Chapter Text
————
'Cause brick by brick, you built us and I'd fill in the cracks
Nothing quite prepares you for when they don't come back
I wish I'd done things different, I wish that I'd been brave
I wish I'd known these stones were something I could save
‘Ruin’ by The Amazing Devil
————
Part One - A Very Strange Night
————
The truth is, Pedro thinks to himself, in the dead of night in this tiny little cottage, is that he’s scared to death of what he might find. He can only admit it to himself here, in the dark, where he has no choice but to be honest.
In the day, when he’s surrounded by fellow survivors, refugees, displaced people like him who can’t go home and yet don’t have anywhere to go, he stays positive. He’s proactive. He says, ‘yes, I know it sounds like a dream, but there is somewhere safe with a miracle to protect it. And we will find it, I promise.’
He says it so convincingly, that he convinces himself. But it’s here, at night, that he has to face his doubts. That yes, there might be safety, an Encanto protected by a miracle, lead by a widow with triplets. But she might not be his widow (his wife), she could be some other woman. Triplets are uncommon, but not that uncommon.
He worries that he might get there, find this Encanto (and he will find it, even if it takes the rest of his life), that he’ll lead this motley group that he’s somehow collected and will come face-to-face with her and -
What if it’s not Alma?
Beautiful, strong, fiery Alma, who he knows could lead a town like that. Who could fight and make a safe place for their babies to grow.
But what if it’s not her?
What if he’s wasted his life - fifteen years of it, he’s not a young man anymore, he’s already hit the wrong side of forty - and she’s already gone.
He can’t even think it. He can’t let himself believe it.
Pedro turns in bed, restless, trying not to disturb the others sleeping around the room.
You haven’t made this up, he reassures himself for the hundredth time. This isn’t a deluded daydream, this is based on fact.
All those years ago, when he’d woken bruised, beaten, half dead, nearly fifty miles from where he’d left Alma and the babies, his friend Carlos had been with him. Carlos had fallen into the river alongside Pedro, grabbing him around the waist and clinging on for dear life.
‘I thought we were both dead,’ he’d whispered to Pedro, when they’d both regained consciousness weeks after that incident. ’All I could think was that we were both dead, and I didn’t want you to be alone.’
But unlike Pedro, Carlos had been conscious when they’d hit the water. He’d caught a last glimpse of Alma.
‘She was alive,’ he said lowly, ‘I’m sure of it. She had the babies, and she was reaching for you, and then there was this burst of light but it didn’t hurt her, and then we were gone.’
So they’d searched, eventually, after almost a year reliant on the kindness of strangers, walking that long road to recovery -
(Carlos’ knee will never be the same again, and Pedro has a spasm in his back that never really lets up, a long scar winding the length of his torso, and he’s missing a back tooth. There are some injuries that can’t be healed)
- They’d searched the area where they’d last been, but the landscape had been unrecognisable. They’d been certain they were in the wrong place, and had searched for months and months for the clearing by the river they both remembered. But nothing. They’d hit a dead end.
They’d also thought, for years, that the burst of light had been in Carlos’ head. The most likely explanation was that he’d hit his head when he smacked the water. That he’d had a concussion. And they had gone on believing it, because why would they think anything else?
Except seven years later -
(Seven years, and Pedro’s heart bleeds at the passing of time. He celebrates Alma’s birthday, and the babies’ birthday, counting the days and months and years. He buys them gifts, little trinkets that makes him think of them, that he wonders if they’d like, his daughters and his son and it hurts)
—seven years after he’d lost Alma and they’d hit another dead end, he and Carlos return back to the city, to stay with Carlos’ extended family. To rest and recuperate and go again.
(Sometimes Pedro wonders what he would do without Carlos. Kind Carlos with his steady steadfast nature, who just wants to find his sister. Who stands by Pedro and says ‘I will help you hermano’ and means it).
It’s there in the city they come across a rumour, told to them by Carlos’ cousin.
A rumour about a town, an Encanto, protected by a miracle.
Lead by a widow, gifted a miracle at her husband’s sacrifice, with - and this is the bit that cinches it for him - her triplets.
She thinks he’s dead, Pedro understands. That’s why she hasn’t come looking, because she thinks he’s dead. And because of the babies, he reminds himself. They’d worried between them how they were going to cope with three babies. How they would deal with feeding and sleeping and changing, and their laughter had been a little unhinged when they thought about how much work it would be for two of them.
He hurts when he thinks of Alma doing all that by herself. (And then he hurts even worse when he thinks of her doing all that not by herself. Then he mentally smacks himself, tells himself that if she’s remarried because she thought he was dead, because she wanted a father for their children, that he won’t blame her for it, that he’ll be patient and kind, and he just hopes it’ll be true.)
A widow with triplets leading a town protected by a miracle. He thinks - only Alma. Only Alma could, and it gives him hope.
But it’s not that simple. Even though they know about the existence of the Encanto, they still can’t find it.
It takes years.
But here they are, fifteen years later, the closest they’ve ever been, with a merchant who swears he’s been there. Who swears he does trade with the Encanto, and he’s met the widow. That it’ll be a safe place to rest and settle.
Pedro turns over again, shifting the duvet, and Carlos kicks him, hard.
‘Stop it,’ he mutters under his breath, nearly indistinguishable, ‘go to sleep.’
Pedro kicks him back for good measure, and then tries to take his friend’s advice.
————
‘Pepa, Pepi, Pepi, Pepa,’ Comes the jaunty shout of her chipper sister, ‘Wake up! Or I’m coming in!’
Julieta shouts from outside Pepa’s bedroom door, banging on it with her fists but not moving it from where it’s slightly ajar.
Pepa groans, loudly, so she can hear, and Julieta laughs and hops off to the bathroom.
Pepa rolls over, settles back into the warmth of her blanket and snuggles into the pillow. She’s just about managed to doze back off - she loves being comfy and all her pillows and blankets are so soft - when there’s a cold hand on the back of her neck, and Julieta strips back the blanket from her.
Pepa screams.
‘Get up!’ Julieta says, tugging the blanket again, and though Pepa holds on, Julieta is strong and yanks it away.
‘No,’ Pepa moans, curling into a ball as best she can.
‘Get up! Or I’m sending Mamí in. Come on, breakfast in ten. Up!’
She smacks Pepa on the leg once for good measure, and the leaves, leaving the door wide open.
Pepa grumbles to herself, but the bed is cold now, and her pillow is on the floor, so she has no choice but to drag herself out of bed and start the day.
————
Pepa is downstairs at an acceptable time, so neither Julieta or her mother comes looking for her. She passes Bruno in the hallway, as he sleepily shuffles out of the bathroom, his hair neat but his tie askew, and she pats him kindly on the shoulder. Neither say a word.
She sits at the kitchen table, and slumps forward, head on her arms. A few minutes later Bruno sits next to her, and he nudges her side, telling her breakfast is ready. Pepa lifts her head, and lethargically digs in.
‘Morning bebés’ Alma calls, as she swans in, dressed and ready for the day.
