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The skies above Encanto were dark and moody. Thick cloud cover coated the sun, making it impossible to tell the time of day. For hours the town had been drenched in a torrential downpour, thunder booming while crackling lightning struck the street tiles. Everyone was stuck inside after Señor Pérez got hit in the head with a piece of hail so large it knocked him out and Julieta had to be called out, sending her rushing across town.
And the skies above Casita were the worst of all.
“Where is Félix?” Alma had to shout to be heard above the roaring wind. Her back was pressed up against a cabinet full of dishes. Every few moments the wind would rush through and make the cabinet shudder ominously; it was only her presence that kept it upright, stopping it from falling, which would have made the dishes inside shatter on the ground.
Julieta, only a few feet away from her, was attempting to fasten the window shut, but even with Casita itself attempting to help her, it looked like a lost cause. The wood tore away from her hands, and rain poured in, drenching her again. “He went out with Agustín. They’ve been gone for hours.” Her brows were knit with worry, expression folded into a frown. Exhaustion lined the red-rimmed edges of her eyes, and wrinkled across her face.
Alma’s gaze turned back towards the entrance of Casita. “Pepa!” But her voice was lost in the tempest. The open entrance to the courtyard of their home was choked in a swirl of rain and wind, impossible to see through clearly. Alma could only see flashes of yellow that signified it was her daughter in the center of the storm. Through the chaos, she spotted a chair hurtling towards her. She ducked with a gasp as the chair smashed into the wall beside the cabinet, breaking into wooden pieces. “Pepa!”
“She can’t hear you, mamá.” Julieta turned her gaze too to the storm inside their home, expression twisting as she caught glimpses of her sister’s dress. She already knew from experience with her daughter that her gift couldn’t do much for the heart. “We can’t get through that storm. The kids are all inside Dolores’s room, they won’t hear anything. She and Isabela are good kids, they’ll keep everyone inside until we tell them to come out, and they can’t hear anything in there. Everything will be okay.”
“Everything will not be okay,” Alma shook her head, tone a mixture of worry and anger. “Pepa is going to drown the town! People have already gotten hurt!”
“She’s hurt too.”
“She knows better!”
Julieta sighed, but she gave a short nod in return. “She knows, yes,” she conceded. She gave up on closing the window and moved over to her mother, resting her hand on her shoulder. “But you know it’s not always easy for her. It’ll be alright. Félix and Agustín will be here soon, they said they’d only be gone a few hours. I’m sure he’s doing his best to come back early, since he saw how big the storm is. You know he doesn’t like to go too far away at times like this.”
“He must hurry back.” There was a loud slam on the outside of the window, as a broken tree branch slammed across it and then was whisked away again. Both of them flinched at the loud noise, especially as the boom of thunder accompanied it soon after. “As quickly as he can.”
Félix wanted nothing more than to return to Casita and his wife’s side, but it was proving far more difficult than he expected. The storm set in too quickly, and already the streets were choked with water and mud. Félix and Agustín had been in the mountains, and were far out of town by the time Agustín pointed to the sky and rain crashed over them. Félix knew immediately beyond a doubt that it was a storm made by Pepa. Thanks to the horrible squall, it’d taken them two hours to even get back to town.
“Watch out!” Félix grabbed the back of Agustín’s shirt, just barely stopping him from being hit by a flower pot flying through the air.
“Thank you!” Agustín smoothed the front of his shirt, though it did little with the rain and mud already coating it. His expression radiated nervousness. “That was close, wasn’t it? I think you’ve saved my life at least 20 times today!” He laughed, the sound getting caught halfway in his throat and petering out.
Félix nodded a few times in response, but his gaze was turned towards the other end of the town, where Casita sat up on the hill. “No problem, bro! You know I’ve always got you,” he pat Agustín on the back. “But vamo, vamo. We really need to get home.” There was an unfamiliar tension in Félix’s posture; his hands pulled back quickly, wringing together. The streets leading up to Casita were flooded, and every house’s window was uncharacteristically closed, trying to block out the dangerous downpour.
“You know we’re trying, but Félix, the streets are swamped!” The two were huddled under an overhang in an alleyway to try and avoid the occasional object thrown in the whipping wind, or the hailstones that crashed into the rooftops. “How are we supposed to get over there?” Agustín’s glasses were askew, one of the lenses cracked. It’d made him more accident prone than usual, the broken lens giving him a headache every time he focused, but taking them off would be worse. “It’s not like we can just walk.”
“We’ll have to.” Félix shook his head, and his face sharpened in determination. “Come on. Sorry, but I’m going with or without you.”
