Archive of Our Own

There are twenty-four days between Isabela and Dolores, and some days, it feels like they are living different lives.

They’ve heard stories of their mothers’ and Bruno’s ceremony, and there’d been three glowing doors back then. Tonight, there’d only been one, and Isabela had walked towards it with her head held high.

Dolores knows she’d been nervous, though. Isabela hadn’t told her, but she’d managed to keep Dolores awake the night before anyway. She’d twisted and turned in her bed, and Dolores had listened to every creak, every sniff, every choked sob against the pillow.

But in the morning, Isabela had been smiling brightly, practically basking in the attention, especially as Alma had pulled her aside.

In twenty-four days, it will be Dolores’ turn to climb the stairs and face her glowing door. She wonders if the whole thing would be easier if you didn’t have to do it alone, if you faced the soul-piercing stare of the Miracle alongside siblings.

Isabela opens her door, and the whole town comes alive. Every corner and crook, every open space, every surface – flowers crawl against stones and embrace the house. They sprout from the ground, and they sling themselves around the railings. They are in your hair and behind your ears, in your beard and in your eyesight – always.

Isabela shines in the spotlight, flowers sprouting as the crowd cheers, and Dolores comes to the conclusion that she wouldn’t mind sharing her big night if it meant she had a hand to hold.

“It’ll be your turn soon, mija,” Félix says as he picks her up to sit on his shoulders. From there, the party itself is a little less overwhelming. The crowd can be intimidating when you’re small. And quiet.

Dolores hums as a response and Félix bounces her until it gains him a laugh.

Surely, the ceremony cannot be that bad. Just look at Isabela dancing in front of the crowd who reach out to have their hands filled with flowers, who sing her name and praise the strength of the magic. And Isabela glows with the magic, dancing on top of roses while her family looks on in pride and joy.

It’s such a perfect night.

It ends with Dolores returning to the nursery with a full stomach, a heavy mind and her hair filled with red flowers. She isn’t alone; Luisa has already been put to bed, though she obviously hasn’t fallen asleep.

Quiet sniffling fills the room, and Dolores understands why. Quietly, she joins Luisa on her bed, and she doesn’t get a chance to pull her close before her prima has already thrown her small arms around her.

“I miss Isa,” Luisa says and hugs Dolores tighter. For a toddler, her grip is surprisingly strong.

“I’m sure she misses us, too.” There is a single blue chrysanthemum behind Luisa’s ear, and when Dolores leans her head against her prima’s, she inhales the wonderful smell of the flower. “But we can come and hang out in her room.”

Luisa rubs a fist across her face. “With the flowers?”

“Mhmm.”

“Can I stay in your room, too?” Luisa asks with her wet face pressed against Dolores’ chest.

Careful to not bruise the flower, Dolores begins to gently stroke her hair. “Sí. Always.” It’s strange to think that soon Luisa will be all alone in here, and so Dolores does her best to shove away the thought.

Dolores doesn’t have any siblings, but it’s okay. “You have us,” Isabela has told her many times before. “We’re practically hermanas.”

That feels true most days. The sight of Isabela’s empty bed makes Dolores’ heart sting, even though Isabela’s room is so close she can smell all the flowers from here.

Dolores had asked her parents for siblings – only once. While her mamá had kept smiling as she’d explained that siblings were a gift given, not asked for, there’d been a heavy grey cloud over the Encanto that day, soaking them all in ice-cold rain.

Isabela has her own room now – she has magic and a little sister who adores her.

It only makes sense. Dolores is the youngest of the two of them. She will catch up.

Twenty-four days later, and Dolores is on her way up the staircase that now seems endless. Her parents are sending her the same comforting smiles they’d given her moments before when they’d wished her good luck.

“Mija,” Pepa had said while warming her with her sunlight, “My big girl. Look at you!”

“You’re gonna blow them away, mi vida.” Félix had picked her up, swinging her into a hug. “Just like your mami and her winds.”

Dolores doesn’t feel like a big girl as she climbs the final steps and faces the golden light of her very own door. Somehow, the candle manages to shine even brighter. 

When Dolores reaches for the doorknob, the whole house is silent. It’s like one collective halted breath. It’s so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Her fingers close around the cold metal, and it feels warm like Pepa’s rays of sunlight beneath her fingers. The silence explodes into gasps. They fill Dolores’ ears as the drumming beings. The rhythm is uneven, strong, fast – like a hundred drums being played all at once –

– the shuffling of fabric –

– (“Has it happened yet?”) –

– a bird singing in the distance –

– (“Why isn’t she doing anything?”) –

– sandals brushing against hard tiles –

– (“This is nothing like Isabela’s-“) –

– Alma’s shaky inhale –

“I heard that,” Dolores says, hands going to hear ears as she turns to face her abuela and parents. She sees their wide eyes and hears their surprised gasps.

They don’t fully understand until Alma announces: “We have a new Gift!” and the whole room erupts into applause and cheers and fireworks, until Dolores doubles over with her hands firmly clasped against her ears.

Félix saves the night by telling the guests to lower their voices, for the firework to stop and for the musicians to play not so loudly, all while Pepa hugs Dolores to her chest and tells her how proud she is.

“This is nothing like Isabela’s party ,” Dolores can hear María say somewhere in the crowd.

It’s still a good party, though. Once things have calmed down, Dolores marvels at her new room (so big and silent and hers ) and starts to get to know her Gift.

“I can hear the river,” she explains to her parents and primas that have all gathered around her. “And the little birds and the water mill and Casita is waving with a shutter right now and Eduardo is talking about tía’s tamales and –“

The party ends early as not even Julieta’s food can soothe Dolores’ headache. “Do my ears look bigger?” Dolores asks as her parents tuck her in her new bed.

“No, mi amor. You look perfect.”

“What can you do?” a couple of kids ask her, Isabela’s flowers in their hair and around their necks.

“I hear things,” Dolores answers truthfully. “Everything.”

The kids stare, and she squeaks before leaving them behind. She can hear them talk about her behind her back.

There’d been questions about her Gift. Of course, she’d heard them. Abuela’s hushed voice in the morning afterward, asking how to make use of it.

Pepa doesn’t have a straight answer.

But slowly, step by step, Dolores answers the question for them. She hears cries for help, she hears the questions, the requests, anything out of place.

It doesn’t make people clap, it doesn’t cover the whole town in wonderful colors, but it helps.

“La Familia Madrigal!” she chimes in at the breakfast table.

There is singing and laughter and music so beautiful, she could listen to it all day. There are bad noises too, words so ugly she wishes she could forget, but she quickly learns to ignore it. To think of the clear skies and wonderful melodies instead.

Dolores squeaks. It’s a familiar sound, and Pepa smiles knowingly, putting down her book to look at her daughter. “What did you hear, Dolores?”

When Dolores doesn’t reply, Félix walks over with a raised eyebrow. He hasn’t worded his concern yet – magic is, well, magical, and you usually don’t complain about that – but he cannot help but worry about how much a five-year-old should hear.

“What? Is Emilio practicing with the tiple again?”

Slowly, Dolores shakes her head, eyes fixated on Pepa. Or, more specifically; Pepa’s stomach.

“I can hear her,” Dolores says, a smile creeping across her face.

There’s a beat where her parents try to catch up with her, following her stare, connecting the dots –

Then Félix breaks into a joyous yell, enough to make Dolores jolt, but he quickly apologizes by picking her up and showering her in kisses before bringing her to Pepa who embraces both of them, a rainbow above them to encircle the growing family.

“I’m going to have una hermana!”

They’re inside Isabela’s room – it’s the prettiest place and the funniest place, even though Luisa is always nervous about stepping on one of the flowers covering the floor.

“Then I’ll no longer be the smallest!” Luisa says with a big grin on her face. Vines pick her up to drop her on Isabela’s lap so they can sit together on the beautiful swing.

Dolores digs her hands into soft petals, closes her eyes, and listens for her little sibling’s heartbeat.

“Dolores?” With a frown stretched tight across her face, Pepa looks out of the window, watching the grey sky. “Can you still hear it?”

Tilting her head, Dolores tunes in on the familiar drumming. She doesn’t even have to focus much, the sound is strong and fast and its promise makes her smile. “Sí.”

Pepa nods quietly before pulling her into an embrace. “Gracias,” she mutters into her hair, her voice wet but the air is dry.

Dolores knows that births are loud – it’s only been few months since Señora Fuentes became a mother for the first time. Dolores had spent most of that day with her palms firmly pressed against her ears.

Today is even worse. She’s never heard her mother scream before, and it pierces its way to her ears, even when they’ve been blocked with cotton and with Bruno’s hands pressed against the sides of her head. She’s sitting on his lap – Félix is by Pepa’s side, so are Alma and Julieta, and that leaves Agustín and Bruno to deal with the children.

Outside, it is storming, and Luisa and Isabela keep themselves busy by staring out of the windows, mouths hanging open. They’ve all seen Pepa’s storms before, but it’s never been anything like this. The clouds kept moving, swirling around in ever-changing patterns and revealing a sky that ranges from grey to a threatening orange hue. It would have been pretty, had it not meant pain.

It’s a bit of a shame. The rest of the town is celebrating, and Dolores had looked forward to listening in on all the pranks, the muffled snickers and surprised laughter today would bid. Her sister will be born on Día de los Inocentes, and Dolores keeps her mind busy by trying to imagine all the ways she can prank her sister on her birthdays.

Bruno, failing to hide the anxiety he isn’t supposed to share with the kids, bounces his knee up and down, but his hands loyally cling to Dolores’ ears, even if his fingers are tapping against her hair. It’s not comfortable, being jolted like this, but Dolores can forgive him as – despite the cotton and the hands and the faint sound of screaming – she can hear him mutter: “Sana sana, colita de rana –“

“-si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana,” she finishes for him, pleased with the distraction, and Bruno, surprised by the fact she managed to hear him in the first place, hugs her tighter.

Pepa’s screams are replaced by ones coming from a smaller set of lungs. By the time Félix has entered the room, Dolores has already wriggled herself free from Bruno’s embrace, waiting eagerly with her hands behind her back.

“It’s over?” she asks, barely able to stand still as she rocks back and forth on her heels. “I have a little sister?”

There is a bundle in Félix’s arms, carefully wrapped in an orange blanket. It’s fallen quiet now – to everyone but Dolores who can hear her sibling’s heartbeat, the soft breaths, the smallest of sounds leaving a tiny mouth.

“No, mi vida.” Despite the complaints from his knees, Félix lowers himself to show her. “You have un hermano.”

