Chapter Text
Tilt left, unblemished Casita. Tilt right, broken Casita. And right there in the middle, the ghost of a teenage Mirabel, staring straight through him to his very core, daring him to make one of the two happen.
For a moment, Bruno could do nothing but tilt the emerald glass tablet back and forth with trembling hands as the sand dome collapsed around him and the last remnants of the vision's warmth left his eyes. He had seen the future, and yet he hadn't. He knew what could happen, but he had no idea what would happen.
It wasn't supposed to be like that. This had never happened before. His visions were supposed to be accurate pre-creations of whatever events they were about, like the fixed plays they showed in glass boxes in the future. Not like this, some kind of symbol that he had to interpret - the times that had happened before, he could count on one hand. And none of those had been inconclusive! What was going on?!
In the darkness of the vision cave, the faint light of the tablet seemed brighter than usual, drawing his eyes and seemingly mocking him about his inability to help. He had heard the strain of distress in Mamá's voice earlier, and no matter how much he had grown to resent his Gift over time, no matter how long she'd had to beg him until he'd relented, in the end, he had truly wanted to help - but he couldn't. He couldn't give her good nor bad news. He had no idea.
If only he'd been able to see Mirabel's eyes behind her glasses. Maybe her expression would've given him a clue.
Was the magic dying? Could he suddenly not see the future anymore because whatever had happened to Mirabel's door a few hours ago was affecting his visions as well? What about the others? Was this what the cracks meant, that they were losing their magic? Why? When? Well, at least that part seemed clear; the Mirabel in his vision was definitely not the little girl that had found herself in the eye of a storm of anxiety a few hours ago. From what he could tell, she was a beautiful young lady who had grown into her over-sized glasses with time. It looked like, what, five years in the future? No, more. Maybe ten, or fifteen. They had time, whatever it was that his vision was showing, they could figure it out together.
And then it hit him.
No one would figure anything out. No one would even get the idea that there was anything to figure out. As soon as he showed them this vision, everyone else but him would know, presume to know, what was about to happen.
"Mirabel…" he breathed.
Faces swam in front of his inner eye, but they were not visions, they were memories. Memories of people sneering at him, regarding him with contempt for who he was, what he was, what he represented. Memories of former friends and friendly acquaintances who now pointed fingers at him when he passed, whispered behind his back and openly shouted to his face, because he was The Wrong One, the only Madrigal whose Gift wasn't seen as a blessing…
And he also saw memories of Mirabel, the most cheerful, warm-hearted, delightful little human being he had ever laid eyes on, who had been so excited for her Gift, so unabashedly proud of her sisters and cousins for their own ones without the slightest trace of jealousy… Mirabel who, he knew, was still up in the nursery, crying into her mother's embrace.
His hands shook violently as the two trains of thought intersected in his mind, and he gripped the tablet tighter, so tightly he thought it might crack, as his mind played out a vision that wasn't one, of his little girl walking through town facing the villagers' contempt for not protecting them with magic, while she was clutching her father's hand tightly because she couldn't understand the animosity.
There was no doubt in his mind that this would be the outcome. Nothing else made sense. Not with how this family operated. There was no one who would understand, no one who would side with him in trying to find a solution instead of placing both the catastrophe and the blame for it on their youngest.
Pepa never talked about the negative things anymore, because talking about them meant facing them, and facing them meant adding more to the burden that she was already forced to suppress every day. And his disastrous prophecy about Dolores' love life had been what had sealed the deal, reducing her to cold, quickly averted stares whenever he was around her.
Julieta was no longer capable of relating to him, and with everything she was forced to carry as eldest daughter, big sister, mother of three, and healer responsible for the physical health of the entire Encanto, before he'd known it, he had stopped seeking her out, and without those heartfelt conversations of their youth, she had stopped understanding him. And eventually, just like everyone else, she had grown to disapprove of him and the way he attempted to serve this community.
And Mamá, goodness gracious, Mamá. He didn't even want to think about what would happen if he showed her what he had seen. She was so fiercely protective of the magic and the candle it came from that the sheer fire of her fury would swallow little Mirabel in its wake.
Félix and Agustín, then? Of course not. They would never truly understand, and he couldn't blame them. They would never know what it meant to have a Gift, to be bound by the magic for the rest of your life and face all the expectations and responsibilities that came with it, because they simply had no point of reference.
