Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I’m just worried about her, Mariano,” Dolores said, gripping her husband’s hands. “I think we should talk to Abuela.”

“I understand that, mi amor,” Mariano answered, squeezing her fingers comfortingly. “And if you want to talk to Abuela, I’ll come with you. I just don’t know what we should really be expecting. I’m still new to this.”

Though she was glad to see Mariano approaching the situation with a level head, Mirabel still winced as she stepped into the dining room. She hadn’t meant to intrude on such a delicate conversation – she was only wondering where Antonio had gotten to. She tried to step back as quietly as possible, but of course, Dolores noticed her and looked up. “Oh! Mirabel!”

“I’m really sorry,” Mirabel said immediately. “I’ll get out of the way–”

“No, it’s okay,” Dolores sighed, her shoulders drooping. “It’s not like it’s a secret. Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask if you had any thoughts on Teodora’s situation…”

“Um.” Mirabel hesitated, taken by surprise, and pointed to herself. “Me?”

Dolores nodded. “You’re… good at seeing things from a perspective the rest of us don’t, sometimes. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just too close to it, but…” She looked down at her lap.

Mirabel licked her lip, casting an uncertain glance at Mariano, who lifted his eyebrows and gave a tiny shrug with one shoulder. It seemed like he was curious to hear her point of view, as well. So Mirabel swallowed and stepped into the dining room, headed for the chair that Casita nudged out from the table for her.

“I mean… obviously I’m not an expert,” she said slowly, taking a seat. “But also, none of us really are? As much as the family Gifts are a huge part of our lives, we’re only just barely into the third generation, and Teodora’s only the ninth child to receive a Gift. It’s true that no one’s had trouble the way she’s having, before, but we don’t know that anything is actually wrong.”

“That’s kind of what I’ve been wondering,” Mariano admitted, looking down at his wife. “But I don’t know all the rules, so…”

“I don’t think any of us do,” Mirabel said with a nod.

Dolores sighed again, extracting one hand from Mariano’s to rub her eyes. “You’re right, of course,” she agreed. “I just… she’s my little girl. And given everything that happened the last time our Gifts faltered, it’s hard not to worry.”

“I know,” Mirabel assured her, reaching out to pat her knee. “But nothing else has happened to cause any concern. No one else has had any problems, the house is free of cracks, the candle is burning strong… Whatever it is, I think Teodora’s going to be fine.”

It was mostly the truth.

If she was being honest, Mirabel was a little unsure what to make of Teodora’s situation. It had been a little over a month since the girl had turned five and been granted her Gift. Unlike many of the Madrigals before her, it wasn’t immediately obvious what she could do: the walls of her room were covered in doors. There were trapdoors in the floor, and even attic doors in the ceiling. Many of them seemed to lead nowhere when opened – and then one of them led to the ocean. The family had poured through, baffled as they stepped onto the soft white sands of a stunning beach, only to turn around and see a door attached not to Casita but to a shabby little equipment shack. Still, beyond the threshold, there was Teodora’s new bedroom.

Another one, opened the next day, led into snow-capped mountains. On that side, the door was on one wall of what looked like a tiny, long-abandoned research station.

Teodora could open doors to faraway parts of the world.

They’d been excited for her, of course. What a spectacular Gift. She’d started drawing pictures of the destinations that she could hang up as signs, so she wouldn’t forget which door led where. But then, as days went by, she struggled to successfully open new ones. And one day the door to the beach stopped working – it went back to having nothing behind it. A few days later it returned, but the problem persisted: the doors didn’t always stick around. Teodora also seemed to completely lack control over her ability; she couldn’t affect when it would work or where the doors would lead. No one else in the family had ever struggled so much to make their Gift cooperate.

There was something else, too, that nagged at the back of Mirabel’s mind. No one had said anything yet, but she was sure she couldn’t be the only one thinking it. Teodora’s Gift seemed to violate one of the few rules that the Madrigals did know about their miracle – or at least, that they thought they knew.

Teodora’s Gift didn’t do much to help anyone.

Mirabel had been fighting with herself over this for days. Her Abuela had always explained the family Gifts as something they could use to serve the family and the community. Sometimes the uses were obvious: Julieta’s healing ability, or Luisa’s strength. Others were less so, like Camilo’s shapeshifting – it had taken him a few years to fully grasp how useful a skill that could be. But Teodora’s doors…

The Encanto wasn’t completely cut off from the outside world, though it came close. The town knew what was out there, but no one ever really left. Not even Bruno, as they’d all once thought. In the beginning, it was a matter of safety: the whole point of the miracle, of Casita, was to create a safe haven for Abuela and her peers, so they could stop running. And then the Encanto had developed into a paradise, and no one ever really wanted to leave. Plus, while it was rarely discussed, everyone knew that for the Encanto to stay a paradise, it had to be kept a secret from the world at large. The Madrigal family could support their community, but they couldn’t support the world.

So why did Teodora’s doors connect them to the world?

At first, Mirabel had beaten herself up about it. Just because Abuela had always said that their Gifts were supposed to serve the community, that didn’t mean that it was true. Serving others was very noble, of course, and Mirabel would never criticise the choice to do so, but – why should their Gifts have a purpose? Couldn’t they just… be? Abuela had seen intention in the family’s Gifts, had seen the loving hand of her husband, and there was nothing wrong with that. Certainly she’d raised the family well, for the most part. She’d taught them to support each other, to support their friends. But that didn’t mean that her interpretation of the miracle was perfectly accurate.

Still, though… Some things about the miracle did seem to have a purpose. There was no denying the fact that the Encanto existed to keep their community safe. From Pedro Madrigal’s sacrifice and Alma Madrigal’s heartbreak, the miracle had sprung to life, separating innocent refugees from their pursuers and providing them a new home. Even if the family Gifts were just some kind of bonus, that original intent remained intact. So would it be possible for the miracle to grant Teodora a Gift that defied or endangered the Encanto’s whole reason for being?

Admittedly, Mirabel had been giving herself headaches trying to make sense of it all. But, after her conversation with Dolores and Mariano, she finally decided it was time she seek another perspective on the situation.

“I… I don’t really know about all that, Mirabel,” Bruno said, looking uncomfortable, when she explained to him. “I mean, I get it, and of course I wanna be sure that Teodora’s okay, but… Y’know. It’s been a few years since I did a really big vision like that, and…”

“I know,” Mirabel soothed, sitting down in the chair opposite his. When they rebuilt the house, his tower had reappeared far homier and more comfortable than it had been when she’d first seen it, and they sat now in his little bedroom beneath the vision cave. “I understand completely. But that time wasn’t an actual disaster, remember? Everything was okay in the end.”

“Yeah, you’re right…” He rubbed his arms and looked away at the floor, still hesitant. “Still…”

“I’ll stay with you, just like last time,” she promised. “It’s just that… I don’t know. I guess I hoped that Teodora would start to even out on her own, but the fact that her Gift still isn’t working for her is obviously really worrying Dolores. And I think it’s worrying Abuela, as well. She tries not to show it, but…”

Bruno looked up at that. “So you noticed that too, huh?”

She nodded. “She works so hard to be strong. But something’s been bothering her, ever since Dorita opened that door to the beach.”

“Yeah. I kind of thought so too.” One elbow on the arm of his chair, he leaned his cheek against his fist. “It’s weird… I don’t usually think of her as worrying much at all. I know she’s tried to be more honest with her feelings ever since… well, you know, everything,” and here he raised his eyebrows meaningfully. “But she still doesn’t usually stress about anything. She’s always been a person who acts on things. I don’t know about the other grandkids, I guess, but I imagine your Mamá and Tía Pepa have picked up on it too. It’s strange to see our mother this way.”

“Yeah.” Mirabel looked down at her hands, sitting twisted in her lap. “I know she was worried about the house, back then, and the miracle. But if I hadn’t overheard her talking to Abuelo, I would never have guessed. I don’t know why I’m catching it this time, but it definitely is weird.”

“I think you’re just growing.” She looked up again, and now he was watching her with a sympathetic sort of smile. “You always had a knack for reading people. That’s the kind of thing that gets sharper as you grow up.” Then he sighed heavily. “You really think this might be able to help?”

“I mean, it might,” she said hopefully. “If it doesn’t, we don’t have to share it with anyone. Heck, even if it does help, we don’t have to tell everyone.”

“…Yeah. Okay.” Bruno levered himself out of the chair, then held out a hand to pull Mirabel to her feet. “Let’s go see what we can find out.”

The stairway up to his vision cave was a far more reasonable height these days, and the sand inside was of a more manageable quantity. Mirabel, waiting patiently for him to go through the steps and rituals that grounded him for a vision, noticed that the stuffed rat she’d made him years ago was propped up on a shelf on the wall, ready to offer comfort whenever he needed it.

“All right, kiddo,” Bruno said when he was ready, and he sat down cross-legged on the sand in the middle of the room, patting the spot across from him. Mirabel scooped her skirt under her bottom as she sat facing him and took his hands. “Let’s see what we can learn about our little Teodora.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

After a second or two, the sand began to swirl up around them, taking on a green cast as he opened his now-glowing eyes. They both looked up, searching for familiar shapes in the chaos.

The first thing they saw was Teodora, throwing open a door. The door expanded, and whatever was on the other side swirled in unidentifiable patterns until the doorframe disappeared. Now the sand coalesced into people – a man and a woman locking their door, suitcases clutched in their hands. A young boy shoving clothes into his bag, clearly in a rush. Two women embracing each other for a long moment, patting each other’s backs, as if to say goodbye.

“That’s… that’s Sra. Lopez and Sra. Garcia,” Mirabel said, narrowing her eyes and taking one hand from Bruno’s to point at the two women. “They’re neighbours. Why are they…?”

“Wait, wait,” Bruno said, gripping tighter the hand of hers he still had. “There’s– there’s something else. Mirabel–”

He didn’t have to say any more: she saw it. The butterfly, shining gold amongst the green, just like she’d seen seven years ago. They both followed it closely until it approached another golden shape – this time a wiry dog, emerging from the swirls of green with a wobbly sort of bounce to its step. The butterfly flew around its head for a moment, and then the two took off, disappearing quickly back into the sand. Where they’d gone, two human figures began to form.

On the left, with flowers spilling from one hand and piled around her feet, was unmistakably Mirabel herself. She was reaching across some kind of threshold, arm extended like she was throwing herself forward to catch somebody, mouth open in a shout. On the right, almost her mirror image, a young man in a hooded sweater, with a guitar hanging on his back and lit candles at his feet. In one hand he held another candle – the candle? Their candle? It was hard to tell – and with the other he was reaching back toward her, leaping at her, their fingers just brushing in the middle.

“Who… who is that?” Bruno asked, brow furrowing in confusion.

“I don’t know!” Mirabel cried back, spinning to look at him. “You don’t know?”

“No!” He shook his head, and the sand began to fall back to the ground around them, the eerie green glow leaving both his eyes and the rest of the room. The green sank down into the mound of sand at their feet, and from the shape of the glow they could tell it had coalesced into a vision plate. As the light in the chamber returned to normal and Bruno dropped back down to the floor, momentarily spent, Mirabel plunged her hands into the sand to retrieve the vision.

The image in relief on its surface was the same one they’d just seen: Mirabel and the mystery man, reaching for each other from opposite sides of what looked like a doorway of some kind. No matter how hard she stared at it, no matter what angle she investigated from, she couldn’t identify the man. He looked to be around her age, and he seemed as dismayed by whatever was happening as she did, but she had no idea who he was.

“We should take this to your Abuela.”

She looked up at her uncle, who had his hands braced against his knees as he got to his feet. “We… we don’t have to rush anything,” she stammered, taken by surprise. “We don’t even really know what this means, so–”

“No, but I think we should talk to her anyway,” he said, and his smile looked… tired. He always looked tired, but there was a certain defeated kind of calm in him now. “I think you’re probably right about not telling everyone, but Abuela deserves to see this. It’s strange that neither of us recognise him, but if she doesn’t either, then we know something big is happening.”

“Well… if you’re sure,” she agreed slowly.

Bruno nodded. “It’s the right call.”

Most of an hour later, they were sitting around a low table in Abuela’s room at the top of the house, quietly sipping coffee as they all stared down at the vision plate. Bruno and Mirabel had explained to Alma what they’d seen in as much detail as they could, and the thought of people apparently leaving the Encanto certainly seemed to perturb her. She was far calmer about it than she would have been a decade ago, Mirabel thought, but it was still obvious that she was rattled.

“I don’t know him,” Abuela said, not for the first time, as she leaned close to inspect the vision again. “In nearly sixty years, we’ve never once had a new person in the Encanto who wasn’t born here. But he doesn’t even resemble anyone in town.”

Mirabel picked her feet up off the floor and curled them under herself inside her skirt. “Yeah. I don’t know what to make of it.”

“I’ve never seen anyone in a vision that I didn’t already know,” Bruno admitted uncomfortably. “I didn’t know it was possible for me to see a stranger in a vision. But I guess my visions have always been about people here at home, and if no one new ever shows up…” He shrugged.

Abuela sighed deeply, putting down her coffee cup and folding her hands in her lap. “I’m not sure what to make of this,” she said softly, not quite meeting either of their gazes. “Obviously, the images you saw of our friends and neighbours leaving their homes, perhaps even a rush… these are troubling. But I hesitate to leap to conclusions, after what we’ve been through.”

“And that’s a good thing,” Mirabel agreed emphatically, raising her eyebrows. “But I’m not sure what to do with any of this information, either. It definitely didn’t answer any questions about Teodora… “

“No, it doesn’t.” Abuela reached into the folds of her shawl and produced the locket that contained her husband’s photo, running the pad of her thumb over its surface as she thought. “I… confess that this does bring up some familiar and unpleasant fears. Especially when paired with the image of a stranger in our midst.”

Mirabel exchanged worried glances with Bruno before adjusting a bit in her seat, leaning closer to her grandmother. “It… it does look like he and I are on the same side, though,” she pointed out carefully. “Like– like he’s a friend. Not a danger.”

“I know.” The woman leaned down to look at the plate one more time, then closed her eyes and pushed it across the table towards the other two. “I think this is something I’ll need to sleep on. It’s a lot to consider.”

“That makes sense,” Bruno said slowly, looking again at Mirabel. He picked up the vision plate and handed it to her, and she tucked it under her arm as they all got to their feet. “Are you… okay, Mamá?”

“I’m fine, Brunito,” Abuela answered, smiling a bit wearily, but taking his hands in hers and giving them a squeeze. “I’m a bit worried, but I’m trying to think the problem over instead of acting rashly. That’s what you two taught me.” Then she reached for Mirabel’s hand as well, looking at them both. “I think we should keep this amongst the three of us for now, while we consider what this might mean and how to deal with it.”

“Pretty sure we’re all on the same page, there,” Bruno said. He glanced at Mirabel, who nodded her agreement.

Outside of Abuela’s bedroom a few moments later, Mirabel took out the vision and looked down at it for another moment. Then she sighed, letting herself droop against her uncle’s narrow shoulder.

“I think we’re handling this pretty well, all things considered,” Bruno said, trying for an encouraging smile, but his laugh came out a little nervously. Seemingly out of habit, he reached out and knocked twice on the wooden railing across from them.

“I know.” She shoved the plate into her bag and returned his loose sort of half-embrace. “I just… I guess I thought it would feel better to hear her admit her concerns to us rather than hide them. But it’s actually kinda freaking me out.”

His arm still around her, he gave her shoulder a comforting little rub. “It kinda freaks me out, too. But… it’s been a really long time since Abuela’s had to speak to a stranger, let alone trust them,” he pointed out, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. “And the last time strangers came into her home, she had to run.”

“…Yeah.” Mirabel felt like she’d already memorised the face of the young man in the vision, at this point, and she couldn’t help feeling like he was good, somehow. Maybe it was just because of the way they were reaching for each other in the vision, like neither of them could bear the thought of being separated, but… something drew her toward this stranger. She hadn’t even realised how strong the draw was until Abuela had expressed her anxiety about him. “Yeah. You’re right.”

Late that evening, a couple of hours after everyone had retired to their rooms, Mirabel sat at her desk, resting her forehead on one hand and staring at Bruno’s vision. She no longer lived in the nursery – when they’d rebuilt the house, the entire family had pitched in to include a bedroom just for her. Of course, when Casita had reawakened, it had added its own spin on the space, bringing back many of the drawings and crafts she’d once kept tacked to the nursery walls or hung from its ceiling. But tonight, no matter how many times she sat back to take them in, looking for anything that might inspire a new insight, her eyes were pulled back to the vision sitting on her desk.

Who was he?

She nearly fell out of her chair when the night’s quiet was broken by her bedroom door bursting open. Scrambling to cover the vision in front of her, Mirabel swung around and found Teodora standing wide-eyed in the open door, her pyjamas askew and hair standing on end. “Mirabel!” she cried.

“What?” Mirabel squawked, startled. “I mean– Teodora– what’s going on? You should be asleep!”

“Mirabel, please, you have to come see!” the girl said impatiently. She came into the room and grabbed Mirabel’s hand, pulling hard.

“What– what am I coming to see? Teodora, what’s going on?” Mirabel asked again, letting the child tug her out into the hallway.

“I couldn’t sleep earlier,” Teodora explained, dragging Mirabel towards her bedroom. “And then when I did go to sleep, I kept having these weird dreams.” She slammed open her door and charged onward.

“Okay,” Mirabel answered, still confused. “But…”

“And I dreamt that I opened a door for you,” Teodora continued, giving the young woman an exasperated eye-roll. She continued to pull, headed for the far end of her room. “It was really important.”

“All right, but…”

“And then I woke up.” Teodora stopped by the wall and looked up into Mirabel’s face, as deadly serious as a five-year-old could be. “And I was standing right here, with my hand on the doorknob.”

Before she could once again question what this was actually about, Mirabel noticed that the door in front of them was slightly ajar. She glanced at Teodora, who just looked meaningfully at the door and then back up at Mirabel. So, carefully, she reached out and pulled it open.

The door led into an unfamiliar street, paved with uneven cobbles and enclosed by dusty stucco walls. It was nighttime, but there were glowing candles lined up on the tops of walls and the edges of the streets, and strings of lights and colourful cut-paper banners hanging everywhere she looked, and there was lively music playing somewhere in the distance. For a moment or two she only stared. Then she looked down at Teodora.

“I… it looks beautiful,” she said slowly, at a loss. “But, Dorita, I’m not sure what you…”

“You have to go through,” Teodora insisted plainly, lifting her eyebrows. “I told you! In my dream it was important. This door is for you, Mirabel.”

