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“Mira?”
Antonio’s sniffle woke Mirabel from an unsatisfying slumber she’d waited tediously for, after much tossing, turning, and pillow-flipping.
She rubbed her eyes and glanced over at him. Unable to totally focus on his outline, she could still tell by the moonlight illuminating his blurry figure that he had his pillow underneath his arm and his blankie across his chest.
“What’s the matter, chico?”
“Can I lay with you?”
She shifted over and raised her covers, met instantly by him crawling in and nestling up to her. An arm around him, she asked, “Can’t sleep?”
He shrugged.
“Bad dream?”
He closed his eyes and nodded.
“Wanna tell me about it?”
She thought, after a long bout of silence, that the answer was an unspoken no, and she wriggled to get comfortable. But just as she closed her eyes too, he whispered,
“Casita was breaking again.”
She opened her eyes and peered down at him.
His own eyes still closed, he continued, “It was shaking a lot. I tried to run to the door but I couldn’t go fast, ‘cause my legs were all tired and mis animigos kept knocking me over. And I kept going but when I got to the door, it started cracking, and I couldn’t open it. And then it fell, and the floor too, and we were falling and falling. And then I saw the ground and it was like before, when everything was all broken and ruined. And we were about to hit the ground but I woke up.”
Groggy and with sore, heavy eyes, Mirabel managed, “Bet that was so scary.” She pulled him close to her. “’m sorry.”
He must’ve been exhausted too, as his breathing had already slowed and he didn’t seem to hear her. She leaned down just enough to give his forehead a kiss, and followed suit in succumbing to sleep.
His presence was a house-warming gift. Or rather, a room-warming gift, on behalf of her new bedroom.
It resided where her door would’ve been years ago, right in between her sisters’, had fate, and the candle, not had other plans.
Her new door was not carved by magic, but by hand, by Tío Bru- sorry, Hernando (“He’s head of prop department, he knows what he’s doing,” he’d told her father, not trusting him with a blade, at least not while her mother was without her healing abilities in the likely case something were to go wrong).
Her new room had been Abuela’s idea. It was an intriguing development, she had to admit. Mirabel hadn’t been entirely on board with it. Sure, she’d wept for a room of her own when she was five years old, when the heartbreak was fresh and raw. But, with time, she’d come to embrace the nursery. It had become regarded as her room, just as sacred and personal as everybody else’s.
In fact, she’d had to beg Tía Pepa and Tío Felix to let her room with baby Antonio. They’d been worried about bothering her, they’d told her several times that she didn’t have to give up space in her room for a baby, she was a growing girl and she deserved her space, because it’s not as though her cousins and her sisters had to share their own rooms.
She’d been almost insulted. How dare they insinuate that her own baby cousin was not welcome in. Hadn’t they heard her beg for a younger sibling for years now? Hadn’t she spent her tía’s entire pregnancy asking about the baby and fawning over her growing belly?
She hadn’t just been okay with sharing her room, she’d longed for it. The wound left behind by being rejected by the family miracle had since been patched up – not totally repaired, but cleaned and bandaged. But the hole in her heart caused by being left in the nursery, as if dejected and forgotten, had still stung, just a little. She hadn’t minded the nursery, but she’d minded the empty bed, and she’d minded the grief that hit her when she recalled the loss of her former roommate, Camilo.
She’d longed dearly for a friend and for constant sleepovers again.
By the time Antonio had started counting down to his fifth birthday, Mirabel had already prepared herself for that miniscule sense of loss, for him to partake in his great migration all the way down the hall.
She hadn’t prepared, however, to lose not just her roomie, but the familiarity of the nursery altogether.
And so Antonio was very welcome and even more appreciated, especially on this first night in a new room - a new house even: Casita II.
The following morning, Mirabel would come to find out that her primito wasn’t the only one to have been afflicted by nightmares.
She woke early and pulled the covers over Antonio, making him cozy so he could sleep in as much as he needed.
She tip-toed out of the room and began toward the bathroom, only for her attention to be captured by voices coming from Abuela’s room.
The door was open. From the doorway, Mirabel watched Dolores, who’d sat down on the edge of the bed, whisper orders to Abuela – simple ones, trivial and odd.
“Look at me,” Dolores told her.
Abuela didn’t.
“Blink two times if you can hear me,” Dolores tried.
But again, Abuela didn’t.
Dolores reached down to take Abuela’s hand, only for Abuela to violently tug her hand away and grip the back of it as though Dolores had scalded it.
Mirabel whispered, “What’s going on?”
Dolores glanced over to her, back to Abuela, and then back over to her. “Go get your mom.”
Mirabel did so, with quick, light steps. She knocked on her parents’ door before opening the door. The knock had woken her mother, who was already looking over with tired eyes.
“Buenos, mi amor.”
“Abuela needs you.”
Mama rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “What for?”
“I dunno. She’s- well, Dolores needs you, because Abuela’s acting kinda weird, like she’s...”
Worry in her voice and her feet in her slippers, Mama asked, “She’s what?”
“It’s- she’s-” She racked her brain for a better way to explain it, to explain what was- “like… a trance, it’s like she’s in a trance. Or something.”
