Chapter Text
Bruno dozed off. He didn’t mean to, but the dim and quiet of the church and the muffled burble of voices outside and scent of food reminded him of his room behind the family tree, hidden and safe, and exhaustion dragged at his bones.
Something warm and living and not a rat touched his shoulder. He squeaked and flailed backward. Arms held his head and shoulders still, preventing him from banging them on the same hard wood he smacked his elbow into.
“Sh, sh, Brunito, estás bien. We’re in the church. You’re home.”
What does that mean? His dreams all fluttered apart, diaphanous as morning mist and even quicker to burn away, not a single one of them prophetic. For a moment, he thought he was still dreaming.
The hands moved, one combing through his hair, the other gripping his hand. “Bruno, mijo, can you hear me?”
“Sí, Mamá.” He woke up enough to remember. They were in the church, close to a wall that was becoming less shaded as the sun shone through the windows at a higher angle, and he was slumped in the corner of one of the pews, wooden armrest digging into his ribs, his madre standing stooped over him, frowning.
“You never used to be a deep sleeper,” she murmured, and squeezed his hand like she was afraid he would float away before sitting down. She asked him questions about the morning, the date, names and older memories, and smiled when he answered them all correctly. She told him he could go back to sleep, but the hour or so he had napped was enough for him to remember that being in public made him too nervous to leave himself so vulnerable.
After a few minutes of silence, Mamá said, “Brunito,” then trailed off. Her hand, still holding his, flexed. She took several slow breaths. “Will you stay with us? For a time at least?”
Bruno blinked at her. “Of course. If, um, if you’ll let me.” If she told him to leave, he could probably find somewhere else. Félix’s padres used to like him, even after the wedding. And the prophecy he gave Dolores when she turned five. And the party with all the toasts when Félix turned thirty-six, and Bruno hadn’t eaten all day. Uh. Or there was that barn he stole the horse from. That was. Easy to break into. He could live in a barn.
Mamá dropped his hand and flung her arms around him, dragging him close. “Of course I want you to stay, Brunito. Never doubt that.”
“Oh. Then, um, sí. I’ll stay.” Was she crying? He would check, except he was crying himself, and he didn’t want her to see.
When she ended the embrace, she brushed the tears from his cheeks, took his face in her hands, and said, “I have missed you, these past ten years. And I have been so angry. The world beyond our Encanto is so dangerous. When you never returned, I thought I had lost you, the way I lost my Pedro. And I did not want to think about that, or why you left, so I tried not to think about you at all. Now I look at you, mijo, and know that you have lived for a decade beyond our valley, and I cannot even imagine how your life has been. Will you tell me?”
Um. Oh. Uh. Bruno tried to smile. Mierda. When he and his hermanas were children, one of their classmates once pulled out a shard of glass from her bag and showed them how to use it to concentrate the heat of the sun. First, she drew a dark line on a piece of paper, then set it on fire. After that was ash, she found a line of ants. Bruno felt like one of those ants, except Pepa wasn’t there to puff up her cheeks and blot out the sun.
How did he answer that? He couldn’t lie. If a random acquaintance had asked, he could just say he didn’t want to talk about it. Or run away. More likely run. But this was his madre. He couldn’t be rude.
Mirabel’s voice called, “Tío Bruno!” It echoed through the church, Bruno, no, no, no. Catchy song.
Mamá turned away. Gracias a dios. Wait, no. Nobody was supposed to talk about him, and now Mirabel was going to be in trouble with her abuela again. They just fixed that. Oh, but he was outside again and Mamá wanted him to stay, so were they all going to talk about him again? That sounded terrifying. Also: dizzying. He was dizzy. And still nauseous.
Something tugged Bruno’s ruana off his shoulder. He turned his head slowly, dislodging his mamá’s hands, and his eyes traced from the fingers pinched around his ruana, up an arm, to his youngest sobrina’s face. “Mirabel!” She looked terribly awkward, wide-eyed and tight-lipped. “Antonio!”
At his prima’s hip, the kid didn’t look awkward in the slightest, all big eyes and easy smile as he chirped back, “Hola, Tío Bruno!”
“Uh. Hola,” Mirabel said, darting a glance toward her abuela. “You used to have pet rats, right? Before you... left?” Another glance. “Because Antonio is a real animal guy.” Antonio waved. “And I was thinking: maybe you two can talk about rats. If you’re up to it.”
