was tight with lingering fear. Every little noise of Casita moving around her, each grate and grind and creak, set her heart thundering anew as if it was just the start of something worse to come. No matter what that reasonable part of herself tried to say, her body continued to feel as though her world was crashing down around her all over again, and no matter how tightly she held herself, she still felt like she was falling apart.

She needed air. She needed to move. 

She flung her blankets aside and hurried to her door, not bothering to grab the shoes that Casita jostled toward her. The door swung open without her having to touch it, and she ran forward until she reached the railing of the upper balcony, leaning her stomach against the turquoise wood to press all the air out of her lungs. She gripped the railing until her knuckles turned white, digging her nails into the wood and shutting her eyes, taking in a big gulp of fresh air and letting it out in a silent, hitched flow. 

I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m…

“...Mirabel?” 

She stiffened, her eyes shooting wide open at the unexpected sound, so quiet she almost wasn’t sure she’d heard it at all. 

It took her a moment, but there, across the house from her, near the darkened right corner of the hall by the stairs, stood its source: a slightly hunched, shadowed figure. It was blurred—she had forgotten her glasses as she rushed from her room—but she could tell by the swishing edges of the silhouette that it was draped in green fabric, and it was then that her mind connected the voice with its owner. 

Tío Bruno. 

He was hovering like a shadow at the bottom of the stairs to his tower, and she couldn't tell if he'd been heading up or down them. For a moment, she was frozen, dazed from the strange contrast of her panic and the sharp unexpectedness of encountering someone in the middle of the empty, quiet night.

Then, without consciously deciding to, she suddenly took off, her bare feet pattering against the tile as she dashed around the curve of the hall. She nearly knocked them both down as she collided with him and wrapped her shaky arms around his middle. He grunted at the impact but quickly recovered, bringing his hands up to her shoulders to try to pull her away enough to look at her. 

“Mira–-Mirabel," he exclaimed, holding her out at arms length. "What’s wrong?! A-are you hurt? Should I–-should I get Julieta? W-Where–”

He was frantically looking her up and down, looking for some kind of physical injury. She felt his grip tighten on her shoulders when his worried eyes finally reached hers. 

“...Mirabel?” 

He searched her face, his expression falling at whatever he saw there. The earnest concern in his voice squeezed at her heart, and she felt tears begin to escape down her cheeks again. A panicked look gripped his face, and he slowly pulled her back in, wrapping his arms around her and carefully tightening his embrace. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, it’s okay,” he whispered. She buried her face in his shoulder, as much to hide her embarrassment as for comfort, and he leaned his head on hers, rubbing her back tentatively with one hand. She tensed her shoulders, willing herself to hold back the sob that threatened to break free, and in response she felt his posture soften along with his words. 

“Ay, Mira. You’re okay, mija,” he murmured. “You’re okay. You’re okay. I-I've got you, kid. You're okay."

It was so stupid. This was all so ridiculous, running to her Tío after a nightmare like she was six and not sixteen. It was absurd. 

But she couldn’t let go. He was real—he was real and tangible, and his hand was warm on her back, and his scratchy voice was comforting and kind, and he was okay. He was okay. He wasn’t buried in rubble, wasn’t lost forever. And the more she hugged him and let him hug her back, the more her terrible dream started to fade back into obscurity. 

As they stood there in the hallway, his muttered assurances eventually fell silent, but his arms around her didn't loosened. His shoulder was gritty, his clothing dusted with particles of sand that she could feel sticking to her face and eyelashes. 

The reasonable part of her brain slowly started to regain control. Did he just have a vision? 

It was then that she realized she was gripping the back of his ruana with tight fists, and she slowly made herself release them. Her breathing had evened out, and she took one last deep, shaking breath before slowly stepping back from him, her face down, unable to meet his eyes. She wiped shamefully at her face and nose—geez , she was a mess. He kept a heavy hand on her shoulder. 

When she didn’t speak, he broke the silence, his voice taut and just a little too high. 

“You know what? I-I could use some tea. Yeah, let’s…let’s go make some hierbabuena, yeah?” 

She sniffed and nodded in quiet acceptance, letting him put his arm around her shoulders and steer them both to the stairs. 

—

He led her to one of the stools that stood at the butcher block island in the center of the kitchen. She scooted onto it and leaned her elbows onto the wooden counter, wrapping her arms around herself in a pitiful hug. Though the night was temperate and the air still, she suddenly felt oddly chilled now that she was sitting on her own. Bruno looked at her helplessly, his fingers twitching anxiously in front of him. 

He suddenly began glancing abstractly around himself, his brow bunched in concern like he was trying to find something, patting his torso as if searching nonexistent pockets. After a moment of tight-lipped thought, he seemed to reach some sort of silent conclusion and clumsily shrugged himself out of the ruana, sending a quiet hiss of sand raining to the floor.  Bruno paused to grimace at Julieta’s no-longer-spotless kitchen tiles, but then shrugged dismissively and turned to dump the unwieldy fabric unceremoniously over Mirabel, pulling carefully at it until her head popped through the ruana’s neck hole. She let out a weak laugh and pulled the fabric closer around herself.

“Thanks,” she said, the word cracking ever so slightly. He nodded at her, satisfied that she would no longer freeze in the warm night air, and turned away to set water to boil in the kettle. A tinkle of metal pulled her attention down to her feet, where Casita was delicately bouncing her glasses back and forth with the kitchen tiles. 

"Thank you," she whispered again, her voice dampened with tight-throated chagrin. She'd been so ridiculously panicked, she hadn't even thought to get them. The quiet calm of the kitchen now felt painfully damning to her previous behavior. She sighed as she slid them on her nose, blinking into clarity.

Casita had raised the lights of the kitchen into a dim, warm glow, casting soft and strange shadows around the normally bright space. She glanced down at the mass of fabric bunched across her. The moss green ruana hung much too big on her, but it probably fit her about as well as it fit Tío Bruno. Tiny maroon mice trailed down the front—it was one of the first she'd embroidered for him. She ran her finger over one of the mice, absentmindedly appraising her work. Not bad, the stitches were still tight and unbunched. The lengths of green fabric hung heavily from her shoulders, and she thought she could perhaps see why Bruno liked to wear it so much. With her arms tucked inside, it felt like being wrapped in a blanket. The weight was comforting. 

She looked over at her tío now, where he moved about his task in jerky, uncertain movements. Casita was nudging him through the tea making process with patiently tilting tiles. He'd retrieved the kettle and was shifting from foot to foot with it in his hands before suddenly jumping to fill it in the already-running sink, as if he needed a moment to remember the next step. She couldn't be sure, with his back turned to her, but he seemed particularly nervous. 

Probably from the undignified display she'd just put on upstairs. She winced.

Poor Tío.  

She was thankful, though, for her sweet, strange tío. She considered him carefully, watching him move about the kitchen to grab the tetera and tea leaves, looking even slighter than usual in just his pajamas and bare feet. She blew air out her nose in mild amusement as he rose up on tip-toes in order to reach the cups. It had only been a year and a half since his return and she was already gaining on him in height. She’d likely be taller than him by this time next year, a fact not helped at all by his tendency to hunch in on himself all the time. 

He muttered and waved a dismissive hand at Casita, who was now tipping the tiles under his feet to keep the hem of his nightshirt from catching on the small flame under the kettle. 

Tío Bruno’s return had brought something new to her life that Mirabel didn’t know she’d needed—someone who understood her without looking down on her. Someone closer to…an ally, maybe. 

She'd always had her parents of course, and she knew without a doubt that they loved her deeply. But Mamá, for all her adoration and assurances, had always tried to make up for Mirabel's deficits. Her well-meaning, constant fussing only confirmed in Mirabel's mind that her mother saw something lacking in her as well, something that couldn’t be easily fixed. If it had been Mama who found her tonight—ofph, she cringed outwardly at the thought. The fussing that would have ensued...she would have never heard the end of it. 

Papá may have been a little better, but she just didn’t like the idea of him knowing she was having nightmares. She didn’t like the idea of either of her parents knowing. They’d always worried over her enough already, reminding her of her worth in cheesy ways that just rang hollow, no matter how sincere their intent was. Pa was maybe a little less overbearing in his love, but he still didn’t quite get it. He’d always tried to relate to her on the basis of their shared giftlessness, but he’d never been expected to have a gift. He didn’t understand that it was just different for his disappointment of a daughter. 

She loved her Pa, and her Ma, too, but she just couldn’t be weak in front of them. They already tried to make up for her deficits enough already.

And so, though she had always been surrounded by a family she knew loved her more than anything in the world, she’d always felt…alone. 

But Tío Bruno was different. Tío Bruno knew what it meant to live on the sidelines of a fantastic family, to be missing that unnamable something that made fitting in a natural thing. Though she'd always had a lively Tío Felix who could teach her to dance and make her laugh, and a goofy Pa who excelled at distracting her when things got hard, she realized that she now had something she hadn’t known she was missing. Now she had a Tío Bruno—an uncle who truly saw her and cared for her, but who was also…a friend. 

Maybe she was just feeling overly sentimental because, you know, she’d just dreamed her entire family was dead and it was ENTIRELY all her fault… but she was suddenly just incredibly thankful. 

She was thankful it was Tío Bruno who’d stumbled across her, of all the ten other family members that could have witnessed her display of childish weakness. She was thankful to be sharing midnight tea with this uncle-friend who she somehow felt a closeness to that she'd never had with any of the family she’d known her whole life. 

And as she settled into the quiet of the empty kitchen, her jittery nerves slowly calming and her racing heartbeat evening out, she was thankful that—though she was perfectly capable of doing so, and had done so many times before—that she wasn’t going to have to face the night alone. 

Tío Bruno carried the over-filled tea cups carefully to the table, setting them both down as soon as his comically outstretched arms could reach the edge of the wood. Once they were securely on the stable surface, he pushed one in front of her and settled in front of the other. He blew over the surface of the tea as he fidgeted into a more comfortable position on the stool beside hers. 

“Hey,” she said, wrapping her fingers around the warm cup and staring into its depths. “I’m, um, I’m glad you’re here.”

He looked up at her with a sad smile, his face still more worried than anything else…or, panicked, maybe that was carefully managed panic in his eyes. 

“O-of course, kid, I wasn’t going to leave you like…um, like that .” He winced and nodded his head in the direction of the balcony, indicating the location of her breakdown. 

She grimaced. Yes, thank you, Tío.  

“I know, I just…I meant in general. I’m just glad you’re… here. ”

He stared at her with his too-wide eyes. What fear lingered in his expression slowly melted, and he looked for a moment like he might break down, too. He reached out a hand toward hers, but hesitated, settling for patting her forearm awkwardly instead. He held in a breath, shoring up his emotions into something more manageable perhaps, before giving her a small, grateful smile filled with genuine, unguarded affection. 

“Yeah, me too, kid. More than you know.” 

She could feel the tears welling up again, all the emotions of her dream still too close to the surface. She looked away and blinked to dispel the tears, taking a sip of her scalding tea to hide them further. 

“So,” Tío Bruno said carefully, “so, you, uh, want to tell me what happened?”

Mirabel tensed and took another sip of her tea. 

No, she thought. No I most definitely do not. I want to pretend it never happened and then maybe it will be true…

“Um,” she tried, but the words got stuck in her throat. She took another sip. Bruno waited.

“I, um,…I had a…bad…dream.” She cringed. Oh, the shame. She even sounded like a child. 

Maybe Abuela was right after all. If she couldn't even handle herself after a dream, how could she possibly be trusted with leading others? She squeezed her eyes shut tight against the sinking feeling in her gut.

“Must have been a doozy,” he replied gently. 

She nodded without looking at him. 

“Do you, uh, want to tell me about it? I-I’ve heard that sometimes it can help to tell someone about it…makes it seem less scary when you say it out loud. It, I dunno, it takes away its power over you, or something like that. Now, I don’t know if that’s all true, a-a-and I know I’m not your ma or pa, but, I-I can still, you know, listen. I can always listen, when you, when you need it.” 

She looked up at him then, and something in the way he glanced nervously at her and away again chased away some of her embarrassment. This was Tío Bruno she was talking to—he had absolutely no motive to judge her. And maybe it would feel better for someone to know. She’d never told anyone. Maybe that was why the dream never went completely away. 

A long silence stretched between them. After a moment, Tío Bruno held up a pausing finger, interrupting her indecisive, circling thoughts. With one swift flourish, he reached out and pulled the hood of the borrowed ruana up and over her head. 

“There,” he said, matter of factly. “Now you, you don’t have to be afraid of anything.” 

She smiled weakly at him from under the hood, and he turned back to his tea, waiting quietly for her to find her courage. She tried to channel the dauntless spirit of Hernando. 

“It...was about Casita,” she whispered finally, so quietly that Bruno had to lean toward her to hear. “About when…it fell.” 

She could see him stiffen out of the corner of her eye, but he didn’t say anything. 

“Everyone was…gone.” The tears pushed back at her eyes again, but she held them in. 

I'm scared of nothing.  

“I-it was all my fault. I tried, I really did—but I’d lost all of you a-and Toñito… I…I couldn’t save anyone. I was too late.” 

She bit at her lip, unable to look away from the cup in her hands. Beside her, Tío Bruno knocked rapidly on the wood of the table, sending miniature rippling shock waves resonating through the surface of her tea. 

“That’s…that really is a doozy, kid.” 

She nodded. 

“Have…have you had that dream before?”

She hesitated, then nodded again. 

“How many times?” he whispered. 

She opened her mouth, but then closed it again without answering. 

She used to have the dream almost every night, in those first couple months after Casita fell. Thankfully, the well-earned fatigue that dragged her into bed after a day of building and working would sometimes lead her into a dreamless sleep. But if she did dream, it was of Casita falling. The details would change, the order of events shift, but key elements remained–her home lost, her family lost, the fault squarely resting on her shoulders. 

She thought moving back into the finished home would help, and it had, a little. The dream would only come to haunt her maybe once a week, surprising her just as she’d been lulled into a false sense of security by several nights of its absence. 

Now, though, she rarely had the dream. Once a month, twice at the most. But when she did have it, she had a hard time shaking it. She’d sometimes read or sew or just go for a walk around the balcony of Casita, taking deep breaths as she went and trying to focus on tiny details around her, like Luisa had once told her to do. Sometimes she could fall back asleep. 

She never wanted to, but sometimes she still could. 

But this time…with Toñito. It was different. That had never happened before.

“A lot, I guess,” she finally whispered back. 

“Ah, kid,” he said, his voice heavy. 

Mirabel took in a quick breath and picked up her tea, twisting the cup back and forth between her palms to dispel the sudden anxious energy in her arms. She drew up her shoulders, trying to pull back from the heaviness in her own chest.

“But not as much now!” she chirped, willing some levity into her voice. She pushed back the hood and sat up straighter. “Only once in a while now, so it’s getting better. Really, you don’t have to worry, Tío, I know…I know it’s just a dream.” 

She looked up at him with a smile, but it grew strained when she saw his face. His mouth was a tight, thin line, his brows pulled together, wholly unconvinced by her efforts. His eyes didn’t flit away from her this time. 

“You haven’t told anyone, have you.” It wasn’t a question. 

“I don’t need to, I’m fine. Really.” 

“Mira, that — " he pointed a twitching finger toward the balcony " —that didn’t seem fine.”

“I’m fine,” she urged, her voice more pleading than confident. 

He continued to stare at her, his mouth tightening even more. She tilted her head up slightly and held his gaze, something in her feeling oddly defiant. He sighed and looked away, no match for her resolve. 

“Look, kid, I just, I want you to know—,” he paused, his words seemingly caught before they could come out. She raised her eyebrows at him expectantly, but he just pulled in his lips and then blew out a puff of air. 

Mirabel softened her expression and tried to wait patiently, just like he had for her just a moment before. Bruno growled softly in frustration and knocked out a pattern on the table, knock knock knock knock knock, ending with one exasperated knock to his head. She briefly considered giving him his ruana back, for reassurance, but then he took a breath and tried again.

“I-I want you to know that you…you don’t have to be lonely . A-and if you are ever feeling lonely, just, just don’t …anymore. You don’t have to. Yaknow—b-be lonely.”

Mirabel tensed at his words. “I’m not lonely,” she replied, a little too quickly. “I have everyone, la famila, Abuela, Mamá, Pa. I have you.”

“Good,” he nodded, though he seemed a bit dejected, as if he hadn’t quite made the point he wanted to. “I’m glad…I’m glad you know. That you’ve got everyone, because you do, you do, we’re all here for you, kid. I’m here for you.”

“I know,” she assured him, a bit confused. He was agitated, as if he still had something more to say. “I know, Tío. Really.”

Bruno sighed and looked down into his tepid tea, as if there was something in there was looking for. She glanced at him one last time before returning to her own tea, taking a longer drink now that the liquid had cooled. 

Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. Could this have anything to do with the vision he refuses to tell me about…?

It was true that Tío Bruno wasn't always the best at getting his words out, especially when he was unsure, but something about this moment felt different. Her stomach clenched anxiously. 

He was acting so strange, and if she thought about it, he had been for a while. He’d been overly cautious around her, worried and hovering. Sometimes she'd catch him looking at her like something about her made him incredibly sad. Sure, part of that could just be counted off as classic Tío Bruno but…something told her it wasn’t. 

It had to be the vision. It had all started then, that day back in the forest, months before.

She tightened her grip on her mug. It took all of her self control not to ask him about it. She knew he had boundaries that she had to respect when it came to his gift, she’d learned that the hard way. She knew that if she was supposed to know, he’d tell her. 

He’d tell her, right?

“Tío, if you have something you want to say, you can just say—”

“I thought you’d died,” he blurted out, far too loud. Mirabel set down her cup and looked at him, her breath held. Her stomach clenched even tighter and she suddenly felt the fear from her dream, almost completely gone, return in full force. Bruno was staring at the table, his hands gripping the cup in front of him so tightly she actually worried for a moment he might break it. 

“W-when Casita fell, last year. I-I got myself out, and then I looked back and I saw…I saw you. And then, and then, and then, the tower, my tower… Mirabel, I thought you’d been crushed, and it was all my fault. I’d sent you off to Isabela, and, and put this stupid idea in your head that all of this was somehow up to you to fix, and there you were, right where I’d sent you, like a coward, while I ran and hid. I—” 

He stopped and took in a sharp breath. 

"I always run and hide," he muttered through gritted teeth.

Mirabel was frozen to her seat. The fear that he was somehow talking about the vision was rapidly fading, replaced by a void of swirling incomprehensible thoughts. She’d never heard him talk about that day, that almost-forgotten moment when their eyes had met right before everything came crashing down around her. 

Tío Bruno looked up at her, his eyes pleading and pained. 

“Mira, I-I will never let that happen again. I-I will never send you off to go at it alone, when someone should be there with you—w-when I should be there with you.” 

As the initial shock of his words began to wear off, her chest began to burn fiercely. She had no idea why, but as she suddenly understood what he was trying to say, the feelings flooding her were so convoluted, rising all at once from some long ignored part of her heart, that it was absolutely overwhelming. She felt the tears start up again, but this time she couldn’t stop them from falling. 

Bruno cringed distressingly and reached out to grab a corner of the ruana, wiping at her face clumsily and smearing her cheeks with sand and tears. He put his hands on her shoulders, gripping her tightly. 

“You…you saved me, Mirabel. In so many ways. I don’t think you even know—” he shook his head, started again. “You don’t have to do everything alone anymore, okay? I won’t let that happen again. W-when I was a kid, I didn’t have a dad around to, you know, because…because…of, well, everything, so I always wished—I mean, I-I know what it's like to-to-to…A-AND I know you have a Pa! A wonderful, amazing Pa, and I-I don’t ever want to get in the way there—I mean…I-I’m not trying to—Urghf.” Bruno blew out a raspberry in frustration, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, they were filled with a bright desperation, imploring. 

“Look, kid, I’m, I’m not the best, at–at, well, at anything, but, but I’m here! And I’m not going anywhere, not this time. Whatever you need, okay? I’m…I’m here. Right here.” 

She nodded fervently and reached up to grip his forearms. As another wave of tears began to fall, she pulled him forward into a crushing hug, glasses pressing firm against her nose as she buried her face into the curve of his shoulder. He had to quickly drop down a foot to keep from falling off his stool, but he regained his balance and leaned wholeheartedly into the embrace. 

“Just, just promise me you won’t let yourself be alone, okay?” he whispered, pressing a kiss into her hair. “No matter what happens, no matter what you have to deal with, just don’t…don’t hide yourself away from everyone. You won’t gain a thing from that, really, b-believe me. I…well, I know.”

She nodded again into his nightshirt and gripped him even tighter.

 “Okay. I promise, Tío.” 

He hummed a relieved sound, putting a gentle hand to the back of her head and cradling it there for a moment. Then with one final squeeze, he let her go. 

As she sat back, he reached out and tucked a curl of her hair behind her ear, then patted her cheek gently. She smiled, surprised at the uncharacteristic gesture, but touched nonetheless. It reminded her of something Mamá would do.

And with that, as suddenly as his vulnerable outburst had appeared, it was tucked nervously away. Tío Bruno fidgeted awkwardly in his seat and turned back to his cup, running his finger around the rim. Mirabel cleared her throat and swiped at her eyes, wiping away the last of the tears. He’d been right, about sharing her dream—she did feel…lighter, somehow. 

“So," she asked with a final sniff, "why were you down here in the middle of the night?” She suddenly perked up in realization. “Did–did you know I would…?”

“No, no,” he said, brushing away the idea with a wave of his hand. “I, uh, I have—I mean had, had a headache, and it was keeping me up, so I decided to get some fresh air. Worked out though, huh?"

"A headache? Tío are you avoiding your gift again?" The lingering thickness of her voice did nothing to soften the accusation.

"No! No, I…uh, well maybe, sort of yes."

"Why?" she cried out in exasperation. "You know what it does to you and—wait, is that what all that sand was from the other day? In your room? Is something happening with your gift?!"

"Ay, Ay, tranquila, mija, don't get all worked up again, alright?" he begged, wincing. "Please, no more crying." 

"I'm not crying ," she groused, and she made a more concerted effort to swallow back the tears that were again pushing to the surface. She really did need to get a hold of herself. What is the matter with me today?

"I am upset to hear that you're in pain for no good reason," she added grumpily, swiping again at her cheek. He frowned, his eyebrows drawing in mild offense.

"No good re—a-alright, look, i-i-if you must know, Ms. Pushy …yes, the sandy-ness you saw the other day was from…struggling…with my gift. I-I guess you could say I had a bad dream, too. A vision-dream. It's a whole thing, like a nightmare with a headache, covers my bed in sand. Bleh. Makes it impossible to get comfortable after, so, so, I was just…out. Getting some fresh air."

Mirabel watched him quietly. She didn't like the sound of that, not one bit. His room had been in total chaos when she'd seen it, and he'd looked just awful. A 'vision-dream' that caused that much mess must have been—to borrow Tío's words—a doozy. 

“ Alright then," she challenged, "your turn. What was in your dream?”

Bruno sputtered into his tea. “Nah, nah, it was nothing,” he replied as he reburied his face in his cup. He managed to take a drink and then sighed. “Just a vision that really won’t quit, that’s all.”

Mirabel frowned. “That sounds like avoiding to me. And if you're getting headaches, too? I don't like this at all.”

"I'm not avoiding them. Not all the way, anyway. I'll have you know, I've been using my gift on purpose! In other ways. I’ve just seen enough of this one, particular vision, is all. I’ve seen it plenty. Maybe the miracle is on the fritz or something…or not! Or not. Um…sometimes this just, just happens. My old brain gets stuck on some future and doesn’t want to let go.” He knocked at his skull. “I’m okay, though, kid, really. It’s nothing disastrous, so I just…need to wait it out. Eh, iiit’ll go away.” He waved his hand beside his head as if he was chasing it away as they spoke. 

Mirabel hummed petulantly.

“Well, you know your gift better than anyone, but…,” she began, and he winced in anticipation of her unsolicited advice. 

She paused and carefully softened her voice. She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. 

“All I’m saying is that maybe you’re missing something. If the miracle won’t stop sending you this same vision…maybe you just need to look at it differently. You know, a new perspective.”

He nodded without looking at her. She sighed and dropped the subject. He would tell her if he needed her help. He knew the offer always stood. He knew he didn't have to be lonely, either.

Mirabel sighed at the bottom of her empty cup. She had no idea what time it was, but she did know it was seriously late. Tomorrow was quickly becoming today, and she was going to be exhausted. In her fervent decision to prove she could handle everything thrown at her, she’d scheduled out her whole morning—a check-in with the candle maker, a meeting with Osvaldo to discuss the party supplies…and despite his best intentions, Osvaldo was never an easy visit. She should really get some rest. 

“Well, then. It's late. I guess it’s time to go back to bed,” she stated dryly, and the knot in her stomach twisted at the thought. Though I’d really rather not, she added in a low murmur, more to the air than to anyone in particular. 

Bruno looked up and frowned at her as she grabbed his empty cup and took it with hers to the sink. The clink of the cups in the basin rang out with glum finality. 

“Then we won’t,” Bruno said suddenly, and she turned to look at him with raised eyebrows. He was staring at her as if he'd suddenly had some remarkable revelation about the whole situation.

“What?”

“You don’t want to go back to sleep…well, then we won’t.” 

“What?” she asked again. “That’s not a solution, Tío.”

“It’s not a good solution, but it is a solution.”

She laughed and shook her head. She couldn’t stay up all night, she’d already be useless enough as it was now. 

“Come on, why not?" he argued. "You got somewhere to be in the morning?”

She rolled her eyes at him. His usual half-joking argument. He was referring to their morning tea, but this time she did in fact have somewhere to be. Her meeting with Osvaldo was bright and early, to reduce the risk that her mom or tia would see her there. A scheduling decision she was now regretting.

"Actually, I do. I have a…. meeting … at seven." Smooth, she thought, internally rolling her eyes.

"Well, that's what coffee is for, right?"

"Tío, it's like one in the morning," she replied. "You're crazy."

He scrabbled up from his seat and rounded the kitchen island, pointing a finger high in the air. 

"Perhaps to be too practical is madness," he quoted grandly. She recognized that one. Don Quixote?  She bit her lip. 

"Didn't he die in the end of that book?"

"No, no, no, that was Sancho—AY, i-it doesn’t matter,” he shook his head rapidly and started again. “Look, Mirabel…you've been making the responsible choice, what's best for everyone else, since you were five," he urged, his voice oddly serious. His words nudged at something tight in her heart. 

"Do what you want for once, instead of what you have to do," he continued more gently. "I'm your crazy uncle, I-I-I think…I think maybe I'm supposed to give you crazy advice like that. A-a new perspective ." 

She fiddled with the edge of the ruana and mulled over his words. 

Do what you want. What did she want? She didn’t even know...Right now? She didn't want to go back to her dark and lonely room, that's for sure. She was probably just tired, but she somehow couldn't think of single an argument to his unorthodox logic. Maybe if I just stay up, it will be better than trying to run on just a few hours of sleep anyway…

“Okay," she said reluctantly. "Okay. No sleeping. So then, oh wise uncle , what do we do instead?”

He scratched at his chin. "D'you like cards?"

—

"Sevens," Tío Bruno said. 

She squinted at her cards. "Uh…no. Go fish."

Tío Bruno leaned forward and glanced at the cards in her hand. She was sitting on the scratchy woven rug at his feet in la sala—an exercise in mild discomfort in an effort to keep herself awake. Her back was against his chair, so all he had to do was look down to get a full view of every single one of her cards…but they'd abandoned all reason long ago. They were on their third round of the game, and she was starting to lose her fight against fatigue. 

Bruno reached down and pulled a seven from her hand with more flourish than necessary, placing it in his own. 

"Oh, sorry," she muttered, stifling a yawn. "Didn't see it there."

"Mmmhmm, your turn."

"Um," she squinted at her cards again, leaning her head against his knee. "Nines?"

"Pesca," he replied. [Go fish.] 

She could have sworn she instructed her hand to reach out and draw a card from the deck, but in groggy disorientation, she realized that instead Bruno was carefully pulling all her cards from her slack grip and setting them on the table in front of her. She was clearly losing the battle against sleep.

"I-I'm awake," she slurred in protest. "Elevens." 

"Okay, kid," he laughed. "It was a valiant effort, but maybe it's time to head to bed."

"No! No sleep! Practical madness!" She swatted away his hand as it reached down to help her up and snuggled closer against his leg instead, pulling the warm, blanket-like ruana around her and adjusting her head more comfortably on his knee. "I just need to rest my eyes for, like, a minute …"

Stubbornly cocooned against the faulty wisdom of sleeping any length of time in her lean-to position on the floor, she let herself begin to drift off again. 

After a quiet minute of stillness, she felt Tío Bruno shift, carefully placing his hand on her head, uncertainty evident in the tentative twitching of his fingers. She tipped her head back into his palm, managing to crack one sleep-blurred eye open just long enough to flash him a small smile. At that, his hand rested heavier against her hair, relaxing with obvious relief that she hadn't flinched or brush him away, like he probably expected.  

Mirabel was snug in the weight of the ruana, and Tío Bruno's heavy hand was like the safety of an anchor to shore, but she could still feel a dream lapping at the edge of her consciousness as the depths of sleep began to take hold. She pulled back from it warily, still tender from the nightmare. She frowned and squeezed her eyes tighter, trying feebly to clear her mind and shift away into dreamless rest instead. 

But then, quite unexpectedly, Bruno's scratchy voice began to murmur down to her, breaking through the shallow murk of her dozing sleep. She tensed involuntarily in surprise. 

Is he…singing? she thought groggily. He is singing…

She held as still as she could, willing herself awake to witness this strange boldness from her normally painfully timid Tío. As if on cue, Bruno seemed to hesitate, perhaps sensing her alertness. But then, ever so carefully, the hand on her head lifted and he slowly began to pull at strands of her hair, brushing them away from her face and tucking each gently behind her ear. He resumed softly singing, a little louder this time, the gentle motions of his hand moving in time to his quiet lullaby.

The broken melody was slow and lilting, resonating and low. He was interspersing his scratchy singing with humming, as if he couldn’t quite remember all the words, but the effect was a soothing blend of sound that was tender and so genuinely loving in its imperfection. As the moments passed, sweet and soft and safe, she found the tender combination of her Tío's voice and his hand brushing back her hair made it almost impossible to continue to resist the pull of sleep. 

Gradually, she let his lullaby ease her into a burdenless slumber, almost like she was six and not sixteen. Like…she half-realized before drifting off completely…like, just maybe, she’d long needed after all.

Chapter Text

Alma ran frantically past the rows of houses, clutching one daughter against her chest and pulling another stumbling behind her. Her eyes roamed every nook and cranny of the small street, desperate for a glimpse of green. 

No, no, no, Dios amado, por favor… [dear God, please, no…]

“Aquí, Doña Alma.” [Here.]

Alma froze in her tracks and turned sharply toward her name. Julieta stumbled roughly into her legs and Pepita buried her head into the crook of her mother's neck in alarm. 

There, only steps from where she’d been standing moments before to speak with Raymundo, stood Elisa, smiling knowingly in Alma's direction. Brunito hid behind her, poking his head apprehensively around her legs, his eyes wide with the knowledge that he was probably in trouble. 

He is correct, thought Alma vehemently. 

“I think he found his way to my garden while you were speaking with Ray. I found him sitting en la salvia, chasing ants.” She was laughing kindheartedly as she spoke. 

Alma straightened and pulled back her shoulders, taking a breath to compose herself. She pushed away the panic that she had embarrassingly allowed to get the best of her and made her way back up the street, narrowing her eyes at her son as she went. He shrunk back further behind Elisa’s legs. 

Ay, Brunito. Pepa may cling to her without reprieve, and Julieta may pester her until her patience wore thinner than paper, but Bruno was by far the most exhausting of her three children. 

It wasn’t that he was intentionally mischievous—in fact, he was very even tempered compared to the other two. Pepa was a passionate explosion of each and every feeling that coursed through her tiny body, and Julieta was a nervous child, constantly underfoot as she asked after everyone else’s mood. 

“¿Está bien, Mamá?”  [Are you okay?]

“Sí, Julieta. De otra vez. Todo está bien.” [Once again, everything is fine.]

But Bruno had neither of those problems. No, instead, Bruno was so incredibly distractible that Alma ended each and every day exhausted from the sheer effort of directing her son’s attention where it needed to go. 

Focus, Bruno. Mírame a los ojos, mijo. [Look me in the eyes, my son.]

She must say it a hundred times a day. A los OJOS, Bruno . If he didn’t look her in the eye as she spoke to him, then she could be certain he wasn’t hearing a word she said. Sometimes, even with his eyes locked on hers, it was as if he was off somewhere else in his mind. 

“¿Qué acabo de decir, Bruno?” [ What did I just say? ]

“Um…no sé, Mamá. Lo siento.” [ I don’t know. I’m sorry. ]

All day long. 

Alma took another steadying breath. 

“Bruno. How many times do I have to tell you not to wander off when we are in town?” she scolded as she approached him. She tried to keep her voice gentle, but she could feel the edges glinting sharply. 

“No sé, Mamá,” came his small voice in return, his signature response. "Lo siento."

Alma shook her head and turned back to the woman before her. 

“Thank you, Elisa. I hope he didn’t damage your garden.”

“All is well,” Elisa soothed, moving to the side and gently pushing Bruno out from his hiding place. He reluctantly stumbled forward and grabbed Julieta’s hand. “No harm done.”

Alma nodded gratefully and shot Bruno one more warning glance— you better not try anything for the rest of the evening— before bidding Elisa a polite farewell and turning to head back toward Casita. She set down a reluctant Pepa, detaching the girl's gripping hands from where they refused to release her shirt, then gave each of the tiny arms that she held a small tug to urge the string of children back up the gently sloping hill of the street. 

Lord, why did you give me three children when I only have two hands? she wondered, not for the first time in recent memory. How am I to keep them all safe if I can only hold two at a time? 

As always, she immediately followed the musing with a sincere prayer of gratitude, reminding herself that she could no sooner trade one of these precious little blessings than trade away her own heart, but the exasperation of the sentiment remained crowded in her chest. 

She strode silently and swiftly up the street, listening to their small feet patter rapidly beside her. 

"Brunito, are you trying to get yourself into trouble? Or hurt ?" she admonished, fear bleeding into the end of her sentence. She pulled away from the fear, back into the safety of frustration. "Do you listen to anything I say when I speak to you?"

"No, I-I…," he stammered, confused by her questions. "...y-yeah?"

" Yes, Bruno. Not 'yeah'," Alma corrected shortly. 

"I-I mean yes," he replied penitently. 

After a few moments, Alma began to slow her steps to better match the stride of the small legs that surrounded her. She sighed, gradually forcing her irritation into the softer, more honest shape of worry. 

Patience, Alma, whispered Pedro's voice in her head. She sighed and tried again, more gently.

“What am I going to do with you, mijo?” she asked.

She was relieved to hear her tone emerge more loving than scolding this time, and Bruno looked up at her with his father's big round eyes. He smiled carefully at her, happy to see the anger gone from her face, and what remained of her frustration melted away for the moment. She shook her head at him. 

“ Travieso lindito.” [ Lovely little troublemaker. ]

He was indeed her little troublemaker, and had been ever since he’d learned to move on his own, crawling off in all directions as soon as he was given the chance. Now, at the age of four, he was just as much of a flight risk. 

She knew he didn’t do it on purpose, and it was that knowledge that forced her to stretch her patience much farther than it wanted to go on its own. It wasn’t that Bruno just chose not to pay attention, as she had at first assumed. No, he just paid very close attention to all the wrong things. He was captivated by tiny details and insignificant distractions that pulled his mind this way and that like a leaf on the breeze, blowing him right past the day-to-day activities that his sisters seemed to manage just fine. 

She’d send him to the nursery to retrieve his shoes, only to be summoned by Casita ten minutes later because he’d never made it past the bedroom door, instead happily consumed with counting the leaves of a potted plant. At the dinner table, she had to remind him to eat his food again and again because he would grow so fascinated with watching his sisters with a small, sweet smile on his face that he would forget to eat himself. 

It was most worrisome when they left Casita. She’d turn her head to speak to someone for just a moment, as she had done today, and turn back to find two daughters and no son. 

“¿Dónde está su hermano?!” [Where is your brother?!]

She had trained herself to speak the words in exasperation, so as not to panic the girls, but it truly scared her each and every time. In that instant of realizing he was no longer there, all the most terrible possibilities would crowd themselves into her mind, tightening her chest and snatching away her breath. He could be hurt, he could be…he could be…

Perhaps even her body knew she knew she simply could not survive another loss.

Thank the Lord, she usually did not have to look far to find him—he would be pushing his chubby finger curiously down a crack in the dirt, or reaching for a flower to pick around the corner of a house, or following a butterfly as it fluttered down on a blade of grass. Nevertheless, those brief few seconds where he was no longer where she’d left him sent her heart sputtering out of her chest every time. 

Ay , attending to her duties in town had been so much simpler when they were small enough to wrap in a sling close to her chest or against her back, no chance of losing them, always close enough to press a kiss to their heads or wrap a comforting hand against their small backs. Not so any longer. Perhaps she would begin teaching them to hold each others’ hands in one long string as they moved together throughout town, rather than holding two of their hands herself. I can put Bruno between the girls . Julieta will always watch for me, and Pepa is far too attached to wander far, so linking them together might just keep that niño distraído from wandering…

She hummed a tired sigh. It was a workable, if imperfect, solution, for now. 