That must’ve rung a bell. Mama was quicker than Mirabel had been on her way over here. Mirabel followed, and Dolores stood from the bed when they entered.
She stepped back and stood with Mirabel as Mirabel’s mother took Dolores’ place on the edge of the bed. Her attempts to get Abuela’s attention were just as fruitless as Dolores’ had been. She turned to them just a few moments later and said, “Go on and head downstairs, girls, I’ll be down in a moment.”
“Is she alright?” Mirabel asked.
“Of course, just give us a bit, okay?”
Before Mirabel could ask any more questions, Dolores took her hand and led her from the room.
Mirabel took it upon herself to start breakfast, with no idea how long this trance business would take and quite frankly, unsure of how her mother would deal with it, both circumstantially and emotionally. She kept it simple with eggs, rice, and beans – one of the few meals she knew she could make without much error. She knew a wide array of recipes from her mother, but to a fault. She had a solid rundown of each but had the worst habit of using cups instead of tablespoons and switching numbers around in her head.
Everything was nearly done, Isabela had come down to help her finish off the food and begin plating it, when Tia Pepa came up beside her and pulled her in for a side hug along with several kisses smushed to her head.
“What’s the occasion?” Her aunt asked.
“Mama’s upstairs.”
“Sick?”
“No, just dealing with something.”
“Care to share?”
“Something about Abuela, I don’t know.” She switched off the burner over which the eggs had been cooking. “She was all… off this morning. ‘Cause Dolores tried to talk to her but it was like she couldn’t hear her, you know? Like she was off in this other world, sort of.”
Tía Pepa didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and then she sighed. “She used to do that a lot when we were children. Just sit and stare for hours on end and we couldn’t get through to her.”
“How long did it take to make her stop?”
“Could take a few minutes, could take all day. But you couldn’t touch her, and it was pointless to try and say anything to her.”
Mirabel listened intently while she plated the eggs and mulled over the finished dishes, all eleven, before realizing, by force of habit, that she’d forgotten a twelveth. She fetched another egg and flicked the burner back on. (everyone but Tío Bruno got two, as they realized rather quickly that he’d grown accustomed to eating very little - a portion half the size of Antonio’s was perfect, otherwise he’d spend a concerning amount of time in the bathroom)
“The first time we saw it for ourselves, it was after this incident out in town. Her and the Felicianos were working on their store, we were… seven or eight, I think - did you know their shop used to only sell boots? Funny to think about, it was such a long time ago - and you know, they’re all making plans, when out of nowhere, the ground shakes. And the Felicianos had had this- this log tower, and all the logs came down and they crushed Sr. Feliciano’s leg so he couldn’t get up. And it scared the thunder out of me, I mean actual lightening and everything, and it made what was left of the log pile go all up in flames.”
Mirabel’s eyes widened at the mental image. She added the lightest bit of salt to the egg and left it to cook just a tiny bit longer.
“Mama and Sra. Feliciano put the fire out, Ramón got his father out from under the log, and you know I’m standing over here crying like waaahhh I killed him, I killed Sr Feliciano, being absolutely ridiculous. And we all ran home so your mami could get him something. And then your Abuela left us here while she brought Sr Feliciano what your mami made, but when she came back she was… well, she was like that. ”
“How often did it happen?”
“Oh, a handful of times, at least from what I saw. She had a hard time with fire and loud unexpected noises for the longest time. Thunder too - not mine, of course, but the natural kind that comes straight from the sky.” Tía shook her head. “It stopped happening after a few years, and we thought that’d be the end of it.” She turned and looked past Mirabel, toward the doorway leading from the dining room. “We’d hoped at least.”
Mirabel was no stranger, especially now, to her abuela’s harrowing experiences back before there even was an encanto, their encanto. She was fully aware that their beloved home’s birth had followed a set of horrors that were anything but beloved.
No wonder watching her home crumble before her eyes would summon such a state, that trance, that distant stare. It was the most similar thing to her previous experiences she’d ever experienced, and hopefully the very last similar thing.
The first day in their “second” home, and the first day of properly getting to know her Tío Bruno, she suspected the same of him, the nature of his own trances. He ate his breakfast in the tiniest of nibbles, wordlessly got up to deposit his plate in the sink, and wandered off.
Mirabel helped her mother with the dishes, the clatter of ceramic and the ching of steel accompanied by murmured conversation about nothing notable in particular, only for her attention to be caught by the back of his shirt (not his ruana, as Abuela had been whacked so hard by the smell of it, she’d threatened to make him sleep outside if he didn’t allow her to wash it).
Her tío faced the wall, hunched over his updrawn knees. She wondered how long he’d been sitting there without their noticing. Or her noticing rather, as Mama only smiled.
“Don’t mind him. He’s a very talented daydreamer.”
She raised a brow. She, too, was guilty of floating about in her thoughts and accidentally muting the world around her until snapped back to attention. But to intentionally sit in one solitary spot for such an extensive amount of time like he seemed to be doing?
It couldn’t be normal. It took her back to that morning, when Abuela had been still and silent in a fashion akin to his.
She found him in a similar position some time later, when she came to wash up before dinner. This time, he’d seated himself at the top of the stairs.