They greet her back with varying levels of enthusiasm. Pepa sips gratefully at the coffee Julieta puts on the table, as Alma grabs a brush from the side, and starts to tackle Pepa’s hair.
Pepa glances enviously at Julieta’s little bob, the front pinned back with a bow, all sleek and pretty. She makes a face as Alma pulls hard on a particular knot - it feels like she’s brushing Pepa’s brain - but then Alma scratches her scalp just right, and she has goosebumps all down her neck.
‘Up today?’ Alma asks, ‘or down?’
‘Up.’
Alma twists and braids Pepa’s mop of hair into a somewhat acceptable bun, and ties it off with a ribbon.
‘Right,’ she says, after she’s finished with Pepa, and she’s straightened Bruno’s tie.
‘School until three …’ Alma trails off, and they obediently fill in the blanks.
‘School until three,’ they recite, ‘back here.’
Julieta runs through her chores, and then Bruno goes. He elbows Pepa when it’s her turn.
‘Sun in the Papaya fields, and then cool breeze in the coffee fields.’
Alma hums, and then consults the calendar.
‘No amor,’ she says regretfully, ‘I think the coffee plants need rain today.’
That wakes Papa up.
‘What?’ and she follows her mother’s gaze, and finger on the calendar. True enough, Alma is right. Under her finger is the schedule, and today the coffee plants need rain.
Lots of it, is the annotation next to the schedule, in Alma’s neat writing.
‘Oh,’ Pepa says, ‘I must have read the wrong day. That’s fine.’
She nods at Alma, who glances up above Pepa’s head and then smiles and nods, letting the cloud go uncommented on.
‘Goodbye bebés,’ she says, with love and affection, ‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Bye Mamá,’ they chorus, grabbing bags, and each pressing a kiss to Alma’s cheek.
They stumble out the door and down the hill to school.
————
The school building is old - well, old for the Encanto - as it was one of the first establishments set up after the makeshift hospital and the church.
Pepa’s always thought it looks like a prison, with it’s tall gate and red brick, but Julieta scolds her for that thought.
‘It’s just so they know the children can’t get out,’ she says, ‘I’m sure actual prison would be much worse.’
And what do any of them know about actual prison? So Pepa nods for the sake of peace, and ignores Bruno’s smirk behind Julieta’s back.
School is - fine.
They split the children by ability, rather than by age. Whilst Julieta, Pepa and Bruno have the benefit of always having been in the Encanto, and therefore their schooling has been mostly consistent (depending on available teachers), they’re the outliers in their cohort.
There aren’t many children their age in the Encanto - the average ages seem to be a couple of years below and above them, with an increase in younger children over the last ten years. And as more people join and settle here, their children have often had disrupted schooling, so it’s not unusual to find older teenagers in classes where the average age is much lower than theirs. There’s a general understanding across the school, and aside from some petty name calling, it’s not usually an issue.
The teachers have always seemed to try and use the triplets as a medium, with three of them same age, with differing skills and talents. Pepa thinks that they try and take an average of them, and use that as the set syllabus by age.
Pepa’s not sure if it works.
The benefit though, is that the triplets are almost always in the same class, with only a few exceptions. Pepa joins an ‘advanced’ literature class -
(which they - the three of them - still think is a fluke: Pepa wrote an essay once three years ago that the teacher had thought was brilliant, inspired, with an unique take and insight beyond her years. Pepa had written the essay, at three in the morning the night before, hyped up on coffee and panic, a stream of consciousness commentary on the perils of love and revenge. She’s never managed to produce anything to that level again, to the teacher’s disappointment and her siblings’ amusement, but she happily joins the ‘advanced’ class because the material is often more interesting and the class is smaller)
- Unfortunately, for all Pepa’s skill at blagging literature, she’s rubbish at maths and science. To her eternal embarrassment both Julieta and Bruno take to sciences with ease, and they talk about chemical reactions and other things that Pepa doesn’t know and doesn’t understand, and she hates it because it makes her feel stupid.
So Pepa is in a ‘basic’ science class, and while Julieta and Bruno join the advanced one. She gets by in the normal maths class, through sheer stubborn force of will, and her siblings’ patient explanations (and that when all else fails, she copies their work). She still thinks Bruno should be in her literature class - he’s very dramatic and artsy, often writing stories and songs for them. He sometimes reads her notes from the class, commenting on technique and symbolism, but when she pushes him, he says he doesn’t want to. He’s happy with an easy life.
Overall, Pepa is content at school.
————
The fields after school is another matter.
The school bell rings, and the three of them hotfoot it back to Casita, trailing up the hill, hurrying as to not be late. In the house, they strip off their uniform, Pepa shrugging off her shirt and skirt at the door - they used to share baths, even now at fifteen there’s little to no modesty between them, although Bruno will roll his eyes sometimes. She can tell it doesn’t really make him uncomfortable though. If it did, she would stop. Besides, she has her bloomers and top on, it’s not like she’s wondering around naked - and they change quickly into work clothes.
Julieta gets her basket, and heads back down to town. Bruno gets his little stall, and his notebook and follows her. They both wave goodbye to Pepa, who heads the opposite direction, past Casita, up the track to the fields.
Pepa likes the walk, through the trees, by the flowers and the small meadow. She even likes the fields themselves, the sprawling countryside, the tall plants and the soft earth. She likes the company, waving to some of the men working the fields as she passes, commenting on the day’s work, hearing little tidbits about their lives. Most of them treat her kindly, like a cross between a little sister, a daughter, and a work-colleague, and Pepa’s always been content with that.
It’s the weather itself that’s the problem.
Pepa pulls out her little schedule and double checks it.
Sun in the papaya fields. Got it.
She climbs over the fence and passes down the path, wondering through the little worker’s estate that’s popped up over the last couple of years, with neat little cottages and a small farmyard. It’s empty, no one wanting to be so far from town, but Pepa knows from her mother that they’re thinking about expanding the agricultural element of the Encanto, so they’ve been planing for the future.
Pepa loves the little cottages here, she thinks they’re so quaint and pretty. She skirts them, running her hand over the rose bush that’s growing out of control, and climbs another fence into the papaya field.
She heads into the middle, and after a little deliberation sits on the ground crossing her legs in front of her. She pulls out her little notebook again, flipping to the back, and pulls out a couple of scraps of paper.
She smooths them out, the folds in them worn and fragile from age. They’re notes. One from Bruno, one from Julieta, one from her mother. One from a boy at school, who’s family moved away a couple of months ago. A few others from people over the years, some of her field colleagues.
They’re notes of affection. Compliments.
Julieta’s says how much she loves Pepa, how much she values having her as a sister. Bruno’s echos the sentiment, in his dry, down to earth tone. Her mother’s writes how she’s becoming a wonderful young lady, how her father would be proud. There’s a little love note, the first one she ever received, that she treasures, from a boy called Eduardo. It tells her that he likes her bow, and thinks she’s pretty. Some from her colleagues, telling her how hard she works, and that they’re grateful.
Pepa lets the compliments wash over her, basks in the validation, the affection. Lets them fill her up, imagines the love expanding like balloons inside her stomach. She closes her eyes and feels warm and safe and happy.
