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Bruno had always known that something was wrong with him.
Before he even got his Gift, he was always too fidgety, too flighty, too nonstop motion gotta keep moving can’t hold still can’t stop can’t– and Mama would scold him, lightly smack his knuckles with her hand, remind him to hold still and sit in his chair and stop squirming and act his age. And he would try, he really would, but the energy in his arms and legs would build and his heart would pound and he wouldn’t be able to breathe, be able to think, until he tapped his fingers and bounced his leg and rocked himself back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
It got worse when he got his Gift.
It didn’t get worse immediately, of course. He was still just Bruno, little Bruno, and he would play with his sisters and help Mama in the garden and wash the dishes when Julieta was done in the kitchen. The girls ignored him when he would tap the doorknob too many times, taptaptaptap, or open and close the cabinets again and again, onetwothreefour times. And when he felt that pounding headache building behind his eyes, when the green haze started to drop in front of his vision, Julieta would bring him an empanada, or Pepa would let him sit in the shade of her cloud until he felt better.
But, like all things do, it had to change.
“Mama!” Bruno screamed, and he heard the footsteps pounding upstairs but she wasn’t coming fast enough, she wasn’t here yet, and he needed her because he was so scared and he couldn’t breathe and all he could see was green and smoke and blood–
“Brunito?” And there was his Mama’s voice, worried but not shaken, and he flailed out a hand, desperate for something to ground himself.
The tile of the floor was cold and hard and unforgiving. Bruno tapped his fingernails on it and tried to pull in a shuddery breath. “I saw– The man! And so much blood, Mama, he’s so hurt and there’s blood on the ground and everyone is screaming and I don’t know what to do!”
“Take a breath, mijo,” Mama murmured. She ran a hand through his hair. It caught on a tangle and he winced. “Start from the beginning.”
He told her about the vision, the man in the market and the cart that rolls downhill and the man can’t get out of the way fast enough, he doesn’t run in time, and the cart is going so fast, and there’s so much blood.
“Well,” Mama sighed. “Perhaps it was just a nightmare. Knock on wood, yes?”
“Yeah,” Bruno breathed. “Knock on wood.”
So it became part of him. Tap his fingers and pick at his nails and chew his lip and knock-knock-knock, knock on wood. Rock back and forth. Close his eyes when he started to see green and keep his shaking hands in his pockets and hope, pray, desperately wish that they were all just nightmares.
Sometimes he wondered why Julieta’s cooking never helped with the pent up terror that lived somewhere behind his ribcage. By the time he and his sisters were twelve, he’d figured out that no one else felt the way he did. Sure, the girls had their worries, but they didn’t feel them in their every bone and muscle like he did. They didn’t have to deal with the energy that felt like lightning when he held still for too long. They didn’t bounce their legs and shake their heads and tear at their cuticles until they were sore and bleeding and painful. They didn’t have to lock and relock the doors every night because someone could get in. They didn’t have to knock-knock-knock, knock on wood every time a bad thought crossed their minds.
“Why are you always doing that?” Pepa finally asked.
“Keeps the bad luck away,” Bruno murmured, knocking again for good measure.
He’d had a dream last night (and god, he hopes it was just a dream) about a house fire. He’d been knocking and shaking and gnawing on the inside of his mouth all day.
“Like throwing salt?” Julieta asked. She was standing over the stove, stirring a pot of something that smelled fantastic. Bruno watched the flame on the burner and counted his fingers. The house was so flammable, when you really thought about it. And Casita was sentient. She would feel herself burn.
“Throwing salt?” Pepa asked.
Julieta hummed. “Yeah! You throw it over your shoulder to keep the bad luck away. Kinda like Bruno’s knocking.”
“Do you…” Bruno licked his dry, cracked lips. “Do you have any?”
“Um, yeah, it’s a kitchen. There’s salt everywhere,” Julieta said. She laughed and handed him a bowl of fine white salt. He took it with shaking hands and quickly, before he could even think about what he was doing, he tossed it over his shoulder. For one shining moment, he almost felt soothed.
Pepa groaned. “You’re going to have to clean that up before Mama sees.”
Bruno hated his room. It was too big and too empty and too cold. There was no wood, nothing to knock. The quiet echoed and the stillness yawned and the grains of sand piled up, up, up, just like the visions he couldn’t get away from.
Sometimes they were happy. Sometimes he would find his brain going completely still and he would wake up smiling. Sometimes he would get to tell his sisters that their crushes would ask them out, or that they’d find a little bit of money in the street, or that they’d do well on a school assignment. Sometimes he would come to Mama with a vision and she would actually smile at him.
