Chapter Text
She’s twelve when Tío Bruno disappears, and she knows almost immediately that he hasn’t actually gone very far.
Surprisingly enough, her first clue isn’t his muttering. It’s the Casita.
The day the family realizes he’s disappeared is loud, so loud that Dolores can’t stand to be anywhere but her room, and even there, with the thick walls, the insulation, everything the Casita gave her to muffle out the world and give her a reprieve, she hears her family. She hears the downpour from her parents’ room, thunder and rainfall mixed with sobbing from her mother, and gentle tones from her father. She hears clanging in the kitchen, hears her tía chop and dice and stir without stopping, trying to cook a meal that could heal all of this, and she hears her tío fumbling around, knocking over utensils as he tries his best to help. She hears her brother in the nursery, trying to keep Mirabel company, hears his bones and muscles stretch and snap back as he pulls faces, trying to stop their cousin’s quiet crying, which has been a constant stream since the failed ceremony and has only gotten worse. She hears Isabela in her room, sprouting flower upon flower, as if she’s building up bouquets for a grave, she hears Luisa down in the kitchen with her parents, tossing herself in a chore in an attempt to keep her hands busy.
And of course, she hears Abuela, pacing about the candle, as if it will go out the minute she leaves it be. The sound of her footsteps don’t drown out her tears, or her distraught prayers.
None of that is enough to muffle the sound of the Casita itself.
She can hear the house building itself, snaking new hallways and crevices between each room, and first, she feels a spark of hope that there’ll be some good news this week to make up for… well, everything else.
The others never realized, but in the days before each ceremony, the house would shift. Sure, the rooms were never fully realized until their occupants opened the doors for the first time, but Dolores had a feeling that was more for show than anything else— the Casita did have a flare for the dramatics when it wanted to, after all.
But the space itself was built ahead of time, invisible to the other occupants, inaccessible and unfurnished until the newest gift was bestowed. And building a room isn’t a silent process, even when the building is mostly magic.
She had noticed it first in the days before Luisa was given her gift, the sound of the house stacking bricks and laying down floors, and again when Camilo’s day came.
She hadn’t heard building in the days before Mirabel’s ceremony, but she hadn’t mentioned it to anybody. She had convinced herself that her cousin’s room was smaller, maybe, or the construction had happened when she was sleeping. There had to be an explanation, she figured, for why the Casita wasn’t constructing something for Mirabel.
Tío Bruno had been more fidgety than normal that evening, more upset than he normally seemed, and she had been even quieter, and when the door didn’t open, they had shared a look and never discussed it.
So now that the Casita was building itself again, a few days after the ceremony… Maybe it had realized that something had gone wrong, maybe another door would appear soon for the girl. Dolores knows about the concept of late bloomers, and starts to think that maybe that sort of thing could apply to magic, too.
But a door doesn’t appear, and the Casita doesn’t stop building.
She hears it build the next day at an uncommonly somber breakfast, set for one less person than normal. She hears it grow as her mother and her tía confront Abuela once the food is cleared away, beg her to start a search party, to ask the rest of the town for help, and she hears the home build over the old woman’s equally tearful declaration that the Madrigals do not ask for help, that Bruno has made a choice, that they will not waste their gifts to search for someone who would abandon them.
She hears the house expand in the following weeks, as the family attitude shifts, as the resentment builds. As the silence and anguish and anger that settles around the name “Bruno” becomes as loud and overwhelming to her as any thunderstorm.
It’s when she realizes what is being built— long, thin hallways between rooms, tiny dens next to common areas— that she accepts it’s not for her cousin.
She realizes who it is for when she first hears the knocking.
Bruno had always tried not to fall into his compulsions in front of the family, at least when he could help it, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t familiar with them. She’d been hearing them, without his knowledge, for seven years, after all— knocking on wood, breath held until she could hear his lungs strain, the sound of something soft being tossed over the shoulder, (sand, she’d always assumed, considering his room,) the careful, tip-toed dance to avoid the space between bricks and tiles in the floor, with quiet muttering accentuating each panicked, fearful routine. They had gotten louder the older she had gotten, and she wasn’t sure if her hearing was improving, or if her tío was growing more fearful of the world. She had a feeling it was a bit of both.