“All right. Um.” Mirabel took a deep breath, then crouched down to be closer to Teodora’s eye level. “I get that this probably seems super important right now, but I can’t just… go wandering off into the nighttime without telling anyone, you know?”

“You have to at least look,” the little girl insisted, her eyes enormous.

Mirabel hesitated. She’d always had a hard time resisting little kids, and Teodora seemed to be wholly convinced that this door was here for her, specifically. She knew she should at least wait until morning, but… maybe a quick peek, just to satisfy Teodora’s sense of urgency. It couldn’t hurt.

She sighed heavily. “Okay, kiddo. I get it. I’ll just have a short look for now, okay? But then I’m coming back and you have to go back to bed. Your mamá will never forgive me if I keep you up all night.” Putting on a smile, she tweaked the girl’s nose and pushed herself back up to her feet.

Stepping carefully over the threshold, Mirabel looked around a little. Just to her left the street she was standing on formed a T-junction with another, and she could hear voices approaching the corner. Lingering close to the door, in the shadow of the wall behind her, she waited to see who it was – maybe a glimpse of the people would give her a better idea of where she actually was.

At the head of the group was a young girl, shiny black hair pulled back into braids, skipping along with all the cheer in the world. Behind her trailed a woman that might have been her mother, laughing: “Socorro, slow down! Your Abuelo can only move so fast, you know!” After the two of them came the rest of their group – their family, Mirabel supposed – all talking and joking animatedly as they walked. There were several generations of them, teens and parents and grandparents alike, and one large man had a baby strapped to his chest.

Then Mirabel’s gaze caught on a young man in the middle of the group. He looked about her age, a bit lanky, with a laid-back confidence to his posture. He was smiling down at the eldest woman, perhaps his grandmother, listening to her talk as they walked. Dressed in a green sweatshirt and jeans, with a guitar hanging on his back, he would have seemed unremarkable if not for one very important thing: he was, unmistakably, the man from Bruno’s vision.

“What?” she asked herself in a whisper, stunned. Then, impulsively, she shouted, “Wait!”

“Mirabel?” came Teodora’s voice from behind her.

The family was already passing out of sight, and between their conversations and the music still playing in the distance, they couldn’t hear her. Mirabel chewed her lip for a moment, twisting her hands in the fabric of her skirt, before giving chase.

“I’ll– I’ll be right back, Dorita!”

She couldn’t afford to let him get away.

When she turned the corner, there were more families out walking, all apparently headed in the same direction. She cast her gaze around and spotted someone from the back of her mystery man’s group as they disappeared around another corner, and she dashed ahead, this time darting between clusters of other pedestrians. But each corner she turned revealed more people, until finally the streets led her into a crowded plaza. This was the source of the music, with musicians playing both on a little stage at the plaza’s centre and all around its edges. Here there were more banners criss-crossed every which way overhead, and stalls full of food and goods, and children laughing and playing games underfoot. Normally the scene would have delighted Mirabel, and she would have stopped to see everything, but she was single-mindedly focussed on finding the young man from Bruno’s vision.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of people wearing green or carrying guitars around the plaza. After a couple of circuits of the crowd, trying to move quickly but also avoid drawing too much attention to herself, she started to wonder if perhaps he’d left the plaza altogether – the festivities did seem to spill out into the streets on every side. Looking around again, she wasn’t even entirely certain which direction she’d first come from.

Discouraged and increasingly anxious, she slipped down the nearest street, hoping that if she went around each block surrounding the plaza, she might get lucky.

“Are you still worrying?” Socorro asked, appearing at Miguel’s hip with a sly smile. Startled, he jumped slightly, then gave her a playful scowl.

“No, of course not,” he fibbed. “I’m fine.”

“Liar.” She grinned, and he could only shake his head at her. She’d always seen right through him, much to his chagrin. Stepping in front of him, she offered up one of the churros she’d just bought from the stall her best friend’s mother ran. “Is it because of the song?”

He took the proffered churro and nodded, glancing around and then waving her over to a bench whose occupants were just getting to their feet. “Maybe a little,” he answered as they sat, well aware that she’d know he was still downplaying things.

They sat in silence for a few moments while they ate, and once again he turned the problem over in his mind. He was supposed to perform tomorrow night, but he’d been completely stalled on his song for weeks now, if not longer. The rest of the family usually left him to his own devices when it came to songwriting, but Socorro had always liked to listen and give her feedback, and he’d always been happy enough to allow her. She was his baby sister, after all, and his biggest soft spot.

“Why don’t you just perform Remember Me like you’ve done before?” she asked after a while, leaning on his arm. “Or Un Poco Loco? You always have fun doing that one.”

Miguel sighed. “Yeah, I do,” he agreed. “But I already told everyone I’d be singing something of my own this year, didn’t I? Can you imagine how silly I’d feel, going back to one of Papá Héctor’s songs after everyone’s made such a big fuss about hearing something new from me?”

“I guess.” She popped the final bite of her churro into her mouth and wiped her sticky fingers on her skirt. “I still don’t really get what’s wrong with the songs you’ve written before. But it’s obviously important to you, so I’ll just trust you, I guess.”

“Oh, you will, huh?” he laughed.

Grinning again, she hopped back off the bench. “Yeah. Which is why I’m gonna help you out.” Reaching for his hands, she pulled him to his feet. “You should go back home and keep working on it. You’re not even really enjoying the festival anyway. I’ll distract Mamá and Papá and Abuela so no one notices you leave, and I’ll make sure they don’t go back home looking for you. That should buy you a couple hours at least, right?”

Miguel’s first instinct was to laugh, but then he scooped his little sister up off the ground and gave her a warm hug. “Yes, it should,” he told her as he put her back down. “Thanks, Socorro.”

“Thank me by finishing the song,” she answered with a giggle. Grabbing his sleeve, she tugged him down far enough to kiss his cheek, and then she turned him around and shooed him away. “Now go!”

Still chuckling, Miguel heeded her instructions and set off towards home.

It wasn’t a long walk back, but he still managed to find the time to dwell on things. A decade ago, music had come so easily. He’d been so caught up in the euphoria of being allowed to make music at all, he supposed, that he hadn’t even thought to worry about how he measured up to Héctor. Or anyone, really. The mariachis in the plaza had taught him how to refine the skills he’d been practicing in secret, and how to play alongside them. His parents had bought him a new guitar, so that De la Cruz’s – Héctor’s – could be looked after as it deserved. But as he’d grown and learned, he’d begun seeking his own voice as a musician, and that part… that part was more challenging than he’d ever realised it would be.

Heaving yet another sigh, Miguel stopped and looked up at the mural on the wall outside his home. A few years ago, they’d gotten a portrait of Héctor painted near the window where his framed letters were hung; now Miguel stood and looked up into his great-great-grandfather’s larger-than-life smile.

“I’m lost, Papá Héctor,” he sighed, tucking his hands into his pockets. “I know I have something to offer the world. You and Mamá Imelda and everyone else saw it in me. But I just… can’t find it.”

Héctor only continued to smile, unmoving, and not for the first time, Miguel felt a strange pang of sadness. His time with Héctor had been so short, but sometimes he missed the man so keenly. He figured it had to be an effect of the adventure they’d gone on together. How could they not have bonded?

“I know I’ll see you again, one day,” he continued. “I just wish you were here now.”

Miguel’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone coming around the far corner, muttering to herself in frustration. He looked up in surprise and saw a young woman around his own age, but completely unfamiliar to him. Her hands were curled into fists, and she kicked at the dirt as she walked.

“Stupid door!” she complained, dragging one hand back through her dark curls. “What the hell am I supposed to d–…” When she raised her head, her gaze locked on Miguel’s, and she cut herself off, eyes going wide and jaw slackening. She froze for a second.

“Um.” Miguel felt himself flushing slightly, embarrassed that someone might have heard him talking to Héctor that way, but also puzzled by the look on her face. He waved awkwardly. “Hi?”

“Oh my God, it’s you,” she gasped, only deepening his confusion. Suddenly she ran toward him, stopping herself a few paces away and abruptly clamping her mouth shut. It looked like she’d just realised she had no idea what to do next.

“I, uh… me?” Up close, Miguel was certain he’d never seen her before, which was strange – he didn’t think there was anyone in Santa Cecilia whose face he didn’t know. But there was no question: bright hazel eyes, round green glasses, colourful embroidery swirling all over her blouse and her skirt in designs she must have done herself. If he’d seen her, he’d definitely remember her.

“I…” She bit her lower lip for a moment, hesitant, and wrapped her hands around the strap of the cloth bag hanging over her shoulder. “This is gonna sound crazy,” she said then, almost breathlessly, “but I’ve been looking for you.”

Miguel blinked. “What? I– who are you, again?” he asked, stunned.

“Oh. Uh.” The girl offered him a broad, uncomfortable grin, then wiped one hand on her blouse and stuck it out to shake. “I’m Mirabel Madrigal.”

Not a name he recognised, either. In fact, he didn’t think there were any Madrigals in Santa Cecilia. “Miguel,” he answered, slowly shaking her hand. “Miguel Rivera.” Uncertainly, he nodded toward the fading text on the wall: Rivera Familia de Zapateros.

“Okay. Great.” Mirabel’s smile was strained at best, though he was starting to get the impression that that wasn’t on his account. “Now I know your name, at least.”

Miguel furrowed his brow, feeling more lost with every word that came out of her mouth. “What’s… what’s even going on?” he asked, then shook his head at himself. He didn’t mean to sound rude. “I mean…”

“You know, I’d love to know that myself,” she sighed, dragging a hand down her face and then reaching up under her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry. I’m having, like… the weirdest night.”

“Yeah, uh, you seem… stressed,” he admitted, apologetic. “Is there… anything I can do to help you?” He wasn’t really sure how to handle the situation. The part about looking for him was still bizarre, but she seemed harmless, and he did find himself kind of wanting to lend her a hand somehow. It looked like she needed it.

“Honestly… I have no idea.” The air seemed to go out of her, and she turned and slumped back against the wall, face falling. “I’m sure I was supposed to find you, but now I don’t know how to get home, or even where I am in the first place, or… anything.”

“Where you…” Miguel tipped his head slightly. “Um, you’re in Santa Cecilia. Are… are you okay, uh– Mirabel, was it?”

“Mirabel, yeah.” She straightened up and pushed her hair out of her face, giving him a sheepish look. “Santa Cecilia. All right. I guess I’m grateful I wound up somewhere where everyone speaks Spanish, at least, but I don’t… I mean. I’m… not in Colombia anymore, am I?”

“What?” That might have been the most surprising thing she’d said so far. “Colom– no, definitely not. Santa Cecilia is in Mexico. Are you sure you’re okay?” Now he reached a hand out toward her shoulder, concerned.

Mirabel’s smile was joyless by now, betraying nothing but anxiety. “I’m fine, I swear. I’m really sorry, Miguel. Just… like I said, I’m having a really weird night. I wish I could explain it, but I… don’t really think you’d believe me.”

He paused, taking her in again. There was something in her countenance now that he couldn’t quite put a finger on, but… something he recognised, nonetheless. He’d never seen it in another person, so he didn’t even know exactly how he recognised it, but it was there. They had something in common.

“You might be un poco loco, yeah. But… try me,” he invited her then, beginning to smile both at Mirabel and at his own dumb little joke. “You’d probably be surprised what I’d believe.”

Her eyes narrowed a little as she looked at him, like perhaps she was noticing something new about him, but then her brows raised and her gaze cleared. Maybe she’d started to catch onto the same thing he had. “…How long do you have?” she asked.

Miguel’s smile grew, and he shifted his weight towards the entrance to his yard, beckoning her along. “Come on inside. There are leftover tamales in the kitchen, and maybe I can grab you something to drink, too.”

Chapter Text

Mirabel hadn’t realised how hungry she was until she was sitting next to Miguel on the edge of his kitchen counter, a plate of tamales and a tall glass of papaya juice at her hip. He chuckled while she scarfed down one of the tamales, but he was patient, pulling the guitar that had been hanging on his back up over his shoulder and fiddling idly with it while he waited. He plucked softly away, tuning one of his strings, and seemed to get it right just as she dropped her empty corn husk back onto the plate and gulped down half her drink.

“So, Mirabel Madrigal,” he started, smiling a bit as she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. He had a dimple on one side – it was cute. “You ready to tell me how a Colombian girl winds up lost in Santa Cecilia, looking for me without even knowing my name?”

He seemed more comfortable now. Something had changed, outside, when she’d said he wouldn’t believe her story. She’d meant it, at the time – for most of her life she’d never left the Encanto, but she knew that people outside of their paradise didn’t really have miracles or magic houses or special powers. But, the way Miguel had looked at her… she’d seen something familiar in him.

“Yeah. I think I am.”

So she got straight into it. She tried her best to give him the abbreviated version: how, in fleeing danger and losing her husband, Abuela had found the miracle. How the town was founded, and how her whole family had grown up being granted magical powers, except for her. As briefly as possible, she recounted how it had all fallen apart and how the family had come back together, stronger than ever, to recover and – unknowingly – bring the magic back. How her cousin’s little girl now opened doors to faraway places, and how her uncle had seen Miguel in a vision.

She decided to leave out the precise context of his appearance in Bruno’s vision, at least for the moment.

“Okay,” he said as she wrapped up her tale. He was looking down at his guitar, but he nodded, thoughtful. “It’s a lot, yeah. But I think I follow you.”

Mirabel put her hands on her knees and leaned forward, trying to peer up into his face. “You’ve seen something, too,” she said then. “Something just as strange and impossible as my Abuela’s miracle. You must have.”

“Well, I don’t know about impossible…” He was hiding a smile.

“Oh, come on.” She couldn’t help grinning, knocking her knee against his and reaching for another tamale. “I told you mine. Now you tell me yours.”

“It’s nothing special,” he insisted again, with a mock-casual shrug. Still focussed on his guitar, he began to pluck out a lazy, playful little tune. “It’s just… Well. When I was twelve, I got so furious with my family’s all-out ban on music that I ran away on Día de los Muertos and stole a guitar out of the mausoleum of the most famous musician in Mexican history, getting myself cursed in the process. I wound up in the Land of the Dead, where a blessing from my deceased family would have been enough to send me home immediately, but they all wanted me to swear off music forever, so I ran away from them, too. I was convinced that that famous musician I mentioned was really my great-great-grandfather, who abandoned the family and caused the whole music-hating thing, so I teamed up with some almost-forgotten loser named Héctor who told me he knew the guy and could get me to him. I met Frida Kahlo, played in a competition, found my hero, learned that Héctor had actually written all the songs that made the other guy so famous and that he’d killed Héctor when Héctor tried to quit so he could go home to his family, realised that Héctor was actually my great-great-grandfather, exposed the aforementioned most famous musician in Mexican history as a fraud and a murderer to the entire Land of the Dead, got my great-great-grandparents back together, got the family’s blessing, and then rushed home to my great-grandmother – who had dementia – and managed to get her to remember her father so that he wouldn’t be forgotten forever… which also reminded her that she still had all the letters he’d written her when she was a child, which then served to prove to the world that he was in fact the songwriter behind all of those famous and much-beloved songs.” Grinning now, he glanced up at her sideways, still strumming away on his guitar. “Oh. Also, I found out that the stray dog I’d been training for a few years was my spirit guide.”

Mirabel swallowed another mouthful of tamale to gape at him. “I… am really gonna need the full story someday,” she said after a second.

He laughed and turned toward her properly. “And I wanna hear your full story sometime,” he answered. “We’ll have to trade.”

“Deal.” All of her concerns momentarily forgotten, she could only return his broad smile. “You know, while you told your story I kind of started to remember hearing about Héctor Rivera, and the whole controversy around him and… Cruz? The other guy? Whatever his name was… But my cousin’s husband, Mariano, is a really big fan of your great-great-grandfather’s music, actually. Or, well, he was a really big fan of the other guy, but we do get a few radio stations in the valley, so the news about Héctor got to us eventually… Mariano got pretty passionate about recognising Héctor as the true artist.”

“Oh yeah?” Smiling, Miguel played a couple of chords, fingers fanning out over the strings. “That’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah. Yeah, actually, I can remember him singing Teodora to sleep with Remember Me.” Then, thinking again of Teodora and everything still going on at home, Mirabel’s own smile began to fade.

Miguel shifted a little in his place on the counter. “We gotta figure out how to get you home, huh?” he asked softly, his hands growing still.

“Yeah.” She hung her head. “Yeah, we do. I, uh… There’s a lot happening. I may have glossed over some of the details, when it comes to the more recent stuff.”

“You wanna share?” He raised his eyebrows, earnest now. “Since we’re already here.”

She sighed. “It’s… I still don’t really know what’s going on,” she answered slowly. “Teodora can’t figure out how to control her Gift, which I’m guessing is probably why I couldn’t find the door again to get back home – sometimes after you close one of her doors, it goes back to normal, instead of leading somewhere else. But the last time anyone had so much trouble with their Gift was when the whole house was coming apart, and none of the same things are happening now. Everyone else feels fine, and the house is completely intact, and the candle is still burning. We just… can’t figure out what’s causing it.”

There was a pause, and then Miguel leaned a fraction closer. “And?” he prompted, evidently able to tell that she wasn’t done.

“And… I asked Bruno to look into the future to see if he could learn anything,” Mirabel admitted. “I stayed with him the whole time, so I saw everything he did. None of it made sense. All we saw was… people leaving. Packing their bags, or walking out of their houses, or bidding each other goodbye. And then, at the centre of it all, the two of us – me and you, I mean.”

She risked a glance up. Miguel had put his guitar aside, watching her with concern. “I was part of it?”

She nodded. “No one had any clue who you were, at first, obviously. But then Teodora opened a door to Santa Cecilia tonight, and I only meant to take a quick look, but when I saw you… I just had to catch you. To find out how you were connected. And now I’m stuck here, really no closer to an answer except that I know your name, and I don’t know what to do next.”

He nodded thoughtfully, looking down at the ground and tapping his fingers against his knees. “And you’re sure you went back to the right door, when you were trying to get home again?” he asked. “I mean– you don’t really know Santa Cecilia, so I don’t think anyone could blame you if you got a bit turned around…”

“I’m… pretty sure?” She furrowed her brow, picking up her drink and twisting it in her hands for a second. “Although I did get lost for a while there, so…”

“You wanna go for a little walk and look around, just in case?” he suggested. “If you can tell me anything about the street you came out on, maybe I can help you find it.”

