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The wood panels of the floor shuddered under Mirabel’s feet. “What is it, Casita?” Mirabel asked as she abruptly stopped working with her sewing machine. That was when she heard it. Her door was closed, but the ornamental calado above the door let in sounds from outside. It sounded like someone being tortured from a distance. Her blood chilled in her veins. She burst out of her room, where the screams were clearer. Running past Isabela’s and Luisa’s doors, Mirabel raced up the short stairs to Tío Bruno’s room. As she had feared, Tío Bruno was having one of his spells. Mirabel could hear him throwing his body against some hard surface. “Tío Bruno, stop! Please, open the door!” Mirabel shouted, trying to open the door, but it was locked.
“Mirabel, don’t go inside,” Dolores told her urgently. With surprisingly strong hands, Dolores forced Mirabel to face her. “Go get your parents. If you get to Tía Julieta first, bring her back here immediately. But don’t try to do what I think you were about to do.”
“I need to get to him!” whined Mirabel. Both she and Dolores cringed as Tío Bruno screamed again.
“Promise me you won’t! Next time this happens, just go and get your mamá,” implored Dolores.
“Did you see something before? What did he do?”
“Just go, please!” said Dolores, tears pouring from her eyes.
Leaping as though her legs were on fire, Mirabel hurried away. She turned back and saw Dolores prying the door open herself. Mirabel stumbled.
She opened her eyes. She was in her bed. It was only a dream. “Stupid brain,” Mirabel grumbled, especially now that she could definitely hear Tío Bruno singing. Mirabel put on a teal dressing gown over her nightdress and decided to visit her uncle to put herself at ease.
His door was open and uncaring that anyone could hear. His voice had gotten stronger and steadier since performing at the zarzuela. Before, he could barely sing; how could he, after ten years of near-total silence in the walls? Mirabel couldn’t help but stop at the foot of the short stairs to his door to listen more closely.
There was a boy
A very strange, enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far
Very far
Over land and sea
A little shy and sad of eyes
But very wise was he
And then, one day
One magic day, he passed my way
And while we spoke of many things
Fools and kings
This, he said to me:
The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return
Bruno must have sensed Mirabel because he didn’t start another song for a few moments.
“Mirabel, are you there? Come on in!” he called.
On the walls in the passageway, there were several photographs of Bruno, with other members of the family. Mirabel’s favorite was one of him with his six nephews and nieces just outside of the nearly finished Casita. As Mirabel entered Bruno’s room, Casita made the sandfall stop for her. The vision cave was currently brightly lit with a lantern on the floor, and faint daylight from the open door of the adjacent bedroom. On the top of a step ladder, Bruno was wearing a deep blue bandana and a baggy chartreuse yellow T-shirt as he painted seemingly random patterns of shapes and color onto the rat maze that covered the dome ceiling.
Mirabel lingered at the antechamber where he displayed most of his paintings. Besides anthropomorphic rats, Bruno had also painted his family members, their neighbors, and some of his visions. He had placed the visions very high, near the ceiling, where Antonio would not see them easily. Mirabel could not see them very clearly either at her height, but she could make out rather violent scenes. Considering that Bruno was only barely taller than her, and she would surpass him in height very soon, Mirabel wondered if those paintings weren’t meant to be looked at for very long—that they were for Bruno to just express. When she’d had her fill, Mirabel passed through the hourglass-shaped threshold. Mirabel sat on the floor just outside the sand pit in the middle of the vision cave. With a cheeky smile, she said, “Sprucing up the room for the bride?”
Bruno chuckled. “You could say that. Oh, p-plus, it makes the vision cave a little less ominous, you know. Not just for visitors but for me—mostly for me. Doing visions still makes me very nervous. What brings you here? It’s only— Oh, it’s only four in the morning.”
“This is gonna sound silly, but I had a bad dream.” She could still hear the slamming noises in her memory. She didn’t want to imagine what that looked like, in this very space.
“That’s not silly at all, Mira. You know I have my fair share of them.”
“Is that why you’re painting instead of sleeping?”
“Yep.”
Mirabel chuckled. “At least you sounded like you’re having a good time. Was that song in English?”
“What? Oh—oh, yes. Aya has been teaching me English. She learned it in the cities. It was very useful for her with helping new immigrants who didn’t already speak Spanish. American music became popular since the Second World War ended. She heard this song called “Nature Boy,” and she said it reminded her of me. I heard it and liked it and thought I’d learn it, too. She learned Hebrew, too, hoping it would shrink the language gap between her and the Jews from Europe.”
“Isn’t she Jewish?”
“Only ethnically Jewish—her family has been Christian for generations. They came here as Christian subjects of Spain centuries ago. S-So yeah, they don’t really speak Hebrew to begin with.”
“They came to the New World to evade persecution in Spain, didn’t they? Just like our new neighbors, trying to escape violence from outside?”
Indeed, new people kept coming in through the split of the mountain. Many of them were injured. Most of them were mentally disturbed, not unlike Tío Bruno fresh out of the walls.