So when she hears that familiar mantra—knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock on wood—she removes the pillows from over her head and shoots out of bed with a squeak, towards the wall, and presses an ear to it.
“… Tío Bruno?” she asks, not even really asking. She knows it’s him.
And the flailing, panicked scuffling and stumbling retreating footsteps she gets as a response is as as clear a confirmation as hearing his voice would have been. She recognizes that terrified awkwardness.
Her first thought is to tell her mother.
Nobody’s been taking Bruno’s disappearance particularly well, but in the weeks since he vanished, her poor mamá hasn’t been able to stop storming. It’s been a quiet thing to everyone but Dolores, who can hear every cloud form, unmentioned by everyone, with the family deigning to politely flick specs of ice from their meals at the table. She’s heard how tightly her papá has been squeezing her mother’s hand under the table, how strained his breathing has been and how many times his vocal chords have loosened, just for a moment, like he’s going to say something to everyone else, before tightening again, and she hears him running his hands through her mother’s hair and whispering reassurances the minute they’re away from the rest of the family. She hears the constant clear skies, clear skies, clear skies her mama has been muttering, so similar to her brother’s own mantra, nearly every minute of every day.
But it wouldn’t do much good to tell her mother without being able to show her that Bruno was alright. A sudden announcement that her brother was scurrying around in the walls like some sort of rodent probably wouldn’t exactly quell her nerves, and she can just see how Abuela would take the news, predict the din it would cause, the yelling, maybe even the sound of walls being destroyed to find him, and she doesn’t know that she can handle it, not after so many days of horrible, tense loudness.
So instead, she simply presses her ear to the walls and listens for his footsteps, and when she realizes he’s frozen in place to try to avoid her hearing him, his breathing.
Eventually, she picks up on him, a near-silent mutter of “quiet Bruno, quiet Bruno, quiet Bruno,” that he can’t seem to stop, with knocking noises and held breath between each iteration, and she leaves her room to follow it.
There isn’t anyone else wandering around the Casita, all of them locked away in their rooms and coping best they can, so she’s free to explore, glued to the wall and following the sound of her uncle.
He’s settled in the wall behind the dining room, not moving, but still muttering under his breath, unable to help himself. She stops a few feet from him, trying to muster the same tenderness she hears in her father’s voice when her mother is the eye of her worst storms.
“… Tío Bruno, I know it’s you. I can hear you.”
She hears a soft gasp, and then the sound of lungs filling, the tenseness of breath being held. She hears his heart pound.
“… You’re hurting your lungs.”
The hissing sound of breath being released. Quiet footfalls, on tiptoes, as if that would be enough to muffle the sound for her. He’s really trying.
“Bruno, I heard the Casita building itself,” she whispers, following his exact steps from the opposite side of the wall. “I know where the hallways are. The only places you can go are back upstairs, or near the kitchen.”
She hears him stop and swallow back bile and she shudders, but presses on. “… I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
Dolores doesn’t wait for a response, and starts making her way there. If he doesn’t follow, she’ll be able to find him again soon, and they both know it.
She sits on the counter for a few moments alone, before she hears the familiar sound of tiles moving under her feet as the Casita shifts, and suddenly there’s a hole in the kitchen floor, with tiles leading up to the room like stairs.
Her uncle emerges from the hole a moment later, gently ushered by the tiles themselves, and looks at her, eyes huge, hands twitching. She doesn’t think she’s ever seen a forty year old man look quite so much like a kicked puppy before.
“Hey Tío Bruno,” she says softly.
“Hey,” he says shortly, looking her up and down, before turning on his heel to retreat back into his hole, only to find that the Casita has closed itself off again. He’s suddenly stiff as a board, paler, and the Casita is nudging him to the counter, moving him toward it and setting him down on top. He tries to get off, to get to where the hole was and force it open, and the floor moves again, tossing him back where he was, and Dolores hears every tile grind and clack. He gets up again to do the entire song and dance another time and, resigned, she puts her hands over her ears to drown out the sounds as best she can. The home plops her uncle next to her again, and again, and again, and the tiles just get louder and louder. Bruno starts to get up for a sixth time, but he sees her hands over her ears and her scrunched up face, hears the tiles click, and pauses, before sighing.