She stopped, wondering if it was a good idea to bother him. Abuela had refused to be touched, didn’t answer when spoken to. She wasn’t sure what trying to break him out of it might do.
“Hey, uh,” she said. “Dinner’s soon.”
Just as she’d expected, he didn’t respond.
“ Tío?”
“I heard you.”
She jolted with a start. She wondered if he’d heard what her mother said about him earlier, how he’s a talented daydreamer (something about that phrase stuck with her, just imagine being known as something so peculiar and so fascinating), or if he’d been too immersed in his daydreams.
“What are you doing?” She asked him.
“Writing.”
“Oh.” She looked at the ground surrounding him, at the wall, and at his hands. No paper, no pen, nothing at all. “Writing what?”
“Act 17, scene 3. Fallecimiento del Rey. ”
A murder mystery, she supposed. He seemed to like grit and tragedy. “How’s that working out?”
“Fine.”
She was prepared to leave him alone when she was struck by curiosity. She sat down next to him and assumed the same position - knees to chest, hands cradling her ankles, and half her face obstructed by the tops of her knees.
And she looked to the wall.
She wasn’t sure what she expected. Perhaps something similar to being in that glimmering green dome, with the silhouettes emerging from the sand and moving about in an enrapturing spectacle.
She felt rather silly for expecting anything other than for the wall to stare right back.
As if he could sense her anticipation, he said, just above a whisper, “Just give it a couple hours.”
“A couple hours?”
“Maybe more if you’re out of practice. But the images will speak for themselves.”
She wondered if he’d find it rude for her to stand and walk away. Regardless, she did so anyway. He said nothing, maybe insulted, maybe not minding, maybe keen on her leaving him to his work.
It was Dolores’ turn to shower that night. Beforehand, she asked to borrow Mirabel’s nice-smelling candles, gifted to her a couple of months ago on her birthday but had mostly gone unused, only because the smell upset her father’s sinuses and left them raw and sore by morning.
Dolores had left the bathroom, showered and robed, but hadn’t returned the candles. And so Mirabel headed down to the bathroom to retrieve them.
In front of the mirror, Isabela whipped around and looked her over with wide eyes, a pair of scissors in hand.
She looked ready to tell Mirabel to bug off, until her expression softened. “Can you help me with something?”
“Are those for your hair?”
With a shaky inhale, Isabela nodded. “Not a lot. Just-” She motioned to the area just below her shoulder blades.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” This was Mirabel Madrigal, after all, who’d grown accustomed to her curly bob only after a disaster of her own doing: an attempt at grooming herself that left Isabela doubled over with laughter, their mother with a pitiful smile, and Abuela swearing at her insolence and her crooked mop.
“Just try, it’s not like doing it on yourself.”
Fair enough. Cutting hair in front of you is much easier than cutting hair behind you.
Or so she thought.
Isabela stopped her multiple times, snapped at her for this wrong move and that, until Mirabel had what she thought to be the finished product.
Isabela parted her hair and brought it forward, over her shoulders, and then she chuckled and rubbed her temples.
“ What? Just tell me what’s wrong with it.”
“Oh, Mira,” Isabela spoke in a voice thick with love and admiration. “Everything about you is a disaster.”
“Come on, just tell me, what’s the problem?”
“ Look at it!”
Mirabel huffed. “I’m getting Mama.”
Their mother tidied up Isabela’s ends while Mirabel watched from the doorway.
On the other landing, Tío Bruno had already began what Mirabel liked to call his nightly duties, in which he tip toed and either muttered or sung to himself, stopped, paced back and forth over a specific spot on the floor several times, knocked on the wall - wash, rinse, repeat.
She found herself wondering how long ago he’d adopted those tendencies. Sure, he hadn’t been entirely… conventional when she was little.
Back then, however, he’d just been much more clearly anti-social. He hadn’t cared for small talk, he hadn’t cared to play with them much - he’d color with them and let them sit in his lap just to tell him about their day, sure, but he’d never really cared to get up and play games with them, other than, on occasion, hide and seek.
He’d hated leaving the house back then, slept a lot both before and after ceremonies and birthday parties as if to prepare himself for and recover from the big crowds.
Her memories of him were flawed, fogged over by time and by her own immature, unreliable perception at the young of age five, but she swore he used to have a tad more of a temper. Not a scary one, but he used to argue with Abuela and Tía Pepa a lot. Never over anything important, just for fun it seemed, because there’d always be the occasional chuckle or scoff mixed in.
She remembered he’d even argued with the kids sometimes, in the same way he’d argue with the adults.
It had always made her giggle, the way he seemed so adamant on standing his ground to tiny human beings who couldn’t even read or properly spell their name. Sometimes they’d pick screaming matches with him on purpose, because nothing filled the room with cackles and giggles quite like arguing with their strange tío about how many eggs go into a recipe or how big the stars really are, or any little thing they could think to pick a fight with him about.
He seemed to have lost his challenging temperament. Maybe it was the fact that nobody seemed to bother with him, maybe it was the decade-long social detox.
But in place of his temper were a whole lot of weird little habits he’d picked up during his isolation.