She worried often about her son's misplaced focus, prayed regularly that it would not get him into real trouble, though God often worked to remind her that his attention to detail may yet grow into a blessing. He frequently surprised her with the things he remembered, things she herself had forgotten. 

“S-señora Gomez will gots your notebook, Mamá.” 

“Que dijiste, Brunito?” she replied absently as she pushed through papers on her desk, searching fruitlessly for the notebook that she carried to every meeting in town. 

[What did you say?]

“Y-y-y-you, you, you…" he struggled to get the words out, his mind always running faster than his mouth. "Y-you put it on the table. When we were at her house in the…um, in the before morning."

"The before mor—do you mean yesterday, hijo?"

"Sí, when, when, when you were helping Pepa because her dress was messed.”

What four year old would remember a detail like that? The boy couldn’t remember the word ayer , and yet he could tell her that the donkeys would soon get out because he’d spotted a thickening vine fretting a break into the joints of the fence.

A gift from God, she would tell herself, over and over again. It’s a gift from God, and it will be a blessing as he grows. Lord, just give me strength to manage it right now.

Casita warmly swung open the front door as they approached, and the children released her hands and raced giddily toward it. Pepa pulled at Bruno’s shirt as he quickly surpassed her, allowing Julieta to scramble inside first, clapping her hands at her victory. Pepa pouted and stomped her foot, and Alma scooped her up into a quick hug before the tantrum could land fully. 

“Cálmate, mija. Everyone upstairs to wash, ahora, por favor. I want you all at the table while I make dinner. You will practice your letters." [Calm yourself, my daugther... Now, please.]

Pepa wriggled in her arms to be released, eager to follow after her chattering siblings. Alma set her down and gave her a gentle pat on the head as she took off.

"Julieta!" she called after them. "Bring the paper and pencils down with you!"

"Sí, mama!” came her tiny voice from the stairs. 

Alma chose to ignore the bickering that wafted across the courtyard as her children again vied for who would be first to complete her request, though the sound still sent tension across her shoulders. She pinched the bridge of her nose as she made her way to the kitchen, feeling the ever-present fatigue behind her eyes surge into a stinging headache. She nodded gratefully to Casita as the lamps dimmed, allowing the room to be lit only by the fading light of the evening, and hummed a tired sigh as she bent to pull a pot from the cabinet beside the estufa. 

—

Raymundo wanted to plant another plantain field, and while she could see the merits of the decision, she was concerned. How would they maintain it? The men were already stretched with the work they had now. 

“Look, Mamá! I did it! P-e-p-a.” 

Alma turned for a moment from her cooking to smile at her daughter, who beamed proudly back at her from the dining room. 

“Bien, amor. Don’t stand on your chair, you’re going to tip it. Now see if you can do the rest of the letters on your page.” Pepa dropped back down to her knees on the dining room chair and bent back over her paper. 

Alma stepped to the stove and stirred the ajiaco, adding in the corn she’d just finished shucking.

Raymundo had assured her that the men could handle the additional labor, but she didn’t think he was properly taking into account the fact that the rainy season would be quickly upon them. 

We don’t have any more houses to build this season, Doña. We have the time, we can prepare the land and plant before the rain to take advantage of the coming season. 

It was true that all the repairs had been completed already, in record time, thanks largely to the diligent notes Alma had taken the season before. She’d spent every evening—

“I did it again, Mamá!  I did another one!”

“Okay, mi vida. Keep going.”

Alma swiftly chopped the cebolla. 

—she’d spent every evening last year, after putting her children to bed but before her prayers, diligently transcribing the work completed that day. She'd meticulously recorded each mistake they made and each lesson learned, all sprawled across the pages of one of Pedro's old notebooks. His notebooks had been one of the precious items they'd packed as they fled that night. They were meant to hold stories for his children, poems and musing from his romantic mind, not weather patterns and crop yielding. But the pages blessed her in a different way now. 

It had been exhausting work at the time. There were nights where she fell asleep at her desk, pencil in hand, only to wake in the early hours of the morning with a stiff neck and a sore back. She would drag herself up to complete the prayers she had shamefully neglected the night before, perhaps getting another hour of sleep in her own bed before waking to her children’s calls as they rose for the day. But it had been a worthy sacrifice, as the notes had helped them plan better this season, and the men of the village had looked at her with deeper respect because of it. Though, she wasn’t sure how a deeper respect was entirely possible, given that they already treated her with the veneration of a heavenly saint, no matter how much she got her hands dirty to try to ground their expectations. 

Raymundo was only a year her senior, and in times before, she and Elisa and Pedro had spent many hours laughing around their tiny kitchen table, sharing meals and dreams and plans— 

Alma paused her chopping, just for a moment. She skipped carefully past those memories, pulling her skirts away from them before they snagged and became caught. She focused back on her cooking, scooping half the onions into the pot along with the corn. 

Ay, I’ve added the corn too soon. It’s going to be mushy…

She and Raymundo and Elisa Gomez no longer shared laughter like they once did, and their relationship had shifted dramatically. Now she was Doña Alma, keeper of the miracle, leader of the town, final word in all matters, whether she wanted that responsibility or not. And though—

“Mamá, can I have an arepa?”

“No, mija, I am making dinner right now. We will be eating in half an hour.”

—and though Raymundo and Elisa had become her closest consultants in all matters of the town, she had an aura about her now that kept everyone at a respectful, reserved, distance. Old friends they may remain, but close friends they could be no longer. 

But it is a worthy sacrifice , she reminded herself, for the wellbeing of my people. 

“My name has too many letters,” complained Julieta. 

“Your name came from la madre de tu papá.” Alma replied, a bit stiffly. “You should wear it proudly.”

Once again, she found herself carefully dancing around the memories that threatened to burst forward at the mention of Pedro. She must be tired. It wasn’t normally this hard to remain focused on the matters at hand. 

“Sí, Mamá,” Julieta replied contritely, and redoubled her efforts to trace all the letters that crowded her page. 

Alma had lightly drawn their names again and again across the pages, and the children were now occupied with tracing over her light pencil marks with dark, jagged lines of their own. It gave her a moment’s peace to focus on dinner without having to wonder if they were somehow setting fire to their magical house in the next room. She returned to her thoughts. 

She knew Raymundo was concerned with the people’s wellbeing, too, and she trusted his judgment. He had pointed out that there would soon be more mouths to feed. While her children had remained the youngest in the Encanto for the last three years as they all worked to get their bearings, build houses, make a new life from the rubble of their loss, it was true that many of the women were now round with pregnant bellies, and a few new infants had already been born. They would need more food before too long. Hungry children are weakened children, and weakened children get sick in the endless rain, and el Doctor Huerta could only be expected to do so much—

“Mamá, what are we having for dinner?”

“You’ll find out when we eat it, Pepa.”

She sent a silent prayer up to Pedro, asking him for guidance. Then she sighed into the silence that followed. Perhaps they should plant the new field, and pray that God would bless their labor with an abundant harvest in years to come—

Alma paused mid-thought. Instinct had suddenly tugged at her attention, and she realized that Bruno had remained suspiciously silent for the past twenty minutes. She turned swiftly to survey the table, and when she spotted him, she sighed through her nose and set down her knife with a tired clunk . 

Distracted, again .

Bruno’s pencil lay abandoned on his paper. Instead, he was bent low, eyes parallel with the tabletop as he crawled a clawed hand across the surface, fingers inching like small legs. 

Alma watched him, curiosity momentarily holding back her rebuke.

“ Es una araña ,” he was whispering quietly at it in his high, small voice. "¡Hola, señorita! ¿ Tienes hambre?" 

[ It’s a spider . Hello, miss! Are you hungry? ]

Bruno lifted his hand from the table and wiggled the fingers beside his ear. 

"Ah! ¿ Qué quieres comer, arañita?"  [ Oh, what do you want to eat, little spider? ]

He held his hand to his ear again, as if he was listening. He made his eyes wide at the imaginary response, a remarkable feat given how large they already were on his small face. Alma smiled, barely containing a quiet chuckle, her heart softening at her son’s simple sweetness.

" Oh...quieres comer… Pepa! " he suddenly squealed, turning and shoving his wiggling fingers into his sister's hair. Alma’s smile dropped. 

She strode forward, hand outstretched, but her reaction was too late, disarmed as she was by the previous peaceful moment. Pepa shrieked and pushed at him, bumping roughly into Julieta, who was knocked unceremoniously from her chair as it tipped to the floor. The table exploded into a cacophony of chaos—Julieta howling beneath the table, Pepa swinging wildly at her brother, and Bruno erupting into raucous giggles while burying his head in his arms to protect it from the blows of his sister. Alma strode around the table, pulling Julieta to her feet and as Casita righted the tipped chair. 

“Enough!” Alma shouted. 

It came out much louder than she meant it to, and she winced internally as all three children froze and looked at her in wide-eyed fear. Julieta sniffed and wiped at her tears, but made no more sound. Bruno and Pepa pulled their hands into their laps, bowing their heads guiltily.

Alma suddenly just needed the room to be quiet , for just one moment. She needed to be able to think, to focus, to make a decision about the fields to give to the men tomorrow. If they delayed too long, the opportunity would pass and the decision would be made for them by the unforgiving hand of the elements. The pressure of the mounting expectations of the men and the growing families in town and the noise of the room and the questions of her children were suddenly too much, the room too crowded. 

I just need a moment, just one quiet moment…

“To your room, all of you. Now. You may come back down when it is time for dinner.”

The triplets jumped to obey, and there was no racing, no bickering or chattering as they scrambled up the stairs. She heard the nursery door shut quietly. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, breathing back the overwhelmed tears that suddenly threatened to spill from her eyes. 

Absolutely not, Alma. There is not time for you to fall apart now. 

She tipped her head back, eyes closed, and took shaky breaths until she could wrestle down the distress and anxiety. Gradually, they folded obediently beneath her practiced hands, and she shut them away firmly. She opened her eyes and looked sharply at the mess of papers on the table, hands on her hips. 

…and then her shoulders softened, and a swelling mix of love and guilt rose in her chest as she looked at the messily scratched letters that filled the table. 

Julieta had only managed to trace a single iteration of her name, but the letters were carefully formed, almost perfectly following the lines that Alma had laid down for her. Pepa had traced each and every name on the page, but some were so hastily done that they were hardly recognizable as letters. And Bruno had traced each rounding B with blocky precision, then abandoned all the other letters in favor of turning each B into the wings of a childishly scrawled butterfly. 

She bit her lip and looked up toward the doorway that her children had slipped through. She should apologize, tell them that she loved them dearly, explain that she was just… tired , stretched thin…

She took a step toward the doorway, then stopped. 

…but they were just children. They were barely four, and such explanations about adult stresses were wasted on their innocence. They were children, and they didn’t need to be burdened with her worries and cares. They would forget, as children did, as soon as their bellies were filled with warm soup and her attention was back on them for the moment. They would forget her shortness, her anger, and all would be well again. She would do better. She would be strong for them.

Dios me da fuerza, she prayed. [ God give me strength. ] Pedro, show me what to do. What would you do? How would you do this?

In the silence that followed, Alma straightened her back and shook out her shoulders, pulling herself together. She turned back to the dining room, gathering the papers from the tabletop and the floor. She set them aside, paper to be reused for a future lesson, never wasted, and returned to the kitchen to scoop out a serving for each remaining member of her small, precious family. 

Chapter Text

Bruno pressed his aching forehead down against the cool wood of the kitchen island, blowing out his held breath and dropping some of the tension in his shoulders. No rats came to chitter in his ears or nuzzle through his hair like usual—they knew they weren't allowed in Juli's kitchen, and for the most part they seemed to keep to that rule without him having to say it anymore. 

Well…the jaguar that roams the house from time to time probably has something to do with it, too, heh.

He lifted his forehead to rest against his hand instead, letting the pull from his palm crack open one of his eyes. A soft grey light was slowly creeping in through the windows to fill the space around him. 

It must be five-thirty or six by now. The rest of the household would be stirring soon.

He'd managed to sneak out of the sala without waking Mirabel, which, really, wasn’t anything to brag about, considering that 1) he had at least 20 years experience sneaking around the house without being detected, and it was perhaps the only thing he could claim himself unquestionably best at, and 2) Mirabel slept like a capybara with a head cold. 

Mouth open and everything. He snorted to himself just thinking about it. 

The poor kid had fallen asleep hours ago, curled peacefully, trustingly beside him on the floor with her head in on his knees, buried in his too-big ruana like the little four-year-old girl he’d known all those years ago. It’d tugged at something unexpected in his chest, at that deep and aching place he didn’t like to go near, the space that held the weight of everything he’d lost to the merciless sands of time. He’d held his breath, certain that any movement he made would disturb her and the moment would be over, but she’d only fallen deeper into sleep, slumping heavily into his legs and snoring softly. 

He hadn’t planned on singing to her. Dios sabe que he did not have a pleasant, soothing bone in his jittery, anxious body, but… ay, when Mirabel’s shoulders had tensed and her brow had wrinkled, right in that very same place where he knew a crease of worry and sorrow would one day etch itself permanently, and he’d thought again about terrible guilt and misplaced responsibility that he now knew haunted her in her night and probably day, too…

Well. He hadn’t really decided to do it. The lullaby had just suddenly been there, emerging from distant, dusty memories of his own sleepless nights, of childhood fears of the lonely dark and of crawling into bed with Peps or Juli. Though he couldn’t remember all the words, he could still remember the feeling of his sister's fingers patting gently at his hair or holding his hand, of the comfort of knowing someone else was there with him, that he wouldn’t have to face the monsters alone. 

Arrorró pedazo del sol, he'd sung. …o-or was it pedazo de mi corazón? 

[Hush-a-bye, my sunshine…piece of my heart?]

 —w-whatever the words, he sang them like a prayer, hoping against hope that they carried the same comfort to her. She was both of those things, anyway.

Then, after his terrible, broken humming had somehow smoothed away that worried line between her eyebrows, and he was certain she was down for the count—well, he'd just…stayed there. He’d been unable to bring himself to move, unswervingly certain that he had to somehow be there for this lovely child that inexplicably chose to trust him—the Encanto's resident scary story—to watch over her while she slept. 

So keep watch he did. 

He watched leaves gently sway in the silvery moonlight on the potted plants in the courtyard. He watched the shadows move as daybreak inched closer. He watched the rats poke sniffing noses and beady eyes from darkened corners, checking on him before scurrying off to some other ratty business. He watched for more nightmares—for her intelligible murmurs and tensed shoulders that he thought perhaps might be that awful dream coming to haunt her again. He did his best to chase it away, brushing at her hair with clumsy fingers and mumbling sana sana like Juli used to do for him. 

It seemed to help. He hoped so, anyway.

And between her snores and sleepy mutterings, he’d thought. He thought about time and fate and the terrible dance they whirled endlessly around him. He thought about his family, about the immeasurable weight of a miracle…and of a second chance. But most of all, for the thousandth time, he thought about the vision—the very same vision that had woken him earlier that night, of Mirabel’s distant future. He thought of how disorienting it had been, only hours before, to see the exact same face of future heartbreak that had now seared itself into his memory, right there on his sobrina tonight . 

When she’d run to him in the hallway, she'd been shaking. She’d gripped him like she thought he was going to disappear. She hadn’t told anyone about her nightmares. 

She’d been alone. 

Bruno knew the day would come when he would have to face the aged Mirabel of his vision, the tears in her eyes and the sorrow crumbling her sweet face. His visions always came pass, the future always came for payment. He just never thought it would be so soon. Ay, right there in the hallway this very night, when Bruno had finally looked Mirabel in the eyes, he'd seen that same terrible sadness on her young face, her eyes shining with tears like those that haunted his visions again and again. 

And in the still, half-dozing limbo that came between the heavy blanket of night and the soft lifting of morning, he’d realized that this damn vision that he’d been telling himself was so far in the future that he didn’t need to worry about it now, didn’t need to ruminate, didn’t need to look again—it-it-it already was . 

That the sorrow was not some distant future thing that he could push aside. It was now —yeah, s-sure, just a seed of its future self, maybe, but still there . It was a minute crack in Mirabel's heart that she hid with all the practice of a good Madrigal, but he knew all too well just how quickly cracks could grow, no matter how you struggled to repair them. 

He could see it now, and it terrified him. 

He squeezed his eyes shut as his chest tightened and his breath shallowed. He forced his breath out slower, burying his head in his arms to block out the increasingly brightening morning, and knocking a hushed, rapid beat against the wood. Fatigue dragged at his limbs and his head ached with a vicious fury, the small localized pain that had begun after his vision dream now having spread to all areas of his skull in retribution for a night without sleep.

I'm glad you're here, she'd said.

He thought again of Mirabel beside him in his vision cave last year, all of sixteen and yet braver than he’d ever been—pushing him to action, pushing him to think about why the miracle would give him each and every vision, always able to see the hope and the way out—and he wished desperately that he had just a little of her magic right now, just once. 

You need a new perspective, she'd told him. Scolded him. But how was he supposed to do that? He always saw the same thing.

Ay, Bruno, viejo imposible, what good are you? [impossible old man.] Fifty years and you still have no idea what you're doing. 

What am I supposed to see? 

What do I do?

—

It was only when he heard the soft, swift patter of footsteps approaching the kitchen behind him that he realized he’d dozed off. 

Right…Julieta, here to start breakfast. Ay. 

As the sound drew closer, he heard the footsteps slow and his sister's breath hitch quietly, almost imperceptibly-–the only indication that she'd suddenly noticed he was there. She didn’t acknowledge him in any other way, and for that he was thankful. He considered retreating, finding a less occupied space to collapse into, but his head felt like it was full of lead, and he just didn't have it in him to move. Besides, the company wasn’t too bad. It was only Juli.

Who knows, maybe she'll just leave me be. Ha. 

He kept his eyes shut and tried to drift back into something close to dozing but was probably more like mindless numbness. Julieta began bustling about the kitchen doing some sort of something, as always, and several long moments passed of gentle kitchen clankings and clatterings that were almost soothing to his ears. The room gradually filled with familiar smells of garlic and herbs and the soft sizzling sounds of boiling water and cooking arepas, the air warming alongside the sunlight as the stove heated the room. And then, suddenly, just when he’d begun to forget in the confused, sleepy haze of cozy smells and sounds that he was in fact sitting at the kitchen island and not back at his own kitchen-adjacent table within the walls... something heavy was clunked abruptly onto the countertop in front of him. He sat up with a startled jerk, then leaned forward to peek suspiciously at the contents of the bowl placed before him. His eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Changua?" he rasped. His favorite. He didn't think she remembered. 

Of course she remembered. 

"I was actually going to bring it upstairs to you this morning, but you beat me to it," she replied, wiping her hands on the dish towel that hung from her apron. "It seemed like you could use it, lately."

"You mean because I look like death," he clarified. 

"You look tired." 

He grinned up at her. Always so diplomatic. "Well, um…thanks, Juli." 

He picked up the spoon and scooped up a single chunk of bread. He closed his eyes as he took a bite, savoring the milky creaminess of the egg, soaked pleasantly into the cubed day-old almojábanas. It was instant comfort, instant warmth—a moment stolen straight from his memory.

He opened his eyes and gave his sister a look of utter and complete melt-into-a-puddle gratitude. She nodded with clear self-indulgent satisfaction and moved around the kitchen island so she could sit on the stool beside him.

“Rough night?” she asked. She reached a hand around his back and dragged delicate, scratching fingers across his shoulders. He laughed dryly. 

“W-well, if we’re talkin’ ‘lately’, it’s been a rough string of nights, actually. I’m getting a little sick of waking up at some ungodly hour with a mouth full of sand, that’s for sure.”

She frowned at him, and he instantly regretted mentioning anything. Julieta had always had that look. Somewhere between pity and love, warm with empathy and heartache, that just made his chest tighten and his stomach fill with guilt. It was sweet, it really was, and she only meant well, but he could only take so much of the thought that his very existence heaped more grief onto his already overburdened sister. 

“I-I’m okay, though. This’ll fix me right up, and I’ll take a nap, and shzoop, I’ll be good as new.” 

He shoveled a couple more bites into his mouth and flashed a thumbs up to illustrate. Her frown didn’t fade. He turned back to his bowl and pushed around a few pieces of bread with his spoon. 

“Besides…” he ventured, treading carefully, “it, uh, it was good I was up, anyway. I…ran into Mirabel.”

“Mirabel?” Julieta’s voice tightened with her shoulders. “What was she doing up? Is she okay?”

Bruno winced as Julieta’s expression shifted to one of well-worn worry. He pulled his mouth to the side and gritted his teeth. 

He imagined Mirabel’s searing wrath if he sent her mother into a flurry over her not-yet-shared nightmares. He weighed that bleakly against his own sister’s heavy disappointment, if she ever found that he failed to mention how her youngest daughter was in tears only hours ago. Hm. He wasn’t sure who he was more afraid of.

“She…uh, she was having trouble sleeping.” He glanced at Julieta’s face and then shifted his attention firmly back into his bowl. “Y-you know, demaciado cafecito en la tarde, problemente! Kids will be kids. So we just played some cards and she dozed off en la sala and, uh, yeah. So everything’s fine, n-nothing to worry about.” [a little to much coffee in the afternoon, probably]

Ah. So Mirabel wins. Myeh, that sounds about right. 

“Ay, mi niña.” Julieta shook her head, her posture softening. “She’s running herself ragged lately, don’t you think?” 

Bruno frowned into his bowl, but didn’t answer. 

Julieta hummed thoughtfully at the ceiling, her fingers resuming their path across his shoulders now that her concern had been somewhat eased. 

“But she's so much happier these days, too. I don't know…I often wish I knew what was going on in that mind of hers. For as bright and outgoing as she is, she’s always kept to herself, that one.” She glanced at Bruno with a wry smile. “She’s a lot like someone else I know, in that way . ”

Bruno grimaced at Julieta’s oft-repeated comparison. He hated when she said that. It made his gut twist with a strange, uncomfortable sort of warmth that instantly notched up his anxiety.

“W-well, anyway," he stuttered, choosing not to acknowledge that statement, "I-I stayed with her…made sure she was okay, and all that. She’s asleep in la sala. She’ll probably want some of your coffee, though. When she wakes up.”

“I’m glad you’re there for her, hermano,” Julieta said, leaning forward to catch his eyes as she spoke. “Agustín and I both are. For so long Mirabel was struggling, and I didn’t know how to help her. We are just so thankful she has someone now who… understands her, sí?”

Bruno nodded, returning to his food even as his stomach knotted tighter at her gratitude. He thought again of Mirabel’s words from the night before. I’m glad you’re here. 

Yeah, here to keep her up all night playing cards like a lunatic and sing her terribly executed lullabies… probably not his greatest tío moment. Last night, it had just seemed like-–like she needed it, somehow.

“Hey,” he said, the thought suddenly occurring to him. “H-hey, what’s that lullaby you used to sing? Yaknow, the one about the jasmine?”

“Oh,” Julieta mused, smiling. “I haven’t thought about that in a while...” 

Then, raising her shoulders playfully, she snuck an arm around him and leaned close, scrunching her nose at him as she crooned dramatically. 

“ Arrorró mi niño, arrorró mi sol, arrorró pedazo de mi corazón—” she squeezed him closer, reaching out to pinch his cheek. 

He swatted at her hand. “Ay, basta ya!” [Cut it out!]

She squeezed him closer, leaning her head on his and swaying them both exaggeratingly in time to the lullaby. 

“--este niño lindo ya quiere dormir; háganle la cuna de rosa y jasmín…”

“Okay, okay, I remember, I remember—” he laughed, pushing her away. “Let me eat my food, Juli! Yeesh, you ask one thing and it’s gotta be a whole thing…” 

She chuckled and kissed his temple before leaning back into her own seat. 

“Mamá used to sing that to us,” she said, eyes still sparkling with laughter. 

“I mostly remember you singing it.” 

“Mmm,” she hummed. “Well I learned it from her. Why do you ask?”

“I was just…remembering it recently, is all. Y’never know when you need to know it, I guess.” He took another bite of his food and chewed thoughtfully. When he spoke again, all the previous mirth was gone from his voice.

“Can I ask you something? Something very specific that–that–that doesn’t at all apply to the previous conversation or-or any persons, real or fictitious, discussed therein?” 

“Always,” she replied. 

“How do you do it, Juli?” he asked, shaking his head slowly in confusion. “How do you…how do you have all these kids?”

Julieta raised her eyebrows playfully at him. “Are you asking me how babies are born, hermanito?”

“No! Ay, no, no, no, I just, I mean…how do you have these little humans, these kids that just—that just—they are all out there running around on their own and the whole, terrifying world is there too and, and, and…”

“...and it’s like they take your own heart with them?” she finished. He looked up at her, and she was watching him with that same sad and sympathetic smile, but this time, for once, he didn’t feel like it was because of him. 

“How do you help them, Juli? How are you supposed to help them when…when you don’t even know how to help yourself?”

He half expected her to laugh at him again, but she didn’t. She just bit her lip, her brow furrowing as she turned her gaze toward the table. She leaned forward, resting her forearms on the wood and winding her fingers together. 

“Sometimes,” she said with a sigh, her voice thick like honey, “the thing that our children need the most is room to find their own way. They need room to stretch and stumble and figure out how to get back up again. Sometimes…even if you try to hold them close and safe, they still slip through your fingers anyways.” 

She looked up at him then, shrugging her shoulders as if even this answer was nothing more than a best guess.  

“It’s like when they’re little, and they’re learning to run. You can’t possibly stop them from falling, even if you wanted to, so all you can do is be there for them when they scrape their knees.” 

Bruno nodded thoughtfully, poking out his lips. “...aaaand w-what if the kid in question is not my kid?”

She laughed then and rolled her eyes at him. “Ay Brunito. It’s a universal kid-truth. It still applies.”

He frowned at her, turning her answer over in his mind like a puzzle piece he couldn’t quite make fit even though he knew it should. After watching the gears turn for a few moments, Julieta nudged him, giving him a playfully stern look and pointing toward his bowl with a pucker of her lips and tilt of her chin.

“Eat your changua, flaco.” [skinny]

He picked up his spoon obediently; you didn't have to tell him twice to eat anything Juli made. When he’d made a sufficient dent in his bowl that she could no longer claim he was starving himself, he leaned over and elbowed her in the ribs. 

“Alright, s-so how about you, wise sister?” he asked, mouth full. “I’ve noticed you doing a whole lot more cooking with all your new free time from…cooking.”

She narrowed her eyes and him with a gentle scowl and then pulled her hands into her lap guiltily. 

“Ay, Bruno,” she scratched absently at her head with a single delicate finger, tucking a stray hair back in the process. She gave a small, breathy chuckle and let her posture grow slack. “I don’t know what to do with myself, if I’m being honest. I know I should be thankful that I don't have to run the booth every day, and I am, but…I feel a bit lost in it all. It turns out that forty-five years of habit is not easily set aside.”

“Go figure,” he grinned, and she sent him a small smile in return. She reached out a hand to pat his knee affectionately, then let it rest there. He turned back to his food. A long silence stretched between them that wasn’t entirely uncomfortable. It wasn’t entirely comfortable either…but it was certainly progress. 

Bruno scraped the dregs from his bowl and sighed. Her magic had taken the edge off his headache and he felt much less shaky than before. He was healed and refreshed, once again, by the local expert in healing and refreshment… except when it comes to herself . He glanced over at his sister, who was gazing out the kitchen window, her chin resting in her other hand, knuckles covering her mouth thoughtfully. 

Sometimes, even if you try to hold them close and safe, they still slip through your fingers anyways.

He frowned. She caught him looking and smiled, shaking herself from her reverie. She rose and picked up his bowl, planting a kiss on his head as she went, and carried it to the sink to wash. 

All you can do is be there for them when they scrape their knees. 

As he watched her then, bolstered by magic she’d always explained as love, comforted by closeness he didn’t even think he needed, all together better than he’d been only moments before…it suddenly occurred to him that everything he now understood mothering to be, well, it had all come from Julieta. 

Now, now, now, he thought, chiding himself guiltily. He meant no disrespect; he loved Mamá and was impossibly, endlessly, gut-wrenchingly, grateful for her unwavering strength, hard as a stone, always steadfast and steady against the whirlwind of time. 

But warmth…

All the maternal warmth and comfort he could remember in his childhood had come from his sisters, had come from Juli. 

She had been the one he crawled into bed with when he had nightmares, letting her squeeze him desperately tight until the shadows faded away. She had been the one to whisper comfort in his ear when everything just felt too heavy, to rub his back or bring a cool cloth for his head, to hum a soft lullaby that he had only vague memories of in Alma’s voice. She’d been the one to lure him out of his room when he’d hidden himself away for too long, been the one always waiting in the kitchen with solace and sugar and changua for a headache. Julieta was steadfast and steady through her tenderness, ever patient, ever self-sacrificing….eh, perhaps a bit snippy at times, sure…yet never cold.

He found it strange, now, that though she was a mere moments older than him, her soul had jumped to don that heavy, too-big garment of motherhood for him and Pepa as though she was always meant to wear it. Where did that come from? How did she know how to do it? He wondered if her gift had ushered her into that role, or if it had been the other way around. He wondered if she ever missed having the same warmth for herself as she carried everyone else.

He suddenly, oddly, wished with all his heart that he could give that all to her now, as if it were something he could pull from his pocket and wrap around her like a blanket. To somehow return just a small piece of the childhood she’d given up for them…that they’d all lost, really. But he hadn’t the slightest understanding of where to begin. And he was a million years too late.

“Hey,” he mumbled weakly, anxious to somehow tell her everything and simultaneously too terrified to put any of it into words. 

“Hm?” she hummed, running a knuckle gently across his stubbled cheek as she sank back into her chair beside him.

“Um…” he grimaced, his words stuck and his train of thought lost. “Just uh, thanks. For the food. You’ve…y-you’re always…um, y-you’re the best.” He winced at the lame inadequacy of his stammering.

She winked at him. “I know. I’m the best sister there ever was.” 

He just stared back at her, and her smile faded. 

“What’s wrong, Brunito?”

He shook his head slowly, pulling his mouth to the side and frowning. If only I could give her something of it back. Anything.

Pepa had voiced the same longing, only a few weeks before. Maybe it's not too late…to get back what we had as kids, she’d said, asking him for something he had no idea how to give. 

You need a new perspective, Mirabel had said. To look at things differently. Ay, he felt like all he’d been doing was "different" for the past several months. He thought of Antonio's laughter, and of a butterfly landing on Mirabel's nose. Of tag and paper butterflies, of dancing and leapfrog. He thought of poems and leaves and stillness and….and…all the indescribable things that made up his sobrinos' most powerful—most healing— magic. 

And then, a sudden, outrageous thought struck him. Nuts, even. He felt a small shiver down his spine…a measure of intuition? A nudge in the right direction, maybe.

“Juli,” he began softly. “You, uh, you got any plans after breakfast?”

“Probably just more cooking,” she scolded wryly. Then she smiled at him. “But for you, I can take a break. What do you have in mind?”

“W-when’s the last time you climbed a tree?”

—-

The light pushed insistently against her closed eyes, and Mirabel grunted, pulling her blanket higher over her head. The warm, comforting dream she’d been having was already slipping away from her. 

Mmmm…maybe I can fall back asleep…  

Tented under the blanket, still wading through the dregs of sleep, she absently noted the unfamiliar feel of the pillow that was smooshed against her cheek. She wriggled slightly deeper into the covers, frowning at the unyielding surface beneath her. 

Why is my bed so hard…

What...

Wait, what time is it?!

Her eyes shot open. The bright sunlight that filtered through to her betrayed a morning already well on its way, and her mind lurched into motion.

She bolted upright, looking frantically around for her alarm clock and squinting in confusion at the blurry sight of la sala instead. She was situated on the floor between the couch and the low table that sat before it, a cushion from the wicker chair beside her acting as a makeshift pillow. Someone had placed a blanket over her—one of the light throws they kept tucked in the chest in the corner. Casita clinked a cheery good morning with the tiles beside her as she cartwheeled her arms to free herself from the blanket.

“Ay, Casita, why didn’t you wake me? I’m late! I was supposed to meet Osvaldo—what time is it?!”

She threw aside the blanket and stumbled to her feet, her knees catching on the tent-like ruana that she was still draped in. She smooshed the blanket into a messy bunch, grabbing the cushion in her other hand as she went. As she shoved everything back into its place, she struggled to follow along with the ticks that Casita tallied off to her with its shutters like a tolling grandfather clock. Her stomach sank more with each count.

“...five… six?… nooo-ho-hooo , it’s already seven?!”

She shrugged herself out of the ruana and turned frantically in circles, searching fruitlessly for her glasses with blurry-eyed desperation. Casita bounced the table, where they clinked into view. She snatched them and hurried toward the stairs. 

Maybe, if I hurry, I can still make it…

Halfway through the courtyard, she nearly collided with Bruno and Mamá, who were walking out of the kitchen together. Bruno held a cup of steaming coffee in each hand, and nearly dropped them both at his sobrina’s speedy entrance. 

“AY, Mira—what…¡caray chiquita, ten cuidado!” [ sheez kiddo, be careful!]

She draped the ruana over his arm, and he jerkily dipped the cups to make room to accept it. 

“Sorry, Tío!”

“Mirabel, where are you going?” Mamá asked, reaching out to mercifully take the drinks from her brother. “Slow down!”

“Gotta go, can’t explain now!”

Ooor later… she added to herself as she took the stairs two at a time, dodging this way and that to avoid Dolores and Tía Pepa, who were already making their way down for breakfast. She’d have to think up some sort of excuse to give them before she returned home. 

She was supposed to get up before everyone—she’d grab quick bite to eat then slip out to meet with Osvaldo before breakfast, so no one would get suspicious. Then she would still have time to make rounds with Abuela, and she could even stop to check in on the candlemaker for the memorial before heading back in for the evening. It was all planned. It was all going to work. 

I had a plaaaaaan… she mourned to herself, wincing as she dragged her fingers through her hair to tidy it. 

By the time she made it to Osvaldo’s shop in the square, she was a solid hour late. She stopped for just moment outside the door to take a deep, steadying breath before heading inside with as much confidence and leadership–ness she could muster. It wasn’t much. 

“Señor Osvaldo?” she called. 

“Mirabel!” he said, poking his head around from the side of rather large piñata. “There you are! I was starting to think you messed up and forgot about our meeting.” He set the piñata down on a table and brushed his hands on his pants, flashing her a bright, friendly grin. “That would have been embarrassing for you…and a little rude, too, haha!”

“Haaa!” she replied, swinging her hand with an amused snap. “Yeah…I may have overslept just a little bit. But I’m here now!”

“Overslept, huh? You do look super tired. Maybe you’re doing too much. I mean, you’re still pretty young, you know. Maybe you aren’t ready for it yet! You know. For all the stuff. The following after Doña Alma stuff.” 

He nodded his head thoughtfully as he walked behind the counter of the little shop. Mirabel stretched her polite smile a little bit wider. He turned back to look at her when she didn’t respond. 

“...You know that stuff?”

“Yep! I follow, señor, I follow. I—”

“You know,” he continued, placing an elbow on his countertop and leaning forward conversationally. 

Ay the man doesn’t quit! Mirabel took a careful breath.

 “...when Doña Alma plans the door ceremonies, she always makes sure everything goes real smooth, and I mean smooth . I’ve usually got the supplies list months in advance, and I don’t think she’s ever been late to anything—”

“Ooookay,” Mirabel said tensely, walking over to the counter with as much poise as she could and splaying her fingers out flat on the surface. Just keep smiling. Ugh, she felt like Isabela. 

“Thank you for that… thoughtful advice, but I am handling it all fantastically! I’ve got some stuff to learn still, sure, but I think I’ve got everything under control.” 

Osvaldo blinked at her.

“Do you, though?”

Mirabel dropped her smile. "Watcha got for me, Osvaldo?”

“Down to business! Alright my girl, let me lay out your options for you, since, you know, you’re new and inexperienced. Now over here we’ve got what you might call the streamers… ”

As Osvaldo droned on and on about all the party supplies he could offer her, Mirabel tried to ignore the aching pain behind her eyes from a night spent playing cards instead of sleeping. And a morning without breakfast. Or coffee. 

Gaaaah Osvaldo! I already know all the supplies you can offer! We’ve lived in the same town my entire life and I have, in fact, attended a celebration before so of course I know your entire inventory…

She tried to channel the same stoic patience she’d seen Abuela exercise. 

He means no harm, he’s just…very honest, and thoughtful, in his own weird way, she reminded herself. I mean, this totally all could have just been a letter…but it’s fine! I’m fine, I’ve got all the time in the world…It’s about the people Mirabel. Keep a perspective. The people. 

“...and THESE are our blue streamers. Now, before you make a choice, let me talk a bit about how these are superior to the green streamers…”

Wow. With a headache and an empty stomach, it was remarkably hard to love people. 

Maybe that’s why Tío Bruno hangs out with rats, she mused, and thought brought a genuine smile to her face. A smile that that quickly lost its vigor when she thought back to her rushed morning. 

Tío Bruno had been so kind. He was probably just as exhausted, with a rough night of his own to boot, let alone her breakdown. And yet, he’d stayed up with her. And the coffee…he’d been carrying two cups when she practically ran him down in her mad dash up to her room. 

I didn’t even say good morning, she thought guiltily. She would have to find him this evening, to thank him. Maybe staying up all night wasn’t the best choice in the world…but he was just trying to help. 

“I like the green streamers,” she said definitively, interrupting Osvaldo's monologue. He nodded appreciatively at her confident tone. 

