Archive of Our Own

The church bells toll, their ringing heralding her return. Her and Abuela and Tío Bruno. Tío Bruno’s horse gallops down the cobblestone streets of the Encanto — a crack right down the centre, leading them to Casita. The houses and stores, doorways and balconies, a blur of reds and yellows and pinks and blues. Someone calls out,

“She’s back! She’s back! She’s back!”

Mirabel pays them no mind. She leans forward, urging their steed to go faster. The place where Casita stood was just visible by the tree line.

They leap over a fallen palm, the horse landing with a dull thump on the grass. Mirabel pulls the reins back, stopping them just short of the ruin. The fallen bricks and discarded roof tiles and wooden beams split down the middle. Assorted furniture. An armchair here, a frying pan there. Thrown to the wind. Casita. What once appeared to her a steadfast, immovable constant — keeping her family safe within — reduced to rubble. Toppled like a paper house.

She hears a voice calling in the distance. A voice she could recognise anywhere.

“Mirabel!”

In a stupor, she slides off the horse and breaks into a run towards the ruin, before either Abuela or Tío Bruno could stop her.

She rounds the corner, her eyes searching and searching and searching. She sees her.

“Mirabel.”

She runs, jumping over the smashed tiles and loose bricks until she lands straight in her mamá’s arms. The scent of arepas and lavender perfume and comfort and home fill her lungs. She sighs contentedly, closing her eyes,

“Mamà.”

Her mamá pulls away and cups her face. Mirabel watches as she checks for bruises and scratches and cherishes holding her daughter again.

“Mi amor, I was so worried. We couldn’t find you.”

She puts a hand on her mamá’s arm, assuring her, I’m here. I’m here.

Mirabel hears panting and footsteps. She looks over her mamá’s shoulder to see her papá, ears and nose and several fingers inflamed. He stops in between them, looking between her and her mamá.

“There were bees… everywhere.”

Mirabel smiles, relieved to see her papá, reaching up to touch his cheek. Despite the pain, he smiles and puts an inflamed hand on her shoulder, spilling over to her upper arm.

“I’ll be okay.”

“Uh, not if we don’t have a house.”

Mirabel, her papá and her mamá turn to see Camilo and Tío Félix emerging from the forests surrounding the ruin — Dolores not far behind them. Tío Felix elbows his son and gives him a look of warning.

Camilo turns to his papá with an exasperated shrug,

“What? We don’t have a house. I can’t say we don’t have a house?”

He gestures to the stone next to him, a remnant of one of Casita’s walls.

“What is that? Not a house.”

Mirabel smiles despite herself, just relieved to see her family. Alive and well. Her mamá looks back to her searchingly, knowing her connection with Casita — closer than anyone else in the family — gauging if Camilo’s tactless words had caused her pain.

Seeing her mamá’s concern, she makes eye contact, showing her that Camilo’s words don’t hurt. Her eyes flicker to the ruins. The archway — what once was the threshold to their home — stands there, a missing piece off the centre, but there.

She lets go of her mamá to inspect the ruin. She hops up the steps and looks in. It’s no better than when she first saw it on the horse with Abuela and Tío Bruno. The chandelier lay shattered in two, pieces of glass scattered across broken tiles. Tables and chairs overturned. The stairs obscured by debris and probably broken beyond repair.

“Look at this home.”

She breathes in, squaring her shoulders in certainty,

“We need a new foundation.”

She turns to see that the rest of the family had heard the church bells and had come back from the search. Now all gathered at the archway. Tía Pepa, Luisa and Isabela also there. It registers faintly at the back of her mind how strange it felt. 

These people, her family, who, whether intentionally or unintentionally, had swept her to the side. Now, they turned to her. Turned to her fix what was broken. She looks to each of them, nodding her head reassuringly,

“It may seem hopeless, but we’ll get by just fine.”

She urges them to come in. She takes Isabela by her hands, her sister’s dress still covered by the red, blue and yellow flower pollen. It seemed like such a long time ago since yesterday evening when she and Isabela danced on Casita’s roof surrounded by jacarandas and strangling figs and hanging vines.

“Look at this family.”

Luisa follows after Isabela, smiling.

“A glowing constellation.”

Tia Pepa smiles and steps inside. No rainclouds or gales or sunbeams follow after her. Instead, it’s Tío Félix and her mamá. Mirabel takes her mamá’s hands and smiles,

“So full of stars. And everybody wants to shine.”

She leads her mamá inside, her papá, Dolores and Camilo coming in after them.

“But stars don’t shine,” Mirabel steps away and turns to them all among the rubble, “they burn.”

She sees Antonio scamper over the stone and land in the courtyard behind Isabela. She crouches down when he comes running over, eager to see her. She takes his hand and wraps her other arm around him. Antonio smiles and Mirabel mirrors it.

“And constellations shift.”

She looks up just in time to see Luisa trying to lift a piece of the wall. A piece as big as Mirabel. She almost didn’t notice, Luisa didn’t make a sound, no grunts or groans in exertion. But she could tell from her sister’s scrunched up face she was struggling.

“I think it’s time you learn,” she rushes over, leaning under the boulder and pushing with all her might. 

She helps Luisa turn the stone upright. 

Mirabel puts a hand on Luisa’s forearm and looks up at her sister, “You’re more than just your gift.” Luisa’s eyes water at her words.

They look at the fragment of Casita, now upright, a step closer to restoring their home. 

