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The rain was falling loudly, as it did for a few hours now. There wasn’t a trace of the storm, no thunders, just a clouded, dark sky and an unending stream of water falling down on the ground.
And it wasn’t Pepa’s doing, this time.
Bruno opened his old umbrella, a quite worn-out one, but still working, and stepped from under the roof of an abandoned, forgotten shack hidden in the forest.
His rats squeaked frantically when he walked into the rain, all three of them trying to hide deeper into his pockets and under his ruana, to avoid getting wet if some rain droplets fell under the umbrella.
His steps were heavy and not that steady as he was making his way toward the hill, toward the place where Casita was being slowly rebuilt.
As the rain grumbled louder, Bruno closed his eyes.
But despite the thundering in his ears, there was no other vision.
There were no visions since that one he shared with Mirabel a few days before.
And it was a faulty one!
There was nothing in that picture that could have told them what would happen just a little while later.
What was his vision about?
Mirabel, the house breaking, long cracks going as if from where she was, disappearing when the angle was different.
And then, a Candle that was getting brighter by every second, and the hug that was to stop the destruction envisioned upon their Casita.
Mirabel was supposed to fix everything.
And if not fix, then, at least, still be alive!
But there she was, dead, to be buried the next day.
His fists clenched tightly as he almost tripped over some laying log.
“Mierda,” he muttered under his breath, hurrying his steps a little. He had no gift anymore, he couldn’t look into the future and the visions left him but there was something…
There was something that forced him to go forward.
“Dead, dead, dead,” he mumbled, looking down at the ground, to keep himself from tripping or slipping on the muddy ground.
Mirabel’s death was a shock for him.
He didn’t see it coming, he was sure it wasn’t bound to happen!
Because if it was, why he didn’t see it?
In his vision, she was alive; in his vision, she could fix everything that was wrong with their family!
But now, everything seemed hopeless because she died!
Their family was breaking down because Mirabel wasn’t there anymore!
After her death, he came closer to the city once. He saw his mother then - clothed in a black dress, with her shawl on her shoulders, with something between her palms as she was walking slowly through the village, her eyes half-closed, that thing brought close to her mouth.
He wasn’t sure if it was a rosary in her hands or if it was a picture of his father that she always had with her, not that it mattered, but that sight stuck in his head for a few hours.
It was easy to blame his mother for everything.
It was easy to feel anger, because of how she treated him, or his sisters, or his nephews and nieces, and especially, how distanced and cold she was toward Mirabel.
Towards her youngest granddaughter that had no gift and that suffered enough as it was, without the need to feel resented for a good decade of her life.
Bruno stopped as the heavy rain turned into a drizzle and the sound it made grew quieter, too.
He could see Casita from between the trees, a grey mess in the green of the grass and trees where just a few days later stood a colourful house full of life and people.
He didn’t know why he was going there of all places. After all, the house was a ruin, his tower fell down with it, crushing–
His breath hitched in his throat.
Bruno walked forward, his hands trembling, pulling his ruana closer to his body.
Mirabel died under the debris that fell from his tower as it broke in half and even though it wasn’t his fault, he felt a little guilty for that. If there wasn’t a crack in the wall…
His thought briefly wandered to his sister, to the oldest of them all.
The last time he had seen Julieta, he was still in the walls. It was just before Isabela’s engagement dinner when Julieta was preparing meals, happily humming some tune under her breath, checking something in her recipe book once in a while.
She was so relaxed and happy then.
Everything was well then.
And in just a few short hours…
He trembled, for the first time feeling cold. His feet were wet as he was stepping slowly through the moist grass that stuck to his skin.
The funeral was to be the next day.
He told himself he would be there. That he would come to pay respects, to say the last goodbye to his niece.
But as the ruins of his house were going bigger and his toes were getting numb from the cold, and the drizzle was slowly fainting, he wasn’t so sure he would be able to do that.
It would mean meeting with his family and the last thing this family needed was to see him again and blame him for involving Mirabel in that mess in the first place.
He wondered… Maybe if he didn’t do the vision all those years ago, it would never happen.
Maybe by sharing his visions, he doomed them to happen?
Maybe if he left them unvoiced, all of them would remain just pictures without any meaning, without any impact on the future?
He shook his head, tugging on his locks until the pained frown appeared on his forehead.
Those were dangerous thoughts. He shouldn’t think like that but he couldn’t help himself…
He almost yelled in surprise when he saw two people in the ruins of Casita, one of them standing still, the other kneeling on the floor.
He stopped near one of the walls, peeking over the broken wall, curious and anxious at the same time, as he didn’t expect anyone here considering that not more than three minutes ago the deluge was raging in the sky.
He recognized the standing person right away. That tall, broad frame was not to be confused with anyone else. It was Luisa.
But the other…
He squinted because the other person was clad all in black, like his mother a few days before, but it couldn’t be his mother - her frame was much smaller and she was bent in a pose rather uncommon for someone of Alma Madrigal’s age.
“There’s nothing,” he heard a harsh voice - so familiar and completely strange at the same time. “No photos!” the voice snapped.
Julieta straightened to look around her, her locks all over her shoulders, trying to gather something that was lying before her that Bruno couldn’t see. Her arms were moving frantically from side to side, as she bent and bent all over again.
“Mami,” Luisa said gently, taking one step in her direction. “You can’t sit here any longer. It’s cold and wet, you’ll get sick–”
“Lu,” she answered firmly, shaking her head. “You don’t understand. I need her photo. I need it for tomorrow, I–” a sniff. “She deserves as much.”
“But our albums–”
They all were gone.
When Casita fell down, a small fire started in their dining room where stood a shelf with many photo albums they gathered.
Others were in their private rooms but those rooms disappeared together with the Candle’s magic.
It all… was gone. And he didn’t even know if his father’s photo made it through the fall of Casita. If they recovered it from the ruins.
“I need her photo!” Julieta got to her knees, then to her legs, wobbling slightly as she stood. “It must be somewhere, there were so many–” she said, looking around at the mess around her - at all those thing that people took from the ruins for the family to look through. “Solo una foto,” she almost tripped over some small box but Luisa caught her in time. “Una!”
Bruno’s heart tightened at that. Seeing his sister in such a state. He remembered all those times when she was the strongest one of their trio. She was the toughest one, though wind the kindest heart.
As Julieta continued to speak, her voice full of various emotions that changed with every second, Bruno stepped away.
He walked around the Casita, searching for the hole he escaped through. If it was still there–
It was. It was still unattended and when he peeked inside the small corridor between the walls, there was enough place for him to squeeze through. He walked inside.
Many hours later he stood in the shadows on the night, under one of the trees, looking at the house that her sister stayed in after they lost Casita and he observed as Julieta found the picture he left there, on the windowsill, first staring at it in shook, then bringing it close to her chest and looking out of the window as if she knew how it appeared there.
Bruno thought she looked in his direction for a while, but then Agustín appeared behind her and she turned around, her attention now on her husband.
Bruno smiled bitterly.
At least once in his life, he was useful to someone.