The bundle is heavier than it looks. Dolores’ arms curl around it, settling it against her chest like Julieta has shown her with Luisa when they were both younger. Félix fingers pry the blanket away for her, and Dolores finds herself staring into a round face surrounded by wet dark hair. In the middle of it, curious hazel eyes stare back at her.

“This is Camilo.”

In the following months, Dolores keeps her fingers crossed. And when Julieta gives birth to Mirabel a few months later, Dolores congratulates her with a smile on her face.

Isabela might have two sisters now, but Dolores has un hermano.

“Doesn’t it hurt your ears?” Isabela asks while staring at the screaming baby in Dolores’ arms.

Dolores hums – it does hurt, yes, but it hurt more to overhear Ana and Eva saying that she was weird the other day. Bouncing Camilo doesn’t work today, but his face lights up when she starts blowing raspberries.

Camilo is a loud baby. Pepa has already complained about this, but it’s always said with love and kisses pressed to his small face.

He is loud . Dolores loves him nonetheless, but the trick for dealing with a wailing Camilo is to make sure he doesn’t start screaming in the first place.

“What’s the hurry?” Julieta asks, amused but alert as Dolores suddenly races across the plaza.

“Camilo’s awake!”

There are voices to listen for – she is supposed to keep a track of the farmers and pass on messages for them so they can work undisturbed while receiving the supplies they ask for – but she can hear Camilo twist in his bed, tiny fists knocking against the sides of his crib, the gentle rustling from the baby mobile as Casita makes it spin to distract him with the small metal suns.

Just as she reaches Casita, she can hear the change – the cooing turning into whimpers – and she calls for her mamá, “Camilo is hungry!”, while racing up the stairs. By the time she’s reached the crib, his face has pinched, and his mouth is open for a wail –

“Buenos días, Camilito.”

Dolores reaches out to play with the small foot that’s escaped the blanket, earning a grin and a soft noise from her brother. It’s enough to distract him until Pepa is ready to satisfy his never-ending hunger again.

Camilo might be loud, but if you just hear him before he starts to cry, you can avoid most of the tears.

“I’ll take him,” Pepa says after kissing Dolores’ temple, stealing the toddler from her. It causes her to let out an unsatisfied squeak – Isabela is holding Mirabel as Julieta will be needed at the top of the stairs, and now Dolores’ arms feel weirdly empty.

Félix notices her scowl, of course he does, and laughs as he ruffles her hair. “Between the two of you, I don’t know who spoils him the most,” he says, watching Camilo squirm as he is put on the floor, held upright by Pepa taking a hold of each tiny hand. “Besides, you might need your hands free, mi vida.”

She’s already received several sympathetic glances. The guests have begun to gather, and with them comes noise.

Eying the box of fireworks Señor Vidal is carrying across the courtyard already makes her shoulder tense, but today is Luisa’s day. She deserves a big and loud celebration.

“It’ll be your turn next,” she tells Camilo who is sitting on the floor now, chubby hands slamming against a tile in the hopes it’ll come to life for him. Despite how busy the house already is, Casita amuses him, bouncing two tiles to make them swap places in front of the giggling toddler.

When Luisa with wide eyes and a big smile climbs the stairs, the house falls quiet. It’s a small relief – a brief one, Dolores knows – and she enjoys the moment it lasts. It’s never quiet, not to her. All the small sounds that usually fade into the background are brought into the light when no one speaks. The heartbeats, the halted breathing, fingers clinging tightly to –

And then, for seemingly no reason, Camilo begins to laugh. Félix is holding him up high so he could better see the glowing door, but no one had expected the sight to be funny. Now everyone in the otherwise silent house turns their head towards the ecstatic toddler.

The temperature immediately begins to skyrocket as Pepa struggles with her embarrassment, grabbing Camilo to try and hush him, all while enviously eying the sleeping Mirabel in Isabela’s arms.

Dolores hears the quiet sigh leave Alma’s mouth, but then the tension dissolves as Luisa begins to laugh as well, practically skipping the last few steps on her way to the door.

Her door is opened, and Luisa spends the rest of the night juggling furniture and people to the observers’ delight. She lifts a toddler in each hand, and both Mirabel and Camilo are having the time of their lives.

Dolores gets her turn, too, when Luisa wraps her in a crushing hug and raises her inches off the ground. A tour around Luisa’s new room reveals a wonderland filled with toys and training equipment. Dolores feels tired just looking at it. Her room has toys too, and it is so big, and so quiet. The latter is the most important part.

From the back of Casita, she hears Ana and Eva whisper:

“Dolores didn’t perform at her ceremony. Did she?”

“No. But you can’t really do anything with your ears like that, I guess.”

You can’t. And that’s fine. Dolores wouldn’t have liked the cheering, anyway. It’s so loud.

The fireworks explode with Félix’s large hands cupping Dolores’ ears, and along with the muffled explosions, she can hear Camilo’s giggles of joy as he points towards the colorful sky.

“Mami!” he says, grinning up at the woman who, in his mind, controls the sky. “ Mami !”

It’s not difficult to figure out how Luisa can be useful. They don’t even need to discuss it. Dolores hears the villagers call for her, the grunts and the exhales, the cheers and the many “Gracias, Luisa!” thrown in her direction.

Luisa is so busy now, marching around the Encanto with a big grin on her face as she moves everything in her path (if so needed). Alongside Isabela, they make sure the village is beautiful and perfect. There is much to do, they are so busy.

Dolores helps, of course. Her Gift is useful, too, but it’s hard to schedule. It’s the unexpected moments where she shines. When little Martin hid in the attic and his parents couldn’t find him. When one of the donkeys broke its leg and made that horrible scream from across the fields. That weird sound from the mill that turned out to be broken.

She repeats messages and keeps a track of where people are and what people need.

“The Encanto needs you,” Pepa had said while caressing her ears. “You help keep it safe.”

La Familia Madrigal knows their duties, and Dolores plays her part by keeping an ear out, ready to hear any message, any cry for help, every strange noise that needs investigation.

Then Camilo learns how to walk, and Dolores finally begins to understand why she’d been given her Gift.

“Courtyard,” she says before Pepa can even ask. Her worried cloud gives away her question.

Once Camilo figured out how to move, he stopped staying in one place. It’s a small comfort that their house is practically child-proof; Casita not only entertains the children but makes sure to keep them from harm as well. This is a very good thing because Camilo has a fondness for trying to squeeze his body through the bars of the balcony railing for whatever reason.

It doesn’t help that Camilo is obviously influencing Mirabel. The moment the girl can stand on her legs, he is there to pull her hand.

“What are you even doing?” she has to ask after finding the pair hidden inside a cupboard. They both burst into giggles as she pulls them out from their hiding spot.

“What would I do without you?” Pepa says, the sun beaming down on both of them every time Dolores helps find a missing Camilo.

Sometimes, she doesn’t even need to find him – at least not physically. When he’s allowed to roam around the town freely with Mirabel, Pepa has a tendency to pace back and forth, haunted by her own clouds. “They’re in the plaza,” Dolores can then tell her. “They are playing with Hugo and Lidia.”

“Gracias, mi vida.”

Clinging to the sense of pride, Dolores doesn’t want to explain how easy it is. Camilo is loud. He is a bright orange spot on the mental map that her Gift brings her. Even when he tries to be quiet, she will find him; the choked giggling, the excited flutter of a small ruana, a strong heartbeat.

Camilo is four by the time he’s figured out how to turn it into a game. Hide from Dolores and see if she can find you.

She does. She always finds him.

“Dolores!” Camilo yells as he ambushes her from the top of the wardrobe. “You found me!”

Winded, Dolores doesn’t get to tell him that, technically, he found her before she found him. But she had heard him giggling from across the town anyway. “You’re giving mamá grey skies again,” she scolds him lightly, putting him down on the floor. Grey clouds for mamá, grey hair for papá , she thinks, though Camilo brings them all way more joy than distress.

It does worry her, though, the way her hermano faces the world with an optimism that might come across as careless. It only makes sense, having grown up in a safe and isolated piece of paradise inside a home that will be there to catch you when you fall and help you reach the high spots.

Dolores trusts Casita, of course she does, but seeing the small kids crawl on the roof still makes her let out a nervous squeak.

“Find me, Lola!” Camilo will call out while she’s at the other end of the town. Sometimes she will amuse him. Other times, she will keep herself busy. Besides, she has found him – she knows exactly where he is, even if she doesn’t go to confront him.

“Why didn’t you find me?”  her hermano grumbled into his dinner, earning a round of Félix’s hand ruffling his hair. “I didn’t even hide that well –“

“You were inside Luisa’s closet,” Dolores says with a shrug. “I heard you. I also heard you fall asleep inside it.”

“Only because you didn’t find me!”

“Anyone could have found you with the way you snore.”

Their primas laugh, and Camilo sticks out his tongue.

“You needed the nap anyway,” Dolores tells him, and Camilo takes revenge later by trying to steal some yuca fritas from her plate.

She won’t let him know, but she enjoys the game, too. Isabela already makes perfect flowers, but Luisa trains every day to grow even stronger, and Dolores is getting better at separating the cacophony that’s become constant background noise.

The game, as annoying as it might be, helps her focus. She doesn’t need a voice anymore. She can tell footsteps apart. The difference between a skirt and a ruana in the wind. The way a breathing pattern can reveal your emotions.

Camilo is giggles and feet skipping down the road, a ruana being twirled.

“What do you think his Gift will be?” Isabela asks her one day, leaning her head against Dolores as they both sit on the swing.

“I just hope it isn’t invisibility.” Would the Miracle be that ironic? Oh, but Camilo would love such a power. Another way to cause mischief. Dolores almost shudders at the thought.

“You’d still be able to hear him, though,” Isabela says, and Dolores finds that more comforting than it should be.

Camilo is loud . And no Gift can take that away from him.

“Have you seen –“

“I’ll find him.”

“That boy,” her mother sighs. “You were never that much trouble, mi vida. And look at you now, hmm? Helping your poor old mamá.”

Dolores mirrors her grin and kisses her back, and as the game begins, her eyes squint in concentration. Slowly, the smile begins to fade.

She finds him, of course she does, but it takes a longer time than usual. No voice, no movement, no laughter. But there’s no mistaking her hermano’s snores.

Though, it surprises her to hear them coming from above .

“Why, Camilo?” she mutters under her wheezing breath, halfway up Bruno’s stairs. They aren’t supposed to be here. It’s not a rule spoken out loud (she would have heard it had that been the case), but they all know that tío Bruno needs his solitude. He loves them, of course, they are familia – but Bruno gets overwhelmed, as Pepa puts it. He needs his place to retreat to.