“And I’m sorry I held on too tight.”

They turn in direction of the new voice. Abuela. Leaning against the threshold. A hand to her chest.

She steps forward as Tía Pepa and her mamá do too. Abuela takes her mamá’s hands in hers. Eyes imploring.

“I was just afraid I’d lose you too.”

She reaches over and cups Tía Pepa’s cheek. Mirabel hears Tía Pepa chuckle lightly and sees her lean into Abuela’s touch. 

Abuela smiles too, before turning away towards the archway. Everyone else’s eyes follow too. 

“The miracle is not, some magic that you’ve got.”

She stretches out her arms. Tío Bruno pokes his head from behind one of the archways. A chorus of gasps and murmured ‘oh’s and ‘Bruno’s follow. Abuela continues, taking her son by the hands as she did with her daughters,

“The miracle was you.”

She leans down to make eye contact with Tío Bruno, who Mirabel could see from behind Abuela was hunched over.

“Not some gift,” Abuela shakes her head, “just you.”

Mirabel sees Tío Bruno’s eyes widen as he lifts his head. Abuela stretches out a hand towards the rest of the family.

“The miracle is you,” she affirms, “all of you.”

Her mamá and Tía Pepa rush forwards with a delighted laugh, picking up their triplet in excitement and joy and gratitude. Mirabel sees his face hanging over their shoulders, eyes wide and mouth caught open in a gasp.

Mirabel struggles to supress her laughter.

He gets over his surprise quickly, looking from left to right, at her mamá and Tía Pepa, as if unbelieving he’s in their arms at last. He smiles and returns their embrace as best as he can, feet dangling off the ground.

“So, we gonna talk about Bruno?” deadpans Camilo.

Mirabel whips her head around to look at Camilo and where Antonio stood at his side. Antonio points to Bruno with his thumb.

“That’s Bruno?”

Tío Bruno, now let down by Tía Pepa and her mamá — though mamá still clutched his arm as if he’d disappear if he let go — chuckles nervously, rubbing his arm,

“Yeah, there’s a lot to say about Bruno.”

Suddenly, he bursts to life, throwing his hands up and extending an arm to Tía Pepa. 

“Okay, I’ll start.”

Confused, but willing to go along, she put her hand in his. They spin in a whirlwind of green and yellow until Tío Bruno deposits Tía Pepa by Tío Felix’s side. 

“Pepa, I'm sorry 'bout your wedding, didn't mean to be upsetting,” he talks a mile a minute, “that wasn't a prophecy, I could just see you were sweating.”

He moves around in pace with his words, to Mirabel, just a blur of green and purple.

“And I wanted you to know that your bro loves you so,” he leans over and hugs Tía Pepa and Tío Felix.

He dances around them once more, throwing his hands up into the air with a flourish,

“Let it in, let it out, let it rain, let it snow, let it go!”

Tío Felix pulls Tía Pepa into his side as Tía Pepa rolls her eyes.

“That’s what I’m always saying, bro.”

Tío Bruno scampers over to Mamá, already talking again.

“There’s a lot of apologies I’ve got to say—”

She pulls him into a hug, stopping him abruptly.

“Hey, we’re just happy that you’re here, okay?”

“But—”

Tía Pepa interrupts him,

“Come into the light.”

“But—”

This time, it was her papá who interjects, hugging the three of them from behind,

“The triplets all reunite.”

Mamá reassures Tio Bruno,

“And no matter what happens we’re gonna find our way.”

Mirabel looks around to see Dolores elbow Camilo.

“Yo, I knew he never left I heard him every day.”

Camilo rubs his shoulder and was about to retort when they hear a low rumbling sound. The sound of a thousand feet coming closer. 

Mirabel instinctively comes forwards, fearing the danger wasn’t over. Abuela does the same. They stop, just before the archway.

“What’s that sound?” Abuela asks.

Antonio, who was already by the archway, spoke in a confused, awe-stuck voice,

“I think it’s everyone in town.”

Mariano, Señora Guizman, Arturo, Osvaldo — even Alejandra, Cecilia and Juancho. Every person in town carrying an assortment of crates and baskets and dragging carts, all brimming with tools and materials. Hammers and nails and tarps.

They chatter and laugh, beaming despite the rubble and the monumental task before them all. Maribel feels her lips smile on their own.

Lay down your load. Their actions say. We’re only down the road. We don’t have gifts but we are many. And we’ll do anything for you.

It’s evening by the time the excitement and the action and the chaos of finding Mirabel, resolving to rebuild Casita, and all the townspeople coming to help them, dies down enough for Julieta to walk into her beloved kitchen without stopping to help a friend carry out the debris beyond repair or comfort a family member overwhelmed by the damage done to their home. 

She stops just after the threshold. She doesn’t mean to. Not really. But her feet stop on their own accord. Her eyes take in the damage. She barely saw it that morning, cracked tiles, overturned tables and discarded spatulas and frying pans mostly blocked by the fallen bannisters and beams from the second floor. 

Pepa had insisted she and Félix handle the debris in the kitchen. She thought it was because it was their rooms on the floor above it and they wanted to salvage their belonging themselves, but now, she understood why.

The kitchen was her place. Ever since she was small — even before her gift. She would cling to Mamá’s skirt, follow her around the kitchen. Watching and learning. Until she learnt all her mamá’s secret recipes, until she received her gift and her calling. In this room, had been her life. Her purpose. For so long, her worth had been measured on the food she created in this place. The meals she healed with.