“Yeah, I guess that wouldn’t hurt.” Mirabel knocked back the rest of her papaya juice, then plunked the empty glass down and looked at his face again. He’d slid off the edge of the counter and back to his feet, and now he was slinging the guitar onto his back once again, seemingly as much out of habit as anything else. Then, also apparently without thinking, he offered her his hand to help her hop down. “Thanks,” she said softly, beginning to smile again.

When Mirabel described her first view of Santa Cecilia, Miguel had to admit that it did sound like one of the doors on his neighbour Eduardo’s property, right around the corner. They rounded the corner and she pointed at the same door he’d been picturing, but alas, when they pulled it open, all they found was Eduardo’s collection of rusty old yard tools. Mirabel sighed, clearly frustrated in spite of her insistence that she wasn’t expecting much.

“Well, let’s retrace the route I took to the plaza,” Miguel suggested, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. “And we can watch for intersections that match the one where you first spotted me. You never know – we might get lucky.”

“Sure, yeah,” she agreed. She dragged a hand back through her hair, looking up to the sky as she fell into step next to him. After a couple minutes’ walk, he looked at her from the corner of his eye and noticed her taking a closer look at the banners of papel picado that were strung up from lampposts to walls and back again. There was a shade of admiration in her expression as her eyes traced the detailed patterns.

“What’s all the celebration for, anyway?” she asked, finally pulling her attention back to ground level to glance down the side streets again. “It seems like there’s a lot going on.”

“We’re celebrating Papá Héctor’s birthday,” he explained, smiling a bit. “We used to do so much to celebrate De la Cruz, so people felt like we should do things for Héctor, instead, after Mamá Coco’s letters proved De la Cruz was a fraud. We threw a festival for Héctor’s birthday the next year, and everyone had so much fun that it just became tradition. This is the tenth year in a row.”

“That’s amazing.” She beamed at him, eyes sparkling. “You must be so proud of him. And I’m sure it feels good to know that everyone knows the truth, now, and loves him like he deserves.”

“You’re not wrong,” he admitted, inclining his head. “When I first realised that we were related, I told him I was proud that we were family. And I’ve only ever grown prouder of him, as time goes on.”

He thought he was hiding his anxiety reasonably well, but she ducked her face to look him in the eye. “Then… what’s bothering you?” she asked, soft and sincere, and he wondered if she saw through him as easily as his sister did. For a moment it was odd, because he didn’t think he was really that transparent, especially to someone he’d just met, but then he realised that it might actually be kind of a relief to talk to someone besides Socorro or Dante about this. As much as she loved him, his sister didn’t really understand why it was bothering him so much, and Dante didn’t really understand anything at all. But with the rest of Santa Cecilia being so totally in love with Héctor’s music, he was never sure if there was anyone else who would listen, let alone really get it.

“I’m supposed to perform tomorrow,” he told her, a little more quietly than he’d intended. He looked up, his smile awkward, and she was watching him with genuine concern. Glancing up and down the street, she slowed her step, silently jerking her head toward one side of the road. He nodded and followed, and they paused there, leaning their shoulders against the wall beneath a sconce lamp. “I’ve performed something on his birthday every year. Everyone just thought it made sense – I’m the musician in the family. I mean, Abel plays accordion, and Rosa plays violin, but I’m the one who always wanted to follow in Héctor’s footsteps. And I– I don’t want to sound unappreciative! I’m glad everyone wants me to perform…”

“But?” she asked, a crease in her brow. Miguel couldn’t help smiling a bit more at that, even as stressed as he was, because it felt a lot like an hour ago in his kitchen, when he’d nudged her to tell him more about what was on her mind. Weird night, indeed.

“But I’ve always performed something of his,” he sighed. “And I love his music, really I do, but I don’t want to spend my life only playing that. Even as a kid, making music secretly all by myself, I always dreamed of writing and playing my own songs one day. So I told everyone I was going to play something new this year – something all my own, that none of them had ever heard. And I’ve been working on it for months, but it just isn’t coming out right, no matter what I do.”

Mirabel reached out and squeezed his shoulder, just quickly. “Nothing blocks the flow of creativity like the pressure to live up to your family,” she agreed, with a small, sympathetic smile. “That much I definitely understand.”

He nodded. “Everything… everything that happened, happened because of how badly I wanted to be a musician. I’ve never wanted anything else. And knowing it’s in my blood makes it feel that much more like it’s what I’m meant for. But I wanted to be my own musician.” Wrapping one hand around the leather guitar strap across his chest, he grinned anxiously, meeting her eye again – and she really did understand, he thought. Her face was so honest and so expressive that he didn’t doubt that for a moment. “I still want that. But I owe Héctor so much, and I could never get away from his influence, even if I wanted to. His legacy defines so much about me. I don’t know how to write a song that honours him and shows Santa Cecilia my own voice.”

She nodded, crossing her arms against her stomach. “Balancing yourself against your family is really hard. Like… at home, I’m so much a Madrigal that sometimes I still don’t know what exactly it means to be Mirabel. Even with everyone else’s love and support, it’s tough to really get to know yourself, sometimes, I think.”

“Exactly,” Miguel agreed, leaning forward a bit. It was startlingly cathartic to hear her say so. “I mean, I’m– I’m older than Héctor was when he died. And I don’t have nearly as much talent as he did. He’d written all of those songs already; in over a decade I’ve only really written a few that I’d call finished. I just… want to live up to him. I want to make him proud.”

“I’m sure you make him proud. And it’s not fair to say you don’t have the talent he did – you’re different people, living different lives, in different times.” She chewed her lip, seemingly hesitating for a moment, before adding all in one rush of breath: “Is there any way I can help you?”

“What?” He blinked, taken completely by surprise. “But– but you need to get home!”

“I mean… yeah, I do,” she admitted, glancing down in sudden embarrassment. “But it’s pretty obvious by now that I’m not getting home tonight. We haven’t found a door that’ll take me back, and we’re practically all the way back to the plaza. And, um… making music isn’t as big a part of my life as I think it must be yours, but I do play, and I’ve written songs for my cousins or the kids in town, once in a while. You’ve– you’ve been really kind to me, especially given that I was acting like a total lunatic when I first approached you, and you seem to really mean to help me get back home. Like, if I’m honest, I wouldn’t have a clue what I was doing here without you, and I’m pretty confident no one else around here would have believed a word I said. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I’d definitely be in full freak-out mode by now if I hadn’t run into you, or if you hadn’t been so nice when I did.” She tugged on a strand of hair, winding her curls around one finger. “So… this feels like the least I can do in return.”

“I… I do want to get you home,” he answered slowly. “I’m sure your family must be worried about you. And you’ve gotta be anxious to get back, yourself. So if I– if I have to perform something everyone’s already heard tomorrow, or something, then I’ll just have to live with that. Your situation kind of seems more urgent.”

“No, no.” She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “They probably are worried, and I’m sorry that I don’t have a way to contact them and at least tell them that I’m okay, but they also know I’m a grown adult. I want to help you. And after your performance, we can go back to figuring out how to get me home. Even if I have to… take a plane, or something. I don’t know. It’s a tomorrow problem. It’s not like less than twenty-four hours are very likely to make much of a difference at this point anyway, right? Unless you know someone who can open magic doors, and you haven’t mentioned it yet.” She smiled again, a bit ironically now.

“I get what you’re saying, but… Are you sure?” Miguel asked. He didn’t think it was worth pointing out that taking a plane would require money and documentation he was pretty sure she didn’t have in her little purse.

“Yeah. I mean… if you want my help, of course,” she added hastily.

He leaned back a little bit, considering the idea. “I’ve never had a real writing partner,” he told her, sheepish. “Even when I play with my cousins, I usually need to help them work out their parts. I’m… open to giving it a shot, I think, yeah. But only as long as you’re really sure.”

“I promise I’m sure.” She smiled more confidently.

“And I promise that as soon as the performance is finished, I’ll find a way to get you home,” he said, beginning to smile back.

“Okay.” She looked so happy, now, that in spite of his concerns on her behalf, he found himself feeling hopeful about tomorrow’s performance for the first time in weeks. “So, where do we start?”

“We head back home, I guess,” Miguel said, rubbing the back of his neck as he pushed away from the wall. “You said you play? What instrument?”

“Accordion, mostly,” she responded, following him back down the street. “I grew up listening to my Papá play piano and always wishing I could play something alongside him. When I was five, he took me to get an instrument of my own, and I went straight for the accordions. I was so excited.”

“You can borrow Abel’s, then,” he offered. “I’m sure he won’t mind. And I’m pretty sure I know where it is…”

The walk back home went quickly, now that they were no longer hunting for doors that might lead her back to Colombia. As they turned the last corner before the Rivera house, Miguel caught movement in the edge of his vision and looked up, spotting the lithe silhouette of a cat along the top of the wall. With the moon behind it, he couldn’t see any detail on the animal, but–

“Pepita, is that you?” he called out, stepping quickly. He knew she came to check up on him sometimes. Normally she only let him see her on Día de los Muertos, but he’d been certain for years that she showed up more often than that. He was never sure how she could cross back and forth year-round, but Dante seemed to do it all the time, so he supposed the rules were different for alebrijes.

If it was Pepita, she leapt down on the far side of the wall the moment she heard his voice. Holding a hand out toward Mirabel, as if to assure her he’d be only a moment, Miguel quickened his step and ran for the front gate. He couldn’t see the cat anywhere in the dim yard, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t around somewhere.

“…If that is you,” he said finally, peering into the shadows, “Tell Mamá Imelda and Papá Héctor I could really use their help, won’t you? My new friend needs a way home, and I don’t know how we’re going to find it on our own.” It was mostly facetious, because he had no idea how they could help even if Pepita was around and able to pass on a message, but then… in such strange circumstances, what was the harm?

“What was that about?” Mirabel asked, half-smiling and half-puzzled when she caught up to him.

“Nothing, really. I’ll explain sometime… maybe when we get around to those long versions we promised each other,” he told her with a lopsided grin. “For now, let me see if I can find Abel’s accordion for you.”

He left her in the courtyard, still admiring the papel picado and string lights that hung between the walls and the big tree, while he hunted through the house. The accordion was right where he thought – still in the corner of his grandparents’ living room, left behind after their family jam session the day before. As an afterthought, he also darted by his bedroom and grabbed the little audio recorder he sometimes used while he was composing. When he made it back outside, he grinned at the sight of Mirabel perched on tiptoe atop an old chair, inspecting one of the papeles picados up close.

“You like them?” he asked as he approached. She startled, but he was close enough to reach over and steady the chair, albeit awkwardly with his hands full.

“They’re beautiful,” she agreed, grinning a little sheepishly as she stepped down. “And so detailed!”

“My Tía Carmen made that one.” He passed her the accordion. “She’s really good at it. I never had the patience, really.”

“Are they all made by hand?”

He nodded. “I mean, you can do a whole stack of them at once, but yeah, usually. There are a lot of folks in town who’re pretty good at it. ‘Course, a lot of these are store-bought, too, but we have a pretty good number of homemade designs up…”

“I wish I had time to stop and admire all of them.” Then she turned her attention down to the accordion in her hands, getting a feel for it by drawing the bellows a couple of times and playing a few notes. “Welcome to the family Madrigal,” she sang softly, pressing keys and checking the instrument’s range. “The home of the family Madrigal… Yeah, I can work with this. It’s not quite what I’m used to, but I won’t try to mess with an instrument that doesn’t belong to me.”

Miguel laughed. “I’m sure Abel will appreciate that,” he said, pulling his guitar around to his front again. He placed his recorder on the table nearby and turned it on. “Did you write a song about your family?” he added with a grin, half-teasing.

“I sure did,” she laughed back. “The kids in town are always asking me to explain who everyone is and who can do what. They started remembering better when I put it into song form. It’s evolved over the years, but it does the job.”

“Can I hear it?” he asked then, leaning back against the edge of the table, still smiling. “Or like, a bit of it?”

She tipped her head and narrowed her eyes, playfully considering his request for a moment. “Yeah, I guess,” she agreed finally. “But then you have to play something for me. It’ll give us a chance to start to feel out each other’s musical styles.”

So Miguel sat back and listened, his grin growing, as she launched into a detailed musical introduction to her family. He’d be lying if he claimed not to enjoy the liveliness she played with – for all that Héctor’s lullabies had a special place in his heart, it was the really energetic, fun songs that he’d always most loved to play. Once he had a sense of the melody, he started strumming a simple accompaniment on his guitar, raising his eyebrows as if to ask her permission. She only beamed at him, continuing to sing, so he figured he was in the clear. As she went on, he could see how much fun she was having: she spun and danced around, truly throwing herself into the song in a way he really appreciated. He knew the feeling.

He applauded her when she finished, and she laughed and curtsied, breathing hard. When she leaned back against the table next to him to recover, he obligingly stood up and began to tune his strings for Proud Corazón. As he did, he explained the history of the song – that he’d written it in the year after his adventure to the Land of the Dead, thinking often of his Mamá Coco’s passing and of his little sister’s birth. All three events had influenced his writing a lot, and though he’d tweaked the song in the years since, it maintained its original spirit.

Much the way he’d done for her, Mirabel waited until she’d heard a bit of the song and then joined in with her own accompaniment. He was surprised by how much he enjoyed it – he was so accustomed to Abel playing the accordion part that they’d worked out over the years, it had never occurred to him that there were other possibilities. Her take had a flair to it that he wouldn’t have come up with on his own, and it was so much fun that he repeated a couple of verses just to extend the song a little and hear her play a few bars more. She didn’t clap when they finished, because her hands were full, but she whistled admiringly and played a few happy notes.

From there it was startlingly easy to transition into working on his new song. He shared with her his chorus and the couple of verses he’d mostly worked out, played the chords and vague melodies that had been bouncing around his head for months now. She listened closely, always offering her suggestions with the utmost respect for his original ideas and intent. She workshopped his lyrics with him, as well, helping him iron out the not-quite-rhymes and the awkward cadences. And when he got stuck again, he’d restart the song from the top, and she’d play along, trying out new harmonies and variations. She had a better ear for composing her own accompaniment than Abel or Rosa did, and listening to her melodies sometimes helped him figure out what he could change to work past his block.

They got a little sidetracked, maybe, as they bounced off of one another. She loved to dance while she played, and it proved fruitless trying to resist her energy – most of the people he was used to playing with weren’t nearly so mobile. A few of the mariachis in town would dance sometimes, especially the guitarists like him, but not the way she did: skirt swirling and flaring out around her, curls bouncing, hips swaying. They were just jamming at this point, really, not even sort of working on the song anymore, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He was having too much fun, spinning around the courtyard with her, smiling so hard his cheeks hurt. And they’d already come a long way on his song, by now, anyway.

“Oho!” someone laughed, and Miguel’s smile melted away and his eyes flew wide as he swung towards the front gate, hands faltering on his guitar strings. His family was filing into the yard, looking on curiously as he and Mirabel both stopped in their tracks. Tío Berto was the source of the loud guffawing, sharing an enormous grin with Tía Gloria.

“So this is why you snuck away from the festival tonight,” Gloria snickered, not even trying to hide her amusement.

“Oh! Hey! Um!” he blurted, glancing at his parents and catching their raised eyebrows and slight smiles. He was already hot in the face from the way he’d been bouncing around until just a moment ago, and maybe that was a good thing, because it would hide his blush. Then again, with the look on some of his relatives’ faces, they might not care if he had an excuse to be so red already. “This– uh, this is Mirabel! She’s, um, Eduardo’s niece! Just visiting for a while!” He smiled, wide and toothy and not at all convincingly, if his little sister’s raised eyebrow was anything to go by. “Yep! We ran into each other earlier and got to talking, and she offered to help me work on my song for tomorrow, so…”

“Hi,” Mirabel added, her own smile a bit embarrassed, offering a small wave.

“Well, as long as you’ll keep the volume down,” Miguel’s Abuelo said with a shrug, continuing to amble toward the house. Abuela walked alongside him, eyeing her grandson a bit suspiciously. “It’s late, and I’d like to get some sleep.”

“Yeah, of course, Abuelo,” Miguel assured him quickly. Then he glanced up at his cousins. “Abel, I hope you don’t mind us borrowing your accordion…”

“Nah, primo,” his cousin answered, and Miguel didn’t think he’d ever seen such a shit-eating grin on a man with a baby strapped to his chest. “Long as I get it back in one piece. Sounded like you guys were having fun.” Then he gave a too-cheerful wave, still barely holding back a laugh, as he and his wife set off down the street towards their own house.

Carmen and Berto started in towards the house, ushering Manny and Benny in for bed, and Rosa trailed after them, narrowing her eyes at Miguel like she was trying to figure him out. He just smiled awkwardly at her. His sister and his parents took a couple steps closer, now that the group had begun to dissolve; Gloria came up behind them, as if trying to listen in unnoticed, though of course she knew everyone knew she was there.

“Will you be around tomorrow, Mirabel?” his mother asked, and Miguel felt a sudden swell of fondness for her when he realised her smile was completely normal instead of amused or overexcited. “It’s been a while since Miguel last made a new friend! We’d love to have you join us for the festivities.”

“Um, I think so, yeah!” Mirabel answered, seemingly taken a bit by surprise. “Thank you! That’s very kind.”

Miguel’s Mamá exchanged a smile with her husband, and then tapped Socorro on the head. “Come on, mija. It’s bedtime.”

“I’m coming. One minute,” Socorro said. Papá patted his son on the shoulder with a murmured buenas noches before turning towards the house with his wife. Socorro then turned around to lift her eyebrows meaningfully at Gloria, who sighed exaggeratedly.

“Okay, okay! I’m going.” She tossed a grin at Miguel, wagging her eyebrows, before turning away. “Buenas noches, volado.” He wrinkled his nose, but she was already headed inside.

“I brought you back some cochinitos,” Socorro said then, offering up a paper bag to her brother. She grinned a bit, herself, now. “I didn’t expect you to have company, but there’s still enough to share.”

“Thanks, chiquita,” he answered in a defeated sigh, ruffling her hair a bit as he accepted the gift. He smiled at her, then withered a little at the way she raised her eyebrows again – oh, she really did see through him far too well. To his immense relief, however, she said nothing more, only offering a wave to Mirabel before hurrying inside.

Once everyone had disappeared into the house, he turned to look at Mirabel again. “Sorry about all that,” he said, reaching to rub the back of his neck. “I completely lost track of time. It didn’t even cross my mind that they’d be home soon, let alone what I should tell them when they got here…” He opened the paper bag in his hands, pulling out a cookie before holding them out to her.