“… Sorry, I— I’m done,” he assures, before rubbing his elbow awkwardly. “Wouldn’t have been so loud if Casita hadn’t closed up in the first place.” He kicks the counter halfheartedly and the Casita flicks him with one of its tiles. He curses softly and moves as if he’s going to get down again, or stomp on the floor, but he catches his niece going to cover her ears again and winces. “No, no— sorry, hey, I said I was done, I’m done, I’m done.”
“… Everything’s been loud lately.”
“… Yeah, I can imagine.” Neither one is really looking at the other, and they just sit there in silence for a moment or two. Or, at least, Dolores figures her tío is trying to be silent, but she can hear him rocking slightly, tapping his fingers on the counter without thinking. He notices his tapping and stops, but the rocking continues.
He’s trying, at least, and she appreciates it.
Eventually, she feels herself relax— her head isn’t fuzzy, that tightness in her chest is fading, and she lets out a tired little squeak. Bruno fiddles with his thumbs, clearly not wanting to be the one to break the attempted silence.
“… Did you get dinner?” she finally asks. He’s a grown man, he can cook for himself, she knows, but it still seems impolite to ask him to come to the kitchen and not offer him some food. His stomach isn’t rumbling, but maybe that doesn’t mean much. After all, Camilo’s stomach never rumbles, and he’s always hungry.
“Yeah! Yeah, I mean— I was able to swipe something… you don’t have to worry about me, kid, I… y’know, the Casita, it… it gave me access to the kitchen for a reason, y’know?” He laughs a little, but it sounds tired.
She nods, satisfied enough with the answer, then hits him with, “Mamá misses you.”
“Mamá doesn’t miss me,” he says softly. It’s an immediate response though, and it bothers her how sure he sounds.
“My mamá,” she says, and he looks at her, half-surprised and half-sad, and she finishes with, “… but Abuela misses you too. I can hear her. She’s been crying.” She perks her head up a little. “She’s crying now. They both are.”
He just looks fully sad, then, and looks down at the floor, eyes unfocused.
“When are you coming home?” she asks, and he snaps back up, an uneasy smile on his face.
“I am home!” he tries to grin, gesturing around the kitchen, and the Casita itself even opens a few cabinets for emphasis.
“You know what I mean.”
His tone is exhausted and low when he responds. “… I can’t.” He shifts a little, playing with his ruana.
“… Is it about Mirabel?” she asks, and he looks at her, eyes wide.
“…What?”
“You left right after her door didn’t open. Is it because of her?”
“No.” He’s emphatic, more stern than she thinks she’s ever heard from him. “It isn’t her fault.”
Dolores frowns. “Why would it be her fault?”
He blinks in surprise. “… Huh?”
“I didn’t think it was Mirabel’s fault you left, she’s five. I just thought maybe it had to do with her not getting her gift.”
“Which isn’t her fault—”
“Yeah, it’s the Casita’s.”
He stops dead there, and the Casita flicks her indignantly. Both Madrigals shush it at the same time.
“… How would it be the Casita’s fault?”
“It didn’t build her a room. I heard it… well, didn’t hear it. Before the ceremony.” She quirks her head. “It just did nothing.”
“… You knew even before she got to that door, huh?”
The little girl curls up, nods. “Yeah. You?”