Dolores remembers a time when Bruno would come out of his room for something else than breakfast and dinner. She wonders if Camilo remembers. Bruno is still there, he still sends her nervous smiles and gives the softest hugs, and his rhythms – whether it be his fingers against wood or the frantic murmuring of “Sana, Sana, Colita de Rana” – are still a comfort to her ears. But most often, he can be found in the shadows, nervously twirling his hands, eyes twitching.

The rumors in the village are known to all – and Dolores hears them all. She isn’t sure how much of it is true; she loves her uncle, but even so, she has to admit she doesn’t know him well. But one thing is for certain; Bruno is kindhearted, even more so than most. A kind and shy and fragile heart.

He likes silence, just like her, and that’s why they are not supposed to disturb him. And definitely not go into his room.

She’s not sure why Camilo decided to climb all these stairs – either Mirabel has dared him to do so, or he wants to find Bruno, or he wants to break some unspoken rules on purpose, or he is just curious. Any one of those reasons sounds plausible when it’s Camilo they’re talking about. But she intends to ask him for the truth – and snitch to their mami later.

For every climbed step, Dolores looks forward to shaking Camilo awake and scolding him – but when she finally finds him, fast asleep with his face squished against the rock wall and his soft curls working as a cushion, her face softens.

“ Camilo. ” As the sigh leaves her mouth, she is tempted to just sit down next to him. There’s a long way down, especially for feet that have already climbed the stairs once. But this is her little brother, and she knows their mami will grow worried eventually, even with the trust she has in Dolores and her Gift.

Before she can pick him up, the circular door swings open with a mighty creak. Bruno is surprised; Dolores is not. She’s heard him knock against the walls during the ascent, and she’d hoped to run off with Camilo before they could make him aware of their presence. Bruno doesn’t like visitors here, not even the ones who come for a vision.

“Dolores?” Bruno says after jumping a few inches into the air. His mouth opens, then closes as he turns his head and sees the sleeping kid. “Camilo?”

The kid doesn’t even stir. “Lo siento,” Dolores says, standing up to nervously brush off her skirt. “He wandered off again.”

“…Up here?” Bright green eyes drift to the side where the edge ends, and a sudden drop awaits. It’s not a thought Dolores had considered just yet, but maybe there’s another reason why they shouldn’t be in Bruno’s room. “This place is not really childproof. Or adult-proof. We’d all break our necks from here, actually.”

“I think he likes the sand.”

Bruno makes a face and shakes his foot, corns of sand falling from it. “Well,” he says, eying the stairs with a slight shrug. “I guess you cannot blame him for being tired.”

Dolores hums and turns to pick up her brother, only for Bruno to pass her, arms outstretched for the same purpose. “I’ll carry him,” he says as firmly as one can expect from her tío.

Once Camilo is nestled against his shoulders, snoring happily, they begin the descent. Camilo doesn’t wake up, but to be fair, both Bruno and Dolores stay silent to avoid disturbing his slumber.

Wordlessly, Dolores reaches out to hold on to Bruno’s ruana, now when his hands are filled. She doesn’t mind the silence, and she knows that Bruno doesn’t either.

The thunder has never been so loud before. It’s splitting the sky into pieces, illuminating a town that’s empty as people are wise enough to take shelter from Pepa’s rage. The target of her enraged emotions, however, is inside Casita, and now and then, a lightning will strike the courtyard, and the house will shake in response.

Through the open window, she can see the bright flashes. She should close it and shield herself within the soundproof walls, but she cannot bring herself to leave the bed.

Dolores’ hands are pressed so firmly against her ears that her wrists have begun to ache. She doesn’t want to hear it. Any of it. The thunder, the yelling, Bruno’s frantic apologies. But despite her mother’s language (she’s using words she surely doesn’t want Camilo to overhear) and Bruno’s whimpers, it’s the words spoken to her hours before that keep haunting her.

“He’s wrong,” Isabela had insisted afterward, once she’d found Dolores weeping quietly. “He has to be wrong. You’re hermosa, and you’ll be even more beautiful when you’ve grown up. You’ll be like a princess. A magical princess. No one would say no to that. And if they do, then you don’t deserve such a meanie head anyway.”

The flowers are still in her hair, carefully put there by Isabela as a comfort alongside her words.

Isabela’s vision was so wonderful. Dolores had been excited to receive her own.

“ There you are . ” The sand had encircled them, shading her vision in green, and filling her ears with the sound of drizzling sand. Within the moving wall of sand, she saw herself emerge – easily recognizable by the bow on top of her head.

“ Aaaaand. This is a man. Oh. Oh, I think you like him .”

The figure was faceless, and Dolores widened her eyes as she tried to grasp what details she could; the muscular form, confident waltz towards her, the book in his hand. Her own figure of sand turned towards him, longingly reaching out for him.

“ And he is – he is proposing !”

As the man went down on his knees, another figure appeared. Once again, there was no face to be revealed, but the swirl of the long hair and skirt seemed to allure the man who in turn raised the ring towards her – the figure of Dolores had been swept to the side to slowly dissolve as she quietly watched the scene unfold.

“And that’s – That’s. Oh.”

Another crash of thunder makes the whole house shake. From below, Dolores can hear frantic knocking against wood, angry footsteps and the endless splatter of raindrops against tiles.

“You dare!”

“You know I don’t control what the vison –“

“She is ten!”

“I –“

“How could you say that to her?!”

The thunder drowns out the sound of the door being opened, and when Dolores opens her eyes, she sees the color yellow as Camilo stands in front of her. His head is tilted, face scrunched into a confused expression at the sight of her wet cheeks.

His immediate response is to smile at her, hoping to get one in return, and when it doesn’t happen, he goes to Plan B. Dolores knows her brother; she knows he is about to put up a show, and despite her misery and the loud thunder claps, her expression softens as she watches Camilo dance to the made-up rhythm of the thunder, even pretending to hit a drum as a loud boom is heard once more.

Where most kids might be afraid of thunder and lightning, Camilo doesn’t even flinch.

She loves him, and she loves his attempts to bring her joy, but when she tries to give him the smile he longs for, she just ends up sniffing.

“Are your ears hurting again?” he asks in quiet understanding. He knows she has bad days; the days where he is told to lower his voice, and where their father is quick to scold him should he act out. It’s not Camilo’s fault, not truly, but there are times when his loudness will cause her to draw away from him.

It’s okay. She likes being alone, and Camilo spends most of his time with Mirabel, anyway.

Camilo has climbed into her lap, his small hands on top of hers as he tries to help. For some reason, it just makes her cry harder.

“Lola?”

There are tears in his eyes too, now. He doesn’t understand – he is too young to be involved in this – but he shares her grief anyway. Oh, her sweet hermano, so full of joy and love and sunshine.

Dolores removes her hands from her ears, as they don’t really help anyway, and closes them around Camilo’s small ones, bringing them to her mouth to plant a kiss on his wrist.

“I heard you singing this morning,” she says with watery eyes, recalling the happy scene from earlier when it’d seemed like it was going to be a good day. “Is it a new song?”

“Mhmm. About the sun. It dances.”

“Can you sing it for me?” she asks, and Camilo does, of course, oblivious to the storm around them.

Dolores can’t quite figure out if she enjoys her mother’s storms or not. They are loud, and sometimes they hurt, and it’s never fun to see her mother’s anguish or anger. But in that loudness, everything else is drowned out, and it’s nice to forget about all the voices in the town.

“Dolores has always been quiet,” she’s heard Pepa say once. “A soft voice, and a soft heart.”

“Don’t be afraid to speak your mind, mi vida,” Félix has told her numerous times, always with a sturdy hand resting against her cheek. “We’re always ready to hear you.”

The thing is, Dolores has learned that it’s best to stay quiet.

 “I didn’t mean to!” she’d wept into her mother’s chest after overhearing Lucia and Catalina say the meanest things about her. But she’d deserved their anger.

She’d known that the two of them had plans to fish in the river this afternoon – she’d heard them talk about it in the morning – and when she’d casually brought up this among the group of girls in the plaza, Eva had eagerly asked to come along, only to receive cold rejections from the two girls. Their fishing trip had been a secret, they’d told her; it was meant to be something only for the two of them as they hadn’t openly announced their status of Best Friends yet (the social hierarchy among eleven-year-olds both confused and intimidated Dolores, though Isabela seemed to have it all figured out long ago). But now Dolores had ruined it by saying it out loud.

“They act like – like I cannot hear it, like I don’t know, but I always know.”

Pepa’s cloud weeps for her as she gently wipes the tears away from her face. They’re both wet from her sad downpour, and Dolores looks up at the grey cloud. It’d taught her a long time ago that their Gifts could be difficult , as Pepa likes to put it.

“You are a big girl,” her mother praises her. “And I know you know the responsibilities our Gifts bring. But that doesn’t make them less heavy.”

Maybe Luisa is just strong enough to carry her burdens effortlessly. Or maybe Isabela’s petals aren’t heavy at all. None of them appear to be struggling with their Gifts.

It’s only Dolores.

With her magical ears, she doesn’t need her mouth anyway. By staying silent, it’s easier to listen. She learns to enjoy the constant melodies in the background; the river’s whispers, the birds’ songs, the bedtime stories, and every “te amo” . She becomes aware of every little change; a missing voice, the squeaks of a rusty wheel, every cry for help. She hears every time someone mentions her name, whether they intend for her to hear it or not.

She hears, and she knows, and she is ready to answer any question Alma has for her. It is their Encanto, it is theirs to protect, and Dolores plays her silent but important part of their duties.

“What do you think my Gift will be?” Camilo asks her. It’s a relevant question as there are only a few weeks left until he is supposed to open his door.

Dolores hums and tries to remember what she’d thought would happen when she opened her door. She can’t quite recall; it’s been so long ago. And when you receive your Gift, it becomes your everything. It didn’t matter what you thought or what you hoped; a Gift, magical or not, is for you and is meant to be appreciated no matter what.

“It’s no fun if we guess it already,” she says instead because she doesn’t have a full answer for him. She just hopes it won’t be a Gift that will make him quiet. Camilo is supposed to be loud; the loudness is a part of him, and the Miracle must see that. He deserves the same spectacle as Isabela and Luisa received at their ceremonies. He’d love the spotlight.

Camilo nods thoughtfully. “I like fun.”

“Maybe you’ll get a fun Gift, then,” she says and crosses her fingers that it will come true.

Camilo seems so small against the light of his door. Until he isn’t.

He’d practically been running up the stairs, a big grin spread across his face, but Dolores can hear him hold his breath as he reaches for the doorknob.

Her brother is no longer small. He is Eva, and he is Padre Flores, and he is Alma, and the whole house begins to clap. Camilo is laughing, managing to do a twirl before Pepa and Félix have surrounded him, covering him in kisses and throwing him into the air.