“It’s okay,” she said quietly, reaching to take a cochinito for herself. Her eyes lit up when she saw the pig-shaped treat, and she hummed when she took a bite. “Oh, Camilo would love these.”

“That’s one of your cousins, right?”

“You got it.”

He grinned, joining her in leaning back against the table again. “Your song helped.”

Her soft laugh was pretty. “I’m glad.” Then, putting down the accordion and glancing towards the house, she asked, “Is there a reason you lied about who I was?”

“Ah… sorry about that,” he answered, rubbing at his neck again. “I just, uh– well, they… wouldn’t have believed your story as readily as I did, let’s say.”

“Really? Even with everything you’ve been through?”

Miguel shook his head, looking down into the little bag. “They don’t really know what happened to me,” he explained. “I mean… after the dust had settled, with Mamá Coco’s letters and everything… they asked where I’d disappeared to all night, of course, and how I’d learned about Héctor. I tried to explain, you know, in the chaotic sort of way that a twelve-year-old would. But the story came out pretty brokenly at that point, and I’ll admit, it’s not that believable. I think most of them believe something strange happened to me that night, because I did come back knowing things I couldn’t otherwise know, but I’m pretty sure they also think most of my story was like… a crazy dream I had, or something.”

“Really?” Her dark eyes were wide, almost sad. “So none of them actually know the whole thing? What really happened to you?”

He shrugged one shoulder, reaching for another cookie. “I’ve told Socorro everything. But… I always sorta told it to her like it was a story, instead of the truth. I think by now she kind of knows that it’s based on something that happened to me before she was born, and she might believe me a little more than the others do, but I’m pretty sure she also avoids asking questions. That way it stays a fun adventure I told her about before bed when she was little, instead of becoming the reality, which is… just kind of an insane thing I claim went down on the night I ran away and went missing until morning.”

“Oh, Miguel, I’m so sorry,” Mirabel said, one hand on her heart. “I mean… our family is kept a secret from the world outside the Encanto, but within our community we get to share everything. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have had an experience like that and then kept it almost completely to yourself.”

“It was frustrating, at first,” he admitted with a nod. “But I learned to live with it over time. I’ll be honest, though… it was kind of cool to give you the abridged version and have you believe me, no questions asked.”

“Of course I believe you.” She smiled again, and Miguel felt himself grow warm inside. Something about her felt like sunshine on a perfect summer afternoon.

They sat in silence for a minute or two, sharing the cochinitos, even splitting the last one in half. As Mirabel chewed her final mouthful, she looked at him sideways and said, “I just realised I have no idea where I’m gonna sleep tonight.”

“Oh.” He grinned. “That, I can actually help with. C’mon.” Tucking the empty paper bag and his audio recorder into his pocket, he picked up his guitar and led her toward the wall of the workshop. His little attic hideaway wasn’t quite as difficult to access, these days, after Berto had helped him build a sturdy ladder to lean against the wall, and install a proper door behind the sign. He still had to kind of crawl to get through, but it was roomy enough once he was inside, even if he couldn’t stand up straight under the low roof. He went up the ladder first, then reached down to take the accordion from her hands, put it inside, and helped her up after him.

She glanced around the little room, grinning, as he picked up an old lighter and lit a few of his candles. He’d long ago cleared away all of his De la Cruz paraphernalia and found other places to store the things his family had tossed up here, replacing the mess with sheet music and another old photo he’d unearthed of Héctor and Imelda, as well as other family pictures and interesting scraps.

“What is this?” she asked, apparently delighted.

“It’s just… my space,” he answered, shrugging again. “I used to hide all my music stuff up here when I was a little kid. Now I mostly use it for writing or rehearsing uninterrupted, or once in a while just to escape if the family gets to be too much. Everyone knows not to bother me when I come up here.”

“I love it.” She paused to look closer at a photo pinned to one wall of himself, thirteen years old, with a baby Socorro in his arms. “Throw in some rats and it would look a lot like when my Tío Bruno was living in the walls.”

“When he was what?” Miguel had to laugh, taken so completely by surprise.

“Yeah.” She glanced at him again, still smiling. “Another detail for those long versions of our stories.”

“Sounds like it’ll be worth hearing.” He leaned back on his arms in front of the low table he used for a desk. With a jerk of his chin, he pointed to the far end of the narrow room. “I have a hammock down there you’re welcome to. I was gonna sit over here and write down some of what we came up with tonight, but if you’re tired I can go do that in the house…”

“No, I don’t mind,” she assured him, glancing over her shoulder at the hammock. “I shared a bedroom for most of my life, so I’m not bothered by a little activity in the room, as long as you’re not, like… screaming, or anything.”

“No screaming. Got it,” he agreed, nodding soberly. Mirabel giggled, then turned to make her way over to the hammock. It was strung up between two of the joists, barely more than a couple centimetres off the floor once she’d settled, but she looked content as she wrapped her arms around the cushion he kept there.

“Comfy,” she reported. “I can definitely work with this for a night.”

“Good.” He turned halfway toward his desk, then paused. “Let me know if my lamp is too bright or anything.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured him, snuggling down into place. “Buenas noches, Miguel.”

“Yeah.” He couldn’t quite wipe the smile off his face as he clicked on his little lamp and looked down at his notebook. “Buenas noches, Mirabel.”

Chapter Text

Mirabel was groggy when she woke, having slept heavily. She supposed the previous day’s unexpected twists and turns had probably exhausted her. For a minute or two, she wasn’t sure what had woken her, let alone what time it was – but as she roused, rolling over in the hammock so that she was facing the room instead of the wall, she saw Socorro sitting in the open door with a toothy smile. Mirabel had to squint against the bright sunlight for a moment, but then she noticed Miguel, slumped over his little desk, the lamp still on above him. Socorro was poking him with the toe of one well-polished saddle shoe.

“Wake up, sleepyhead.”

Miguel groaned, squeezing his eyes shut and pulling one arm across his face to block out the light. “Why should I?” he grumbled drowsily, though not without some sense of humour.

“So you don’t miss breakfast,” the girl offered, all cheer. She slid from the threshold into the room, turning around to prop the door open with a wooden rod so as not to lose the sunlight, and then began to blow out the couple of candles that were still burning. “You’re gonna burn the whole workshop down like this.” She didn’t seem especially concerned, the statement more perfunctory than sincere, and Mirabel chuckled slightly.

Miguel straightened up, twisting and stretching as he did. He couldn’t have gotten a very good sleep, draped over the low table the way he had been. “Oh my God, my legs are so asleep,” he moaned as he turned around and extended them in front of himself.

“That’s what you get.” Socorro grinned. “Hey, so, why’d you lie about who Mirabel is, last night?”

Mirabel, just beginning to sit up, froze at that. She looked first at the girl, facing away from her now, and then at Miguel. He was regarding at his sister with a grimace. Apparently he didn’t think it was worth trying to lie to her again, because all he said was, “Can’t you ever let me get away with anything?” He sounded strained.

“Nothing interesting,” Socorro answered, shaking her head. She glanced back Mirabel’s way, grinning. “Just count yourself lucky I decided to leave it for morning. If I hadn’t been so tired, I might’ve questioned you in front of everyone.”

Miguel sighed heavily, still pulling a face as he leaned back on his arms. He looked up at Mirabel. “Are your sisters like this?”

She laughed a little. “I mean, sometimes,” she said. “But, to be honest, I’m also the baby of the family, so… I do kind of relate to Socorro, here.”

“Thank you!”

Miguel looked even less impressed at that. Returning his attention to his sister, he considered for a long moment. “Lying was… the easier option,” he answered slowly.

Socorro crossed her arms. “You don’t really think that’s enough of an explanation, do you?” she asked, arching one eyebrow.

“Nngh.” Miguel closed his eyes and dropped his face to his chest. “It’s… I mean. I did meet her for the first time just last night. We, uh… we have something in common. But if I’d told the actual, whole truth about it, no one would’ve believed me, and we would’ve been up all night trying to explain.”

“Hm.” Socorro turned her questioning look to Mirabel, who slowed in the midst of finger-combing out her hair. “You’re definitely not from around here, right? Because none of us recognised you.”

“Uh, no.” Mirabel straightened up slightly, surprised by how deeply she felt the girl’s scrutiny. It was like Socorro saw right through her. Most of the kids she knew who were Socorro’s age probably weren’t quite so sharp, she reflected – or at least, they wouldn’t have been bothered to investigate so closely. Maybe it was just her brother’s behaviour that made the girl so curious. “No, not even close.”

“So why wouldn’t anyone have believed you?” Socorro followed up, looking to Miguel again. “You know I would have, right? I can always tell when you’re lying, so I can also always tell when you’re telling the truth.”

“Okay, yeah, but…” Miguel shifted uncomfortably in his spot, stretching his legs again perhaps in an attempt to buy another moment or two to think. “It’s just, um… What Mirabel and I have in common… it’s something the rest of the family never really understood,” he managed. “When I was a kid, I could say a lot of weird things, and everyone just kind of thought I was… uh, imagining stuff. Or confused, maybe. Now that I’m grown up, I need to be a little more careful.”

Mirabel pulled herself out of the hammock and settled on the floor a little closer to the other two, so she could see now how, after a second’s thought, Socorro’s eyes went wide with sudden understanding. “This… this is related to all that stuff that happened to you before I was born, isn’t it?”

He winced, glancing off to one side. “Honestly, not really, but… It’s not, uh, unrelated?”

Socorro narrowed her eyes again, trying to figure him out. After a moment or two, Mirabel cleared her throat a little and leaned forward. “Um.” They both looked up at her, and she gave an awkward smile. “Socorro… I’m in kind of a weird situation right now. I’m a long way from home, and I don’t totally know what’s going on, but your brother might be the only person who can help me figure it out, or get back to my family. And he’s been really, really kind about helping me so far. But telling your family what’s actually happening might make that a lot harder. I guess you really have no reason to believe me, but… it would mean a lot to me if you could keep this to yourself for now.”

The girl sat back a little, taking them both in as she considered – first Mirabel, and then Miguel, who knitted his eyebrows in a slightly pleading look. “This still really doesn’t explain anything,” she decided after a moment. Then she cracked a smile. “But I like you, Mirabel, and I kind of want to see where this is going.” She crawled over to the door again, turning around to poke her head back in once she was out on the roof. “I wasn’t really planning on telling anyone else, by the way, hermano,” she told her brother. “Anyway. I was serious about breakfast. Abuela’s gonna be mad if you don’t come eat. I’ll tell everyone that Mirabel went back to Eduardo’s overnight and just came to meet you again this morning.”

With a wave, she disappeared.

Miguel heaved another sigh, drooping a bit. “She’ll be the death of me,” he complained.

“That is definitely a smart kid,” Mirabel agreed, inclining her head with a bit of respect. She was impressed. “How do you keep anything from her?”

“I pretty much don’t.” He stretched again, picking his guitar up off the floor and slinging it onto his back. Then he waved toward the door. “I dunno about you, but I could really use a coffee.”

“Coffee sounds excellent.”

They gathered up the instruments and Miguel’s recorder and his notes, then made their way down to the ground and across the yard into the house. Miguel led her to the living room to put everything down, and then through to his Abuela’s dining room, where most of his family was already gathered. A few people looked at Mirabel in surprise when they lifted their faces to greet Miguel, so – with a quick glance at his little sister – he cleared his throat and said, “I hope no one minds me inviting Mirabel to join us for breakfast…”

“Of course not,” his mother answered, smiling and patting the empty chair next to her. “There’s plenty of room.”

“Thank you so much,” Mirabel said, smiling and giving a little curtsy. She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to turn her manners up to eleven, except perhaps that it had been years since she’d joined an unfamiliar family for a meal like this. Anyone she spent time with at home, she’d known her entire life. Miguel sat down next to his mother, and waved Mirabel over to take the chair on his right.

“Everything smells amazing,” she said honestly as she sat and took in the spread across the table. Glancing up at the other people seated, she found Miguel’s Abuela and smiled. “Thank you for your hospitality, Señora Rivera,” she said, as Miguel poured himself a cup of coffee, then poured a second and pushed it across the table toward her. “I really appreciate it. Your home is so warm.”

The woman still seemed a little… not suspicious, exactly, but uncertain what to do about the sudden stranger at her table. However, she smiled at that, and Mirabel felt relieved to see that a lifelong rule of thumb at home held true here in Santa Cecilia, as well: to ingratiate oneself with a family’s matriarch, the vital first step was always to compliment her home and her cooking.

“Of course, my dear,” she answered. “Please, eat up. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

Mirabel and Miguel served themselves crusty bread rolls, huevos rancheros, and refried beans from the platters in front of them. For a few minutes they simply sat and ate, listening to the morning chatter of his family: Socorro and the youngest cousins, teenaged twins, chatting idly about whatever had their attention lately; Miguel’s Tío Berto about the order of dyed leather that should be arriving at the workshop the coming week; Miguel’s parents about a family friend from out of town who planned to come for the festival that afternoon. Once Miguel had downed most of his coffee, he leaned closer to Mirabel’s ear and said, “If I don’t do proper introductions soon, I think my Tía Gloria’s going to stare holes right through me.”

She giggled. “I did kind of notice some, um, meaningful looks, coming from that direction.”

He nodded, then cleared his throat as he straightened up. “Uh, I didn’t really get to introduce everyone very well last night,” he said, the family’s attention turning his way. “I guess you all caught that this is my new friend Mirabel…”

“We did get that much, yes,” Gloria agreed, grinning broadly as she propped one elbow on the table and leaned her chin on her fist.

Miguel wrinkled his nose at her the same way he’d done the night before, and Mirabel took another sip of her coffee to hide her amusement. “So, uh, Mirabel, the Rivera family,” he continued, glancing at her before beginning to indicate his relatives one by one with his hand, going clockwise around the table. “My Mamá, Luisa, and my Papá, Enrique. And my sister Socorro, who you met before…”

“Ah! I have a sister named Luisa,” she said with a smile, offering his parents a small, friendly wave. “So I should be able to remember that one, at least!”

“Then my cousins Manny and Benny,” he continued. “Down at the end of the table is their older sister Rosa. Please ignore anything she says about me; it isn’t true.”

“Hey,” Rosa half-laughed, affronted, but Miguel plowed onward.

“Then there’s Tío Berto, who’s my Papá’s older brother, and Tía Carmen.”

“Oh! I was admiring the papel picado outside last night,” Mirabel said, leaning forward. “And Miguel said some of them were your work, Carmen. They’re amazing!”

“Thank you!” Carmen said, smiling brightly.

“And then you’ve got Tía Gloria, Papá and Berto’s younger sister.” Gloria’s smile grew wider, already teasing, and Miguel sighed before moving on. “Then my Abuelo Franco, and of course my Abuela Elena.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” Mirabel said, still making an effort to employ her best manners. “Thank you again for having me.” Then she looked at Miguel again. “What about your other cousin, um– Abel? I wanted to thank him again for letting me use his accordion…”

“He’s Carmen and Berto’s oldest. He and Johana moved into a house down the road when they got married,” he explained, reaching for another bread roll. “We can fit a lot of us in here, but they’ve already got one kid and I know Abel wants a bunch more… We were gonna run out of bedrooms. They’ll probably be over in a while, though.”

“The Riveras have been in this house for several generations,” Enrique offered conversationally, leaning forward a bit so he could look down the length of the table and meet Mirabel’s eyes. “But inevitably, as the family grows, we won’t all fit. Being the first to get married, it made sense for Abel to move out. Rosa and Miguel are adults, now, too, and Manny and Benny only have a few more years to go, so I’m sure the Rivera family will continue to spread before long.”

“Who knows? Maybe Miguel will be next,” Gloria added casually, looking down at her chorizos. Miguel choked on a mouthful of egg, barely clapping his hand over his mouth in time not to spit it all over his plate; his mother went to rub his back, caught halfway between concern and laughter.

“Gloria,” he squawked, offended, as Manny, Benny, and Rosa started to snicker at the far end of the table.

“What?” She put a hand to her cheek, an intentionally-superficial look of innocence on her face. “You’re a young man, now. It’s about time, isn’t it?”

Mirabel, uncertain whether she was more embarrassed than she was amused, turned her attention back down to her breakfast with renewed focus. She was no stranger to this kind of family dynamic, but it was a little different with people she hardly knew.

“We– we just met yesterday!” Miguel was sputtering, his cousins’ laughter beginning to spread around the table now. “I told you, she’s just helping me finish my song for tonight…!”

“Then why are you so red, primo?” Rosa giggled.

“Gosh, Miguel, I didn’t say anything about your new friend here!” Gloria gasped, putting a hand to her mouth in imaginary shock. “I would never be so presumptuous! I only meant that you’re the right age to start thinking about settling down, sometime. After all, Abel was your age when he and Johana started getting serious.”

“Gloria,” Carmen chuckled, “I might point out that you remain unmarried, yourself…”

But Gloria only waved dismissively in her direction, too focussed now on Miguel’s dismayed expression. “I did always think you seemed awfully married to your music, though,” she continued, folding her hands under her chin now, the very picture of angelic purity. “So, you know, I can see how, if there was someone who got really involved in it with you…”

“Ay dios mio,” he cut her off loudly, exasperated. He picked up his plate and shoveled the remainder of his breakfast into his mouth, then stood up abruptly. “I’m sore from falling asleep on my desk all night, so I’m gonna go take a shower,” he announced, frowning. Turning to Mirabel, he added, “I’ll only be maybe twenty minutes, and then we can get back to work?”

“Sure, that’s fine with me,” she agreed, holding back a small giggle of her own at how flustered he’d become.

“Great.” With a decisive nod, he marched out of the dining room.

There was a moment or two of relative quiet around the table as Gloria exchanged mischievous glances with Miguel’s cousins and they all laughed to themselves, clearly entertained to have gotten such a rise out of him. Then Miguel’s mother turned to smile at Mirabel across the empty seat between them. “You mentioned a sister, Mirabel,” she said pleasantly. “Do you come from a big family?”

“Pretty big,” Mirabel answered, nodding. “I have two older sisters, actually. But we live in a big house not so different from this – the five of us, my aunt, a couple uncles, my cousins, one cousin’s husband and their little girl… all of us under my Abuela’s roof. There’s always plenty going on.”

“Sounds crowded,” Luisa laughed. “I never knew Eduardo had so much family! Did any of them come into town this weekend, or is it just you?”