When she peeks open her eyes nearly forty minutes later and glances up at the sky, the sun is smiling brightly, shining down on the crops, and Pepa is hot and sweaty in her dress.
She pulls out her homework from her little bag, and makes a start on her literature essay due in a few days. She’s happy and content enough that the sun should stay bright even if she’s not focusing on it directly, and she likes literature which helps. Pepa balances the notebook on her knee and carefully writes.
Another half an hour and the papaya fields are done, and Pepa feels a jolt of pride when Ricardo gives her a wave from the other side of the field and a thumbs up. She waves back.
The coffee fields are a different matter. She makes her way there, feeling anticipation and worry grow in her chest.
The same set up, she sits in the middle of the field, and pulls out her umbrella. Pepa sighs, feeling anxiety welling in her chest and she hasn’t even started yet.
She’d once asked Julieta and Bruno to do the same for her, but for rainy days. Where they’d written lovely kind words to make her sun, she’d asked them to write horrible mean things to make her rain.
They’d both looked at her in horror and refused.
So Pepa had to write them herself. She flips back to her little book, turning the page. There, laid out in black and white, are all her insecurities, her fears and worries, and she reads them, letting them fill her up, letting herself believe them to be true.
They don’t love you
You’re an awful sister
You let your mother down
You’re too emotional, too high maintenance
You’re going to be nothing
No one will ever love you
You’re ugly
Pepa lets the tears drip off her face, and hides underneath the umbrella as the clouds darken and the rain starts to fall. She sniffles and cries, but it’s not enough - lots of it her mother’s writing had said - so she goes back to her book and reads more (she has pages and pages and pages), letting the sobs well in her chest, and when her rational brain rejects all the awful things she tells herself - Julieta and Bruno love you, they do - she has to work herself up again.
She thinks of failing school, and of the mud seeping into her dress, of her father being dead.
Pepa cries in the field for an hour and a half. By the time she was supposed to stop, she’d worked herself into such a fit, it had taken another half an hour for the tears to dry and her breathing to slow.
She’s going to be late for dinner, but hopefully Mamá won’t mind today. She’s heading back down the path, when she’s stopped by Miguel leaning over the fence to talk to her.
‘Oh querida,’ he says lowly, offering her a handkerchief that she takes gratefully, wiping her eyes, ‘you’re too pretty to look so sad. Cheer up sweetheart.’
Miguel owns the coffee field. He’s older, in his thirties, and handsome, and charming. Pepa’s heart skips at his kind words and the sun shines a little brighter.
‘Gracias Miguel,’ she says, as demure as she can manage. ‘But the fields needed lots of rain today, I hope that’s enough?’
She’s not fishing for compliments - no matter what Julieta accuses her of - but she can’t deny the smile that grows on her face when Miguel says:
‘You always do a perfect job, you take such good care of the fields. I don’t know what we’d do without you Pepa.’
‘You’re too kind.’
‘I’m just being honest.’
They share another smile, and he tells her to keep his handkerchief when she tries to pass it back.
‘You know,’ he says slowly, as if he’s thinking out loud. ‘I - no it doesn’t matter.’
‘No,’ Pepa says, ‘what is it?’
He eyes her again, intensely, and smiles. ‘Well, Arcturo Guzman is having a party tonight, I wondered if you were going?’
Pepa had actually been aware of the party tonight. She’s on-again-off-again friends with a girl named Sofia, who’s nearly four years older than Pepa. At nineteen, she’s good friends with Arcturo, and - as Pepa and Sofia are currently friends, though Pepa doesn’t think it’s going to last - Sofia had told Pepa of the party.
‘You should come,’ she’d said teasingly, because they both knew that Alma would never allow it.
‘I’ll think about it,’ Pepa had replied, with a cheeky smile, ignoring the grey cloud over her head that gave away her worry.
‘That depends,’ Pepa says to Miguel, looking up at him from beneath her lashes. ‘Are you going to be there?’
‘I will if you will?’ he says, and Pepa grins.
‘Then I’ll see you there.’
————
Pedro flinches as a tree branch comes hurtling back at him, and he has only a split second to raise his arm to stop it smacking him in the face.
‘Sorry!’ Carlos calls over his shoulder, not sounding the least bit sorry at all.
They’re doing a final test with the merchant, to make sure the route to the Encanto is accessible and correct. In the group that Pedro and Carlos have collected over the last couple of months - more by accident than by design - there are children and a couple of pregnant women. Despite being a reluctant leader, Pedro takes pride in not being a neglectful one, so he thought it was worth making sure everyone could follow the group.
He’s been there, after all, while others ran faster ahead, on the more difficult path, whilst he hung back with Alma - weak from birth - and their tiny babies. He’s always said he’ll never leave anyone behind.
The dirt path steeps down sharply, and Carlos nearly looses his balance - he can’t quite rely on his knee anymore - but he keeps his footing and then they break the tree line, and Pedro gets his first sight of the Encanto.
It’s pretty, he thinks almost idly. The path they join leads up to what looks like the main concourse, and then instead of ground there’s cobbled stones. The merchant stops.
‘That way into town,’ he says pointing. ‘The main square is down there.’
Pedro peers down the path, and sure enough, there are houses and winding streets, and at the end he can see the vague shape of a square.
They walk slowly, down the main strand, past what look like little shops and stalls, there’s a building that he’s certain is a school, and a church across from it. It’s lovely and quaint, and he can’t quite believe that he’s here.
There’s a wheezing noise from Carlos at Pedro’s right - a sort of cough, gasp - and when he looks over, Carlos is peering through the gate to the school. Pedro grasps his arm and stops him from going too close - as innocent as it is, and as much as he too would like to know if his children are there, two strangers making a beeline for the school is going to cause problems - but when he follows Carlos’ gaze he understands.
There’s a young teacher, with her class of several small children, sitting outside in the shade of a tree. She’s pretty, with long hair and a sweet voice that carries to them. She’s also the spitting image of Carlos’ sister - Pedro thinks that this must be her daughter.
‘Come on,’ he says to Carlos, who is unable to tear his eyes away. ‘We need to go, it’s going to look strange if we hover here.’
Carlos goes with him reluctantly, every step slow and dragging, but they eventually get to the square, and Pedro looks around in awe. It’s beautiful, bustling with life and business. It feels like a sanctuary.
‘Can I help you?’ A woman says, and when they turn she has the nosey look of a busybody. Pedro can spot the nose for gossip anywhere.
‘Yes,’ Carlos says, taking the lead, and Pedro tunes them out as they start to discuss.
‘Are we going back?’ Carlos asks, twenty minutes later.
‘Sorry?’ Pedro says.
‘We need to go back and get the rest of the group. This woman, Luciana, is going to tell whoever she needs to tell to get us accommodated here.’
Alma, Pedro thinks. The widow with the magical triplets.
‘Are you going to wait? Or are you coming back with me?’
Pedro tells himself its not cowardice when he turns and heads back with Carlos, he tells himself it’s kindness, to help the children and women, to guide the group somewhere safe. But he doesn’t quite believe it.
