Work Text:
Tossing and turning as she tried to find a comfortable sleeping position, Mirabel sighed as her eyes snapped open and gazed around her room, taking the blurry moonlit room in with chagrin. So much for a decent night’s rest.
Although her new, much larger, room had been fully furnished and decorated to make her feel right at home, it had an alien feel to it. There was a warmth that wasn’t there anymore and that greatly upset her.
Pouting, Mirabel Madrigal peered out of her window, staring out at the interior of the rest of the new house the Madrigals and the rest of Encanto had finished building only hours before. It was a far cry from the ruin and wreckage from the day before. She found it hard to imagine that the rubbles and remains of Casita had been scattered askew over the plot of land the Madrigals had owned since the village had first been established when the sun had risen for the day.
All that dust and debris was gone though. Newly built archways ushered them to completely furnished areas of the house, newly planted flora littered the courtyard giving it a welcoming emerald resonance, fresh tiles shiny and glossed paved the floors. It was a beautiful house for her beautiful family, and Mirabel would be forever grateful to the villagers, such a feat couldn’t have been done so quickly without them.
Yet, Mirabel frowned. Everything looked wonderful, but it was obvious that something felt wrong… no something was wrong.
Blurred vision becoming clear as she put on her glasses, Mirabel lifted her gaze higher and with purpose, her eyes wandering across the courtyard lit by moonlight and toward the small windowsill where a single candle stood. It’s wick set aflame, dimly brightening the area around it, appeared to her like a lighthouse, and she was the ship lost at sea, battered and bruised by a roaring tempest and drawn towards the promise of sanctuary it provided. Even after the worst of days, she’d find herself drawn towards the candle like a moth. The flame reminded her of her heritage. The knowledge that she was a Madrigal filled her with great pride. It never failed to calm her down and always let her return to a wonderful night’s rest.
But neither that ease, that calm, nor that pride came despite how long she remained affixed to the flame. Something was different, and that difference had been the true reason she’d been tossing and turning all night long.
She blinked hoping that the brief period where the candle vanished from her sight would birth something new. However, it stood, unchanging. She rubbed her glasses against her nightgown and stared, the hope dwindling but just barely there. The ember continued to burn on the candle, it’s flame — it’s normal flame — melting away at the candlestick that’d become a pool of wax by the time the sun crested over the east side of the mountains surrounding Encanto.
Casita was truly gone. And despite the decorations and furnishing added to liven up the place, the new house felt hollow, lifeless, soulless in comparison to the living entity she’d come to call a friend. The tiles wouldn’t flip with glee as she’d wake up, the staircase wouldn’t turn into a slide when she was running late for school, and the tables wouldn’t arrange themselves whenever a family feast was finished cooking. Her heart sank just thinking about it.
The magical candle which had burned since Abuela had established Encanto, had been substituted for a normal one, one that’d be replaced every time the sun set in the west with a lifespan long enough just so it could exist till the sun returned from the east. It was Mami’s idea to still have a candle burn through the night out of tradition, and the other members of the Madrigal agreed wholeheartedly. All the Madrigals besides Mirabel.
It just cemented the fact that the Miracle was gone. Forever.
and it’s because of you! The words she’d shouted at Abuela echoed in her mind. The ferocity emboldening her to yell such a thing at Abuela had since faded, and while Abuela had accepted the blame for the Miracle disappearing, that belief had died in Mirabel’s head.
Visages of a portrait forged of a crystalline emerald fragmented and shattered flashed through her mind, and she pieced them together to form the vivid image of tio Bruno’s vision. That ominous sight of herself, hair whipping in the wind and standing in front of a cracked Casita — or a fully mended one if she’d tilt the frame ajar— , had been etched into her brain and would probably haunt her nightmares forever.
Bruno’s vision had spelt it out. She was the deciding factor in whether the Miracle lived or died, and it died, meaning…
It’s all my fault. A wave of guilt threatened to swallow Mirabel whole as a lump swelled to life in her throat. Legs turning to jelly at the thought, she fell onto her bed, the ember disappearing from her view and with it any hope she’d have for a miracle. She bit back a sob which died in her swollen throat as she struggled for a deep breath of air.
Hugging Isabela had only been a temporary fix, and the more Mirabel thought about it, the more she understood why Casita had died regardless. Those cracks had been the accumulation of all the issues her relatives had been having for who knew how long, exposing the truth that her family was like any other. She’d manage to fix her shaky relationship with Isabela — though there was still lots of fixing to still be done — but within moments exploded at Abuela. It was enough discord to tear everything that’d been preserved for decades down to rubble.