“Well alright then,” he said as he took note on a piece of paper. 

“Now,” Mirabel said, putting her hands on her hips and straightening her glasses. “Let’s talk fireworks…”

—

“There it is!” Bruno exclaimed as they approached the old mango tree, rubbing his hands together in nervous excitement.

“Bruno…I don’t know about this. I thought you needed a nap?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. You healed me with your sisterly love or whatever, remember? It was really good changua.”

She bit her lip as she came to stand beside him, her eyes roving up the many branches before them.

“Come on,” he goaded with a whisper. “You scared?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, turning to him with an incredulous look.

“Oh. Well, d-don’t be. I woulda seen it if we were going to fall to our doom. Doom is my specialty.”

He waved dismissively and grabbed her hand, pulling her forward to the great wide trunk. 

“What has gotten into you?” she declared, half-laughing, half-wincing as she watched him scramble clumsily onto the lowest branch with her hands outstretched as if to steady him. 

“This,” he huffed, turning on the branch so he was facing her and shucking off his ruana, “is your daughter’s doing. She’s a menace. Oh, a-and speaking of…y-you’re gonna want to tuck your skirt up. I don’t know how you do anything in those things anyway. I noticed Isa’s been wearing pants in the garden lately, and ya know, I think she’s on to something.” 

He dropped his ruana to the ground and reached out a hand to his sister. 

“Come on, Juli,” he urged, more gently. “You can do it. A-and I'm here, too. I've got you.”

She hesitated a moment longer, eyeing him with a mix of amused curiosity and genuine concern for his sanity fighting each other on her face. Then she put her hand in his. 

The climb up was much slower than when he’d struggled to keep up with his spritely sobrinos, but Julieta managed like a champ. He had to keep up a constant stream of rambling to distract her from looking down, and by the time they reached the higher branches, he was completely out of breath. 

Almost there, almost there. Hey, mira, mira! [look, look!] See that bird over there? That’s a contigo. They, uh, they like breva, but not the seeds, they spit those out. W-watch your footing there. Say, I haven’t had breva in a long time, have you? Nothing like fresh breva on queso fresco… y-y-y con panela? Mmm, que rico, huh? Heh. They’re gonna be in season pretty soon I think, right? G-grab this branch instead, Juli, I-I think it’s sturdier. Hey, y-you know what else a contigo eats?...

But they made it. 

“Look,” he finally breathed, nodding to the direction behind her once she’d found her feet securely on the widest branch Bruno could find. Another, slightly thinner branch stretched out at shoulder height—the one Mirabel had balanced on during their first tree-climbing escapade.

Julieta reached out one hand from the upper branch to grip his shirt with white-knuckled fingers, swaying slightly as she found her balance. Her hair had started to tumble out of her neat bun, and she was out of breath, too, but a look of gritty determination had taken over her flushed features. 

Yep, theeeres where Mirabel gets her stubbornness. It showed itself less in his sister now that age had mellowed out the sharpness of it, but it was definitely still there.

He grabbed Julieta’s elbow to steady her, his other arm looped securely around the branch above them.

Slowly, she turned to face the view. 

“Oh.”

“Right?”

“Well…I guess that’s worth all the climbing, isn’t it?” she marveled breathlessly. 

“Right?!” he laughed loud and bright, relief flooding him that she wasn't mad or-or-or upset …that maybe he had somehow made a good call. Him. In his excitement, he had almost forgotten how anxious he was, only noticing it now that it was leaving him. All his previous fatigue had been momentarily forgotten . 

I’ll probably pay for all this later, he mused, and surprisingly, the thought did nothing to dampen his almost giddy mood.

The sun was starting to drift up and away from the roof of Casita, sending cooling shadows across the Encanto, splayed brightly before them. The breeze was gentle and cooling, easing them back into stillness as they caught their breath and took it all in.

“Now,” he said after a few peaceful moments had passed, giving her elbow a squeeze, “y-you know, I-I’m not saying you have to take up tree climbing as your new hobby, b-but there are some things we can think of that are better than more cooking, right?” He chuckled at his own joke.

“Bruno,” Julieta said softly, suddenly turning to look back at him. 

“What?”

He dragged his attention away from the spectacular view to look at her, and it was then he realized her eyes were shining with tears, her mouth tight and wobbling. His stomach dropped, but she just shook her head, giving a little tug to his shirt and laughing wetly. 

“It’s just…it’s just really good to have you back.”

A bittersweet flood pressed into his chest—guilt and love and gratitude and…and… He tried to think of something to say back, but words again failed him under the weight of everything still unsaid. He took his arm off her elbow and wrapped it around her shoulders instead. She let go of the front of his shirt and returned the embrace, gripping the back of his shirt just as tightly. 

“I love you, hermanito,” she sniffled into his shoulder. He squeezed her tighter. 

“Yeah, I …I love you, too, sis.”

—--

By the time Mirabel had finished up with Osvaldo, she had to practically sprint across town to make it to the bridge, where she knew Abuela was going to be discussing fortification of the riverbed with Luisa and some of the men from town. She stopped more than once to grip exasperatedly at the stitch in her side, waving with a stretched grin to those side-eyeing her as they ambled passed and blowing out a determined breath as she pushed onward. Though it took slightly longer, she purposefully avoided the plaza, where she knew Mamá would likely be stationed by her booth, as usual. 

When she finally arrived at the bridge, the group was already deep in discussion. Luisa was surveying the banks from the center of the bridge with her hands on her hips, and Abuela was conferring with one of the men beside her. Tía Pepa was there too, looking up at the sky as she explained something with outstretched arms to the men who stood on the banks below. At her feet, Antonio sat slouched against the wall of the bridge, his smooshed cheek leaning on his hand as he scratched at the ground with a stick. 

“Hey!” Mirabel called as she reached the edge of the path, waving her arm in the air as she half-jogged up to the group. She wiggled her fingers briefly at Antonio, whose brightened expression quickly fell back into disappointed boredom when he saw that she was only here to talk with the grown-ups. A small part of her absently noted the oddity that there were no animals with him, but the thought quickly slipped away as she refocused on the matter of the riverbed, intent on jumping in seamlessly.

“Sorry I’m late,” she huffed, squinting one eye shut momentarily behind her glasses to chase away her headache. It had only surged after this most recent expense of energy she definitely did not have. “I’m here now though! Where are we at?”

“Hey sis,” Luisa said, looking her up and down and drawing her eyebrows together suspiciously. “You good?”

“Yep!” She waved a hand dismissively and brought her hands to her hips. “Never better. What are we talking about?”

“Well,” Tía Pepa said, tapping her lips thoughtfully, “I think there’ll be a storm rolling in some time in the next couple weeks.” 

Mirabel glanced up at the cloudless blue sky, then back at Tía Pepa.

“It’s far, but it feels big,” Pepa jumped to explain, pulling at her braid absently. “I-it’s like it's just outside my reach, like I can almost tell it’s there, but not enough to be sure. I-I don’t think I even would have noticed it so early if I hadn’t been using my magic less.”

“We are taking precautions, just in case,” Abuela abridged with a tone of soothingly finality, placing a hand on Pepa’s arm and nodding to Señor Rodrigez beside her. “During several of the rainier days, the river has swelled, and we don’t want to risk a flood if a larger storm does come.”

At that, Señor Rodriguez pointed to something in the river bed, motioning for Abuela’s attention, and Abuela nodded and turned to listen to his explanation. Tía Pepa followed. Luisa sidestepped awkwardly until she was standing back next to Mirabel. 

“Hey, what’s up with you?” she half-whispered. “You look like Tío Bruno on one of his ‘three coffee’ mornings.”

“Thanks,” Mirabel grumbled back, tugging self-consciously at her blouse to straighten it. “I’m fine, okay? I just want to get this done and get home.”

“I just–”

Just then, Abuela turned back toward them, and they both stood a little straighter. 

“Luisa, can you come look at this?” Abuela asked. 

“Coming, Abuela!” Luisa stepped forward to Abuela’s side, leaving Mirabel once again standing alone behind the group. 

Mirabel let her shoulders drop, staring slightly disheartened at their backs. From where she stood a few paces behind them, she could make out only small snippets of the conversation that carried on totally fine without her input or opinion. The only one who even seemed to still be aware that she was there was Antonio, who eyed her curiously from his place on the ground. Mirabel avoided his eyes. 

This isn’t something you have to fix , Bruno had said. Let the grown-ups handle it.

Mirabel felt something familiar and uncomfortable begin to itch in her gut, growing with an ugly burn until even her hands suddenly tingled with nervous energy. She tightened her jaw against the gnawing in her stomach and surged forward, squeezing herself clumsily between Pepa and Luisa and scanning the water below for whatever they were discussing.

“‘Scuse me, sorry—thanks Tía. If I could just—I’ll take a look as well…” She put her hands on the bridge wall and leaned over to look at the water, as if she had something to consider there.

Tía Pepa made an affronted huff and raised a well-manicured eyebrow at her before stepping slightly to the side to make room. Luisa, however, did not budge. Instead she just frowned down at Mirabel, then placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. Mirabel tensed.

“You sure you’re good, little sis?” she asked, not whispering this time.

Mirabel gritted her teeth, her face warming slightly. “Leave it, Lulu.”

“I’m just saying,” she urged gently, “why don’t you go take it easy?” She gave a little shrug and flashed one of her confident, I can handle this, no sweat smiles that sometimes made Mirabel want to scream. “I think we’ve got this here without you.”

“Why don’t you,” Mirabel said, her voice tight and horribly cheerful as she tipped her head to look pointedly at Luisa, “butt out and just let me handle something for once.” 

Luisa’s eyes widened in surprise, then Mirabel watched with dismay as her sister’s mouth quivered ever so slightly, just for a moment. Luisa bit her lower lip and drew back her hand, shoulders dropping. 

“My bad,” she muttered, turning back to the river with a furrowed brow. Mirabel’s heart sank. 

What is wrong with me? she thought desperately, fists tightening in her skirt. Things had been so good with Luisa lately—they’d been closer than ever, and Mirabel had finally felt seen by her, and not just as an obstacle in her way. And now here she was, ruining all of that because she couldn’t seem to put two cohesive thoughts together. 

“Luisa, I’m sorry, I—”

“Mirabel.” 

Mirabel winced. She leaned forward past Luisa to look at Abuela, whose mouth was a thin hard line. Her brow was drawn together, but her eyes were soft with concern. 

Ah. She heard me.

“Sí, Abuela?”

“Luisa is right. We are doing fine here. Head back up to Casita, por favor. You…don’t seem to be yourself today.”

“No! I–I’m sorry, Luisa, I-I’m just tired because I was up late a-and I…I just made a bad call last night. It won’t happen again, really. But I’ll be fine for today.” 

“I believe you, cariño,” Abuela replied. “But go rest. We’ve got this without you.”

With that Abuela turned back to her conversation with the men below the bridge as if nothing had happened. Mirabel knew this was probably a mercy—to avoid drawing attention to the situation and embarrassing her further—but the finality of it only felt like a cold blow.

Mirabel leaned back, heart sinking, and looked to Pepa and Luisa beside her. Tía Pepa’s eyebrow was still raised at her, but her expression was of concern instead of irritation now. Luisa still gazed firmly in the direction of the water. 

Mirabel stepped away from the bridge wall in defeat. Face burning and markedly avoiding all eye contact, she turned and made her way back across the bridge.

—

“Candle making?”

“No, definitely not.”

“What about…gardening?”

Julieta shook her head firmly where it lay on Bruno’s stomach. They’d long since descended from the heights of the tree to settle at its markedly safer base. Bruno was sprawled out in the grass, his head and shoulders propped against the trunk, with Julieta settled perpendicular to him, turning him into a makeshift pillow. They both picked at the pan de yuca that Julieta had sheepishly pulled from her apron pocket once their feet were firmly planted on the ground. 

Just in case! she’d shrugged.

Old habits die hard. Well, he certainly wasn’t complaining now. 

“No,” she explained, popping another small bite into her mouth. “Isabela is just now discovering herself and all that she is capable of. I don’t want to get in the way of that.” 

“Yeah, b-but if you helped her in the garden, then I wouldn’t have to.” 

Julieta grinned at the sky. “Next.”

“Okay, okay…pottery?”

“Mm-mm. Too much like baking.”

“Hm. Dominos?”

Julieta pulled a face and stuck out her tongue in a way that looked so much like something Mirabel might do that Bruno couldn’t help but snort loudly, earning himself a swat to the arm as it sent Juli’s head bouncing. 

“Sorry, sorry. Ay, come on, Juli!” he said, throwing his arm in the air and letting it fall back to the grass. “There’s got to be something you’ve always wanted to get into. Painting, singing, basket weaving, riding magical winged donkeys— give me something to work with here!”

Julieta chewed thoughtfully on her bread. She glanced sideways at him.

“What?” he urged.

“Well,” she began, smiling shyly. “There is one thing I always thought would be fun to do when we were kids, but I never had time between cooking lessons and medical lessons and normal lessons and duties in town…” she shook her head again, waving her hand in the air dismissively. “But, it’s silly, really at my age to think of picking something like that up—”

“Spit it out, hermana.”

“I’ve always wanted to play an instrument,” she said quickly, as if she needed to say it fast if she was going to say it at all. 

“Hey now!” Bruno’s grin widened. “There’s an idea! Whadaya, whadaya thinking, like, like, tiple or something?”

“No…”

“Piano?”

“...I actually always thought the gaita was really beautiful.”

“Oh.”

The gaita was not a forgiving instrument. Even Bruno could remember when Felix had gotten Camilo a gaita for his tenth birthday. Casita’s walls were no match for the terrible screeching the boy had managed to elicit from the poor instrument for weeks until Abuela had put an end to it, encouraging him to ‘play to his strengths’ instead. Bruno’s rats had been most grateful.

“It’s silly, right?” Julieta winced, putting a hand up to her eyes. “Ay, forget I even mentioned it. I’d drive the house crazy. Maybe pottery is a good idea after all, I—”

“I think you should do it,” Bruno blurted. Julieta’s hand lowered and she peeked up at him suspiciously.

“Really?”

“Yeah. You, uh, y-you should do something for yourself. Just for you. Who cares if it makes everyone crazy? ‘Cause—’cause you’re always doing everything for everyone else, and…well. Yeah. Gaita’s a pretty far stretch from cooking so…y-you should do it.”

Julieta grinned up at him, and this time, there wasn’t any sadness in it. Just a bright kind of love, like when they were eight and he told her a corny joke and she shook her head at him and rolled her eyes, but her expression was all fondness and laughter and sugar. Something warm and comforting settled around his heart.

“G-good, i-it’s decided then," he said awkwardly, patting the top of her head before tentatively letting his hand rest there. He leaned his head back against the trunk of the tree, suddenly feeling the fatigue from the last 24 hours finally winning its battle to drag his eyes shut. Yes, a nap beneath the mango tree sounded just about right.

“Gaita it is,” he mumbled, settling in. “Just, uh, you know, maybe…maybe let me know before you start so I can get Dolores to lend me her ear plugs—Ay! Stop hitting me, Juli! For a someone who heals with love you’d think you’d follow the whole ‘do no harm’ thing a little more closely…”

—

Mirabel trudged up the steps into the house as if her feet were made of lead. Casita creaked the door open toward her. 

“Hola, Casita,” she said, and her voice wobbled just a little. She patted the door jam as she walked in, and the tiles behind her feet clinked softly after her. She dragged herself up to her room and fell face-first onto the bed, letting the mattress muffle her groan of deep frustration. She didn’t bother pushing her glasses up from her face, allowing the discomfort of the frames pushing against her nose to draw her attention away from the ache in the back of her skull.

It felt like she’d closed her eyes for all of 30 seconds when there was a quiet knock at her still-open door, though the shifting of light pouring in from her window suggested it had been longer. She sat up and straightened her slightly-bent glasses on her nose.

“Hey, kiddo.” Tío Bruno stood fidgeting in the doorway, drumming his fingers silently on the frame. “C-can I come in?”

“Yeah, Tío,” she sighed, rubbing her eyes under her glasses and pulling her legs up to cross beneath her skirt. “Come on in.” 

Seeing Bruno suddenly reminded her that she’d never made it to the candlemaker’s shop to check on her progress for the memorial. She also still need to speak to Padre Flores about the special mass, and to pick up the bowls that Julio had finished…it felt like a mountain piling up in her chest.

I’m running out time, she thought with an inward groan.

Tío Bruno stepped into the room, placing a hand briefly on the top of her head as he passed and setting a plate he was carrying down on her nightstand. He retreated to one of her reading chairs and plopped down. Manolo skittered out onto the armrest. 

“I brought you some leftovers,” he said, smiling. “You look beat.” 

“So I’ve heard,” she intoned, scooting closer to the table. “Thanks, I’m starving.” 

“Yeah, I-I didn’t see you at breakfast, and Casita said you didn’t come back for lunch, so…” He trailed off.

She hummed absently and took a tearing bite of a slightly-stale arepa. “It’s been a long day.”

Bruno nodded. "Yeah, I bet. Good match for a long night, eh?"

Mirabel blew out a raspberry and folded forward until her face hit the bed, tucking her arms in as she went until she was just a ball on the mattress.

"Well, I know you're tired so I-I won't keep you, I won't keep you, I just, well. I had an interesting morning with Juli, and it was all inspired by you, sorta, and—"

"With Mamá?" Mirabel mumbled suspiciously from her ball.

"Y-yeah, you see, it all started 'cause I—well, we—were talking about you and last night and—"

Mirabel shot back up into sitting. 

"Wait, you told Mamá about last night?!"

Bruno momentarily froze, eyes widening and lips pulling in tight. Mirabel narrowed her eyes sharply at him, and he jumped back into motion.

"N-no!" he stuttered, raising his hands in surrender in front of him. Manolo fled off the chair into some unknown sanctuary and Bruno grimaced. "Well…well, a-and yes—"

She groaned and buried her face in her hands. I do not need this right now. 

"Tío! You know how she is! She's going to be so much more—her now and I just can’t deal with her hovering right now on top of everything else and—"

"Hey now," Bruno interrupted, and the sudden serious tone in his voice made her pause and drop her hands. He was looking at her with his brows drawn and his mouth frowning, like he did that day he put on his "door face." But this time, he wasn't joking. 

"Look, I know how she can be, b-believe me, I know, but, kid, she loves you more than anything and she's just—she's just—I-I just think you oughta know whatcha got and all, with a ma like that, okay? Just, take it easy on her."

Mirabel pulled back her shoulders. Something about his admonishing tone stung in a way she didn't expect; he never spoke to her like that. He weelded and urged, offered tentative advice and half-hearted scolding, but it was always with a joking spark in his eyes. Now, though he still spoke softly, there was no levity to his tone, and this gentle reprimand from the one person who never seemed to find fault felt like just one more failure to top off a day overflowing with them. Something in her hardened before she realized what was happening. 

"I know what I've got," she snapped, her voice low. "That's not what I meant, I'm not…I'm not naïve, or blind or something that you need to point that out, okay? All I meant was that my—my dream —is not something that I want you to be sharing with everyone."

His expression softened into something she didn't like any better. It was too close to pity, too close to the way Mamá looked at her sometimes. Her stomach clenched.

"Kid, I’m just saying—" 

"I’m not a kid anymore, Tío! Stop calling me that!” 

She shot her hands down to the bed, balling the blankets in her fists and raising her shoulders against the attack that she was vaguely aware wasn’t even there. Her head was aching, her exhausted body felt like a day-old flan, and the floodgates of her pent-up resentment had burst open. Everything was already pouring out before she could even think to stop it. 

“Everyone thinks that they need to worry about me, that I'm some silly little kid and that I'm not ready, that I’m too young—but I have been waiting my whole life for a chance to do something. I’m sick of being too young, or…or…too giftless , or too…whatever to be allowed to do something that matters. I’m on that front door, right in the middle, and that means I’m ready. But still, here I am! Always having to convince everyone that I’m ready, so–so–I’m sorry, Tío, but I just don’t have room for little mistakes anymore. I can’t be doing childish stuff like making paper butterflies and staying up all night to play go fish — gahhh, that was such a dumb mistake! I have to be ready every day. I have real, serious things to do, okay? And I have to do them well, or no one will believe in me. I want to do my part, and I'm so tired of being told no.”

Her voice had slowly risen as all the frustrations of the day pushed forward to finally seep out of her, venomous with her long-avoided pain. Bruno's eyes had grown wider with each moment. He sat motionless before her, his hand still raised where he’d started to reach for her.

She steeled herself for the fallout of her outburst, but he just dropped his gaze from hers and cleared his throat, moving his outstretched hand to scratch at the collar of his ruana instead.

"You’re right,” he shrugged quietly. 

She deflated. “What?”

“You’re right, y-you’re not a kid anymore. I think I—I think I forget sometimes. Too many years in the walls, heh. Ehh...” He shifted uncomfortably in the chair, then looked up at her carefully. “But, but, but, I do believe in you Mira, and I think a lot of other people do, too. Most everyone, really. But sometimes, sometimes we still worry about you, too, ya know?”

Bruno flashed her a small crooked smile, one too flimsy to last more than couple seconds. Mirabel’s heart suddenly ached, and she wished so much that she could do that entire moment over—the entire day over.

What am I doing? she thought again, desperately.

Here she was, hungry and tired and taking it out on all the wrong people, on Luisa and Tío Bruno—ay , as if there even were right people for this..this...this terrible-ness. Guilt flooded her chest. Her mental note from earlier in the day to thank Bruno when she saw him suddenly came back to her now, far too late. 

“I’m sorry, Tío," she whispered, her voice tight. She sank back into her seat on bed, shaking her head clear and bringing her arms to wrap at her elbows. "That was stupid, I–I shouldn’t have yelled. I’m not mad at you, really I know you were just trying to help. It’s just…it’s been a really long day and—” she paused, remembering Abuela's stinging words from earlier."--and I'm not myself today."

Her voice cracked at the end of her sentence, just a little. Bruno’s eyebrows drew together and his hand twitched upward in his lap before clenching into a fist, as if he was going to reach for her again but then thought better of it. He looked back at the floor instead and shuffled his feet nervously.

“I-it’s alright, k—,” he stopped, choking slightly on the word as he caught himself. “It’s–it’s alright. You don’t have to apologize to me, not...not ever, heh. Mm."

Mirabel shook her head again, feeling her chin quiver and tightening her jaw against it. She squeezed her eyes shut against the heavy silence that now sat in the room, only broken by the gentle scratching of Tío Bruno’s feet against the floor where he still shuffled them anxiously. When she trusted herself to be somewhat steady, she opened her eyes and patted the spot next to her. After a moment’s hesitation, Bruno rose from the chair and sat down beside her instead, wrapping a careful arm around her shoulders. 

“You’ve got a lot going on, huh?” he muttered.

“Yeah,” she whispered back.

Bruno nodded thoughtfully at the ceiling, giving her a small squeeze. They sat in silence for a moment longer, watching Manolo where he had tentatively emerged from under the bed to seek out arepa crumbs.

“Maybe…," Bruno finally began, his voice creaking a bit from the settled quiet. "Maybe you just need some time? Some space to sort it all out? …for yourself. Instead of—instead of everyone else telling you what you need.”

He spoke the words strangely, as if maybe he was realizing something about them, too. What you need is more time, Abuela had said. Mirabel blinked at Manolo and just nodded absently, unable to form any sort of real response. 

"I’ll tell you what," he said decisively. "I think….l-let's skip our morning tea tomorrow.” 

She tensed, opening her mouth to protest, but he continued before she could respond.

“Just tomorrow! So you can get some good rest, okay? I-I think you need it. Heck, we both do.” He gave her a small smile and reached out to nudge her chin up with one of his knuckles. “You know I’m not going anywhere, anyway. The mountains around the Encanto are very tall, and I really don’t feel like riding a horse again anytime soon …”

He winked at her, and she mustered up her best scowl for him.

“I’ll be here,” he added, nodding reassuringly. “I’ll…you know I’ll always be here. I wasn’t making that up, before.”

She sniffed. “Even when I yell at you for no good reason?”

He huffed a quiet chuckle. “Yeah, I’ve, uh, I’ve got some practice with that. You’ll have to do better than that I think, t-to get rid of me now. Maybe–maybe if you yell at the rats or something, then we might have a problem, but let’s cross that bridge when we get there, huh?”

She let out a half-broken laugh and leaned her head on his shoulder. He gave her one more squeeze and a quick kiss to the top of her head, then rose to leave. 

When he reached the doorway, he lifted his fist to knock on the frame, but suddenly stopped, putting his hand flat against the wood instead.

“Just one more thing, k–mm…Mirabel.” He turned halfway back toward her. His face was half-covered by his mop of grey-black curls, but what she could see of it was serious, his mouth tight. 

“That door down there…that isn’t what decides you’re ready,” he said carefully. “Nothing can decide that but you.”

He nodded once, and then the seriousness was gone, dropped like a hood from around him. When he spoke again, his voice was lighter, as if to shake off the moment before.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll see you at dinner, yeah?” 

He knocked swiftly on her door frame, and once, slowly, to his head, and with that, he was gone. 

—

Woooooosh......pshhh, hshhh. Woooooosh......pshhh, hshhh, paaaaaaah.....

The unfamiliar sounds gushed around him almost like sheets of falling sand, like a thousand whispers just too far away to hear. 

Woooooosh......pshhh, hshhh. Woooooosh......pshhh, hshhh, paaaaaaah…..

Bruno stepped his bare feet down onto the wood of his bedroom floor. He stood from his bed and padded to the center of the room. The air was thick with salt and brine, filling his nose with the sharp, wet scent. He could taste the saltiness on his tongue. The tide pushed in across the floorboards, the chilling foam washing over his bare feet, thinning as it went until it was just a film across the wood behind him. As the water pulled back, it carried grains of wood with it like sand, and Bruno's heels sank slowly into the floor, leaving him standing just a little deeper than he'd begun. 

He'd never been to the beach. He'd read about it, but being here was different. The saltiness tasted different than salt tossed into the air, than the rush of dry sand. It all felt thicker, heavier. He used to daydream as a child of visiting the beach, and here he was. How funny that all he had to do this whole time was step out of bed. 

Ahead of him Mirabel and Antonio splashed and played in the wake, seagulls dipping down to greet them with harsh calls. Deeper in, Luisa and Camilo swam amidst the waves. Antonio was almost as tall as Mirabel. When had he gotten so tall?

Beside him Dolores stood with her eyes closed, listening. The crash of each curling wave was deafening even to him. He reached out a hand to place on her shoulder. 

Before he could reach her, the tide pulled again and he felt himself sink lower into the floorboards, up to his ankles now. He flailed his arms out instinctively to maintain his balance. He looked down at his feet. He could wiggle his toes and watch the wood mound and bend above them, only to be overtaken by the rush of foam and water once again. He absently wondered if his rats liked the beach. A deep whirring hummed in the air, and he looked up to see a fat silver arrow cutting lazily through the sky above them, creating a stream of new clouds in its wake. 

As he watched the strange shape fade from view, he suddenly realized he could no longer hear the seagulls. When he looked back, no one was playing in the waves. The big orange globe of the sun was dropping down past the horizon where his door should be, now already almost gone beneath the shimmering blue-grey surface of the ocean. The sky was a riot of pinks and reds and the deepest of purples. 

A sunset. Or was it a sunrise? Wait—hadn't it just been night, hadn't he just been in bed?

As the last of the orange sun slipped below the line of water, a flash of green raced out like a gunshot, pulsing toward him faster than the tide. WOOSH. He squeezed his eyes shut as it pushed past. Everything tasted green, salt and brine. 

Sing through my voice. Play through my hands. Let the way be open. Let the way be open. Let the way be open. 

He turned sharply to look beside him again, but instead of Dolores, it was a woman with dark brown curls streaked in grey standing with her back to him. Green shards glinted from her ears. He tried to take a step back, but the tide had eaten away at the floor beneath him and now he was sunk up to his knees. He could no longer wiggle his toes. He fell back, his palms hitting the wet floorboards. He couldn't reach his bed. 

Before him the woman had multiplied, two, no, three figures standing identical in the waves, then five, then eight, thirteen, all standing with their backs to him. All turning together toward him with Mirabel's aged face, with her broken heart, with her tears. 

“No!” he yelled, scrabbling with desperate fingers at the ground. Another wave was coming in, and now he was deep enough to be overtaken. He’d never swam in the ocean before. He let out a strangled yell, then quickly shut his mouth against the approaching water.

WOOSH. Rather than water, a gust of rolling wind pushed his hair back from his face and stole his breath away. Green green green, the light flashed again, and suddenly his legs were free. He stumbled forward and cracked open his eyes, slowly lowering his arms from where they'd risen to protect his face. 

Gone was the salt and the roll of the waves, gone was the sand. The air smelled like the pages of an old book, musty and aged, and the warm light from the beach had been replaced by dim flickering candles. 

He was in the walls, crouched on the floor of one of his old passageways. He pushed himself to his feet with shaking hands.

“How—?”

“Tío!”

Bruno turned his head. 

“M-mirabel?” 

Behind him, Mirabel stood with her hands tucked sweetly in front of her, smiling up at him with her bright eyes glinting playfully behind her glasses. She couldn’t have been a day over five. She reached out to him as if asking to be picked up, the little lace ruffles of her white dress swishing dust into the air with the movement. Bruno took a step forward, reaching out to lift her, but she suddenly turned with a giggle and began to run through the halls. 

No, no, she can get hurt in here, she can fall in the pit or…or…

“Mirabel! ” Bruno sprinted after her, turning corner after corner only to see her dress disappear around the next. Her sweet laughter echoed against the walls. “Hey! Wait, kid!”

His bare feet slipped against the dusty floor as he turned into another passageway, slamming him into one of the walls. He pushed it away, stumbling forward. Ahead of him was the pit. Beyond that, he could hear Mirabel’s voice echoing like a memory. 

He ran faster, his heart pounding, and lept just as his toes hit the edge of the wood. He cleared the first jump, then the second, pushing forward from the rotting planks and bounding clumsily to the other side, just barely missing the misty darkness below. Without looking back, he pushed on. 

“Mirabel! Please, stop!”

Bruno turned a final corner and skidded to an immediate halt at the sight before him, his hands rising to grip his shirt in white knuckled fear. 

He was standing in front of the space where his room should have been, his room within the walls. But instead of the ramshackle wooden plank that had guarded it before, it was his door—his miracle door, his solemn, haunted face carved in gold, eyes staring back menacingly. 

Let the way be open. 

He couldn't slow his aching lungs; he was taking in so little air with every gasping breath. He took a step back, and then another. But then, suddenly, there was a hand in his, and green green green blinded his vision once again.

When the light faded, he looked down to see Antonio standing beside him, smiling up at him warmly.

“Let’s get you to your door,” he said. 

With a terrified gulp, Bruno turned again to face the wooden visage before him. It stared back, cold and grave. Beside him, he felt Antonio squeeze his hand reassuringly. He felt his breathing slow, his nerves steady, just enough. Bruno reached out a shaking hand, hovering his fingers over the brass knob…

And then in one swift movement, he pushed open the door. 

Let the way be open.

WOOSH.

Bruno awoke to the horrible sensation of sand-laden wind rushing at him, dousing him in abrasive grains that scratched at his face and filled his nose. He threw up an arm to shield his eyes, sitting up disorientingly and sputtering sand from his mouth.  

“Ack—phfk—E-ENOUGH!” he shouted, shaking grains from his hair and wiping at his face with his forearm. He pressed his quivering hands hard into eyes and let out a shaky breath. His shoulders shuddered as he folded in on himself, burying his elbows into his stomach and raising his knees in makeshift shield against the voices still firing like barely-whispered echos through his brain.

Letthewaybeopenanewperspectivemaybethere’ssomethingyou’renotseeingjustsayyou’rewelcomejustbethereforthemletthewaybeopenI’mgladyou’rhereletthewaybeopenletthewaybeopen—

"Enough," he whispered more softly, resolutely. As if in response, his mind quieted, and he relaxed his balled posture with a heavy sigh, releasing his hands from where they'd been grabbing at his hair.

"Y-you win. You win, you win, I-I'll look, okay? I'll look again..."

He dropped his hands into his lap and shot a wary look up to the heavens. His ears rang with the sudden silence.

"Just please… please promise to show me something new? Will you show me something new? I can’t…I can’t see her again. I can’t do this anymore." 

A rat scrambled into his hands where they'd fallen face up in his lap. It huddled down into a ball there, shivering slightly. Bruno lifted it to his chest, pressing it carefully to his heart and curling his shoulders and knees in around it. He let the small thump of its miniscule pulse steady his own rapid heartbeat. 

After a moment, it raised its head from the shelter of Bruno's hands and sniffed at his face with a whisker-laden nose. Bruno softened his hold on it, and it climbed up to settle in the crook of his neck, poking its still-sniffing snout toward the back wall of the room where the big round doorway yawned open like a waiting, dark embrace.

"What do you think, chiquito?" Bruno whispered, barely audible even in the silence.

As if in response, the rat slid down his back with scratching claws, hopping off the bed and skittering in a zig-zag path toward the vision cave. Tentatively, it inched toward the open door until just the tip of its nose breached the threshold. Then it turned and stood, dipping its head and sniffing the air with its paws curled to its chest. All clear.

Well, he thought. That's about as close to a promise as I'll ever get. 

Bruno stepped his bare feet down onto the wood of his bedroom floor. He stood from his bed and padded to the center of the room.

"Okay. You can do this," he muttered to himself. With a terrified gulp, Bruno turned again to face the wooden door before him, settled like a great lightless sun on the horizon. 

"L-let's… heh …l-let's get you to your door..."

Chapter Text

Bruno’s hands wouldn't stop shaking. 

As he sank down into the sand, he kept his eyes locked on the small flame at the end of his match. It flickered and staggered with alarm, stuttering at the mercy of his quivering fingertips. He reached past his stiffly crossed legs toward the pile of leaves and herbs, watching as the flame fell to the kindling and the fire crackled to life. The heavy smell of sage filled the air. 

At the moment, the smell was making him feel a little sick. 

Okay, okay, cálmate. Oíme, sí?  You've gotta calm down, Bruno. P-p-pull it together. Going into it like this…nah you-you can't go into it like this. Now. Relax. Caaaalmate. [Calm yourself. Listen to me, okay? Caaaaalm down.]

He took a deep, steadying breath, but he couldn't make it reach the bottom of his lungs. He closed his eyes and rested his palms as loosely as he could against his knees, but they continued to quiver in the still night air. The inaudible whispers that had lingered after his vision-dream now seemed to move tangibly through the air around him, swirling in whisps like smoke from his fire. 

Let's get you to your door. Let the way be open. A new perspective. Let the way be open. Let the way be open. Let the way be open…

He could feel his magic rising in his chest, could feel it pushing at his mind, antsy and impatient, refusing to be held back any longer. 

He still wasn't ready. But that didn't matter anymore. 

WHOOSH.

The air around him suddenly picked up, tugging at his hair and clothes, pulling him up to his knees. Sand lifted from the ground, its raspy hiss dancing mesmerizingly with the voices in his ears.

Show me something different... he mumbled the words under his breath like an incantation, a beggar's prayer. Please show me something different. 

A new perspective.

His chest tight, his hands fisted, his ears thundering, Bruno opened his eyes. 

…and there was nothing. He shut his eyes tight and opened them again, squinting against the wind in confusion.

Still nothing.

Well– well, not nothing. Before him, the sand had formed its usual thundering dome. Within his chest, his magic drummed violently along with his heart. From the outside, the vision would appear to have begun. Full effect. Sand, wind, magic— check, check, check . But if the future had begun to reveal itself…well, then he wasn't a part of it. 

Slowly, Bruno put his hands down to the sand and brought himself up onto uneasy legs. He stayed crouched for a moment, then pulled himself up to a tentative stance, his arms bent and hands splayed out beside him as if the sand spinning around him was an angry jaguar prone to startling. He blew out a careful breath. 

Oooookay. Different. Yep, yep, okay. Well, there ya go, tonto. This is definitely different—y-y-you happy? [dummy]

“Uh...h-hello?” he stammered, and instantly winced at the stupidity. Who exactly was he talking to? The future? She'd never been one to listen. Even the dream voices, for the moment, had quieted. He pulled his lips in and swallowed dryly, finally dropping his shoulders to fully stand. 

“O-okay…Right. This is all t-t-totally fine…I think…” I mean, it’s not that vision, right? This is better than seeing…seeing that again. 

But…but what exactly is… this?

Normally, when the future pushed its way forward into his vision, he didn’t see his sand anymore. He could hear it, yes, and feel it. The grains would sometimes whip past his face and hands, and if he drew too close to the edge of his circle, the violent winds would sting his fingertips. It was grounding, actually—sometimes the only thing to remind him where—or, rather, when— he really was. After all, through his eyes, as the future took hold, the world appeared as it always did. Sometimes jumbled or out of order, sometimes fuzzy, as through bleary, early-morning eyes, but still real.

Now, though, all he saw was the green, magic-tinted sand. It was like the moment before he called the future forward. The future just…well, it wasn't there.

Bruno took a tentative step forward, only to immediately take a stumbling step right to avoid tripping over his own fire. 

“ Sorry! Sorry…”

As his clumsy feet brought him closer to the edge of the circle, the sand there suddenly flashed with a bright green light, crackling like lightning. Bruno startled, jerking backward with a pitched yelp. After a few seconds passed and he found he had not in fact been smote to his doom, he leaned slowly forward again toward that place where the light had been. As he drew closer, green sputtered forth once again within the spinning sand. 

