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Time stopped for Isabela as her eyes landed on her youngest sister’s battered body and she heard her aunt’s sobs and saw that frantic confusion on her mother’s face as she still was leaning over Mirabel.
It was too much for her.
And when she heard her mother’s screams–
She turned around and run away, wiping away the hot tears that were wetting her cheeks, smearing the pollen that had covered her just a few minutes before, when Mirabel had still been alright, when she had been happy, and so loving, and when they had hugged and suddenly the crack had begun to disappear–
She felt a ting of sharp pain and she stopped in place, looking down at her left leg. Her dress was more or less intact save for the spots of pollen that all the plants she had grown created, but when she lifted the rim of the material, she saw a few scratches on her ankle.
She looked back, confused and wiped all the tears away to get a better look at what caused those sudden wounds.
A few seconds and she spotted it.
A cactus.
A cactus with long, sharp spines.
She cried out in pain, and frustration at the plant and at the irony that fate and God seemed to cast down at her.
“Why!” she growled, looking in the sky as the tears started falling again. “It’s not fair!” she yelled, letting go of her dress and tightening her fists at her sides. “ Why! ”
She breathed deeply, waiting for an answer and not getting one.
“Isa?” she heard somebody calling out to her.
She didn’t turn around, closing her eyes, tightening her fists so tight that her fingers started to go numb. Maybe if she pretended she wasn’t there…
“Isa?” it was Camilo, his voice free of his usual cheerfulness and the smugness he expressed whenever he teased her about Mariano. “Abuela sent me to find you…”
She huffed, feeling her blood boiling in her veins. “I don’t want to see her nor hear from her nor even think about her,” she gritted her teeth with not-so-well hidden anger. “lt was her who started this situation, it was her who’s the most responsible for Mira’s death!”
Camilo stepped closer to her as she could hear the grass and some leaves rustling under his feet. “Isa…”
“Don’t,” she said warningly, raising her hand and one warning finger. “I want not a sound out of you–” her breath hitched as she recalled those were the same words she had said to Mirabel earlier that day.
What an awful sister she had been to Mirabel. And although she couldn’t change all those years they were on bad terms, she really had looked into what they might have done after their reconciliation. After they felt like sisters once again.
And then Casita went down and buried Mirabel underneath the debris.
She sobbed and the stiff posture perfected over the years by being graceful and proud shattered, leaving behind shaking shoulders and drooped head with hair covering all her features.
She attempted to cover her face with her hands, ashamed of the tears she showed in front of Camilo, but this openness somehow made her feel free. Her uncovered face and visible tears made her breathe a little easier, with a little less guilt.
She felt a hand on her arm. “Isa.”
But it wasn’t Camilo and the sob she heard after that confirmed it. Isabela turned around and wrapped her younger sister–her only sister now–in a hug.
Luisa reached with one hand to the left and a few seconds later Camilo joined in their shared hug, his own arms circling both Isabela and Luisa tightly.
They stood like that for a while - Camilo silent, Isabela sniffing, Luisa letting herself cry openly as she had never done before.
“I could have done so much more,” Luisa said somewhere into the distance. looking on the trees, or mountains, or the sky, it was hard to tell. “I failed.”
“A few more seconds and using my lianes I could have–”
“A few more seconds and I would have got to the Candle–”
They all fell silent.
The guilt was a strong emotion. It was enwrapping itself around the mind, around the heart; it was like a poison working slowly but efficiently; it could destroy and shatter every positive emotion, crush every smile, work as a reminder of the worst.
“Had Casita held on for a bit longer…”
“Had the magic lasted a little longer…”
“Had I been there with her, I would have stopped the wall, crush the debris, or push Mira out of the way in time.”
Camilo and Isabela pushed away, looking up at Luisa, whose cheeks were wet with tears and eyebrows furrowed in a clear display of guilt.
“Luisa–”
She didn’t listen. “I told her I was worthless without my gift, I told her I am worthless if I can’t be of service.”
A bit of silence.
“So am I,” Camilo and Isabela said at the same time.
They didn’t look at each other.
Isabela was the first to break the silence. “I can’t go back there,” she said, looking at some spots that stained Luisa’s white top. “To look at Mam á and Papá and see their faces…”
Luisa inhaled sharply.
“Mamá will be a mess and I’m not sure I’m capable of calming her down,” Camilo muttered, rubbing his arm. “How can I cheer anyone up when everything I feel is…”
“Guilt?”
“And the helplessness,” he said, looking up at Luisa. “I had been so close, just a few jumps more, a few metres and I would have been there, with the Candle in my hands! Just a few seconds more–”
“My liane snapped just a few metres away from the window. Two seconds more–” Isabela sniffed. “A few seconds more and Mirabel would have been alive and well and Mam á and Papá would have been happy and their hearts wouldn’t have been broken and–” she stopped, leaning her forehead against Luisa’s shoulder.
Her broad frame shook when she cried. “I would have done anything for her, I would have done anything so that she hadn’t been hurt but when she had needed me the most–” she whispered. “I had been too weak.”
Silence again.
“We all failed her,” Camilo said, turning away from them, flopping his ruana as he did so. “We, our padres, Abuela–”
Isabela glared at him. “Don’t–”
“She’s a part of our familia too, Isabela,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “If you like it or not.”
“She’s the reason we lost our hermana,” Isabela answered angrily. “She’s the reason you lost your prima and our padres lost their hija!”
She saw Luisa flinched at her outburst and Camilo turned his head. “Abuela probably feels the same way about herself, Isa,” he said. “She looked shocked when she sent me after you. It’s hard for her too.”
“Have you been blind this whole time?” she turned on him, moving her arms impetuously. “Haven’t you seen how she treated Mirabel? How awful she has been to her?!”
Camilo snorted. “Ironic, hearing that from you.”
Isabela gawked at him. “ Excuse me– ”
He turned around. “You were an awful hermana to Mirabel her whole life! Always so stiff and pretentious and so rude to her and now what? Now Abuela is the bad one and you’re–”
“Hey–” Luisa tried to interrupt.
“You have no right to judge me!” Isabela shrieked stepping closer to him, waving her left hand wildly. “At least I came to terms with Mira before she—she died and she passed away knowing that I did not hate her!”
“Is that what brings you comfort?” he said, stepping back. “Good luck, then.”
“You–”
“Isabela,” Luisa said firmly, grasping her shoulder. “Camilo,” she added, looking at her cousin. “Don’t make it worse. It’s bad as it is, this family don’t need you two to be at each other’s throats.”
“How can we talk about family when Mirabel isn’t here?” Isabela looked back at her. “How can we talk about family when we pushed tío Bruno away all those years ago? How long will we repeat the same mistake? Mirabel died because she wanted to be accepted! She did what tío Bruno might have done then!”
None of them answered her.
“Dee’s coming here,” Camilo said eventually. “We should probably go back.”
“And we should be with Mamá, Isa,” Luisa said quietly. “She needs us now.”
Any of them didn’t want to think what would cross their Julieta’s mind whenever she would look at them and see that Mirabel’s not there.