As Camilo runs into his new room, Dolores hears the quiet “Dios mío” from Pepa, and she understands. Oh, Camilo is going to love this Gift, a perfect match to his antics.

Dolores follows him into the room filled with mirrors and watches as he turns into a perfect copy of herself. The smile, however, gives him away – crooked and too wide to belong to anyone else.

He won’t stop smiling the following months (not that he wasn’t smiling before, but now there’s a certain glint in his eyes and his giggles are louder than normal), and it seems like every new day is a way an opportunity for Camilo to discover how to make people laugh in a new way.

He dances, he imitates, he stretches and shrinks his limbs as he pleases. One of his favorite things to do is to pick up Mirabel and swing her around, rubbing his stolen height in her face.

Dolores hears Alma worry about the usefulness of the Gift. She sits with the other adults as they brainstorm ways for Camilo to help out in the Encanto. Camilo, however, is oblivious to their frowns, and Dolores doesn’t intend to tell him about their worries. She wishes she could have had the same amount of fun with her Gift back when she was his age.

“Can you still find me?” he asks her, and first then Dolores realizes it’s been a while since they played their game.

“Sí.” It doesn’t matter which shape her brother takes – the voice gives him away, not to mention his mannerisms. Camilo is trying his best, bless his young heart, but he is five. Few adults would giggle as freely as he does. “You’ll just have to get better, then.”

“You’ll just have to get better, then,” he repeats, wearing her body with the hands placed on the hips.

It’s a flawless imitation, except for the one detail. “My ears are not that big!” Dolores cries, flicking a finger against his forehead and watching him shrink back into his own small body.

After Mirabel’s ceremony, everything changed. Dolores hears the whispers inside and outside of Casita. The failed ceremony and now tío Bruno is missing. He left, they’ve been told. He’ll come back. Maybe. (According to the whispers, he won’t.)

Through the walls of the nursery, Dolores can hear Mirabel crying in her bed.

“What do you think went wrong?” Camilo asks her as they’ve both retreated to Dolores’ room to escape the adults’ dreaded serious talk .

Dolores has heard practically everyone in the Encanto ask that question, and she’s heard so many different answers to it.

“I don’t think it went wrong,” she says but she cannot help but wince; the party itself had been a disaster, and she can still hear people voice their disappointment in their homes. “Maybe the Miracle just decided Mirabel doesn’t need a Gift.”

Poor girl. Dolores hears every comfort given to Mirabel, but she also hears her cry at night as well as the adults’ frustrated discussions about what happened and what to do next.

“She’s so sad, though.” Camilo keeps looking at his hands, turning them over and flexing his fingers as if he’s about to shift them into something else but cannot quite bring himself to do so. “I tried to make her laugh, but it didn’t work – she just cried more , and I tried – and then she told me to go away! I was just trying to make her feel better!”

Dolores had, of course, heard the scene. It’d been a heart-breaking one. Camilo, seeing his prima’s tears, had attempted to joke and mimic his way out of a sad situation. In that way, he reminds them all of tío Bruno who’d been born with a foot in his mouth according to Alma.

Mirabel, already hurt and therefore sensitive, had mistaken it for teasing, and when she’d snapped at him, Camilo had snapped right back.

It’s not their first fight – they’ve always been close, and with that closeness comes arguments. It’s just the first time it’s felt so final .

“You can’t always make people smile, manito,” Dolores tells him while gently stroking his curls. “Sometimes, they need to be sad. Like you are right now.”

“No, I’m not,” Camilo says, sniffing.

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not !” Squirming, Camilo tightens his small hands into fists and inhales deeply, just like Pepa has taught them. “ Clear skies, clear skies . See!” When he turns around, there’s the biggest smile on his face, stretched so wide that it looks like it hurts.

Some people might believe the joy in his expression.

But this is Dolores’ hermano, and he is too young to be a great actor yet. The strained smile leaves her feeling uneasy, unsure of just how she should respond to it. When Pepa starts muttering about clear skies, you don’t mention the grey cloud hanging over her head.

“Mirabel will be happy again, right? And everyone else?”

“Sí.” Dolores knows it’s not the same, but she cannot help but think back to the time she received her vision. It hurt. But eventually, you learn to settle with your fate. Thinking about visions just makes her miss Bruno. “But until then, we have to be really good. And not cause any trouble.”

The smile on Camilo’s face softens into a real one. “I’ll help! Like Abuela says!”

“That’s good.”

Camilo turns his head away from her before the grin can fade away again. Her room blocks all the outside noise, but that just makes it easier to tell the hitching in his breath. “Lola? Do you think Mirabel will let me in the nursery again?”

“Of course,” Dolores replies right away, fighting the urge to simply scoop him into a hug. “Or you can ask her to hang out in your room. I know you love it in there.”

“But Mirabel doesn’t. Not anymore.” He sniffs again, running a hand across his face. “She said so.”

It’s a reminder of the magic, of everything that Mirabel didn’t get. As much as it pains Dolores to see her hermano upset, she understands Mirabel’s reasoning.

“Then I’ll come hang out with you,” Dolores promises him. “We can sit in front of the mirrors and try out some of your costumes. And you can practice your impressions and I’ll give you some tips.”

Camilo looks up at her with tears in his hazel eyes. Pepa is right; he really does look like Bruno. “Really?”

“Mhmm. I know everyone’s voices really well.”

Bruno is not coming back. Weeks pass, and Dolores hears the town come to this conclusion. It echoes inside Casita where the family is slowly growing used to the absence. The change is strangely quiet. No one mentions how Bruno’s chair is removed or when his pictures are taken down. Eventually, no one mentions his name at all.

It’s strange. At first, Bruno was on everyone’s lips. Everyone had their thoughts on the matter. His disappearance still is the big topic, but slowly, like a flame dying down, his name became a mutter, then a whisper, then a curse, then silence.

(Bruno might be gone, but the rhythm of his fingers against wood is not, and Dolores is not sure what to make of this.)

Mirabel’s name, however, is free to be used. And it’s used a lot.

Two big mysteries playing out on the same night. The town will talk about this for ages.

Especially because there are no answers. Dolores understands why the questions are asked – she shares them, and so does her family. But no one knows why Mirabel didn’t get a Gift.

Dolores, with no answers of her own, cannot help but listen to the conversations on purpose.

Most of the townspeople will say Mirabel’s name in a tone of pity or disappointment. Sometimes, the discussions make Dolores wince, but she’s the only one who hears them. Mirabel is sheltered within Casita and Julieta’s arms, ready to give her the comfort and reassurances she needs.

Camilo’s name is spoken out loud, and Dolores tilts her head to the side, automatically tuning in on that specific conversation. She knows it’s Señor and Señora Ortego – not just by their voices, but from their location alone; in the eastern end of the town, if you turn right by the plaza. Alma has praised her attention to detail, letting her know that in those dire moments, it’s the small things, the things only known to Dolores, that will play the most important part.

“Maybe there wasn’t any magic left,” Señor Ortego suggests. “Maybe it all went to Camilo, and if the boy took too much, then it isn’t fun to be last in line.”

Julieta raises her head in surprise when Dolores races through the courtyard, but no one stops the girl on her way to the Ortego house. She can hear the couple jump in their seats when she knocks on the door.

“Dolores! What a-“

For them, it’s been a private discussion that happened more than five minutes ago; they’ve already moved on to the next topic, gossip shared as a side dish to their coffee.

Their words still ring inside Dolores’ head.

“That is not true!” she says, voice rising in a surprising burst of anger. Has she been this loud ever since her own Ceremony? “So you shouldn’t say it. Mirabel hasn’t done anything wrong. My brother hasn’t done anything wrong.”

They open their mouths, but right now, Dolores is the one who speaks, keeping them both quiet with a firm glare.

“And I don’t want to hear you say that ever again.”

Right then, she is not Little Lola, the quiet eleven-year-old girl with the soft squeaks and big eyes that the town knows her to be. Instead, she is a Madrigal , the name spoken in that important tone Alma will use. They might be four times her age and twice as tall, but Dolores raises her head high and claims the final word.

She wonders if this is how Pepa feels when she calls down lightning.

The anger fades on her way back to Casita, and instead she ends up grappling with the heavy sensation she recognizes as guilt. She knows it is best to keep quiet – she’s learned that by now. When the whole town talks about Mirabel, she’d kept her lips shut, knowing that if it goes unspoken by her, it goes unheard to the others, and Mirabel would be spared. Dolores knows the saying; what you don’t know won’t hurt you. Dolores knows everything, and sometimes it hurts.

The need to speak up today is new, and she doesn’t regret it. She knows how to carry the conversations that were never supposed to leave the house, but the thought of Mirabel – or god forbid, Camilo – hearing these theories breaks her heart.

That’s why she ends up letting out a squeak when Camilo, unprompted, slides one of his pandebonos onto Mirabel’s plate.

It’s a sweet sight – especially when it’s Camilo who has a hunger that’s unmatched in the whole Encanto. It’s a good sign, too. That the two of them have slowly begun to repair their relationship after a couple of tense months.

But Dolores cannot help but wonder if it’s a gesture of guilt more than anything. Had Camilo heard them? How could he? Was this not the first time the theory was brought up? Does he know? Does he blame himself as well?

Pepa’s sun warms the whole dining table, and Julieta, with a soft smile on her face, nudges her daughter’s arm. “What do you say then, Mira?”

“Gracias, Camilo,” Mirabel says dutifully. Her eyes are wide in wonder, lips slowly turning upwards into a smile. That’s good. Her smiles have been rare since the failed Ceremony.

Camilo, however, looks sullen. “De nada.”

From across the table, Pepa raises an eyebrow in an unsaid question. Dolores shrugs, and she can only elaborate after dinner when she’s pulled to the side by her mother. She considers telling her what happened today – and what she fears happened – but those words were not meant to be shared, and if she did, there would be clouds.

Instead, Dolores says, truthfully, that Camilo needs some extra hugs tonight. Pepa frowns but is more than happy to oblige.

Below Casita, throughout the whole town, the discussions continue. So many names make her head jolt upwards – Mirabel, Camilo, Bruno, her own …

She cannot stop the rumors.

But she can keep quiet.

Knock, knock, knock .

In the beginning, Pepa thought Bruno would return. Dolores knows this. They all felt the storms. It’d been rain, it’d been lightning, but it’d been snow, too.

It must be terrible, Dolores thinks, to lose a brother.

It’s not the first time she’s heard the rhythm since their uncle left in the middle of the night. Dolores isn’t stupid; she knows that sound too well. It’s so comforting that in the beginning, she simply thought her brain was playing a trick on her.

But there are other noises, too.

Quiet footsteps, sniffling, and the familiar sound of salt (or sand) being thrown through the air.