“Oh, no, uh, it’s just me,” Mirabel said quickly. “I, um– the opportunity came up kind of unexpectedly, and I just thought it might be fun. I only arrived last night, but I happened to run into Miguel not long after, and we got talking and hit it off…” She was trying to be as vague as possible, but also wracking her brain for a way to redirect the discussion entirely, since that was probably the safer approach to this situation. “Um, he told me a lot about his Papá Héctor’s story, and your family history, which I thought was really interesting! I understand that you’ve all been in the shoe business for several generations now?” Hopeful that this was a topic that might get them talking for a few minutes, she looked around the table at the other adults with an expression of earnest curiosity.

Berto took the bait fairly readily, much to her relief. “We have! It’s not just the Rivera family business – it’s a tradition,” he said proudly. “Our children are the fifth generation to take up the craft…”

Berto took the lead on telling Mirabel the tale of how Imelda had started the business, but his mother interjected regularly, and the others made occasional comments as well. There was some overlap with what Miguel had told her last night, but she wasn’t going to stop them – the longer they talked, the fewer questions she might have to answer. Before much longer, Abel and Johana strolled into the house carrying their little one, providing a convenient distraction and keeping the Rivera Shoemaker presentation from drawing out too long. Mirabel introduced herself properly to the newcomers and thanked Abel again for the use of his accordion.

The baby – whose name was Lope – began to grow restless in his mother’s arms as she tried to eat one of the remaining bread rolls. Before Johana even had the chance to calm him, Socorro leapt up from her seat. “I’m done eating anyway,” she offered, arms extended toward the boy. “Let me take him for a while, and you can have some breakfast.”

“Oh, thank you, chiquita,” Johana sighed gratefully. “We had a quick bite before we left the house, but I could definitely use something more…” Abel reached out and ruffled his little cousin’s hair as she went past him, bouncing Lope against her side on her way to the living room.

Though Abel and Johana were still eating, Luisa, Carmen, and Elena soon got to their feet and began to clear empty dishes from the table. Mirabel followed suit without even thinking about it, beginning to collect coffee cups and delivering them to the kitchen sink that Elena was already filling with water and dish soap.

“Oh, thank you, my dear!” she said, surprised, and Mirabel realised a bit belatedly that this was probably also an effective way to get into the Riveras’ good graces. “But please, you don’t need to do that! You’re a guest!”

“No, no, let me help,” Mirabel insisted with a smile. “Many hands make light work, right? And I like to be useful.” She followed Luisa back to the table and gathered up empty platters and dirty napkins as the rest of the family shifted into the living room to sit and chat.

Despite the size of the meal, with several people to help, the table was quickly cleared. Carmen took on the task of drying dishes after Elena scrubbed them clean, so once Luisa and Mirabel had finished wiping away any crumbs or spills on the tabletop, Luisa waved the younger woman away. “We’re practically done already,” she said. “Go on and sit down; we can manage the last few things.”

“Are you sure?” Mirabel asked, tugging the end of the colourful table runner so that it sat straight and smooth. “I really don’t mind! It’s nice to be helpful.”

“I’m certain.” Luisa smiled. “Thank you for helping.”

“All right. Just let me clean up my hands, then.” Mirabel ducked into the kitchen to rinse her hands over Elena’s sinkful of dishes, listening now to the sounds of the Rivera family talking in the next room.

 “Oh, hey, Johana.” That was Miguel’s voice, emerging back into the living room and sounding calmer for his short break from the family’s teasing. “What’s up?”

“Morning, Miguel,” came Johana’s response. “Lope’s still colicky, so he’s been fussy this morning, but your sister seems to have charmed him for the moment.” She laughed lightly.

Mirabel wiped her hands on a dish towel and got out of the way, joining the others in the living room. Miguel had changed into a fresh t-shirt and a hooded red cardigan with blue varsity stripes on the sleeves, and he had his hands in his pockets, holding himself with the relaxed, easy kind of contentment that a really good shower could sometimes induce. Mirabel smiled to herself a little, watching him talk with his cousin-in-law. Her gaze caught for a second on his still-damp hair, sticking to his forehead and the nape of his neck.

“Abel, is it okay if we use your accordion again today?” Miguel asked then, jarring Mirabel’s thoughts and pulling her attention back to the present. “Promise we’ll give it back to you by tonight. I think we’re really close to cracking this song, and Mirabel’s input has been a huge help so far, so…”

“Yeah, I don’t need it for anything today,” Abel agreed, giving Miguel a grin. He glanced at Mirabel and wagged his eyebrows, playful. “Have at it.”

“Thanks.” Miguel rolled his eyes, though with more humour than he’d had at breakfast, and then he waved Mirabel towards the door across the room. “C’mon. Outside?”

“Sure.” She smiled and followed him out, scooping up the accordion on her way through.

Upon reviewing their progress from the night before, they agreed they’d already worked out most of the song. Now it was a matter of ironing out the details and rehearsing enough to make sure tonight’s performance would go smoothly. So they began to play, experimenting with variations in the melody or the tempo or the words, and once in a while Miguel would pause to scrawl adjustments into his notes. Members of his family would sometimes wander out of the house and listen for a while, though it seemed to Mirabel that they could tell that Miguel was deep in the zone, and that they were trying not to distract him. She was almost surprised, though pleasantly so, by how much respect they had for his process, especially given their history with music before the last several years. Her favourite part of the morning was probably when Franco ambled outside and settled in a chair in the corner of the yard, folding his hands across his stomach and listening to them with a mild smile on his face and his hat tipped close over his eyes. Despite his comments the previous night about wanting them to keep the volume down so he could sleep, it quickly became apparent that he’d come out for a nap, content to use their ongoing writing workshop-cum-rehearsal as a lullaby.

In the early afternoon, Socorro and Gloria came out of the house bearing quesadillas and fruit for lunch, and Miguel seemed surprised that so much time had already passed. Mirabel followed him to the table to sit down and eat. Socorro asked them how they thought the writing was coming along, so they chatted with her for a little while, Miguel only sticking his tongue out when Gloria began to tease again about what a good team they made. It seemed that her jabs didn’t get to him quite as much now that he was in such a positive mood.

Mirabel smiled into a mouthful of prickly pear at that thought. It was obvious that making progress on the song he’d been stalled on for so long made Miguel happy – he’d barely stopped smiling the entire time they were working on it, save for when he furrowed his brow in concentration anytime he paused to rewrite his notes. She’d always loved to see people in their element, but there was something particularly wonderful about watching him throughout this process. Perhaps it was just the novelty value – most of the people she knew, she knew incredibly well; Miguel’s passion and enthusiasm were still brand-new to her. Whatever it was, she felt lucky to get to watch him work at such close quarters.

“Oh!” he said suddenly, pulling his notebook closer across the table, raising his eyebrows as he skimmed a few lines of his writing.

“What’s up?” Socorro asked, craning her neck from across the table to peer at his chicken scratch as if she might be able to glean something from it.

“I think I just figured out what was bugging me about the bridge,” he explained, starting to smile again. He wiped his hand against his jeans before picking up his pencil, leaning closer to Mirabel and tapping the page. “What if we switched these two lines? And then I could rearrange the chords a little, more like–” He licked his lips, then started to sing a little snatch of the tune, bouncing his pencil in the air in time with his da-da-das.

“…Yeah, I like that,” Mirabel answered, grinning back at him. “I think that’ll work really well, actually!”

He beamed at her, and she felt warmth bloom in her stomach.

An hour or two after lunch, they took another break to fetch drinks and let their ideas settle a bit. Mirabel slipped into the house to use the washroom, and Miguel reviewed his notes one more time while he waited for her to come back out.

“I think… I think we have it.” Miguel was grinning down at his notebook when she emerged from the house, no longer really playing a melody so much as just doodling with the guitar strings. “I think this is the song.”

In the edge of his vision, he could see Mirabel beaming. “I’m so glad! It sounds fantastic, Miguel. People are going to love it.”

“Yeah, I think they might.” He plucked out a few more notes, still looking down. He was thinking. “I, uh… Would you want to perform with me?” He glanced up then, and saw the surprise register on her face.

“What– really?”

“Yeah. I couldn’t have gotten this far without you.” He nodded, because she still looked a bit taken aback. “Without your help, I honestly couldn’t really have gotten any of this right. I’d love it if you’d come up on stage with me. Besides, it sounds better with the accompaniment.”

Mirabel flushed a little bit, and Miguel started to grin. There was something undeniably charming to him about the pleased, slightly-stunned look on her face. “But it’s– it’s your song,” she stammered, looking down, maybe trying to hide the flattered smile spreading across her cheeks. “And this whole event is kind of about your family… A-and I know how much this performance means to you. I just– I wouldn’t want to intrude…”

“No, you wouldn’t be intruding,” he assured her, trying to wrestle his expression into something more appropriate. He didn’t think he was supposed to enjoy it this much, just seeing her get a bit flustered. “If I learned anything from Héctor, it’s that one of the best parts of making music is making it for, and with, other people. Yeah, I want to be my own musician, but even that involves the contributions of so many others. Maybe I was too focused on doing it all myself.”

Mirabel hesitated a moment, biting down on a grin of her own. Then she went to perch next to him on the edge of the table, setting one hand on the accordion beside her. “Are you sure?” she asked, looking him in the eye again. “I’d be really honoured to join you. But only if you’re certain you want me to. It’s your big day.”

“I’m definitely certain,” he promised.

A little less than an hour before sunset, the Rivera family set off towards Mariachi Plaza again, this time with Mirabel in tow. Abel had dug up the shoulder strap for his accordion to make it easier to carry around, and now Miguel watched as Mirabel ran her fingers up and down the embossed leather surface.

She must have noticed him looking her way, because she glanced up, her smile a little sheepish. “It’s really beautiful,” she explained. “Is it handmade?”

“Sure is. All Rivera shoes are hand-tooled,” he answered with a nod, and a little pride. In the decade since escaping the fate of becoming a shoemaker himself, he’d learned some genuine appreciation for the craft the rest of his family pursued. “An accordion strap is a pretty easy project, by comparison. Tío Berto made that one for Abel’s birthday the year after he started playing, if I remember right.”

“That’s amazing.” She looked down at the strap again, admiring. “We don’t use a lot of leather at home. When the town was first settled, there was only one person who really knew much about leatherworking, and he’s fairly old now… and we don’t raise a lot of cattle, anyway.”

“I know I keep promising to get you home, and everything,” he answered, putting his hands in his pockets, “but if we get the chance, you should let me show you around the workshop a little. Leatherworking is one of those crafts where all the basic skills are pretty straightforward, but the real art of it takes years of practice. I feel like you’d appreciate it, somehow.” He shrugged a bit, suddenly self-conscious for some reason, when she smiled up at him again.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” she agreed. “Do you know much about it?”

“Enough that I made my own guitar strap, at least,” he said, grinning a bit and waving at his chest.

“Did you really?” Mirabel ducked closer to him, almost tripping over her own feet as she did, but she didn’t seem worried about stopping. She leaned in to trace her fingertips down the leather, which he’d stamped with calavera designs as a cheeky, private-joke sort of nod to Héctor and his own guitar. Miguel felt his face heat up a little at the closeness, but he couldn’t help a tiny swell of pride at the way her smile grew and her eyebrows raised. She was impressed. “It’s beautiful! I’d love to learn how to do something like that.”

He laughed, only a tiny bit nervously, and decided not to look up and check whether anyone had been watching. Mirabel straightened back up, but walked alongside him at closer quarters now, so he cleared his throat a bit and continued. “I, uh– I never wanted to be a shoemaker, really, but it’s hard not to learn anything about it when it’s what your whole family does. And once I knew I wasn’t doomed to be doing it forever, I actually didn’t hate working in the workshop a bit. Mostly during the summers, and on and off since I finished school.”

“I’ve always been more of an artist than a musician, really,” she said. “I mean, I love music, obviously. But making things with my hands… it just brings me a lot of joy. Especially making things for other people. And I love learning new skills when it comes to making things – expanding my toolbox, my papí always calls it.”

“I kind of got that impression.” He reached around and behind her to flick at the embroidered butterfly resting on the far shoulder of her blouse. “I think it’s cool.”

“Aw, thanks!” she said, but she’d barely opened her mouth before Manny and Benny burst out laughing behind them. Miguel felt himself flush anew, snatching his hand back at the same time that he half-turned to glower at the twins.

“Real smooth, ese,” Benny snickered.

Miguel wrinkled his nose. “I wasn’t trying to be,” he shot back, biting his tongue on an insult. “We’re just talking. Not that either of you would know what a normal conversation with a girl looks like…”

“Sure, primo.” Manny gave a thumbs-up, still grinning too widely.

Miguel rolled his eyes and returned his attention to Mirabel, who was making little effort to hide her own amusement – though he wasn’t sure whether she was laughing at his cousins or at him. They were almost at the plaza by now, though, and a thought occurred to him. “Hey, based on your outfit, I’m guessing you like bright colours, as well as handicrafts?”

“You guess correctly,” she answered, tipping her head in curiosity.

“I thought so. C’mere.” He picked up his step and waved for her to follow, weaving his way through the crowds and into the plaza. Leading her around toward the stalls on their left, he glanced back and asked, “Have you ever heard of alebrijes?”

Mirabel’s brow furrowed in mild puzzlement. “No, I haven– oh!” She broke into an enormous grin when she saw the colourful figures all over the table. “Oh, my gosh, where have these been all my life?”

He couldn’t help laughing. “Right here in Mexico,” he replied, bumping his shoulder against hers. “I think you’ve been missing out.”

“Clearly I have!” She crouched down to get a better look at them at eye-level. The man sitting behind the stall chuckled, glancing up at Miguel, who only offered him a grin and a bit of a shrug. “Oh, look at them all! What even are they?”

“Anything you want them to be, really. They’re just… fantastical, colourful little creatures. Well– or big creatures, sometimes. There’s a parade in Mexico City. But these ones are little.” He lowered his voice a bit and leaned down closer to her ear. “The real ones are even cooler.”

“Real–?” She looked up at him, somewhere between delight and disbelief. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you all about it, sometime.” He winked, then turned his attention to the table. He’d developed a lot more appreciation for alebrije figures ever since his trip to the Land of the Dead. While they didn’t quite hold up to his memories of the spirit guides he’d met there, the figurines did serve as fond reminders of his adventure, and he had more than a few of them scattered around the shelves in his bedroom.

“Antonio would love these.” She seemed to be thinking aloud, running her finger along one figurine’s snout. “I also love them, though. They remind me of stuff I used to draw as a kid, only… better. More colourful.”

Miguel couldn’t help smiling, watching her inspect them each in turn. She was the kind of person who seemed to glow, just a little bit, when she was in a good mood. He’d seen it the night before, while they were playing music together, and it came out again now as she sorted through the figurines. “Which one’s your favourite?” he asked, impulsively.

“Oh, that’s hard,” she admitted, chewing her lip for a moment as she tried to decide. Eventually she settled her finger on one with an indigo-violet base colour, its head and body mostly resembling a fox, with sunset-gold butterfly wings sprouting up from its back. “This one, I think.”

Miguel picked it up to glance at the sticker under its bum, then dug in his pocket for a moment or two. “Here,” he said, handing Mirabel the alebrije and pulling out a handful of coins and bills. Counting out his change before handing it over to the vendor, he told her, “Keep it. As a souvenir.”

Standing upright again, Mirabel clutched the alebrije to her chest. “Oh, are you–”

“If you ask whether I’m sure again, I swear to God,” he laughed. He knew this whole thing was a little ridiculous, but he was having too good a time to care. It was fun, sharing things with her, and seeing his hometown through fresh eyes. Everything he was used to was new to her. He hadn’t really seen the world this way since his sister was little.

“Okay, okay.” She giggled a little, pausing to admire the figure a moment longer before tucking it safely away in her bag. “Really, though… thank you. I’ll treasure her.”

“Good.” Glancing up at the sky, Miguel realised it was nearly sunset – and nearly time for him to take the stage in the centre of the plaza. “Come on. We should go get ready to play.”

She nodded, and he led her towards the stage and then past it, to a small roped-off area where performers could prepare before they played. The mariachi group who’d just come offstage was still milling around, chatting amongst themselves and putting their instruments back away in their cases. Several of the men glanced up to greet Miguel, smiling broadly and offering encouragements. “We can’t wait to hear the new song, hombre!” one of them called out with a playful wink.

“It better be good,” another one of them teased, waving his trumpet case. “Because you know my little girls are gonna ask me to learn it, just like they’ve done with everything else you write. So give me something fun to play, Rivera.”

“Well, I’d hate to disappoint them,” Miguel laughed, exchanging a grin with Mirabel. “I’ll do my best, Ignacio.”

Once they were finished pulling their things together, the mariachi band dispersed back into the crowd, promising to stick around and hear Miguel play. And then it was only a matter of waiting. Miguel pulled his guitar over his shoulder and fiddled idly with his strings. Mirabel, similarly, drew the bellows of Abel’s accordion and played a few warm-up notes.

A few moments later Miguel felt a nudge at his knees, and he glanced down and broke into a smile. “Dante! There you are!” he greeted, reaching to give the dog a scratch behind the ears. “Mirabel, meet Dante! This is the mangy mutt I told you about.”

“Oh, look at you!” she laughed, shifting the accordion into one arm and crouching down to say hello. Dante was happy for the attention, and balanced a paw against her knee so that he could get up and give her a good sniff. Before Miguel could stop him, the dog licked clean up her face, but luckily Mirabel only laughed, picking up the hem of her skirt and wiping herself dry. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, too!”

Since they seemed to get along just fine without him, Miguel turned around and peered out at the crowd for a moment. It was a good turnout, though that wasn’t really a surprise, given that Héctor’s birthday had become one of Santa Cecilia’s favourite non-holiday celebrations of the year. Mostly he was grateful for such nice weather, after last year’s rain.

He wasn’t really listening to the MC. He knew the spiel more than well enough by now. We’re celebrating the birthday of our very own Héctor Rivera, whose great-great-grandson is following in his footsteps and gracing us with a performance… Everyone in town already knew all that, really. Even out-of-towners knew exactly what was going on; that was why they were here.

He spotted his family and some friends a few rows back in the audience, already glowing with pride the way they often did when he had a performance, and he smiled a bit to himself, amused. Socorro had convinced Abel to heave her up on his shoulders so that she could see better, and she waved when she spotted him watching. To their right, Miguel saw his Papá turning to speak to someone nearby.

And the smile faded from his face. Swearing softly, he swung around, ducking back behind the corner of the stage as if to hide from view.