Mirabel half-expected him, at times, to get down on all fours and never speak another word again like one of his own rats.
“Stop staring,” Isabela snipped at her.
Mirabel did, but not without rolling her eyes at her sister.
“Is it almost done?”
“Just about.” Mama made a final few adjustments.
“God, Abuela’s gonna hate it,” Isabela lamented.
“She will not,” Mama replied.
“Is it too short? Does it look boy-ish? Oh god, I look almost bald, don’t I?”
“Not even close.”
“But if it looks bad-”
“Then your abuela can get used to it.”
It looked lovely, Mirabel had to admit. Even while settled elegantly, however, Isabela’s back remained taut and her shoulders high, her eyebrows creased with self-scrutiny simmering behind her eyes.
“You look gorgeous, mi mijita.”
Papi agreed. He took her hand and spun her in a circle and told her that his princess looked as beautiful as ever.
He kept her hand in his while they headed to Abuela’s room.
Their parents at her side for the support, Mirabel stood behind them for the uncertain curiosity at what Abuela’s reaction may be.
Abuela mulled it over, and gave an approving hum. Mama smiled, Papi relaxed. Abuela reached into a drawer and removed one of her hair accessories, one she only wore at her own birthdays.
She clipped it into Isabela’s hair and gave her style one last once-over. Her next hum was a critical one, and she took the clip out of Isabela’s hair. She put it on herself and quipped, “Still looks best on me.”
It was only then that Isabela relaxed, a smile settling on her face and her shoulders falling.
The chatter that followed made Mirabel’s chest feel light in both senses - weightless and glowing. It didn’t feel artificial, there was no hint of deception behind it.
For once, Abuela was standing alone, not bringing along the elephant that always seemed to occupy the room with her.
It was just that strange sensation of growing up, of watching grown-ups become more and more human instead of figures of authority. Shedding their roles as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and just radiating raw humanity.
It was cozy. Cozy and exciting and warming.
Just a second ago, she was in her bed - her new bed, not the one with a complementing twin bed parallel to it.
So what was she doing on the roof?
She began her descent. She’d done this more times than her parents could ever be happy with. It wasn’t as though it was unsafe, because should she lose her footing, Casita would always-
Casita did not stabilize her this time. She slid down the panelling with a shout, too far away from the landings to grapple onto the railing.
She landed hard - no abrasions, no blood, nothing of the sort, but it sure did hurt, left her struggling to get air back into her lungs.
She craned her neck, and she froze.
Eleven candles stood in the courtyard. Just like their family’s blessed candle, with the yellow glow and the swirly butterfly carvings.
But rather than the ordinary cylindrical shape, they took on the life-sized shape of her family, every single one. From left to right - her parents, her sisters, her tíos, her cousins, her abuela, and at the very end, the very shortest of them all, little Antonio.
She pushed herself up from the bricks of the courtyard and stood herself up onto her feet.
They were beautiful. Unsettling, but beautiful.
Beautiful until the tops of their heads flattened, and the wax went trickling down to the ground.
It wasn’t her family for real, not her actual real true family, just figurines, but the sight left a pit of dread and agency in her nonetheless.
The wax continued to trickle, faster now, and Mirabel found herself wanting to leap forward and sculpt them back up properly. Sure, they weren’t real, but it felt just as she’d imagined it would to watch her family truly perish.
The fear was real, too real, and so so immense, and yet she could only stand and watch, unable to move herself from this spot on the ground as her family melted before her eyes.
She felt a warm drop on her face, and then another, and then a third.
She turned, and she could move again, though not with any hope of stopping what was happening around her.
Casita was all wax too, and it melted even more quickly than her family did.
She found the voice to cry out now, and ordered Casita to stop, as if that would do anything at all. Please, stop!
But nobody was around to listen.
They’d all melted down to the soles of their shoes anyway.
Mirabel kicked the blanket off and scrambled back against the wall. Her nightgown stuck to her by sweat, and she couldn’t tell if the dampness on her cheeks was sweat or tears.
All she knew was that she couldn’t breathe. She reached back and gripped the fabric of her pillow tightly, pretending it was a friendly, patient hand, pretending it was whispering counts to her. In, two, three- out, two, three- in, two, three-
In her voice, it counted the pace of her breaths, until, after too long for her comfort, her breathing had slowed to something she could manage on her own.
Their home, newly constructed by hundreds of pairs of loving hands, was tall, strong, durable, mighty - mightier than it had ever been before, and very much upright.
Her family was alive and well, sleeping cozily in their beds, flesh and bone and intact.
The dream, however, despite its absurdity, remained closeby, behind her eyes and around the corner.
It was cold when Mirabel awoke the next morning.
Tía Pepa.
She dressed herself for the day and headed downstairs, toward the smell of chorizo and rain.
A thick cloud hung over her tía's head, sporting a skirt of fog that cloaked the entire courtyard.
Tía Pepa and Abuela, crossing her arms over herself in order to keep warm, argued about something. Something about Tía being careless, and Tía reminding her that she'd been dealing with her gift for four and a half decades, she knows how to manage it just fine, now get off my back!
Not while you're- what? Doing all this- this- these- …silly little experiments?