Pepa, bless her soul, knew that this kitchen was a part of her. That she probably wouldn’t want to see it in shambles.

She can feel tears leave her eyes and travel down her cheeks every time she blinks but she doesn’t remember when she started crying. She hadn’t cried all day. She had felt numb while helping her daughters clear out the stone all day; now, she couldn’t stop.

She could barely look at the kitchen now, despite the cleaning and repair Pepa and Félix had started. She walks further in, trailing her hand along the portion of counter left behind, stripped off its colourful tiles.

The dust had been cleared away, but so was the oven that had been there since her childhood. It felt bare and empty and purposeless . Like her. Who was she without her ability to heal? All this time, she told Mirabel that she had nothing to prove, that she was enough without a gift. She laughs to herself, a little bitterly. How did she tell that to her daughter when she didn’t believe it for herself?

“Julieta? Mi amor, are you alright?”

She wipes her face with her fingers as she turns towards the doorway. Agustín. The swelling in his right ear had gone down a bit. The bandage she had wrapped around his hands a few hours before had come loose.

She nods, attempting a smile,

“I’m okay.”

She knows he’s taking in her tears and thinking the opposite, but he nods anyway as he comes closer. He opens his arms and she puts her head on his shoulder and her arms around his waist.

They stand there in silence for a while. It could have been seconds or minutes or hours until her tears stopped, staining her husband’s shoulder. He doesn’t move away. She looks at his face. The bee stings must hurt. He doesn’t let it show. She tries to ignore the tightening in her throat.

She pulls away completely, eyes falling to his hands and the half unravelled bandages covering his fingers.

“Here,” she whispers, hoarsely, “let me rewrap your hands.”

Agustín nods wordless and holds out his hands for her.

She pulls out the little container of honey Señora Guzman gave her that morning. She suppresses the shame that rises from her chest and into her throat at the memory. Her. The village healer. Having to ask someone else how to heal her husband’s many bee stings. Señora Guzman was gracious though, generously giving her the honey and bandages and showing her how to wrap them and not mentioning why she never knew this remedy in the first place.

“I didn’t fall in love with you because of your cooking, you know?”

Julieta furrows her brow, gently unwrapping Agustín’s hands. 

“What?”

He repeats himself,

“I didn’t fall in love with you because of your cooking — not that I don’t like your cooking, mi amor, I love your cooking, but that wasn’t the reason I fell in love with you.”

He interrupts himself with a hiss after she presses a little too hard on the inflamed part of his finger while spreading the honey.

“Sorry,” she says, sheepishly.

He shakes his head as she starts to rewrap his hand,

“Don’t be. I don’t know if that’s why you were crying just now or if it was from the stress or relief or a dozen other reasons. But I just wanted to make sure you know, I don’t love you any less because you can’t heal me in an instant.”

She blinks harder, trying to clear her vision enough to finish wrapping his hand.

“That I never loved you any more yesterday because you could. I love you because you’re you. I’ve always loved you because you’re you. Gift or no gift.”

She tucks the loose end in and looks at his face. He smiles,

“Arepa o nada, te quiero, Julieta.”

She smiles too, a small and vulnerable but genuine thing. She leans in to kiss him.

“Te quiero más, Agustín, te quiero más,” she whispers against his lips. 

Since the day Camilo turned five years old, he hadn’t spent a day without transforming into someone else. That morning, he went down to the river like he did he was younger. Back then, he’d practice his shape lifting by the water’s edge. Watch as the face in the river shifted from Andrés into Señora Espires into Mariano into Isadora into Tatiana into Luana and back again. 

Today, he turned this way and that. The face in the river had stared back, resolutely the same, no matter how much he willed otherwise.

He left the riverbed with a huff, kicking up some stones for good measure. Now, he had walked along the river to the tree line and followed it back up to their house, restless legs thankful for something to do.

The rebuilding of the house had gone faster than he thought it would. If he’s being honest, Camilo didn’t think they’d be able to rebuild the house at all! He could see his mother, in her consummate sunshine yellow, as if nothing had changed, painting an outer wall of the house.

“Mamá,” he calls out without fully meaning to.

She looks to him, putting her paintbrush down.

“Yes, mijo, is something wrong?”

“No!” he answers quickly. Too quickly, based on the appraising look she gives him. 

“Well, yes?” he supposes. Something was wrong, otherwise, why did he call out to his mother?

“Maybe?”

Her eyes soften,

“Camilo, what’s the matter?”

He huffs in annoyance, throwing his hands up

“I don’t know!”

“Oh, mi hijo,” she murmurs, pulling him into a hug.

He stumbles from the force,

“Mom!” he says, exasperated, looking over her shoulder, making sure no one could see them. 

A second later, he tentatively wraps his arms around her too. She lets go and takes his forearms.

“Come,” she says, leading him to just beyond the tree line, where some of the stones from Casita’s original walls hadn’t been cleared yet.

She sits down on one of the larger ones and pats the space on the ledge next to her, “Sit.”

He looks around.

“No one’s going to find us here, mijo,” she smiles, eyes crinkling in mirth, “if that’s what you’re worried about. You’re friends finding out.”

He nods wordlessly, refusing to acknowledge his ears and cheeks beginning to burn. Despite her teasing, he sits like she asks.

“So, what’s on your mind, mi tesoro?”