Mirabel bit her lip to stifle another sob, one that would’ve been much louder than the first. She sniffled before burying her head into her silk pillow.
She’d claim to love her sisters dearly, yet she’d been blind to the fact that the burdens Luisa had been carrying were too much for one person to bear, and she’d no doubt contributed to it by dumping the responsibilities and tasks she’d find too hard to handle onto her older sister. And Isabela… how Mirabel had failed to notice that her eldest sister sacrificed so much to maintain the perfect golden child image she’d grown to detest was something she was greatly ashamed.
Even with Abuela, she’d never even paused to consider how the trauma of losing her husband so early on and having to raise an entire family, much less an entire village by herself had affected her view on how to raise the family. And the story of abuelo Pedro had been one she’d heard countless times.
She’d been so caught up in attaching self-worth and self-esteem over not having a gift that she’d been ignoring everyone else’s struggles. And if they had been suffering for so long, who else was? Dolores? Camilo? Her own parents? Would the Miracle still be around if she’d just stop being selfish and pay attention to everyone else?
What a terrible sister, cousin, niece, daughter, and granddaughter she’d been.
At some point the floodgates had broken, her sobs roaring out of her throat like a tsunami passing over a river dam. They were ugly wails of despair, but she didn’t care. The awful feeling she felt, that guilt, made her not want to do anything but cry even as snot and tears mixed into a mess onto her pillowcase.
There was a knock at the door, and Mirabel started mid-sob, thrown into a fit of coughs from the suddenness of it. She remained motionless, hoping that it’d been a figment of her imagination, realistically hoping that whoever was on the other side of her door would take the silence as a signal that she was asleep, moreover a signal that she didn’t want to be bothered. Yet, to her chagrin, the rapping of knuckles into her door came again, strangely softer this time.
After a moment’s debate on whether to lie in bed or answer the door, Mirabel scrambled to her feet. Her head was spinning, and she had to catch herself from toppling over from how weak her legs felt. She rushed to dry her face on the silk pillowcase, making an equivalent exchange of removing fallen tears and mucus in trade for an exhausted but dried face in return. Slowly, she crept towards the door. Knowing better than to hope that her visitor had left, she took another deep breath and steeled herself.
Mirbael wanted to close the door just as quickly as she had opened it. Her heart raced. Dolores stared at her from beyond the doorway, dressed in a red and gold trimmed nightgown with her curly hair wrapped inside a matching red bonnet. It took all Mirabel’s common sense not to slam the door shut and scramble back to bed.
¡Oh Dios! Her cousin had no doubt heard her sobbing thanks to her — Mirabel froze mid-thought. No… the Miracle was gone and so had Dolores’ superhuman hearing. There was no way she had heard anything from her room.
Stuttering and falling over words, Mirabel faked a yawn and lazily rubbed her eyes. “Hey, Dolores,” she somehow managed a weak, awkward wave and forced a tired smile that was a bit too wide. “What’d you wake me up for?” God she hoped the twitch she felt near her right eye wasn’t as obvious as Luisa’s.
“Mirabel…” Dolores began. Her normally wide eyes were narrowed solemnly. “You’re a terrible liar.”
Mirabel gave a wry chuckle despite finding nothing humorous. “What do you mean?”
Dolores held her gaze, though it flashed from solemn to pity and Mirabel felt as though she were being choked under it. She had to remind herself to breathe.
Her cousin remained quiet, waiting for her to break the silence, and when she didn’t, she slowly spoke, “I thought I heard something, is everything okay?”
“Of course, everything’s fine, why would anything be not okay!?” Mirabel blurted a bit too quickly, her lips twitched, the facsimile of a smile beginning to break.
Dolores bent to her eye level, and Mirabel flinched as she gingerly placed a hand onto her shoulder. “I might not have my Gift anymore, but my hearing is still pretty good. I heard you… crying.” She spoke softly as though cautiously guiding her through each word.
“Well you could’ve just started with saying that,” Mirabel said bitterly, averting her gaze and adjusting her glasses. Her smile dropped, but she did best to not let her lips curve lower than a thin straight line.
A few awkward seconds of silence passed before Dolores pursed her lips and pointed them towards the room in front of her, a silent gesture of wanting to come inside.