Controlling my weather is not some silly little experiment, it is necessary! You've always been at my throat for being reckless and then the second I try to do something about it, you want me to stop trying! What is it? What is it that you want from me because every single time I try to do something in the best interest of the family-
Tía Pepa stopped abruptly, her eyes in Mirabel's direction. Mirabel nearly apologized for interrupting when she realized Tía Pepa wasn't looking at her, but behind her.
At Antonio on the bottom of the stairs, watching the argument while clinging to Camilo's hand.
Tía stared at them, taking in a few steady breaths through her nose and doing something with her other hand - using the nail of her thumb to pick at the side of her index finger.
Rather quickly, the cloud evaporated, the fog dissipating and the cold just about vanishing in an instant.
She rushed over to the boys and laid her hands on each of their backs. Leading them to the kitchen, Antonio’s eyes glued to Abuela’s window upstairs, Tía murmured, “Vamos, mis arcoiris, breakfast smells just about ready.”
Soon as they were away, Abuela sighed to herself, “That girl, that girl.”
Tío Bruno did not come down for breakfast, likely catching up on sleep after staying up until the crack of dawn “on watch.”
Mirabel and her father cleared the table together. With very few errands for her to carry out that day, she had time to settle in her room a bit more.
There were two crates’ worth of things she’d deemed recoverable. Some photos that had been a bit tattered but still preserved the contents of the picture captured. Some of Antonio’s old drawings, ripped but could be puzzled and taped together. Old clothes, torn and stained and destroyed, some that hadn’t even fit her in at least two years, but worth keeping around, just to look at. Even some old broken toys. She hadn’t touched any of them since she was eight, but they were still nice just to have.
Getting rid of old things had never been easy for her. Old things had memories and ties that she found priceless, even if perhaps mundane and insignificant, and it felt wrong not to keep those monuments, those precious souvenirs she’d collected along her travels through time.
Certain trials and tribulations had put those souvenirs to the test, and had done her the difficult bidding of getting rid of her old things. She’d always miss the things that couldn’t be recovered, but she was grateful for the things that could still be made good as new with some work.
Just before noon, Mirabel gathered two cold jugs, one of water and one of milk, and went out on her way to find Luisa to make sure she hadn’t “forgotten” to take a break.
It wasn’t difficult to find her. All she had to do was follow the fence - the beginnings of a fence that hugged the parameters of their town, separating it from the woods leading toward the mountains, that hadn’t been standing before that afternoon.
At the end of it, Luisa hauled an overflowing backpack as she worked. When the two met eyes, Luisa seemed to panic, and she set down the backpack to lean against when she sat down in the dirt.
“Whose idea was this? ”
“Abuela’s, Father’s, Sra. Guzman’s, Tía’s.”
“Not yours?”
“Not entirely.”
Mirabel held the bottles out to her. Luisa took one and downed a good, long, well-deserved swig of water.
“Have you eaten today?” Mirabel asked her.
Luisa rolled her eyes. “Yes, queridisima mami.”
Mirabel shot her a look of disbelief, and Luisa sighed with exasperation. From the front of her backpack, she removed two sandwiches, one half-eaten, and a half-empty bag of veggies.
Mirabel squinted. “Satisfactory.”
“How’s the fence looking?” Luisa turned to peer behind herself.
Mirabel glanced up, and up some more, at the chocolate-colored fencing, made up of mahogany, cariniana pyriformis.
“Tall,” she replied.
Luisa smiled. “Sturdy too. It won’t exactly safeguard as well as the mountains do, but’ll no doubt help if something were to happen.”
“Something?”
“You know. A magic something.” Luisa looked away when Mirabel gave her an uneasy look. “Can you let Abuela know I’ll have, uh… maybe seven-thousand meters done today?”
“ Only seven-thousand?” Mirabel chided in jest.
“Eight if you keep that up.”
Mirabel grinned and shook her head. “I’ll see you at home.” She stood and offered Luisa the other bottle for later. She headed off with a wave over her shoulder and a, “Love you!”
Mirabel wasn’t sure how Luisa managed to construct over two kilometers' worth of fencing in less than a day. Just the walk there and the walk back tired her. She was relieved to get home and fetch herself a snack.
On her way to the kitchen, she heard whispers, her mother and her aunt. She peeked into the doorway, at Tía eating something of her mother’s and examining her fingers and the tops of her hands.
“Happy?”
Mama took Tía’s hands and looked them over. “I’d be happy if you’d stop doing that to yourself.”
“It’s not like that. ”
“It’s not like you’re inflicting harm on yourself?”
“It’s not on purpose. ”
“What is it then?”
“It’s… well… it’s- you know when you’re concentrating really hard on something and you stick your tongue out? Or you tap your pen?” Mama tilted her head in disbelief. “It is! I don’t think about picking at them, I just- I get caught up in trying to control whether it rains or shines and next thing you know, boom! It looks like I walked through a rose bush.”
“You didn’t used to do that.”
“I used to be able to get away with not controlling myself sometimes.”
“Your gift, you mean?” Tía Pepa shot her a look of duh. “Controlling it isn’t worth it if it’s costing you your wellbeing.”