————
‘That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,’ Bruno says, sitting on Pepa’s bed watching her get ready. ‘You’re going to be in so much shit.’
‘Mmmhmmm,’ comes Julieta’s dry tone from the doorway, where she’s watching.
‘So what? I want to go to a party, that’s not a crime,’ Pepa snaps.
‘It is in this house,’ Bruno says, but he quiets when Pepa sends him a look over his shoulder.
‘Fine, but if you get caught, it’s on your head,’ Julieta sighs.
‘Of course.’
It’s getting late now, gone ten o’clock, and they know Alma will retire to bed shortly. Pepa only needs the other two to cover for her, for maybe half an hour. And she knows they will. They owe her one.
‘How do I look?’ Pepa brushes the creases out of her dress, and does a spin for them in the middle of her room.
‘Pretty,’ Bruno mutters.
‘Very pretty,’ Julieta says, and Pepa preens under their gaze.
‘Gracias mis amores,’ she says, putting her earrings in and slipping into her shoes.
‘Just tell Mamá I’ve gone to bed, please?’ and when they nod reluctantly, Pepa kisses them each on the cheek as she passes.
It’s not difficult to sneak into the bathroom, and squeeze out the window onto the lower roof. Casita tries to stop her for a moment, fluttering the shutters, and rattling the titles under her foot, but she won’t be put off. Pepa shimmies down the pipe, and then jumps to the ground.
Easy.
Light on her feet, she hurries down the path and out of sight of the house.
————
It’s nearly midnight when the group end up back in the square of the Encanto, and it’s a good thing Pedro had gone back to help them - one man had fallen, and another had a fever, both needing to be carried - and it’s taken them twice as long to get back with the children and old people.
Pedro is exhausted, but he’s also strangely wired.
There are people coming out of the houses, and someone has set up a tent that looks like medical assistance. Everything is calm and collected, this is clearly not the first time they’ve done something like this.
Pedro’s mouth is dry, and his hands are shaking. He spots someone he thinks he knows - He’s sure the woman gazing at him from the side is Daniela Guzman, who had been with them that night - and -
Please, he thinks. Just, please.
‘I - I’m looking for Alma,’ he says lowly, to a man stood by the tent. ‘Is she here?’
‘Madrigal?’ The man questions. ‘Señora Madrigal, yeah?’
Pedro’s heart jumps and his stomach drops.
‘Yes,’ he says, ‘Alma Madrigal.’
‘Sure,’ he says, ‘she’ll probably be along in a minute, she usually sees in new arrivals, although it’s a little late. It’s the house at the end of the path,’ he points behind him. ‘With the blue door, you can’t miss it.’
Pedro is almost paralysed with fear. He’s never, in fifteen long years, been so close to his wife as he is in this moment.
Carlos pushes him in the back.
‘Go on,’ he says, his voice thick with tears as he holds his sister close, ‘go on man, you know what you gotta do.’
And he does.
————
In the end, he and Alma meet half way. He’s weaving his way through the crowd, when he sees her hurrying down the path that had been pointed out to him.
He stops dead, and just looks. It’s her. Definitely, without a shadow of a doubt. That is his wife. He wants to weep.
She’s older, lines around her eyes and her mouth, but her hair is dark and rich, braided, long and tied with ribbons. Her dark eyes are beautiful, and she’s slim and - he can’t take his eyes off her.
She doesn’t see him immediately, but he can tell the moment she does because she too stops still. Her face doesn’t change, nothing changes, she just stops, and her eyes meet his and -
It’s indescribable.
Her stillness spurs him into action, and he stumbles forward until they’re face to face, and he opens his mouth but there’s nothing to say.
They just gaze at each other for a long moment, and Alma lifts her hand slowly, her fingers are trembling, and she brushes her fingertips on the side of his face. When she touches him, when her fingers make contact, she lets out a gasp, and her mouth drops open.
‘Alma,’ he breathes, and he’d planned this. He’s had fifteen years to plan what he was going to say to his wife, and now in this moment everything seems inadequate. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, because that’s the crux of what he wants to say - I’m sorry I wasn’t there, I’m sorry you were alone, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
Alma lets out a sound that might be a laugh, but it also might be a sob, and she raises her other hand to his face, holding his cheeks between her palms. Her mouth is still open, and she’s gasping for words, but nothing comes out. Nothing until she whispers his name, and when he smiles she throws her arms around his neck. He wraps his arms around her, and holds her as she weeps.
————
Pepa is stressed. A little grey cloud bobs over her head, bouncing as she clambers over a fence into the Martinez’ garden, and out into a side street off the square.
The party had been good and she’s spent a wonderful couple of hours dancing. She was the youngest there, by a fair amount, but a funny side effect of her time spent in the fields watering and sunning the crops, is that she knows most of the manual labourers by name. She’s friends with a good number of them.
There’s Ricardo, who’s older brother owns the top papaya field, who always gives her a cheery smile and wave when he sees her. His wife is expecting their first child, and he’s very fond of talking about what he hopes for the future. Pepa had once asked Bruno to check for him and, to her relief, he’ll have a very happy life. The baby is a girl.
There’s Roberto, barely eighteen with no facial hair, who mucks the horses and feeds the animals. He sometimes shares his lunch with her, if she looks like she’s had to rain particularly hard that day.
There’s Arcturo Guzman, who she knows by association, and Gabrio who’s mother runs the bakery, and Nicholas who’s sister is in Pepa’s class at school. And a whole host of characters that make up the agricultural industry in the Encanto.
The biggest disappointment of the evening was Miguel. He hadn’t shown up until gone half eleven. And even though Pepa had waited to see him, he’d spent most of the party talking to Sofia, running his hands down her arms, and generally ignoring Pepa.
Pepa had swallowed the lump in her throat, and spent the evening dancing with Ricardo and his brother instead, lest she dwell and ruin the weather for everyone.
Doesn’t matter, she thinks, flipping her hair and spinning with Ricardo, she’d come to dance anyway.
Pepa loves to dance. She dances in the kitchen when Mamá is out, and bullies Julieta and Bruno into joining her. She dances at school, down the hallways and gets into trouble for it. She dances whenever there’s music.
She loves it.
But there’s no music now. Right now, Pepa is trying desperately to get back home, without being caught.
What no one had expected, as Roberto had explained to her in whispers, is that almost thirty people had turned up in the Encanto at gone midnight - men, women, children - all looking for the same thing: safety.
It’s not unusual. The Encanto is growing all the time, usually odd families and small groups, and they’re all met with the same welcome - provisions and safety, and the offer to stay. Most do, but not all.
They’re told, of course, about the miracle and Alma Madrigal and her triplets with their gifts. But telling is one thing, and seeing is another, and Pepa hates it the first time someone new sees her cloud, the kind of awe and disbelief that quickly fades to frustration when the skies darken and the cloud rains.
She can’t help it!
She doesn’t like being stared at.
Pepa peeps her head around the corner and hurries up the street, as close to the road as she can.
Pepa knows two things: one, that she’s wearing a bright yellow summer dress and therefore she can be seen a mile away, and two, that her mother always comes to greet the new arrivals.