Knock, knock, knock .

Putting down her fairytale book, Dolores carefully gets off her bed to avoid waking up the sleeping Camilo. He’d come in here to listen to her read the stories out loud but had fallen asleep before they’d even reached chapter three. Dolores hadn’t minded; Camilo’s snores weren’t loud enough to stop her from continuing her reading, and she appreciates that her brother has begun to spend more time in her room. He and Mirabel have recovered some of their relationship, but it’s not the same, and now Camilo will more often than not walk past the nursery to go bother Dolores instead.

She follows the noises down her wall – slow, careful footsteps, hitched breathing, the quiet squeaks that Dolores recognizes to belong to rats – and then out the door. From there, she watches silently as the painting swings open, and her missing tío roams through the silent house.

Dolores says nothing.

It’s first when Bruno has disappeared into the hole again, this time with a plate filled with stolen leftovers (turns out Camilo actually isn’t the culprit for the missing food), and Dolores can follow his footsteps on the other side of the wall, coming to a halt in her own room, that she leans against the wallpaper and asks, “Tío Bruno?”

His breathing comes to a halt.

“Tío Bruno?” she says again, listening to his fingers tremble, nails clattering against the plate. “I know. I won’t tell.”

She spends the next hour listening to him crying in relief.

Dolores keeps so many secrets. From Eva’s crush on David to Señor Prieto’s hobby of writing his own novel (every now and then, he will read parts out loud to check the rhythm, and Dolores listens carefully, keeping her opinions to herself), from the way Isabela will sometimes yell in frustration inside her room to Mirabel’s reassurances to Casita. All the whispers, all the sharp remarks, all lies. Dolores hears it all. She can keep Bruno’s secret, too.

So she listens to his secret footsteps, his knocking and his crying. It’s nice when he starts with the telenovelas. It gives him something to spend the day with, and it’s a pleasant thing to listen to.

She hears the laughter, the singing and the music, too. Camilo’s jokes and Agustín’s thin fingers against the piano keys. There are so many nice things.

She also hears all the times when Camilo is told to grow up. Now, the request can be quite literal.

“Like this?”

“Yes, now hold it still.”

It doesn’t matter who he changes into – they can ask him to be as tall as José or as broad as Osvaldo, but he is a kid no matter what shape he takes. Pepa hovers as much as Dolores whenever they need Camilo’s magical height (or lack of it) to help build the new houses. Everyone does their part, but with a disguised Camilo among adults, it can be easy to forget he’s not even six yet.

It’s a relief when Camilo finally gets old enough to have full responsibility for the kids in town – and Alma is the most relieved of all. Just like the case of Dolores, the purpose of Camilo’s Gift is hard to nail down. It still is. But Camilo doesn’t seem to mind being a Jack-of-all-trades, and looking after babies and kids gives him adaily routine and purpose. He finds it fun, too. She can tell by his laughter that’s echoed by the kids.

It makes him so easy to keep track of. Wherever Camilo goes, laughter follows. He is not as loud as when he was a kid, not in the same way, at least, and he’s become a better actor when changing his body. His never-ending hunger, however, remains the same.

“Hey, Lola?” Camilo will say from the other end of the town, knowing she will perk up at the mention of her name. “What did the chicken say to the cow?”

Dolores opens her mouth, ready to amuse him, only to realize that he cannot hear her in turn. This becomes one of Camilo’s favorite pranks. Sometimes, he will reveal the joke, causing Dolores to laugh out of seemingly nowhere. Or he won’t reveal the punchline which just keeps her distracted the rest of the day as she tries to figure it out by herself.

That’s Camilo. He annoys them, he makes them laugh, and they all love him so much.

Dolores knows that sound. She’s heard it before. It’s just many, many years ago. And this is unexpected. For all parties involved, apparently.

“Mami?” Dolores says, unable to tear her eyes away from her mother’s stomach. She knows a new heartbeat when she hears one.

Disbelief, shock and confusion dawn on Pepa’s face, mouth falling open and brows rising – and then the joy hits, as seen by everyone when a giant rainbow shines across the whole Encanto.

It’s a surprise to everyone, and though Camilo naturally shares his family’s joy, he is confused. “I don’t get it,” he whispers to Dolores while they watch Julieta and Pepa embrace. “Mami’s old .”

He yelps when Dolores gently knocks him across the top of his head. “Don’t say that.”

“But she is .”

That’s what the town is saying, too. And it’s the truth.

“You’re going to be a big brother.”

“I hope it’s a boy,” Camilo grumbles, though he keeps smiling. “Too many girls in this house.”

It’s only fair to agree with that. It’d be good for Camilo to have someone else to lean on, though the age gap might be a problem. She wonders if he finds it weird, being the only male family member with magic – though, she can’t bring that up without thinking about Bruno in the walls, and it’s been so hard to keep silent about that to her brother already.

Either way, Camilo will just be happy to be a big brother. He is so good with the kids already, and Dolores believes he might be the one to give their mamá some much-needed breaks this time around.

Though, despite Camilo’s soft smile, Dolores notices the way his brows have furrowed in something akin to worry.

“No pouting over no longer being the youngest kid?”

“Nah. Mom will love me the most no matter what.”

She playfully nudges him back with her elbow. Pepa has enough love for all of them, shining through her like sunshine. And while Camilo might be a mami’s boy, Dolores is happy to recognize herself as daddy’s girl.

“So what are you worried about?”

“I’m not,” Camilo insists and then yelps when the tiles beneath them shift, causing the sofa to bounce in disagreement. “I know babies,” he explains and then his eyes, narrowed in worry, dart towards his sister. “They’re loud.”

To be true, Dolores hasn’t missed the wailing of a newborn in Casita. However, she’s no longer a little kid, and she’s grown used to loud noises many years ago. That doesn’t mean her brother’s concern doesn’t warm her heart. “Well. Our new sibling can’t be louder than you ,” she said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“What can I say? I always liked the attention.”

 Dolores isn’t quite sure if that’s a lie or if his worry is focused on Pepa, but her concern disappears the moment Antonio is born. The noises had been just as terrible as when Camilo had been born, and this time Bruno isn’t around to shield her ears from the screaming.

Camilo holds their brother with the same ease and calm as he handles all the babies in Encanto, but the smile on his face is bigger than ever.

While Dolores doesn’t mind changing diapers and singing Antonio to sleep, she feels less useful than when Camilo had been a baby. Antonio doesn’t fuss much, he isn’t as hungry, he barely screams, and when he begins to crawl, he never goes far away.

Camilo, however, puts his Gift to good use.

One day, Dolores finds two babies on Antonio’s blanket, both of them cooing happily.

When she pokes him in the stomach, Camilo shifts back into himself. “What?” he grumbles, stretching his arms from the sudden change in length. “It’s easier to bond when you’re on their level.”

“Crybaby,” Dolores teases him, and when Camilo sticks out his tongue in reply, Antonio begins to laugh beneath them.

Antonio grows up so fast. Despite their parents’ age and everyone’s worry, it goes pretty flawlessly. Though, it’s strange at times that their brother shares a room with Mirabel. He shares so many things with Mirabel. And Dolores loves them both, and she is thankful for Mirabel’s ways of cheering Antonio up, but she cannot help but remember the times Camilo would always leap for her – the same way Antonio always rushes to hold Mirabel’s hand.

But she understands. It’s not like they can share a room with Antonio, and even though he might be closest with Mirabel, he still loves them. And they love him; Dolores smiles as she thinks of his quiet voice wishing her goodnight, the stories he tells his beloved animals, the small gifts and trinkets he will slip into their hands.

Camilo is growing, too. Before she knows it, he’s hit the teenage years, and she is forced to listen to him stumble his way through early adolescence. They laugh when his voice begins to crack, and when his body changes involuntarily with every hiccup. It shouldn’t be funny, but there’s just something about a scowling, three-year-old Cecilia glaring at her from across the table and asking her, in Camilo’s voice, “What?”, that makes her chuckle every time.

It's not so funny when she has to hear him try to impress his new friends, most often trying harder than he should. One day, she finds herself pursing her lips as she hears him go on an adventure up the river with four other boys his age after he’d specifically promised to stay in the town after dealing with the lunchtime naps and ask the farmers in the field if they needed an extra set of hands (in any size needed).

She hears him have fun, too, laughing and joking until he begins to mutter about how he should get home before his absence is noted.

She cannot hear his guilt, but she sees it at dinner where Camilo nervously glances in her direction the entire time, waiting for her to reveal the truth like she usually does.  

But she doesn’t. Camilo tells Pepa that everything went well today, and Pepa, distracted by Antonio almost knocking over his bowl, mirrors Camilo’s smile and the skies stay clear.

“Why didn’t you tell?” Camilo quietly asks her later as they have been assigned dish duty for the day.

She squeaks quietly in response, tilting her head. “It’s a secret, isn’t it?”

With his cheeks glowing red, Camilo slowly nods.

“I can’t snitch on you all the time,” she says with her hands on her hips. She’s not about to give him free reins, but he isn’t the small kid who’s just learned to run. It’s hard to imagine, but she tries anyway; how it must feel to have a sibling that can monitor your every movement. The only one who is free from Dolores’ surveillance is Dolores herself. The thought makes her pity herself and her brother. “And you get to have some secrets. But it doesn’t mean I don’t keep an ear out for you if you make trouble.”

Camilo flashes her his most innocent-looking expression. “I’d never!” he swears, lies dripping from his tongue.

But it’s okay. She knows he will definitely keep testing the limits, but she also knows he is a good kid. She doesn’t truly need to stop him; she has to trust him enough to let him do that himself.

“Or if you end up in trouble,” she adds, and while she’d expected Camilo to roll his eyes, he looks sheepish instead, looking down at his sandals and Casita’s tiles.

“So you won’t tell pá?” he asks, watching in surprise and thankfulness as she brings a finger to her lips.

“I can keep secrets.”

Dolores doesn’t realize Camilo is staring until he’s shifted into her shape, mirroring her faraway stare.

“What are you listening to?” he asks in her voice, blinking with long eyelashes.

Usually, she’d be willing to share the latest gossip – it’s only fair, and she can trust Camilo not to spread the rumors most of the time. Besides, some secrets are easier to carry once shared with others.

But how can she explain that she is listening to the latest episode of “Our Tales” where poor Señorita Antonia is bleeding out, and Dolores cannot survive another cliffhanger.

It’s tough, knowing how well Camilo and Bruno would get along. She hopes it’ll come true one day, that Camilo will get to act out his roles like he used to do with her books so long ago.

“Nothing,” she lies, and Camilo immediately scowls.

“I hate it when you say that.”

