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Twenty years ago
That day dawned cold and grey and stormy. Of course it did.
His sister pressed a bundle of food into his hands - she’d been cooking nonstop for the past two days, or so Agustín had told him when he’d visited him in the little jail the new invaders had built - and his other sister embraced him, weeping-which made him angrier at the new invaders than ever, not even on his own behalf, because Pepa never cried. She raged and stormed and shouted, but never cried-and thunder boomed outside; it began to pour nonstop. He suspected it would for a long time.
His sisters held up their daughters-he’d had no experience with babies until his nieces were born, mere weeks apart from each other - and he kissed them on their foreheads and ruffled their wispy hair and stared into their big dark eyes, wanting to make sure that he would never forget them; he knew that they would forget him, that both of them, who would not even be two years old for half a year, would have no memory of him.
He hadn’t cried in a long time, but his eyes felt hot.
His brothers-in-law shook his hand hard, pumping it up and down, one after the other; Félix was expressionless and Agustín looked furious. Then Félix shook his head sharply and embraced him, Agustín right behind him.
The two of them were the brothers he had never had. Growing up, he had longed for brothers, and he had gained them through the marriage of his sisters. They, at least, were on his side; he could trust them, they did not blame him for things he could not control. Any ribbing about Félix and Pepa’s wedding day had long since died away.
“I could fight them,” Agustín murmured as the guards came closer.
“One, or two,” he agreed. “But the rest? Don’t sacrifice yourself on my behalf, don’t leave my sister a widow. It’s not worth it.”
Julieta clutched Isabela to her and cried. “You’re always worth it, Brunito, don’t think that....”
He should have known that it would end like this, or something like this. Ever since he’d received his gift, he’d been the outcast, the black sheep, the one everyone was wary of. Don’t go near Bruno Madrigal, or he’ll tell you how you’ll die and make it come true!
He was the only one of his siblings who was not married, although he was nearly thirty-one, and everyone else his age was long married. No woman in the Encanto wanted to marry the doomsday prophet, after all, and he did not blame them.
And now the new invaders had come, and informed them that they were now under the jurisdiction of the kingdom of Auradon, and if they did not resist if would be a peaceful transfer of power and his mother could go on leading the town as she had always done, and did they have any evil villains they were having any trouble with?
It hadn’t taken them long to single him out. They’d seen how people whispered about him, avoided him, didn’t meet his eyes, how his only friends were his family.
He’d had a vision in the marketplace one day, and that had sealed his fate. He tried to avoid having visions in public places, but this one had descended upon him without warning. He’d staggered, not seeing what was in front of him; his eyes had glowed an unholy green like they always did, and he’d come blinking out of the vision to find several of the soldiers - no wonder the marketplace had been so empty, even emptier than it normally was these days, everyone staying inside their homes wishing for another miracle - staring at him in horror and fear, crying out “Demon! Villain!” They’d put handcuffs on him, and he remembered Julieta running forward, shouting, but they’d held her back, firmly but gently - after all, she was not a villain.
Demon. That was a new one.
He hadn’t struggled, hadn’t tried to run. The vision he had had in the marketplace had told him his fate, and he knew very well by now that he could not outrun his visions, that he could not trick them, that they always came true.
There was a crowd of people now, gathered, watching. Someone threw a rock-it would be someone young, a hotheaded teenager, one who was too young to remember what had happened the last time invaders had come.
The rock bounced off one of the soldier’s armor. He turned, outraged, ready to shout threats, but the culprit was safely hidden in the crowd of people. The Encanto protected its own.
To his own surprise and gratitude, the village had rallied around him. They didn’t like him much, perhaps, but they knew he didn’t deserve this. They knew he could not be blamed for everything that went wrong in the village.
Last night, he had heard some young boys trying to break the little makeshift jail that he was in, that the invaders had set up. The soldiers had chased them away before they could do much damage, though. He hoped they were all right.
If they had succeeded, would he have escaped? Knowing that if he fled into the woods, the soldiers’ wrath would fall upon his family? Could he do that to his mother, who was haunted by nightmares that had gotten worse, tenfold, since the new invaders had come, who was racked with guilt for failing to protect the Encanto?
Ah, well. It was too late to find out now anyway.
Julieta and Pepa were both hugging him so tightly he could barely breathe, but he didn’t move, loath to signal that the embrace was over; this could very well be the last time he would ever see his sisters. He closed his eyes, trying to remember how this moment felt forever.
The soldiers allowed them this last farewell, courteous to members of the ruling family - they didn’t rule, not like that, but the new invaders hadn’t listened-of the Encanto, even as they sent one of its members into exile.
“We’ll get you out,” Pepa told him, fierce and warlike. “We’ll find you, even if it takes us twenty years.”
Julieta seized his hands. “I’m with child,” she confided. “Very early on, I haven’t told anyone but Agustín, but if it’s a boy, we’ll name him after you.”
A child bearing his name; the highest honor that could be given.
Surely, if the child was male, that right should go to his father?
But it wouldn’t be male. He knew that.