These two things, along with the cloud above her head, do not lend themselves to good odds for Pepa to get back to Casita without being seen.
‘Shit,’ she whispers, as she climbs another fence, into the back of the butcher, and then over the fence again into another street. ‘Clear skies, clear skies,’ she hisses, trying to appease the cloud.
She drops to the floor, crouching behind some plants, when she spies her mother coming down the path.
Good, ok, she thinks. If Pepa can get around her, she’ll have a clear shot at getting back to Casita. She’s got long legs, and she’s a quick runner. She just needs to -
Pepa pauses, as she shuffles forward and watches with shock and amazement as her mother embraces a man.
What?
Who is that?
He’s tall, with dark hair, and they have their heads bent together closely, and Alma is crying.
Crying like Pepa has never seen before, and it sends a spark of panic through her stomach. Pepa glances above her head hurriedly, making sure that spark didn’t cause something else that’s going to give her away.
Forget it, she whispers, watching, he’s not hurting her. You’ll be the one crying if Mamá catches you out this late, and she knows it’s true.
But now Pepa’s missed her chance to get away cleanly, there are people making their way up the path towards Casita - including Alma and this man.
Shit, she thinks. They’re going to host them at Casita for the night.
Again, that’s not unusual. People sometimes stay with them for days, even weeks at a time, whilst they get settled in the Encanto. Alma takes her role and responsibilities very seriously.
Pepa sprints through the trees, adjacent to the path, scrambling over roots and branches, trying desperately not to catch her dress on anything. She does manage to get up to Casita before her mother - Pepa thinks they’ve stopped to talk, her mother and that man - but the doors are open and people are milling about outside.
Pepa sneaks around the side and nearly has a clear shot at the kitchen window, when it opens and voices echo out. It’s Señora Guzman and Pepa feels a sharp sting of panic. If Señora Guzman sees her, she will absolutely tell Alma.
Pepa hurries back around the house, to the front, but there are more people coming up the path. She ducks down into the flower beds, and crawls forward, crouching.
Oh no! she thinks. I’ve messed up.
There’s the click of a window from above and then Julieta’s voice hissing ‘Pepa?’
Pepa leans back as far as she can whilst still being hidden by the flowers, and catches her sister’s eye.
‘What is happening?’ Julieta whisper-shouts, but Pepa waves her away.
‘How do I get in without being seen? Mamá is down there,’ and Pepa points down the path.
Julieta’s face says it all: she pulls a sort of grimace, and then leans back to presumably consult with Bruno.
‘Can you climb up the rose terrace?’ Bruno calls, and Pepa eyes it thoughtfully. It’s a tall rectangular shape, with cross bars like a ladder. She probably could climb on it, and that would take her on to the lower roof.
A glance back down the path, and she thinks, this is her best shot.
‘Can you see?’ Pepa calls up, ‘tell me when,’ and feels a jolt of panic when she sees her mother again.
‘On three,’ Julieta calls, ‘One, two -‘
There’s a pause, ‘Three!’
Pepa doesn’t hesitate, trusting her sister to not lead her astray. She throws herself at the rose terrace, and puts one foot after another, heaving herself up by her arms. The roses are sharp and prick her palms, but she keeps going. Pepa gets to the top, throws a leg onto the roof, and rolls onto it panting.
Clear skies, clear skies, clear skies.
The cloud above her slowly dissipates with her breathing.
She peeks over the edge of the roof, but she thinks she hasn’t been seen. Glancing back up at her two troublesome siblings in what she realises is Julieta’s bedroom window, Pepa groans.
‘That’s so high,’ she hisses, ‘I won’t be able to make that!’
‘You’ll have to jump,’ Bruno shrugs, ducking down out of sight, for a second and then popping back up.
‘Wait,’ Julieta says, ‘are they -‘
Pepa leans back over to see the path, and her mother and that man are kissing.
She meets her siblings’ eyes, and sees her own shock reflected back.
‘Shit,’ Bruno says, ‘you should have gone then. They wouldn’t have seen you.’
He’s right and Pepa groans again.
‘On three,’ Julieta says, ‘one -‘
There’s a loud clatter from below, and both Julieta and Bruno call ‘go’ and Pepa lunges.
————
Alma and Pedro walk slowly towards the house, unable to take their eyes of each other.
‘How?’ Alma breathes, and Pedro spills the whole story, his years with Carlos, their expeditions to find the Encanto, how he was sure she was alive, how he searched and searched, and he did Alma, honest.
Tears drip from her eyes, but she listens closely as he bears his soul, and he’s hesitant when he comes to an end. He wants to ask about the children, he wants to ask about her life here, but he’s so afraid of the answer.
In her usual, stubborn way, Alma doesn’t let him spiral.
‘The children are in the house,’ she says, ‘wait until you see them,’ and then she talks and talks about the three of them, and the miracle, and the gifts - healing, prediction, weather - and it sounds fantastical. She tells him that Julieta is so sweet, and Bruno reminds her of him, and Josefina is a force of nature and he listens greedily, every word banked away and hoarded.
They stop again, a fair way back from the house, and Alma tilts her head head up to look at him.
‘Just a moment before we go in,’ she says, and waves past her several of the families that had followed them up the hill.
The house opens it’s door, and the shutters wave.
The way she’s holding her head, makes him think she’s asking for a kiss, and Pedro leans down and presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth. Their first in fifteen years. He remembers the last one he’d given her, just before turning back to the river and he has to breathe deeply. They draw back and Pedro turns his face away, suddenly shy, but there’s a quirk to Alma’s lips.
When he glances up at the house over Alma’s head, he spies two faces in the front window, and they duck out of sight when looks up.
He’s suddenly filled with giddy joy, and a sick sense of panic, so he leans close to Alma. ‘I think we have some observers,’ he whispers, glancing upwards with his eyes, and Alma lets out a deep sigh and her mouth twists into a wry grin.
‘I’m sure they are.’
When he glances up, the window has been opened, but no one is to be seen.
‘Come on,’ Alma says, taking his hand, but when she goes to turn, there’s a cry and a crash from behind him. They both turn. Someone has dropped a crate and it’s shattered, spewing clothes and undergarments on the path. Pedro watches with amusement as the man is berated by his pregnant wife.
When Pedro turns back to the house, taking it in, there’s flash of bright yellow and he tilts his head up bemusedly. On the lower roof, there’s a girl sprinting full pelt for the open window. Out the window come two pairs of arms, leaning down, grasping her wrists, and they haul her up. There’s a moment where Pedro thinks she’s going to fall, when she’s leaning on the window sill with only her waist, with her feet kicking uselessly. One pair of arms wraps around her torso pulling her forward, and the other grabs at her legs, and together they tumble in.
There’s a moment when he meets a pair of dark eyes, peering down at him, and then there’s a quick slam, and the window is shut.
He turns to Alma, wondering if she’s seen, but she’s still watching the fuss on the road. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what he’s just seen - she’s obviously been sneaking out when she’s not supposed to be, but he’s not going to rat out his daughter.
‘Enough,’ Alma says, taking his hand, ‘Come inside.’