He looks at the grass. This was a terrible idea. He scuffs it with his heel. He curses whatever possessed him to call out to his mamá. He should just tell her that it was nothing. That she should go back to painting. That he can hear Maribel or Luisa inside calling his name to help with the —

“How did you feel… after— after losing your gift?” The question tumbles out of him. Cursed mouth. 

His mother hums, considering the question.

“Well, at first, I— I felt sad, of course. Like… like a part of me was missing. Which was strange because I’d always thought those rainclouds were a nuisance — they ruined my wedding after all!”

Camilo chuckles weakly, still not looking up from the ground.

“But then, I noticed — little things really — like how every time I felt annoyed or angry or frustrated, I’d brace myself for thunder to clap and for everyone else around me to jump in surprise. I only realised I did it when it stopped happening.”

“But when did you — I don’t know — finally stop wanting your gift back?” 

She sighs,

“I’ll always miss my gift, mijo. But, I think… acceptance really came to me when I was cleaning out what was left of my and Papá’s room. I cried the entire time, picking up the torn up pieces of our wedding album. And after, I sat there and cried for an hour. And then, I looked up at the sky.”

He steals a glance at his mamá. She wasn’t looking at him, instead, she was looking up at the sky. The cerulean sky dotted with tufts of lambswool. He looks down at the grass once more as she speaks again,

“Not a cloud. I cried and I cried and I cried and there wasn’t a single cloud, mi tesoro. No rain. No hail. It was then I realised that, now, I could just be and just feel whatever I’m feeling without trying to suppress or control because of how it’d affect others. I felt — I feel… free. And then, I knew, I didn’t want my gift back.”

He doesn’t look up from the grass. He pushes his heel into it again. 

“But mamá,” he starts, “what if— what if losing my gift doesn’t make me feel free? What if…” 

His voice dropped to a whisper, as if what he was about to say was somehow taboo or wrong,

“What if I just feel more trapped?”

She takes his hand, prompting him to look up. She’s looking at him now, a gentle smile, like sunbeams streaming through the curtains onto his favourite armchair for his afternoon siesta. Comforting. Warm. Encouraging him to talk.

The words just tumble out of him. All these thoughts and feelings he’d kept inside all this time.

“It’s just that, before, when I got uncomfortable in a conversation, I just shift into the other person. Make them laugh, you know. It’s easier that way. Now— now— I can’t! Now I just stand there and I don’t know what to say or do or be. And… and I feel… like— like everything I was, I’m not anymore — and all I’m ever wondering is, ‘who even am I?' And last night I remembered how when I was little, I used to go down to the river and watch the people in town on the other side. I’d practice shapeshifting into them. Just for fun. 'Cause I thought I liked pretending to be other people. Liked trying on their faces and— and bodies. And then, sometimes, without even thinking about it, I’d shift into Dolores and I’d just think ‘what if… what if I—”

His voice cracks and he sucks a breath in through his mouth,

“I just remembered how much fun I had back then, so, this morning, I went to the river just hoping that I'd —I don't know — that I'd feel that joy again. But then, I looked at that reflection in the water and all I could think was ‘that... is not me’. But, mamá, if this isn’t me, then who is?”

A moment passes. His mother squeezes his hand.

I support you. It says. I don’t know the words to comfort you but I’m here for you. I’ll always love you and care for you no matter who you are.

Suddenly, he throws himself into his mother’s arms — like he did when he was a child. And just like back then, she catches him without fail. He tucks his head into the crook of her neck. A hand comes up and cradles his head against her. 

“I… I — I don’t know,” he sobs, “I'm just so confused! I don’t know what I am — I don’t know who I am, Mami.”

“Oh, Camilo,” she murmurs into his hair, “you don’t need to know.” 

She presses a kiss to the crown of his head,

“You just need to be open to the idea of finding out.”

Adjusting to being back with the family was… a lot. It was a lot. A lot of light. A lot of sound. A lot of smells and textures and people all coming together and blurring and shifting until his head feels hazy and heavy and his eyes flicker from face to face without recognising a single one.

His hands leave where his fingers were playing with the soft fabric at the hem of his ruana up to his head. He makes a fist and knocks on his skull. 

“Knock, knock, knock on wood,” his mouth mumbles.

He doesn’t realise he’d done so until his fist falls back to his side and he sees the faces around him peering at him with furrowed brows. Curiosity. Fear. Just like before. We don’t talk about stupid Bruno. 

If he could just smile and be normal like everyone else, no one would be frightened of him. No one would look at him and wonder what to do with him.

He attempts a reassuring smile. Too much teeth Bruno. Squint your eyes a bit. Look fine. Look happy. He huffs. He looks like a maniac. He knows it. 

He opens his mouth to talk to these faces. There’s more now. Don’t worry, I’m fine! No, that sounds great! I’m just gonna take a break. I’ll see you later!

His throat feels like it was coated with tar. Thick and bitter and catching the words. Balling them up into an incomprehensible ball at the base of his tongue. He shakes his head from side to side, trying to dislodge them. He just needed to say the words and then everyone would leave him alone.

He knocks his head again,

“Knock, knock, knock on wood.”

Was all that he could loosen from the weight in his throat. 

He hits his head again, uncaring about how many eyes had turned to him by now. He can feel them. Like a spotlight. Look at stupid Bruno! Making a scene over nothing! ¡Habla! Just talk! Inutíl. Inutíl. Inutíl —

“Bruno.”