“I think I can handle some nicks, Juli.”
“It’s not just that, it’s what makes the nicks. And what makes the nicks is you trying so hard to control your gift that you lose control of how you’re treating yourself.”
But Tía chortled. “You’re so dramatic. When I get a better handle on my gift, I’ll get a better handle at this business too. But I can handle a little bit of picking until then.”
She did not wait for another word. She snatched her hands away from Mama and wiped the love, care, and tenderness off on her skirt, leaving Mama looking dejected and distraught.
She was up on the roof.
God, no, not this again.
Something inside her knew exactly what was to come, but it didn’t stop the dream from playing out the way it was meant to.
She forced herself not to look for as long as she could, but it was like she wasn’t in control of her own actions. She wound up glancing over to the wax figures anyway, beginning to melt away.
This had happened before.
This had happened before.
She was dreaming and she didn’t have to subject herself to it again.
And then she was in bed once more, much to her relief, sparing her the terror of that god-awful nightmare. Dread was replaced with relief. She went to roll over onto her side-
Dread washed over her once more when she couldn’t bring herself to move, not even a centimeter. Her head didn’t move, her body didn’t move. Even her fingers didn’t even twitch.
It was as though she didn’t have a body at all, just her consciousness glued to her pillow and watching the room, ahead of her and above her. Her limbs didn’t exist, her lungs didn’t exist.
And worst of all, the ground beneath her began to rumble, low and almost inaudible. The rumbling was just as clear as the sound of Tío Bruno chanting to himself out in the hallway.
She wondered if he felt the rumbling too. It wasn’t as though she could just get up and ask.
The rumbling was joined by a thunderous crackle.
In her peripherals, Mirabel watched long cracks sprout along the wall, splitting the walls into crooked segments.
Still, she could not move nor yell. Her mouth did not respond with her desire to cry out for help, her legs did not respond to her desire to stand and run out to seek her family.
How was Tío Bruno not hearing this? He wasn’t speaking much louder than a whisper, and the rest of the house was dead quiet.
What a lousy house guardian.
Amidst the cracking, she heard another round of commotion followed by a screech outside her room somewhere.
Luisa.
This wasn’t happening. Not again. Not when she was paralyzed like this, not when her body decided to betray her and hold her captive by rendering its own muscles useless.
A warmth settled on her arm, and all at once, she managed to scramble into a sitting position. Her breaths short and nausea deep in the pit of her chest, she glanced sharply up at the cracked walls and-
the cracks were gone. Her walls stood intact and unaffected.
The warmth on her arm became a pressure that shook her. “Mira, hey.”
She jolted and looked over, realizing it was her father that had woken her.
“You alright?” He asked.
She gazed at him in disbelief, and returned to examining her bedroom walls.
Still, no cracks.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“You’re sure?” She nodded. “Okay - do you know where your sister is?”
“What?”
“Luisa. Have you seen Luisa?”
So the yell had been real. And if the yell had been real, then who’s to say the cracks hadn’t been real, or that crash, or-
“Tío!” Dolores whispered to Mirabel’s father from the doorway. “She’s outside somewhere!”
Mirabel followed - outside went her parents, Isabela, Camilo, and Dolores.
Into the night, they all shouted Luisa’s name, shivering and cupping their hands over their mouths as they called for her.
It was Camilo who found her - or rather, the giant pile of mahogany with Luisa’s voice coming from underneath.
They each hauled the mahogany away, revealing a massive pit in the earth that they could only assume Luisa had dug up herself.
“The hell is all this?” Camilo shouted down to her.
“Just get me out, please.”
It took one mere rope to do so, as Luisa didn’t struggle at all with climbing a rope but had, as they’d come to find out, badly messed up one of her knees when she took that tumble.
Mama threw together a quesadilla for her.
“What were you doing out there so late at night?” she asked, concern mixed with exhaustion and just a sliver of frustration.
“Working,” Luisa answered simply.
“What could you possibly be working on at this hour?”
Luisa shrugged, stuffing her mouth to keep from having to answer.
“ Luisa.”
With her head bowed, Luisa swallowed the bite and admitted, “Just something I read about.”
“Which is?”
“Storm cellar,” Luisa muttered.
From El Mago de Oz, Mirabel realized.
Mama gave her a once-over and sighed. “Save the work for the morning. Don’t put yourself in danger this late at night. I don’t know what we would’ve done if Dolores hadn’t heard you.”
“Sorry.”
Mama wrapped Luisa in a tight hug. She pulled away, took her by the face, and got up onto her tippy-toes to give Luisa a kiss on the forehead. “We are safe, amor. You don’t need to worry about anything like what happened before happening again. Understand?”
Mirabel and Luisa locked eyes, a silent agreement that there truly was no way to be sure.
Luisa nodded. “Understand.”
Neither of the three got much sleep after that.
What woke Mirabel up the next morning was the sound of tapping and softly-sung folk songs out in the hallway. But this time, they were not in Tío Bruno’s voice.
This morning, it was Antonio’s voice, light and sweet.
Mirabel, up and ready for the day, joined him out in the hallway. He paid her no mind.
“What are we up to?” She asked.