“You will have a daughter,” he told Julieta. His voice was cracked and dry; he cleared his throat and tried again. “You will have a daughter.”
Julieta’s eyes widened. “You have seen it?”
“I have.” There had been nothing to do in the little jail, after all, and lately his visions had been descending with more force than usual, far more of them than usual, as though something momentous was happening.
Something momentous was happening, and his visions hadn’t warned him in time. The people of the Encanto had blamed him for it, for not warning them, and perhaps now he was being punished for it. Perhaps that was why all the villagers were not completely glad to see him go. He had failed to foretell this new invasion - he had punched the walls until his knuckles bled in a rare display of anger. What else was his gift for?! He was worthless if he couldn’t even warn his family of danger-and now the new invaders had decided he was evil and were sending him away. His just desserts, perhaps.
But el enemigo de mi enemigo es mi amigo , the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all the people of the Encanto knew what had happened the last time strangers had come. They may have disliked him, feared him, feared his gift - his curse - but his father had died for them, and now these new invaders were taking him away, and the people of the Encanto had lived in peace for thirty years, until now.
“You will have a daughter,” he told Julieta again. “Three daughters. You will have three children. Both of you.”
Julieta hugged her stomach, and Pepa reached forward to hug Bruno again; there was a momentary flash of sunlight before it disappeared behind the rain.
He had seen, and he knew what would be, and he would have no other chance to tell his sisters than now.
“The Encanto will live, and prosper,” he stated. “I have seen it. Once they take me, the invaders will not bother very much with us; it is too much trouble for them. Things will be like they used to be, mostly. And you will fight back against them, you are not powerless, you will drive them back.” He struggled to put what he saw into words - his sister raining down lightning and hail from the sky - which she could not do now, the invaders were shielded by their own strange magic, but in later years their guard would drop - and his other sister dishing out bowls of soup to the wounded - few of them, there were, and no dead-and watching, satisfied, as their injuries disappeared; little Isabela, all grown up, growing a thorny rose hedge all around the Encanto, and trapping soldiers with long vines that moved with a flick of her hand; a teenage boy with Pepa’s hair and eyes morphing into the very image of the Beast King the soldiers served and declaring the Encanto out of bounds; an even younger boy, no more than five or six, sitting atop a wild jaguar with no fear at all and shouting “ Vamos! Go!” at hundreds of rats.
“They can do no more to us,” he whispered. “We will live on. I have seen it. You have my word.”
Pepa opened her mouth to say something as the sun made a momentary appearance from behind a cloud and thunder rumbled, but suddenly the crowd hushed even more than they already were; even the soldiers stopped tapping their feet impatiently. People moved aside to make way for a stately middle-aged woman as she walked slowly through the path cleared for her, her face impassive. She wore no coat or hat, nothing to protect her from the rain and wind. Dignity and authority radiated off of her; there was no trace of the heartbroken sobbing he had heard from her bedroom in the days before the soldiers had arrested him, no trace of the nightmares, although her eyes were somewhat reddened. Her very presence made everyone stand up straighter.
Well, she was his mother. He would stand up straighter in any respect.
She stopped in front of him. She looked old. He had never thought of his mother as old before.
“Bruno,” she whispered.
“Sí,” he breathed, feeling like a small child who had disappointed his mother. His whole life, all he’d wanted was to make his mother proud, to be worthy of the miracle, to do good with his gift, to make her happy, and now-
“Bruno,” she said again. Her voice trembled slightly in a way it hadn’t since she’d called out her husband’s name in her sleep.
“I’m sorry, Mamá,” he whispered.
His mother shook her head and placed her hands on his head, like she was blessing him. “I am sorry,” she whispered. “I did not treat you as I should have. If I had-” She shook her head suddenly and glared at him, which was almost comforting, far less frightening than the emotional, afraid woman she had revealed for just a moment.
“You listen to me, Bruno Madrigal,” she ordered. “Do not believe what they tell you. You are not an evil villain. You are a Madrigal, and you belong in this Encanto, and one day you will return. The miracle will see to it.”
He nodded, unable to speak. Even if hadn’t been afraid that he would break down, he would not have pointed out that the miracle had not stopped the new invaders from coming.
Then again, the miracle, his father’s sacrifice, worked in mysterious ways, did it not?
His mother blinked very hard, and held both of his hands. “They have no right,” she said. “We will do something. This won’t be like the last time. We have the Encanto. You are like your father, Bruno.”
Like his father, a sacrifice, so that the others might live?
Like your father. The highest compliment Alma Madrigal could possibly give.
His mother pressed her lips to his forehead and turned to leave, making her way through the crowd, which parted soundlessly for her.
The babies Isabela and Dolores waved their chubby fists in the air, not understanding what was going on. “Bye bye bye!” Dolores yelled, and Pepa hugged her, burying her face in her hair.
They took him to the river, the one place Alma Madrigal would not go; no one ever said the reason, yet everyone knew why. They put him in a rowboat, which would bring him to a ship, which would bring him to an island, which was where all the villains, and all those deemed villains, were now exiled to.
La Isla de los Perdidos. The Isle of the Lost.