…and something else. It was almost as if something was there, moving within the sand like a shadow through fogged glass. Bruno’s heart thudded in his ears and his breath caught in his chest. He raised his arm, reaching forward with quaking fingers toward the wall of rushing sand. And then, he saw it clearly. 

There in the patterns spun by the movement of the particles was an image of himself , standing semi-crouched with wide, fearful eyes, its hand outstretched toward his own. Bruno yanked back his arm in alarm, and the sand-Bruno yanked back his arm as well.  

Huh.

He lifted his hand just enough to give a small, single wave. Sand-Bruno waved back. 

It’s…me. A reflection, as if he was looking in a mirror instead of a storm of sand. It’s me…now. 

The Bruno before him was grainy and shaded with green, much like those who actually sat with him appeared while the future unfurled within the vision, if he happened to look over at them. But it moved along with him, perfectly timed and rippling slightly with wind. 

He stood for a moment, considering himself in the sand. His too-long hair blew wildly around his face, and his pajamas clung pitifully to his bony frame. His shoulders hunched with a fatigue he could feel in his soul, and seeing it before him now only made his them slump a little more. His mouth was tight with trepidation—a thin, crooked line like the one that had haunted his doorway since he was five. Ah yes, and his eyes—of course, even in the sand, they glowed a sickly green. 

Yep. Not much to see here, he thought dryly. Even portrayed in the impressive swirl of magical sand, he managed to be only slightly less disappointing than a mushy papaya. 

Tío! Mirabel would say if she were here. You are not a mushy papaya! You are an important and valued member of this family. 

Heh. He’d noticed that his sobrina’s voice had taken up residence in his head lately, a ready counter popping up to challenge his self-depreciating thoughts. And you know, coming from her, he could almost believe it. He imagined her putting her hands on her hips, all sass and stubborn pout. An amused snort escaped his nostrils, and he tilted his head, reconsidered his sand-self. He straightened his shoulders a bit and stood a little taller.

Hm. Maybe you're right, chiquita. [little girl]

He reached his hand out toward himself and met the sand-Bruno’s fingertips with his own, feeling the expected burn of grains rushing past his fingertips. But then—

WOOSH.

In an instant, he was thrown backwards with the dizzying sensation of endlessly falling. He grunted as his body hit the floor, but it was as if his mind had continued moving. He lay there, dazed by the same strange sensation he had been met with that day by the river—as if someone had gently placed their fingers against his forehead, then pushed with a sudden force that seemed to move straight through him.

Bruno dug his hands into the sand and gripped fistfuls of the grains, pushing himself up to sitting despite the continued vertigo. He put a gritty hand to his throbbing head and grimaced up toward where he’d once stood. There, at the place where his fingers had met the dome of sand, a small fissure had appeared, like a rock breaking the flow of water in a rushing stream, widening rapidly with each passing moment. Within that space where the sand parted were flashing images, moments sharp and clear, full color, full life. His stomach clenched with an awful recognition.

Ah. Yes, well, that—t-that’s a vision. He dug his hands deeper into the sand and fought to remain upright, eyes wide, as the fragmented images grew large enough to engulf him.

Flowers in a child’s hand, in a woman’s hair, her smile is comfort, her smile is sad—

Focus—what do you see, mi vida?

Standing alone, a boy before a vortex of sand that towered above him like a giant. Fear—

A quiet garden. Ants in a line below silvery-green leaves, someone shouting his name in the distance—

Travieso lindito. ¿Qué acabo de decir, Bruno? [Beautiful little troublemaker. What did I just say, Bruno?]

Her eyes are angry. Her eyes are afraid. 

Lo siento, lo siento—

Someone shouting his name in the distance.

Arrorró mi niño, arrorró mi sol— [Hush-a-bye my boy, hush-a-bye my sun—]

A hand in his, a hand letting go.

Rain, rain, endless rain—

Wet feet, wet clothes, a chill that reached the bone.

Standing together, three children before a swaying tree that towered above them like a giant. Fear—

Someone shouting his name in the distance. 

Holding tight, weary arms, his sisters’ hands in his, his arms aren’t big enough to hold them—

I will be strong and brave. 

Just like him. Just like him. 

Where is he? 

Someone shouting his name in the distance. 

Rain. Wind. It will never stop.

Cold. 

Let the way be open. 

The sand fell all at once like an exhale after a held breath. It rained down onto his head, but he sat frozen in place, panting unevenly and blinking grains and confusion from his eyes.

Before him, an emerald green glass had thunked heavily to the ground. From where he sat, he could just make out a tree etched within it, and three small figures huddled together below it. For some reason, the sight filled his stomach with a strange, unexplainable weight.

That… parts of that, that vision or cualquier locería it was had felt almost… familiar , almost like a dream that faded like smoke in the morning. [whatever craziness ]

But that doesn't make sense . It was a vision —it was the future. He couldn’t possibly remember it. 

After all, what he saw was the future ….right? Bruno Madrigal's gift was to see the future. Always had been.

Right?

Bruno grabbed at his collar, worrying the edge of the fabric with tugging fingers. 

“A new perspective…” he whispered. 

He took a slow breath, filling his lungs to the bottom. Then he scrambled to his feet, stumbling forward as fast as he could to gather wood for another fire. 

—

When Mirabel awoke that morning, it was like a fog had lifted and the sun was finally shining through in full clarity. 

…in her brain, anyway. Because outside her window, it was pouring. Guess Tía Pepa was on to something.

But still! Ah, what a difference a night of good sleep had made. She sat up in bed and clapped her hands together in anticipation.

Okay, she thought, slipping her feet into the floor and perching her glasses on her nose. Full night’s sleep, check. Now, I’ll get in a good breakfast, and then that to-do list is toast! 

“Morning Casita!” She chirped brightly as she stood to rummage through her closet for something to wear. She leaned back past the armoire doors to glance again at the grey skies, then quickly dove back in to grab her rain boots as well. 

Casita tapped the window shutters, then fluttered the floorboards up to where her feet stood, tipping her toes ever so slightly with a friendly nudge. 

“Oh, I’m MUCH better this morning, thanks. Tio Bruno was right, I really did just need to sleep in. Good as new! And now, I’ve got most of the day to get a jump on what I didn’t get to yesterday.”

Click, clickety-click, went the tiles on the windowsill. 

“ It’s already ten?! Ooookay, well, I’ve got some of the day to get things done. No problem, no problem! It’s a new day. I’ve got this.”

Click. Click. Clack. 

“ I’ve got this, Casita . I know there’s a lot to do. I’ll figure it out.” 

The shutters creaked, flicking little drops of water onto the floor as they waved in a rhythmic list. 

“Oh, yes, I forgot about that one. Julio’s probably fine though, I can just swing by and—”

Creak.

“No, no, I can still do it all...” Mirabel wandered over to her bed and sat back down, her hands in her lap as she listened to Casita rattle the room around her with worried tiles. Her shoulders slumped a little with each noise. “I know there’s not a lot of time left. Yes, I know I’m juggling a lot of things at once. Okay, yes, obviously I know I’m just one person.”

She tipped back onto her bed, her clothes still clutched in her hands. The refreshed determination she’d awoke with seemed to be draining a little more with each passing moment, and her renewed energy suddenly didn’t seem so ‘good as new.’ Ay. What had she gotten herself into? 

She had to do this though. She couldn’t fail. This was her chance to shine, to prove she could handle being the next Abuela, to…to…

The shutters let out a particularly elongated creak. 

“Ask for…help?” she muttered absently. Casita snapped her windows shut in curt affirmation. “But…but, if I ask for help, then Abuela will think I can’t handle it. She’ll think…she’ll think…”

The shutters snapped again and Mirabel shifted her gaze from the ceiling back to the window. The shutter closest to her swung slowly back open—a gentle reach toward her bedroom door. A gentle reminder. 

That door down there doesn’t decide when you’re ready, Tio Bruno had said yesterday as he stood in her doorway. She wasn’t quite sure if that was right, but if it was…maybe Abuela wasn’t the one who decided it either. Maybe… The only one who can decide that is you. 

She felt ready. She did. Well, she wanted to feel ready. But, if she was being honest, without that external signifier, without Abuela or a ceremony or a shining blessing of magic, how could she know for sure? Being ‘ready’ had never been up to her. It was always Abuela’s call, or the magic’s, or heck, the mysterious-life-changing-prophecy-that-I-only-just-found-out-about ’s. But not hers. 

Maybe convincing herself was the key, and convincing Abuela mattered…less. But the truth was, maybe herself needed to see if she could do this, too. 

“I think I need to do this, though, Casita,” she whispered. “For me. I need to know I can, too.”

Casita tilted her bedframe gently. Just a little nudge. Asking for help doesn't mean you’ve failed at that. 

“Okay,” she began, sitting back up and putting a hand on the windowsill. The wooden edging quivered slightly, like a little squeeze back. “Okay, let’s just say I do ask for help. Hypothetically. Who would I even ask?”

“‘Who would I even ask?’ she says… ” 

Mirabel turned to stare in confusion toward the voice suddenly emanating from behind her bedroom door. 

“Ay, Casita, are you hearing this nonsense this chica is talking? ” [girl]

Mirabel shot to her feet. The muffled voice shifted into clarity as the door cracked open. Camilo poked his head in, a stupid grin on his face. 

“Camilo, knock first!” she exclaimed. “What if I was getting dressed, you weirdo?”

“Relax, Casita invited me. Right?”

The tiles beside Mirabel clicked guiltily, and she glared down at them. 

“Well, Casita and Dolores,” Camilo continued as he wandered in and slumped into one of her reading chairs. 

“Dolores?!”

“Hm!” Dolores slipped silently into the room, her face just as guilty as Casita’s tiles.

“Have you been listening to—” Mirabel shook her head and brought a hand to her forehead. “Ugh, what am I saying, of course you’ve been listening. Have you been telling people what you’ve been listening to me saying?”

“Just some,” she whispered with a smile, all of the previous guilt suspiciously gone from her face. 

“Some people or some sayings?” Camilo shot across the room. “Dear sister, please be more specific.” 

Dolores shot him a warning look, then swung the door fully open with a gentle push of her hand. Isabela sauntered in with an annoying flick of her hair, and Luisa ducked in after her. 

“ Lola!” Mirabel whisper-screeched through gritted teeth.

Luisa winced and shut the door gently behind her. “It wasn’t all her fault!” she said, twisting her fingers together. “I knew something was off after you snapped at me yesterday, and I was worried about you, so I went and found Isa and she suggested we go ask Dolores , but Dolores didn’t want to tell us anything at first but then I explained that you were being—”

“...a total jerk,” interjected Isa calmly.

“--- not like yourself, ” Luisa continued, grabbing the nearest pillow and chucking it in Isa’s direction. Isabela caught it easily with a graceful, spiked vine. Luisa took a deep breath and turned her attention back to Mirabel, with an annoyed shake of her head, “...aaand she told us what you’ve been up to with the surprise party.” 

“And the memorial,” whispered Dolores. 

“Aaand how you were totally overwhelmed and trying to do everything on your own, like usual,” Camilo finished, gesturing toward her with an open palm as if he’d just finished serving her that obvious bit of information on a silver platter. 

Mirabel looked between them all with her mouth agape, her arms folded defensively in front of her. 

“Well…well…you know,” she began, grinding the ball of her foot back and forth against the floor as she struggled to think of a response. She reached her hands up behind her glasses and rubbed her eyes roughly, letting out a frustrated grunt. She hadn’t had enough coffee yet to think of a biting comeback. “Well…doing it on my own is kind of what I’m used to. You know. Since forever.” 

The room fell silent. Mirabel’s face flushed. Why did I say that? It’s not like it wasn’t true, but…she’d never really said it. Not to them. Not out loud. She dropped her hands from her eyes and looked down at the floor instead, her mouth a tight line.

“Not anymore,” said Camilo. She looked up at him. He was staring at her with a serious glint in his eye that almost never showed from behind his usual mirth. Beside him, Dolores put her hand on his chair and nodded in agreement. 

“Let us help, Mira,” Isa offered, her voice as soft as one of her old roses. It didn’t even have any thorns. 

“Not because you need it,” added Luisa with a shrug, “but because we want to.”

Mirabel blinked, her heart twisting in her chest in a way that wasn't entirely unpleasant. That was what they were supposed to have learned wasn't it? Last year, when everything fell apart, they'd looked around and realized they'd all been trying so hard, alone. And they'd promised to do better, and Mirabel had done better—for them. She'd stepped up for her family, showed them how she would always be there for each and every one of them, and they'd finally accepted her help. It felt so good to be actually helpful. But that wasn't everything though, was it? 

After she didn't respond, Camilo sat up and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He put his hands together in front of him, pointing them at Mirabel for emphasis with an incredulous look on his face. 

“But you do need help though. Like, for real.” He raised his eyebrows at her expectantly. “Don’t be dumb, prima.”

Mirabel snorted, nodding quietly. 

“Okay, okay,” she sighed, a small smile forming on her face and hope sparking back into her chest. “It’s just…I don’t even know where to begin. I mean, there's so much to do and I…I haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

“I’ll grab you breakfast, you go get dressed,” Isa said, glancing at Mirabel’s choice of clothes but not making any comment as she rose to her feet. 

“You can fill us in while you eat,” Dolores said as she settled cross-legged into Isa’s vacated spot. 

“Grab me something too!” Camilo shouted at Isa’s retreating back. Isa rolled her eyes at him and scoffed, then opened the bedroom door. She paused and turned back to Mirabel. 

“You coming?” she asked. 

 Mirabel picked up her clothes and headed toward the door. She paused just before leaving and glanced back at her room. Her cousins were already chattering about plans they'd yet to clue her in on, ideas for distractions and unnecessary mischief. She smiled and hurried off to get dressed. 

—

Bruno had spent the next few days in a daze, his mind twisting frustratingly around and around what he had seen.

Flowers in a child’s hand. Why is she so sad?—

“Bruno! Hermano, are you listening?” 

“Ay, sí, sí, I-I’m listening. Sorry Peps. What did you say?”

“I asked if you could pass the rice. What’s up with you?”

The tree is so tall before the three tiny figures. It sways so wildly. 

“Arenso, what’s going on up in there? You’ve been quiet lately.”

“I’m fine, Juli. Just, uh, just thinking about…the memorial. Yeah, it’s coming up, yeah? Anyway, y-you need help with that? L-let me get that for you—”

Rain. Wind. It will never stop. Tired, so very tired. 

“Tío?”

Why is it all so familiar?

“Tío Bruno, can I sit with you?”

“Huh?” 

Bruno turned to look beside him, his brain finally piecing together the sound of someone asking for his attention with the need to respond. When he was met with empty air at eye level, he adjusted his view, looking down instead to meet the big brown eyes that stared up at him from beside the arm of his chair in la sala. 

“Oh, lo siento, Toñito. I was…lost in thought. Heh. O-of course you can, come on over.”

He lifted an arm in welcome for his sobrino, who quickly moved around the chair and climbed into the empty space, his knees jabbing into Bruno’s bony legs as he settled in. The ever-present Parce curled up Bruno’s feet, a guttural purr rumbling from his throat. He felt Manolo squeak pitifully from his shirt pocket. 

“You were lost?” Toñito asked, pulling at the edge of Bruno’s ruana until it came loose from between his tío’s leg and the chair, freeing it up to act as a blanket, which he promptly wrapped himself in. Thoroughly snuggled, he leaned his head against Bruno’s chest and pressed in close. “I’m glad I came to found you, then.” 

“Oh, kiddo, I wasn’t actually—i-it’s just a, a, um, n-never mind.” He lowered his arm from where it still was raised while he’d waited for the kid to settle in and wrapped it around Antonio. “I’m glad you found me, too.” 

“Mami says if you ever get lost in the jungle, you should just stay where you are and a grown-up will come find you. She said if you keep wandering around when you’re lost then you can get loster, but probably someone is already looking for you. But I said that if I was lost in the jungle then I would just ask someone for directions, and she said what if there isn’t someone there, and I said there are always animals in the jungle, and she said that that wasn’t the point, and then I think I was in trouble even though she said I wasn’t, but it seemed like I was.” Antonio bit his lip and looked up at Bruno through the soft springs of his hair. “Is your lost like that?”

“Erm–” Bruno blinked. “I– no? T-that’s good advice, though. That’s what Abuela always used to tell us, too. When we were little.”

“I’m not little, Tío,” Antonio huffed and sank back into Bruno’s stomach, his ability to curl up like a ball and almost disappear beneath Bruno’s ruana promptly putting that statement to shame. Manolo ventured out from Bruno’s pocket to settle quietly in the boy’s hair. “I’m six and half. I’m big enough to ride Parce and help Milo with the laundry all by myself. I’m big.”

“Ay, yes, of course you are. Sorry, Toñito, I-I’ve been making that mistake a lot lately, heh. Big and strong for sure. You’re a regular Luisa, eh?”

“Yeah.” Antonio’s mouth quirked up slightly in the corners, but the smile didn’t stick. “But I'm not big enough to help with the memorial, though. Everyone is too busy and Papi says I need to play by myself. But I can’t even go outside because of the rain!”

Bruno glanced out of the window with a frown. The rain had really picked up over the past couple days, coming in fits and bursts only to suddenly vanish in a bout of sunshine. After one particularly wet session had melted into a rainbow over lunch the day before, Bruno had glanced suspiciously at Pepa. She’d shrugged.  Don’t look at me, she’d scoffed. I’m on vacation, recuerdas? [remember?] But her own personal cloud had darkened just a little, and Felix had quietly placed his hand over hers. 

The rain had posed a couple problems for the household. Abuela, Pepa, and Luisa had been out almost every day working on some trouble with the riverbed, and with the memorial rapidly approaching, it seemed that everyone else in the house had stepped up to help with those preparations. If they weren’t in the kitchen, they were sweeping or sewing or crafting with some sort of ferocity that seemed excessive to Bruno, n-not to diminish the importance of the event or anything, of course . All do respect, and all that.  

As distracted as he’d been lately, he’d found himself dismissed from kitchen duties by Juli on more than one occasion, and when he’d finally dropped one of the carefully carved wooden candle bowls from his jittery hands with a resounding THUNK, and Agustín had told him he should maybe take a break from helping before he broke something, he’d just thrown in the towel. He was only getting in the way, anyway.

Ay, and then any time he’d wandered over to take a look at what one of the sobrinos was working on— usually a safe bet, yeah? ---then poof, another kid would jump in to steer him away with reassurances that they had everything under control. Huh . Suspicious? Maybe. But Bruno had enough on his mind without wondering why Camilo kept smirking at him over the table at dinner. 

And Mirabel? He hadn’t seen much of her at all.

It’s good, though, it’s good. She needs space, he reminded himself. One skipped morning tea had turned into two, and before he knew it the week had almost passed with no Mirabel knocking at his door. She’d smile at him at dinner, give him a quick squeeze as she rushed off to some task or another, so she wasn’t mad. She’s just busy. Like she said, she doesn’t need more of your ‘advice’ right now, anyway. She’s just…grown up. At least she looked happier.

So that had left Bruno alone with his thoughts. And his sand. And he was, strangely, almost proud to say that he’d spent way too much time in his vision cave, picking apart that odd not-the-future-vision again and again to no avail, leaving him exhausted and no closer to an explanation than he’d been that first night. 

What he had managed to determine was that it was in fact a vision that he was seeing, but he was certain it wasn’t of the future. No, somehow what he was seeing was the past—his past, as a matter of fact, even if he didn’t remember most of it. Though it had taken a couple tries, he’d finally discovered he could enter that strange limbo-like state within his sand circle at will, standing before his sand-self and conjuring the past visions with his fingers. They emerged only when he broke the stream of sand where sand-Bruno stood.

That tree– he'd stared at the emerald glass for hours. He was pretty sure it was the mango tree from the jungle, though it looked a little different. Younger maybe. And the voice— it could only be Mamá’s. Bruno shivered. Somehow, that part was the most disconcerting of all.

Why the miracle was showing him this jumble of images though, he couldn’t guess. And the kicker? Just to confuse him, just to make it even more complicated than it undeniably already was: the last time he’d tried to look, the vision had changed . Not the whole thing. Just…just one little part. 

Yes, this morning, when on the second try he’d reached the point in the vision where the small figures stood cowering beneath the tree, something had shifted. He’d suddenly grown incredibly dizzy, nauseatingly so, and the wind around him had raged in a chaotic bluster that blew sand in his eyes and stole away his breath. When it all settled again into a smooth swirl of motion, and the tree came back into view, he’d managed to squint through aching eyes to see only one figure below the tree. But then, without warning, the vision had collapsed on itself, dragging him to the floor with the sand and leaving him dazed enough that he’d had to lie there until it passed.

Okay, he’d thought, lying on his back half-an-hour later with a rat settled on his still-heaving chest. M-maybe it’s time for a break. Casita’d kept clicking worried tiles and creaking his big round door back and forth like a hand fanning a fainting damsel. Oy.

And so, when he felt well enough to stand, he’d wandered downstairs and settled in here, perched virtually unnoticed in a high-backed chair in la sala as the world rushed in flurry around him, letting his exhausted eyes stare unfocused at the rain that was terribly calm compared to the storm that thundered over and over in his head. Knock knock knock...

“...Tío? Are you lost again?” 

Bruno gave his head a little shake. Antonio's round face had popped into view, topped by the small shining eyes of the rat blinking at him from the boy's hair. A worried frown pulled at his sobrino's mouth. 

“Ah, yes, mijo,” Bruno muttered, wincing with a weary smile. “But you found me again.”

Antonio sat back on his heels, still perched in Bruno's lap. He pulled Manolo down from his hair and held him close to his chest, leaning forward as if to relay a secret, his eyes wide and a bit fearful. 

“Do you get lost…because of your gift? Are you going to get lost again like…like Abuelo did?”

“What?” Bruno choked. “Why would you—uh, no, no, kid, don't worry. I’m not really lost, I’m just…just distracted. Sometimes my gift can be a little…uh, complicated , yeah? I'm just mulling it all over in the old noggin. I'm not going anywhere, though. You know that, right?”

Antonio stared at him for a moment longer, then nodded and dropped his gaze. “Oh,” he muttered. “I think my gift is complicated , too.”

Bruno reached out and gave a scratch to Manolo's ear. The rat shook out his head and sniffed curiously up at Antonio. 

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it,” Bruno said quietly. Antonio nodded. “You know, though…maybe complicated doesn't have to mean bad, ya know? Maybe just…hard. But good, too.”

Antonio looked up and met Bruno’s eyes. Manolo reached up to lick at the boy’s chin, and Parce rose from his seat on the floor to rest his head on the arm of their chair. Toñito smiled. 

“Yeah. Good, too.” 

Bruno nodded and gave him a smile of his own. Apparently satisfied with that answer for the moment, Antonio busied himself with balancing a squeaking Manolo on Parce's head.

“Hey,” Bruno began carefully, “why'd you—um, what did, what did you mean about…about what you said about Abuelo?”

“Oh.” Having gotten Manolo to settle into stillness, Toñito gave Parce a stern, warning look and then poked him on his wet, black nose. “Abuela always says that Abuelo was lost when we got our miracle, and I never got to meet him, so he never got found. And I didn't meet you for a long time, because you got lost because of your gift, but then Mirabel found you.” 

As he continued, his voice grew more quiet until Bruno almost couldn't hear him. “So I thought maybe…maybe you might get lost again, too. Like Abuelo. But then, what if this time, we didn’t find you?”

Bruno’s heart twisted achingly in his chest. He opened and closed his mouth, but no words came out. He swallowed and tried again. 

“Ah, w-well, that's a lot to…to unpack—uh, f-first, first , I-I didn't get lost because of my gift, before. I mean, I thought I did, for a long time, but, but, but, that's not it, is it? A-and that's kind of complicated, kid, but, it wasn't because of my gift. It was because, well, because me and Abuela, we–we–we forgot how to talk to each other, I guess. Or maybe, how to listen. Either way, it wasn't ‘cause of my gift, and that's that, yeah? So don't worry about that, okay? I'm not leaving. Or getting lost.”

Antonio nodded. Parce held perfectly still. Manolo cleaned his snout with his paws. 

“Okay, a-and second, A-abuelo… phew, I haven't slept enough to even begin to— um, Abuelo, he, well, he died , kid. You know what that means, right?”

Antonio nodded. “Like Pico,” he said quietly. Bruno nodded, the ache only growing. 

“Yeah. Like Pico. Sometimes…sometimes we say that we lost someone when they died because i-it's hard, it's hard to say what it really is. And to hear it. A-and, well, I guess that's kinda what it feels like, too. That's why we have a memorial, like what we are doing in a couple days for Abuelo. ‘Cause, even though they are gone, it helps us to feel like maybe we still can find a little piece of them. If we…if we, um, if we remember them. You know?”

Antonio blinked, then looked down at Manolo. He scooped him up off Parce’s head, and the jaguar growled and lowered back to the floor, his assignment complete. Antonio hugged the rat close.

“Oh,” he said. “Yeah, I think I understand.”

Toñito turned on his knees and slumped back into Bruno’s chest, eliciting a huff of air from his tío. His cloud of soft curls tickled Bruno's chin, and he let out a relieved sigh. Bruno reached a hand up to rest atop the kids head and closed his eyes against the remaining ache in his heart and head. Phew, he thought dryly. You’re welcome for that one, Pepa. He absently carted his fingers through the Tonito’s hair, pushing it carefully back from his forehead. 

After a moment, his fingers stumbled across a small, smooth bunch amid the softer springs and fluffs. Bruno cracked open an eye to examine it. 

“What's this?”

It was a small braid, no bigger than a finger’s breadth and tied carefully with a wooden bead and tiny strip of red leather. It hid playfully amid the fluff of the rest of his hair. 

“Lola did it for me,” Toñito replied happily. “For the party.”

“Ah,” Bruno said with a smile. “Very nice. Dolores did a great job. You know though… I, heh, I hate to break it to you, kid, but I don't think Abuelo's memorial is going to be much of a party . Memorials are typically pretty somber, ya know? Serious.”

“No, not for the memorial,” Toñito replied simply. “For the party.”

Bruno frowned in confusion. “What party?” 

“The secret birthday party we aren't supposed to tell the grown-ups about.”

Huh. Well, that explained all the kids' secretiveness. And the smirks. Bruno gently ruffled the braid back into Toñito's hair. 

“If you aren't supposed to tell the grown-ups, why are you telling me, travieso? I'm a grown-up.” [Troublemaker]

“Nuh-uh.”

“Waddayamean ‘nuh-uh’ ?”

“You're not a grown-up. You're Tío Bruno.”

Bruno snorted, amusement and affection displacing some of the weight in his chest.  

“Heh. Well okay then,” he smiled. “Don't let your mom hear you say that, though. I'll never hear the end of it."

“Okay, I won't,” Antonio said simply, oblivious to the sweet and perfect magic he carried everywhere he went. He wiggled and shifted, freeing Manolo to the arm of the chair. “Will you come play with me now, please?”

Bruno scratched his head and winced. “Ah, I'm kinda beat today, chiquito. I'm sorry. I don’t think I could manage any good sort of playing. Tío Bruno the not-grown-up still gets cansado como los viejos, sí?” [old-man tired, yeah?]

“Okay,” Antonio sighed, and the disappointment in his voice almost made Bruno take it all back, headache be damned. 

“Hey, Tío?”

“Yeah?”

“I just miss you. Can you maybe tell me a story instead?”

“Oh,” Bruno began, his heart squeezing terribly while his tired brains screamed we got nothin! Ay, but how could he say no? “Well, I sure can try.”

Bruno wasn't sure at what point during his contrived story about the mouse and the lion he managed to fall asleep, but when he awoke again much later to the dimming afternoon light and the call of Abuela summoning everyone for dinner, Antonio was gone. 

Miss you too, kid. 

—

They'd done it. They'd actually done it. 

All party elements were in position and hidden by Casita. All necessary diversions had been planned and assigned to be executed. The surprise party was tomorrow, and it was ready .

The past week had been such a blur of planning and scrambling and scheming and laughing that Mirabel had suddenly looked up this afternoon as Abuela called them to dinner and realized— oh my gosh. We actually made it!

She grinned at Camilo, who gently nudged her chin with his fist in a mock jab before heading downstairs toward the dining room with everyone else.

“See what happens when you ask for help from the best primos ever?” he called over his shoulder. 

“All your wildest dreams come true,” whispered Isa with wink as she tripped Camilo from behind with a vine.

They’d actually done it. 

She couldn’t help but grin during dinner. She passed the bowls of food with gusto, and laughed heartily at everyone’s jokes. After Ma looked at her with a suspicious raised eyebrow and Luisa kicked her a little too hard under the table, she tried to tone it down just a little. She just couldn’t help it. It felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. 

Sure, it wasn’t totally done. They still had to make sure everything went according to plan, still had to distract the adults until lunch. Even with those loose ends though, she knew she didn’t have to figure it all out on her own. Her impromptu party team had deferred to her lead throughout, but they’d also reminded her again and again that she had back-up. I can do that part, Mira. How many do you want? or What do you think about this? Okay, I'll make it happen. As the week went on and she carefully let go of this and delegated that, the entire enterprise slowly became less stressful—not because it was no longer hers, but because it was also theirs. In fact, with their suggestions, the party was even better than before. It had made the planning—dare she say it— fun . 

The dinner table volume rose a bit as Tía Pepa and Camilo responded to a boisterous story Tío Félix was telling (and that Papi was vehemently denying, much to everyone’s amusement), and Mirabel shook her head at their antics. With the triplet's birthday coming tomorrow, the night had everyone in bright spirits. Even Abuela was chuckling along. 

She turned to grab another arepa from the basket at the center of the table and suddenly caught sight of Tío Bruno. He was watching her from across the table, a suspicious look in his eye and a small, crooked smile on his face. 

Oops. She realized she was grinning that give-away grin again and quickly started to tuck it away. Be cool, Mirabel! We’re so close! But then, at the last second, she suddenly thought better of it. Instead of hiding it, she threw caution to the wind and grinned even wider, sticking out her tongue and contorting her face for only half a second, a goofy expression that was gone before anyone but him could see it. When she looked back again, Tío Bruno was grinning, too. 

Ah, it was good to see him smile so wide. In the mad rush the week had been, she’d only today realized that she’d skipped not one morning tea, as they had planned, but all of them, rising instead with such excitement to work with her cousins and sisters on whatever they’d slated for the day that it completely slipped her mind. The realization had made her stomach drop—was he okay? Was he sleeping? Was his room still covered in sand? She didn’t even know. She hadn’t even asked. 

He did look tired…but he was smiling. So maybe she didn’t need to know, for now. Maybe she could just trust him to be okay. He turned back to his food, the smile still on his face, and she did, too. 

After dinner, she said her goodnites early and took the stairs two steps at a time to her room. She’d saved her favorite party-related task for last: gift wrapping. 

For Mamá, there was an apron she’d embroidered herself, carefully stitching flowers and weights and butterflies across the edges. As time went on, she’d abandoned all restraint and end up covering the whole thing in symbols for every family member…and anything else that caught her fancy. It ended up looking a lot like her favorite skirt, which she thought would make Ma love it even more. For Tía Pepa, she’d sewn a new headband. It was stitched just as fully as the apron, except instead of symbols of the family, she’d embroidered it with a bright, bold rainbow. It arched gracefully across half the fabric, and on the other half she’d sewn tiny glass beads. They glittered like raindrops in the sun. 

Ah, and Tío Bruno. That might just be her favorite gift. She’d picked it up just today from town. It had no embroidery—in fact, none if it was made by her hand at all. But she figured that would be okay. She didn’t think he’d mind. 

She tied the colorful yarn in a careful bow around the green paper and tucked it under her bed with the others. Then she crawled under the covers and let Casita blow out the lamps. As she fell asleep, she let the smile from dinner linger just a little longer. 

Chapter Text

“...and I couldn't tell you about it before because we both know you can't keep anything from Ma, but now it's time and—”

“—and we can't keep it a secret any longer!”

“—and we want you to be a part of it, too.”

Her sister’s voices chorused over each other to finish her sentence and Mirabel shushed them harshly. Luisa bounced excitedly on her toes, raising her even higher above her father than she typically already stood. Agustín's eyes followed hers, his eyebrows raising in amusement along with his gaze, and his smile only widened as he turned to look at Isabela. She beamed back and reached out to grasp his hands with her own. 

“You girls organized all this on your own?” he asked, turning to Mirabel.

Isa bumped her with her hip. “Mirabel did, actually.”

“It was a group effort,” she grinned with a shrug. “So, you in?”

They stood huddled in the hall outside her parents’ bedroom door, conferring in excited whispers that kept breaking containment, only to be smothered under their just as obnoxious shushes. They'd pulled Pa from the room under the guise of bringing Ma breakfast in bed for her birthday, and Julieta herself was under strict orders not to lift a finger until they returned. Mirabel estimated she would last 10 minutes. 

Down the hall, a similar conversation was taking place with Tío Félix, who stood with his hands on his hips and a curious smirk on his face. He and Agustín met eyes, and Agustín raised an inquisitive eyebrow at him. Félix gave an exaggerated shrug. 

“Of course I’m in!” Pa replied, clapping his hands together and beaming at his daughters. He began shaking imaginary maracas as he turned back toward the door. “Let me just put my party-pants on and we are going to be in business —”

“Nope!” Mirabel said, grabbing his elbow and pulling him back in. “You can’t say anything yet.”

“What? Why? I thought you said it was time?”

“We are going to tell them we are going on a family picnic for lunch just past town. We’ll surprise them with the party in the square then, but you can’t say anything until lunch, okay?”

Pa opened his mouth to reply, but Mirabel pressed on. 

“Isa and Dolores will distract them all from eleven until two. We will tell them to dress their best so Tía and Mamá feel beautiful for dancing later, and that all the food is taken care of so Ma will relax, and we’ll tell Tío Bruno what’s really coming as the time gets closer so he doesn’t get totally blindsided—it’s all planned out. Your job,” she added as she slung an arm around her father's waist and started to steer him down the stairs toward the kitchen, “is to work on some sort of way to delay breakfast. You’ve got distraction duty from eight to eleven.”

“We’ll tell Mamá that you are working really hard on something you are cooking for her and she shouldn’t come down and ruin the surprise,” Isa added, looping her arm through his on the other side. “That will buy you a little time.”

“The rest is up to you, Pa. But…” Luisa played nervously with her fingers. “...do you think you can keep from saying something about what’s really going on?”

Agustín slipped himself out of his daughter’s grasps and they turned to face him. He put his hands on his hips and straightened himself proudly.

“I’ve got this completely under control,” he said, raising a finger to emphasize his point. Luisa caught the potted cactus he’d nudged askew with his elbow and righted it without a word. “Come on now, girls, I do know how to keep a surprise underwraps. My proposal to your mother, for example, went precisely as I intended it to.”

Isabela crossed her arms and fixed him with a skeptical eye. “You stepped in a fallen bee hive and dropped the ring in the river.”

“ All according to plan,” he replied, cupping her chin gently as he pushed through the girls to make his way toward the kitchen. They watched Tío Félix meet him there, patting him on the back cheerfully as they headed in together. 

“...this may be the one flaw in our design,” Mirabel muttered. “Casita, can you…?”

The stair rail raised in salute and the tiles ruffled in quick waves after the men. 

“Okay, phase one is under way,” Camilo said, rubbing his hands together as he walked over to meet them with his own siblings in tow. “Time to prepare for phase two —” 

Dolores suddenly grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back, allowing her space to lean forward toward the group first.

“The cumpleañeros are on the move,” she stage whispered [ birthday boy/girls ], and they all froze, turning to follow her pointed gaze up to the second floor. She shrugged, a small smile playing on her lips. 

“...but I say we go with it.” 

From their huddled meeting on the ground floor, they all craned their necks, managing to just catch a glimpse of their mothers as they disappeared up the stairway to their brother’s room.

—

Bruno had just planned to stay out of the way. 

After all, if there is one thing you don't want at a surprise party, it's someone who ruins surprises, and if there is one person who ruins surprises, it's definitely a prophet of the future. 

Ipso facto, Bruno ruins surprise parties. Often just by showing up. Heh. Eh….

Sooo…rather than somehow upsetting his sobrino’s hard work, he'd just hunkered down at his desk for the time being, the shimmering green past-vision glass propped up before him, a stack of papers and a sketching pencil in his hand, and a couple rats on the side to keep him company. He knew someone would be along eventually to pull him into the festivities anyway, and then he would be on his very best behavior. He’d smile, he’d laugh, he’d do his utmost to show he was enjoying the big fuss that was surely being prepared somewhere out there, no matter how much his chest tightened at the thought. After all, the least he could do in the face of the impossible debt of missed and forgotten birthdays that he’d inflicted on his sisters over the years was to be a good sport—no matter how much his instincts told him to retreat. 

For now, though, and for as long as possible, he’d keep to himself. He took a breath and put pencil to paper, trying to make sense of his jumbled thoughts through graphite and ink, if through nothing else. 

Their birthday last year had been a blessedly quiet affair. In the midst of rebuilding their home and his graceless settling back into the loud and bright world of being with other people, it had almost passed by, forgotten not just by him, but by all. But then Mamá, a beaming smile on her face, had appeared after dinner in their borrowed home with a torta negra, and his family had sung happy birthday while his sisters pressed close on either side of him, like the long-ago birthdays of their early childhood. They’d sliced the cake and laughed together, the torta on his tongue as sweet as the moment itself, and then it had all been over. No expectations to disappoint, no social mazes to navigate—just a moment of togetherness that had been so wonderfully foreign for so long that he’d lied awake that night running it over and over again in his head like a piece of precious silk through his fingers. 