————
Inside is busy, with people bustling around under the supervision of Daniela Guzman. He remembers her as Alma’s sometimes friend, sometimes rival. She seems to be in charge, showing people to spare rooms, sorting beds, and temporary housing.
Pedro watches in amazement as rooms seem to grow from nothing, the house shifting tiles and wooden beams with ease.
Alma brings him into the left of the house, under an opening to the bottom of the stair case.
‘We should go in the kitchen, maybe,’ Alma says, and she hesitates, seemingly unsure.
Pedro is content to follow her lead: what’s the best place to meet your teenaged children for the first time? Pedro doesn’t know, but there’s staticky anticipation in his chest.
‘Yes,’ Alma says, decidedly. ‘The kitchen,’ she leads him in and he leans against on the counters. They both just look at each other for a long minute.
Alma laughs, shaking her head.
‘I can’t believe, I can’t - ‘
‘I know,’ he says lowly, and he means it. It feels like a dream, like he’s going to wake up and this will all be nothing.
They stand in silence for a little longer, until Pedro becomes aware of whispers in the hallway outside, and Alma rolls her eyes.
‘Are you ready to meet them?’ she says and her eyes are welling with tears again, but her hands are steady.
‘I don’t know,’ he confesses and they both laugh, Alma turning out the door.
She leaves him alone for a moment, with the door ajar, and he can hear her murmured voice explaining.
‘Come on,’ Alma says, briskly, and she comes back into the kitchen, but she’s alone. ‘Come on,’ she says again, waving them in, and after a pause they do shuffle in after her.
One, two, three.
Pedro doesn’t know what to say.
‘This is your Papá,’ Alma says, and he’s grateful for her ability to wade into any conversation she chooses.
There’s, understandably, a resounding silence to that statement and the three gaze up between him and Alma with various degrees of confusion.
‘I’m so happy to meet you,’ he says, and if his voice wavers, then he hopes that’s just a sign of his sincerity. ‘The three of you, Bruno, Julieta, Josefina, I’m so sorry that it’s taken so long. Look at you, so grown up!’
Bruno is easy to see - of course he’s the only boy - and he’s dark like him and Alma, with wide eyes and curly hair. He thinks he can see his father’s cheekbones in Bruno’s face, but also Alma’s mouth. He’s gangly, caught in that age between childhood and manhood, where his limbs are growing, but he doesn’t look quite in proportion just yet.
The girls are so different from each other - and it brings Pedro a jolt of shame when he realises he doesn’t know which one is which. He has the image in his head, of those tiny newborn babies, knows that the one on the left is Julieta and the one on the right is Josefina, but he doesn’t know which has grown into which young woman in front of him.
They’re both beautiful, one dark the other fair, between them he can see his mother’s eyes, and his grandmother’s features. The girl with the bright hair - who’d climbed in the window earlier - is taller than both her siblings,
‘Well,’ Alma says, and there’s expectation in her tone. A sort of firmness that he hasn’t really heard from her before. She sounds like an exasperated mother. ‘Do you have any questions? Anything you want to say?’
There’s another pause, that stretches out.
‘Anything,’ Alma snaps, and Pedro is about to step in - this is a big shock for them he knows, they need time to process - when Bruno speaks up.
‘Is - ‘ he pauses and glances between his sisters, and starts again when Alma nods, with a voice full of disbelief and barely contained horror: ‘Is - Pepa’s name Josefina?’
There’s a silence.
Admittedly, it’s not what Pedro expected him to say.
‘What?’ Alma says, ‘that’s what you -‘ she gestures to Pedro weakly and then ‘yes, of course Pepa’s name is Josefina. Do you have anything-‘
But she’s cut off by the two girls, both of whom shriek ‘what?’
‘I didn’t know that.’ Bruno says, shaking his head.
‘Wait!’ the girl on the right, in the blue dress speaks up, ‘isn’t that the name on the school reports they give you?’
She’s asking the girl in yellow, who’s stood with her mouth open.
‘This isn’t the time - wait what do you mean school reports?’ Alma is distracted, she turns from him slightly. ‘Is this why I don’t get your school reports?’
‘I give them back because they’re for someone else!’ She - Pepa - says, gesturing wildly, and the other two fall about laughing. Pedro’s mouth twitches.
‘Oh my god, you failed maths,’ Bruno snorts.
‘Josefina,’ Julieta mouths to herself, eyeing her sister. ‘It suits you.’
‘I thought my name was Pepa!’ she wails, and Pedro watches in barely concealed amazement, as a cloud gathers above her head.
A cloud.
‘Pepa is a nickname for Josefina,’ Alma says firmly, ‘can we concentrate please?’ and she gestures again to Pedro. The triplets fall silent again.
Bruno opens his mouth and shuts it again.
Both of them seem to be glancing at Pepa, to say something, but she’s not concentrating.
Eventually, after Alma sighs, Julieta says: ‘What about some tea? We could sit outside?’ and she gestures to the door.
‘What good idea,’ Alma says, and turns to the kettle.
She waves them through the door, and Pedro takes a step, the three trailing behind him.
A few minutes later and they’re settled, with tea, around the table. Alma sits at the head, with Pedro on one side, and Julieta on the other. Pepa sits next to her sister, and Bruno sits next to him.
‘I can’t believe he’s alive.’ Pepa says slowly.
Pedro nods sympathetically.
‘I always thought he was Casita,’ she says.
There’s another pause, and Bruno snorts into his tea. Alma doesn’t even chide him.
‘What?’ Alma says to Pepa, who looks up with wide eyes.
‘What? It’s a magic house! From the miracle where he died! I thought he was the house!’
‘No,’ Alma says firmly, ‘I don’t think that’s how it works.’
‘How do you know how it works? It’s magic’, and Pedro privately thinks this is a fair point.
‘I would say that she’s not usually like this, but she kind of is,’ Bruno mutters as an aside to Pedro. It’s the first time any of the children have addressed him directly.
‘It’s not usually so obvious though,’ Julieta says, and they both snigger.
Pepa frowns, a cloud darkening over her head. Alma sighs again, and is about to launch into something when Pedro jumps in.
‘You know,’ he says slowly, waiting until all three children and Alma turn to him, ‘If I had died, I should have liked to come back as a magic house - especially one as pretty as this one. That way I could be with you all, and watch over you. I think it’s a lovely thought.’
There’s another pause, and it might be wishful thinking, but it feels like this one’s not quite as awkward. He’s rewarded by Pepa giving him a small smile, and he watches as her cloud drifts away. When he turns to look at Alma, she’s smiling too.
‘There you go,’ Pepa says to Julieta, who is watching him out of the corner of her eye.
‘Are you going to stay here?’ Julieta says, slowly, almost hesitantly, glancing at her mother.
Both Bruno and Pepa make a face at the question, but it’s not one of displeasure, Pedro thinks. More like they’re impressed at her asking the question.
He starts to feel a little hot under his collar.
Fortunately, Alma deals with it in her usual, forthright way. ‘Of course,’ she says, matter of fact, ‘Of course he’s going to stay here.’