No one could ever see this vision.
The weight of that realization jolted him back into reality. How long had he been standing here, clutching the tablet and staring down at the fork in the road that lay in Mirabel's future without truly seeing it? It couldn't have been more than minutes, maybe just seconds. The weight of the glass in his hands seemed to have increased tenfold, because he knew what this meant, and he knew how dangerous it was.
No one could ever see this vision.
Mamá would ask. He knew Mamá would ask, she barely ever talked to him about anything anymore that wasn't a vision, and this was way too important to her. She had been on the verge of tears earlier, desperate to somehow protect her family from whatever it was that had taken Mirabel's door away. There was no going out there without showing her the vision, and she couldn't see the vision.
No one could ever see this vision. Not her, not his sisters and brothers, not the townsfolk, not the kids… especially not Mirabel. She was already convinced she had done something wrong. There was no way he was going to go out there and confirm to her that she had when there was a good chance that it wasn't true. He didn't know what to do, but he knew the one thing he wouldn't do, couldn't do and still look at himself in the mirror without seeing a monster. He wouldn't be the one that doomed this child.
Bruno felt his brows furrowing in resolve. This would end right here.
Without him even consciously realizing it, as if in slow-motion, the tablet that weighed the world slipped from his fingers, and a detached part of him followed it with his gaze, all the way down to the sandy bottom of the vision cave… where it landed on a wayward rock and shattered into pieces. But he made no move to pick them up, didn't even flinch at the crash, the sound, the shards of glass barely missing his sandaled feet. The sand, perpetually in motion, was already covering the fragments, and in seconds, all that was left of the future were a few spots of a soft, emerald glow in the uneven floor.
That had felt… good.
As if in a trance, he turned on his heel and headed for the exit, where he firmly shut the door behind himself without looking back. Even though he knew he had left this room for the very last time.
Because this wasn't about the magic - it still needed saving, and that problem hadn't been resolved. No, his sudden lightness of mind wasn't the missing weight of that one vision that had just slipped out of his shaking hands, it was the missing weight of the Gift he had never learned to control. The Gift that he'd always fought to use for good, and which had ultimately betrayed him and mocked his faith in it by turning on his beloved girl.
Never again. Never once. He would never have another vision again, ever.
Because what choice did he have? Not only had the Gift betrayed him, it had failed him. He had asked it for the answer that Mamá sought, and it simply hadn't provided one. He could just say that he hadn't looked yet, but then they'd ask him to do so, and a second vision on the same thing would just yield the same results, so he could never do that. And if he refused to their faces…
His steps came to a halt just short of him stepping out from the tunnel and into the bigger cavern, and he looked back at the corridor with all the mocking depictions of himself, the ones that were supposed to look omnipotent and benevolent, but whose eyes he had scratched out years ago in fits of rage, when the pressure had become too much and he himself had given in to the thought that it was all on him and his inability to see the good in the future. Now they just looked ominous and imposing, and they seemed to silently wait for him to come to the inevitable conclusion.
Bruno's breath caught in his throat, and one of his hands gravitated towards the nearest pole of the balustrade for stability.
If he refused to their faces? He couldn't refuse to their faces. He had never before managed to do so. He'd tried, just hours ago, but in the end, Mamá had convinced him, yet again. They knew he wasn't keen on doing visions anymore these days, all of them, but everyone always still asked him to have them, and every single time, he would relent and take a look.
And if he did manage to refuse this time, laughable as that idea was to even himself, then they would know immediately that something was up. If they figured out that standing his ground was imperative in this situation, they would also realize that he already knew the thing they were asking him to find out, and they would never stop asking him for the answer until he provided it. Or, worse, they would make their own assumptions on why he wasn't telling them, and though he wasn't sure how it was possible to come to a worse conclusion than what he had seen in the sand, chances were they would probably find a way.
No one could ever see the vision, that much he knew, but it wasn't about the shards of glass he had buried in the ground, it was about the knowledge they contained. He would take that knowledge to his grave if he had to, but he had no idea how to make them let him, other than by hiding the original vision and then avoiding having another one.