Ay, but his sisters deserved so much more. He prayed this time he’d done enough. 

He sat back in his chair and looked at the rough sketches strewn across his desk. A flower in a woman’s hand. Ants in a line beneath a miniature garden canopy. The beginnings of an old mango tree. He sighed and set down his pencil, bringing his fingers to press roughly into his eyes instead. It’s no clearer than before, he grumbled as he knocked a beat gently against the wood of his table, one to his head. 

Knock knock. 

Bruno jumped, banging his knee on the desk and almost tipping his chair backwards at the knocks echoing out behind him. He turned around and grimaced at the doorway, rubbing his injured knee.

Knock knock knock. 

A harsh, muffled whisper came through his closed door. “Bruno! Estás despierto?” [Are you awake?]

He glanced at the clock, stuffing the vision glass into a drawer as he stumbled from his chair and wandered over to the door. Huh. It couldn’t be Mirabel-–it was already breakfast time and she hadn’t been coming around anyway. He put hand on the doorknob and took a breath. Well, this was earlier than he’d expected. He wasn’t even dressed yet. Be a good sport. Make your family happy. 

He twisted the knob and cracked open the door. 

The door burst the rest of the way open with such unexpected force that Bruno yelped and jumped back in surprise. Pepa blew in with a warm summer breeze, holding open the door just long enough for Julieta to sneak in behind her, then they both shut the door again with a careful click. They were whispering shushes and quiet laughter to each other all the while, and only when they had ensured that the door was secure did they turn their attention on him. 

“Felíz Cumpleaños, brother!” Pepa called, suddenly throwing her arms around him. 

Julieta stood on tiptoes and planted a kiss on his large nose. “Ay, happy birthday, amor,” she cooed. 

“F-felíz—ay Pepa I-I can’t breathe—felíz cumple,” he managed back, smiling despite the astonishingly little air Pepa had left in his lungs. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her back just as hard. Satisfied, she let him go and his heels again touched the floor. He grabbed at his arm nervously. “W-what are you—”

“The kids are off making breakfast,” Julieta explained, moving into his sitting area to set down some of the items she’d held heaped in her arms. A couple wrapped packages were deposited into one of his chairs, a pot of café onto his table. She unlooped her fingers from the handles of three empty cups and they wobbled into stillness on the surface. “We were told to stay in bed and relax, but—”

“Ay, we are fifty-two years old, they can’t boss us around,” Pepa finished, waving her hand dismissively in the air with an affectionate smile. “Lindito bebés. Besides, we’ve spent too many birthdays apart. I-I wanted to start this one off right.”

The air in the room grew slightly humid, and Julieta pressed a steaming cup of coffee into Pepa’s hands. She smiled gratefully back. 

“We both did.”

Bruno didn’t quite know if he should apologize or say thank you or some secret third thing he had absolutely no idea about. He’d been prepared for a bombardment of birthday wishes, for loud singing and searing attention, for crowds and secret fiestas, but he hadn’t expected this—his sisters commandeering his room in pajamas and bare feet like they were all turning 12 and not 52. This was…well, it was…

A strange warmth bloomed in his chest, aching and wonderful. Julieta put a cup of coffee in his hand and hugged him around the middle. 

“W-well then,” he finally said, raising the cup slightly in the air and tipping his head toward his sisters with a smile. “Happy birthday to us.”

“Happy birthday to us,” they sang back. 

—

With only two chairs in his sitting room, and with his sisters refusing to allow him to sit on the floor, they’d all ended up sitting cross-legged on his bed instead, nursing their coffees and engaging in quiet conversation that was refreshingly relaxed and comfortable. They talked about the kids, about pleasant birthdays past and harmless gossip around town. They talked about sweet hopes for the future, and no one asked him if they would be true. And if the conversation veered too close to one of those painful points in their history, one of his sisters would gracefully change the subject, offering not shame or awkward silence, but a smile and reassuring nod. It all felt so…so…so safe, remarkably so, and on today of all days…it was perhaps the best gift they could have given him. 

The new set of paints was quite nice too, though.

“I can’t believe you two climbed a tree,” Pepa was laughing, lightly hitting his shoulder with the back of her hand. “Though, with how you’ve been lately, I guess it’s no surprise at all.”

“I-I actually thought you’d be more mad we did it without you,” he winced back.

“Who says we can’t do it again,” Julieta winked mischievously. “It was quite a view.”

“Ay, I climb a tree every night to put my son to bed,” she replied with a good natured eye roll. “I don’t mind that you left me out of that little adventure. Call me when you decide to tell another rat romance story in your sand. Now that was—.”

“Oh!” Bruno exclaimed, shoving his coffee cup into Pepa’s hand and clumsily scooting off the bed. “Oh! That reminds me! Hang on, hang on, I have it here somewhere…”

He knelt down and reached a searching arm under the bed, pulling out two clumsily wrapped parcels, one small and square, the other thin and rectangular. He dusted the sand off the top of them as he stood, then, with more trepidation rising in his chest than he anticipated, he cleared his throat and thrust them each forward toward his sisters. 

“F-for you. Ya know. F-for today.”

“Bruno, thank you,” Julieta said, taking the gift with one hand to her heart. A few drops of hail tinkled like chimes as they fell against the cup in Pepa’s hand. 

“Ah…haha! D-don’t thank me yet,” he grimaced. “I-I hope they’re good. It’s just, it’s just, I’m a bit out of practice with the whole ‘birthday gift for your sisters’ thing, ‘cause, ‘cause we didn’t do gifts last year—or, ya know, ten years before that…um. A-a-and I just don’t know how to, how to—um, n-nevermind. The point is, I-I love you both, and I hope you like them. The gifts, that is. Obviously. Ay, Bruno stop talking—”

“We are going to love them,” Pepa said loudly, interrupting him and putting a hand to his cheek, “because they are from you, and we love you, and you are here.”

Julieta nodded. “You’re the gift, arenoso,” she whispered.

He looked at them both for a moment, Pepa’s hand still on his cheek, and his heart swelled with gratitude at the thought. I’m here.

“Ay, ay, don’t get cheesy on me,” he finally muttered, sniffing loudly and rubbing at the back of his neck. A couple rats skittered out from under the bed at the mention of cheese and he surreptitiously nudged them away with his foot. “Go on, go on, open them already, before we turn fifty-three…” 

Pepa went first, untying the twine and lifting the lid to reveal a small book. She held it up from the box, staring at it with a curious expression on her face. 

“It’s M-maria ,” Bruno offered nervously after a moment of silence had passed, “by Jorge Isaacs? Y-your favorite—or, at least it was, heh. Though, now that I’m thinking about it, that was like fifteen years ago, and it’s probably not your favorite anymore, which is, just, I-I mean—”

“Did you paint this cover?” she asked, looking up at him as a cloud condensed over her head.

“Uh, y-yeah, I mean, yes. It’s, um, it’s fully illustrated. That is, I i-illustrated it. It’s an old copy, so I didn’t think anyone would mind that I marked it up, but—uh, just in the margins! You can still read it! T-the pictures, t-they aren’t all in color, though, I-I ran out of time you see, but each chapter has a—”

Pepa threw her arms around his neck in a gripping hug, clocking the back of his head with the book. More hail dropped in gentle pats on the wood floor around them.

“Bruno, it’s just—I love it so much.”

Bruno put his arms around her and slowly smiled. “Is it still your favorite?” he asked into the staticked frizz of hair that now tickled his face. 

“Of course it is,” she mumbled against his shirt. “It’s the best book ever written. It should be everyone’s favorite.”

“Oh,” he grinned. “Well, good, then.”

When Pepa and Bruno had both settled back into their spots and the three had passed the book back and forth several times to admire it, Bruno finally poked Julieta in the arm.

“Don’t forget about yours,” he said quietly. Now, Julieta’s gift he was a little more confident she’d like. It was retribution from the rest of the family he was less sure about…

“A gaita!” she exclaimed reverently, lifting it out of the box and running careful fingers along its painted surface. Bruno had etched little swirls around each finger hole, carefully tracing thin lines of ink into the miniature canyons in a blended sunset of colors, each swirl tipped with shimmering gold.

“Now, you’ll have to thank Agustín for that one, too. H-he picked it up from town for me,” Bruno admitted, “but I did paint it.” 

“It’s lovely,” she sighed with a shake of her head. 

“Well, don’t just stare at it,” Bruno grinned, urging her with open palms. “Give it a go!”

She smiled and put the mouthpiece to her lips, giving a gentle blow that elicited just about the most horrific sound he’d heard in quite a while. He winced. 

“Well done! A great start!” he exclaimed, clapping enthusiastically, and Julieta scowled at him.  He leaned over to Pepa and muttered out of the side of his mouth, “You’ll find a bonus gift of beeswax earplugs in the false bottom of your gift box.”

“Thank you,” she chirped, reaching for the box. Julieta chucked Bruno’s pillow at them. 

—

As it turned out, Papi did not have a chance to give away the surprise, as Mirabel and her sisters worried he might.

Good thing!

He was much too busy starting a fire in the kitchen for that.

…Not so good thing. 

“AAAAAAH!” Camilo had roared, transforming immediately into Jose—the tallest person from town his panicked brain could think of—and grabbing pot to smother the fire with. Casita shifted tiles this way and that to speed his movements and he stumbled to keep up.

“What happened?!” Mirabel screeched, frantically throwing fistfulls of flour at the stove while trying not to fan the flames any higher. Camilo shoved the pot over the flames. 

“I only looked away from him for a second, I swear!” Félix was struggling to lift Agustín off the ground, where he sat in an astonished stupor, his hair and eyebrows thoroughly singed. “He was just making eggs!”

Abuela stood in the doorway with her hand over her mouth, watching it all unfold. When the fire was smothered and Agustín was back on his feet, she entered the kitchen, brushing at Pa’s smoke-smudged vest as she passed. 

“Let us try not to burn down our newly built home this morning, yes?” she said, her voice an odd mix of strain and amusement. “Why don’t I make the eggs. Agustín, please take Antonio with you to get some fresh milk. Okay?”

No biggie. The fire was promptly put out, Casita was not burned down, and—hey!—it bought a little more time before breakfast was ready. Mirabel was going to count it as a win. Phase one complete.

She slung her bag over her shoulder, running her finger under the strap to untwist it as she strode toward the front door. Dolores and Isabela were taking over now, working their magic upstairs to make sure the triplets were prepared for the afternoon. Before long, they’d all be walking to town together, and the surprise would be moments away. 

For now, though, it was just her and Luisa, heading down to the square to check on the festivities. She took a breath and looked out the door at the blue sky that spread wide and bright over the town. The rain, for the moment, had all but gone. Luisa put a hand on her shoulder and they nodded at each other with confident smiles. We got this, her sister seemed to say.

Phase two under way. Together, they stepped out the door.

—

“…and they picked every tomato flower from Señora Guzman’s garden,” Mamá had said, laughing with a far-away warmth in her eyes that Bruno was only just getting used to seeing there again. “They made a lovely bouquet with zapallitos flowers as well. You see, they knew how much I love flowers, but they didn’t know that’s where a plant’s fruit comes from. Ah, poor Maria’s harvest was quite small that year…”

The entire familia had ended up eating breakfast together, gathered in the cozy, sun-filled dining room that for some reason smelled a little bit like smoke. Don’t ask, Mirabel intoned, passing him a glass of orange juice. While they ate, Mamá had regaled them with story after story from their childhood, some he remembered, and some that he’d never heard before. The grandchildren had listened with rapt attention, grinning maniacally and laughing at all the antics of their parents’ youth. Bruno imagined his face still held an after-glow of red from the ordeal. 

That one story though…that had nudged something oddly in his brain. He'd remembered that particular one. He also remembered weeding Señora Guzman’s garden every Sunday for weeks after as penitence; that part Ma had conveniently left out of her retelling. But it was what she’d said about flowers—for some strange reason he could not fathom, that had stuck with him. You see, they know how much I love flowers… Such a simple thing, no one else gave it a second thought. But for some reason, it had made the back of his neck itch, like the start of a shiver that was about to creep down his spine. He couldn’t shake it. 

A flower in her hand…

“I think we should start with Tío Bruno.”

“Eh?” 

He snapped out of his thoughts, only to realize then that all of the girls were looking at him. He felt himself shrink a little lower into his vine-covered chair. 

After breakfast, he’d risen to return to his room, but instead had somehow found himself ushered rather forcefully toward Isabela’s room, his sisters alongside him. They’d been offered a dizzying flurry of explanations about wanting to get ready and look their best for this special day, all wrapped in vague promises of some sort of tame picnic he was almost certain would never come to be. He’d protested with the obvious point that he was already dressed and ready, gesturing at his person as evidence. Isa had stared at him for a moment. Apparently, the point had not been as obvious as he’d thought. 

“Yes, he’ll need the most work,” Isabela stated, nodding with a thoughtful finger to her chin as she circled his chair and lifted one of his grey-stringed curls into the air. 

“The most — h-hey now—”

“I’ll get my scissors,” she interrupted decisively, dropping his lock of hair and striding away. 

“Sc–scis–um, wh-what—?” The image of Isabela pruning the non-producing plant in her garden suddenly flashed before his eyes. He began to sweat. 

“You’ll be fine, hermanito,” Pepa assured him, somewhat flippantly, from where she sat on the petals of the biggest bromeliad Bruno had ever seen. She was running combing fingers through her own hair, loosening her massive braid. “You could use a trim.” 

“I happen to think I look just fine, thank you very much,” he harrumphed. 

He eyed the doorway, silently measuring the distance and calculating the plausibility of outrunning one of Isa’s vines. But then, a gentle hand came to rest on his shoulder, and suddenly Dolores’ big, wide eyes were before him. She looked him over, much in the same way that Isabela had only a moment before, but then she smiled the smallest of smiles and Bruno felt his shoulders relax just a little bit. 

“You’re fine just as you are,” she said softly, “but you’ll feel better with a little help. Let us help.”

Bruno gulped. She put a reassuring hand on his knee, and nodded encouragingly. Be a good sport, he thought to himself. Make your family happy. He nodded shakily back. 

And the “getting ready” commenced. 

Dios he’d forgotten just how much time could go into getting ready. 

He was no stranger to it. He’d grown up with two sisters, after all. He was quite familiar with being coerced into a sudden kerfuffle of combing and brushing and grooming and giggling, but it had been a very long while since he’d been the subject of such an attack. 

“You used to let us practice braiding with your hair,” Dolores pointed out as she expertly twisted one into his thoroughly preened hair now. “When we were little.”

He sent a small, sad smile up at her. “I remember.” 

“You used to braid our hair, too,” Isabela grinned, putting aside her scissors and taking a seat next to Pepa, who wrapped a loving arm around her shoulders. “I remember thinking you were really good at it, but I guess we were pretty young—”

“I was good at it,” he grumbled defensively, wincing as his sudden head movement tugged at the strands of hair in Dolores’ fingers. “I-I grew up with these two,” he added, gesturing with flapping hands at his sisters while trying to keep the top half of his body as still as possible. “L-look at all that hair. I got plenty of practice. I was an expert.” 

“I bet you still are,” Dolores hummed, patting his head gently to indicate she had finished. 

“Mm,” was all he could think to say back. The thought dug at something old and aching in his chest. Julieta approached him with a leather ribbon, holding it up to him before wrapping it into his hair, as if his approval or disapproval of the choice held some sort of sway in the matter. As she carefully pulled his hair away from his face and tied it back behind his head, he looked at his two oldest sobrinas. 

Isabela sat tall, laughing bright and loud at something Pepa was saying behind her hand. Her smile was no longer oppressively demure, cloaked in restraint, but striking and confident; daring, even. Her adventurous spirit shone through her grin, and it seemed that now that she was allowed to make her own decisions, she was happily making just about as many of them as she possibly could. 

As for Dolores, she stood looking at him with her hands held together in front of her, a quiet light in her eyes that held so much more peace than he could recall seeing there before. The little romantic heart he remembered from her childhood, after all its time of waiting and yearning, had transformed under the gentle hand of requited love. And in all her years spent cocooned in careful listening, she had begun to emerge, not into bitterness or fear or anxiety, but rather into something more gentle. Something solid, peaceful, and hopeful. Something like wisdom. 

They were beautiful. Both of his sobrinas were just lovely, and they were all grown. There were no more pigtails to braid or stories to tell for these two, and though the thought made something in him so very sad, it made him immensely proud, too. Even in his visions of them, all those years ago, he never could have imagined who they would become.

Isabela caught sight of him then, and her expression softened with concern. “You okay, Tío?” she asked, her voice as soft as the flower petals beneath his feet. 

“Yeah,” he answered quickly, his voice unexpectedly hoarse. He cleared his throat. “Y-yeah, I'm fine, chiquita. It’s just…n-no eres un retoñito ya más, ¿eh? Either of you. Heh.” [You’re not a little sprout anymore are you?]

The room fell silent with the weight in his voice, and he kicked himself internally for bringing down the mood. He shook his head, now free from Julieta’s grasp, and tried again. 

“I-I just mean, t-that is to say, I-I’m proud. Of both of you, yeah? You’ve become amazing young women, just incredible. Your mamás did an amazing job.”

“Ay, we can’t take all the credit,” Pepa said, smiling at Dolores proudly, a rainbow shimmering into the room. 

“It was a group effort,” Julieta nodded approvingly. 

“Well, whoever did it, well done,” he said with a grin. “You both turned out beautiful.”

“You’re not too bad yourself, Tío,” Isabela replied. A vine sprouted from the floor beside his chair and wrapped swiftly around the legs, pulling until his chair twisted in place and he was facing a large mirror situated beside Isabela’s armoire. She came and stood beside him, her hands on his shoulders, as he considered their handiwork. 

There was no miraculous transformation, no rey materializing from a rana. His eyes still sat tiredly on his thin face, his slightly crooked mouth still framed by frown lines that pulled it perpetually downward. But Isabela had been caring with her scissors, taming his wiry curls from a wild mop into something a little more orderly. Dolores’ braid ran neatly back into the leather tied by Juli, leaving his face free and clear. His favorite ruana, which Mirabel had embroidered with a million little golden butterflies, for once sat straight and neat on his shoulders, steamed into tidy submission by Pepa. 

He was undoubtedly still himself, and yet, he had to hand it to them; it was perhaps a better version of himself than had stared back at him from the mirror in a long, long while. 

For some reason, he found the need to clear his throat again before he spoke. 

“Oh,” he muttered with an awkward smile. “Am, a-am I…ready?”

Isabela hugged his shoulders roughly, pressing her cheek to his, and grinned back at him through the mirror. A crown of small sunny yellow flowers blossomed in a neat ring around his head. 

“You’re ready.”

—

Mirabel squealed with delight when she saw them. Isa and Dolores had woven flowers into Tía Pepa and Mamá’s hair, which was braided intricately down both their backs. For once, Mamá wore no apron, and Tía Pepa’s sunlight beamed through the little condensed droplets that fell sporadically and freely around her. 

“You both look beautiful!” she cried, embracing Ma tightly. Mamá kissed both her cheeks and muttered a practically incomprehensible string of endearments into her ear before moving on to Luisa. 

Tío Bruno stood to the side with Dolores, winding his fingers together nervously but smiling nevertheless.

“And look at you, Tío!” she exclaimed as she caught him in a tight hug. “You don’t look a day over fifty.” 

That earned her a genuine laugh, much to her satisfaction, and he hugged her back with an insincere grumble. “Ay, even on my birthday you can’t cut me a break, eh?”

She stepped back at arms length and shook her head smugly. “Nope. You do look great though.” 

He gave her shoulder a squeeze, the lightness from the laughter still lingering on his face. 

“Okay!” she called out with a clap as she turned to face everyone. “Time to head down to the picnic.”

Behind her, what mirth was left in Bruno’s face drained away. 

“Abuela is already there waiting! Let's go, let's go!” she urged, ushering the chattering group out the front door with the help of Casita's excited fluttering tiles. As Tío Bruno stumblingly took up the rear, Mirabel grabbed his elbow and pulled him back so they were walking several paces behind everyone else. 

“Sooo,” she began, excitement bubbling in her chest, “I have something to tell you.”

He side eyed her and made a face that was perhaps meant to be a smile but was really more of a nervous grimace. 

“There is no picnic,” she admitted gleefully, giving his arm a little shake. “When we get to the square there is actually a surprise party waiting for you guys! Now, I know you're not big on surprises or parties or people or, you know, the general outside-casita-zone, so I wanted to tell you before we get there, but…surprise!” She beamed at him. 

“...oh,” he said absently, then catching sight of her face, quickly amped up the level of faux-enthusiasm in his voice. “O-Oh! Oh wow! That's…that's a surprise all right! Just completely caught me off guard. Super glad you warned me because I might not have known otherwise and I would have definitely said something like ‘Ah!’...ya know, w-when I saw it. Because of all the surprise. Heh.”

Mirabel stared at him and he rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Um…”

“You knew! You knew we had a party planned!”

"Uh, n-no, no! Well, sort of yes—”

She rolled her eyes with sigh. “Of course you knew. How long have you known? Did you have a vision or—did someone tell you…?”

Bruno glanced toward the group in front of them, and Mirabel narrowed her eyes.

“I…have my ways,” he finished, wiggling his fingers at her mysteriously and flashing a mischievous grin. Ahead of them, Dolores turned her head to the side just long enough to send back a subtle smile, putting her hand on Toñitos back where he bounced excitedly beside her. 

—

“I guess that's what I get for trying to throw a surprise party for a guy that sees the future,” Mirabel said wryly, shaking her head as they strolled down the main path toward the square. Bruno glanced at her—she held no real frustration in her face. If anything, she looked somehow satisfied, as if this was what she’d wanted to happen. Hm. He narrowed his eyes at her and opened his mouth to ask what exactly is it you are up to, traviesa when he suddenly noticed that up ahead the cheerful noise of la plaza had begun floating toward them and their group had begun to murmur in excited tones, Julieta and Pepa obviously beginning to catch on that the supposed picnic was not in fact a picnic after all. Bruno gulped. 

“Hey,” Mirabel said gently, bringing her other hand to rest on his arm as well. “I know this isn't your thing. But Ma and Tía, they love dancing, and Mamá never gets to just relax and enjoy parties because she's always looking out after everything else, so I just wanted to—”

“It's great, mija,” he interrupted, trying his best to fill his voice with sincerity. It was great. Everything she said was true, and he wanted all of that for his sisters today, even if it meant that his legs felt like jelly and his insides were already doing the cumbia. Be a good sport. Make your family happy. And, por dios, he would. 

“You've done a great job on all this, and I'll be fine. I'm e-excited! Y-you just go have fun, and I'll be around a—ay, I promise I won't sneak off, don't look at me like that Mirabel—and, hey! I'm here. I'm here, and, heh, honestly,” he gave a little shrug, pleased that this part at least felt true, “I-I think that's enough. I wouldn't miss this again for the world, chiquita. B-bring on the par-tay.” 

He flashed a slightly-shaky thumbs up at her, and she tilted her head affectionately, likely seeing straight through every word he'd fudged. But just as she began to reply, they reached the square and their attention was pulled ahead. 

“¡SOPRESA!” cried a hundred voices, not entirely in unison, and a great cheer rang out around them. Someone grabbed Mirabel and pulled her toward the front of the group, and her hand gripped tightly onto Bruno’s, pulling him right along after. 

He suddenly found himself sandwiched between his sisters with Mirabel standing before them, facing the square filled with an explosion of colorfully dressed buildings and people, all clapping and whooping now that the guests of honor had arrived. He heard Julieta give a quiet oh! beside him, her hand over her mouth and her eyes bright, and a bout of hail clattered around Pepa in full form, shimmering in the bright sunlight like jewels. Bruno stretched a smile onto his face and tried his best not to throw up. 

From the crowd, Abuela stepped forward and approached Mirabel, giving her a joyful hug before turning to face the people and raising her hands for silence.

“Thank you all for joining us here today to celebrate my beautiful children; Pepa, Julieta, and Bruno.” She turned and smiled at each of them in turn, resting softly on each name in a way that made his stomach flip. “They are the light of my life, and a light to this town. Today, we honor who they are, and what they mean to us.”

Another round of clapping and cheering rang out, and Abuela turned to Mirabel and took her hands. “As you all know, this wonderful party was arranged by our hermosa Mirabel. She is a wonder, and we would not be here today without her. So now, I will step aside and give her a well-deserved moment to shine.”

Abuela pressed a kiss to her forehead before stepping back to stand beside Bruno and his sisters. She took Julieta by the hand and whispered, “ Felíz cumpleaños, mijos.” Her eyes carefully holding each of theirs. “ Los amo.” [I love you.]

Bruno watched as Mirabel stepped forward, the sunlight glinting gold on the crown of her dark hair, her shoulders raised a little higher than normal. She straightened her glasses on her nose. 

“Thank you everyone, for all of your help,” she began. “We really couldn’t have done this without you. My mamá, my tío and tía—they mean everything to me, and I know they mean so much to all of you, too.” She paused, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and moving her hands behind her back, where Bruno could see them fiddle nervously with her skirt. “The square looks amazing, you all did a great job, and well, I just really want to thank you for making this day special for my family. And you know what? It all just reminds me—we are a family. Not just us, you know, the Madrigals,” she broke decorum for a moment to make exaggerated air quotes, then quickly cleared her throat and stood straight again, “b-but all of us. The whole Encanto es una familia, and I am so grateful for that everyday.”

Beside him, Julieta sniffed loudly, and Bruno had to admit that he maybe felt a little sting behind his own eyes. 

“Pull it together, hermana, ” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth, and Juli scoffed and batted at his arm. 

“Well, anyway, enough of all that,” Mirabel laughed, brushing off the sentiment with waving hands and dipping her shoulders jokingly. “There’s food, there’s music, there’s drinks— a la fiesta, everyone!” She threw her hands in the air, the crowd cheered, a cumbia rang out, and everything around Bruno suddenly began moving in such quick succession that he felt for a moment like he had fallen in the swiftly moving tide of a river. In fact, he might have drowned, had Dolores not grabbed one of his hands and pulled him to shore—that is, a spot off to the side of the crowd where he could sit on a low wall and catch his breath. 

“¡Felíz cumple, Señor Bruno!” 

“¡Felíz cumpleaños!” 

“¡Felíz cumple, Señor Madrigal!” 

He nodded at each polite voice as they bounced in his direction, his smile straining a little more each time, and when at last he sat down he immediately reached behind his shoulders to reflexively pull his hood down over his head—but then a gentle hand gripped his and brought it back down beside him instead. Dolores’ voice spoke quietly in his ear, her hand patting his in time with her words. 

“You're alright, Tío Bruno. You don't need to hide anymore. Just breathe.”

Breathe? Right, I gotta do that. J-just breathe, he repeated to himself. E-easy now viejo, she's right, she's right. The girls worked so hard to get you presentable, a-and you are here, you want to be here. You can hang in there for a little while. Just…breathe…

He filled his lungs as deeply as he could and blew it out slowly. He realized then that he’d squeezed his eyes shut tight, and slowly, sheepishly, he opened them, looking around to get his bearings. 

The square before him was already filled with joyful dancing, women’s skirts swishing and swirling to the rhythm of the band playing on the church steps. Above their heads were strung garlands of hundreds of paper butterflies, the sheer white wings fluttering sweetly in the breeze from their high perch. The smell of tangy-sweet tamarindo and savory charred mazorca y chuzos wafted tantalizingly around them, and Bruno could hear the harsh sizzle of the grill in the undertow beneath the sounds of the crowd. On the borders of the plaza, great round silletas covered in a riot of flowers graced the space between each building’s pillars, and huge banners bearing each of the triplet’s names hung brightly above it all from the balcony railings. 

Bruno. The letters of his name gleamed pink and orange across the green fabric of his sign, painted with care and surrounded by delicate swirls of yellow. It hung between the banners for each of his sisters, and Bruno found himself staring at it for a long while. 

“We didn’t make that, you know,” Dolores finally remarked, following his eyes. “The people in town did. For Tía and Mami, and for you.”

“Oh,” he said dumbly, running his fingers along the rough surface of the stone wall beneath him. He could feel his heart beat gradually slowing down. “It’s, um, it’s nice. The flowers look great, too. I’ll have to tell Isabela later.”

“She didn’t make those, either. She made that.” Dolores nodded her head in the direction of a large spikey monstrosity made largely of what appeared to be cactus and sundew. The people milling around it gave it a wide berth.

“Ah,” he chuckled, feeling his shoulders loosen a bit as well. “Yes, that’s…something isn’t it?”

Dolores nodded, an amused expression on her face. She’d released his hand now that she could see he’d calmed down a bit, and she settled in next to him with her hands folded in her lap. 

“The butterflies were my idea!” Antonio’s small, high voice suddenly shouted beside him, and Bruno jumped, nearly falling off the wall. “Do you like them?”

Toñito had appeared out of nowhere, precariously holding two large plates of food in his hands in such a way that Bruno had no idea how any food still remained on them. 

“Woah, cuidado, parcero,” he fretted, releasing his hand from where it gripped his shirt over his heart so he could grab the other side of each plate, tipping them into a more upright position. “You extra hungry today?”

“It’s for you!” Antonio said brightly. “Mami said, ‘Make sure your Tio eats, ’ and so I got some of all the things I could find, but not the zanahorias ‘cause they’re too spicy and not the yuca frita because they are yucky.”

Bruno laughed at Toñito’s surprisingly accurate Pepa impression, his mood brightening considerably as he passed one of the heavy-laden plates toward Dolores. She took a chuzo with a pleased hum. 

“Thanks, kid. Where is your mami?”

“Dancing,” he shrugged, and Bruno searched the crowd. After a moment, he spotted both his sisters, dancing with their husbands and laughing in a way that made him want to laugh out loud, too. 

After watching them for a moment, he turned back to Antonio, tipping his head toward the empty space on the wall beside him. 

“I do like the butterflies, you know. I was just thinking that they are my favorite part.”

Antonio beamed and scooted up onto the wall, capturing Bruno's free hand in his own. 

“I knew you would! I even made some of them! I made that one, and that one, and that one, and, um, I think not that one…”

Bruno snacked on the food between them, nodding attentively at each of the indistinguishable butterflies that Antonio pointed at and murmuring impressed noises between bites. After a while, Antonio quieted down and, at Dolores’ urging, began to munch on an ear of corn. He bounced his heels against the wall in time to the music as they watched the people dancing and laughing before them, and Dolores leaned quietly into Bruno’s shoulder on his other side. And just like that, without even realizing it was happening, Bruno suddenly found he was somewhat enjoying himself.

—

He was halfway through his third platano asado when he noticed Antonio’s legs slowly stop bouncing an his shoulders suddenly sag down. He swallowed his bite and nugged Antonio with his elbow. 

“Hey, you good, kid?”

Antonio nodded, then murmured, “I think Tití would really like all this dancing, don’t you think so?”

Bruno glanced around, half expecting the rambunctious little monkey to suddenly appear on his shoulder. But at that moment, he realized that the square was particularly absent of all wild animals—even birds. His brow furrowed. 

“Where’s Parce today?” he asked, his eyes still roaming the square for any kind of non-domesticated animal life. 

“Oh,” Antonio said, and he wound his other hand under Bruno’s, where one already hid. “Mami says I shouldn’t bring him into town anymore because he makes people, um, not easy.” After a moment’s thought, he perked up. “Do you have any of your rats with you?”

“Oh, n-no,” Bruno grimaced. “They, uh, also tend to make people uneasy.” 

The kid's disappointment was palpalble. 

“We’ve been trying not to bring any of my friends into town,” Antonio continued, his voice quieting in that way that twisted Bruno’s heart into knots. “I can still talk to the donkeys sometimes, though. And I’m getting pretty good at keeping everyone all out. Mami says it’s for the best, and that they can come to our house all I want in the evening.” After a moment, he added softly, “I miss them though.”

Bruno’s brow furrowed, and he gave a small squeeze to Antonio’s hands. 

“Toñito,” Dolores suddenly interjected, leaning past Bruno to catch her brother’s attention. “Mira, I think Camilo is getting a little cocky out there, don’t you? Why don’t you go show him who’s the best dancer in this family.” [look]

Antonio perked up at that, hopping off the wall and immediately rushing off toward the corner of the dance floor where Camilo was currently making eyes at a young woman Bruno didn’t recognize. They watched as Antonio made quick work of wedging himself between them and pulling his exasperated hermano away. 

Bruno watched him go with a heaviness settling in his stomach. He moved the half-empty plate away onto the wall where his sobrino had been sitting and brought his fingers together to fidget anxiously.

Dolores glanced at him without turning her head. “He misses his time with you,” she said. 

Bruno inhaled and held his breath at the top, his mouth tightening. 

“Mami has a lot to teach him,” she continued, her voice barely audible over the noise around them. “She understands self-control—”

Bruno let out his breath in an involuntary snort, and Dolores scowled at him.

“Sorry,” he muttered. 

“—in a way most people won't ever have to.” She finished with her lips in an scolding pout. 

Bruno looked out at his sister, spinning in Félix's arms and sending a warm refraction of rainbows across the square. She was free to laugh and beam now, but how often had she needed to hide her icy fear away? Her wet, cold saddness? He thought of their house filled with thunder, and then, just her room, and then nothing at all. He though of rain falling on both of their heads as they sat together, back to back—and of the endless bright blue clear sky. Clear skies, clear skies, clear skies. 

“Yeah,” he conceded softly. “I guess she does.”

A sheepish glance at Dolores’ face told Bruno she wasn’t truly upset, but the air around her still held the tension of words she hadn’t said. 

“...sometimes, though,” he offered after a moment, “i-in all that self-control, you, uh, you can start to lose the ‘self,’ part, yeah?” 

Dolores blinked, and nodded. 

They let that thought hang between them in a long silence, as often happened when he spent time with his sobrina. He liked that about his frequent walks with Dolores, actually—that they could enjoy each other’s company with very little needing to be said. Something about her quiet presence could somehow dampen the endless chatter in his own head, too. 

An outburst of laughter from a group near them cascaded over the sound of the music, and Bruno’s eyebrows drew together as a sudden realization dawned on him. 

“Ay, it’s really loud, isn’t it?” he muttered, feeling suddenly, terribly conscious that even his own voice was raising the volume even higher. “A-are you alright, lechucita?” [little owl]

“Oh, I'm used to it,” she shrugged. “I have my ear plugs if it gets to be too much. But I learned a long time ago to just focus on something I like to hear. Like your sand falling in your room, when I was little. Or, now, on—” She cut off, a blush spreading slowly across her cheeks. 

Bruno blinked at her uncomprehendingly. Then he followed her eyes, ever so wide, where they gazed far across the square at a handsome young man in a crisp white shirt, who was seemingly engaged in a quite passionate conversation with empty air.

“Ah,” Bruno said with a smile, “What’s he saying today?”

Dolores was quiet for a moment, listening, before offering her shy response, a wider smile than Bruno had ever seen blossoming across her face. 

“He says I look lovely today,” she finally answered, her voice soft and her blush deepening.

“Ay, mija, what are you doing over here, wasting all your party time with this crazy viejo, eh?” he nudged her with his elbow. “Get out there!”

“It’s your birthday,” she protested. “I wanted to sit with you.”

“Ah, you’re right, you’re right…you are wasting your time with a crazy birthday viejo. Better?”

“Tío—”

“Go on,” he urged, flapping his hands at her to get her moving. “I’ll be fine. I-I’m fed, I’ve got a spot in the shadows to lurk in—all my essential needs are met! Y-you just have a good time, okay?”

She hesitated, but with another glance at Mariano, the offer seemed to prove too tempting. She slid off the wall and fixed him with a wide-eyed stare. 

“Tell Mariano I said hola,’ he said firmly.

“If you need me, you’ll say?” 

“Te lo prometo,” he reassured her, straightening his back and adding a salute for good measure. [I promise] And with a grateful smile, she slipped quietly into the crowd. 

—

Bruno busied his hands with the remainder of the food beside him, picking it apart into miniscule bites in order to prolong the distraction. He rubbed his feet back and forth against the stone floor, feeling the scratch of his sandals in the soles of his feet. He wished he had a rat to feed. 

Across the square, he could see Julieta sipping on a lulo juice and engaging in conversation with some of the women from town, her cheeks flushed from dancing. Pepa and Félix were still at it, and now Antonio had joined them, holding one of each of their hands in his so they were dancing in a big circle. Mariano and Dolores were dancing in their own little corner of the square, oblivious to everyone else around them. And—ah, there was Mirabel. 

She stood with her abuela, talking animatedly to one of the musicians who wasn’t currently playing. The woman was gesturing persuasively at Mirabel with an accordion in her arms, though his sobrina appeared to be gracefully refusing. Mirabel put her hands on her hips, standing straight by his Mamá, her shoulders back and laughing. 

Ay, look at her. She was so much taller now, almost taller than himself, he’d noticed. She’d grown so much in the past year, in so many ways, even just from the time that he’d known her, really known her. She was right—she wasn’t a kid anymore, and he was just so very proud of her. He felt like he stood a little taller, too, when he thought of how much she’d grown, almost as if she’d lifted him alongside her. 

Abuela turned and patted her granddaughter’s cheek, and the look Mirabel gazed back with was filled with joy—and tinged with grateful relief. Mirabel was seen now, perhaps by everyone, but most importantly by her grandmother, who had gone so long without looking at Mirabel with the pride she deserved. Bruno watched his mother turn to speak to some elder of the town, and Mirabel glanced back in his direction. When she spotted him, she gave him a goofy thumbs up and an exaggerated grin, and Bruno felt himself smile back without effort. Despite it all, she really was doing great. 