Feeling as though she didn’t have much of a choice, Mirabel turned, walking back to her bed and sitting at it’s edge. The approaching footfalls behind her and the creaking of the door to a close told her that Dolores had taken her silence as an invitation to join. Mirabel picked at the edges of her nightgown nervously, avoiding making eye contact with her.
“I didn’t get a look at your new room earlier.” Dolores whistled, scanning the room wide-eyed. “They really hooked you up.”
“Yeah,” Mirabel said dryly. This was just small talk before a big question, but Mirabel wasn’t sure if Dolores was genuinely interested about the interior of the room or if it was a feint to get her to speak.
“You gonna miss rooming with Antonio?”
“Yeah.” The response held a tint of sadness that Mirabel couldn’t keep hidden, and she found herself pouting at the thought. At least she’d have some privacy and more space. Still, she’d miss that bundle of joy’s presence in the room or being able to snuggle him to sleep.
“Remember when you and Camilo roomed together? Twelve times a day, you’d come crying to me because he pulled some prank on you.” Dolores giggled as she recalled the memories, memories more than a decade old at this point.
Mirabel couldn’t help herself from nodding and adding, “Ugh, yeah, I hated it. Remember when he put gum in my hair?” She rolled her eyes at the thought. It took Abuela, Mami, Tia Pepa, Dolores, Isabela, and Luisa an entire day to get it out, and Camilo received one of the worst scolding from Tia Pepa that Mirabel had ever seen. Casita looked as though a hurricane had run through it on that day.
A laugh erupted from Mirabel’s throat nonetheless, looking back, some of those memories of living with Camilo were fun, though she’d never let herself live with him again, even if the world depended on it. She was beyond grateful when he got a room of his own. That was when he had gotten his… his Gift.
Mirabel cracked — her momentarily lifted spirits and her voice along with her — as she said, “It’s all my fault. The Miracle is dead because of me. Everyone’s gifts are gone because of me.” Her heart raced. It hurt even worse saying it aloud, and she could
“And why do you think that is?” The tone in her cousin's voice had an attentive inflection to it, and Mirabel could feel her soft gaze fall onto her, though she didn’t dare meet it.
And so she began. She let everything out, her thoughts about what Bruno’s visions meant, how she failed to notice Isabela and Luisa’s struggles, her guilt, and a river of tears that dribbled from her chin and onto the floral embroidery of her nightgown.
Dolores remained silent the entire time. She had always been a great listener, silently and attentively listening to whatever someone was talking about before making judgements and responses of her own.
And when she was done, Mirabel inhaled, not having realized that she’d said so much without taking a pause to breath. She felt heavy. Her emotions were a rolling tornado of guilt and sorrow and anguish and anger that made her shake, and she clutched her knees for dear life to stop the trembling as much as she could. Her face was an even messier mix of snot and tears than it had been earlier. She reached for her pillow — mentally making a note that she’d go wash it in the morning — before she felt something shoved into her right palm. A red handkerchief with gold embroidered roses — Dolores’ hankerchief.
“Go on,” Dolores said softly, her smile even softer.
Mirabel wiped her face, feeling guilty as she crumpled it up in her hands once finished. Dolores plopped next to her on the bed’s edge. She rested the side of her head on top of Mirabel’s, and she could feel her trembling fade away as she took in her cousin’s warmth.
“You know what I think?” Dolores asked softly, she waited before continuing, “I think my darling baby cousin is being too hard on herself.” She lingered over the word ‘baby’ teasingly. Mirabel rolled her eyes, though she did feel her lips twitch upwards just slightly.
“Even when I had my superhuman hearing, you know what I couldn’t do?”
Mirabel found herself quickly blurting out, “Keep a secret?” That had earned her a soft, but pointy nudge.
“Anyway…” Mirabel couldn’t see but she was sure that Dolores’ cheeks were flared scarlet in embarrassment. “What I can’t do is this…”
She tapped Mirabel’s head, and there was a few seconds of silence before Mirabel uttered in bewilderment, “you can’t read minds?”
Dolores hummed in agreement. “Exactly. I know countless gossip from the women and girls throughout Encanto, embarrassing secrets that for the life of me I can’t figure out why a man would tell anyone about, but despite that no matter how hard I tried, I could never figure out the secrets that never left someone’s mind.”
Mirabel raised a brow, knowing that Dolores was going somewhere with this but not being able to tell what if the bloodline of the Madrigals depended on it.