It was the very first time in his five years of life that he didn’t greet her with a smile, all cheeks and a chipper reply.
In fact, he ignored her.
She watched for a few moments more, as he stared at the floor beneath his feet and tapped the wall with each step, just a small peck of his index finger.
She left him alone, pretending it didn’t freak her out, even if just a little bit.
Like an uncomfortable itch underneath the skin – watching her innocent baby cousin act out the obsessive, paranoid habits of her recluse uncle.
The house guardian’s apprentice.
Yikes.
Mirabel was halfway down the stairs when a door opened. From next to Abuelo Pedro, she listened to Camilo emerge from his room and, assuming by the sudden yelp and giggle from Antonio, sling his brother up and put him up onto his shoulders.
“What are you doing out here, extrañito?”
“I am not un extrañito!”
“Oh yeah? What about when you’re out here doing all that?”
“I’m just being careful!”
“Being weird .”
“I am not! ”
Then came Tío Felix’s voice. “Alright, alright, cut that out, you two.”
At which point, Mirabel stopped listening and descended the rest of the stairs.
She did listen, however, to the quiet chat between Tío Felix and her father after breakfast, while they scraped plates and did the dishes.
He told Pepi it freaks him out, how Antonio’s been acting lately. He’s still himself but he’s… a little different. Just a little. Way more careful and on edge now. He’s doing okay, nothing to worry about, but you know. Different.
Oh, I definitely know. My daughter nearly buried herself because of… all that.
How’d she do that?
Slipped or something, while trying to make a shelter. I don’t know. It’s… I don’t blame them for doing things like that. It’s just shock - but it’s still… not really easy to see.
Tío Felix shook his head solemnly in agreement.
Mirabel wandered over then to fetch water and snacks to bring out to Luisa. As she retrieved the bottles, her father asked, “How are you doing, mija?”
She glanced inquisitively between her tío and her father. “Fine. How are you?”
He didn’t answer her question, and instead moved the spotlight back to her. “Did you sleep alright last night?”
After he snapped her out of her paralyzed spell. But she didn’t want to acknowledge it, nor make it obvious to Tío Felix that anything had happened. “Sure, why?”
Much to her relief, her father only offered a small, pleasant smile. “Just wanted to know.”
Well, that’s all he needed to know.
They had more important matters and other people to worry about anyway, they didn’t need to burden themselves with unnecessary concern over Mirabel. She was fine.
She’d be fine.
She was already lying upon the bricks this time, no stumble from the roof necessary,
The wax figures stood where they did the previous two times - in the middle of the courtyard, all-
ten?
Abuela, Tío Bruno, Mama, Papi, Isabela, Tía-
Luisa. Where was Luisa?
She turned around - perhaps Luisa was on the roof, or perhaps Casita would be real this time, or-
Casita was all one color - the chocolate brown of mahogany.
It did not melt - it crumbled, collapsing piece by piece.
Mirabel was jerked away forcefully by a firm and sudden grip.
When she turned, it was, not wax, but flesh and bone, Luisa.
“Go!” Luisa demanded.
“What are you doing?”
“Go, run!”
There came several loud crashes, and Luisa took the wax figures into her arms.
“Get out of here!” Luisa bellowed at her.
“No, come on!”
“You need to go, just leave us!”
“No- Luisa!”
The top of Casita came closer and closer, and-
There were hands on her this time - one on her arm and one on her cheek. Mirabel tore away from them, covering her face and attempting to instantly recompose herself in the presence of this other person, whoever it was - she couldn’t tell at this very moment.
“It’s okay, amor, I’m here, it’s okay.”
Oh god. Of course it was her mother.
Something deep inside her longed to lie in her mother’s arms and let her dry her tears, help her mind find its way out of the dream world and away from the horrors it had whipped up.
But closer to the surface lingered disgust.
Mirabel was fifteen whole years old. She wasn’t a little kid, she shouldn’t need her mom to come to her bedside and calm her from some nightmare. It was so pathetic, just the idea of her mother being here smeared her with embarrassment.
And so she got up from her bed, pretending she wasn’t suffocating in her fear and shivering violently with the adrenaline still racing through her.
Her feet led her to the balcony - to cool night air and enough visual stimuli for her eyes, though unassisted by her glasses, to latch onto in order to claw her vision back up to reality and out of her mind, off of their crumbling mahogany adobe and Luisa so willing and ready to sacrifice herself.
Unfortunately, her mom was right behind her, trying again to murmur reassurances to her and to rub her back.
By then, she was filled to the brim with dread and terror, she could just about feel them oozing out of her ears and scalding her face on the way down.
Her mother’s presence, unwelcome and yet so deeply desired, was her last straw, the dread and terror maxed out by irritation and anger and a lack of control that it was as though she imploded.
This time, when her mother tried to rub her back, Mirabel yanked away and shrieked, “ Stop it!” She propped her elbows up onto the railing and laid her head in her hands. “Just- I’m fine- just- just- I just- need- a- a second. ”
Her mother stopped this time, standing back silently and not attempting anymore to console her.
Several long minutes later, of counting in her head and tugging at the front of her hair, Mirabel’s breathing had slowed, and her fear had subsided.