But he still worried about her, too. The sorrow-filled face from her distant future, though momentarily set aside in the wake of his newest past-visions, still echoed in his mind every time he looked at her. After all, he remembered what it was like to have his Mamá touch his cheek, gaze at him with affection, with pride. He remembered how he would do anything to keep that look, to keep her approval, her adoration. He remembered how he hadn’t been able to. 

But Alma was very different now, he reminded himself. They all were. All this ‘helping the Encanto’ business Mirabel had been obsessing over…eh, it probably wasn’t related.

Right?

Without realizing it, a small frown had settled into the familiar space of his mouth, and when Mirabel glanced back at him again, he was a second too late to tuck it away. A matching frown replaced her bright smile, and Bruno winced. Ay, Bruno. Keep it together! Make your family happy! He shot her a reassuring thumbs up. 

Ah, too late. She was already making her way toward him across the crowd. 

—

She’d been keeping her eye on him for the past hour, and made a point to double her visual check-ins once she saw Dolores leave her post. 

“Where are you going?” she’d muttered through gritted teeth, knowing her prima could hear her just fine from across the square. 

Dolores had hummed guiltily, then placed a hand on Mirabel’s shoulder as she passed a few moments later. 

“He’s okay,” she nodded reassuringly, and Mirabel scowled at her. 

Well, he had been okay, if you, you know, lowered your standards of “okay” to the bare minimum. He’d continued to sit in his spot on the wall by himself, watching the crowd and picking at his food in a nervous, twitchy kind of way. She supposed he did like his space though. Maybe Dolores was right, and a little time on his own would be good. Dolores was often, annoyingly, right about things. 

But then she’d glanced over at him and he’d been making that face—the one that he only made when he thought no one was looking. The one where his mouth turned downward in a gentle frown and every line on his face deepend, and she could almost see the weight he carried from all his years of worrying and searching all on his own settling down in the sag of his shoulders. 

Nuh-uh! she thought resolutely. Not today!

She politely excused herself from her conversation with Carmen, shaking her head at the proffered accordion in her hands one final time, and then marched straight over to him. She had no clear plan yet, but she just knew she need to get him out of his own head.

“Hola!” she said cheerfully, sliding onto the wall beside him and linking her arm through his. 

“Oh, uh, hello…” he began, and she could see the dismissals and excuses forming on his mouth, so she beat him to it. 

“And how is my wonderful, newly-fifty-two-year-young-but-not-really-because-his-birthday-is-really-tomorrow-but-no-one-knows-it Tío Bruno on this fine afternoon?” She reached across him and grabbed a buñuelo off the plate at his side and popped it into her mouth. 

“Uh…” he blinked, clearly not following. She smiled and chewed her bite. After a moment, his brain caught up with him and he jumped back into motion.

“Oh, me? I-I’m great, just great,” he stuttered, grabbing the plate and thrusting it toward her nervously. “Never better, never better. Corn?” 

She took the plate and immediately set it down again on her other side, undeterred. 

“No thanks. Hey, do you know what I was just thinking?”

“...N-no…”

“I have yet to see you bust out those fantastic dance moves I now know you have hidden away.”

“N-no, no, I—”

“And I just think it’s a shame to deprive the world of your true gift.”

“M-mirabel—”

“So, waddaya say, Tío?” she asked happily, hopping off the wall and spinning to face him. “Will you do me the honor of joining me for this next dance?” 

She offered her hand out to him and he stared at it, unmoving. 

“Nope.” He fixed her with a wide-eyed stare, and when her own challenging eye contact did not sway him, she doubled down. 

“Hm.” She dropped her hand to her hip, narrowing her eyes at him and bringing a hand to her mouth as if she was thinking. “I seem to remember a certain someone telling me that he would never again send me to go at it alone. Do you…happen to remember who that was?”

The scowl he gave her then was so deep and curmudgeonly that she almost burst out laughing, but she held it together. There we go—he was always less self conscious when he was grumpy.

“Y-you know perfectly well,” he said scoldingly, “that that does not apply here. ”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she sighed, fixing a forlorn expression on her face and bringing a hand to her chest. “Here I am, wanting to dance to this lovely cumbia—which is particularly excellent, I might add—and I just, sigh, have absolutely no one to dance with me…”

He grunted, and a little smugness settled in her chest at the amusement that she could hear hiding just beneath it.

“Go ask your other Tío,” he grumbled.  

“He’s dancing Tía Pepa into a stupor.”

“Your Pa will—”

“Um, no, I'm not taking Mami's dance partner for a second tonight! Also, I'd like to keep all my toes.”

“A-antonio then—”

“He’s busy keeping Camilo single for the rest of his life.” 

“Ay Mirabel!” he cried, and his voice was suddenly pleading. “You know I-I-I can’t—there’s just, just, just no way I can…I can…”

He pulled nervously at the collar of his ruana, looking around himself for wood to knock on. Her expression softened. She picked up the wooden plate of food that was still balanced on the wall by where she’d been sitting and offered it to him. He looked at her skeptically, but took it, knocking a steady beat on the underside of it with his knuckles. 

“It’s your birthday party, too, Tío,” she said gently, taking back the plate and picking up his hand instead. “I just want to see you have a good time.” 

He blinked at her, a look of reluctant concession gradually creeping into his attempts at a glower. 

“Here—” She slowly reached past him, pulling up his hood and resting it over his head, careful not to smash the flowers that Isabela had put there. “If Tío Bruno can’t dance with me, then how about Hernando? I know that guy’s not afraid of anything.”

His eyes were wide beneath the shadow of his hood, but she could see by the grimace in his mouth that her gamble had paid off. She took his other hand in hers and gave them both a small tug, and to her delight, he slid off the wall. 

One step at a time, dear tío mío, she thought. 

Rather than pull him onto the dance floor itself, which she thought might just be enough to send him back into the walls for good, she brought the dance floor to him. Still holding both his hands in hers, she began to swing them back and forth to the rhythm, gradually adding in a tip of her shoulders, then a little bounce to her hips. After a few moments, she began rocking back and forth on her feet, her smile widening as he automatically matched her steps. 

“Hey! Look!” she said brightly. “You’re dancing.” 

He didn’t respond, but just gulped and glanced around them nervously. She lifted one of his arms in the air, spinning herself beneath it before resuming their simple rhythm. 

“So,” she began, giving his hand a squeeze to pull his attention back to her. “Are you excited for the next part of your surprise?”

He stumbled, momentarily losing the beat. He fixed her with a warning stare.

“Ay, chiquita, you better be joking,” he squeaked. “A-any more surprises and I don’t think I’ll make it to fifty-three.” 

She laughed, this time sending him into a spin beneath her arm, which he begrudgingly followed. 

“Well, first of all, this initial surprise hardly counts, since, you know, you knew it was coming. And second of all, if you think that I put all my eggs in one party basket, then, frankly, I’m just insulted.”

He puffed his cheeks out, blowing the air in an obnoxious, apprehensive puff. 

“After all,” she continued, releasing one of his hands and lifting her skirt to the side as an added flourish, “I am the smartest of all your sobrinos.” 

He choked out a laugh at that, intentionally sending her into a very quick double spin before grabbing anxiously at her hand again as she came to face him. She squeezed it again, just for good measure. Don’t worry, she thought, I’m not letting go.

“You did do a great job, kid—ah, s-sorry .” He immediately winced as the word left his mouth, but she shook her head to show she didn’t mind, and he continued. “Anyway, I-I think this might be the best birthday your ma and Pepa have had in a long time, heh. Maybe ever.”

“They do seem happy, don’t they?” She couldn’t help the pleased grin that spread across her face. “I think I might have nailed it.”

“You did! For sure! I-I mean, just look at your mamá. I don’t think I’ve seen her feed a single person since we got here. That’s gotta be some kinda record.”

She laughed and nodded in agreement. “That momentous achievement should definitely be recorded for posterity.”

She lifted both their hands into the air and, in a daring move, twisted them both around, spinning her and her tío around at the same time. Shockingly, they pulled it off, and when they faced each other again, Bruno flashed her a crooked, accomplished grin from beneath his hood. 

“And how about you?” she asked after a moment, dropping her voice into a more serious tone. “How are you doing?”

“Well,” he said, glancing at her as he stretched his mouth to the side in consideration. “I'm…well, I’m here, for starters. Outside. In the sun. Dancing, heh. Thanks to you, traviesa.” 

He sent her into another spin, and she happily obliged. Just as she’d hoped, he was beginning to forget where he was now that he was getting lost in their conversation. 

“That’s something,” she encouraged.

“Yeah, it is, huh? Heck,” he continued, “Lately, I-I’ve been in the jungle, at the river…I’m, I’m, in la plaza, ha! Would you believe that? In a crowd of people and no one's—I-I mean, they're all, they’re not—t-they made me a sign. With my name on it. Isn't that funny?” 

“Hilarious,” she replied, the warmth in her voice suggesting that wasn’t at all what it was.

“It’s just strange, ya know? That a sign could…could mean…so much, I guess. A-and, and I'm a part of all this— this party you’ve put together. I’m not just watching it, or, or or, pretending or something. I’m actually here. A part of you kids’ lives. I get the chance to try to be there for you, which is…which is…”

He shook his head, and when he looked at her, there was a shining sort of gratitude there that made her heart ache. She blinked back the slight sting in her eyes and nodded at him to continue.

“I guess, to actually answer your question, heh, I’m…I’m…” his feet slowed, his mouth searching for the right word. She slowed down with him. 

“You’re home,” she shrugged, her voice a little thick. 

He looked at her, a small, sweet smile on his face.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “What a gift, eh?”

She threw her arms around him then, squeezing him tight to try to keep herself together, and he chuckled and held her back, leaning his head on hers. 

“Well, a-anyway. I guess that’s all to say, t-thanks for the party, kid. And for all the other stuff, too.” 

—

“Was that my brother doing the cumbia?!”

Bruno’s stomach dropped, and his eyes shot open. Over Mirabel’s shoulder, he could see Pepa sweeping across the square, her hands clasped in front of her and a maniacal grin on her face. Félix followed close behind, still shimming to the music, the top four buttons of his shirt undone.

Oh no. 

“N-n-no, no, now, Pepa, I was just—”

“Come on, hermano, you have to dance at least one song with me. It’s my birthday,” she winked, taking Bruno’s hands and slowly beginning to pull him toward the middle of the square.

"Yeah, come on, bro!" Félix exclaimed, smacking him roughly on the back. "Live it up today, huh?! Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bum!" He continued to dance beside them, bumping Bruno with his hip.

Bruno looked back at Mirabel with a pleading expression on his face, but Mirabel just grimaced and mouthed sorry! before hiding her mouth completely with her hands.

“S-slow down now, I-I am not going out there—”

“Ay, you’ll be fine,” Pepa laughed. Her eyes were bright from the rush of la salsa y cumbia , and she obviously wasn’t going to take no for an answer. 

This is it, Bruno thought forlornly, I’m going to die now, right here in la plaza. On my birthday. 

Suddenly, a scolding voice sailed their way, and Pepa stopped instinctually in her tracks.

“Pepa,” Alma rebuffed, approaching them with a playful smile on her face. “Stop bothering your brother.”

Pepa frowned. “Ay Mamá, ha estado un calladito all afternoon! Let me have a little fun.” [he's been a wallflower]

“I was actually hoping,” Alma continued, gently removing Pepa’s hands from Bruno’s and turning to him, eyes twinkling, “that someone could join me for a walk. I need a break from the noise, sí?”

Bruno looked at her, then back at Pepa, eyes wide. When he didn’t immediately respond, Alma tried again. 

“Bruno? ¿Me acompañas a dar un paseo?” [Will you join me for a walk?]

Pepa wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at him, holding out a hand and shaking her hips to the music, and Bruno gulped. 

“Uh, a-actually, a walk does sound nice, Ma. L-let’s go. Now. Like right now.”

Pepa shot him a pout as he slinked away, but by the time they’d reached the wall where he’d been sitting, she was already spinning back to the center of the dance floor, caught by some invisible string that Félix was pulling toward him.

As he walked away from la plaza, his mother taking his arm with a gentleness that sent a strange twinge through his chest and yet set his heart beating at twice the pace, he wasn’t quite sure if making a fool of himself on the dance floor wasn’t the better option. 

Well, he’d likely make a fool of himself either way, he reminded himself wryly. At least this way there were fewer witnesses. 

He gulped and put his hand over hers, glancing ahead as they went for any large cracks or stones in their path and resisting the urge to toss the salt from his pocket over his shoulder. 

For as much time as he had spent with his various family members one-on-one over the last almost two years of his return, very little of that time had been spent with his mamá. He did spend some time with her—at dinner, at breakfast, during those times when the family all gathered together. But alone? Ooph . He tried to avoid that whenever possible. 

And, mercy, she hadn’t really pushed it. 

You see, it wasn’t so much that he didn’t want to spend time with her alone. Well, maybe…maybe it was that. But, not because he didn’t love her! He did. He loved his Ma, even with all they'd been through. He loved her so very much. But ay, no matter how much he reminded himself that things were different now, no matter how many times she whispered to him that she was happy he was home, or that she loved him, no matter how different she seemed, how much warmer she was…deep down, he just couldn’t help but fear that if they spent too much time together, he would somehow do it again. He’d disappoint her, he’d break her heart. He wouldn’t do enough. 

And he just didn’t know if he could handle seeing that look on her face again. 

Of course, they’d talked in that early, in-between time of his return, when they still had no casita or miracle or expectations tied neatly, tightly around weighty magical gifts. It had somehow been easier then. They’d sat together in the shade of late afternoon, in a moment of quiet after a hard day’s work on their new home’s foundation, and she’d apologized. 

“Brunito, I’m so happy that you have come back to us,” she’d whispered, her voice shaking. “If I could take it all back—if I could start again, I would tell you—I would tell you that you mean so much more to me than your gift, mijo, so much more than what you can do or see. You are my son, now and always. And I’m so very sorry that I made you leave.”

Her voice had broken, and he’d reached for her, and they’d held each other tighter than they ever had before. 

You didn’t make me leave, he’d wanted to say . You were stubborn, yes, and blind—y-you couldn’t see, but…but, but my fear, my cowardice, my inability to just say no and stand by my gift, by my little sobrina, by my family— that’s what made me leave. I was making everything worse, I couldn’t fix it. I wanted so badly to fix it but… I just couldn’t. Mamá, I just didn’t know how.

But he hadn’t said that. He hadn’t said anything. He’d just held her, burying his face in her shoulder and listening to the terrible, foreign sound of her tears, and praying that this truly was a fresh start. That none of this would never happen again. That he’d do better—that they both would.

Ah, but then his gift had come back, and so had their home, and here they were all together again, the future lurking around his heart like a thousand-pound shadow, and he still didn’t know how to…to…to fix this— this terrible, broken thing between them. And that was terrifying. Because if he messed up again—could he…could he lose it all?

No, came that Mirabel voice in his head again. We are all glad you are here. Just you. 

Okay, he thought. Just…me. Ooofph. I guess let's give that a try.

When they’d wandered far enough from the crowd that the noise of music and laughter faded to a murmur, the silence between them became too great of a pressure in his chest, and he cleared his throat to fill it. 

“Um, t-thanks, Ma. I, heh, didn’t really feel like dancing out there now.” He lifted his hand long enough to rub the back of his neck, his eyes widening. “O-or ever.”

“I thought not,” she chuckled. “Though, I do understand if you’d like to spend more time with your sisters today than with me, mijo. We can turn around anytime.” 

“No!” he choked out, a little too frantic to dissuade the notion. He cleared his throat again. “I-I-I mean, no, Mamá, this is fine. The quiet…i-it’s nice.”

“It is,” she agreed. 

And then it was too quiet again. Ay. 

“Great weather we’re having, eh?” he tried, wincing. 

Ay. 

“It’s lovely,” she replied politely, and after a thoughtful pause added, “Particularly with Pepa taking a step back. She seems much happier now, sí?”

Bruno’s eyebrows raised. “Oh. Y-yeah, I think so, too. It’s good, it’s good, really great. We could all use a break sometimes, eh? ‘Specially Peps. She can get really—wooooohoo— if she’s, ya know, stressed and she definitely was stressed, even if we didn’t notice at first, but Mirabel noticed, cause she notices things and, well, here we are!” He cleared his throat for the third time. “So, yes, it’s…it's…good.”

Alma listened quietly as he rambled, her face serene and unchanging as always.

“And Julieta, she is doing well, too.”

“Um, yeah, I-I think so.” 

“She mentioned you got her a gaita.”

He winced again. “Ah…yes.” 

“What prompted that gift?”

“Um…,” Bruno hesitated, scratching at his beard. “...a gluttony for punishment?”

Alma paused for a beat, before letting out a laugh so deep and genuine it completely took him off guard. He stared at her, a small smile pulling at the corners of his own mouth. 

“That may prove true,” she sighed, patting his arm, her smile lingering in her eyes and in her voice. “But she seemed to love it. I had no idea she wanted to learn. You are a good brother, Bruno.”

“Oh, heh, I-I dont know about that. I mean, I think I’m a tentative okay at best…”

They turned a corner down another row of tidy houses, slowly following the stone road until it petered out into a dirt path, winding on ahead without them across lush grass toward the corn fields and the verdant mountains beyond. A bench sat to their right, and Mamá tipped her head toward it, so Bruno followed and settled in beside her. 

“And what about you?” she asked as she straightened her skirts. “Are you…happier, as well?”

“Um, yeah, I-I’m great.” 

“Truly, Brunito.” He suddenly found that she was looking at him intently, her brow furrowed and her eyes soft and concerned. Beneath that gaze, he suddenly felt so very small. “I want to know. ¿Cómo estás, mi vida?”

He opened his mouth and closed it again without success, blinking, unable to look away from her kind, searching eyes. It was almost as if he was melting, sifting away like sand through time right there on their little wooden bench. He wasn’t 52 any more, but five, smiling at her with a heavy green glass in his hands, somehow lighter then than it ever would be again. He was four, seeking her out for comfort after scraping his knee. He was three, wandering downstairs, the first of his siblings awake to find her sipping her café in the pale morning light.

“Brunito,” and the name on her lips was joy, not exasperation. “¿Cómo estás, mi vida?”

She took his hands in hers and gave them a squeeze, and the little touch jolted him back into the present. 

“I’m…I’m…” 

He swallowed, looking around, searching for the words to answer her with. 

What he saw instead was a line of ants.

They crawled in a meandering line across the path, the sun glinting off their tiny black backs as they made their way toward a small garden across from where Bruno and his mamá sat, a tidy and lush plot of earth worked with tender care. The line of ants disappeared below the silvery-green leaves of a large sage bush. 

Bruno felt a tightening sensation in his throat. His heart began to race and he suddenly couldn't quite catch his breath. 

“H-hey, ma?”

Alma frowned, following his gaze but seeing nothing of note. 

“Sí, Brunito?” she prompted. 

A quiet garden. Ants in a line below silvery-green leaves, someone shouting his name in the distance—

“Who…who…wh-whose house is that?”

Her eyes are angry. Her eyes are afraid. 

“Oh. A la familia Jimenez; you remember Señora Elisa and Señor Raymundo. They are old friends, of your father’s and of mine from even before the Encanto was given to us.”

“The garden…” he began to say, but then let the sentence fall short. Mamá looked at the little plot, a small smile playing on her mouth. 

“Do you remember it, mijo?” she asked curiously, and Bruno shook his head ever so slightly, his mouth still open to form words he didn’t have. She nodded with a warm hum. 

“You used to love Elisa’s garden. When you were very small, you would wander off all the time while I was trying to attend to my duties in town. Travieso lindito, you were always so distractible. After a while, I knew to look for you there, in Elisa’s garden, but ay you would scare me every time you let go of my hand.”

A hand in his, a hand letting go—

She gave his hand another squeeze, and his stomach did a terrible flip. This was another story he’d never heard before, a story from a time so early in his life that his own memories took only the nascent shape of textures and vague impressions. But now, the miracle was reminding him. It was as though his strange visions of the past were folding over themselves, filling up the present and ghosting into the future. Why? 

Bruno suddenly found his voice. He turned toward his mother, searching her face desperately.

“What else happened, Ma? What…w-why…why did I like this garden so much?”

“I—I’m sure I don’t know, Bruno,” she answered, her voice slowly losing its levity as she caught the shape of his increasing anxiety. “You were just a little boy, only three or four. You were always lost in your imagination. I suppose it was an adventure you’d made up, like the stories we read. You were always making up adventures—”

“No, no, but…” he shook his head in frustration, waving an agitated hand beside his head and then bringing his knuckles to his mouth. A couple yellow petals fluttered to the ground from the flowers that still wound through his hair.  “T-there has to be more to that story. About the garden. It was before our gifts then, right? W-where were J-Juli and Pepa? What happened when you found me? Did— d-d-did I run off or–or–or—”

“Bruno.” She put a hand to his face, turning it slowly to face her again. He’d begun knocking rapidly on the wood of the bench as he spoke, his stuttering catching the questions in its claws before he could fully form them, but at her touch his hand stilled. “Despacio, hijo. Bruno, tell me what is bothering you.”

He blinked at her. In the not-too-distant past, this would be a moment where he would shrink away. He’d laugh awkwardly, taking a step back from her touch and her searing questions, back into the safety of his room, of the shadows. He’d avoid and evade and offer half-truths that never were enough, but they were better than the heavy disappointment that inevitably came of a truth told fully, of another vision shared, of more bad news. She would shake her head at him either way, because he was Bruno and he was never—he was never enough. He could never do enough. 

But… you mean so much more to me than your gift, she had said. So much more than what you can do or see. 

You are my son, now and always.

You don’t have to hide any more, Dolores had whispered. 

You are worth something, sang the carefully painted letters of his name on the sign in the square. 

You’re home. And, when Mirabel had said it, they’d both known it meant so much more than a plate on the table.

Things were different now. So maybe he—maybe they could be different, too. Maybe…maybe this was how to fix it, or at least to start. 

“Ma, I…” he gulped, feeling the words rising like a bubble in his chest, ready to burst. “…I had a vision.” 

And he told her. He told her in stumbling, rambling, fragments of sentences that didn’t at all do justice to everything he’d seen, to the feel of it. He tried and failed to put his half-baked guesses into some semblance of logical interpretation. Part way through, he realized he hadn’t explained the new quirks of his gift, and he backpedaled and tripped over his words as he tried to explain what little he knew about what was happening inside him. And the whole while, he held his shaky hands out in front of him as if they held the vision glass that was in reality tucked in a drawer in his room, gesturing desperately at the shape of things that weren’t there. 

It all poured out, and Alma listened. Silently. 

When he at last ran out of words and steam, he took a ragged breath, his chest tightening against his lungs, and finally turned to look at his mother’s face. And as he took in her expression, his stomach dropped. 

For just a moment, when her eyes met his, they were bright and wide with shock. Her mouth was open slightly in fear, but then it drew into a tight, thin line and she abruptly looked away. She suddenly stood, her hand at her lips, and turned her back to him, walking a few steps away before stopping and standing there with her shoulders tense and raised.  

“...M-ma?” he asked tentatively, his voice unsteady.

“Why would the miracle show you this?” The words were harsh, aggravated, and it sent ice down Bruno’s back. “Why today, of all days? I hoped there could be one day…Dios, why would you need to see the past as well—is the future not enough?”

“I…I d-don’t…” his words caught in his throat. 

She turned to look at him then—but to his surprise, her expression was not angry. Though her brow was furrowed, the brightness in her eyes was now a shimmering of unshed tears, and the tightness of her mouth quivered under the effort of holding them back. He gaped at her, horrified, and her brow loosened, her face falling into a sadness that Bruno did not know how to handle. 

“Ay, Bruno,” she muttered. She shook her head slightly, and her shoulders dropped. “I’m so sorry, mijo. I’m not angry with you. I—” she took a shaky breath in and blinked rapidly, looking away. 

Slowly, carefully, Bruno stood and walked toward her. He reached out and took her hands in his, and they were shaking. His were shaking, too. 

“Ma?” He mouthed the word, but the sound came out no louder than a hoarse murmur. 

“Bruno,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “I know what was in that vision.”

Chapter Text

“I…cannot explain all of the vision,” Alma said carefully as she allowed Bruno to lead her back to the bench. She settled shakily down beside him, and he let her go like a clay pot balanced precariously on an edge. 

Seeing Ma like this—vulnerable in her emotion, willing to soften in the face of it instead of turning up her chin in time-hardened defiance—it was unsettling, t-to put it lightly. It was like watching a mountain crumble before his eyes. 

Alma sat beside him for a quiet moment, her brow furrowed and her eyes closed. The crow’s feet at their corners deepened as she steadied herself. 

“...but the tree,” she whispered, “the storm—” 

Mrmm— Bruno smothered the high-pitched squeak of tension that eeked quietly from his throat. He waited stiffly, his stomach knotted. He opened and closed his hands in his lap, his fingers twisting into the fabric of his ruana. Ay, there was just no rushing Ma. Nope . You couldn't hurry the future, and you couldn't hurry Alma Madrigal— two immovable forces, the both of them . He resisted the prickling urge to knock on the bench below him. 

Finally, Alma took one last deep breath, and then, slowly, she began.

“You must understand, Brunito…many years ago, when the Encanto was still very young, things were not as they are now. We had no warning of future dangers, no control over the seasons or skies, and our aging doctor, Don Huerta—que Dios bendiga su alma [may God bless his soul] —could do only so much. But we were a strong people, flourishing under the safety of our new miracle, and for that we were endlessly thankful. Casita sheltered us, provided many of our needs, and we worked hard to make this refuge into a home. New children were being born into the homes we built, great blessings of new life. A new start.”

Bruno nodded, trying not to fidget. This really sounded an awful lot like the story of the miracle—one he had heard at least once a year for as long as he could remember. He knew it by rote. The candle became a magical flame that could never go out, and it blessed us with a refuge in which to live. A place of wonder—our Encanto... 

Alma’s spine straightened, and her hands ghosted over the place where her black shawl once hung down from her shoulders. When her fingers found only air, she placed her hands back in her lap instead, raising her chin but not her eyes. 

“But, we would soon need more fields, more food for the growing families,” she reasoned. “So, as the season for building homes came to a close, we had a difficult decision to make. Should we strike out new plots for additional crops, clearing the trees and overgrowth to give ourselves the hope of more food in the year to come? Or was the risk of running into the rainy season too great? 

“You see, I had been carefully tracking the weather in our sheltered valley, and by that fourth year, we were able to predict when the heavy rains should begin. Unlike in our old home, these new mountains seemed to funnel…to almost capture the clouds. For part of the year, the rain would come unpredictably, at times without ceasing. When that time came, it would rain for days on end, and it would be very difficult—dangerous even—to build or work the land. But, hoping we would be blessed with just enough time to complete our task and provide for our future needs, we decided to act.” Alma paused, her breath catching, before quietly amending her words. 

“ I… decided to act.”

As she continued, Bruno watched as she slowly left behind the decorum of her usual storytelling demeanor. The lines in her face seemed to betray her age as the weight of the memory settled in, her eyes becoming distant, lost in the past. Over her shoulder, Bruno could see the deep green stalks in the corn fields waving softly in the breeze.

“We had almost finished clearing the area for the second or third field. We spent each day out on the far edges of town, even as the drizzling began, ensuring the work went as planned and supporting those who labored. You children, you were often with me. If I am being honest, it felt safer to have you close. I disliked leaving you with anyone. I—”

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. When she opened them again, she had turned her face away from Bruno, instead staring unfocused at Elisa’s garden. Bruno blinked absently at the silvery leaves swaying slowly in the breeze. Small snippets, barely even formed enough to be called memories, began sifting through his mind, as hazy as smoke—

—the feel of his mother’s rough skirt in his hands, the rumbling, urgent tone of adult voices, the air crackling, somber and firm, the smell of distant rain and the grit of sodden soil crunching beneath his damp feet, the reliable warmth of his sisters’ fingers wrapped in his—

“The air felt different that day, though none of us realized why until much later. It had been temperate the few days before, the rain clearing and the temperature rising. I thought it was a sign that we were being given more time, I thought—” Her hand raised again to the place of her missing shawl, and this time it pressed firmly against her heart. “We had no way to know—”

Bruno’s breath suddenly hitched as a terribly familiar buzzing sensation rushed through his skull. If his eyes began to glow, he had no idea, though even that concern dissipated as his fuzzy memories quickly sharpened, thrown into razor-fine relief, gossamer-green and certain as glass.

—His hands pushing through wet foliage, each leaf leaving a shivering chill on his fingertips. No, no, no, only green, only green…

Hurry up, Bruno! I’m getting cold!

He shook the wet strands of hair from his eyes, turning to look pleadingly at Pepa.

Th-th-there have to be flowers here s-somewheres—

“The wind picked up rapidly. Then came the rain and hail. Before we knew it, a terrible storm was suddenly descending upon us. We knew we could not continue. I turned toward you and your sisters, to guide you home, but when I looked beside me, you had gone. Bruno, you were always wandering off, but your sisters—you all were gone. In the chaos of the wind and rain, I hadn’t even heard you leave my side.”

—a small, uncertain voice shuddering quietly behind him. 

Guys, it’s getting really windy. I think maybe we should go back to Mamá…

We c-can’t yet, Juli! Mamá needs them! C-come, c-come…c-come h-h-help us—

“I wanted to find you flowers,” Bruno whispered aloud, watching as the ephemeral shapes of sisters blurred, their edges suddenly growing wispy and distorted like lines of sand brushing away on the gusts of a heavy wind as he tried to refocus on the present. Though he was dimly aware that the air around him was calm, he still felt a phantom gale pull harshly at his hair and clothes, strong enough to stagger his sisters’ footing. 

Nones are here, ‘manito! Just look! 

Pepa stomping her foot in frustration and clutching herself tighter, moving closer to him until their shoulders pressed together. Juli at his back—three shivering as one—

“You had been so distracted,” Bruno whispered. “More worried than usual. I remember…we wanted to help. To make you feel better.” 

He looked at his mother. Her eyes were wide and bright with pain. His head began to ache as his vision split and overlaid the past with the present, each fighting for his attention. He was looking toward the impossibly tall trees at the field’s edge, knowing two other heads moved in unison with his. He was staggering toward the promising cover of the forest, strengthened by the two sets of hand twined tightly with his own, certain the wind couldn’t follow them there, certain the flowers bloomed just through those shadows—

Slowly, the past began to release its hold, the green faded, and the world was left somehow duller than it had been moments before, like a photograph faded by sunlight. As his gift retreated, it left behind a shiver of certainty creeping its way down his spine. 

Flowers in a child’s hand, in a woman’s hair, her smile is comfort, her smile is sad—

“Flowers always made you feel better,” he muttered again, breathless. “We were looking for flowers.”

Alma’s voice shook. “I searched everywhere for you, mijo. You weren’t in town, you weren’t in the garden. The rain and wind continued to increase—it was a hurricane. We couldn’t keep searching. We couldn’t even see through the storm…”

Rain, rain, endless rain—

Wet feet, wet clothes, a chill that reached the bone.

“By the time the storm calmed, by the time we found you—you all were so weak. Somehow, you’d ended up in the jungle. You’d taken shelter there, from the flooding and winds. You were huddled in a tree, barely holding on…”

Standing together, three children before a swaying tree that towered above them like a giant. Fear—

Someone shouting his name in the distance. 

Holding tight, weary arms, his sisters’ hands in his, his arms aren’t big enough to hold them—

I will be strong and brave. 

Just like him. Just like him. 

“You all took fevers. You were pale and so very sick—I remember you looked impossibly small in your beds. For days, it seemed like you might not…I thought you wouldn't…” For a moment, Alma waivered. Though no tears fell, Bruno could hear the thickness beneath her voice. “I thought I was going to lose all of you, Brunito. My family. My babies. You were all I had left. I prayed day and night. I couldn’t leave your side.”

Arrorró mi niño, arrorró mi sol— 

“It was… my fault, ” she gasped.

He wanted to reach out to her, to take her hand, but he was frozen in place. Instead, he watched her expression suddenly harden, watched the familiar stiffening motion of her shoulders as she braced herself against the haunting past. She breathed in deeply, tilting her face up and closing her eyes. After a long moment, when she opened them again, she could return his wide-eyed stare with a gaze as steady and firm as her voice. 

“But thank the Lord, one morning, your fevers broke. One right after the other, I felt your foreheads and they were cool. You opened your eyes—I remember, Bruno, that you smiled at me. Asked me if I was alright, asked why I was crying.” 

She laughed a shallow, small laugh, shaking her head and smiling at him softly. 

“You all began to recover. I was so relieved, but it was…a very sobering experience. In that moment, I realized that even in the Encanto, in our magical new home, I could still lose you. I was still truly helpless to protect you.

“So that night, once you each had taken some food and were resting for the evening, I knelt before the candle and I prayed once again. I asked Pedro for help, for the ability to protect you and your sisters…like I could not protect him. I poured my heart out to him, I begged him with the same thought that had been running over and over through my mind for days: if the storm had somehow cleared sooner, or if I knew how to heal them—if…if I had only known …”

Her mouth tightened, and she reached out to place a hand over his. She locked eyes with him, a grave seriousness filling her face. His chest constricted and his breath caught in his chest, apprehension wringing out his lungs as he foresaw the ending of this story all on his own. 

N-no…

“If I had known what was to come, I never would have taken you with me that day. I never would have even begun those fields. I would have given anything for the chance to change it all. And then, a month later, when your fifth birthdays came…your doors appeared in Casita. And my prayers were answered.”

His stomach dropped like stone. 

“O-our—” he rasped. “Our gifts…”

 She nodded.

“Your gifts. You each were blessed with magic beyond what I could have ever imagined—to control the weather, to heal the sick…and you, Bruno, to see.”

She smiled gently at him and squeezed his hand. Bruno felt light headed. He couldn’t seem to remember how to breath, how to think, how to…to…

“It was a promise,” she said, any remaining shakiness in her voice now replaced with gratitude and warmth. “Through His mercy, through you and your sisters, we were given the power to never lose you or anyone else before their time again. And in return, I thought we had only to use that power well. It was our miracle, continuing to bless and protect us.”

Our miracle... 

Bruno thought of the rush of magic, like a bright static shock that ran through his arm and into his heart the moment he touched his doorknob. He thought of the gentle whispers of the future, tantalizingly calling him, and of the forceful rush into his brain if he refused to listen. He thought of the pain—of headaches and exhausted eyes, of fear and judgment and misunderstandings, of a burden so heavy that even now his hands felt far too small and weak to hold it. He thought of forty-seven years of being the one who could see , and yet feeling that he was only ever making everyone more blind. 

He thought of ten years alone. Of dust and shadows, solitude and longing, and of muffled distances thin as paper yet far too large to ever cross again. 

Bruno slipped his hand out of her grasp, reaching to the back of the bench and gripping the wood with a white-knuckled fingers. He shook his head slowly, licking his lips with a parched tongue. 

“Bruno?” Alma questioned, the reverence now replaced with concern. Her brow wrinkled, and she lifted a hand toward him. He leaned away. 

“You…” he began, swallowing dryly. “Y-you…you asked for… this?”

He looked at her, his breath returning rapid and shallow, his head still shaking slowly.

“I—” she began, blinking in confusion. Her mouth tightened. “I prayed for protection, and we received it, Bruno.”

“We already had a magical sentient house, i-i-inside humongous magical mountains!” he cried, motioning wildly toward the mountains behind her. His voice was louder than he expected as it rushed from him. He was suddenly on his feet, his legs shaky as jelly. He paced before her, gesturing at the air with quivering hands. 

“I know, I know, w-we, we, we got really sick, yeah, that's terrible, a cryin’ shame, really—b-but we were healing, ma, w-we were getting better. You said it yourself—your prayers were already answered! Was that not enough?” He stopped and stared at her, shoulders high and tense. “Why wasn’t that enough?”

He half expected her to scold him. People don’t speak to Mamá like this— at least, he didn’t speak to Mamá like this. He expected her to stare him down with an iron-straight spine and those hurt and disappointed eyes that somehow burned …

But she only gaped at him for a moment, as shocked as he was by the biting current beneath his voice. Then she blinked, and nodded, standing and slowly taking a step toward him.

“Sí,” she said softly, and though her hands momentarily twitched forward, she did not reach out to touch him. “Yes, I do understand your questions, mijo. The truth is—I asked the same of myself when I saw what we had been given. I was so …ashamed . I never told anyone about my desperate prayers that night. To ask for more when we had already been given so much… How could I? I could not even speak of my ingratitude.” 

She looked at him with pleading eyes, and he looked away. “But, Bruno, please understand, I was just so scared . I couldn't lose you, too.”

A sudden inexplicable anger burned in Bruno’s chest. It was such a strange sensation—hot and consuming, only fanned brighter by her strange, uncanny gentleness. Altogether unexpected, it jumped up his throat and out his mouth before he could even connect it to its source. 

“ You didn't lose us, Ma! ” he shouted. 

His words pushed at his throat, words so long hidden, now desperate to break free. He was breathing hard, his head humming with the unfamiliar sensation. “You never lost us! We were right there, the whole time! We…we… we've always been there. Right in front of you, but it wasn't enough. I was never enough, just me. You, you, you had to ask for…for this… for me to, to...”