“What I’m saying,” Dolores spoke as if acknowledging Mirabel’s confusion, “is that you can’t blame yourself for not realizing what no one spoke about, especially if that problem had nothing to do with you.”
Everything clicked. “You’re talking about how I never realized Luisa and Isabela’s problems…”
Another soft hum was her first response. “When you have problems, and I mean serious problems in your life, do you ever tell your sisters about it, or do they ever come to you about it?”
Mirabel opened her mouth to speak ‘yes, of course’, but she dropped it before even the first word was uttered. Her lips ran tight for a second as she tried to recall how often she had done so, not being able to recall many. “I mean sometimes I go to Luisa if it’s not too serious, but most of the times I—“
“You go to Tia Julieta, but even then you don’t tell her everything.” Dolores finished, and Mirabel wondered if Dolores could read minds anyway.
“I guess I never realized that.” The words escaped her lips somberly. Which was strange because Mirabel would boldly claim how close she was to her entire family, her sister especially — even Isabela when they weren’t butting heads (a rare occurrence). But she couldn’t recall ever venting to them beyond a surface level. Suddenly, that close relationship she had with them felt as though it were miles apart.
“It took me a while to realize that too, don’t be ashamed” Dolores said, adding the last bit as if she could tell how Mirabel was feeling. Her somber tone matched Mirabel’s, maybe even a bit somberer. “Even with Camilo, there’s moments when I question how close we are. He never opens up to me when he’s feeling down, and sometimes I feel like a hypocrite because whenever I’m not feeling well, I choose to hide myself in my room, praying that no one can tell that I’m upset, but hoping someone asks why.” The last sentence was a contradiction, but Mirabel knew exactly what she meant.
“It feels like a lot of this family loves each other at arms’ length,” Dolores said with a heavy sigh. “We’re always there for each other, but we rarely bridge that gap when we need help the most.”
Mirabel nodded absentmindedly, hanging onto every word. Love at arms’ length, she thought idly. That was a good way to describe it.
“But that changed yesterday,” Dolores suddenly chirped.
“It did?” Mirabel started and faced her cousin for the first time during the conversation.
Dolores hummed, her brown eyes twinkling in… pride? Mirabel questioned the gaze pointed at her as her cousin spoke. “and the reason for that change is you.” For the first time in the conversation, Dolores didn’t pause to allow Mirabel a chance to respond. “Luisa and Isabela told you things they’d kept buried away for such a long time, and you were the first person they turned to. They trusted you— though maybe Isabela did say it in a moment of passion.” She giggled at the last bit.
Eyes widened momentarily before sinking to a half-circled sullen look. “That doesn’t change the fact that I never realized until it was too late and the Miracle…” Arguably, that made Mirabel feel worse. She didn’t realize those problems until they were spelled out for her.
“But you can’t read minds, you can’t blame yourself for not realizing problems they never mentioned, especially problems that had nothing to do with you. In fact, you’re the first person to ever air any grievances any of us had with the way this family’s been run with Abuela, and that’s something none of us, even me, could do.”
Mirabel did feel a surge of pride, and she couldn’t lie — as Dolores had attested to earlier — so she didn’t argue. Saying all those things to Abuela had been cathartic like opening a cast to unveil a fully healed arm or a butterfly breaking free of it’s cocoon, though there was a part of her, that proud Madrigal, that felt ashamed that she had raised her voice at an elder. She was just happy that Abuela had understood and didn’t lash out at her. She inhaled, feeling her airways at ease, though still a bit more tight than normal.
“But tio Bruno’s vision and the Miracle-“
Dolores sighed and the sudden irritation in her voice made Mirabel jolt. It was hard to annoy Dolores, at least enough to make her outwardly show it outside of a sideways glance. “Enough with the vision stuff. Sure, there was a chance we could’ve kept the Miracle, but we didn’t and we have to move on.”
“We?” Mirabel blurted.
“Yes, we!” Dolores exclaimed and she squeaked, realizing how loud she had gotten. She began again, voice just gingerly above a whisper, “Sure the vision showed you were the deciding point, but without you, I’m sure that Casita would’ve crumbled anyway. The difference is that with you we had a chance to actually heal, and I’m sure that’s just because of you.”
“So you think that Casita would’ve fallen apart anyway?” The words lingered on her mouth oddily. She felt guilty for the rush of relief that the thought even gave her. The chance that this wasn’t her fault.
“Exactly. If you ask me, the Miracle disappearing isn’t any one person’s fault.”