Mirabel sighed and sat on the floor. Tío Bruno climbed down the latter to sit with her. “Wanna talk about that dream? Have you been imagining the war, and now you’re dreaming it?”
“Actually, no, not that,” she said in a small voice. “It was that one day that it was only you, me, and Dolores at home. I heard you screaming. I tried to get into your room, but Dolores stopped me. She made me promise to not try to get in if it happens again. I was so scared. She was scared, too. She spoke like she had seen something awful. She has seen you hurting yourself, hasn’t she?”
Tío Bruno hugged Mirabel tightly. Mirabel reciprocated the gesture and savored in having him in her arms. She could feel his warmth, the beating of his heart. He was here and alive. “I don’t know why it still bothers me. I mean, you’re still here. We’re okay,” said Mirabel.
“It’s not that long ago. Of course, it would stay with you for a while. And I’m sorry I scared you.”
“I don’t blame you. I know you didn’t mean to. I guess I was imagining what I might have seen if you hadn’t locked the door.” Mirabel drew away and sniffled.
“Not a pretty sight, I assure you. And yes, Dolores has seen me hurting myself.”
“What exactly did she see?” Mirabel asked.
“I don’t think you wanna know, Mira.” Tío Bruno folded his arms.
“But I do! Otherwise, I’ll keep imagining it, and I’ll dream it again.”
Tío Bruno hesitated. “All right, if you’re sure.”
“I am.”
Tío Bruno took a deep breath. “Dolores was about ten. I had forgotten to lock the door. She had been sent to tell me that it was dinnertime. My voices were screaming at me, so I didn’t hear her coming. I was breaking one of my visions and using the shards to cut myself.”
Mirabel fought back tears. “But why?”
“I don’t really remember what was going on in my head at the time. I was just tired—of everything. The village hated me. My visions were making me feel increasingly hopeless. I wasn’t getting along with Mamá. And seeing her treating your sisters and Dolores the same way she treated me and my sisters... It was all a vicious cycle.”
Mirabel felt a strange sort of relief at hearing this part of the story. It was painful to Bruno, but she could tell he was feeling a little lighter for having said it. “Then, I’m thankful that Dolores stopped me. And I know I’ve said it many times before, but I’m glad you’re still here.”
Bruno gently stroked Mirabel’s hair. “I don’t always feel this way, but I’m glad to be here, too. You kids are the reason I’m still here.”
“And Señora Aya?”
Bruno shrugged. “Before she came back, I had no idea that she was ever coming back, so until then, thinking of you kids, knowing how much it will hurt you if I leave you again, that grounded me. But yeah, I’ve gotten a lot better since she came back.”
“How is she, by the way?” Mirabel asked, dispelling the recent memories of her uncle apparently going insane. “I think I saw her crying the last time she was here, the other day.”
“Oh, you saw that?”
“I didn’t mean to. I spotted you two in the bench beside the balcony near my room.”
He explained, “Aya was just remembering the Jewish refugees that came to the country from Europe. She said she really wanted to adopt at least one orphan because there were so many. But it was harder for a poor spinster to adopt than it was for younger married couples.”
“She couldn’t just grab a kid and go?”
Bruno chuckled. “That’s not how it works out there, mija. While she’s happy about being home and being with me again, she does regret not trying hard enough—her words, not mine.”
Mirabel held Tío Bruno’s hand. Having witnessed violence for herself, the older woman was battling demons of her own.
Mirabel sighed. “I was hoping that the split in the mountain meant that it was safe to go out. Apparently, the world has gotten worse, and the Encanto wants to take more people in, to protect.”
“Maybe someday we could go,” Bruno said.
“You’ve thought of going out, too?”
“Of course. Skyscrapers and cars—women’s pants—it’s a whole new world out there.”
“Ooh! Speaking of women’s pants, I’ve been learning to make them. The number of newcomers meant that they need new clothes that they’re accustomed to. And so, at the Rojas Sastrería, my cousins and I have been learning to make women’s pants in many different styles. It’s so much fun! Isabela and Luisa have even paid me to make them multiple pairs.” She paused and gave her uncle a playful look. “Does Señora Aya own pants?”
Tío Bruno looked briefly affronted. “Mirabel, I can tell where your mind is going, and it is not appropriate,” he chided though the smirk on his lips gave his humor away. “But yes. She does. Sometimes she lets me see the really tight ones.” He tacked on a suggestive glint in his eyes.
Mirabel covered her face. “Okay, okay! That’s what I get for teasing you.” She sighed again, less heavily this time. “When do you think it’s safe to go out?”
“If you’re asking if I peeked into the future, no, I didn’t. But since we’re open, and Aya herself has made it out there and got back in one piece, I think technically we can go out if we want. But, you know, we have to be careful. It did take her a long time to get back home.”
“That’s awful. I would have liked to see what the city looks like, and maybe the sea,” said Mirabel. She leaned against Bruno’s shoulder. “I’m so happy to hear you singing more and, uh, screaming less. It was hard, seeing you like that. I love you.”
“Aww. I love you, too, kid. It’s, uh... It’s gonna be better from now on.”
Mirabel relaxed, enjoying the smell of sand and salt and paint all around her.