Agustín squared his shoulders then, and firmly shook his head. “No, we’re in this together.” He stepped forward to stand beside Félix, clapping his hand on his back. “Come on, we’ve got this,” and he stepped away from their alleyway shelter, immediately buffeted by the strong winds. The stones beneath his feet were slippery, and he nearly lost his footing in the first moment, but Félix came up behind him and supported him. He looked back and smiled, and Félix gave him a wavering thumbs up in response.
Together, the two of them started their way through the wide, barren streets. Visibility was low, the rain and darkened skies making it hard to see the ground right beneath their feet, let alone the path ahead. In the air around them, shoes zig-zagged, fruits cartwheeled, and potted plants spiraled as the wind whipped them all to and fro.
The pair ducked between two houses when an umbrella came rolling down the street at high speeds. “Ah, guess someone’s going to get wet tonight!” Agustín half-joked.
Félix glanced between Agustín and the raging clouds. “I’d be impressed if anyone stayed dry today.” After a quick look to make sure it was safe, the two continued their slow, arduous quest through the storm.
It took them an hour, constantly weaving and ducking between buildings while trying to travel up the main road. Casita was surrounded by a raging whirlwind, the rooftop tiles shaking ominously. All of the decorations and flowers that used to cover the front were ripped off, lost to the chaos.
“Agustín!” Julieta’s voice shouted from the open kitchen window, giving the two of them a wave. “Over here! Félix,” she hesitated for a moment, her eyes darting towards the front door. She was soaked through, her hair clinging to the edges of her face, constantly pushed away from her eyes by her hand.
“I’ve got it, Julieta, don’t worry,” Félix gave her a thumbs up before he started making his careful way towards the heart of the storm. Agustín turned to the kitchen window, climbing in through there with Julieta’s help. Together, they managed to close the shutters on the window.
“Mi amor!” Félix shouted against the wind, grabbing onto the front door frame to hold himself steady. He brought his hand up to shield his face against the rain. Although the rest of the town merely had the sky blocked by clouds, Casita itself had its own low hanging cloud, pouring in its own fresh coat of rain right down through the center.
As Félix pushed his way through the swirling tempest, he had to duck swiftly under a tile, pulled off of the ground and shattering on the wall where he had just been. He breathed out a steadying breath, and soon enough he could see his heart.
Pepa was collapsed on the ground, soaked to the bone. The angry downpour repeatedly drenched her. Her braid was long undone, her hair flying around wildly with the wind, but she was huddled into a pile, her face hidden in her arms pressed against the ground.
“Pepi!” Félix’s voice was awash with worry, his expression twisted with grief as he saw her. “Mi vida, I’m here, I’m here.” But she couldn’t hear him. She didn’t lift her head up, and the storm didn’t stop, it only roared on. So Félix pushed forward, each step harder than the last.
The storm raged strongest around her, and there were no doorways or walls for him to cling to to help himself onward. In the end, he fell to his knees, fingertips grabbing onto the trembling tiles of the ground to pull himself towards her. And then finally, finally, he reached her side, and his arms wrapped around her, pulling her close to his chest. “I’m here, mi amor, it’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
It was only this close to her that he could hear her sobbing. She shifted, her face pressing against his chest, hiding away against it. Trembling hands reached up and wrapped around him, fingernails digging into the back of his shirt like he was her only lifeline. “Félix,” her voice was scratchy, raw and broken. “I…” a warble, and then there was another sob. “I’m sorry.”
“Shhh, everything’s going to be fine–”
“But it’s not. Our family, Félix, I–”
“I want you to breathe with me, Pepi.” He knew that if he let her keep talking, she’d talk herself into a worse and worse spiral. It was in times like this that Pepa’s own head tended to be her worst enemy. “Deep breaths. Can you follow me, cariño?” He waited until she gave a hesitant nod in return. “Thank you, mi cielo.”
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. A quick glance up towards the sky showed that the hail had stopped. Relieved by the progress, though the sight of the missing hail itself didn’t matter to him, so much as the knowledge that it meant Pepa was feeling better. The sky could rain for the rest of the week, and he wouldn’t care, so long as Pepa was feeling better than she was right now. The fact that all she needed was him warmed his heart and made him feel guilty all in the same stroke. He’d taken too long to get here.
“Okay, breathe in.” Félix took a deep breath himself, and watched Pepa to make sure she was doing the same. Her inhale shuddered through her body, traveling to tremble in the hands clenched against his back. “Hold it in, 3, 2, 1…breathe out,” and he slowly exhaled, watching Pepa mirror his movements. He repeated that a few more times, watching as the high-powered gale tapered down into a mellower breeze.