“What’s wrong?” Mirabel asked, standing up again. Dante, clueless as ever, wound his way around her legs and then Miguel’s.

“That’s Eduardo my Papá’s talking to!” Miguel hissed, dragging a hand down his face. Peeking around the stage again, he sought out his father and watched the man’s expression turn from a broad smile to a frown of confusion as he chatted with their neighbour. “Why did I say you were his niece? I should’ve picked someone we never talk to!” He was such a shit liar when put on the spot, and he knew it; he should’ve seen this coming.

“Miguel!” called the event organiser standing next to the stage stairs. “Thirty seconds!” She flashed them a thumbs up, blissfully unaware of Miguel’s sudden crisis.

“Miguel– Miguel, it’s fine,” Mirabel said then, stepping closer to put a hand on his shoulder. He looked up and saw her smiling at him, seemingly unconcerned. “One thing at a time. Let’s deal with this first, right? And then we’ll figure out what to say to your family afterwards.” She nodded toward the stage, where the MC was coming down the stairs. “They’re waiting for you.”

For just a second or so, Miguel recalled the first time he’d ever freaked out before performing, and the advice he’d been given at the time. He’d often felt a bit jittery before taking the stage, since then, and he’d always thought back to that moment – to Héctor, gesturing urgently from out of view of the crowd, trying to help him overcome the nerves. And that image had always lent him the little bit of courage it took to get started.

Even more briefly, it crossed his mind that this image of Mirabel, smiling at him and saying they’re waiting for you, might just join that memory of Héctor in the future.

Then he swallowed and nodded, taking a deep breath and shaking out his arms. “Yeah. Okay. This first.”

They hopped up the steps and onto the stage together, and Miguel took his familiar spot in front of the microphone. He could take a second to introduce his new friend, to thank her for her contributions, but… there would be time for that later. Instead, he opted for the tried-and-true opener he’d been using for eleven years now: he leaned close to the mic, gave his best grito, and began to play.

Behind him, to his left, Mirabel was playing as well, and the sound of her accordion part calmed his nerves somehow. He closed his eyes for a second, focussing on the music, and when he opened them again he was smiling. “Muy buenas, how ya been?” he sang, taking in the sight of the crowd, imagining Héctor among them. “It’s good to see your face again…”

He felt Dante collide with his knees when the dog decided to join them onstage, bouncing excitedly from one paw to the other as the song’s energy picked up. It was hard not to smile at that, or at the flashes of teal-blue in the edge of his vision as Mirabel’s skirt flared around her, or at the growing enthusiasm of the audience. Though Mirabel had no microphone, Miguel could occasionally hear her singing along with him, and it warmed him a little. Her singing wasn’t part of the performance; it was only part of having fun. She was enjoying performing with him as much as he was enjoying performing with her.

Miguel’s anxiety melted away as he reached the first chorus. The crowd danced and cheered now, supportive as ever of his endeavours, and Mirabel spun up closer to his side, apparently overcoming her earlier concern about taking too much of the spotlight off of him. When he looked at her, she was beaming, and it made his heart feel light. “When the world starts turning grey,” he sang, and she swung her hip to bump against his before twirling away, the motion smooth on the ball of one foot, making him wish possibly for the first time in his life that he had a clip mic instead of a stand. It would be fun to swing around the stage with her. “I think of you, and what you’d say…” Mouthing along with his words, Mirabel winked and spun back to his side.

Still bounding around their feet, Dante joined in with an excited howl as Miguel played a solo between verses. Laughing at the dog’s enthusiasm, Miguel swept his gaze across his family and friends where they stood front and centre. Though his father’s brow was still creased with confusion, they all looked like they were enjoying the performance, which was just as heartening now as it had been eleven years ago. Then he looked across at Mirabel again and found her watching him, bright-eyed, as he played through his solo. Something in her expression was impossible to look away from, and so they just smiled broadly at each other for a couple bars. He managed not to miss any notes, but it was hard to drag his eyes away from hers, and he had to swallow hard before leaning into the microphone again.

Time never really worked the way he expected it to when he was onstage, and so the final refrain came far sooner than he expected. Even if he felt like he could happily have kept singing for hours, though, and stretched this moment out to last all night long, there was none of the disappointment that sometimes accompanied the end of a set. Everything was too good, that very second, for him to feel anything beyond buzzing joy. “And I know we’ll make it through,” he belted one more time, sharing another look with Mirabel. “I’ve got my colour ‘cause of you…”

He played his last few notes, stepping back from the microphone and taking in one of his favourite moments of a performance: that fraction of a second between the end of a song and the rising cheers from the crowd. Everyone clapped and shouted and whistled their appreciation – his family and friends, his neighbours, the mariachis who’d taught and played with him, the townspeople who’d supported his dream of following in Héctor’s footsteps. Almost everyone he’d ever known was here in this plaza, whooping their delight at his new song. Still beyond grateful for her help, Miguel turned his grin to Mirabel. After a second she nodded towards the audience and raised her eyebrows at him, biting down on her smile.

“Thank you, everybody,” he managed to say as he turned back to the mic, smiling so widely his face was beginning to hurt. He gestured toward Mirabel, inspiring renewed applause. “And thank you as well to my friend Mirabel, who not only performed with me tonight but also helped me write everything you just heard.” She curtsied, a little flushed but obviously flattered by the whistles from the crowd. Then Dante wound close around Miguel’s legs yet again, and he laughed and held his arms out toward the dog, too. “And, of course, thank you to Dante, our very enthusiastic backup dancer.”

In the corner of his vision, he could see the MC headed up the stage steps again, so he bowed one more time and started to step back. Glancing up, he saw Socorro cheering from atop Abel’s shoulders, and he locked that image in his mind as he and Mirabel stepped off the stage.

At the bottom of the stairs, their eyes met and they simply started laughing again, enjoying the performance high too much to speak. He didn’t have it in him to worry too much, anymore, about what to tell his family about her; nothing could quite spoil the moment. So he swung his guitar over his shoulder onto his back, then beckoned her a little closer and held out his hands, and when she realised what he was after she passed him the accordion, lifting the strap up over her head.

“Hey, Paola,” he called, turning towards the event organiser standing a few feet away. She glanced up, smiling widely.

“Yeah, Miguel!” She tucked her clipboard under her arm. “Fantastic job, both of you!”

“Thanks!” He grinned and handed her the accordion. “Return this to Abel, will you? If he asks, tell him we’ll be back in a bit.” Not waiting for an answer, he spun back to Mirabel and grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her in the opposite direction of the audience.

“Where are we going?” she asked, still giggling, nearly tripping over Dante the way he trotted along underfoot.

Miguel looked over his shoulder at her. “Buying time,” he laughed back. “I still need to figure out what to say to my family, so I figured we could cut through the front of the restaurant and take off for a little while.” He jerked his head towards the storefront only a few steps ahead of them.

Maybe it was just the light, as the sun went down and the streetlamps in the plaza flickered to life, but Mirabel seemed to glow even more now than she had earlier, when she’d been looking at the alebrijes. His heart was still thudding with the rush of the show, but suddenly he felt more conscious of it, even as he beamed back at her and braced his shoulder against the front door of the restaurant to push it open.

Focussed as he was on her face, he stumbled very slightly as he crossed the threshold, the floor not quite where he expected it to be. But in the same fraction of a second that he registered that, he also noticed an odd change in the light, and then Mirabel’s gaze slid from his eyes to something just past him, her smile slipping from her face and quickly replaced with shock. They weren’t even all the way through the door yet when he swung around, trying to figure out what was going on, and then stopped dead.

They weren’t in the restaurant. Instead they were standing in an enormous room he’d never seen before, doors lining the walls. He felt Dante collide with his calves at the same time that a little girl threw her arms around Mirabel’s knees, wailing, and he looked back at Mirabel’s face, both of them wide-eyed as they realised what must have happened. She looked down at the little girl, stunned.

“T– Teodora? Did you– did you find me somehow?”

Teodora’s sobs had immediately caught the attention of a group of people standing a few metres away, and they all looked up with a start, crying out the moment they realised what was happening. “Oh, my God!” “Mirabel!” “Miercoles, Mira–” They rushed over, and Miguel found himself surrounded in an instant.

One man, narrow-shouldered with dark circles around his eyes and messy hair shot through with grey, looked from Mirabel to Miguel in surprise, then down at Dante, and his eyes grew even wider. “Is– is that the dog?”

Chapter Text

“Oh, Mirabel, mi vida,” her mother was gasping, arms wrapped around Mirabel’s head, pulling her down close to her chest. Teodora was still sobbing at Mirabel’s knees, but that didn’t stop at least half a dozen more Madrigals from crowding around her, jostling this way and that. Miguel’s grip on her wrist had loosened the moment he’d realised what was happening, but now she felt him pulled away from her completely as Isabela wormed into the group and began tugging at Mirabel’s blouse as if to check for damage. A little overwhelmed, Mirabel fought halfway out of her mother’s embrace to look his direction, meeting his eye over Dolores’s shoulder. She wasn’t sure what she would say even if she could get a word in amongst her family’s fretting, but she wanted to make sure he was all right.

He seemed to figure that out, because he raised his hands and shook his head, the gesture amounting to something like don’t worry about me. She nodded a little. He definitely looked startled – understandably – but he wasn’t freaking out. So that was a good thing.

“I told you she was fine!” That was Antonio’s voice, and when she turned to look at him, his expression said the same thing his tone had: that the entire household had been in panic mode all day long, and his reassurances had fallen on deaf ears. When he noticed her looking his way, he glanced up, and they shared a moment’s gaze. They knew each other well, and so as soon as she raised her eyebrows and gave him a weak smile, he nodded and smiled back, the tension leaving his shoulders. “I’ll go let everyone else know you’re home,” he told her then, pointing over his shoulder with one thumb before darting off.

Mirabel put up with another few moments of chaos before she finally began to resist. “Guys, guys– Papí– give Dorita some space, huh?” She looked at both of her parents fondly, but gave them a firm push away, and everyone shared sheepish looks as they stepped back. Teodora still had both arms wrapped tightly around Mirabel’s legs, her shoulders shaking, leaving a growing wet spot on Mirabel’s skirt. Mirabel very gently began to extract herself, crouching down as she did, so that she could hug the girl properly.

“Mirabelllll,” Teodora wept, clearly overcome. “I’m sorryyyy! I thought you were gone for- foreverrrr!”

“Oh, no,” Mirabel soothed, holding her close and smoothing her hair. “Oh, little one, I’m so sorry you were scared. I promise, I was going to find a way home, no matter what happened.”

After rubbing Teodora’s back for a few moments, Mirabel tried to stand back up, but it became quickly apparent that Teodora had no plans to let go. With a sigh, Mirabel folded her legs underneath her and knelt in place, looking up at her family members in turn. Her parents stood to her right, holding each other tightly and watching her like they worried that if they looked away she’d disappear again. Isabela hovered near their mother’s side, uncharacteristically anxious, fidgeting back and forth on the balls of her feet. In front of her, Mariano had knelt down and was gently trying to pry his daughter off of Mirabel’s neck, but to no avail. He glanced up at Mirabel with a sort of sheepishly-sympathetic look, one hand still on Teodora’s waist, but she only shrugged a bit, resigned. Dolores was behind him, chewing her lip, and Camilo next to her, wringing the hem of his ruana. Standing a bit further back was Bruno, the only member of the family who seemed unable to decide where to look: his gaze flicked from Mirabel over to Dante, now standing by Miguel’s feet, then up to Miguel’s face, then back to Mirabel again.

And Miguel… he stood a respectful distance away, both hands wrapped around his guitar strap, looking understandably uncomfortable. He gave Mirabel a small, awkward smile, and she tried to communicate with her eyes that she’d make introductions as soon as she could.

On that note, Mirabel suddenly straightened up slightly, craning her neck around to look back at the door they’d come in through. She grimaced when she saw that it had been pushed shut in all the commotion, but her thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of hailstones on the floorboards and wind whipping into the room. The rest of the family had arrived, with a clearly-very-stressed Pepa at the front of the charge.

Mirabel braced herself to be surrounded again, but things were a little calmer now, perhaps because Antonio had had the opportunity to assure everyone that she was fine. Félix swooped to Mirabel’s rescue, Teodora finally releasing her grip as she was pulled into her Abuelo’s comforting embrace. Mirabel barely managed to get back to her feet before she felt herself swept up from behind into one of Luisa’s crushing hugs.

“We were so worried about you, Mira!” her sister cried, and Mirabel caught sight of her Abuela’s concerned expression as Luisa swung her side to side. “Where’ve you been?”

“Luisa!” Mirabel wheezed in response. “Lungs!”

“Right!” Luisa put her back down, biting her lip as she took a step back, but after a deep breath Mirabel turned around and gave her sister a smile.

“I’m fine, Luisa. Promise.” Then, casting a glance around the room at her assembled family, she went to stand next to Miguel again. “I’ve been in Santa Cecilia. In Mexico.” She nodded sideways towards her new friend, raising her eyebrows meaningfully.

Finally everyone seemed to fully register his presence as they turned to look at him. Most of their reactions seemed to be surprise, or mild confusion, but Mirabel’s gaze went to her Abuela – Alma drew close to Bruno, perhaps unconsciously, momentary shock quickly giving way to serious concern. Though her son was looking rather worried himself, he took his mother’s hand in a small, comforting gesture. Mentally, Mirabel thanked him – the last thing she needed was for Abuela to react too impulsively.

“This is Miguel Rivera. He gave me something to eat, and somewhere to rest my head last night, and most importantly, he was helping me try to find my way home.” Then, feeling Dante stick his head between her legs, she glanced down at his snout poking out from beneath the hem of her skirt and added with a snort, “And this is Dante, of course.”

“Dante!” Miguel hissed, jolting into action with obvious embarrassment. He wrapped one arm around the dog’s narrow ribcage and tugged him out from under her. “Don’t be rude in front of all these new people!” He stood back up, the dog now half-hanging cheerfully from his arms, and gave the Madrigals a sheepish smile. “Um. Hi.”

Mirabel turned a slightly desperate eye to her mother, who started a little before – blessedly – stepping forward with a warm smile. “Miguel! Thank you so much for looking after our daughter,” she said. One of her hands disappeared behind her back for a moment, and she must have been gesturing to Agustín, because he blinked and then leapt to life as well. Mirabel bit back a smile at the way her father stumbled over his own feet, jumping up to offer Miguel a handshake.

“Yes! Thank you!”

“We, um– don’t often get visitors,” Julieta continued, clearly a little uncertain how to approach the situation, but giving a commendable effort all the same. “Forgive us for being unprepared…”

“It’s okay, Mamá,” Mirabel told her, beginning to relax. Both her parents and Miguel glanced her way, and she offered a reassuring smile. “I explained everything. He knows about the Encanto, and the miracle.”

There was a murmur around the room at that. “You told him?” Pepa squawked, wind picking up around her again and an anxious cloud beginning to form over her head. “A stranger, Mirabel?”

“Yes, Pepa, but I promise it’s all right!” Mirabel said in a rush, raising her hands placatingly. She looked then at Abuela and Bruno, both of them clearly increasingly concerned, and felt her own anxiety begin to mount once again. She had to resist the protective urge to move even closer and grab Miguel’s arm, as if someone might try to take him away. “Listen, Miguel’s not just some random guy I chose for no reason. I mean, most people would’ve just thought I was crazy, don’t you think? He may be new to miracles, but he’s seen his share of magic.”

“…It’s true,” he agreed, when he realised how many of the Madrigals were looking at him now. He hoisted the dog up a little in his grip and offered, “Dante may only look like a mangy old xolo, but he’s actually my spirit guide, too…” Dante made a questioning sort of noise, glancing up at Miguel. Clearly feeling awkward – perhaps realising that this probably wasn’t the most convincing evidence he could present – Miguel gently put the dog back on the floor. Oblivious, Dante sat down and began to chew on one of his hind feet.

“Still, Mirabel,” Dolores said uncertainly from her father’s side, one of her hands still on Teodora’s tiny shoulder. “I mean, no offense, um, Miguel – we really do appreciate you helping her – but telling an outsider about the Encanto…”

Antonio sighed, then, noisily and exaggeratedly, and made his way up to the front of the crowd. “Again, I told you guys she was safe and fine the whole time,” he pointed out, resting his hands on his hips as he turned to face the family. He was still short, even at twelve years old, and usually so soft-spoken, but he had a way of getting the family to listen to him when he needed them to, and Mirabel had never appreciated it more than she did now. “And now she’s back, safe and fine, thanks to this new friend she made. Aren’t you all being kind of rude?”

Even with his back to her, Mirabel could perfectly picture his skeptically-raised eyebrow, and she adored him for it.

To her surprise, it was Mariano who spoke up next. “You’re absolutely right, Toño,” he agreed, stepping forward a little and offering Miguel his ever-friendly smile. “I’m sorry, Miguel. This isn’t at all how we should greet a friend of Mirabel’s.”

“I mean, it’s okay,” Miguel said then, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I get that this is probably pretty weird… I promise your secret’s safe with me. But I definitely don’t want to hang around and get in everyone’s hair, if it’s too uncomfortable having a stranger around…”

Mirabel sighed then. “And on that subject…” She turned and stepped over to the wall, reopening the door that they’d come through only moments ago. As she’d expected, it no longer led to Santa Cecilia; only to a small alcove that wouldn’t even qualify as a closet. Gesturing into the empty space, she looked back to her family. “I don’t think sending him back home is an option, unfortunately.”

Julieta took a deep breath and spread her hands. “And we wouldn’t send him out right away anyway, because as Antonio said, that would be rude,” she said firmly, as if putting her foot down against any further disagreement. “Either way, we would at very least invite him to join us for dinner.” Then she offered her daughter a smile. “Perhaps you can catch us up on your adventures in Mexico, and we can fill you in on what’s been going on here.”

“That sounds great, Mamá. Thank you,” Mirabel said, sharing a relieved little smile with Miguel. He nodded his agreement, but his brows were knitted with new concern.

“My parents are gonna be looking for us already, probably,” he said softly when she stepped close again. “And it’s not like there’s anywhere else I’d usually go to spend the night. I just– you guys don’t have, like, a phone, do you?” The question had barely passed his lips before he shook his head, cutting himself off. “No, we’re in Colombia, the long distance charges would be killer– um–”

Agustín was frowning, now, a little confused. “We have… a gramophone?” he suggested slowly, looking from Miguel to Mirabel.