And sometimes he would stumble and fall and be swept under that sea of bright, eye-searing green, and he would have to look at things no fifteen year old boy should have to see. He would see people dying, people destroying their families, people committing such awful acts that he would wake up and be sick, sitting in a corner of his silent and empty room, rocking and tapping and choking on air until he went numb.
“Why do you only ever have such awful visions?” Pepa complained when he warned her about her favorite goat breaking its leg.
“Can’t you ever see nice things?” Julieta sighed when he told her that her boyfriend was going to break up with her.
“Some things you can keep to yourself, Brunito. You’re too old to be acting like this,” Mama reminded him when he came to her in the middle of the night, shaking and sweating and still seeing green sparks flitting before his eyes.
And he tried, he really did. He tried so hard to see nice things, and keep the bad things to himself, but the panic would start up in his ribcage and his hands wouldn’t stop shaking and the tapping, the knock-knock-knock, knock on wood wouldn’t help anymore, and he’d have to tell someone or else he would die.
When Bruno found out he was going to be an uncle, he almost forgot to knock on the dining table to keep the bad luck away from the baby. He didn’t forget, though. He could never forget that.
“Would you rather have a boy or a girl?” Pepa asked dreamily. She sat her chin in her hands and looked pointedly at her husband, who blinked as if caught off guard. Bruno smiled into his cup of tea. He already knew exactly when Pepa would be having children, of course.
“I don’t care, and I don’t want to know,” Julieta said. She gave Bruno a short glare, and he clenched his jaw. He didn’t see what all the fuss was about. He was excited to get to meet Julieta’s daughter when the baby was born. He thought Isabela was a lovely name, as well, and her Gift would be fantastic.
“We don’t want any visions of impending doom in regards to the baby,” Mama said. She was not subtle. Bruno wilted, but nodded nonetheless. He didn’t try to tell them that he hadn’t seen anything bad coming for the baby. They wouldn’t believe him if he did.
“Ooh, I can’t wait to be an aunt!” Pepa squealed.
Mama smiled softly. “And I can’t wait for this family to grow.”
Bruno scraped his fork across his plate and tried to remember the last time his Mama smiled at him like that. He couldn’t.
The house was so full, with all his nieces and nephews, and Bruno loved every second of it. The children didn’t look at him sideways when he repeated words and phrases until they felt right in his mouth. The children didn’t think it was odd when he sat on the floor and rocked himself until he felt calm again. The children mind his mumbling, and they were only a little bit frightened of the sickly green glow that would seep out from under his eyelids from time to time.
“What’s in my future, Tio?” Isa giggled and tightened her hold on his hair.
“No, no! Mine first!” Dolores squeaked. She was just a tiny little thing, ears too his for her face. She wouldn’t grow into them, Bruno knew, but he thought she was adorable anyway.
And then–oh no.
“I… have a headache. You should go,” Bruno tried, but he knew he’d been too late when the girls squealed and clapped excitedly. The green curtain started to drop in front of his eyes, and Bruno tried to shove them away. He didn’t want them to see him like this. He knew it wasn’t a pretty sight, when he would go blank and numb and unresponsive, when he would mutter and mumble and twitch and groan. His Mama always made him go somewhere else, when he felt a vision coming. His sisters didn’t like to watch.
“Are you having a vision?” Dolores demanded. Bruno could see the green reflecting in her eyes, and felt his stomach give a painful lurch.
“Please go,” he gritted out, but then all he could see was green.
Knock-knock-knock, knock on wood. Knock-knock-knock, knock on wood.
When it was finally over, Bruno blinked himself back to reality and found himself staring directly into the eyes of his sister, burning with absolute fury. Thunder crackled through the room and Bruno flinched.
“Did you just tell my three-year-old that she would never find true love?” Pepa shouted. Bruno’s hair stood on end with the flash of lightning that emanated from her. She was practically shaking with rage, and Bruno cringed backward.
“I said that the guy she liked would be unavailable! And that’s not for years!” he protested.
“Don’t come near my daughter again,” Pepa said, and stormed off, quite literally.
The day Mirabel didn’t get her Gift was the worst night of Bruno’s life.
Bruno’s chest heaved.
Green. Bright, painful green.
He counted his fingers.
He couldn't make it stop.
He tapped his foot.
It was going to happen whether he liked it or not.
He choked on nothing and clawed at his own throat, desperate for air.
The house was going to crumble.
Knock-knock-knock, knock on wood.
And he couldn’t stop it.
He retreated into the walls, Casita opening up spaces for him to squeeze through, closing doors behind him when his sisters sat in the hallways and cried for him. He tried not to hear them. It didn’t work.
Oh, well. Lots of wood to knock on, when you’re living in the walls with the rats.