He sighs, leaning back a little. “… Your tía says it spoils the fun, but sometimes I— I like looking ahead with you kids— not for everything, but just a few days before the ceremony. It’s exciting, you know? My own little sneak peak! And it’s just… it’s nice to try and use my visions for something nice, and you kids are all nice, and I always figure, hey, maybe if it’s something that can be sorta overwhelming, at least someone in the family’ll know about it so we can help, I know I woulda wanted to know before, y’know, my first vision, so I could know what to expect, and I know your mamá would have wanted— well… anyway, I, uh…” he trails off. “… I figured, um, it would be best not to say. I mean, maybe everyone was right, right? That saying it would… would cause it to happen, and maybe if I just didn’t, it wouldn’t. I mean, I know that’s not how it works, but hey, maybe! Or— or that if it still did, nobody would be as… as upset about it. If they weren’t dreading it. Or thinking I… wanted it.” He tap tap taps the counter. “Or maybe I would just be wrong, right? You know, just ‘cause… just ‘cause I see something doesn’t really mean I know what I’m seeing, doesn’t mean I understand it, so, I mean, why get everyone all worked up and angry, right? When I first saw what your gift would be, I thought it was echolocation, like— like a bat, and that wasn’t right, so what do I know anyway?”
Dolores screws up her face a little bit, and looks at her uncle. “You thought I’d be like a bat?”
“Bats are very underrated animals,” the man sniffs, almost indignant, and Dolores nods.
“… But even if you said something, it wouldn’t have been your fault.”
Bruno looks at her like he’s never heard anyone say something like that, before clearing his throat. “...And if you’d said something, it wouldn’t have been yours. And you didn’t.”
“… And I didn’t,” Dolores mutters softly. Her stomach is in knots. She can hear it gurgling, and the noise is overwhelming.
“And here we are,” Bruno finishes, slumping over and putting his chin in his hands with a sigh.
“And it’s the Casita’s fault.”
“Nah, I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault,” he shrugs. “I think it just… happened. Sometimes stuff just happens.”
“Yeah?”
“Listen, if there’s one thing I know about bad things happening— a-and I know a lot about bad things happening, but this is the important thing— is that they usually just… happen. Sometimes someone does something on purpose and sometimes there’s reasons but a lot of the time nobody tries to do anything bad and there’s not a reason. Or, hey, maybe there are reasons, but the reasons are all so stupid or big that you just gotta go, ‘well, it happened’ because if you keep thinking about it too much and trying to figure out why, you go nuts.” He finishes it all off by knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knocking on the counter and smiling sheepishly. “… Sorry. I know things’ve been loud, it’s just, y’know. It makes me feel better.”
“That wasn’t wood,” she says in response, and when her tío’s eyes widen and he starts to hold his breath, she scoots off the counter and grabs a wooden mixing bowl for him to tap on.
“Thanks, kid.” He takes the bowl and taps it, then helps her back onto the counter. “… Anything make you feel better?”
She looks at him, surprised. “You hear my stomach?”
“Don’t need to. You just look like… you look like the last few weeks have been a lot.”
“Yeah,” she nods, then lies on the counter, looking up at the ceiling, clasps her hands tightly, and squeaks.
Her uncle joins her, bowl still in his hands, and for a few moments, they just stare up at the ceiling, knocking and squeaking.
“… Is it too loud?” Bruno whispers eventually, stopping mid-knock, and Dolores shakes her head. “Okay,” he says, and raps on the bowl again.
After a while, Dolores sits up. “When are you coming home?” It’s the same question as before, she knows, but she didn’t like the first answer, so she might as well try again.
“I can’t,” he says, again, and she hears his grip on the bowl tighten, like it’s a lifeline.
“Why?”
He’s still staring up at the ceiling, still holding the bowl, and instead of answering, he asks a question. “… You ever heard something you really wish you hadn’t?”
She nods. “All the time.”
“Yeah. Well, a lot of times I see things I really wish I hadn’t seen…”
“… Is this still about Mirabel’s gift?”
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock on wood. He doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t need to.
“You said it’s nobody’s fault. Just because we didn’t say anything—”
“I— it’s more than that, Dolores, complicated… it’s grown up stuff—”
“And?”
“And you shouldn’t have to worry about it too. Nobody else has to worry about it. Nobody else saw it, so nobody has to… get upset.”
“But they’re upset about you.” Dolores frowns. “Mamá has a hurricane in her room. It hasn’t stopped. She keeps talking to Papá about you.”
“Don’t tell me that, c’mon, don’t—”
“Tía Julieta’s cooking in her room. She wants to be alone. Her chopping is messy. She keeps slipping and nicking herself. She’s been really distracted.”