He shook his head, then averted his gaze and turned to walk down the steps at the end of the tunnel. If he truly wanted to bury that secret, he knew that literally burying the vision in the ground wasn't enough. He'd also have to make sure no one would ever reach its final resting place to dig it back out again. And the stairs weren't enough to ensure that, no matter how many there were; if he could climb them, then several others in his family could as well. And that left only one way to bar access to his cave, and that was the bridge.
He'd never truly trusted the structure's stability to begin with, had clutched the railing above the stone arch with all his might every time he'd had to walk across it, but now that he was thinking about how to destroy it, it seemed way too sturdy for a skinny guy like him to make a difference. Oh, sure, he made quick work of cutting the ropes; breaking one of the many superfluous decorative amphoras had given him a makeshift knife with which his bony fingers could hack away at each strand of both sides of the railing until the other end fell and slipped off the narrow sandstone arc. But the bridge itself was harder.
It took him several tries to get it right. His first guess was that he should go about it like a stonemason, heating up the stone with fire and then quickly cooling it off with an amphora full of sand so that the stone would break by itself. Ripping out the pillars on the left side of the balustrade in front of the corridor's entrance was easy, even he could apply enough force to detach the metal bases from the soft sandstone. But no matter how much he tried, the wood refused to catch fire. He always had matches on him for his rituals, but even with a fistful of his own hair desperately added in as makeshift kindling, he never got a real fire started, more like a smoke creation factory that had him coughing and hacking and almost falling off the platform because his eyes got too watery.
Not fire, then. Taking the stubborn wood and whacking the base of the bridge with it didn't yield any results, either, because he had done enough damage so that, instead of causing any cracks in the stone, he just beat his improvised tools into neat splinters that then got stuck in his fingers. And that was before he realized he needed to get across the bridge and destroy it, somehow.
Ultimately, after weighing his options, he ended up taking the rope that had run between the pillars he'd wrecked and tightened it between two of the bridge railing's still standing ones by slinging it around a metal base on the near end but firmly tying it around one on the far end, to the side of the stone arch. And then he stomped on the cave-facing end of the bridge with all his admittedly unimpressive might, again and again, until he heard cracks below him that sent him scrambling back several steps in shock.
But he knew he didn't have time. Hitting the stone with the wood, kicking it with his feet, yanking the pillars out of the ground in the first place, all of that could have alerted Dolores to what he was doing, and the falling bridge definitely would, unless she was in the soundproof part of her room. He needed to hurry. So he pressed his body flat to the ground and inched across the bridge that way. He wasn't sure if his meager weight was enough to make the damaged structure crumble, but with his limited understanding of physics, he hoped that spreading it out like this gave him a chance to get to the other side. And if not, well, that was what the safety rope was for.
He made it across, though, and on the other side, after removing his lifeline across the chasm, he repeated the stomping process, again and again and again, until the sandstone cracked on this side as well, and then all it took was a slight bit of acrobatics to loop the rope under the bridge near the crack, and a good yank that, finally, dislodged the damaged structure enough to send it tumbling down into the abyss.
For several seconds, Bruno stood there waiting with bated breath.
Then there was a crash at the bottom, loud as a thunderclap, and he froze in place, listening for any voices, any movement, anything that might have been off after the stunt he had just pulled. But as far as he could tell, nothing was amiss, and it only hit him now how deafening the silence of the mighty cavern he called his room truly was. The only things he could make out were the blood rushing in his ears and the trickling of the settling sand that had been jostled by the destruction he had caused.
A weight settled somewhere in his gut. He would never enter his vision cave again. He'd told himself that very fact just moments before, moments that felt like centuries ago, but it only now sunk in what that meant. No more vision cave. No more visions. Never again. He had loved this Gift at some point, had been eager to help, to support, to serve… but that was the past, and the past couldn't be changed or forced to turn into the present any more than the future could.
With a long, drawn-out sigh, Bruno turned away for good from the place where he had felt worth something.
At least the way down all the steps gave him enough time to snap out of his tunnel vision that the arduous task at hand had required. It only now dawned on him what danger he had just placed himself in. He had had no idea if the bridge would truly hold his weight after he'd damaged it. He had severely underestimated how hard it would be to loop the rope under the bridge. It had been sheer madness to attempt this without any kind of proper tool. At any point, he could've very easily fallen off the highest point of his abode and met his untimely demise at the bottom. Sand was soft, but not soft enough to cushion that.
Better you than Mirabel, the more cynical part of his mind told him. It would've been a solution to the whole never giving away the knowledge thing.