It wasn’t lying, but it definitely wasn’t the truth. Bruno gave them a more genuine smile. “Sí, sí, I would love to.”
She turned toward her abuela. “Some people want to talk to you about emergency plans, and reorganizing town services. But Mamí told me all about concussions and what I should look out for. I can watch Tío Bruno.”
All of them looked at him for a long moment. It made his heart jolt in his chest. When that passed, he held up a hand and waved.
“Mirabel,” Mamá said, very serious, “you will come get myself or Julieta if his condition changes, sí? Any confusion, speech problems, memory issues, or if he falls asleep.”
Mirabel nodded along, grave as a soldier being given the mission that would save or doom her and her countrymen.
“Ay, my wonderful nieta. I am a fortunate woman.” She embraced Antonio, then stood and embraced Mirabel before turning back to Bruno. “Get to know your sobrinos, mijo,” Mamá told him, pressed a kiss to his forehead, and paused at the door to look back at them before exiting the church.
There was nobody else inside. Busy, from the sound of it. Bruno turned back to the kids. “Did you two actually want to talk about rats? Because, I mean, you sort of already know about them.”
“We came to rescue you,” Antonio smiled, “and to talk about rats.”
“Oh.” Bruno blinked at them. “Well. Thanks. That was- uh. Anyway, who did you meet already? I got-” He dipped one hand into his ruana, but didn’t feel any of the little warm bodies he usually would. Then he patted at his chest, but there was nothing but a little clump of emergency salt in one pocket. Realization twisted in his stomach. “I- I left them- hours- they-”
“They’re safe!” Mirabel patted his shoulder in a way that left him sitting more firmly on the pew, instead of partway to standing. “Antonio knew the horse you brought to river, so we thought we should bring him home before anyone noticed him missing.” Then, in a single rushed breath: “Except Isabela recognized him too and figured out something was up so she went to investigate before we got there and she totally knows everything,” back to normal speed, “and there were a bunch of rats at the barn. Antonio recognized some of them, so we wanted to tell you they’re safe!”
Bruno blinked. Safe sounded good. But. “You, uh, you said that middle part really fast, right? Because- if that was supposed to make sense, then, um, you should maybe find your mamí.”
Mirabel covered her face with her hands and mumbled something. Antonio tugged on her skirt until she reached down and let him hold one of them instead.
“She said that Isabela knew who Rocinante was, too, and she thought it was weird that you would bring a horse who was already inside the Encanto back out to find Mirabel and Abuela, so she was waiting for us, and Mirabel told her everything.”
Everything. Maybe he should panic, that his decade of hiding was being dragged out into the open one person at a time, beyond his knowledge or control, but instead he felt humiliated. Head ducked and shoulders high, he clenched one fist in his hood and picked at a loose thread along the edge of his ruana with the other.
Antonio slipped his free hand into Bruno’s, small and steady and grounding. “Isabela was worried about you living alone this whole time, so I told her you’ve been living with the rats and they’re your family, too! She went to borrow a big bag so we can smuggle them to you, because they’re scared and the Alzates have cats. But it’s okay. She’s really strong, so she can definitely carry all of them.”
Something was going on over Bruno’s head. He kept his gaze down. After a few seconds, Mirabel added, “We won’t let anyone know—well, anyone else, I’m really sorry about that—until you get a chance to tell them.”
Antonio nodded. “They both agreed. They don’t usually agree about a lot. And Isabela is way better at keeping secrets than Mirabel.”
Mirabel made a muffled noise of complaint.
Dios mio. That did not make him feel better. Kids, right? “Until?” Bruno managed to ask his knees.
Mirabel kneeled in front of him, making it difficult to avoid her face, open and sad like it had been in his room, after he asked her to leave. “We’re going to dig up your- the place you were staying, at some point.” He could sneak back to the ruins at night and hide everything. “And you keep not responding to your name. Tía Pepa told Mamí that she tested you for hearing damage earlier.”
Bruno’s fist tightened in his hood. It... explained several strange events this morning. He had forgotten how to be a real person, and couldn’t even pretend for a few hours. “So that’s- noticeable, huh?”
“Pretty noticeable, yeah,” Mirabel grimaced.