She could fully feel the world around her, the cold of night and her feet against the floor.
And then, in the numb and empty void that had just been occupied by the overwhelming surge of emotions, something sprouted.
Guilt.
She’d just screamed at her mother, right at her face, out of sheer, hot anger.
If she looked up at her, the sproutlet of guilt would grow quickly and uncontrollably, she just knew it.
She turned away from her mother and stepped back inside. Over her shoulder, she offered a curt, “Good night.”
She didn’t even have to look over to see her mother’s face. She’d seen enough of her disappointment in the past couple of days to know what expression her mother was wearing now.
Her mother deserved better. She’d hoped, fruitlessly it seemed, that she wouldn’t be one of people who left her standing there and looking so forlorn.
She didn’t dream for the remainder of the night, though she almost wished she had another nightmare as punishment for being such an awful daughter.
She didn’t leave her room the next morning. She got up, she got dressed. She even willingly made her bed, a chore she despised and found useless.
But she did not show her face until she was summoned personally. A soft knock, followed by her mother’s cheerful, “Mira, breakfast - you coming down?” left Mirabel standing straight up like an alert rabbit.
Her voice took a moment to catch up with her, and then she replied with a simple, blank yeah.
Downstairs, nothing seemed off. She hadn’t assumed anything would be different, but she felt off inside, and the contrast was difficult not to notice.
Everyone ate, everyone chatted. She even contributed to jokes between her sisters and her cousins.
She didn’t address her mother, however, not until after breakfast.
She finished her breakfast first, and rose to gather everyone’s dishes once they were finished. It was only fair she take care of the morning chores.
She wiped down the now bare table and pushed in the now empty chairs, and made her way to the sink to start on the dishes.
Mama wandered over to help rinse, and Mirabel stuffed down a reply of Mom, I’ve got it. There was only one thing she truly needed to say anyway, and she wouldn’t allow herself to engage in conversation with her mother until she said it.
Dishes finished, Mirabel swatted her hands dry and patted them on her skirt.
And then she muttered, “I’m sorry for yelling.”
Mama glanced over at her, and Mirabel waited for a reprimanding, for her mother to scold her and tell her how hurtful she’d been and how ridiculous it was for her to be so melodramatic in the middle of night and then get mad when someone took notice, and how brash she was and how stupid she was and how annoying she was and-
Instead, Mama pulled her in for a hug from the side and told her, “It’s okay.”
“It’s not though.” God knew it couldn’t be that easy. “You were just trying to help and I was mean. Really mean. Like, stupid mean.”
“It happens to the best of us,” her mother answered, and just as Mirabel was about to argue that that doesn’t make it okay, her mother continued. “I did want to talk to you though.” Mirabel’s blood ran cold. “I just wanted to know how you’re doing.”
Tío Felix wasn’t present this time, nor was anybody else, but question still struck as intrusive. Mirabel brushed off the shame but still did not answer honestly. “I'm fine, Mami.”
“I just mean in general. With everything being so… well, with having to adjust to everything.”
Mirabel shrugged, silencing the bell that statement rang. “I’m all good, really.”
“Even if you are, you know I’m here for you, right? And Papi, too?”
“ Mhmmm. ”
Mama wasn’t done though. She had a point to get across, and she wasn’t going to conclude this conversation until Mirabel had gotten it.
“It just feels like everyone’s wobbling right now. You remember when you were younger and we tried to teach you to skate? It’s like everyone’s doing that, just wobbling and trying not to fall over. And I understand, I do, but it’s hard to watch. And I just don’t want you to think you have to do it alone. Do you understand?”
She understood, but she didn’t accept the offer, and so she didn’t respond.
Mama lowered her voice. “Sweetheart, I know you prefer to keep to yourself, and I won’t push you more than you’re comfortable with. But I understand if… you know, anything’s bothering you. And I just need you to know that we’re here.”
Mirabel mustered up a quiet, “It’s not anything I can’t deal with myself.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to deal with it alone. You shouldn’t. We’re your family, it’s what we’re here for.”
Mirabel didn’t mean for her distaste to show, but it seemed to be clear as day based on her mother’s small, skeptical smile.
“My baby, it wouldn’t kill you just to break down your walls every once in a while.”
“ Ay, Mami, terrible choice of words.”
“ Oh, boo-hoo.” The joke wasn’t enough to kill the conversation, unfortunately. “Promise you’ll come to us if it ever feels like too much to deal with by yourself?”
“If I promise, will you stop being weird?”
“How am I being weird? ”
Mirabel looked her up and down with disgust. “You’re being all mushy.”
“You think that’s mushy?” Her mother took her face in her hands. “Oh, I’ll show you mushy.” Mama pulled her face in and pressed a whole bunch of pecks all over her face, cozy nasty adorable slobbery corny gross little mom kisses all over her forehead and her nose and her cheeks.
“Agh!” Mirabel wretched her face away, only to settle it down into her mother’s shoulder and find herself in the hug she’d been wishing for in secret during her fit of panic last night.
“Te quiero,” she told her mother.
“Te quiero tambien,” her mother gave her a squeeze. “Mi milagrita hermosa.”