He looks up from where he realises he’s crouched into a ball. His mother stood at the other end of the courtyard, taking in the scene around her. He feels like a child again. When this would happen in front of the Encanto. His mother would pick him up by the ear, kicking and screaming and hitting and set him upright.

Control yourself, Bruno. She’d say. Brush it off, Bruno. Apologise, Bruno. We don’t talk about it, Bruno.

He curls inwards again and waits for her to force him up like before. Tell him to apologise to the faces around him. It never comes.

“Bruno, oh, mi hijo,” she murmurs instead.

He looks up again, eyes wide in surprise. His mother had crouched down next to him. Her forehead crinkled but her eyes were soft in concern. 

“Are you alright?”

He shakes his head violently enough to see stars in his periphery.

“Okay,” she says. Simply. Calmly. 

She offers a hand to him.

“C’mon,” she says, “come with me.”

His hand easily slips into hers. She guides him up, tucking his hand into the crook of his arm and leading them away from the crowd.

He doesn’t pay attention to where they were going. He focuses on putting one foot in front of the other. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left.

“Here,” his mother says, stopping. 

They stand at the base of his tower. Barren and empty but mostly repaired. It was smaller than it was before, no longer aided by magic to expand the space. It suited him just fine. The ground was still covered in sand as before.

He sits. She sits down next to him.

Without meaning to, he takes a handful of sand before filtering it through his fingers. Sand was always calming for him. He picks up another handful. Filters it from hand to hand watches until all the sand slips through his fingers in plumes falling on the floor. He picks up another handful. And another. And another.

They sit in silence. The ‘ch, ch, ch’ of falling sand: the only sound in the room.

When he’s ready to look away from the sand, he looks up at his mother again. She hadn’t left where she sat next to him. She was drawing patterns, swirling her finger on the ground. Waiting for him.

Feeling his eyes on her, she looks up. She smiles when they make eye contact. He looks back at the sand in his hands.

“How are you feeling, Bruno?” she asks, quietly.

“Better,” he rasps, voice hoarse from disuse.

He clears his throat,

“I’m feeling better. Sorry about… that— I just— it’s just—”

“It’s okay, don’t apologise, mi hijo,” she says, “you’ve got nothing to apologise for.”

She places her hand on his knee,

“In fact, it’s me who should apologise to you.”

He looks up again in surprise.

“I’m sorry I never tried to understand you, Bruno. That I tried to change you so it would be easier for me. That, when you couldn’t change, I tried to ignore you and drove you out instead.”

Bruno hears her take a shuddering breath. Her voice hitches on her next words,

“I’m proud of you, Bruno. Even if I could, I wouldn’t change any part of you. I love you as you are, mi hijo, I know that now. I want to help you. However you need me, I’m here for you.”

She squeezes his knee. He looks up at her. She’s smiling. Approval. Acceptance. Pride. Joy. He feels his lips pull into a smile. 

“I have many years to make up for, mi hijo” she says, “but I’m ready to try now, Brunito, I’m ready to try.”

Dolores doesn’t miss her gift very much. It got overwhelming very quickly. Hearing everything, everywhere, all the time. After all, she can only hear the same tidbit of gossip being passed around and misconstrued so many times until it crosses the line from funny to annoying to taxing. 

She remembers that first night. The family Madrigal lay on borrowed blankets in the courtyard, the only part of the house that was fully cleared of debris, to sleep for the night. She remembers looking up at the stars. Thinking about what Mirabel said. How they burn. That they’re slowly shifting and changing. That the sky she’s looking at right now won’t ever be the same sky again.

She was the last person awake when it finally hit her. It was silent. All around her. Silence. Peace. Usually, her nights were filled with the croaking of frogs and the chirruping of crickets and the snoring of Señor Osvaldo all the way from town. 

For the first time in a long time, everything was silent. As her eyelids grew heavier, her mind registered one thing that, perhaps, she did miss hearing: Mariano’s poetry. Every night as she goes to sleep.

Now, she walks along the balcony of the upper level, running her hand along the newly installed bannister. She crosses over to the wall, where a painting of an inconspicuous teapot, cup and saucer and lantern on a table, recovered from the rubble, hangs once again.

She touches the frame and tilts it slightly. No hole. Satisfied, she slips it back into place.

She walks down the stairs and sees Antonio in the courtyard, Parce the jaguar bounding up to him. She knew he was so excited about his newfound ability to speak to animals. He and Parce were attached at the hip until the magic was lost. All the animals had ran out of Antonio’s room and into the forest when Casita crumbled and, now Dolores had thought about it, she realises she hadn’t seen any of them since.

“Parce!” he giggles, delightedly, throwing his hands around the jaguar’s neck and burrowing his head into Parce’s scruff.

Once the initial fear of a sharp-toothed jaguar bounding up to her little brother subsides, she shakes her head fondly. Antonio. So fearless when it comes to his animals.

She watches as he pulls away, grinning broadly,

“I can’t believe it! I’m so glad you’re back!”

He looks around,

“Where are the others? Pico? Chispi?”

Parce growls, bobbing his head. Antonio shakes his head, grin dimming slightly.

“I— I can’t understand you anymore,” he says, running a hand through the jaguar’s fur, “It’s gonna take a bit of work, but… I still wanna be your friend. Is that okay, Parce?”