Miguel blinked at him. “Oh. Right,” he realised. “Technologically insulated. Um, don’t… don’t worry about it.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Mirabel assured him, much the same way he’d done for her the night before. She put her hand on his shoulder and waited for him to meet her eye again, then promised, “We’ll get you home, one way or another. I owe you that much.”

“Well… in fairness, I didn’t end up getting you home,” he pointed out, half-joking, and she smiled a little.

“I know, but your help still meant a lot.” She gave him a quick squeeze before letting go. Her mother was already ushering the family out of Teodora’s room, and Mirabel wanted to catch Bruno and Abuela before they were gone. “One second, Miguel, I’ll be right back.”

He glanced toward her Abuela just for half a second, and she supposed he’d noticed that Alma’s – and Bruno’s – concern was of a somewhat different variety than the rest of her family’s. “Yeah. Take your time.”

She nodded to him, then dashed toward the doorway, managing to catch the frayed corner of Bruno’s ruana just before he and Abuela left the room. “Hey,” she said, voice low, already bracing herself. Bruno stopped to look back at her, and because he had his arm linked through his mother’s, she turned as well.

“…Hey,” Bruno answered slowly, his brow furrowing.

“Listen, I’m sorry I brought Miguel back with me like this,” Mirabel said, looking more at her Abuela than her uncle. “I swear, I didn’t mean for this to happen. I mean– I started talking to him for a reason, obviously, but– when I was looking for a way back, I wasn’t planning on just dragging him along with me, y’know? I just– I don’t want you to think I didn’t give any thought to how this would make you feel…”

“No, it’s… it’s okay, Mira, it’s…” Bruno bit his lip, casting a glance down at his mother’s face. “Julieta’s right, right, Má? We all need to eat something. And then we can figure out the next steps.”

Alma searched her son’s eyes, then Mirabel’s. “Yes,” she sighed after a long moment. “Yes. Mirabel, after dinner, you bring Miguel up to my room, and the four of us will discuss… well… everything, I suppose.” She still seemed unsettled by the situation, but she was doing her best to compose herself. Though it may well only have been an attempt not to let the rest of the family see her rattled, Mirabel was grateful just to have things remain calm for now.

“Of course,” she agreed, with a hurried nod. “But I promise, Abuela, whatever’s happening, Miguel won’t do anything to hurt us. Any of us. He’s a good person.”

Mirabel’s quiet conversation with her uncle and her abuela didn’t take very long, and then she hurried back to collect Miguel so that they could get out of the way – Teodora seemed to have worn herself out crying, and now her parents and her abuelo were carefully tucking her into bed in one corner of the door-lined room. Out in the hallway, Mirabel trailed her fingers along the railing and said, “Hola Casita. This is my new friend Miguel – say hello!” Miguel watched with a mix of surprise and delight as the balusters bounced and rippled down the length of the hall, making the entire railing jump under their hands.

“You actually live in a magic house,” he observed, really more to himself than to her, and let out a bit of a laugh. “That’s awesome.”

Dante, taken aback by the shifting architecture, paused to sniff curiously at the floor. Next to a potted plant, he began to lift his leg, but before Miguel could even move to stop him, one of the balusters swung out and smacked the dog on the rump. Dante made a squeaky, surprised sort of sound and leapt to catch up with Miguel, looking more puzzled than ever; Miguel could only laugh again.

“Serves you right,” he said, bopping the dog on the head.

Mirabel, suppressing a chuckle, turned to look at them as she started down the stairs. “Judging by the smell, I’d say dinner was already underway when we got here. We should probably go get ready to eat. I hope you’re hungry…”

“Yeah, definitely,” Miguel agreed with a nod. They hadn’t had anything to eat before leaving for Mariachi Plaza, planning at the time to buy something at the festival after they played – and now that the adrenaline of the performance, and the confusion and alarm of everything since, had begun to wear off, he could feel his stomach grumbling. “Um, do you think we could find something to give Dante?”

“Of course we can.” She smiled. “Antonio’s usually feeding a few four-legged friends on any given day. I’m sure we’ll have something Dante’ll like.”

“Cool,” Miguel said, remembering as she spoke what Antonio’s Gift was.

As if on cue, Antonio appeared at the bottom of the staircase. “Did I hear my name?”

“You did!” Mirabel called, picking up her step a little to join him. “We were wondering if we could find something to feed Dante here.”

“Oh, for sure,” he agreed, waving them to follow him through a doorway. Miguel assumed they must be approaching the kitchen, based on the delicious smells wafting up the hallway, but just before they reached it Antonio and Mirabel turned through another door, leading into a spacious pantry.

“What do you like, Dante?” Antonio asked conversationally, opening a cupboard and taking a dog dish off the top of a stack of them. Dante paused and sat down, cocking his head at the boy for a moment before opening his mouth to yap something that sounded like a question. “Yeah, anything you want,” Antonio confirmed with a single nod, one brow creasing even in his amusement.

Dante seemed confused for a moment, glancing first at a garbage can in the corner, and Miguel winced. “He’s a street mutt, through and through,” he admitted, self-conscious suddenly. “I mean, if I can’t find him, my best bet is usually literally to start checking through people’s trash…”

Antonio snickered, and Miguel relaxed slightly, realising he wasn’t being judged. “Come on, Dante,” Antonio said, crouching down a bit to pull the dog’s attention back to himself. “You don’t have to eat that. Here – what about this?” He opened an ice box and unwrapped what looked like some leftover chicken, dumping a generous portion into the bowl.

Dante blinked at it, then turned his face back up to Antonio and yapped again.

“Okay.” Antonio laughed again, shaking his head a bit as he got back to his feet and shouldered his way out through another door at the back of the pantry. This led out into the courtyard behind the house, and for a fraction of a second Miguel was startled to see that the sun was only beginning to set, but then he remembered that there must be a time difference between the Encanto and his hometown.

There was a soft scrape of ceramic on stone as Antonio put the bowl down on the ground, and Miguel dragged his attention back to the moment, realising with a start that there was an entire jaguar also eating dinner from a similar dish, only paces away. “Uh, whoa,” he said, taking half a step back.

“Don’t worry,” Mirabel told him, closer to his shoulder than he’d realised, and he looked over at her in surprise. She was smiling widely, eyes almost sparkling. “That’s just Parce. He’s a big baby.”

“A big baby, huh?” Miguel repeated, raising a skeptical eyebrow, but he started to return her smile. Seemingly uncaring about the predator standing nearby, Dante turned in a few wobbly circles, then sat down and began chewing on his heel. Only once he’d gnawed his own leg to satisfaction did he turn towards the bowl Antonio had left for him, giving the meal a good sniff before starting to eat so quickly he nearly choked himself.

Listening to the hideous noises that Dante made while he ate – something Miguel had long ago learned to tune out entirely, but was freshly aware of now, in the presence of new people – Antonio began to frown, rubbing his chin. “Miguel, this dog is… struggling,” he said slowly, turning to meet Miguel’s eye. “Should he have, like… a helmet, or something?”

Miguel winced again, but he was laughing this time. “Yeah, I know,” he chuckled, and in the corner of his eye he could see Mirabel hiding a giggle behind her hand. “Just tell him he’s a good boy and leave him to it. If it helps, uh, I actually don’t think he can die.”

Antonio’s expression, still concerned, took on a bit of both confusion and alarm at that, but Miguel didn’t get to explain, because Mirabel was stepping forward again. “Toño, I wanted to thank you for always having faith in me,” she said, reaching out to ruffle her cousin’s curls. “It sounded like you were the only one who really expected me to get home all in one piece. And I appreciate it.”

“’Course,” he answered, laughing slightly as he pulled his attention away from the remarkably stupid dog currently hacking up aspirated shreds of chicken breast. “I trust you to take care of yourself. But, also… a cat told me.” He shrugged, his grin halfway between sheepish and amused.

Miguel straightened up a little. “A cat?” Mirabel asked, almost dismayed.

“Yeah. She said you were safe with a friend, and that you’d be home as soon as you could.”

“Was– was this a cat you already knew?” Miguel blurted, mind racing.

Antonio looked at him in surprise. “No, I’d never seen her before. Why?”

“Did she tell you who she was?” Miguel continued, struggling to figure out how exactly to word the question. “Or– can you tell me anything about her?”

“I didn’t catch her name,” Antonio said, shaking his head. “She really only showed up long enough to tell me Mirabel was okay, and then she took off again. She was just a little brown tabby, maybe a bit old. Uh, she seemed to intimidate Parce…” He gestured over his shoulder at the jaguar.

“What are you thinking, Miguel?” Mirabel asked, leaning closer to him, brow creased.

“I, uh… I’ll explain later,” he answered, still frowning as he nodded toward the house. “It sounds like your mom is calling everyone in to eat.”

Following Antonio and Mirabel inside and towards the dining room, Miguel twisted the leather of his guitar strap between his hands. A brown tabby that showed up to tell Antonio that Mirabel was fine – was there any explanation for that, besides Pepita? That meant it had to be her he’d spotted in the dark last night, didn’t it?

He didn’t have long to think about it, because as soon as they converged with the rest of the Madrigals, everything was a whirlwind of activity. Someone politely took his guitar and put it aside on top of the piano, and he was whisked away to wash his hands, then waved into a seat at the table that pushed itself in as soon as he was sitting down. He found himself between Mirabel and her father, delicious-smelling food being passed back and forth around the table and generous helpings being scooped onto his plate for him.

It quickly became clear to Miguel that the Madrigal family centred their lives around meals pretty similarly to the way that his own family did. They all seemed to relax as they tucked into their dinners, their anxiety about both Mirabel’s security and his own presence beginning to dissipate. Once he’d made a bit of a dent in his food, Antonio looked up across the table at Mirabel and began to explain the day they’d had – how it got to be late in the morning before they’d started to realise no one had seen her. The others began to chip in as he continued: it wasn’t until someone asked Teodora, who’d been quiet and withdrawn up to that point, if she’d seen Mirabel, that things started to become clear. Nervously, the little girl had explained to her father that she’d opened a door for Mirabel the night before, and how Mirabel had stepped through to look around. Teodora had gotten sleepy waiting for her to come back, and eventually dozed off on the floor; when she woke up, she’d fallen against the door and pushed it shut. She was worried, then, that Mirabel wouldn’t be able to get home.

Once they’d gotten the truth out of the girl, there was some obvious concern, and Teodora had clearly picked up on it, because she began trying to open doors right away. Most of them, as before, led nowhere, but she was as determined as any of them had ever seen her. She only grew more upset if they tried to stop her, so eventually they’d simply stood back and let her try, taking turns to stay in the room with her as support – and occasionally to pull her away and try to calm her down, if she got too wound up. By the time she’d actually opened the door that brought Mirabel and Miguel through, she’d been at it for over six hours.

“Oh, no wonder she was so exhausted,” Mirabel gasped sympathetically, a hand to her heart. “I feel so badly that she was that worried about me…”

“Why did you go through, though, Miraboo?” Agustín asked, leaning forward to see her past Miguel.

“Oh. Um.” She bit down on a guilty smile, just for a second. “Well, you know, I tried to tell Dorita that I could take a closer look in the morning, but she was very insistent that the door was specifically for me, and that it was important I go look around. And then, um, well, there was a street festival going on in Santa Cecilia, and there was a lot of foot traffic, and I was worried that if I kept the door wide open someone would notice it didn’t lead where it was supposed to, and also that it would be difficult to turn back against the flow of traffic… So, uh, I left it propped open just a little bit and decided to walk a short ways. Around the block, maybe. But when I got back, the door had fallen closed.”

A little puzzled, Miguel glanced up at her, eyebrows slightly furrowed in question. She met his eye briefly, raising her own eyebrows in a small-but-meaningful please don’t say anything and I’ll explain later sort of expression. Though he was confused, he gave the tiniest nod as she looked back up to her father.

“Anyway, I looked all over the place to make sure I wasn’t trying the wrong door, but I couldn’t find a way back home. And then I came around a corner and ran into Miguel…”

Not giving anyone the time to question the awkward start to her story, Mirabel rolled onward to recap the last twenty-four hours from her own perspective – how she’d realised Miguel seemed like he would believe her story, and how he’d fed her dinner and listened to her and walked around town trying to help her find the way home. How he was a musician, struggling to write a new song to perform at the festival that celebrated his own great-great-grandfather, and so she’d offered to help him to repay his kindness. How she’d slept in a hammock in his little workspace, and spent the day making music with him, and performed with him on the modest stage at the centre of Mariachi Plaza. She skipped, though, any allusions to the fact that she’d sought him out specifically, or that he’d appeared in Bruno’s vision – in fact, she didn’t mention the vision at all. Miguel was taken aback, but he trusted that she’d explain when she had the chance.

After her family peppered her with a handful of questions – ranging from did you feel safe with the Riveras to the much less judgmental what was it like to be so far from home – there was a short lull in conversation before her cousin’s husband, Mariano, made the connection between the Rivera name and the town of Santa Cecilia. Politely, but clearly containing some considerable enthusiasm, he managed to ask if the great-great-grandfather in question might be Héctor Rivera, the songwriter behind now-disgraced performer Ernesto de la Cruz. Miguel smiled sheepishly, feeling somehow self-conscious of it, to his own surprise. At home, everyone knew he was Papá Héctor’s great-great-grandson, right from the get-go. He’d never actually been asked before.

“That’s him,” he answered with a nod, his embarrassment tempering the pride he felt in his family. He put down his fork to keep from playing with his food in his sudden nervousness; his Abuela had always told him that it was rude. “Learning who he really was, and then getting the chance to share that with the world and clear his name with the family… I’ve never been prouder. de la Cruz was my hero before that, but Papá Héctor is ten times the man de la Cruz could ever have dreamed of being.”

In spite of his obvious excitement, Mariano’s smile was tender. “Héctor clearly stays very close to your heart,” he said kindly. “You speak as if you knew the man personally.”

“Oh. Well, I mean…” Miguel started to laugh at that, and he couldn’t help exchanging a glance with Mirabel, who was already giggling herself.

Sitting across from them, Camilo narrowed his eyes, evidently beginning to see that there was more to this than it sounded like. “All right, hang on,” he said, lifting a hand over the table. “Miguel, we were all wondering anyway, but I think it’s time for us to hear about your big adventure.” His tone was overly suspicious, half-joking, but he did a good job of keeping a straight face.

Miguel glanced at Mirabel, feeling oddly uncertain with so many pairs of eyes on him. “You have been promising me the whole story,” she pointed out with a grin, elbowing him playfully. Then, a little more softly, “Share as much or as little as you want. But I can promise, everybody will believe you.”

He looked down at his mostly-finished dinner, then over his shoulder at Dante where he was passed out asleep on his back, legs in the air, next to a very relaxed capybara. As spectacularly strange as this evening had been – as the entire last twenty-four hours had been – he felt like he was, for the first time in his life, sitting in a room where he could tell the whole story of his night in the Land of the Dead with Papá Héctor, and be taken completely at his word.

So that was what he did.

“So, at home, we have this holiday called Día de los Muertos…”

As oddly charming as it was to watch Miguel’s face as he watched the table help clear itself, after dinner, Mirabel knew she had to keep her promise to Abuela. She gave his sleeve a gentle tug, then jerked her head towards the stairs. “There’s another conversation we have to have before we can relax for the night, unfortunately,” she murmured, and he tore his gaze away from the dishes as they rolled along a rippling countertop and through a window into the kitchen.

She wasn’t surprised that Bruno was already in Abuela’s room, speaking quietly to his mother. Alma looked up when Mirabel and Miguel stepped inside, and she frowned slightly. “Mirabel, I was… hoping to speak with you, first,” she said, evidently annoyed but trying to keep her cool in front of a stranger.

Mirabel wasn’t having it. “I’m a grownup, Abuela,” she said firmly, squaring her shoulders. “I have perfectly good character judgment skills, and I trust Miguel. He has to be here for at least part of this discussion – I’m hardly going to make him stand out in the hallway and wait while we hash this out.”

Bruno, despite his natural inclination to damage control in any kind of confrontation, put his hand on Alma’s arm. “She’s not really wrong, Má,” he pointed out gently.

There was maybe a second before Abuela’s shoulders drooped slightly, her brows relaxing from irritation to anxiety. “I… yes. Of course.” She took a deep breath, then turned to look at Miguel, who stood awkwardly behind Mirabel’s shoulder. “I apologise for my manners, Miguel. Please, come sit down.” She gestured to the little sitting area around her coffee table, moving to sit herself in one of the small armchairs.

Mirabel turned to give Miguel a reassuring smile, and he followed her to sit in the small sofa across from Abuela, Bruno going to the other chair. Miguel leaned forward as he sat, shrugging one shoulder. “It’s… it’s okay, Sra. Madrigal,” he told her, obviously feeling a bit uncomfortable again, but doing his best. “You’re trying to protect your family. It’s what my Abuela has always done, too. I admire that.”

Mirabel turned quickly back to Alma, curious, and saw that the woman was a little taken aback. “…Thank you,” she answered slowly. “It’s… Well, yes. From everything you told us at dinner, it sounds like that is what your Abuela has done, and her Abuela before her. That’s our responsibility, as the heads of our families. So I can only hope that you understand that my misgivings about you aren’t personal. As so many of the others said, we appreciate immensely that you went out of your way to look after Mirabel. But I also have to keep my community safe from outsiders.”

Mirabel sat forward in her seat then, putting a hand out toward Miguel as if to stop him from saying anything more, though she wasn't sure he was going to. “Abuela, please,” she said. “Miguel may not be from the Encanto, but he’s not a stranger.”

“You’ve only known him for a day, Mirabel,” Alma responded, her brow furrowing.

“That doesn’t make him a stranger, Abuela,” Mirabel argued. “I may not know his favourite colour, or his birthday, but I know he was willing to help me out – a stranger, to use your words, and one he could easily have dismissed as a lunatic – during what might otherwise have been one of the scariest experiences of my entire life. He fed and housed me without a second thought. I sat at the breakfast table with his entire family, and I held his baby niece. I helped him write and perform a song, in memory of his beloved great-great-grandfather, in front of his entire community. And he shared his deepest, most personal secret with me. Miguel opened his entire heart to me, with no reason. We aren’t strangers – I think we know each other plenty, already, in the ways that count.”

Bruno fidgeted a little in his chair. “I trust you, Mirabel,” he said after a second, then looked at his mother. “If she trusts Miguel so completely, then... so do I. I still don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t think Miguel is our enemy in this.”

Alma looked torn. “Even if he’s not our enemy, mi vida... What you saw... we can't know that his presence here is safe for us.”