‘With us?’ Pepa says, ‘or just for now?’ Bruno snorts again, and Julieta puts a hand to her forehead. ‘Not that he’s not welcome,’ Pepa add hastily, pulling up both hands in a placating gesture, and when Pedro turns to Alma her mouth is twisted and her eyebrows raised. ‘Of course, of course he’s - you’re - welcome, I just, wanted to be sure.’ She trails off.
The cloud is back.
‘I would love to stay for as long as you let me,’ he says sincerely. ‘You can decide amongst yourselves how long that’s for,’ and he gives a small smile, to reassure them it’s a joke, and he thinks it lands.
The three of them nod in sync.
————
They’re up until nearly half past two in the morning, a conversation littered with awkward silences, but it’s not nearly as painful as Pedro feared. The children warm to him, slowly, stealing glances at him from the corners of their eyes, and smiling hesitantly when he catches them.
When Alma claps her hands and declares ‘bed’, Pepa has a low fog swirling her head, Bruno is yawning into his elbow, and Julieta is resting her cheek on the palm of her hand.
They all shuffle up the stairs, up to bed, and there’s a moment of awkwardness when Pedro and Alma come up against the question ‘where is he going to sleep?’
They stand gazing at each other for a moment, before Pepa catches them on her way back from the bathroom, and her stifled giggles break their moment. Pedro laughs too and Alma waves him into her room.
————
‘Get up! Or I’m coming in!’
Pedro opens the bedroom door, and feels a spark of embarrassment when Julieta’s eyes widen at him exiting Alma’s room. Julieta bangs on one of the the bedroom doors again, loudly, but he notices that she holds onto the door knob so it doesn’t open or move from it’s ajar position.
‘Pepaaaaaaa’ she calls again, and there’s a grumble from inside the room, that Pedro assumes is agreement, and Julieta leaves it, skipping down the stairs to the kitchen.
Pedro bumps into Bruno on his way to the bathroom, Bruno seemingly navigating the way with his eyes shut, but he offers Pedro a sight wave of his hand, as he shuts the door behind him.
Pedro joins Julieta in the kitchen.
‘Morning,’ she says politely, and he nods back at her. Alma is already there, cooking breakfast, dishing it out into the plates Julieta pulls from the cupboard. Pedro has a distinct feeling that he’s in the way, a cog out of place in their routine. But Alma catches his eye and she has such a look on her face, a sort of pleased surprise, as if she hadn’t expected him to still be there, and it eases his awkwardness slightly.
There’s a shuffle and Bruno appears, his tie askew, but his hair neat and face washed. He flops down into one of the chairs.
‘Morning,’ he mumbles, resting his cheek on his palm.
‘Morning amor,’ Alma says, passing him a plate. ‘Where’s Pepa?’
‘I’ll get her,’ Julieta says with a grin, and bounds back up the stairs. Bruno laughs softly, lifting his eyes from the table and catching Pedro’s.
‘Wait for it,’ he says, eyebrows raised, and Pedro watches him, waiting. There’s a piercing scream from upstairs.
Bruno sniggers while Alma tuts, but Pedro think he sees amusement on her face.
Julieta returns to them, tucking into her own breakfast with a ‘gracias Mamá,’ and Alma kisses her cheek, stroking a hand over her hair, adjusting her bow.
Pepa arrives with a grey cloud low over her head, eyes shut.
Like Bruno, she flops into her seat at the table, and slumps forward.
‘Buenos días Pepa,’ the children chorus to her, and she lifts up a hand and waves vaguely.
‘She’s not a morning person,’ Bruno whispers loudly.
‘Right,’ Alma says, setting Pepa’s breakfast in front of her, taking the brush from the sideboard, and pulling Pepa’s head up by her hair.
‘Up today?’ she says, ‘or down.’
‘Up,’ Pepa mutters and Alma nods. Pedro watches with amusement as Alma tames Pepa’s hair, seemingly sending the girl back to sleep with the stokes of the brush.
Within five minutes Pepa is as neat and organised as her brother and sister, Alma straightening ties, and adjusting collars.
‘Right,’ she says, clapping her hands in front of her. ‘School until three…’ the words have something of a routine to them.
He watches closely, as they run through the day, Alma correcting timings and consulting a little wall calendar, until all three are nodding.
‘I’ll see you later, bye queridos,’ and she leans forward as all three grab their school bags from the side, and obligingly press a kiss to their mother’s cheek. Julieta and Bruno offer Pedro a wave, as they pull a half asleep Pepa after them. Bruno waves Pepa’s hand at him, and Pedro waves back with a smile.
They leave in a chaotic rush, jostling each other, and Alma watches out the window as they trudge down the path until they’re out of sight.
And she sighs, turning to him wryly. ‘They’re a handful,’ she says, inviting him to laugh, but he can see the insecurity underneath it.
‘They’re wonderful,’ he says, and he means it. He hopes she can hear the sincerity in his tone, and he thinks she does when she smiles, wide and beautiful.
‘They are,’ she says, ‘just wonderful. Are they - what you - what you expected?’
What you hoped for? is left unsaid between them.
Pedro stands, and wraps a tentative arm around Alma - Alma! His wife! Here, and whole and he wants to cry - and he presses a tentative kiss to her cheek.
‘They’re better.’
————
‘What the fuck though, right?’ Bruno says half way to school. Pepa nods vaguely at his non-sequitur, and Julieta nods from Pepa’s other side, still holding Pepa’s hand.
They hadn’t had a chance to debrief last night. It was late when they’d eventually gone to bed, and Pepa hadn’t dared risk any more sneaking around.
‘But like, what the fuck?’ Bruno says again, and Pepa shrugs.
‘I dunno.’
‘Me either.’
For once, they all seem to be lost for words.
‘He seems nice?’ Julieta offers, as they enter the school gates.
Bruno shrugs. ‘I guess? Are we sure it’s him though?’
It’s a good question. None of them have an answer, other than Alma would (probably) know.
Pepa’s brain slowly wakes from it’s hibernation, and when they’re lining up in class lines, she smacks Bruno on the arm. It’s a testament to how much her siblings put up with, that he doesn’t even blink.
‘What is the point,’ she hisses, as the teacher make her way down the line, checking them in, ‘of seeing the future, if you couldn’t see this?’
Bruno considers it for a moment, and makes a ‘eh’ noise. ‘That’s a fair point.’
Julieta hits Pepa on the arm. ‘You know he doesn’t see everything. He doesn’t make the future.’
‘I know,’ Pepa says, swinging her school back at Julieta, ‘But this is a pretty big one, right?’
‘Maybe I’ll have a look later,’ Bruno says, thoughtfully, ‘so long as no-one has a go at me when it turns out to be shit.’
‘Agreed.’
‘Agreed.’
‘….. you’re supposed to say it won’t be shit,’ Bruno complains.
‘Are you kidding?’ Pepa says over her shoulder as they head inside, ‘with our luck, it’s definitely going to be shit.’
————
They plan to skive off chores after work - something they do with fair regularity, but they have to be careful to not do too often, because Alma’s smart and she’ll catch on. But they assume Alma will be pre-occupied with their new guest to pay much attention to what her wayward triplets are doing.