“Dolores, please—”
“Abuela’s been—”
“Stop,” he pleads, and the sob in his voice makes her freeze. “Stop, please.” He takes a minute to compose himself, and even once he’s swallowed down the lump in his throat, he’s rocking again. “I… look, this isn’t… this isn’t about me. I mean it sort of is and— and I’m sure they’ll— they’ll be okay with me being gone soon but—“ he’s stumbling over his words now, gesticulating wildly. Then his eyes light up. “When— look, when you hear something you wish you hadn’t and— and you know other people would be hurt if they’d heard it too… do you tell them?”
She squirms a bit. “Sometimes.”
“Yeah but sometimes you don’t,” he points at her and he’s grinning, like he figured out the puzzle to finally end this conversation. “Because you know— you know you can’t, that sometimes— sometimes it’s better if people just don’t know everything, sometimes it protects people, stops people from— from being angry at each other for dumb reasons, or hating each other or blaming each other for stuff they haven’t even done or don’t really mean or—”
“You can still come home,” she says. “They don’t have to know what you saw to come home. They don’t have know you saw anything.”
“Nah, nah, nah, they know already. They asked me to, after M— anyway, they already know I saw something, just not— not everything about it. I mean, I don’t know everything about it but… but they really don’t know everything about it. A—and I know they’re not gonna stop asking and they’re not gonna let me explain or— or I won’t explain it well, or- or— and they can’t know.” He’s quiet again, looking down at shaking hands. “They can’t know.”
She looks at him and she can’t say she doesn’t understand, at least a little. She gets townspeople coming to her, more often than she’d like, asking her to spy on friends, parents, children, partners. She doesn’t always want to, but she helps, because it’s what Madrigals do. They earn their miracle.
So they come to her, ask for her to listen in on conversations they just can’t hear, or things they know are being said in private… and usually, there’s a reason the person in question was having that conversation out of earshot. Sometimes, they’re doing something wrong— lying to a partner, stealing money from a family member. Sometimes she’s happy to right a wrong and help the person who asked get closure, or give them evidence to confront someone who has been mistreating them in some way.
But sometimes it’s… not that. Often, the situation is more sticky. Sometimes people are hiding things for a good reason, and sometimes reporting back would just be the wrong thing to do. Maybe the person who asked her to listen in in the first place is in the wrong, or would do something awful with what Dolores has heard, or maybe— usually— it’s just messy, and it isn’t fair for her to have to deal with it. No bad people, nothing like that, but average everyday mess that it’s wrong to get in the middle of, that she shouldn’t feel responsible for, and the girl more than understands the feeling of trying to avoid answering a question when someone just won’t let up.
Ignorance can be bliss, but some people just can’t stand to not know everything.
“… Will it be worse if they know?”
Tío Bruno lies back down on the counter, hugging the bowl to his chest. “Well, it sure won’t be better.” He closes his eyes, lets out a deep breath. “… I don’t know enough to help. It’ll just be bad news, and it’ll hurt the family.”
“It’ll hurt Mirabel,” she concludes, and her uncle holds his breath until he’s straining.
As Bruno’s lungs fill to bursting, Dolores thinks about her cousin, who, despite Camilo’s best efforts, had only stopped crying an hour ago, when she fell asleep. He’s still there, sleeping beside her, in the nursery he graduated from months ago, and he’ll be there in the morning, because she’ll be crying in the morning, as hard as she’ll be trying not to.
And she thinks about how much whispering around the house has been the name Mirabel, how even once Bruno disappeared, the family was still whispering about her and trying so, so hard not to blame, not to be upset, and how badly everyone’s been doing at not being upset, as desperately hard as they’ve been trying.
And Dolores doesn’t know what Bruno saw, she doesn’t know what it has to do with Mirabel, but she knows that the last thing the toddler needs is more whispering.
So the girl lies back down with her uncle, feet dangling over the counter. She feels her chest get tighter. Nothing in the house has changed, but everything feels louder.
“… So you just need to be alone. So nobody asks any questions. Then you’ll figure out what to do and come back.” She clasps her hands and turns her head to look at him. She wants that to be the answer so badly. Her stomach starts to squeeze again. “Right?”