“Come on,” Mirabel pleaded. “You all thought I was going to destroy the house and the entire miracle after Bruno’s last big vision, but that didn’t exactly go as expected, did it?”

Bruno raised his eyebrows at his mother, tipping his head.

“What’s the alternative, here, anyway?” Mirabel went on. “It’s not like we can send him away. We don’t have a way to get him home, and it’s not like we could ask anyone else in town to take him in.”

Alma's eyes widened a little at that, and Mirabel knew she’d found the right argument: her Abuela was realising, suddenly, the worry – perhaps even panic – it could cause if the rest of the Encanto learned that there was a stranger in their midst. She pulled her shawl a little tighter, one hand disappearing inside of it for a moment, and Mirabel suspected that Abuela was running her thumb over the surface of her locket, as she so often did when she worried.

Miguel cleared his throat at this point and shifted forward in his spot. Mirabel looked over at him, and she could tell he was uncomfortable, but he was doing his level best to look her Abuela in the eye. “I promise, Sra. Madrigal, I understand that all you’ve ever done is take care of the people around you. Not just your family, but everyone in the Encanto. I respect that more than I can say. I mean no harm to you, or anyone here. Just the thought of doing anything to hurt you or your home breaks my heart.” Though nervous, he also looked so earnest. Mirabel knew she wasn't the one who needed convincing, but she truly believed him all the same.

There was a moment of silence, and then Bruno turned to look at Alma again. “You heard him tell his story at dinner, Má,” he said softly, reaching across to touch her shoulder lightly. “I think Miguel understands the importance of protecting family.”

Finally Abuela sighed, leaning one elbow on the arm of her chair. Suddenly she looked... a lot more tired than Mirabel was used to seeing her. “Yes. You’re all right,” she admitted, some of the stubbornness leaving her posture. “He can stay. I’m sorry, Mirabel. And you, too, Miguel. Please, forgive my hesitation.”

“Thank you, Abuela,” Mirabel said, bursting up from her seat to throw her arms around Alma’s shoulders. “It means so much to me. We’ll try to figure this out tomorrow, after we’ve all had a proper sleep. I’ll have Casita set up a cot for him.” She kissed the top of her Abuela’s head and then, grabbing Miguel by the arm, hurried out of the room. “Thank you, too, Bruno!” she added over her shoulder as they took off into the hall.

Mirabel pulled him along the mezzanine, halfway around the house, before finally tossing a big grin over her shoulder, and he couldn’t help but chuckle a little. “Where are we going now?” he asked, entertained by her sudden change of mood.

“We’re in the clear,” she answered, giving him another smile as she grabbed a shawl that was hanging on the railing and threw it across her shoulders. “So I’m taking you out to see more of the Encanto before Abuela changes her mind and decides she actually wants to talk about this some more.”

Miguel laughed again, allowing her to lead him down the stairs and out the front door.

To his surprise, she began to veer off the path as they headed down the hill, aiming instead towards the edge of town. “It would probably freak people out to see a total stranger walking around,” she explained, before he even had the chance to ask. “So we’ll stick to the quieter areas, for now. I wish I could show you everything, but… Well. Maybe not tonight.”

He nodded, tucking his hands into his sweater pockets and falling into step with her as she slowed down to a more casual stroll. “I didn’t even really think about that,” he admitted. “I guess given how much I startled your family, the rest of the town might… uh, react strongly.”

“They might, yeah,” Mirabel agreed, amused. Looking at him from the corner of her eye, she added, “I may have been leveraging that against Abuela, when I said we couldn’t just turn you out for the night.”

Taken aback, he let out a loud laugh. Of course – after all, in his own Abuela’s eyes, the only thing worse than a problem at home was a problem at home that the neighbours knew about. And with the Madrigals being the centre of their community, obviously Alma wouldn’t want everyone to know there were things happening in the household that she was unprepared to handle. “You’re a little devious!” he teased, bumping her elbow with his own, but there was a shade of admiration in his tone.

“I absolutely am,” she said proudly, grinning and holding herself up a little straighter.

Miguel chuckled a little, turning his attention up to the sky. He did know that light pollution made a big difference, but it was still amazing to see so many stars, here where there were so few electric lights to affect the view. It was a warm, humid evening, the sounds of birds and animals occasionally drawing his attention to the edge of the rainforest not far to their left, and he couldn't help observing that everything around them seemed so... alive. So vibrant. Not unlike Mirabel herself.

“Oh, hey,” he said then, remembering almost with a start that there were still things he meant to ask her. It would be so easy just to relax into this moment and forget how strange the last day and a half had been, how strange the next couple of days might still be. “At dinner – you were clearly skirting the subject of your Tío Bruno’s vision. What was that about?”

“Oh... yeah.” She cringed a little. “The thing is, we didn’t really, uh... tell the rest of the family. About that.” She slowed her step, pulling at one of the curls that framed her face. “Bruno hadn’t really done a big vision like that since the house was rebuilt. Even though things obviously didn’t pan out the way he feared, back then, it was still a pretty big deal... I had to talk him into this one, and I think it shook him up when it showed another apparent disaster. We told Abuela, because we figured she at least ought to know, but then the three of us thought we’d keep it to ourselves for now. So no one else knows that he saw you, let alone the context. And we don’t wanna cause a panic like the last time...”

Miguel nodded thoughtfully. “Okay. I guess that makes sense. But it does kinda... make it hard to explain some things to everyone, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.” She sighed, shoulders drooping. “I mean... Even if you hadn’t appeared in that vision, I don’t think I’d really want to just send you home and call this weird little adventure over. But given the way you’re clearly connected to everything else that’s going on, somehow, I don't think it’s going to be that simple anyway. I just don’t know how to justify things to the rest of my family if that means you hanging around for a while instead of hurrying home.”

He found himself reaching towards her instinctively, but hesitated for a second before just brushing his hand lightly against her elbow. “Hey, we’ll figure this out,” he reassured her. “Even excuses for me to stick around, if we need them. I don’t love the thought of my family not knowing where I went, but I can’t control that right now, so I’m... not gonna dwell on it.” His smile came out as more of a grimace. “In the meantime... I meant it when I said that I hate to think of any harm coming to this place. If there’s something I can do to help prevent that, I will.”

Mirabel rubbed her arms before looking over to him again, brows knitted but a smile on her lips. “Thanks, Miguel,” she said quietly. “I appreciate it.”

“’Course,” he murmured back, rubbing at his nose.

They walked close to the treeline, away from the buildings, but she took a moment to point to the backs of the houses and tell him which family lived in each. She talked about watching her sisters plant gardens or build walls along that stretch over the years, and about how Mariano still came down the hill to visit with his mother almost every day in her little bungalow at the end.

“I still wanted to ask what all that was about the cat, earlier,” she commented as they turned away from the homes so that she could lead him to another spot she liked. There was a well-used dirt path running along the treeline, disappearing into the rainforest a little further ahead; that seemed to be where they were going next. “The one that Antonio said he spoke to?”

“Oh, yeah.” There was so much going on he’d almost forgotten – and there was more than one thing about Pepita he’d been meaning to explain. “I think that was Mamá Imelda’s alebrije, Pepita.”

Mirabel looked up at him curiously. “The big... winged jaguar?”

“Well, yeah, but she was Mamá Imelda’s housecat, first,” he explained with a bit of a smile. “Mamá Coco even remembered her, when she told me stories about her parents, toward the end. I don’t know if all alebrijes were living animals first, but Pepita was. And she still visits, sometimes. D’you remember me running after her last night, when I thought I saw her in the dark?”

She paused, thinking, and then raised her eyebrows when she made the connection. “Oh! Yes!”

He nodded. “She only lets me see her on Día de los Muertos, for some reason. But I’ve suspected for years that she comes around every once in a while throughout the year – I think Mamá Imelda and Papá Héctor send her to keep an eye on me, maybe. I don’t know. But when I thought I saw her last night, I asked her to tell the rest of the family that we could use their help, because... I dunno. Because I didn’t know what else to do. Now I can’t help thinking that she came here herself, to let Antonio know you were safe.”

Mirabel seemed to consider that for a few seconds, a slight furrow forming between her brows. “I wonder how she would even get here,” she mused. Pausing in the midst of the path, she turned and waved Miguel after her onto a diverging trail so overgrown he hadn’t even noticed it immediately. “Let alone how she knew where to go…”

“I really don’t know,” he admitted, stepping quickly to push an overhanging branch up out of the way so that it wouldn’t snag her hair. She tossed him a smile over her shoulder, and he felt warm. “I, uh– I don’t really know how she and Dante go back and forth between worlds so often in the first place. I mean, I’ve thought about it plenty, and I assume that the bridge I crossed from Santa Cecilia to the Land of the Dead can’t be the only one. There are people celebrating Día de los Muertos all over Mexico, and in plenty of other parts of the world, too, so I figure there’ve gotta be a lot of bridges, right? And, I dunno, maybe alebrijes are allowed to cross whenever they like, not just on Día de los Muertos. But it’s all speculation, for now.”

“For now?” she asked with a bit of a chuckle.

“Well, I’ll get there again one day, won’t I?” he pointed out, grinning crookedly. “But hopefully not for a while. Seventy-five or eighty years, if I get my way.”

“Ambitious.” She laughed.

“Mamá Coco made it to a hundred,” he said with a shrug. “I think I’m justified in aiming to break her record.”

Mirabel laughed again, loudly in her surprise, and he couldn’t help feeling pleased with himself.

“We’re almost there,” she told him after another minute or two, pushing an enormous leaf to one side. It was fairly dark with the trees overhead, but the moonlight was bright – it almost seemed brighter than it ever got at home, but he was sure that had to be a trick his mind was playing on him – and filtered through the leaves in a way that painted everything pale and glowing. Though nothing in the rainforest seemed to move of its own accord or respond to Mirabel’s presence the way that Casita did, it felt just as magical. With nothing but the sounds of the rainforest around them – insects, and the breeze rustling through the leaves, and small animals scurrying through the underbrush – Miguel felt oddly like he could follow her down this overgrown path forever.

He was so lost in thought that it actually surprised him, just a little, when she turned to smile at him again and said, “We’re here.”

“We are?” he asked, and then she pushed aside a low, leafy branch, and he saw what she’d been leading him to.

The river was broad and shallow, and as clear as Miguel had ever seen. Without trees overhead, the water shone in the bright moonlight, and reeds and grasses swayed gently in the evening breeze. He stepped out from the trees and underbrush to stand next to her on the riverbank, just taking in the view.

“This is where everything started,” Mirabel explained softly, a trace of sadness behind her smile. “This is where Abuela and everyone else first crossed the river, and where my Abuelo… where she lost him. This is where the Encanto began.” She took a deep breath, adjusting the shawl around her shoulders. “But it’s also where Abuela and I made up, after Casita fell. So it’s… it’s a really special place to me, even if it’s sad, too. I like to come out here when I need to think, or reflect.”

“It’s beautiful,” he answered, matching her low volume as he turned to watch her for a few seconds. “Thank you for sharing it with me.” He felt… humbled, he supposed. Or maybe honoured. He knew she was limited in what she could actually show him tonight, given the way they were avoiding the town, but this still seemed like a deeply personal place for her to bring him. So when all she did in response was give a little nod, he simply stood in contemplative silence next to her, turning back towards the water and trying to commit the scene firmly to memory.

“I hadn’t realised how... refreshing it would be,” she commented after a moment, scuffing the toe of one espadrille against the rocks underfoot. “Seeing my home again, after just one day away. I feel like I’m noticing things I wouldn’t have on any other day. I know every inch of the Encanto so well, but... it’s different, after seeing Santa Cecilia.”

Hands still in his pockets, Miguel swayed a little to one side, letting his arm brush against hers. “Maybe it’s ‘cause you’re showing me, too,” he suggested. “I was thinking something similar earlier tonight, in Mariachi Plaza. Looking at things I was so accustomed to that they were practically boring... With your perspective, everything was new again.”

“I guess that make sense.” She shifted her weight and leaned a little closer to him, as if going to bump his arm in return, then stopping just shy of actual contact. “I kind of… hope I have the chance to go back to Santa Cecilia with you, sometime. I don’t know if I’ll actually get that chance, but now that I’ve seen a bit of it… I want to see more.”

He glanced at her again. “I’d really like that,” he answered. “I think it’d be really fun, getting to show you around. I could give you that tour of the workshop that we talked about, too.”

“And I’ll give you a better tour of the Encanto, in return,” she offered, smiling. “In the daytime, even.”

“Sounds like a deal to me.”

They enjoyed a few more minutes of peace by the river before the wind picked up a little and they decided to head back to the house. It was as they were making their way through the rainforest, again, that Miguel remembered something else Mirabel had said earlier. They’d been walking in companionable silence for a while, but now he broke it by telling her, “Red. And August thirteenth.”

“What?” She slowed her step to look up at him, not making the connection.

“My favourite colour,” he explained. “And my birthday.”

“I…” She seemed puzzled for a second, and then her face cleared. “Oh. Oh! From earlier, with my Abuela?” She was smiling now.

“Yeah.” He smiled back. “I liked what you said, back there. I hadn’t really thought about it quite that way. But… I knew Héctor for a night. We spent less time together than I’ve spent with you, now. But we knew each other in all the ways that mattered.”

“Of course you did. You went through so much with him, that night.”

He nodded. “But sometimes it’s hard not to be sad, that that’s all the time we got. I know I’ll see him again, but I still wish I’d had more. It’s comforting, to think of it as enough for what we needed.”

“I’m so glad to hear that.” She beamed at him for a moment before beginning to walk again. After a second or two, she looked up at him one more time. “I like teal and purple,” she said, as an amused sort of afterthought. “And my birthday is March sixth.”

He was still returning her smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“How about a guest bed for Miguel, Casita?” Mirabel asked as she dropped her shawl and her bag onto the chair at the desk. Obligingly – to Miguel’s delight – the house responded, first just with a cheerful rattle of the floorboards. A sound somewhere far away in the house began to draw closer then, a regular thunk-thunk-thunk followed immediately by a softer thump-thump-thump, and Mirabel nudged him out of the way of the door just in time for a small, lightweight wooden bedframe to roll into the room, followed by a narrow mattress. Miguel watched in fascination as the floorboards leapt up one at a time to pass the furniture along toward one corner of the room. Piles of miscellaneous craft supplies and the odd sweater or sandal were shuffled out of the way, and the bed was plopped neatly into place. Laughing, Miguel turned around just in time to see a cupboard fly open and a set of sheets eject themselves straight at Mirabel, who caught them with a movement so practiced she clearly didn’t even need to think about it.

“That’s awesome,” Miguel told her, unable to keep the smile from his voice. He had a feeling it would take a long time for him to get used to Casita.

“Yeah… it’s pretty cool,” she agreed, a joking humblebrag. Then she held the sheets out toward him. “Here. If you can make up the bed, I’ll go see if my Pá has a pair of pyjamas you can borrow. I feel like he’s the closest to you in size.”

“Oh, that’s okay–”

“It’s no trouble,” she insisted, before he could even really argue. “I’ll be right back.” With a swish of her colourful skirt, she disappeared out the door.

Miguel laughed to himself again as he turned and began putting the sheets on the little bed. For all that he was worried about disappearing on his family again, and stressed about Bruno’s vision and everything it might mean – both for himself and for Mirabel’s family – it was hard not to be completely charmed by her home. Casita, the Encanto, the Madrigals… it didn’t seem like the sense of wonder was going to fade anytime soon. Everything was so beautiful, so vibrant, so new. But a comfortable kind of new, too. The kind he could so easily see himself relaxing into, feeling at home in. He’d been on vacations before – small ones with his family, out to Mexico City, and the Gulf of California. He’d taken a couple of weekend road trips with friends while he was in university. But as much as he’d enjoyed those destinations, he’d also always been happy to return to the comfort of his Abuela’s house in Santa Cecilia afterward. Never had he felt so completely home outside of that house as he did now, testing the mattress of a freshly (if slightly sloppily) made guest bed in Mirabel’s room, in her magical Casita, in the Encanto, in Colombia.

It was possible that that fact raised a few questions, but he was saved the burden of considering them any longer by Mirabel’s return. She whisked back into the room, already changed herself into a long green nightgown, with a folded pair of pyjamas in her hands. “Here you go!” she offered cheerfully, tossing them at him.

He managed to catch them before they smacked him in the face, chuckling slightly at the whirlwind sort of way she moved around her bedroom as she got herself ready for bed. Unfolding the soft, off-white cotton, he found a loose-fitting top and cropped trousers with a drawstring. “Thank you,” he said, glancing up with a smile. “Um, bathroom?”

“Two doors down the hall that way,” she answered, pointing with one hand and running the other through her curls as she leaned close to a mirror on the wall.

“Cool.” He slipped out and followed her instructions, finding the washroom easily. After changing, he did his best – in absence of a toothbrush – to rinse his mouth thoroughly, then headed back to Mirabel’s room. As he shut the door softly behind him, he looked up to see her rummaging through her bag at the desk.

“There she is,” she said softly, cradling the alebrije he’d bought for her earlier that evening. It felt like days ago, already. She glanced around the room and then, with the utmost care, clambered onto her bed and placed the figure right in the centre of a shelf mounted on the wall above her headboard. She took a moment to fuss with the arrangement, shifting other knickknacks out of the way so that the alebrije was the focal point of the entire shelf, before sitting back on her heels to admire her work. “Perfect,” she murmured to herself, clearly satisfied. Then, smothering a yawn, she turned to smile at Miguel as he sat down on the edge of his mattress.

He was having a hard time not smiling at the way she handled her new alebrije – so carefully, like it was utterly precious, and not just one of thousands of strange little papier-mâché critters replaceable for mere pocket change – but her yawn was catching, and he had to cover his mouth to hide it. “Long day, I guess,” he admitted, shrugging one shoulder and reaching for the blanket she’d thrown on top of his sheets.

“You could say that,” she agreed, her laugh clearly growing sleepy now. “Time to get some rest, I think.”

“Yeah. I think you’re right.” Miguel paused a moment to stretch his arms up behind his head, then back, before laying down. Mirabel was already reaching for the lamp at her bedside, and he expected her to turn it out right away, but instead there was a brief pause; when he looked at her again, she was half-sitting up, twisted around to admire her alebrije one more time. Then, smiling to herself, she finally clicked off the light.

“Buenas noches, Miguel,” she said softly. He could hear her settling into her bed in the dark.

“Buenas noches, Mirabel,” he answered, unable to shake the smile from his face as he followed suit. “Sleep well.”