His breath caught in his chest and he reached a hand up to grip his ruana. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, willing his lungs to slow down.

Standing alone, a boy before a vortex of sand that towered above him like a giant. Fear—

You're wrong. That can't be my future…Y-you've cursed me! This never would have happened if you…

Brunito, mi vida, I just think you can do so much better with your gift. Why, now, do you only see the bad? We have a responsibility to do what is best for the Encanto…

“Bruno,” Alma whispered. Her voice was soft, but there was something else beneath it, too. It was pleading and maybe just a little sharp, a little chiding. She took another step forward. “Despacio, hijo. I know life has not been easy for you, and so much of that is my fault. I know that now, and I am so sorry. But so much good has come from this, too, amor. Just think of how you have helped our family. Your gift has given us so much in this past year…and before that, as well. Though at times complicated and difficult, we must remember that your gifts have always been a blessing—”

“For you.”

He looked up at her. Some distant, disconnected remnant of himself that was not soaked through with panic whispered harshly within him— did you just say that out loud? His limbs felt as cold and hard as stone. It was as if he was no longer Bruno, but some ghost of himself, watching a scene play out from far within the walls of his mind. He shook his head and took another step back. 

“It's always been a blessing for you, Ma. Not for me.”

He watched as her face fell, her eyes shining with hurt and fear at his retreat. Her mouth made the shape of his name, but no sound came out. 

Brunito—

“It was never for me.”

He looked aside, his throat tight and shoulders raised. Then he turned from her and walked away. 

—--

Dolores stopped mid-spin, frozen in place, and Mariano placed worried a hand on her shoulder. Her eyes grew wide, her lips pulling from a smile into a distressed pout. A small, high hum escaped her chest. 

“Dolores?” Mariano asked, barely a whisper. “What do you need?”

“Somewhere quiet,” she muttered. “To listen.” 

He nodded, taking her hand without another word, and the two slipped away from the crowds. 

—

At some point, Bruno had started running. 

His feet stumbled from paved stone to dirt to leaf-strewn path, jittering fearfully away from every crack, jumping just as sharply at the explosive claps of tejo disks in the streets as at the snaps of twigs beneath his sandals. He threw every grain of salt he possessed over his shoulder, whispered fractured patterns of prayerful wards without even hearing the words, and none of it eased his panic in the slightest. He barely noticed as the trees began to tower around him, utterly unaware of the moment he’d retreated back to those forested paths he’d wandered with his sobrinos so many times before. When he finally raised his head, he found himself cowering before an achingly familiar sight. 

He stumbled forward, throwing out a hand to brace himself against the trunk of the towering old mango tree, reaching up the other to clutch at his heaving chest. All those months ago, he’d stood among these same trees and watched Mirabel and Antonio play, feeling that strange wall between him and their childlike joy. But now he finally saw it for what it was. 

It wasn’t a wall. It was a mountain. A towering, fortress of stone and ore, raised from a jetty of pain and suffering that was not his own and yet was as familiar as the earth beneath his feet, and it was surrounding him now, pressing in until even the breath in his lungs was crushed beneath it’s weight.

He felt his wobbling legs finally give out beneath him, and he fell to his knees before it, a frustrated shout escaping him that felt louder than he’d ever allowed himself to be—in ten years or even long before. 

Quiet, quiet, quiet! some part of him urged, and his chest again seized up at the thought. 

Birds took to frantic flight from the branches above him, and he pulled his hood down harshly over his head, curling against the trunk of the mango tree and shutting his eyes as tight as he could against the pounding sensation in his ears. He hammered out a beat against the massive roots beside him hard enough to scrape his knuckles. 

Knock, knock, knock….knock…kn-knock…

Kn-knock…

How…h-how could…h-h-how…

He couldn't breathe. A small, stable part of him knew he needed to calm down, to orient himself, to just catch his breath.. .but he couldn't get ahold of his lungs, his mind still grappling desperately with Mamá’s words.

And you, Bruno, to see.

H-how…h-how…

— WOOMPH .

Out of nowhere, a sudden weight pressed down on his head, startling a gasp out of his lungs and breaking the rapid patterns of breath that gripped them. His eyes shot open, and he sat frozen for a moment, every muscle still, while on his head the weight slightly adjusted its footing. Bruno blinked. 

With a quick brush of feathers, the weight lifted, only to settle clumsily on his shoulder instead. Breath held, Bruno slowly turned his gaze to the side. A gleaming black eye, settled in a bright blue head peeked around the edge of his hood, considering him curiously. 

A desperate laugh escaped Bruno’s throat, high and breathy, and the bird fluttered up into flight again. 

O-okay, he thought, his mind shocked into a measure of clarity. He blew out all the held air from his lungs. Cálmate--y-you’re okay… [Calm yourself]

He twisted slowly in place until his back was against the tree. He tipped his head back until it rested against the trunk behind him, his chest rising and falling with his still shallow breathing. The blue cotinga looped above him, and once Bruno settled back into stillness, it descended once again to land on his bent knee. It tilted its head at him, eyeing him carefully with the same beady eye. 

“Zulito,” Bruno managed breathlessly, and the bird hopped once, shifting to his other leg. Heh. Bruno closed his eyes. 

Despacio, viejo, he told himself. Now, s-slow down... [Slowly, old man]

He forced himself to breathe through his nose. He focused on the feeling of the bird’s small, scratchy feet on his leg, of the earthy smell of the decaying leaves around him. He dug his fingers into the soil beside him, feeling the coolness beneath the surface. He listened to the wind rustling through the tree far above him. Gradually, his breathing began to slow. Zulito gave a small squawk from his perch on Bruno’s knees.

Bruno opened his eyes and looked around, half expecting to see little Antonio poke his head from around a tree or hop playful down the path to join his animal friend…but he wasn't there. Bruno was alone. 

Alone, apparently, except for Zulito. 

“I–” Bruno rasped, his voice breaking and his mouth dry. He licked his lips and tried again. “I-I don’t have any b-breva.”

Zulito tilted his head the other direction. Then, apparently having had his fill of staring, promptly lifted into the air and flew forward, hovering with rapidly flapping wings beside Bruno’s face and scrabbling at his shoulder with his feet. Bruno blew a harsh stream of air from his nose and squeezed his eyes shut against the flurry of feathers, only peeking them open again once Zulito had settled within the cavern of his hood, his smooth body pressed lightly against Bruno’s neck. Bruno held still as the bird clumsily turned in place until he could poke his jeweled head back out from the shadows of the hood. 

“Oh,” he gasped. “Heh. O-okay. H-hello. C-come on over, I guess.”

The bird sent out three quick chirps in his ear, then promptly reached up and began pulling at strands of Bruno’s hair, tugging each gently until it was freed from the tie that held it and running it carefully through his beak, before searching out another piece to preen. Like the rats, he thought absently, …and the girls. Apparently, among sobrinas and animals alike, there was some unspoken agreement that he needed to be unceremoniously groomed. 

Bruno sighed and looked up toward the branches reaching endlessly high above him. The image of the tree swaying dangerously in the hurricane winds flashed into his mind, and he shut his eyes against the dizzying thought. 

“How…” he tried again after a moment, letting his insistent thoughts settle into words. He shook his head slightly and tried again. “H-how…”

How could she. 

That’s what he wanted to say. But even now he couldn’t let the words leave his mouth, so the sentence again fell unfinished. Zulito continued, unperturbed. Bruno tried a different route.

“I-I guess,” he whispered tentatively, “I just…I guess I never thought my gift was an option .” 

Zulito paused for a moment, before continuing to pick at his hair. 

“It just always… was , ya know? I-it wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just…” Bruno hesitated, familiar guilt gnawing at his stomach, but this time he let the words out anyway. “I thought it was just bad luck.” 

After all, he had never dared to think that things could have happened any other way. For maybe it was now clear that Bruno had never really understood the reasons for his past, but he had always understood what the past was—because it was the same as the future. It was a rock, carved and unchanging. 

Maybe you could scratch away at the surface, gouge out the stone-cold emerald eyes until your hands bled, but it was still there . You could never carve deep enough to render it unseen. You could only create a foothold, something to tuck your numb feet and scrambling hands into as you tried your best to climb to higher ground.

Zulito pulled particularly hard at a strand of hair and Bruno winced. 

“Ay, ay, o-okay, lo siento,” he muttered. “I get it, n-no pity parties allowed. F-fine. Maybe, maybe it’s n-not bad luck, okay? I-it’s just, I never thought that Ma had…had asked for any of this, yaknow? It always just was….idaknow. Fate, maybe. But she did. Ask for it, I mean. A-a-and I know, I know she didn’t, s-specifically ask for me to be burdened with the unrelenting weight of knowing the rigid and unchangeable future, b-but still. I just, I just…”

Zulito paused his preening, his feathered body pressed warmly against his perch, and Bruno closed his eyes again, his thoughts swirling. It was all so confusing , this miracle they were given.

Well, that s he was given. Because though the miracle was technically for all of them, Bruno realized now that it truly was as he’d said to his mother. It had really always felt to Bruno like her miracle, given for her sacrifice. 

She bore the real burdens, after all. 

He’d learned that fact early, when he was a child, from looking into the faces of the adults in the Encanto. There was something there glowing hauntingly within all of them, their own candles that still held despondent vigil. Sorrow unshed, backs broken, fingers worked to the bone, sweat and blood and tears, eyes that were so so tired from all that they had seen before and all that they’d seen since. Faces lined with grief he couldn’t possibly understand, faces that had forgotten how to smile and had to learn all over again. 

His mamá had taken a long time to learn how to smile, and his childhood was more filled with her straight-mouthed countenance than with her rare, gentle joy. 

So. He couldn’t ask that unspeakable question. He could never ask how could you, because he knew exactly how she could. Everything had been taken from her, and he’d watched her live every moment since fearing it would happen all over again. 

I couldn’t lose you, too, she’d said. 

Bruno sighed to himself. Well .

Here he was, still. Saddled with a, a… gift… that had come at such enormous cost, and maybe there still was no one to blame. And yet, the weight of it was nevertheless an anchor on his heart, pulling him down even as he admitted that he was also lifted by its blessing. It was an anchor shaped like guilt and sorrow that was not his and yet was felt by him anyways, like the smothering weight of another’s mourning shawl that had been wrapped around his own shoulders for warmth. He was grateful for the safety of it, could feel the comfort, but was also weighed down by the grief woven into every fiber. 

He had to admit, though, this anchor—his gift, their miracle—somehow it was still a beloved thing to him as well. As a child he’d learned to regard his gift with pride, and deep down that sentiment still remained. There was pride in his family, in his mamá, in how strong she was. The anchor kept him grounded in that part of him that was a part of her, and he had so desperately wanted to be a part of it, to be enough for her. His gift had always felt like the only way to do that, and so it was hopelessly intertwined with his love for her, for his whole family. 

“I guess,” he finally mumbled aloud to Zulito, to the trees, to no one in particular, his voice dropped down to a whisper. “Maybe I-I, I just wish…I had been given the choice. I think maybe…maybe I might've chosen differently?”

The words felt like a betrayal even spoken to the empty air. If there was one thing that you were never to do as a Madrigal, it was to wish away the blessings given to you. It was something he’d quietly failed at for most of his life. 

But…if they had been given a choice… 

He thought of his sisters—of Pepa and Juli. Would they choose differently? 

What about his sobrinos?

Bruno thought of his nieces, of his nephews, of the gifts passed on to this new generation. Had Ma asked for those as well? 

It was clear by the cracks that had consumed their old home that things were not easy for the kids either. But to say they were burdened by their gifts—that also didn’t quite feel right. 

He had to admit that the kids fit into their gifts as naturally as if they had been born with them, and though they had all no doubt grown in that brief time where their gifts had been gone, even Bruno could see then that something had been missing. The pure joy that had come into their faces when the Miracle had returned had clearly demonstrated that they held a very different relationship with their gifts than he did. 

And yet. 

Bruno thought of Mirabel, so gifted in ways she herself still struggled to see, still trying so hard to be more even as he desperately tried to show her she was already enough. He thought of Antonio, only six and yet already learning to push against his gift, even as he wanted to embrace it. He thought of the kid’s voice, so bright and joyful as he talked with his animal friends…and so terribly quiet as he learned to fear the power within him.

Bruno’s heart twisted painfully.

In the end, it was all a pointless thing to wonder though, wasn’t it? Because none of them had a choice, whether they’d wanted one or not. They’d all been sheltered by this miracle, born in sacrifice, raised in fear. They all had their gifts, they were a part of them, and time marched forward regardless. A stone, a mountain, an anchor.

It all was as it was, as it was always going to be. 

“Is there any way it can be different?” Bruno begged softly, more a prayer than a question. “For all the kids, at least. For Mirabel, for Antonio…” his voice cracked and he swallowed carefully. “ I-I can’t see a different way. ” 

The heart wrenching question that had kept step, ever-present, alongside his gift of foresight once again crowded into his chest. 

Is there nothing I can do? 

Zulito quivered slightly against his neck, and Bruno glanced sideways at the bird, brow furrowed. 

“Hey. Zulito,” he said carefully, and he felt the bird freeze in place. “Look, I-I have no idea if you’re actually…I-I mean I don’t know if you can understand, um, but, you seem like you’re listening, so…j-just, don’t give up on him yet, okay? All of you, um, animals. Friends . Just…give him time. No matter what it seems like, I know he doesn’t want you gone. He just needs…”

Bruno shook his head slowly, and the bird took a step to the side on his shoulder. 

“ T-t-time. H-he just needs time to figure it all out, yeah? P-please.”

Zulito chirped, low and fast, then suddenly took flight, blinding Bruno in a whirl of feathers as he shot toward the canopy. When he opened his eyes again, the bird was gone. 

In the distance, the sudden sound of feet crushing on leaves cut through the clearing.

“ Tiii–oooo… ,” called a voice through the trees. Bruno sat bolt upright from the tree, pushing back his hood, eyes searching the dense forest.  

“Bruuuunooooo! Brun- o ! Yo! You in here somewhere?”

From behind a tree, out stepped Camilo, looking around in mild annoyance as he kicked sticks and leaves from his sandals. When he caught sight of Bruno, he grinned. 

“There you are,” he said. “You sure do pick the weirdest places to hang out, Tío.”

“C-camilo?” Bruno squinted up at him as he approached. “H-how…how did you know where I was?”

Camilo pushed at the pile of leaves directly in front of Bruno, clearing some to the side with his foot before falling into a cross-legged seat in front of him. He put his hands on his knees and fixed his uncle with a hard stare, enough to make Bruno nervously lean back. 

“ Dolores ,” he intoned, emphasizing each syllable in his sister’s name. “You’ve got her all freaked out, man. What’s going on?”

Oh. Bruno winced.

Dolores. Of course, she must have heard everything. Ay , s-she’d heard him yell, argue with Abuela and then…leave. 

Just like before. 

“Lo siento,” he whispered. 

“Yeah.” Camilo relaxed a bit at Bruno’s apology, but continued eyeing him curiously. “That seems about right.”

They sat in awkward silence for a moment, Bruno’s mind silently whirling into a spiral of guilt and despair…but then, Camilo reached beside himself and carefully lifted the small pouch he had been carrying. He offered it to Bruno, thrusting it forward with a grimace. The pouch wiggled and squeaked. 

“Here,” he shrugged. “I come bearing gifts, courtesy of Toñito. For—and this is a direct quote— ‘the nerves .’”

Bruno reached out, one eyebrow raised, and took the pouch with the carefullest of hands. He pulled open the leather tie and peeked inside, an unsolicited sound of startled joy and relief erupting from his chest.

“Manolo!” he cried, lifting the rat from the bag and holding him to his chest. The rat squirmed in his grip, scrambling into his hood and out of sight the moment Bruno released him. The small, warm body settled into his now salt-free shirt pocket, and Bruno felt his shoulders relax ever so slightly. 

“Thanks,” he muttered, a hand over the spot on his chest. He cleared his throat. “Um, y-your abuela…?”

“Dolores went to go check on her. I said I would go, but apparently my sister thinks I lack ‘discernment and decorum,’” Camilo accentuated with words with air quotes and a roll of his eyes. He looked at Bruno. “I guess decorum matters less in the present company.” 

Bruno narrowed his eyes at him. 

“Anyway,” Camilo rose to his feet and brushed at his pants. He considered the sky, mouth to the side, then put his hands on his hips. 

“Look, I have a schedule to keep to, and it’s not time for phase four—we can’t go back to Casita yet. So. Whaddayou wanna do, Tío? I know you’re dealing with…something.” He lifted one hand from his hip to wave wiggling fingers at him, as if to indicate the source of the issue. Then, a little more gently he added, “Do you need to, like, sit here for another hour?”

Bruno glanced around himself. Truthfully, that didn’t sound half bad. Sitting under the mango tree with Zulito, or Manolo, o-or even with Camilo, was all vastly preferable to heading back to the square. But…

“No,” he sighed. “I-I’m fine. I need to go back—I-I promised Mirabel I wouldn’t disappear today.” 

“Ah,” Camilo smirked. “You mean before you disappeared?”

“...yeah.” 

“A man of his word,” Camilo grinned, reaching out his hand toward Bruno. Bruno took it and Camilo pulled him to his feet, smacking him on his back in a way that was very reminiscent of his father. “That’s the Tío I’ve known for little more than a year!” 

Camilo stepped away, lifting his arms in the air dramatically and raising his voice to the sky. 

“Dolooooreees, I’ve goooot hiiiiim,” he called, pivoting himself around with the momentum of one leg and backstepping through the clearing with his arms still held wide. 

He dropped his arms and looked to Bruno, gesturing to the path behind him with a tilt of his head and click of his tongue. 

“C’mon, Tío. Let’s go.”

—-

Back at the square, the fiesta continued as if nothing had happened. 

Of course it had. Just because Bruno’s understanding of himself had just been squeezed through a wringer and hung out to dry didn’t mean time stood still for anyone else. He of all people should know that. But Bruno still squinted at the crowd with a dazed sort of confusion that made Camilo whistle like a cuckoo clock and put a hand on his shoulder to snap him out of it. 

“You okay there?” he asked, and Bruno cleared his throat and nodded weakly. Camilo grimaced at him skeptically. 

“Ooo-kay. How about you go sit there—” he pointed decisively at a shadowed bench under the eaves of a balcony, settled off the edge of the square, “--and I’ll go get you something to drink. Hm? … maybe something strong. ”

Camilo steered his tío to the bench, depositing him there with a pointing finger and a cautionary stare that clearly said don’t you move, viejo loco, before turning and disappearing through the crowds. 

Bruno looked around. At the moment, he couldn’t see any of his other family members anywhere, and that gave him a measure of relief. He wasn’t sure how normal he could act right now, and he definitely was not in the mood to dance. He blew out a raspberry and slumped back into the bench. 

How long before Dolores returned with his ma? Ay. He wanted to melt into the wood slats of the bench. He wanted to pull up his hood and pretend he was invisible. He wanted to slink into the shadows like a pariah, to the safety of distance and isolation. 

He didn’t do any of that. Instead, he put his hand over the small lump in his chest pocket and tried to breathe like a normal human being. 

I’m home… he inexplicably found himself muttering to himself. I’m home…

Chapter Text

Camilo drummed his fingers against the table and whistled a cheerful tune to himself. 

This was all fine. Caray. The girls always overreacted—they just didn’t understand that things never went exactly as planned. That was why you made that part of the plan. You gotta be flexible, ready to shift at a moment’s notice.

Luckily, shifting was his specialty. 

He glanced up at the sky—just about sunset. He had less than an hour to kill before Bruno could be safely shuffled off to Casita and the real fun could begin: Camilo's role as Tío Bruno Having Fun At His Own Birthday, Like A Normal Person. He’d have to play it carefully—couldn’t get too out of character, after all—but he thought Bruno’s visage could at least have some fun on the dance floor before one of the other triplets inevitably caught on to the disguise. 

Mirabel hadn’t seen the necessity of pretending to be their Tío to buy the pitiful guy some down time before the fireworks, but she was of limited sight. Absolutely no vision. As Camilo always said, you have to be the fun you want to see in the world. 

Finally, it was his turn at the drink booth. Señora Huerta nodded as he politely requested her largest possible drink, and he flashed his best what a nice young man smile at her as she turned to ladle the lulo into a cup for him. He’d swing by the adult beverage stand after to…erhm, top it off for his addled Tío. 

When the señora’s back was safely turned, he let the smile fall a bit as he scanned the crowd around him for the only loose thread in the operation—his prima loca. [crazy cousin.]  

She has to be here somewhere, he muttered. There’s no way she isn’t lurking like a weirdo— 

“Camilo!”

He let out an (only slightly embellished) choking sound as his ruana was roughly pulled from behind, turning to glare at Mirabel while rubbing his neck. 

“Oh, hello there, prima, good to see you, too,” he remarked wryly. “Why yes I am enjoying the party, thank you for asking. I—”

“Camilo , what happened?! Why did Dolores leave? Why did she look so upset? Is it Tío Bruno? Where—”

“AY! Cálmate , crazy, everything is under control. I handled it.” 

Mirabel released his ruana so she could fold her arms, thereby more effectively leaning into her disbelieving head tilt. 

“You handled it.” 

“Yes, I handled it,” he replied, lowering his voice as Señora Huerta returned and set the cup on the table in front of him. They both smiled and muttered polite thanks to her. She nodded and turned to the next person at the booth, and Camilo turned back to his prima with a scoff. “What, you think I can’t handle it? I handled it. I say I handled it, and I handled it, I’m handling it.”

Mirabel had resumed her previous pose, this time with one eyebrow pointedly raised. 

“Dolores,” he added sourly, pushing his hair from his face with more than a little irritation, “and I handled it.”

Mirabel visibly relaxed. Then, as if rethinking it, seemed to have the decency to look a little sheepish. Mamona . [Brat.]

“Thanks,” she said, unfolding her arms and putting a hand on the table. “For handling it.” 

He harrumphed haughtily, earning him a smile. Then Mirabel scrunched her nose, playing anxiously with her collar. 

“...now can you tell me what ‘it’ is?”

Camilo side-eyed her. He knew how this was going to go. If he told her what went down, she was absolutely going to drop whatever it was she was doing to go try to fix it. She wasn’t physically capable of any other reaction. She’d probably explode if she even tried. 

But… Camilo had seen her actually having fun tonight. For pete's sake, she’d been dancing when he’d left to go find their flight-risk uncle. And he also knew she was, like, only one more good begging away from hopping up with the band and playing her accordion until the donkeys came home. She liked playing the accordion. Everyone else liked when she played the accordion. It made her happy. 

But, when it came to his stupid prima, what made her happy always came dead last on the list. Even when it didn’t need to. Dummy. He sighed. 

“Okay, so Tío Bruno and Abuela went off and had a chat, and maybe one of them got a teensy bit upset—” Mirabel’s eyes widened and she took a step toward him, necessitating that he raise his voice and put a hand to her shoulder in order to finish his damn sentence — ”BUT…but, Dolores went and found Abuela, and she’s fine because she’s Abuela, and I went and found Bruno, and he’s fine too, in his own weirdo way. I even brought him a rat. Look, he’s over by the other edge of the plaza, and I’m bringing him a drink. He’s the one who said he wanted to come back to the party! He’s fine. It's not a party without a little drama, Mirabel.”

Mirabel shook her head and straightened her glasses on her nose. Ay, here we go. Camilo steeled himself for battle by subtly increasing his height by one inch.

“I have to go talk to him,” she stated firmly, reaching out and snatching the cup of lulada from in front of him before he could get to it. She started to pull away, but Camilo tightened his grip on her shoulder. 

“Hey! Slow down, Mira. You don’t have to do anything, okay?”

“Someone needs to talk to him—”

“I’m talking to him.” 

“Someone with a smidge of…I don't know— discernment— needs to talk to him.” 

“Ay, why do people keep using that word with me?— You know what, forget it. You’re not going over there.” 

Mirable scoffed. “What, you’re going to stop me?”

“No...” …you idiot, he thought, but wisely didn’t add. See? No discernment my ass. “You are going to let me handle it, because we just talked about how you don’t need to do everything on your own anymore. Like, literally just talked about it. Remember?” 

She hesitated. Shifted back slightly on her feet. “Yeah, I remember,” she replied quietly. 

“Beloved primita, bendita idiota, you cannot take care of everyone, okay? It’s not possible. Not even for you, Mirabel La Maravilla. But, hey, that’s okay, right?” [beloved little cousin, blessed dumbass…Mirabel the Wonder]

Mirabel had lowered her eyes to stare into the cup of juice as he spoke. She glanced up at him skeptically. 

“It’s okay,” he continued, dropping his tone a bit and holding her gaze, “because we can take care of each other. Because you can trust us. Right?”

Mirabel twisted her foot slightly, grinding the grit beneath her toes into the ground. He watched her grip the juice a little tighter, her brow furrowed. 

This was a gamble, for sure. Maybe Mirabel would explode after all. Maybe he’d have to shift into her for the rest of the night instead of Bruno. Maybe it would be the highlight of the party. Eh, he’d figure it out. Gotta be flexible, after all. 

Finally, Mirabel seemed to reach some sort of silent conclusion. She took a breath, glanced once in the vague direction of their Tío, then thrust the cup forward toward him, the liquid sloshing dangerously. He reached out and took it before she could change her mind. 

“Right,” she said quietly. “You’re right. We are doing this together.”

“Of course I’m right. Three stranded cord, and all that.” He grinned at her. “See, I listen in mass. Model citizen, here. Full of discernment.”

She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Yes, exactly.” Then, with a huge sigh, her hands rubbing her eyes roughly beneath her glasses, she added a strained, “Thanks.”

“Anytime, Mira. Now, get lost.”

After Mirabel had been safely ushered off in the direction of the band, hopefully to join them and not to sit and pout, Camilo gathered up the drink and crossed the bustling square toward the bench. 

…which was now empty. Ah crap. 

Camilo spun around, his ruana swishing around him, but the immediate vicinity was decidedly tío-less. 

Camilo closed his eyes and huffed the burdened sigh of a poor soul cursed to suffer far beyond their lot.

He tightened his grip on the lulado and stomped off to find Bruno, cursing the viejo under his breath as he went. 

---

Bruno squeezed his eyes shut tight for a moment, tipping his head back and his face to the heavens before allowing them open again. Above him, the very farthest reaches of the sky had begun to purple with the coming of night. The expanse above the buildings surrounding the square was aflame, a glow of orange and red that smudged into indigo like paints on a palette. The vibrant colors were criss-crossed with the black shadows of the stringed paper butterflies. As he watched, cluster by cluster, they began to ignite with a warm golden glow as they were enveloped with light from the lanterns that were being lit around the square. The party carried on joyously, the quickly falling evening apparently no deterrent to the rowdy fiesta that echoed before him. Couples spun, music galloped on and, caught up in all the commotion, Bruno’s mind simply refused to still. He grabbed a breath of the cool night air like a lifeline, and tapped a quick beat against the wood of the bench beside him for good measure.

Despite his best efforts to not think about anything, in the scant few minutes he’d been left to his own devices on the bench, a terrible, nascent realization had sprouted in his head and begun to wrap its way right around his heart. 

What if…what if I’m just like her? Am I really any different than Ma?

‘Cause, ‘cause—well, here he was! Sitting on a secret about his niece that he had kept to himself for months. He hadn’t told a soul about the vision of Mirabel, had he? And why? If he was honest—wasn’t it that he didn’t want it to be true? That he didn’t want to…to lose her to that wretched future? Hadn’t he told himself he was somehow protecting her, by keeping it from her?

And…and…oh, he knew in his gut that his Mamá had withheld the truth about his gift for the same reason he might try to hold the vision back from Mirabel now. 

Mamá may have claimed that the reason for her silence was shame—guilt at asking for more than they had already been given—and maybe part of that was true. But he knew Mamá. He knew the stifling hold she’d had on all of them, the smothering closeness with which she had held the remnants of her family for so many years. He knew that, no matter what she said, at least part of her had chosen to hide the origins of their gifts to protect them. As convoluted a justification as it may be, that’s why she did everything she had ever done, and everything she did now. All for the better, worse for the wear, what’s one more thing under the rug if it keeps the peace of the Encanto?

And maybe she had changed her methods lately, sure! Maybe she really was learning to loosen her grip on her family. Far be it from him to deny it! But how much had she really changed? How much could she?

For all her faults, Bruno knew what drove the heart of Alma Madrigal, because the same damn thing drove his own foolish heart, too. She carried it, he carried it. They all did.

We must protect our family, our home. It is everything. 

So. Here it was, that thought that suddenly occurred to him and wouldn’t leave him be:

If he was cut from that self-same mourning cloth as Alma Madrigal, what made his ill-fated attempts to help his sweet sobrinos any different?

It was at that moment that his thoughts were finally cut short. 

Suddenly, the now-familiar sounds of the party before him were interjected by a decidedly unfamiliar sound—the bright garble of a small, high voice that sounded uncomfortably close by—and that sound stopped his pooling self-pity dead in its tracks. Though Bruno didn't recall closing his eyes again, he found himself cracking them open to glance quickly to the side, where he found a significantly smaller creature had somehow appeared to his right. 

A tiny human—a toddler—now stood near the other end of his bench, one pudgy hand gripping the smooth wood as he swayed with precarious balance and wide, curious eyes. Bruno felt his eyebrows raise in surprise. He glanced around them, and finding no immediate assistance to call upon, looked back at the baby, his knuckles knocking another quick, nervous beat. The kid stared at Bruno’s fist, and after a moment's pause, patted his own flat, tiny palm irregularly against the seat in return, his little mouth twitching at the new game. He looked back to Bruno expectantly. 

Bruno hummed an anxious hum. 

The kid was scarcely taller than the bench seat he held onto, his tousled crop of wispy hair tickling the tops of his ears. He had big, round cheeks that pulled his mouth down into an amused pout, and as he continued to stare appraisingly at Bruno, he brought his hand away from the wood to pop his short thumb into his mouth. Ay, the kid couldn’t be older than two.

Bruno flashed him a nervous smile that only held for a moment. The kid continued to stare. 

“Uh…” Bruno lifted one hand and tilted it in a tentative wave, his shoulders hunching slightly and his eyebrows raising hopefully. “Hi.” 

The boy glanced at Bruno's hand, then back to his eyes. An awkward pause. Then, behind his thumb, the boy smiled. 

Oh. Bruno found a steadier smile tugging at the corners of his own mouth, and the tension in his shoulders releasing just a bit. Heh. Cute kid. 

He could remember when his sobrinos were this age—all wide-eyed and dimple-kneed and unabashed staring. Truth be told, he'd loved this age in his sobrinos. It was a time of warmer memories, of easily drawn laughter, their giggles so bright and pure that you couldn’t help but laugh along with them. All it would take was a goofy face or an exaggerated reaction and off they’d go, babbling happily at him and lifting their little hands to be picked up and held close. This age was earnest— kids this little had no expectations, or at least any expectations they had were easily met with love and affection, and perhaps a little silliness. 

They were never scared of him, when they were this little. 

…and, yes. Hm. This guy really was a little guy. Bruno watched as the baby let go of the bench and took a few wide-legged steps toward him, wobbling slightly and— oh— gripping the edges of Bruno’s ruana for balance as soon as he was within reach. Bruno shot out a hovering hand beside him, but the kid stayed on his feet, grinning up at him with no mind to his own instability. 

So, he could walk then. Maybe that explained how he’d just appeared at the bench, apparently out of thin air. Bruno glanced around again, but no one else seemed to be paying them any mind, all absorbed with the commotion of the fiesta. It may have been a while since he’d been around little little guys, but he knew one thing for sure—however old this kid was, he was definitely too young to be wandering around on his own. A familiar tendril of unease wormed its way through Bruno’s ribcage. 

“H-hey there, parcero,” he smiled, carefully softening his raw, scratchy voice into a lilting tone that he hadn’t used for at least fifteen years. The kid didn’t respond, busy as he was with batting at the green tassels of the ruana and watching them swing. “Ah, those are neat, huh? Yep, pretty magical, those strings. Could definitely watch them all day, myself, heh. S-say, where, uh, where are your parents, kiddo?”

The baby grinned up at him but offered no reply. Right. Could they talk at this age? He couldn’t remember.

“Okay, um. Well, whaddya say we go find them, huh? You, uh, you wanna go for a walk?” Bruno carefully detached the little hand from the fabric and held it securely in his own, giving a careful tug to nudge the kid into movement. The boy took a stumbling step forward and looked up curiously. “Yep, look at you! On the move, here we go. Can you…go?”

Dios, his legs are so short. The kid took at least five steps to one of his own. At this rate, they definitely weren’t finding anyone anytime soon. Here’s to hoping they are somewhere nearby! Bruno winced to himself. Ay. 

They made slow progress around the perimeter of the square, wandering along the edge of the crowd as Bruno scanned the people for any frantic parents. No such luck. What was he even looking for? M-maybe we should have just stayed put? Let the kid’s parents find us?  

They’d just rounded the first corner when the baby stopped and turned his head toward a voice beside them. 

“Chico!” 

Bruno turned just in time to spot a young boy pushing his way through the crowd. He looked to be about Toñito’s age, maybe a little older, his round face filled with relief as his eyes fell on the baby at Bruno’s side.

“You found him!” he cried.

Immediately, the baby released Bruno’s hand, toddling decisively toward the older boy and falling straight into his arms. The kid rolled his eyes and tugged at the baby’s arms, hefting him higher and lifting him onto his little toes—which, given the boy’s own height, was about as picked-up as that baby was going to get. 

“You can’t just wander off, loco,” the boy cooed, with a surprising amount of gentleness threaded through his exasperation, for a kid anyway. Then he looked up to Bruno. “Thanks for finding— oh.”

Bruno drew in a breath. Ah. There it is. When the older kid finally raised his eyes from his brother to make eye contact with Bruno, he froze, face filling with surprise and unease as he realized just who it was he was talking to. Bruno. Terror of the Encanto. Rat Monster. Thief of Dreams. He could only imagine what else the kid’d heard. Bruno grimaced, giving another small wave and shuffling his feet uncomfortably. 

“Oh, uh, y-you’re welcome. He found me, really, heh. We were just about to go looking for, ya know, for his parents, but then you came, and I’m guessing you’re his brother because you look just like him, but I guess that doesn’t mean much, right? Because you can be siblings and not look anything alike, I mean look at me and Pepa, and…well…”

Bruno’s voice trailed off. He cleared his throat. The boy continued to stare. Caray. 

“I-I’m Bruno,” he finally choked out, nervously sticking out his hand. It seemed to nudge some sort of politeness-protocol loose in the kid, because he released one of his brother’s hands and carefully shook Bruno’s. 

“Hola, Señor Bruno,” he recited courteously. “Felíz cumpleaños. My name is Andrés. And this is Francisco, but we call him Chico.” 

Bruno nodded. “N-nice to meet you, Andrés. You too, Chico.”

At his name, Chico turned in his brother’s arms and flashed Bruno a wide grin. He pulled one arm free, toddling back toward Bruno and dragging his brother with him until he could again wrap his small fist into Bruno’s ruana.

“Oh, heh.” He patted the baby's head awkwardly. “W-where are your parents?”

“Pa is cooking the elote,” Andres shrugged, “so I’m in charge of Chico until he’s done.”

“Oh,” Bruno nodded. “Where’s your ma?”

“She’s home taking care of Abue Marco,” Andrés said matter-of-factly, though his eyes were pointedly aimed at Bruno’s feet. “He’s sick, but not in a way Señora Julieta can fix, I guess. Mami says he’s just tired.” [Grandpa Marco]

“Oh.” Bruno’s stomach twisted horribly. Sick, so…did that mean… Should…should I be looking into that? No. No, no, no way….an Abue? He did not look into the future of anyone over the age of 80. Professional boundary. That was just asking for trouble. He knew that, from far too much experience.

Nevertheless, his mind unwillingly proceeded to twist down familiar pathways, smoothed even with repeated use. His hands twisted into his ruana. If there’s a way t–to help this family, though…if I look and I see a way t-to give them p–peace or, or, or help Juli to…to…

“Were you going to eat Chico?” Andrés asked.

“W-what?”

Bruno choked on air, his spiral of guilt coming to a screeching halt. Andrés stared up at him curiously. 

“It's just…I’ve heard that you feast on the dreams of children who don’t listen to their parents, and you feed the leftovers to your rats. But Chico’s pretty good, for a baby, except when he wanders off. But I thought, maybe if you got really hungry…”

He shrugged, and his words trailed off as he gave Bruno another appraising look. Bruno gaped at him.

“You didn’t look like you were going to eat him.”

“I-I wasn’t!”

“Oh. Okay, that’s good.” 

Bruno nodded, trying to school the incredulity from his face. Ay, how bad had the rumors gotten? The bringer of bad luck? Yeah, he’d been that. A harbinger of evil? Sure, occasionally. Disappointing failure? His greatest role. But an eater of children? 

Well. That was a new one. 

“You seem nice, actually,” Andrés continued, apparently sufficiently assured by Bruno’s answer that he was not about to be consumed. “And Pa says el idiota se lo cree, or something like that. Plus, Chico likes you.”  [the fool believes it]

Bruno looked down at the baby, who’d sat down at his feet to again play with the tassels of his ruana. Despite it all, he huffed a small laugh. 

“I like him, too,” Bruno muttered.

“Do you have magic, too? Like the other Madrigals?” Andrés asked.

“Oh. Um, yes.”

“Can you show me?”

“I..uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea, kid.”

“Why?”

“I..uh…I don't…”

“Does your magic eat people?”

“No.”