Dolores turns around to go to the kitchen but, just before she’s out of an earshot from her hermanito, she hears the purring agreement of his jaguar friend.

She takes a deep breath.

“I need time to find myself, you know? I want to see what I can do without the need to be perfect. I want to see if I can make waves. Change minds. I just feel like this whole time I’ve been chasing this idea of who someone else wanted me to be.”

She can tell Mariano was trying not to cry. But she pushed on. She needed to say this.

“So I’m sorry I’ve led you on. I know it doesn’t excuse it, but I felt like it was the best thing for my family. I was going through with it because I thought it would make my family happy. But I know better now. I’m ready to let go of that image.”

She smiles imploringly, trying to make him understand,

“You’re a good guy, Mariano. You deserve someone who can love you as deeply as you’ll love them. And I know that person is not me.”

He looks away for a moment, before he nods,

“I understand.”

He turns back to her,

“If I’m being honest, when I wrote poetry, about love, they weren’t about you. They were still about yearning for love — not a love already found. I think... I think I’ve been in love with the idea of love. I think I’ve got my own searching to do. Thank you, Isabella.”

She shakes her head with a smile, relieved,

“No, thank you, Mariano.”

“So… friends?” he smiles tentatively. Hopeful.

She squeezes his shoulder with a reassuring smile,

“Always.”

She lets go of him and lets him leave. She watches out of the corner of her eye as he sits under the steps of their front door before cradling his head in his hands. 

Isabela turns around. She spots Mirabel crossing the far end of the courtyard and starting up the stairs. She has an idea.

“Hey sis,” she calls, running over, “do you have a minute?”

Mirabel stops in her tracks, plans for Casita rolled up and tucked under her arm.

“Sure, Isa,” she smiles, stepping down the steps so they’re eye level, “what’s up?”

Isabela looks at Mariano sitting on the steps of their entrance, staring off into the sunset, and then at Dolores on the balcony of the second level stealing glances his way. 

“You see, we’ve got this cousin…”

She looks back to Mirabel who had followed her gaze. She watches as her sister starts to grin,

“...so, I’ll get Dolores, you talk to Mariano?”

Mirabel looks back to her, and shrugs with a laugh,

“I’m in.”

Two minutes later, Isabella runs out of the house after dragging a confused and flustered Dolores down the stairs to where Mariano sat with Mirabel. She looks around, trying to find a place where she could see Dolores and Mariano with them seeing her. Ah. There. She dives behind a donkey grazing in the garden and crouches behind it.

She watches as Mirabel pulls Mariano up by the hands and Dolores pops up from behind the archway. Isabela stifles a laugh as Dolores not-so-gently hip bumps Mirabel away so she could take Mariano’s hands.

Mirabel stumbles onto the grass in surprise as Isabela waves her over,

“Psst! Mira!”

Isabela watches as Mirabel readjusts her glasses, and, seeing Isabela, rushes over to her. Isabela shifts over so they both fit behind the donkey. Mirabel’s grinning wildly, laughing, as she sits herself down next to Isabela.

Isabela’s laughing too. She knows her smile is no less wild or mischievous than Mirabel’s. It’s not perfect, but it’s fun and it’s free and it’s hers.

“Sh, sh, sh,” smiles Mirabel, putting a hand to her own mouth to stifle her giggles, “I want to hear.”

They turn back to the couple in question. Dolores was talking and Mariano was looking at her wide-eyed and slack-jawed as if he had never seen her before. If Isabela focuses, she can just hear their words over the hammering on the other side of the house.

“...so won’t you wake up and notice me?”

“Dolores, I see you.”

“And I hear you.”

Isabela grins, turning to Mirabel,

“Yes!” they exclaim in unison.

She and Mirabel high-five in celebration. She registers a pang of guilt, thinking of all the antics, like what they just pulled off, that she’d missed out on with Mirabel. But, as Mirabel gets up from behind the donkey to run back to the house, she lets it go. She’s ready to make that change. To be there for her sister.

She stands up and turns around to follow Mirabel when her eyes get caught on a figure at the edge of the forest not far from where she stood. A woman. Dressed in red. A stark contrast to the green of the foliage around her. Even from here, Isabela could tell that the woman was tall — probably as tall as Luisa. 

Over one shoulder, she held a bundle of logs. Tucked into the belt that cinched her dress at the curve of her waist, was an axe. Isabela watches as the woman walks over to a tree stump and sets her load down on the grass. She picks out a log and sets it on the stump. She pulls the axe out from her belt and hoists it up into the air.

She splits the log in one fell swoop. The grains of the log giving way with a groan. She splits another with the same ease. This woman wasn’t as bulky as Luisa, lean muscle under ebony skin, but she could quite possibly be just as strong. Isabela tries to look away, but instead, looks down to where the woman had hiked up the skirt of her dress and tucked it into her belt, to keep it out of the undergrowth, and revealing the long length of her leg.

Isabela swallows. Oh.

“Isa!” Mirabel grabs her arm and shakes it.

Jolted, she turns back to her sister,

“Huh?”

“Finally!” Mirabel huffs, exasperated, “You okay, sis? I’ve called your name, like, five times—”

She turns away from Mirabel and towards the woman again and she knows her sister had followed her gaze because she cuts herself off. She feels Mirabel lean in. The woman splits another log before stopping and wiping the sweat off her brow with a practised flick.

“That’s Tatiana Hernandez. The carpenter’s daughter,” Mirabel whispers, with a nudge, “She’s learning her father’s trade. Pretty cool, isn’t she?”