But with the wind dying down, it meant the few pots and pans and tiles still caught in the whirlwind crashed towards the ground. That spurred Julieta into immediate action; she dived, as quietly as she could, out of the kitchen to snatch a falling sauce pan out of the air before it could crash. They all knew the suddenness of the noise could startle Pepa’s storm into full force again—even Casita, as railing banisters reached out to ease the rest of the carnage back down to Earth.
Félix gave Julieta a quiet nod of thanks, and she offered a strained smile before disappearing back to the kitchen to give them space.
"Pepi," Felìx's voice was gentle, "I want to see your beautiful face. Please?"
There was a quiet sniffle in response. "Félix…"
"Please?"
And with that second plea, Pepa finally pulled herself away, just slightly, from the tight hug she was giving her husband. Her gaze tilted up to meet his, her face stained a blotchy red.
Félix only beamed a smile at her. "Ah, there she is! My beautiful wife!" He smattered kiss after kiss on her cheeks and forehead and nose until he heard a soft huff of a laugh and only then did he finally pull away, his forehead pressed against hers.
The thunder and lightning surrendered to simple rain, the quiet sound of the downpour hitting the tiles the only noise echoing around the house. Casita itself felt like it was holding its breath, hoping the peace would remain undisturbed.
But Félix braved breaking the silence. "I'm going to carry you upstairs, okay? Then we can talk."
Nervousness fluttered across Pepa. Her hands tightened their grip, and the sky above rumbled with thunder. She didn't speak.
Félix waited a few moments patiently, as his hand gently rubbed up and down her back. "Okay?"
Only then did she give a quiet nod of assent, and after she had, Félix stood, easily holding his wife in his arms.
Off to the entrance to the kitchen stood Julieta, Alma, and Agustín. Julieta's hand was resting on Alma's upper arm, and Alma's expression was knit into a sharply worried frown. Félix tilted his head towards the glowing door of Pepa's room and shook his head, and then started making his way up the stairs Casita laid out in front of him to make a straight path there.
The skies above slowly cleared over the town, though the rain cloud above Pepa and Félix did not. He opened the door to their bedroom and stepped inside, quietly shutting it behind them. He then carried her to their bed and sat down on it, still holding her in his arms. "It's just us now, Pepi. You wanna talk?"
In the safety of his arms, her eyes watered over again and then she burst into tears. There were so few times Félix could remember her actually crying. The first time she had held their baby Dolores in her arms, soaking all three of them through, making the poor girl cry. He had brought an umbrella to Camilo's birth. She had cried at their wedding. Nothing else had brought her to tears before. He brought a hand up to her hair, gently running his fingers through the wild, waterlogged curls.
"Oh Félix, I—I can't stop myself from feeling like this is our fault. My fault. Were we too hard on him? My baby brother…"
And Félix heard Bruno's words clearly in his head. The mutter he'd always had. Only by 15 minutes. It brought a somber sort of smile to his lips.
"Did you—Agustín and you. Did you find him?" Hope filtered into her expression, and warm sunlight poked through the raincloud.
Félix hated to break her heart. He squeezed her closer. "...No, mi amor, we didn't."
And the rainstorm returned in seconds. "Oh Félix, what if something awful happened to him? I know things got a little strained after the wedding, but Brunito…"
Félix gently pushed a strand of hair out of her face. His thumb wiped away a tear falling down her cheek. "You know him, he's probably just hiding away in the woods because one of his rats got out and he wants to find them. He'll turn up, Pepi."
"But what if he doesn't?" The thunder rumbled louder, and Pepa seemed to finally recognize the storm around her. She sat up a little straighter, a hand reaching for the soaked strands of her hair to calm herself, her calming mantra formed on her lips.
But Félix knew his wife was never allowed to cry, that she needed a moment like this, so he took her hands in his and pressed kisses against her palms and wrists, ignoring her protests. "It's okay to be a little cloudy, mi cielo."
"A little? " There was a sudden fiery hiss in her tone that Félix thought had been sorely missing, and he grinned at her. But then he watched the worry settle back into her expression. Wide eyes, her trembling lower lip. "The town, and mamá — "
"Don't think about that. You're only going to make yourself feel worse than you have to. It's okay to cry. I know you're hurting. Alma will have to understand."
"I know she's hurt too. I shouldn't have...I just…"
"It's only us here." He pressed a kiss against her forehead. "You can storm as much as you'd like here. You know I don't care. So let all your emotions out, Pepi."