It’d be easier if he knew. Easier for her, at least. But Camilo, kind and goodhearted, is not good at keeping secrets from Pepa. At least not for something as big as this.

Besides, it’s a heavy secret to be carried by a young soul. It’ll be easier for Camilo to remain unknowing.

“I know,” she says, softly.

“I hate it when you say that, too.”

Dolores knows the Mariano is the man in the vision by the time she listens in on his fifth love letter – savoring all the rhythms, every metaphor, the way it all circles back to the description of roses – and he tries to rhyme Isabela with an umbrella (to shield himself from the rain of grief), and Dolores feels like she should be more surprised.

She’s always wanted what Isabela has.

Yet, that doesn’t mean Isabela doesn’t deserve the love she is given. Dolores knows she isn’t the only one intimidated by Isabela’s flawlessness, but unlike Mirabel, Dolores can spot the façade and the tiny cracks.

It doesn’t make it hurt any less as she hears them fall in love.

You don’t even need an enchanted hearing to know it’s happening. Camilo joins her by the balcony where they can both watch Mariano stumble his way through a serenade in front of a flustered Isabela.

“Urgh,” Camilo retches. “That made me lose my appetite.”

“No, it didn’t.”

The day Camilo doesn’t want to eat is a day of true alarm.

“True,” Camilo admits, the smirk back on his face where it belongs. “But really. Him?” He turns into Mariano (and Dolores’ heart skips a beat, though no one can hear that) and flexes a muscular arm before grimacing at his own act. “Isa deserves better. You definitely deserve better.”

She never told him; much like Bruno, they don’t talk about his visions either. It’d bring Pepa’s clouds out, and while Dolores would tell the story if anyone asked, no one really did. She just carried her prophecy with her, having been prepared for her heartbreak since she was ten.

But how can anyone stay sad when you have a brother that will tell you jokes from across the town? Who will dance and annoy and poke you until you finally crack a smile?

“Dolores,” Camilo calls to get her attention before pretending to be Mariano choking on a flower petal.

She doesn’t laugh, but his efforts are enough to make her smile.

It feels like an eternity since the last ceremony. Even longer since her own. It’s strange, trying to remember what silence sounds like.

When Antonio climbs the stairs, holding Mirabel’s hand, Dolores almost finds the scene quiet. If you ignore the frantic heartbeats and nervous shifting, Casita is filled with silence.

It doesn’t last long. Soon, the air is filled with cheering and singing and music.

Among them, almost drowned in the chaos, are several relieved sighs.

Dolores is surprised when she recognizes one of them to belong to her brother.

It’s easy to find Camilo; though everyone privately squawks about Mirabel’s outburst while taking down decorations and preparing for a new normal day tomorrow, the house is quick to settle. Doors close, with hushed whispers, prayers, promises and twitching eyes behind them, but Camilo is in the kitchen, ravaging on the leftovers.

He doesn’t even appear surprised when Dolores catches him in the act. “I’m glad I don’t have to clean that room. That jungle is going to have so much capybara poop,” he says while chewing on a cold empanada.

Dolores leans against the counter next to him, cutting the chase. “You were worried?”

Camilo raises an eyebrow, taking a moment to understand what topic she was poking at. With Dolores, it’s never just about the things said; she will know the unsaid things too.

“Yeah,” he says, shoulders shrugging beneath the ruana. “I mean, Antonio had really looked forward to getting out of the nursery.”

They both know that isn’t true. While excited about the Gift, Antonio had been downright heartbroken at getting his own room. Very much unlike his brother that had found his own space almost cooler than his Gift at that age.

Camilo, knowing too well when he’s been caught in a lie, lets his smile sag. “I just –“ he sighs, a hand appearing only to dive into his dark curls. “I was the last one where it worked. You know?”

(“Maybe it all went to Camilo-“)

When did he hear? From that very first day, or later? Did he even need others’ words to start wondering about the same thing?

“Camilo,” she says softly. As she reaches out to rest a hand on his arm, she allows her fingers to curl into the worn yellow fabric. “You know it wasn’t your fault.”

“Well, I know now ,” Camilo says, somehow managing to sound snarky despite his heavy frown. “And it isn’t Mirabel’s fault, either,” he adds, voice firmer than before.

“Of course not. It’s no one’s fault. It’s just how things turned out.”

Dolores, too, is relieved. But with Antonio receiving his Gift, the damning piece of the puzzle falls on Mirabel. If it’s not the Miracle, it’s her. And while Dolores doesn’t think it makes it her fault , it does take the blame from Camilo.

Despite her all-knowing reputation, Dolores doesn’t know why Mirabel didn’t get a gift. She’s even asked Bruno, but he’d just whimpered behind the wall and had one of his bad nights.  

“Right.” A heavy leaves Camilo’s mouth before it starts chewing on the empanada again. “At least tonight went well. Sorta. Did you … hear anything? You’d hear if the walls started cracking, right?”

While Dolores could clearly hear the fear in Mirabel’s voice as she’d run into Antonio’s room, she hadn’t heard bricks breaking or tiles shattering. But then again, the party had been loud . So loud, at times, it’d felt oddly quiet. Like she’d been pulled underwater, her hearing going muffled. It must have overwhelmed her, the tension and the relief and the joy of it all.

“Everything’s fine,” Dolores says and squeaks.

Camilo’s stare lingers on her until, suddenly, his head is lowered to look at his hands as he flexes them. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

As the final bite of the empanada is eaten, Camilo moves to leave, a quiet “buenas noches” thrown over his shoulder, but as he reaches the doorway, Dolores’ hand closes around his wrist.

“Camilo,” she says, fingers moving down to simply hold his hand instead. “Did you think you used the last magic? You never said anything all those years.”

When he doesn’t respond right away, she squeezes his hand, earning a half-hearted shrug from him. “I thought about it. And you can’t hear my thoughts, sooo …”

“You could have said. I’d have listened.”

“I know.” That’s her phrase coming from his mouth. His eyes dart away from her, shoulders rising as he curls in on himself. “Did you ever think that I – I don’t know – took too much magic back then?”

“No.” Dolores blinks, still waiting for him to meet her eyes. “Never.”

“… Did anyone else think so?” His voice is so quiet now, barely raised above a whisper. She hears it clearly, and it forces the air from her lungs like a blow to the stomach.

He often asks questions like this – who knows, who believes, who says – knowing she will have the answer for it. Gossip is something they can share, and Camilo is quick to return the favor.

This, however, is not something she would have revealed by herself.

“Milo.”

He doesn’t pull away from her grip on his hand, and instead, he lets it anchor him as he begins to pace back and forth. “I thought Mira did. I mean, if I’d been her, I’d love someone to blame. But – but she is way too kind to hold a grudge, I know, except when it’s about stupid things like – like pranks and the time I pulled her hair. But I bet Abuela thought about it, too.” He pauses, the distant look in his eyes revealing that he is lost in his thoughts, and when he speaks, his voice wavers, “D-did mami-?”

Dolores will not give him any answers. Instead, she gives him a hug as she pulls him into her embrace.

“You heard Abuela,” she says into his soft curls. “The magic’s strong. And you got as much magic as you deserved. And you deserved all of it.”

She thinks of Antonio whispering for Mirabel, needing her help and needing her hand. She wonders what would have happened had he called for her or Camilo. Or, a lifetime ago, if Isabela had turned and reached for Dolores’ hand. If Dolores had dared to ask for help herself …

They weren’t supposed to. Those were their stairs to climb.

Mirabel had taken Antonio’s hand, and before that, she’d hesitated. They all would have hesitated.

They weren’t supposed to .

But they would have taken the hand. They all would have, had they dared to ask for it.

When she does hear the house crack, it’s an ugly sound. Tiles shake, bricks groan, dust falls ever so slowly. Mirabel’s voice echoes around Casita as she searches for the truth. Luisa wails, Isabela keeps steadying her breath.

It’s distracting, the way the proposal dinner looms over them both. It’s easy to get lost in her thoughts in her weak attempts to prepare herself for tonight’s dinner.

… The moments after tonight’s dinner are distracting too. She’s not happy – no, that would be cruel when Isabela’s night has been spoiled – and she can’t feel relieved either with their home falling apart around them.

It hurts, listening to the arguments that unfold.

But she does hear when Bruno is found, and she smiles, listening to his voice speaking more words than she’s heard from him in years. She listens as he finally tells Mirabel why he hid (he’d tried to explain it to Dolores once, but never the whole truth. “It’s for the family,” he’d just said, knowing she’d understand), and she hears Mirabel kicking down a door –

And then she doesn’t.

The whole world grows silent.

Dolores cups her ears, straining her enhanced hearing – and there’s nothing. No heartbeats, no whispers, no knocking from behind the walls. It’s like being locked inside of her room, except she can see out of the open window, see the rain fall and –

The thunder is there. She can hear it, but it doesn’t even make her flinch. The drumming of the raindrops against tiles only appears as she leans out of the window, letting her mother’s rain soak her hair.

It’s not silent.

It’s just quiet.

This is how the world is heard by everyone else, she realizes. This is what the world sounded like before she received her Gift.

Maybe the most terrifying part of it all is how soothing the quiet is.

It doesn’t last long, less than a minute, and this time, when the thunderclap makes the house shake, Dolores fears her eardrums might burst. She stumbles out of the room, ready to tell her parents about this progression (it’s much too late for clear skies), but outside her door, she finds Camilo flat on his back.

Is he watching the clouds?

“What happened to you?” she asks, casting a shadow on top of him as she looks down at his tired face.

Camilo does not respond. Instead, he just shakes his left leg – which is thin and short like the one of a toddler.

Understanding the problem, she wordlessly kneels to help him up. “Does it hurt?” she asks as he leans heavily against her, limping as she tries to move him to his room. It doesn’t look comfortable, though Camilo will often stretch and twist his body into horrible features to make them cringe. However, this is obviously not intentional.

Camilo shrugs which might as well be him telling her yes . “You know,” he says in a fake pondering tone, “I think something might be wrong with the magic!”

Dolores rolls her eyes – and then widens them as Camilo’s normal leg returns just as they reach his door.

Her brother raises his limb, watching it carefully before slinking out of her grip to take his own insecure steps. “…Do your ears hurt?” he asks, staring at a new crack that’s split the wall between their doors.

“No,” she replies truthfully. “Not at all.”

“Huh. That’s good. And I guess the proposal didn’t go that well- Ow .”

She elbows him in the side, and while it’s usually amusing to see Camilo squirm when it’s deserved, it quickly stops being funny as he grows three inches larger with a pained yelp.

Beneath their feet, Casita groans.

“The Miracle is dying because of you!”

You don’t need magical hearing for those words to make your very bones tremble. In the following shock, the whole world goes muted – above her, her door flickers – and she doesn’t hear when Camilo leaves her side.