Isn’t any one person’s fault. Mirabel wrestled with the idea. Dolores had made a good point, but still… In that moment of doubt, Mirabel found her feet carrying herself to the windowsill, her gaze sliding back onto the candle, it’s flame almost seeming to wave at her as she looked upon it.
Dolores joined her, placing a comforting arm around her shoulder and squeezing as she too looked at the flickering flame. “This family is far from perfect, but it feels like we’re entering a new chapter, one where we don’t have to hide how we truly feel from each other. We’re healing.”
Mirabel absorbed every word and nodded. There had been a part of her that realized that, though she didn’t know when. Was it when Bruno was let back in the family with warm hugs and smiles after a decade of slander and silencing of his name? Or when Abuela apologized (a feat she still wasn’t sure how she’d managed to get her to do)? Two things she’d largely considered impossible both happening within an hour. A miracle in and of itself.
“But not everything can be healed, even with time, that’s the sad truth of life.” Dolores said sternly, and pointed at the candle. She stared at it determined, with vigor. “But that’s okay too because even if Casita’s gone, even if we don’t have our Gifts, and even if this house were to fall apart over and over, we still have each other and that’s all that matters is that we love this family and that we try our best to heal as much as we can.”
“I love this family,” Mirabel found herself saying aloud, more to herself than to Dolores. For the first time since the moon had graced the sky, Mirabel felt calm. Seeds of grief lingered within her mind, but she banished them, deciding not to dwell on them. She’d been so caught up in Miracles and Gifts once again. “I want our family to be one where no one’s scared to admit how they truly feel. The best version of the Madrigals that’s possible.”
“That’s the spirit.”
It’s not my fault. Mirabel released a heavy breath she’d been holding. She shouldn’t be dwelling on being too late in noticing problems she couldn’t have possibly known about, instead she had to focus on helping fix them to the best of her ability. It’d be hard, but she’d have her family every step of the way to help her.
“Now then,” Dolores began her smile large and her eyes wide. “Time for you to go to bed.”
As if in response, Mirabel yawned, and the exhaustion and muscles sore she’d accumulated from a day of house building and furnishing suddenly returned all at once. She climbed into bed, tossing her dirty pillow off to the side, and smiled. “Thank you, Dolores.”
Dolores beamed, and yawned herself as she turned to walk out. She stopped in the doorway as Mirabel called her name again.
“If you ever wanna talk about stuff… like gush about Mariano or chatting about how your day went” Mirabel prayed silently that the darkness hid the flush in her cheeks.
Dolores squeaked before smiling once more, wider and warmer with radiance that seemed to light up the room. “Thank you! And you know I’m always here for you too, right?” Mirabel nodded and Dolores hummed before pausing, lingering on a thought. “You’ve had a long day, want me to sing you to sleep?” she almost seemed to giggle saying that, and the mirth in her eyes shined through the darkness.
Mirabel stifled a gasp, nearly offended by the prospect. She wasn’t a kid anymore, and Dolores hadn’t sung her to sleep in years! Sure when Antonio was in the room, she’d listen to Dolores sing him to sleep, and maybe she would sleep better because of it, but that didn’t mean anything. Her cousin giggled at the silence and Mirabel felt her cheeks flush an even violenter pink.
“O-Okay.” Mirabel tried her best to sound annoyed, but the happiness in her tone clearly reached Dolores as her cousin smiled wider.
Mirabel drifted towards sleep amongst the heavenly voice of her cousin’s singing, finding comfort in both her song and presence. As she shifted between the borders of wake and dream, Dolores’ melody growing foggy and distant in the background, she almost swore she saw the flames of a candle. The everburning one she’d been drawn to like a moth for years shining in the darkness, slowly and brilliantly burning in front of her.
Despite the size of the flame, she felt warmth wash over body. The Miracle. Gifts. None of that mattered as long as her family was still there, and Casita would still be there in spirit. The candle seemed to burn brighter. And now thanks to herself, she’d be able to show her family more love, mend the cracks that had invisibly separated their bonds for so long unnoticed. She felt so full of love. Love to give and love to recieve.
“Te amo.” Mirabel’s words came out groggy, almost inaudible.
It sounded as though the song had stopped for a few moments. “Te amo también,” came a voice in response far and distant, yet warm. Mirabel could’ve sworn she felt a warm kiss on her forehead as her consciousness faded, or maybe that was just her mind playing tricks.