"…I think he's gone." Her voice was a whisper. Howling wind picked up around them again, shaking the closet door. But the closet was made to withstand winds like this, and held fast. "I don't think he's coming back. Things have been so hard. Last week, when he told us Señor Sáchez would die. They uninvited him from the funeral. Mamá didn't— none of us insisted. We let it happen. We went without him!"
"You can't change everyone's minds. It's not your job to."
"After the wedding, everything was a mess. I blamed him," her arms curled around him again, fingers once more digging into his back, sharp pinpoints against his skin. Félix's expression didn't shift to show the pain. "Did I … ever tell him that it wasn't? Apologise for that?"
"He did worry you, mi amor," Félix pointed out. "The two of you never quite saw eye to eye, after all. I've never known anyone who could make you thunder before breakfast so easily."
"I would step outside, and he would immediately say something like, ‘Oh, your hair looks nice,’ knowing that I hadn't brushed it at all! I could hear the sarcasm in his tone!" she snapped, and lightning crackled in the cloud above her.
Félix laughed, taking one of her curly strands of hair between his fingers. "Ah, but your hair really is beautiful, corazón."
"But he says that just to annoy me!" And then her expression cracked again. "...He said that."
"We both know Bruno hasn't been very happy lately. If he can be happier…"
"Without us?" Her voice was soft.
"...He can see the future, right? Maybe he saw something—"
"How he'd be better without his family? How we'd be better without him?" Another snap. Lightning struck the wall, and hail started to rain again. But there was exhaustion in the lines of her face. Félix traced his thumb across a bag under her eye.
"You're tired. You should get some rest."
"You didn't answer! Do you really think he'd be better alone?"
"No, I don't. He's part of our family. You know I want him to be here with us just as much as you. But worrying more won't help." A heavy piece of hail struck the back of Félix's shoulder and he winced.
Pepa gasped. "Mi tierra, I—"
"It's okay," he kissed her cheek. "I'm fine. The search has been going on for a few days now. I know it's tiring you out. Please, try to sleep. For me?"
Pepa's fingernails slowly released their iron grip on his back. "I should help."
"No, Pepi." He shook his head. "You need rest."
"But Bruno, what if he's…"
"He's safe, wherever he is. He's fine, mi vida." Félix didn't like to lie to his wife, or reassure her with useless platitudes that didn't hold up under scrutiny, but right now Pepa needed comfort, and she wouldn't accept anything other than this kinder lie. Félix moved to lie down on the bed, pulling Pepa with him, resting her head atop his chest. Their bed was part of the magic, and the soft comforter would absorb whatever was rained upon it, and still be warm and dry. So he pulled the blanket up to her shoulders, gently running his fingers through her wet hair. "Everything will be okay, mi amor. Just rest."
The rainstorm slowly died as tiredness seeped into Pepa's bones. Her eyelids fluttered before finally falling closed. "Thank you, Félix," her voice was soft. "I love you."
"I love you too."
And then the rain stopped, Pepa finally asleep. He lay there quietly, watching the soft rise and fall of her chest, until there was a gentle knock on the door. He looked up to see Julieta. He raised a finger up to his lips to request her silence.
She nodded, then looked back and made a beckoning gesture. Alma followed her inside. "How is she?" Julieta’s voice was soft, expression steeped in worry.
"She's … alright.” Félix carefully shifted, resting Pepa’s head on the soft pillows, and slowly climbing out of the bed himself. He quickly shooed all of them to the other side of the room. “Exhausted. The last few days—"
"Have been hard on all of us," Alma cut in. "It's been five days. The town will need repairs, we cannot hold off on our chores any longer to search, and the townspeople are already worried about us thanks to Mirabel.”
For a moment, her facade of calm cracked, her brow furrowing under the weight of her various problems. She took a moment to recollect herself, inhaling and wiping the expression away. “We have scoured every inch of Encanto. We have to accept that Bruno is gone, and if— … when he comes back, we will welcome him."
"Pepi won't like that. Even the mention of Bruno's name makes her thunder." Félix frowned, looking down at her again.
"Well," Alma gathered her shawl tighter around her shoulders. Her expression steeled itself. "The solution to that is simple."
Julieta looked up with a furrow of her brows. "What do you mean, mamá?"
Alma stared down at Pepa for several long moments of silence. She closed her eyes, and took in a deep breath. It was held for a few seconds, and then she slowly released it. She opened her eyes and looked at Félix for a few moments, before her gaze went to her other daughter.
"We don't talk about Bruno."