Isabela nods wordlessly. As if the woman — Tatiana — could feel her looking, she looks up towards them. She smiles, bright and genuine and playful, and waves. Casual and confident. Isabela’s heart flip flops and lands somewhere in the flutter of her stomach.

She’s brought out of her turmoil by an elbow to the ribs from Mirabel.

“Go on, Isa,” she says, “she’s waving at you.”

She turns to her sister and she’s smirking the same smirk she had when Isabela told her of her plan to matchmake Dolores and Mariano.

“Hey Tati!” Mirabel shouts with a gleeful grin as if to show her sister how to greet someone before running off.

“Hiya Mirabel,” came Tatiana’s reply, a voice sweet and rich as dulce de leche.

Isabel attempts to look casual by rolling her eyes at Mirabel’s retreating form but any facade of cool casualness evaporates when she looks back at Tatiana, who has now rested her forearm on the handle of her axe and was looking up at her expectantly. Isabela swallows and raises her hand in a sheepish salute. 

Tatiana throws her head back and barks out a laugh, which carries up the hill to her ears. Deep and decadent yet light and true. Her cheeks flush as Tatiana returns the salute before picking her axe again and swinging it against another log.

“Isa!”

She turns back around, the trance broken. Mirabel was still smirking at her from the house. She calls back with a half-mortified, half-delighted laugh,

“I’m gonna kill you, Mira!”

“Are you sure you don’t want help, Luisa?” says Tío Félix, eyeing the stack of wood, wider than her shoulders and twice as long, that she was carrying over her head with a concerned look on his face.

Luisa just scrunched her face up in exertion, looking away from her uncle.

“I’m fine, Tío!” she calls back, trying to sound cheery and resolutely ignores the shaking of her biceps.

She peers up from underneath her load at the hill she had to climb. Maybe… maybe she wasn’t fine.

“Uh, Tío Félix?”

She can feel him perk up at the sound of his name.

“Yes, Luisa?”

She takes a breath,

“Could you— could you help me carry this?”

She had barely finished the question before she felt a second pair of hands grabbing the wood behind her. The burden lightening instantly.

“Of course,” came his easy reply, “¡Vámonos!”

When they reach the top, they set down the wooden slates in the courtyard to reveal that grey slate had been nailed to one side of the wood. Tío Félix sighs in relief and cracks his back the second their on the ground.

“Thanks for the help, Tío,” she says.

He punches her upper arm lightly,

“Well, thank you , for asking for it,” he beams before looking back at the stack of wood, “what’s all this for anyway?”

She pulls out the handful of chalk, all in different colours, from her pocket.

“Our doors.”

Tío Félix smiles and nods in understanding before saying goodbye before heading back to the village. Leaving Luisa with free time for relaxation. 

She had always loved working with her hands. Big things like moving mountains and bridges and churches. But she’s always held a greater love of the little things. She was an avid drawer — though she had less and less time for it as she got older. But she sketched anything she could in her spare time. Enthralled with how the smallest flick of her wrist could help create an image beyond her wildest imaginings. She picks up the chalk and gets to work.

The sun had travel up so it was high in the sky. Lunchtime. Luisa leans back onto her haunches with a satisfied sigh, appraising her morning’s work. It’s not exactly like the original. But it’s hers. She wipes the sweat from her face with her forearm.

“¡Oyé, Luisa!” called out a voice.

She looked out the entrance and saw her whole family coming up the hill from their morning in the village. Tía Pepa and Mamá and Papá and Dolores and Abuela. She sees their smiling faces and smiles in return, waving.

“Luisa!” Antonio laughs, breaking away from the group into a sprint and launching himself at her.

She catches him and lifts him onto her shoulders with ease,

“¡Hola, primito!” she smiles, “how was your morning?”

“It was great! First, I went to see Parce and Chispi, they’re staying in the forest now since we don’t have enough room in the house anymore but we’re still the best of friends. And then I went with Mamá, Dolores and Camilo to see the seamstress so he could try on some skirts. And then we saw Tía Julieta, Tío Agustín and Papá walk past and Tía Julieta said that the yellow skirt looked the best which was what I was saying all along—”

He gasps, interrupting himself when he looks down,

“Woah!” he says, “is that your door?”

She nods, careful not to knock him off her shoulders. The rest of the family had reached the house too and were starting to crowd around the doors she had laid out in a few piles on the floor.

“Luisa, what’s this?” asks Mamá, in awe, looking at a stack.

“Look papi!” says Antonio, taking Tío Félix’s hand and dragging him to another pile, the topmost door being his, “it’s me!”

“Wow!” exclaims Tía Pepa at the same time, grabbing her door, “Félix, look! It looks just like us!”

Tío Félix looks left and right, as if deciding whether to look at what his son was showing him or his wife. Tía Pepa puts the door down before coming over and pulling Luisa down into a hug.

“It’s beautiful, Luisa,” she says, pulling away, “I love it.”

“We all love it,” amends Mamá, reaching over and pulling Luisa into another hug.

“What are they for?” asks Tío Bruno, walking around looking at everyone else’s. Luisa watches his eyes light up when he sees his.

“They’re for our doors. I had thought about our old doors and how they had something to symbolise our gift. I wanted to do something similar with our new doors. So I talked to Señor Hernandez about the doors and he talked to Señor Herrera about getting slate so we could use chalk on it.”