They’re right.
When they get to Casita, there’s no one there, and Pepa gleefully strips off her school skirt - she hates it, a long bulky thing that makes her look frumpy and takes forever to dry when it gets wet - and drops it by the front door, as Bruno checks the rooms for either their mother, or their father.
Weird.
No one’s here, so they dump their school bags, and bustle up to Bruno’s room and his ‘vision cave’. Pepa snorts at the thought and when she catches Julieta’s eye, her sister smirks too.
Bruno had named it at five years old, and they will never let him forget it.
‘Come on,’ Bruno says impatiently, and he has an annoyed look on his face, as if he knows exactly what they’re thinking - any maybe he does, but he can’t be annoyed at their thoughts. They haven’t said anything to his face.
Up the stairs and then up to Bruno’s tower. Pepa skips up the steps two at a time, and Julieta and Bruno hurry after her.
Bruno’s vision cave is as imposing as it’s always been - Pepa’s always hated it here, she hates the sand, she hates the stone walls with their creepy faces and empty eyes. She hates the bleakness of it.
Bruno’s always seemed to like it though, and that’s the main thing.
‘Ok, anyone have anything to sacrifice?’ Bruno mutters idly, and both girls roll their eyes at this phrasing. He doesn’t need to sacrifice anything - they’ve found through trial and error over the years that by burning something owned by or related to the person they want a vision about, it’ll be more focused. Otherwise they could get anything - Bruno describes it like trying to find a specific drop of rain in a storm.
Pepa appreciates the metaphor.
Pepa pulls out a ribbon she’d swiped from the sideboard for this exact purpose, and Bruno takes it with a muttered ‘good thinking’.
They watch idly as Bruno sets everything up - the little candles, the piles of sand, the ribbon. When he sits crossed legged, and knocks in his strange manner, Pepa and Julieta take their cue, and sit with him, the three of them making a little triangle knees touching.
Bruno knocks again, and leans over tapping Julieta on the head, and then does the same for Pepa. She doesn’t flinch as he knocks her forehead, he’s generally very gentle.
‘Okay,’ Bruno says, rubbing his hands together and stretching his shoulders. He lights a match, and holds it to the ribbon, and they watch as it goes up in flames disintegrating into dust.
He holds out his hands, and they each take one, Pepa and Julieta holding their other hands, completing the circle. Bruno’s eyes start to glow, and with a deep breath he makes a sweeping gesture with their joint hands and the sand around them starts to swirl, rising in a dome above them and starting to shift into shapes.
They’d once wondered if Pepa and Bruno’s gifts would cancel each other out - Pepa had tried to make a storm in one of Bruno’s sand domes, but all they’d managed was a mess of sand and a blotchy vision. They hadn’t deemed it an experiment worth repeating.
(Unlike Julieta’s gift, which has required a lot of experimenting, mostly on themselves. Every time they think they understand it, one of them comes up with another question. The current query is ‘if Julieta makes something with bad mouldy food will it still heal? and will it heal any side effects that will come from eating mouldy food?’ They’ve stalled because Pepa drew the short straw, and she’s blanched at eating something mouldy, but she suspects the other two will try and cash in soon. After all, she was a firm instigator in the ‘Bruno drinks boiling coffee’ saga, to see if injury and healing could be simultaneous. The results were inconclusive.)
Pepa peers closely at the sand as it swirls around them. She recognises some figures - there’s her and Julieta and Bruno, which is not unexpected in a vision about Alma.
There’s Alma sobbing, in what Pepa thinks is their kitchen, her head ducked down, a man holding her close. A man Pepa now recognises as Pedro.
Bruno makes a soft sound of understanding under his breath.
The scene flips - there’s a storm in what Pepa knows to be Alma’s bedroom and she feels her stomach clench in anxiety as to what that might mean.
Bruno sighs, and Pepa sees him stretch his neck and his hand in hers clenches. He’s trying to see further in the future she knows.
The sand shifts again, and they can see what looks like Alma - but she’s old, like really old, grey hair and wrinkles and she’s holding a tiny baby. It’s not obvious from the vision whose baby it is, he’s dark with tight curls and Alma is stroking his cheek adoringly.
Bruno sighs again, shifting his shoulders, and he tries to bring the vision closer in time, but the images pass too quickly, there’s something that looks like a wedding, and then a dance, and then a fight, Julieta - older and beautiful - crying and then it settles and the dust drops suddenly, Bruno dropping their hands to catch the emerald tablet.
When he shakes it off, it’s an image of all five of them - and Pepa blanches in her mind at that though - they’re lying on the grass, presumably somewhere in the Encanto. They’re looking at the sky, maybe looking at the stars, and they look vaguely happy.
The triplets crowd around it, peering down.
‘Huh,’ Bruno scoffs a little. ‘Looks like he’s here to stay?’
‘I guess,’ Julieta looks at it closely, ‘this vision isn’t that far in the future. We look the same as we do now. I guess things are ok?’
Pepa feels an irrational stab of worry, of insecurity, of this man appearing from nowhere, and infiltrating her family.
No, she thinks, I won’t let that happen.
————
Pedro sleeps for nearly two days after the initial introduction to the triplets and the welcome to the Encanto.
He doesn’t mean to, but somewhere between seeing the children off to school, and meaning to head down to town to see Carlos, he sits down on Alma’s bed, and doesn’t get up again.
He doesn’t know what the triplets make of it, but Alma is sympathetic.
‘I’m sorry’ he whispers that third night, after he’s spent two days on her hospitality and she tuts in a way that tells him he’s being silly.
‘When did you rest last?’ she says, folding clothes in the corner. He wonders if she colour coordinates the children so she always knows whose clothes are whose, or whether they chose it. ‘When in the last fifteen years of searching have you rested?’
He doesn’t really have an answer for her, and she huffs.
‘You’re home now. Rest Pedro. Rest now, and we’ll go from there.’
Home, she says so easily, here in the home she made for their children. It’s not quite his home, but it feels like it could be.
He wants it to be.
‘I - I’m surprised you never remarried,’ he says, because it’s been a burning question in the back of his mind and he needs to know.
Alma drops the clothes she’s folding as though they’ve shocked her.
‘You thought I would remarry?’
He can’t tell her tone.
‘I thought,’ truthfully he doesn’t know what he thought, he only knows what he worried. ‘I wouldn’t have blamed you. Someone to help you, someone to be a father to the children. I always thought -‘
Alma crosses the room. She takes his face in her hands, and presses a fierce kiss to his lax mouth - a kind of heat and passion that they haven’t yet rekindled - and he kisses her back, closing his eyes and melting into her.
‘No,’ she says when she pulls back, resting her forehead against his. ‘It would have been easier, that’s true, but life isn’t always easy. I decided that if they couldn’t have you, then they wouldn’t have a father. I certainly didn’t want another husband. And maybe that was selfish, but it was my decision. We’ve been missing you.’
Pedro lets her words wash over him - how fierce she is, he marvels - and he leans forward, stealing another kiss.
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To be continued …
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