Bruno flipped up his hood and stared at his knees. The church pews were smooth, polished wood, useful for chasing away bad luck but with nothing to pick at. There was a loose thread, though, sticking up from the hole in the left knee of his pants. Bruno waved it back and forth with his index finger, then pinched it and tried twisting it without tugging it looser.
Well, Bruno couldn’t pretend, but he could act. Who was a good character for that? Hernando could be charming, but he was a terrible listener, too impatient for action. The less said about Jorge’s social skills, the better. Sweet, reliable, not a conversationalist. And he was out of practice with Gerinaldo, not a lot of parties to go to in the walls, but maybe-
Something squeezed his other hand. Bruno jumped, yanking the thread, and whipped his head around. He heard himself make a noise as spots encroached on his vision again, and someone caught him, steadying him while he swayed. When he blinked away the spots, Antonio was staring with big eyes, gripping Bruno’s hand, and Mirabel was half-standing half-kneeling next to him, holding his shoulders.
“Tío Bruno?” she asked, once his eyes focused on her face. “Are you alright? Should I get Mamí?”
“No, no, I’m fine. Eh- no te preocupes. Just- spun a little too quickly. Uh. Hey, I- we were gonna talk about rats, right? Let’s- why don’t we do that. You said-” the rest of Antonio’s story clicked, and Bruno’s voice went shrill. “They have a cat?”
Mirabel winced—she seemed to do that a lot—but Antonio beamed and held up his free hand, fingers spread, and released Bruno’s hand to point one more finger toward the ceiling. “Six cats!”
“Oh, dios mio,” Bruno muttered, then stood up, spine straight and shoulders back. Hernando? Impatient? Pfft! He was decisive! A man of action! Patcher of cracks! Savior of ratkind! Herder of cats, potentially.
Actually, Bruno might be better at that one, if they were anything like sobrinos.
“Until we meet again!” he announced, flourished one edge of his ruana like a cape, vaulted over the pew, then stumbled face-first into the wall.
“Tío Bruno!” Mirabel exclaimed, grabbing at his shoulders. She dragged him back to his seat—ay, too much time with her tía, Pepa was a terrible influence—and yanked his hood back, instigating sudden eye contact. Oh, righteous anger, that was a horrible Julieta face. “You need to rest!”
Bruno stared up at her. She grimaced again and blew a deep breath out through her nose.
Quieter, she continued, “Isabela’s taking care of it, and the barn is closed, anyway. The cats can’t get in.”
“Isa said they scare the horses, so they’re not allowed,” Antonio supplied.
“Oh,” Bruno said. Good, that was- the rats were okay, then, at least for now. Something tight in his chest unwound a fraction. But he still left them near cats, dios mío, he was a terrible parent.
“This is okay!” Mirabel said. “Everything is alright! The rats are fine. Isabela probably already has them.”
“Uh-huh,” Antonio chirped, climbing up on the pew next to Bruno. “The rats really liked her!”
“They really liked the arepas I brought,” Mirabel muttered.
Antonio hummed. “Those too.”
“The point is,” Mirabel told him, “she’ll get here any minute now and you can see for yourself. There’s nothing to worry about!”
On cue, the door at the back of the church that they had all crept in through opened again. Bruno craned his head around Mirabel while she turned to look over her shoulder with a relieved smile.
Julieta, arms full of books, smiled at them as Pepa closed the door, no Isabela in sight. Antonio bounced off the pew to greet them.
Mirabel’s smile went stiff. “Act normal,” she whispered.
“That won’t work, they know about Alonso,” Bruno whispered back. “And I’m terrible at improvising him, anyway.” Terrible at scripted scenes with him, too. Bruno only spent one week as Alonso before Pepa threw him to the ground and sat on him while she and Julieta demanded why he’d been going around telling everyone he was a sheep farmer and had never heard of any Brunos. Then they confiscated his shepherd’s hook.
Mirabel’s eyes drifted toward the crucifix and she muttered something, covered by Antonio’s giggling as Pepa lifted him into an embrace.
Okay. Responding to his name. Great goal, very actionable. And, hey, concussion! Of course he was a bit off, right? His hermanas would brush it off. He’d figure out how to be—well, not normal, they were running a little short on miracles at the moment—be Bruno the person again. No one else needed to know the truth.