“…. I want to come back someday, I— I do,” he says. He doesn’t say anything more, and he doesn’t make eye contact.
She knows he isn’t lying. She also knows that isn’t a “yes.”
She suddenly has a hard time swallowing.
“And you're sure they’ll keep asking? That they won’t just forget about it?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Okay,” she says, and even though the Casita is being quiet, and people have started to fall asleep, everything still feels so loud, and she’s sniffling, so she clasps her hands tighter, screws her eyes shut, and squeaks.
And squeaks.
And squeaks.
And it isn’t helping, just turning into panicked hiccups that make everything sound even more overwhelming.
Her tío looks at her, concerned, hands shaking, for a good minute, before he figures out something to say. “Hold your breath.” Then he winces. “I— I mean if that’s not… helping enough. Or just keep doing what you’re doing if— if you know, if that’s good for you.”
And it usually is good for her, but this is a lot, and the loudness isn’t just usual loudness, but blood rushing to her head and her heartbeat losing control and her stomach sloshing and her spit getting stuck in her throat and her muscles straining, and she can hear all of it, so she takes a deep breath and holds it.
“Alright, and— and I’m not good at this part, but you gotta let it out slow.”
So she does. Once, twice, three times. Again and again until the hiccups are gone and the vice-grip she’s clasped her fingers into loosens.
“… You feeling better?” asks her uncle, and she nods. His face melts into an expression of relief. “Good, good…” he smiles softly as she gets up, nudges her shoulder lightly. “You know your mamá and I used to do that when— when she needed to calm down. Or when I did. Whoever was having the better day would just… y’know. Remind the other to do something different so we didn’t pull out all our hair or— or get too many splinters.” He laughs softly, looking at his knuckles, and she thinks about her mamá pulling on her braid as her papá rubs her shoulders.
Clear skies, clear skies, knock on wood and clear skies.
“I, uh. I’m sorry. I know all of this was just… just way too much. I didn’t want any of this to be anyone else’s problem. I didn’t want you to have to… hide anything.”
“I asked. I followed you,” she hums.
“Yeah, but still.”
She sits up and looks at him, cocking her head. “… Can I tell Mamá you’re okay? Not that you’re here, but that you’re okay?”
The man looks at her, like he really doesn’t want to say no, but can’t quite say yes. So he settles on, “Well…” which doesn’t help Dolores very much. Finally he clears his throat. “How would you, uh. Know I’m okay if you don’t know where I am?”
“I heard you buying food at the edge of town the night you disappeared. You left town, but you had coins in your pocket. A lot of them. I heard them clinking. She’ll know you have money and that you’re remembering to eat.”
He looks at her for a second and nods. “Yeah. That sounds okay. But I— don’t keep making up stories, okay? I— I mean you… you’re already going to be lying, I don’t want you to have to do it more than you have to.”
“Okay.” She scoots off the counter. “… Do you have to make the tiles move again?”
Bruno looks at her, surprised, but not too upset that the conversation seems to be over. “No, ah, there’s… there’s other entrances. They’re quieter. Casita just wanted to make sure I got here fast I guess, so, pffffft, it opened up. Didn’t wanna keep you waiting.”
“Okay,” she says again, straightening out her nightgown. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
His eyes widen. “… Huh?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll come back when everyone’s sleeping. We can talk more.”
“I… Dolores, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”
“Okay. Next week then.”
“I—”
“If you’re going to be here, I’m not ignoring you,” she says. “It would be too weird to hear you walking around and talking and not talk back to you sometimes. And you can’t hear me through a wall as well as I can hear you. ”
He nods— that makes enough sense, he guesses, and it seems stupid to argue with her. She nods back in affirmation.
“I’ll see you next week.” She turns to leave, then turns back, hums, smiles softly. “I’m glad you didn’t leave.”
He smiles back, and she turns back around again and scurries away, back into her room.
She puts a pillow over her head, but she doesn’t need to. Her tío doesn’t make any more knocking noises for the rest of the night. He's really trying.
She appreciates it.