Luisa picks up a piece of chalk she had left on the ground

“I just started by sketching each of you. I did it in chalk so—” 

Luisa bends down at the image of Tía Pepa and Tío Félix on their door and erases a section of Tía Pepa’s hair, 

“— you can erase it or redo it or add to it over time. So it can reflect not just your gift. But you.”

She looks up at Tía Pepa for a second before redrawing the hair. The curls a touch more similar to Tía Pepa’s than they were before. 

They ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ and thank her all in turn as they go around and look at her chalk drawings, talking about what they wanted to add to their doors. Parce and Chispi and Pico on Antonio’s. A piano in Mamá and Papá’s.

Luisa walks over to her sisters, who were crouched around Isabela’s door and discussing what to put on it,

“...and then up the back I wanna put a whole river of sundew — like what I showed you in my room—”

Luisa kneels down next to them and notices Isabela holding a wooden flower that she didn’t have this morning. She nudges Isabela and gestures to the flower questioningly. Isabela just blushes,

“It’s nothing.”

Mirabel, much too eager for it to mean nothing, leans towards Luisa,

“Tatiana gave it to her when we stopped by the carpenter’s shop.”

Before Luisa could ask any questions as to why Tatiana gave Isabela a flower, Abuela calls her,

“Luisa.”

Without meaning to, she gulps. She knows that tone. She leaves her sisters and goes over to where Abuela stood over her door. Instead of weights above her head, like on her first door, she had drawn herself hugging a unicorn.

For a second, the familiar fear of disappointing Abuela finds its way back into her heart. But then Abuela smiles and the dread disappears just as quickly as it came.

“It’s beautiful, Luisa,” she praises, before kneeling down to examine it closer, “Later, can you help me with mine?”

She sighs and feels her shoulders slump in relief. She smiles,

“I’d love to Abuela.”

Someone gasps and Luisa looks up again to see who it was. Mirabel had a hand pressed to her mouth. She looks around, points to the her door — which had been covered by Tío Bruno’s before he moved it — and then at herself as if she couldn’t believe it,

“A door,” she says, dumbfounded, “For— for me ?”

Luisa nods, going to her sister,

“Well, of course, you’re a part of the family, Mira, of course you get a door!”

Mirabel looks at her again and Luisa notices her eyes are glistening in the sunlight as she blinks rapidly. She pulls her sister into a hug. A bit too enthusiastically, based on the ‘oof’ Mirabel makes on impact. But then Mirabel’s arms wrap around her neck and Luisa recognises the way her shoulder rise and fall.

“Oh no, Mirabel! Don’t cry! Now, I’m gonna cry!”

Mirabel laughs wetly, hugging her tighter still,

“Thank you, Luisa.”

Next thing she knows she feels another pair of arms around her knees. Antonio. And then another at her back. Tía Pepa. And then Mamá and Tío Bruno and Camilo — even Abuela — until they’re in the middle of a mess of limbs and heads in the middle of their courtyard, laughing and crying in equal parts. A family group hug. Luisa can’t imagine the last time this happened. But she hopes, with all her heart, this isn’t the last.

Mirabel looks up at their newly finished house.

“Home sweet home,” she sighs, smiling, “I like the new foundation.”

She feels Abuela lean in, elbowing her gently in jest,

“It isn’t perfect.”

Mirabel laughs and threads her arm through Abuela’s,

“Neither are we.”

Abuela puts her hand on Mirabel’s, chuckling,

“That’s true.”

She looks up towards the house again. Mirabel follows her gaze.

“Now, just one more thing,” Abuela says, “before the celebration.”

Mirabel’s eyebrows furrow in confusion,

“Wha—”

“We need a doorknob!” interjects Tío Bruno.

She looks at him and then down to where Antonio stood in front of them holding out a doorknob, glinting gold in the sunset, with an ‘M’ carved on it. She couldn’t help the small gasp that escapes her mouth.

“We made this one for you.”

Abuela lets go of her hand only for Antonio to take it. He pulls her along the path. All their family had gathered around the entrance.

We see how bright you burn. We see how brave you’ve been. Now see yourself in turn.

“You’re the real gift, kid,” says Tío Bruno, “let us in.”

Mirabel raises a shaking hand. This time the door doesn’t disappear before her very eyes. She slips the doorknob into the notch. It clicks in without a fuss. Finally. Home.

She stands at the foot of their house, remembering a time not too long ago where she was at the same place, assuring them that they’ll get by and rebuild. And they have. It’s not the same Casita. It doesn’t come alive beneath her fingertips like before. Her shoulders slump in something akin to disappointment. She didn’t realise she had been holding onto the hope that Casita would come back after they had rebuilt the house. But then, she remembers that Casita’s last moments were spent saving her life and she feels a wave of gratitude instead. 

“Hola Casita,” she smiles up at the house, blinking away tears.

Casita was back. Not the same, sure, but back all the same.

After all, the true magic wasn’t the fact that the drawers could move on their own or the staircase could turn into a slide with a simple request. That didn’t make Casita Casita. It was the people within its walls. The people around her now. 

The miracle wasn’t the ability to move mountains or make new trees or flowers grow. Nor was it the ability to heal what was broken or control the morning rain or a hurricane. The miracle didn’t come back because the miracle never left. It was them. The Madrigals. A family. Trying and healing and growing.

Ya son milagros. They were already miracles.