Suddenly, he is gone. The next moment, he is falling.

A terrified gasp comes from both Pepa and Dolores, followed by immediate relief as Camilo is caught and thrown out with the rest of them.

It’s a blessing, actually, that her Gift is gone when the house collapses. The sound is terrible and final enough without all the details.

Once the dust has settled, it stays quiet. It leaves her feeling hollow and useless as they wade through the stunned Encanto, calling Mirabel’s names until their throats feel raw.

But when Mirabel returns, with Bruno back in their midst and a new goal of rebuilding the house and a hurt family – things begin to feel normal.

There are adjustments. Bruno is awkward and filled with years of trauma, and while he shakes in her tight embrace, he does hug her back. It feels good after so many years of one-sided conversations.

Things are more quiet than usual. It’s unnerving, the way this steals knowledge away from her, and the Encanto feels bigger and more unknown than ever before. She doesn’t know where everyone is or what they are doing, but surrounded by family members, she clearly witnesses their growth.

She’s experienced her own growth, too, evidenced by the day where she yelled until her throat felt sore, encouraged by Félix who cheered for her throughout the whole thing. She likes to imagine her voice had been loud enough to be echoed by the mountains, though she couldn’t hear it if that’s the case. The silence, however, isn’t bad. It’s strange, but if anything, it’s peaceful.

She can see the same freedom in Pepa as she cries without a cloud following her, and when she pulls them into a loving embrace, they don’t need a sun to feel her warmth. Antonio is rightfully sad to have lost Parce as his companion, but he has always been an animal guy; it might not be a jaguar, but Antonio soon finds himself followed by the animals of the Encanto, won over by his soothing voice, treats and never-ending patience. Along with Luisa, they spend a lot of time making good friends with the donkeys.

Camilo is … Well, he is Camilo. More so now than ever before. He laughs and jokes during the rebuilding and manages to drop so many tools he is banished from the building site for a few days. For every clumsy move, Camilo will stare at his hands for just a moment too long.

He disappears a lot, hanging out with his friends whenever he can escape their duties. They are having fun, she is told. They have more in common now. And while she is happy Camilo can find his support outside the family, it’s something she has to get used to.

The fact she doesn’t know where he is anymore keeps nagging her. Where she’d usually be filled with the lovely sound of laughter and twirling fabric, there is a hole that leaves her feeling weirdly empty. Sometimes Pepa’s eyes drift towards her, asking silent questions that she can no longer answer.

So when she spots the yellow fabric of a ruana disappearing around a corner long after dinner has been eaten, she follows him. For a reason still unknown to her, he’s gone to the building site, and by the time she’s caught up with him, he’s climbed on top of a half-built wall, staring down at her with a smirk on his face.

“Is this some sort of prank?” he asks as she cranes her head back to look at him. “Is there something on my back?” He makes a twirl, sandals barely balancing on the stacked bricks, and Dolores chokes on a nervous squeak.

She opens her mouth, only to close it a second afterward, and Camilo’s smug expression fades at her loss of words.

“I don’t see you shadowing Antonio!” he grumbles, arms crossed beneath the ruana.

“Well, Antonio doesn’t have a habit of climbing buildings.” In fact, their little brother is always plastered against a family member while Camilo seems to be doing his best at avoiding them. It’s not her fault that she’s worried. Though, she keeps her tone softer as she adds, “Casita can’t catch you now.”

“And you’re planning to catch me instead? I might break your back, I’m not exactly small anymore.” Curls swing back and forth as Camilo tilts his head. “Or, I could just not fall.”

“You could stop crawling up there.”

Camilo’s smirk, familiar and comforting in its own way, is a weird mix between amused and fond. “You’re worried,” he says, lips twitching.

He’s too far up to reach, so Dolores begins to twist her hands instead. “I’m used to knowing exactly where you are. And what you are doing. Some habits are hard to break.”

“I think maybe this could be good for both of us.” There’s a beat where Camilo thinks about his words, and then he corrects himself, “All of us. At least, Mira thinks so. I don’t know anything.”

The final word leaves his mouth as a sneer, annoyance seeping through his voice and stance, tainting him in a way that leaves him unfamiliar but screams teenager . And she understands. They are all adjusting, exploring their newfound freedom, and the last thing Camilo would want is a hovering sister. He is already dealing with a hovering mother, and while Camilo can be plenty clingy, it happens on his own terms.

Camilo will come back for one of Pepa’s hugs or a playful tease from Félix, to ruffle Antonio’s hair or to make Dolores laugh, but for now, she has to let him go, even with the unknowing haunting her.

“My hearing is not exactly the same,” she says while adjusting her skirt. “But if you need to talk, I am always here to listen.”

Without his powers, Camilo cannot do a perfect imitation, but he comes pretty close with the way he tilts his head, folds his hands and says, “I know.” It’s followed by a squeak – and then a soft grin as he succeeds in making her smile.

With a final goodbye gesture, Camilo slinks off, jumping from the wall to meet with his friends. While Dolores might not know where they are or what they do or what they are saying, she inhales and puts trust in both herself and her brother for everything to turn out fine.

They are all growing – the town included. And with Mirabel and their fathers ready to support them every step of their now unmagical way forward, it’ll be okay.

Camilo returns before bed time, alive and happy and content as Pepa squeezes him.

The walls grow, tiles are placed. Señor Cortez even graciously gives them their piano, and while the first hours are spent with Agustín entertaining the tired workers, Dolores finds herself drifting towards the instrument later that night.

Slowly, carefully, she presses a finger against every key, letting the beautiful sounds created by her hands wash over her.

Near her, as if she’d played a masterpiece, Pepa looks on with her hands folded and tears in her eyes. They can’t see it, but if she’d still had her magic, Dolores knows they would have been covered with both sunbeams and warm raindrops.

The sun shines the whole week after Casita is brought back to life. They’re all happy and thankful, and while some things have returned, other things remain adjusted. And that’s good. Dolores hears the new soft tone Alma uses when speaking to Mirabel, their parents and tíos catching up with Bruno, Antonio talking with Parce, Isabela speaking freely for the first time in years.

“It feels good,” she says with dirt-stained arms and a dress more colorful than ever. “Even before the magic returned. Can’t you feel it too?” Dolores had hummed, unsure what to say. She’d missed all the lovely sounds, the comfort of knowing , but with her heightened sense returned, her headaches are more frequent than ever.

Everything is so loud . She winces, moves on, and smiles. Clear skies . But clouds are alright now, and she doesn’t hide her frustration from her parents who have noticed her winces and hesitation.

That night, she’d talked with her mother about hating her Gift, and her mother had opened up about how she’d envied Julieta and her children, the ability to put away your Gift for when you don’t need it. The clouds always follow you, even when you haven’t manifested them yet. Your ears don’t stop working when you ask them to. They share the lack of control, and Dolores finds herself crying and smiling against her mother’s chest, feeling lighter than she’s been in years.

“Lola?” Camilo asks from across the Encanto. She freezes, recognizing this to be serious. Camilo has an easier time talking about the so-called mushy stuff if he can avoid saying the words face-to-face. “You’re okay, right?”

Just like Dolores, Camilo has a way of knowing – more than what most people would expect.

During dinner, she flashes him a real smile from across the table and hears his quiet exhale of relief.

“Injured baby birds. Bruno’s dark door. Papá .” Something about Pepa’s hysterical tone almost makes the scene funny. “’ I’m too old for hugs, mami’ . Rain, rain, come on, rain .”

Pepa’s list of sad things is almost drowned in the chaos unfolding in front of her: Dolores’ ears struggle to tell apart all the scary noises, from the orders being barked, people screaming for help, the fire crackling and wood groaning as the flames bite into it. Crying and howling, people yelling for Dolores to tell them where to send Luisa next to help the trapped people get out.

“Eastern wall,” she says after pointing down the source of the fearful yelling. “Careful, they are right behind it.”

It’d started as a fire in Vargas' house, spreading so fast it was the neighbors who cried out in alarm, and by the time the Madrigal members had entered the scene, two more houses had been engulfed by the flames.

They all know how to help: Pepa is desperately trying to call forth rain, Luisa is busy trying to clear out safe exits while her sister helps stabilize the fragile structures if just for a moment with her vines. Dolores, of course, uses her hearing to keep track of both victims and rescuers. The screams are so easy to pinpoint, piercing straight through everything else.

Another wall breaks, and Luisa appears with a person under each arm. She puts them down carefully, dress and arms covered in soot. When she coughs, Julieta is by her side, looking immensely worried despite her daughter’s reassurances that she is fine.

“Is anyone else still in there?” Alma asks, her voice cutting straight through the commotion. People have flocked to help, carrying buckets of water for the fire and blankets for the victims. Rain is beginning to fall, not a downpour just yet, though a pacing Pepa is working on it.

“My baby!” Señora Vargas cries, held up by Isabela when her legs give out. “My baby!”

“Dolores,” Alma says, though the command is unnecessary.

Young Diego is one of Antonio’s playmates, and Dolores knows his voice well. She cups her ears, listening frantically for any signs of the small kid. Such footsteps are not easy to hear, not through the yelling and the roaring of the fire. From within the house, she can hear the sounds of ceramic shattering, glass breaking in the heat, thumps, the frantic Señor Vargas calling Diego’s name.

She moves along the house, trying to see if her position can help reveal Diego. If the child is still in there … Tonight’s event will haunt her dreams for the next couple of weeks (the screaming had been so loud as the door had been blocked, people crying from within, their cries reaching her the moment she stepped out of the bedroom), but please let there be no casualties, please …

Then: sniffling and a “mamá” that comes out of a croak. Dolores steers around the corner to watch a four-year-old squeeze himself through a crack from the bottom of the wall. The structure must have grown unstable when Luisa smashed through the gable wall to make a way inside.

The boy is covered in dust and soot as he pushes himself through the space that is a tight squeeze for even someone his size.

“Diego’s here!” Dolores calls out, and the child is snatched from her arms a second afterward.

“He’s out!” his mother cries. “He did it – oh, my poor niño.”

The reunion is sweet to listen to; so many kisses and Diego’s name repeated over and over, small voices joining the chorus as he is placed next to his siblings. But Dolores cannot allow herself to be distracted; there are things she must listen for. The fire is all she can hear from within the house: no more yelling or calling …

Then, a palm tree groans as it falls forward. Isabela watches in horror, her arms filled with crying toddlers, and Dolores is pulled back by a soot-stained Félix. With burning leaves, the palm tree crashes into the roof, dooming the already burning house. The two buildings surrounding it are lit alight by orange flames as well, and the crowd moves to follow the damage.