“Oh. Okay.”

An uneasy silence fell between them. Bruno glanced at the boy, who watched his brother with a disappointed expression on his face. 

“I do have rats, though,” Bruno offered quietly. 

Andrés looked up, his face now bright and eager. “You do?”

“Yeah. Here, uh,” he reached through the collar of his ruana and found the soft, round body in his shirt pocket. “This is Manolo. S-say hi, Manolo.”

Andrés squealed with delight and drew closer to Bruno’s lowered hand, while Chico pulled insistently at the edge of his ruana, demanding wordlessly to be included. Bruno looked around, considering for a moment what the adults in the square to their left might think. Then he looked again at Andrés, who was grinning ear to ear at the small rat squeaking in his hand. 

Bruno smiled. He let himself fall into a seat on the ground beside them. 

“Can I pet him?” Andrés asked, hand already outstretched. 

“Uh, yeah. Just use two fingers, yeah like that. J-just on his head, he likes that. Yep. Just like that.”

Andrés giggled as Manolo sniffed curiously at his fingers, and Chico gave a matching laugh where he wobbled at Bruno’s side, his hand now clutching Bruno’s arm for stability. 

“You want to try, Chico?” Andrés chattered happily. “Here, I’ll help you. He’s so soft, you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Hey, yeah, they are,” Bruno smiled. “A-actually, did you know that, rats, they—”

“Tío Bruno!” 

Bruno jolted, Manolo skittered, and Camilo descended upon them with the energy and ardor of one of his mama’s thunderbolts. 

“Dios, I’ve been looking all over! I seriously walk away for one second and you decide to go all M-I-A— oh, hey Andi.” 

Camilo placed a hand securely on Bruno’s shoulder and nodded a greeting toward the boys. His casual lean against his uncle did nothing betray the slightly-too-tight grip that ensured that Bruno was not going anywhere. Bruno willed his heart to go back to a normal speed.

“Hi Camilo!” Andres chirped, clearly delighted at his arrival. “We just met Manolo la rata! And guess what?! Remember that story you told us about Bruno? Turns out he doesn’t eat kids who don’t listen after all! It turns out he’s really nice…”

Beside him, Camilo made a small, high noise in the back of his throat. Bruno turned to give him the deepest scowl he could muster. He hoped Manolo was doing the same from his perch on the other shoulder. 

“Ha ha! Kids, you know? They aren’t the best listeners, ” Camilo whispered from behind his hand, and Bruno’s scowl deepend. Milo turned back toward his audience. “You see, Andrés, buddy, I was talking about a different spooky-guy-who-sees-the-future. Not this guy. This guy is my good friend Tío Bruno, and Tío Bruno nunca haría daño ni a una mosca. Look, look how much the rat likes him! Everyone knows rats are an excellent judge of character.” [would never even hurt a fly]

Camilo grinned, but then, after a beat added, “...still no relation to the other guy though, of course—two totally different dudes with rats.”

Andrés blinked at Camilo, then looked between him and Bruno. Chico broke the silence with piercing-high giggle.

“Anyways,” Camilo cut in, “I came to find you, dear Tío, because it’s finally time for phase four.” He clicked twice with his tongue in his cheek and jabbed a thumb in the direction of Casita in the distance. “I gotta get you to the second location.” 

Bruno affirmed gruffly and stood, brushing off his ruana as he went. Camilo briefly shifted into some villager with a hat, which he tipped toward the boys with a flourish, and then turned on his heel to walk away as himself. Bruno began to follow, but after a thought, paused and turned back.

“H-hey, it was nice meeting you Andrés,” he offered, with all earnestness. “You too, Chico.”

Andrés was already pulling his tottering brother toward the bustling crowd of the square. He looked back over his shoulder and grinned. 

“Nice to meet you too, Tío Bruno!” he called. 

Bruno stared after him. Tío… Bruno?

After a moment, Camilo reappeared at his side. He gave his uncle an appraising look before pressing a rather large cup of lulo into his hand. 

“Come on, cumpleañero,” he grinned. “I think you’ve endured enough party for one night. Follow me.”

Eyes and mind still trailing on the kids now lost to the crowd, Bruno turned to follow his sobrino. He gave a little jog to catch up to his side, and when he fell into pace, Camilo pointed at him seriously. 

“Drink that,” he commanded. “And don’t do that to me again.”

---

The cumbia came to a close and Mirabel took a bow, leaning forward over her accordion and consequently squeezing out one final low note from the bellows just as her hair fell past her face. Good-natured laughter peppered the applause from the crowd around her, and she was pretty sure she could hear Pa cheering her name obnoxiously loud over the din. But gradually, all the sound faded into the swell of instruments as Tato and Memo struck up another shoulder-shaking rhythm, and Mirabel took her leave, sidestepping awkwardly away from the stage with Carmen as the men stepped forward with their instruments and continued playing. She pushed her glasses up her nose, breathing a little hard from the self-conscious rush that always came when she was on a stage of any kind. She knew her face was most likely a nice shade of crimson. 

When they’d stepped past the large array of instruments and off the rug that denoted that band’s space, Carmen turned and clapped her hard on the shoulder. 

“¡WEPA, chica!” she bellowed, grinning widely. [Woohoo, girl!] Mirabel gave a sheepish wince, laughing as she struggled awkwardly with the clip to close the accordion. Carmen was raising her voice to be heard over the music just behind them, but truth be told, Carmen was always loud. What the woman lacked in height was easily made up for in gusto, and the town’s resident luthier had plenty of that. 

“Estás fuego puro, Mirabel! You sure you don’t want to come apprentice for me and Tío Memo? You got an ear, for real!” [You're pure fire!]

“No, no,” Mirabel chuckled, pulling the accordion strap over her head and handing the instrument back to Carmen. “I may know how to play, but performing was never my thing. I kinda feel like I’m about to lose my lunch.”

Carmen barked out a laugh as she shifted to hold the accordion on her hip. “Que pena. Fair enough, though. It’s easy to see your true calling anyway.” [Too bad.]

Mirabel eyed her curiously as she ran combing fingers through her frazzled hair. 

"This, muchacha,” she clarified, throwing her free hand out wide to indicate the party around them. “What a fiesta, eh? The food, the decor, the music”— she gave a jovial wink—”you really thought of everything.”

“Oh!” Mirabel said, feeling the color somehow deepening in her face. “Thanks, Carmen…I-it really wasn’t all me though. I had a ton of help! I couldn’t have done it without my family—or without you guys!” 

“Bah,” she scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. Then she leaned closer, eyes sparkling as if imparting a secret. “Really though, Mira, dime la pura verdad … you thinking of taking after Alma? You’d be good at it.” [ tell me the whole truth…]

“I…oh, uhem …,” Mirabel cleared her throat as her voice cracked, and took the opportunity to pull off her glasses and clean them on her skirt, as if that was an excuse for delaying her speech. Glasses back on, she smiled in a way she hoped was nonchalant. “I don’t know yet, actually. I guess we’ll see what happens, huh?”

“Mmm.” Carmen hummed thoughtfully. She continued to look at Mirabel with a glint in her eye, as if she understood something that wasn’t being said. “Well, whatever happens, you got a back-up plan, yeah? Mirabel Madrigal—mejor acordeonista del Encanto. [best accordion player in the Encanto] I can see it now. Tato would be thrilled to have one more set of hands in the shop. And I would be thrilled to have someone besides my brother to play with for once.”

“Thanks, Carmen,” Mirabel said sincerely. She may have no desire to apprentice in the Marenco’s music shop, but it was nice to be valued nonetheless. In fact, if she was honest, the urge was still there to just go ahead and accept the offer — her years of being asked to step aside made it an easy default to jump at any opportunity to be useful. A couple of years ago, she might have. Instead, she just smiled diplomatically and said, “I’ll keep it in mind. I’m honestly just happy to be helping out the Encanto, however I can.” 

The song behind them came to a close, and Memo yelled out at Carmen to return to the stage. Carmen, hopping on her toes as she went, pointed back at Mirabel as she traded the accordion for a tiple. 

“Well, keep it up, chica!” she called. “You’re really made for it!”

“Mmm,” Mirabel hummed to herself as she waved after Carmen, standing for a moment and watching the band take off with another melody. Then she sucked in a deep breath, turned on her heels, and headed off through the crowd with a pleasant smile plastered on her face. 

You’re really made for it. Why did those words sit so oddly in her chest? Shouldn’t such a compliment make her happy? Excited? Validated, at the very least? 

She supposed on some level it did. After all, her driving force over the past few weeks had been one consuming thought— show Abuela that you can do it. Prove that you’ve got what it takes. You’re not too young, you’re not too naive, you don’t need more time—she’ll see, I just need to show her…

As she made her way through the crowd, Mirabel laughed appreciatively at each person that complimented her playing, in time just stretching an awkward grin and raising her eyebrows with a humble shrug when she grew strained from repeating the thanks out loud. At last, she reached the edge of the party, past the grills of food and beverage booths, past the chairs where the older folks sat and clapped and gossiped, to where the plaza gave way to the many small streets spread from it like a web. There, she paused, hugging her elbows and catching her breath, and leaned her hip against a nearby wall. 

Mirabel was good at accordion, she knew that about herself. Some people might be surprised to find out that Mirabel was good at quite a few things—sewing, dancing, cooking, painting—a hundred tiny hobbies that she’d picked up over the years to fill in that deep void of purposelessness that always nipped at her heels. Did she enjoy any of it? Sure…in some way. It’s hard not to enjoy something you’re good at, after all. She truly did like embroidery---it calmed her busy mind and gave her fingers something to do when there was no other task for them. She’d spent countless pleasant hours with Mamá in the kitchen, and she was proud to say she could make a mean ajiaco...even if it didn’t heal you a single smidge. Playing the accordion was fun, too…but it was just like all the rest. Something to fill the time until the time came when she knew what she was supposed to fill her time with. 

So Carmen’s compliment—that she was actually made for something—it should be comforting, right? 

All the other Madrigals had always had their gifts to tell them what they were meant to do. They always had purpose and direction—always had a path to follow. But Mirabel? All those things, everything she’d ever put her mind to had always just felt…unimportant. It felt great in the moment to receive praise, to have done something well enough that other people could see it, too, but after the moment faded, she would often just end up feeling…empty. Unfulfilled. Unsatisfied. Like something was still missing.

And now, as she stood on the side of the party and caught her breath…she realized she could feel that same terrible stagnation creeping up in her chest. 

This is what she’d wanted. She set out to show Abuela she could lead, could handle more, could shine in this role that she was… made for. And she’d done it! The party was a success! So why, as the evening wore down and her list of to-dos slowly came to a close, did she still have this feeling like something was still missing?

Abuela had told her she wasn’t ready yet. You still have more growing up to do, she’d said, and Mirabel still bristled at the words, even now. 

She’d arguably spent more time as a “grown up” in the past couple months than she ever had before. She’d negotiated complex civic issues by Abuela’s side. She’d coordinated the townspeople, carefully going to this person or that based on what she knew to be their strengths, pulling together a party that not only honored her family, but gave her people a chance to shine. She’d hustled and rushed, slept significantly less, served her community with every free moment she had left, had a list of people who needed to meet with her that was longer than the hours she had in a day—if all that wasn’t evidence of having grown up, then what was? 

And sure, maybe that was an immature thought to have; of course part of her knew that there was more to growing up than being needed. But really, when it came down to it, that busyness felt like the defining factor that every single elder in her life had ever possessed—and that she never could seem to grasp.

Mirabel shored up a breath, then pushed away from the wall. This was dumb. She was at a party! She was having fun! She just was just feeling the usual weirdness of not having something to do after having only like a million things to do, that’s all. No big deal. The easiest fix for that was to do the next thing. She set off back into the fray of the party to find Osvaldo—she should check in with him before the fireworks, after all. And it was almost time to go find Tío Bruno. She could check on him for real, make sure he was actually okay.

I miss going to the jungle with Tío Bruno and Antonio. 

The thought struck her unexpectedly, and she blinked rapidly in its wake, pausing momentarily in her preset trajectory. Where did that come from? It was true though, she realized. Without out a doubt. Hm. Brow furrowed, smile faltering slightly, she chewed on the thought as she slowly resumed her stride. 

Well…she supposed it had taken a lot out of her, planning this party. And by contrast, she’d never felt more at ease than in those few months wandering the jungle paths with those people she most felt herself around—her sweet sobrino, who'd always needed her even without a gift, and the one grown-up in her life who was absolutely never too busy. In all the hustle of planning the party and the memorial—-and maybe even before—she hadn’t really hung out with Tío Bruno or Antonio at all, and she suddenly found herself longing for one of those sunny mornings spent by their side.

She found herself wondering if Abuela had similar feelings. If the past few months of shadowing Abuela had taught her anything, it was that standing at the top could be just as lonely a place to be as the sidelines.

So….she’d done it. She’d planned the party, she’d pulled off the impossible…and she’d sacrificed all time spent doing what she enjoyed most in the process. Was that just the cost of growing up? Of doing what you’re made to do?

Was she ready for that after all?

“Mirabel, Mirabel, Mirabel!”

Mirabel looked down to find Antonio suddenly beside her, pulling on her skirt with an eager grin on his face. She quickly softened her expression, matching his easy smile. 

“Oh! There’s my hombrecito! Are you having fun?”

“Señor Osvaldo has sparklers, Mira! Chispitas! He said I have to bring a grown up with me to get one, but Mami and Papi are still dancing, and I can’t find Camilo to pretend for me.”

“Ha, well you’re in luck then,” she grinned, kneeling down to his height and resting her arm on her knee. “I was just about to go find Osvaldo. I can be your grown up.” 

Antonio clapped his hands in delight, then grabbed her hand and began pulling her away before she could even fully stand back up. 

“I knew you’d say that!” he exclaimed as they wove through the crowd like a serpent, Mirabel jogging to keep up.

“Oh yeah?” she laughed. 

“Yes! You always know how to fix everything.”

---

With the noise and bustle of the plaza and the pleasant distraction of the children all fading into the distance behind them, Bruno was finding it increasingly hard to keep the poisonous thoughts from the evening at bay.

Beside him, Camilo chattered animatedly as they walked, his smooth voice doing little to disguise the nervous tension that hovered just beneath it.

“...so you see, I was helping, by telling the kids those stories. And the shifting into you, that was just flair, you know, mark of the trade. The town's childhood obedience rates took a very sharp upturn after that particular performance, let me tell you. So–so in a way, you really helped the Encanto out, by being Spooky Brujo Bruno for a bit! A real service to your community, I'd say—”

“I-its okay, kid,” Bruno said absently, waving a hand in the air beside him tiredly. “I'm not mad. I doubt your stories made that much of a difference for me anyway. My reputation already went up in flames long before you were involved.”

Camilo looked at him incredulously. “Really. So you're not even a little bit mad. About this whole deal.”

Beside him, Camilo shifted to grow at least two feet taller, his skin paling to a sickly grey and his eyes glowing menacingly as he became Brujo Bruno in the flesh. Bruno sputtered out the drink he had just tipped into his mouth. 

“Oh, that's—that's—” he stammered, wiping at his mouth and trying to gain his composure as Camilo-Bruno grinned wickedly down at him. “N-no, not mad. Not mad. You can, uh, s-stop that now.”

Camilo shrunk back down to his own skin, and Bruno gave a shiver.

“No kidding the kids listened better, ” he muttered dryly. “Sheesh, Milo, you don't do things half way, huh?”

Camilo shrugged. “Well, for what it's worth,” he said, turning his face back toward the road before him and markedly avoiding Bruno's stare. “I am sorry. But I didn't have much to work with, you know?”

They walked in awkward silence for a few steps, the only sound the dirt crunching beneath their feet and the party far in the distance. 

“I know,” Bruno said wearily, far too late. “Lo siento, kid.” [I'm sorry.]

Camilo hummed in acknowledgement, and it was not an unforgiving sound. But a small part of Bruno whispered that age-old question nonetheless. 

Is it really better, your being here? 

Around them, soft twilight had settled over the town, warmed by the numerous candles flickering in the windows of the houses they passed and in small clustered groupings along the path toward the main road. Children ran by them in spurts, waving crackling sparklers high in the air, their laughter echoing in the streets long after they’d disappeared from view. Camilo had picked up his pleasant one-sided conversation again and was cheerfully narrating the details of the evening’s plan, and—though Bruno absently noted some alarming mention about Camilo transforming into him for a time that evening—he found he just couldn’t seem to make is mind latch onto the words his sobrino was sending his way.

When they’d reached the main road that led up to Casita, they paused at a set of steps and Camilo plopped down on them with relish. 

“Phew. What a week,” he announced, shifting into Antonio so he could fully rest his outstretched legs on the short length of the stairs. “I never want to fold a paper butterfly again. Hope you’re having fun, Tío. I’ve never worked so hard in my life.” 

Bruno glanced down at him with an amused grunt, a smile playing on his lips, despite himself. Camilo was perhaps his most ornery sobrino, but boy did he remind him of Peps when they were younger. He had no doubt that if Pepa had had the ability to transform into a haunting, nightmarish version of her brother to keep the other town kids in line, she would have. 

But Milo had her heart, too. The kid may be loath to admit it, but Bruno saw how much he looked after his cousins and siblings—after everyone, really. He loved big like Pepa, no doubt about it. This party may have had Mirabel’s mark all over it, but he had no doubt that Camilo was standing at her side the whole time.

“You’re a good kid, Milo,” he mumbled, looking thoughtfully to the bottom of his now-empty cup. “I-I know it doesn't mean much, coming from me, but…for what it's worth, I'm proud of you.”

Camilo looked up at him then, and for just a moment, his mask slipped. His face once again became his own, juxtaposed comically on his little brother’s small body, but it had the charming effect of making him look much like Bruno remembered him, before the walls. Bruno let out a soft chuckle, a little warmth returning to his stress-worn heart. Camilo caught himself then, shifting the rest of the way back into himself and letting his legs drop over the steps with a scowl. 

“TÍO BRUNO!” 

Bruno looked up in time to see Antonio careening up the street toward them, sparkler lifted high in his hand, trailing the quickly-fading stars in his wake. Bruno had just enough time to set the cup down on the stairs beside him before Toñito was leaping into his arms. 

“Señor Osvaldo is giving out sparklers!” he grinned, waving his around for a final few seconds before quickly dropping it to the ground as the sparks reached the end of the stick. Bruno stepped on it nervously with his foot.

“What an amusing fire hazard!” Bruno observed brightly, the strain in his voice showing just a little.

Toñito nodded happily. “Mmhmm!”

“It’s not a party without at least one fire hazard,” came Mirabel’s genial voice as she approached, having finally caught up to her much faster primo. She winked at Camilo, hands on her hips, before turning her gaze to Bruno. She smiled at him, but he could see that familiar look of concern flickering behind her eyes like a candle. He looked away and cleared his throat, ruffling Toñitos hair as he released him to run off toward his brother. 

Camilo had taken the opportunity to transform into Bruno—not Brujo Bruno this time, but just…regular old Bruno. The real Bruno lost his breath for a moment. Aside from the confident grin that spread across his features, it was pretty much like looking in a mirror—an uncanny mirror that moved without you moving. Por el amor de Dios, he even got the eye bags right. If Camilo had any guilty qualms about changing into Bruno over the past year or so, their conversation had apparently absolved him. Que bueno. [for the love of God...Great.]

“Whaddaya say we go get another one, eh kiddo?” Camilo-Bruno said, lifting Toñito swiftly on his shoulders with an ease that the real Bruno definitely didn’t possess. Antonio giggled, wrapping his arms around Camilo’s neck. 

“No! You have to be someone tall, like Mami!”

“Sorry, chico. This night calls for a different performance. You’ll just have to make do with your teeny tiny Tío. ¡Vamanos!” [Let's go!]

And with that, he galloped off, Antonio squealing on his shoulders the whole way. 

“Suéltate el pelo, Tío!” Camilo’s voice echoed back at them down the street. [Let your hair down, relax!] “I can’t be the only you having fun on your birthday!”

Bruno watched them go with a grimace pulling at his features. Mirabel came to stand beside him. 

“That….seems like a bad idea,” he intoned.

“Yeah,” Mirabel winced, but she followed it up with a shrug. “But I had to give him something. Come on. You’ve got somewhere to be.”

She looped her arm through his, and together they started up the main road toward Casita. 

---

“So,” Mirabel ventured lightly after a few moments, her voice a bit hesitant and drawn out. “...how's it going?” 

Bruno glanced sideways at her without turning his head and took a careful breath in. 

“Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine,” he replied, his voice as light as a stone. “I-I’m great, uh…”

Mirabel was not buying it.  

“Okay, what’s wrong?” she asked. 

“What?”

“What’s the matter?”  She looked at him carefully, if insistently, her expression brooking no escape. Something tightened in Bruno’s stomach. Ay, he knew it, he knew it from the moment he saw her face. She had to have heard about everything with Ma, and she was not going to let him pretend it didn’t happen.

“Nothing’s the matter,” he said quickly. He reached clumsily into his shirt pocket as if to grab a handful of salt, only to stare blankly when all he produced was a rat. He returned the rat to his pocket and continued to stride forward as if nothing had happened, but his voice came out much sharper. “W-whaddaya mean, what's the matter?”

Mirabel’s eyes retraced the motion, then returned to his face with eyebrows raised skeptically. 

“Tío, something is obviously up with you.”

She paused. Her voice softened, and she reached up to briefly touch his arm, just a nudge.

“...Camilo said you had an argument with Abuela. I promised I wouldn’t bring it up, but—”

“Then don’t bring it up.”

“Tío–”

“Mira,” he closed his eyes and took a breath in, then breathed it out roughly through his nose. “It’s not something you need to worry about.” 

He thought for a moment, sour guilt from the evening pooling in his gut. “Y-ya know what,” he added quietly, “I-I’m not something you need to worry about, either.”

She looked up at him then, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. 

“What is that supposed to mean?” she prodded.

“I-it means, it means…” he huffed again, a more gentle sound this time. “Idaknow, mija, it means…I-I don't think it's good for you, worrying after me all the time. It's like I said back when we talked last week, about how you need space to grow a-and for people like me to quit telling you what you need, and—”

“Well,” she said with a half smile and a raised eyebrow, “You’re kind of telling me what I need right now.”

Bruno rubbed a tired hand down his face. “Look, y-you’ve been doing so…so great these past few weeks. Look at you—you’re happy Mira, you’re laughing. You're not sad. You’re at a party, y-you’re fantastic! Y-you don’t need…you don’t need me to —”

“I do need you.” 

She’d stopped walking, her arm slipping out of his as he kept moving. Her voice was soft, colored with something else that he couldn’t quite identify, and when he turned back to look at her, he was surprised to see a measure of hurt hidden carefully behind concern. 

“Oh, I-I-I,” he twisted his hands together, backtracking to where she stood. He didn’t want to hurt her! It was the opposite. Ay, this sweet girl, she had his whole heart —they all did—but, but, but, what good did that do when it was broken and befuddled to begin with?

“L-look—,” he began, carefully putting his hands on her shoulders and watching her face. “Think about it, kid. T-these past few weeks, you've been off out there, instead of stuck inside with me every morning, and it’s been good for you. That's how it's supposed to be! ‘Cause, ‘cause you don’t have to worry about me, you’re not supposed to! All this, the party, a-and the memorial, and trying to get me out of the house and everything, it’s so thoughtful, mija, because you are thoughtful,” he raised a hand to gently pat her cheek. “...but…but i-it’s not…You can’t…you can't b-build your life around me, sí? B-because, because, because… I-I will let you down, Mirabel. Okay? I am there for you, as best as I can be, with my whole heart, b-but I…I will let you down. Its only a matter of time.”

Mirabel stared at him, eyes wide. His shoulders dropped, disappointed in the truth that his own words held. It was true, and that was the crux of the issue, and to hear it out loud…well. He tried to swallow his heart back down into his chest. 

“When you build your life around someone,” he continued somberly, “e-eventually you find out it wasn’t what you thought and it all starts falling down. A-and I can’t do that to you, claro? I can’t let you down, and— hijole,  I can’t h-help you—so-so-so what you need is to keep doing what you're doing, and go out there, and live, Chispa.” 

He took a breath in and held it, then dropped his hands from her shoulders. He couldn’t read her expression. When she didn’t respond, he fidgeted nervously, rambling on with his voice quiet and heavy. 

“I-I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, kid, I just, I don’t, I don’t….d-don’t-don’t-dont let me get in the way. Go, go do your thing, okay? What you’re meant to be doing. Y-You’ve got a whole life ahead of you, and I can’t-I can’t-I can’t…”

Mirabel suddenly reached out and grabbed his arm, bringing his ramblings to a stop. He pulled air into his tight lungs and looked back up at her. She’d narrowed her eyes at him, mouth frowning thoughtfully, and for a moment he felt frozen beneath her analytical gaze. Then, without a word, she looped her arm back through the crook in his elbow and gently pulled him forward along the path. They walked the final remaining steps toward Casita, stopping at the base of the stairs, which gave a small tinkle in hesitant greeting. Mirabel didn't move to enter. 

Bruno stared at the door in front of him, utterly out of words—and thoughts, f-for that matter. He felt like a laundry line, stretched thin, taught and weighted down, ready to snap. His family shimmered before him, dazzling and golden, with Mirabel at the center, her arms open wide and loving. He turned wearily to look at the real Mirabel beside him, her face lit from the warm glow of the door. Though the light was soft and gentle, she was looking at the image of herself with a strange, troubled expression, and Bruno fought the urge to press his thumb to that small, only-barely-there crease between her eyes and smooth it away before it could deepen.

After a moment, she blinked and looked away from the door, looking to him instead. As she took in his face, her expression softened, and then, to his surprise, her mouth lifted into a subdued smile.

“Tío Bruno,” she said slowly. “I’m pretty sure I can live and love you at the same time.”

Bruno’s mouth tightened, and he blinked at her.

“We all can,” she continued, gesturing back at the door. “That’s how you live, right? Together?"

She reached a hand out and brushed the wooden surface with the tips of her fingers, the light swelling under her momentary touch. 

“Does that mean you’re not going to mess up? Sure doesn’t!” She shrugged, dropping her hand back to her side. “I will too! I already have…in very recent memory.” She laughed softly, and he opened his mouth to protest, but she continued before he could.

“We mess up, big and small, but we build together, Tío. That’s how we do it. And, hey, I know I haven’t lived as long as you…” her mouth pulled to the side mischievously, “not nearly as long…”

Like muscle memory, he breathed a ghost of a laugh. “Okay.”

“Which is long, you know, and I mean long—”

“Alright, alright!” he huffed softly. Then, even quieter, “...alright.”

“...but I’m pretty sure that building all by yourself is what makes everything fall apart.”

Casita creaked open the door then, either in welcome or agreement, or perhaps both. Without warning, Mirabel slipped her arm out of his, only to turn and wrap him in one of her crushing hugs. After a dazed moment of struggling to pull breath into his compressed lungs, his shoulders softened and he wrapped his arms around her in return.

“Happy birthday, Tío,” she said softly. “I love you. And, you know, stick around, okay? I need you. We all do.”

He nodded, holding her tighter.  

“Right now,” she continued, “I’m going to go back to the party—to live and all that. See? I’m respecting the wisdom of my elders.” She pulled away, then straightened his ruana on his shoulders before fixing him with a hard stare, altogether ruined by the softness in her eyes. “But you go live too, yeah? And…” she paused and tilted her head, “...maybe I’ll see you in the morning for tea?”  

This kid. This, this—this young woman, he supposed — she would never cease to surprise him. Because, she was right, wasn’t she? She was seventeen years old and right, and here he was, a fifty-two-year-old fool wallowing in his own self-pity. He was always too wound up in the past, in the future, in himself—in anything but the real heart of the matter to see mas alla than his own nose. [see farther than his own nose.]

But Mirabel, she always managed to see. She somehow saw through it all when all that he saw was cracks of the past and shadows of the future. 

So maybe, maybe even though it all just seemed so impossible….maybe together was still possible. After all, there was a time when together was a frail word that meant nothing but a ramshackle table and a wall between. Heck, he’d watched this kid build a home out of rubble with little more than a charcoal-mapped memory and pure grit. So…maybe.

Hm. Would you look at that? She’d gone and infected him with that terrifying, beautiful hope again. He shook his head at her, his eyebrows drawing together at the sentiment.

Stick around, she’d said. 

“Yeah,” he replied. “Yes. Yes, please.”

She nodded, and they stood together a moment longer. After a thought, he narrowed his eyes and added softly, “...m-maybe make it coffee, though, insteada tea. Idunno what all was in that drink Camilo brought me, but let's just say I-I foresee a headache in my future.” 

He put his fingers to his forehead and squinted half-heartedly, as if he was seeing it even now. She laughed.

“Sure, Tío.”

Mirabel raised her shoulders and nudged him on the arm with a loose fist—a gentle mock, he realized, of his own sort of awkward affection—then turned and began the walk back toward town. He watched her for a bit before his sluggish thoughts finally skipped frenetically back into motion. He looked at Casita, then quickly back toward her retreating form.

“H-hey!” he called after her. “Hey, w-where am I going?!”

Without turning around, she pointed straight up at the sky. Though he couldn’t see her face, he could hear the grin in her voice. 

“UP!”

He stared after her in momentary befuddlement, until behind him, Casita finally opened it’s door the rest of the way and rolled the stairway tiles in excited beckoning. 

“Up,” he muttered cautiously, then stepped inside. 

---

Casita’s tiles rippled and flipped in a gentle, eager path from the door, beckoning him toward the center of the courtyard. The lamps were low and warm, the courtyard pillars decorated in lush, draping vines and strangely shaped flowers that perfumed the air with an exotic sweetness—courtesy of Isabela, he assumed. The balcony above was lined with candles.

“Y-you look nice tonight,” he stammered nervously as he followed the path forward, and the house shook the vines in coy acknowledgement of his flattery. “Luminous even. You’re glowing! Say, uh, Casita, a-any chance you’ll tell me what’s going on?”

In response, Casita detached two of it’s upper railings, sliding them together neatly and tilting them down toward the ground floor all in one motion, creating a lengthy, wide ladder that led—perhaps as he should have predicted— up and up, past the second floor, all the way to the rooftop. 

“O-oh,” he chuckled nervously. “Yaknow, I-I could take the stairs…?”

The ladder rattled insistently. Bruno approached, knocked carefully on the closest wrung, then obediently began his careful ascent. 

As he reached the rooftop, a gentle breeze rustled the loose hair that hung around his face. He pulled himself fully onto the moss-covered tiles, rising slowly as he steadied his balance, and tentatively looked around. 

The rooftop had been transformed—it was a testament to just how distracted he was that he hadn’t caught a glimpse of it as they walked up the road below. Candles sat in festive clusters around the entire squared roof, casting their warm glow through dappled brown glass and across the expanse of terra cotta. Casita must have had a hand in the design, as a small portion of it’s rounded tiles had been rearranged to create a flat surface for wide planks of wood to stretch across, and he made his way there now across the normal angled roofing. On the newly flattened roof-floor sat three chairs, a rug, a table laden with wine, cheeses, and numerous honeyed sweets, and a basket with three woven blankets rolled neatly inside. 

One blue, one yellow, and one green. Oh. 

His sisters were coming. His sisters were coming too, of course they were, it’s also their birthday, tonto— and ay, he was going to have to face them. He was going to have to tell his sisters what he now knew about their gifts….and didn’t that just make his heart try to leap right out of his chest?

He reached up to grab shakily at his ruana, his thumb worrying the smooth edge where it came to a V at his neck. 

No. I can’t tell them tonight. I can’t ruin another party, I can’t take this night away from them. I—

H-he would tell them. He would tell them, he would tell them, he would tell them—he was not Mamá. 

…But he would tell them tomorrow. He would let them hold the vision in their own hands, and he would stand beside them as they did. Together, like Mirabel said. Together. 

But tonight? 

Tonight he would be as silent as a mouse. 

As if on queue, the little body in his pocket squirmed, poking a sniffing nose just out of the edge of his shirt collar. Bruno took a long, slow breath and ran his finger over the rat’s tiny head.

“You can do this,” he whispered to himself. Then, with a mind-clearing shake to his head and subsequent re-gaining of balance that he definitely would not be repeating on a rooftop, he began to make his way to the table and chairs. 

“You hungry, parcero?” he muttered. “Of course you are, you’re always hungry. Let’s get you a snack, huh? Before Pepa gets here and eats it all.”

He had just selected a particularly succulent looking grape to pass to Manolo when a raucous, oddly resonant banging sounded from the direction of the ladder, almost sending him jittering right off the roof.

He dove instinctually behind one of the chairs, gripped the back of the chair tightly, and peering pitifully through it’s rungs. He watched as, over the edge of the rooftop, a piano slowly rose into view, followed by the only person on earth who could carry it on one shoulder up a ladder. 

“Oh. Hey, Tío,” Luisa said calmly when she noticed him, not even out of breath as she stood on the slanted tiles and thoughtfully considered where to set her delivery. Her eyes rested on one corner of the platform, and she strode over to gently lower it into position. If she noted his cowering, she didn’t mention it. He slowly rose back to standing and tried to regain any scraps of dignity he may still possess. 

“Luisita,” he began, making his way over to stand beside her. She’d turned around to move the table—still completely laden with food and beverage—to a more strategic position. “I don’t— why?”

Luisa straightened and grinned confidently at him. “Mirabel didn’t tell you? I’m providing the entertainment for the evening. You know I’ve been practicing with Pa in my downtime.” A note of pride colored her voice, but she shrugged nonchalantly. “This seemed as good a time as any to make my debut.” 

Bruno nodded, still unsure of why the piano had to be on the roof, but he asked no further questions. Instead, he sank into the chair that was now closest to the food table, thoroughly done with surprises for the night. 

“Before that though…” Luisa continued, coming to sit in the chair beside him, “We all thought you might want a little break from the party. I know it’s all kind of a lot.”

Bruno drew in breath, but didn’t reply. 

“So, later, Ma and Tía Pepa will join you, and this will be the V-I-P viewing location for the birthday fireworks. But for now? It’s your private V-I-P viewing location… for that.” She grinned, then turned her face away from him and toward the sky. Bruno followed her gaze.

“Oh,” he whispered.

Above them, hundreds of stars had begun to twinkle into view as the night settled in, cascading in a great glittering ribbon across the entire sky like the tail of Tonito’s sparkler. From the rooftop, there were absolutely no obstructions to the view, and the black velvet dome of darkness seemed to descend all around them like the ancient dome of his vision cave. In his ears, the gentle hush of palm leaves brushing against each other mingled with the sound of crickets chirping lazily through the grass below, and in the distance, he could hear the party continuing on, but it was hazy and vague, like an echo. If he looked down, he could probably see the brightness of the plaza, down past the trail of candlelit road, but he kept his eyes fixed on the sky. The cool, pleasant air pushed against his upturned face with a crispness that seemed to clear his thoughts a bit and fill his tired lungs with a measure of steadying calm. 

“Sound good?” Luisa asked softly beside him, tilting her head toward him but not looking away herself. 

“Yeah,” he replied. “Yeah, that’ll do.”

---

Alma sat on the bench beside Elisa and Raymundo’s garden long after her son had left. Hands folded carefully in her lap, head bowed, she might have appeared to a passerby as a woman praying, but her eyes remained open wide. For a long while after, she gazed with unfocused eyes at her own hands and wondered at their inability to keep hold of that which was most precious to her in all the world; that which, for a time, had been right in front of her.

When she heard her sobrina quietly approaching, as she knew the child inevitably would, she pulled her spine a little straighter, lifted her head, shored up a quiet, slow breath, and began the careful work of tucking the shattered shards of herself back into place before they could cause any further harm. Dolores sat stiffly down beside her, radiating nervous energy and tilting her head in minute increments as she listened to what only she could hear. Dear child. When she was able, when she was as steady as she was going to be, Alma reached out and patted her knee. 

“I am alright, mi vida. Thank you for checking on me.” Her voice came out tired, worn, and without the conviction she’d hoped it would carry.

Dolores nodded and bit her lip. Alma hesitated. She didn’t want to ask. She knew better now than to embroil a child in her own affairs, but...

“Your uncle…is he…,” she paused, adjusted. “...safe?”

Dolores nodded. Is he still here? Alma wanted to ask. Have I lost him again? How badly has my foolishness hurt him this time? 

Does he know, clumsy as I am, that I love him more than my own life?

Alma just nodded once in return. 

A couple years prior, Alma would have returned to the party. She would have pulled back her shoulders, set her jaw, and attended to the duties of the town, as was expected of her. She would have laughed a hollow, empty, but convincing laugh, kept herself standing until the last guest retired for the evening, and never looked back at the pain nipping at her heels, for risk that it might devour her completely. She would have held fast, strong and steady as the matriarch of the Encanto must be. 

Instead, after a time, Alma stood and walked slowly back to Casita, her sobrina nervously hovering by her side. When they reached the door, she said a warm goodnight and told her not to worry. 

I love my son, she’d said, but I am still learning how to love him. God willing, I’ll have the opportunity to learn. 

He loves you too, Dolores had whispered, eyes wide. 

Alma patted her sobrina’s cheek and smiled in a way that would assure her that everything would be alright, then turned to walk inside before the smile could break. 

Try to have fun tonight, corazón, she'd said as she headed for the stairs. I am sorry that I interrupted the party. I will see you in the morning, sí?

Then Alma had climbed the stairs to her room, prayed—carefully, for she never knew now what her prayers might beget—and, though the sun had not yet fully set, went to bed.