“Everyone’s out,” Alma declares, earning sighs of relief. Her glance, however, moves to Dolores who nods.

“I can’t hear anyone.”

She's briefly worried for Señor Vargas but she finds him standing with an arm around his wife and a kid clinging to his leg. Thankfully, he must have climbed out of the house in time.

“-evacuate. If we secure the boarding houses while Pepa –“

While Alma gives the orders, Dolores allows herself to fall into old habits. With no signs of the Vargas family or any rescuers inside the burning house, she checks on her family.

Pepa is still muttering to herself, quieter now when the raindrops have begun to fall more steadily, and Félix praises her before giving her a kiss. Julieta is handing out arepas, while Bruno helps steadying Agustín who’d tripped on his way with water to the neighbor's house. Luisa is helping Mariano and the others move objects out of the way to stop the spread of the flames while Isabela cheers up Diego by giving him a flower.

Back in Casita, she can hear Mirabel read for Antonio and other kids that have been brought to the magical house to be looked after while the adults worked. And Camilo –

She listens for him, and her ears find nothing but crackling fire, yelling voices, spilling water, comforting words, bedtime stories for scared children.

So many people, so many noises. And no sign of her brother.

“Camilo?” she asks. Slowly, as if her body puts together the puzzle before her brain does, she turns towards the crack Diego had climbed out of. Much too small for an adult, but a desperate toddler could get out … Or in. “ CAMILO! ”

In the sudden burst of fear, she puts her hands against the wall – only to back away from the sheer heat. Running, she turns the corner to face the hole Luisa left behind. Inside, she can see smoke and the remains of what had once been a living room – and the palm tree stretched across the back of the room, blocking the way to the rest of the house.

Numbly, Dolores picks up her skirt and starts running along the side of the house, as if another way inside will reveal itself. When a hand lands on her shoulder, she jumps.

“What do you hear?” Isabela asks. The rain has dragged long black smears of soot down her face, seeping into the wrinkles from her frown.

“I can’t-“ Dolores trembles, knowing she should be screaming but unable to find the voice to do so. “Camilo. I can’t hear him.”

Slowly, with the horror needing seconds to truly set in, Isabela’s eyes widen. “Is he in there?”

“I don’t-“ Dolores shakes her head as she clamps her mouth shut. She needs the silence; she needs it to focus on any sign of life from her brother. She stands still, cupping her ears, and listens .

“Mamá!” Isabela cries as she runs for help. “Luisa!”

Anything. Dolores will take anything because if Camilo is inside the house, and if she cannot hear him … No. She pushes through the wailing in the background, the heavy breaths, so many voices talking all at once. The fire is the loudest, taking more and more, leaving behind broken houses that cry in protest, wood groaning and splintering, sounds of popping and shattering.

And through it, below it, a cough, a hoarse whisper. “… lo …”

She would recognize the voice anywhere.

“Luisa! Luisa!” Dolores calls out as she leaps into action. There’s a wall in her way, and she needs to get inside. While she can hear running footsteps from further down the street, she cannot afford to wait for them. There’s a barrel that just needs a few pushes to be beneath the open window, and before anyone can stop her, Dolores has leaped her way inside.

Faintly, she can hear them call from the other side, but at this point, her brain ignores everyone but her brother’s voice.

The room is dark with heavy smoke, only lit up by the flames eating the furniture and wooden floor, licking the walls now stained black. She coughs, chest trembling as it struggles against the lack of fresh air, and she lets herself fall to the ground in an attempt to avoid the heaviest layer of smoke.

Her cough is echoed from below, and Dolores crawls towards the stairs that she knows to be near the other wall: she helped build this house, thankfully. She slips on the steps, stumbling her way through the smoke that threatens to choke her, and down in the basement, covered by blackened wooden boards from where the floor had given out under him, is Camilo.

 “Milo,” she coughs, on her knees next to him as her hands reach for him. His eyes are closed, face contorted in pain, and her trembling fingers wipe away soot only to reveal reddened skin. To her horror, she sees small flames dancing on the edge of his ruana, and she frantically pulls off her shoe to put them out. They’re reaching for her skirt, already burnt by the hem, and she knows they cannot afford to stay here much longer.

As the ceiling had caved in, one of the heavy floorboards had landed across Camilo’s limp body, and Dolores knows better than to strain her body further. She will attempt to do so if necessary, however, but for now she desperately cups her brother’s face. “ Camilo .”

The dark eyelids tremble before opening ever so slightly, revealing glazed-over hazel eyes.

“Lola,” he croaks, his whole body shaking as he exhales, the air accompanied by a whine.

Pressing her face against his, she cannot lose time. “I need you to-“

She doesn’t have to finish; he understands. She can see the effort his Gift takes this time, and below her hands, his body twists several times before he gets it right. The moment he begins to shrink, she has her hands beneath his armpits, pulling his toddler-body into her arms.

When she coughs, she leans over him, and every step up the stairs is accompanied by the fear of her falling. She cannot see; her eyes sting too much as she tries to make her way through the smoke.

Just as she climbs the last step, she collapses as Camilo’s shape breaks apart, and suddenly, she has her arms filled with a normal-sized Camilo. They both crash to the ground, Dolores' arms still around him to keep him from falling. His skin feels hot and cold at the same time, and Dolores looks up, trying to spot the sky through the broken roof.

Is she imagining the rain on her skin? Her face?

“Cam-“ she begins before coughing. Outside, the noise is a chaotic mess of yelling and thunder, leaving her ears ringing as she mentally screams for her brother whose eyes have closed. Her hair has fallen down, curls sticking to her wet face. Distantly, she is aware of pain, but she cannot focus on it when she knows her tía can heal whatever burn they leave the house with. She just has to get out, she just has to drag her brother with her –

“Luisa!” she yells, the ringing muting the sound of her own voice. “Mami! Papá!”

How strange – to yell and not be heard. In her world, you are always heard. Always.

And she heard him, she heard him. Part of the ceiling caves in again, the storm picking up around them, and debris falling on them both, tiles clattering and breaking next to their bodies. It’s hard not to think of Casita’s fall, of that hollow sensation of something lost –

“ Lola ,” Camilo whispers, and then Dolores ignores his voice as he cries out in pain, as he coughs, as he croaks her name, as he tells her to go, go, just go -

Dolores holds him tighter.

The wall is broken, and when they have both been dragged outside, the rain stops.

Behind the clouds, the sun shines.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to wake him up.”

Camilo’s eyes open to see a cloud of dark curls moving towards him, small fingers eventually gripping the edge of the bed.

“He’s awake,” Dolores says and sits down on the bed, narrowly missing Camilo’s legs – the burns now fully healed after Julieta had treated him with as many arepas as he liked. “So now you get to tell your hermano how much of a brave idiot he is.”

Camilo smirks before rolling over to make space for Antonio as well. “I can never say no to a compliment.”

“It’s not a compliment. It’s a scolding that you need to be told many times.”

They’re fine. Everyone keeps saying that as if they can’t fully believe it. It’d been close, and Julieta had watched them both carefully to make sure the smoke hadn’t caused any damage, but after her cooking, their skin had healed, and their strength had returned. A nice bath had helped, along with several kisses and embraces and tears from their worried parents who’d made it very clear they were never to do something like this ever again.

(There’d been discussions afterward, between the parents; had it been right to raise their kids in a way where they so willingly would dive into danger? But Dolores, frankly, had been too exhausted to follow their arguments and had focused on Camilo’s steady heartbeat instead as it lulled her to sleep.)

They are still on official bed rest, and with two of the warm-colored siblings out of the count, they might as well drag Antonio with them to the bed.

“I don’t think he is an idiot,” Antonio says. “I just think he is stupid.”

Camilo shrugs. “Good enough.” Oh, he’d received plenty of scolding already (along with several praises for his courage, too), and Antonio’s cuteness softens every word.

Dolores, however, is not so merciful as she flicks his forehead with her finger. Camilo yelps and his illusion breaks, revealing the near-bald spot along the left side of his head where the fire had eaten away his curls.

“Hey! I’m injured!”

“You don’t get to hide your battle scars,” she says, earning a scowl though Camilo does not attempt to shift again. He should save the energy, and she wants the world to see how stupid her brother is. How foolish, how brave – the run into a building for a child with no hesitation and almost dying in the process and –

But he lives. She can hear his heartbeat and feel his warmth. They both live.

She heard him.

“I think you look good,” Antonio pipes up, trying to brush his own curls to the side to mirror his hermano.

“And this is why you’re my favorite brother.”

Antonio giggles, leaning against him as they call crowd together on Camilo’s bed. Of course Antonio doesn’t know just how dangerous yesterday had been, how close they’d been to never-ending rain. There’s no need to tell him, not with the happy ending they are enjoying together right now.

Their parents had stayed plastered against them at first as they’d been brought back to Casita. The fire had died out, and the townspeople had told the remaining Madrigal members to hurry back, sharing their worry. And so Dolores and Camilo had been crowded by their tíos next, followed by their cousins who wanted the whole story.

But now – now is reserved for the three of them.

Camilo rests while Dolores reads from one of Antonio’s books. Ever since he told her how much she liked her voice, she’s made sure to use it more, even after their Gifts had returned. It’s soft as always, and it doesn’t last long before Antonio is curled up, asleep.

For a moment, she thinks Camilo is sleeping, too. His eyes are closed, but his face is no longer pale, no longer burned and pained.

“Gracias,” he whispers.

“Hmm?”

“For hearing me.”

With a choked squeak, Dolores leans toward him. “Always,” she promises him as the first tears begin to fall. “Always, always.”

Camilo stretches a hand towards her, and she takes it, squeezing it harder than she means to.

“But never do that again.”

He snorts – and she will force a proper promise out of him later – and then his eyes widen as he feels something cold between her fingers. Turning her palm downwards, he glares at the ring as if it’d bitten him.

“Wha- Wait.” His mouth falls open, betrayal seeping into his shocked expression. “What happened while I was asleep?”

Ignoring the heat in her cheeks, Dolores cannot help but smile. She knows Camilo cannot hate the man – her brother doesn’t have it in him to fully hate someone – and the protectiveness is sweet. It fills her with the same warm joy that Mariano’s proposal had brought her the night before.

“Well. Mariano was really scared yesterday. And then he became very romantic.”

Through the scowl, Camilo’s lips twitch in a suppressed smile. “He only dared to do this because he knew I was knocked out.”

“Of course,” Dolores nods. “You’re very intimidating.”

Hazel eyes are rolled in a loving gesture. “You’re my sister,” he tells her, giving her hand a soft squeeze. “I have to take care of you.”

“Hermanito.”

She doesn’t let go of his hand for a long time.

I hear you, I hear you.