But Bruno shook his head. He was not gonna go there. He loved his family, and despite all those hardships, he loved being alive, and harming himself was not an option, had never been an option. He knew he and his family had grown apart over time - heck, he knew everyone in this family had grown apart from everyone else over the years - but if anything were to happen to him, he knew it would send everyone else straight into emotional turmoil.
…would it?
He shook his head once more, harder, then clutched the railing for support when the movement almost sent him off balance and tumbling down. This wasn't a problem to sort out right now. He'd spent decades asking himself that question, and he was no closer to an answer than usual, and he had bigger things to worry about. And since he wasn't gonna test his theory anyway, it was "whatever" right now. He had to focus on what was important.
And he knew with absolute certainty what was important. The prophecy may have been duplicitous, but Bruno's resolve was straight-forward. He knew exactly what his next step would be. Stall for time, until he could figure out a way to tackle the problem. Because this was a problem that had to be tackled. This wasn't a matter of appeasing a furious customer. It wasn't like navigating toxic family dynamics. It wasn't the never-ending and ultimately futile struggle of continuing to see the good in his Gift that everyone else had grown to hate. In short, it wasn't something on which he could give in and retreat, not this time.
Also, it wasn't about him. His niece's entire destiny was at stake here, and if he gave in to Mamá's pleading this time, he would doom Mirabel to the exact life that he'd had to suffer through up until now. He was not going to allow this amazing little girl to become the candle's next plaything.
Maybe she was still crying up in her room, the one that wasn't even hers, the one that this morning, she'd thought she would leave behind. Or had Julieta managed to calm her down by now? He knew he wouldn't have been able to keep it in if he'd been in Mirabel's place, he'd probably have burst into tears right there in front of the door-less wall. But not Mirabel, oh no! She had only started crying after the ceremony, after everyone had been ushered out of the house and implored to go home, since there was nothing to celebrate. No, even at five years old, little Mirabel knew exactly how this family worked. Even during the most traumatic event she had ever experienced, she knew she had to keep up appearances.
With each step he descended, his resolve grew. He had to protect Mirabel. At all cost. Even and especially if that meant rejecting the Gift he had been given. The closer he got to the ground, the more it felt like he was leaving his old life behind, up there, where no one would ever again be able to reach it. Not even himself.
Your future awaits, the giant stone hand at the bottom read, and Bruno scoffed at it as if it had offended him. It wasn't his future that awaited him up there, but his past. The past that he had now renounced. The past that he would never revisit. The past that now held the secret that would likely bind him for the rest of his life, just like the magic had done before this day. But that was a small price to pay if it saved Mirabel from following in his footsteps.
No, he would never go back. No more visions. Never again.
Compared to everything that had just happened, the walk across the wooden floorboards, up the hill, and through the sand curtain was an easy one. He didn't spare a single thought for entering the personal area of his room; he knew that was where they would look for him first. No, he knew exactly where he needed to go, what he needed to do. He needed time. Time to figure this mess out, to let everyone's fear and anger and sorrow and general raw emotion settle down again so that they could approach the topic with cooler heads. And also, he needed a new perspective, to remove himself from the situation for a bit and observe from the outside. Something was wrong with the magic, and maybe if he figured it out, Mirabel's future would turn out to be the good one, the one from the vision which had not been marred by cracks.
His own glowing, slightly smug face stared down at him from the inside of his door. But Bruno ignored himself, trying not to dwell on how weird that was, opened the door a crack, and strained his eyes and ears for anything that seemed out of place.
The night was silent, the upper floor dark as far as he could see from his limited angle past the steps up to his room. Had midnight already come and gone? He couldn't hear Dolores wandering around investigating, nor Mamá whispering to her locket at her window, as he knew she tended to do. And if Mirabel was crying at the other end of the house, he was too far away to hear it.
As safe as he would get, then. He needed to reach the painting. He needed to get to the other side of their home as quickly as possible, but he could not be detected, no matter what.
He had a rough path across the house in mind, but when he reached the foot of the stairs to his room, all thoughts of escape were momentarily wiped from his mind at the whooshing sound behind him, like a gust of wind charging the air with anticipation.
He knew that sound. He didn't hear it often, but whenever he did, it signaled the arrival of a new Gift to their family. It was the sound of the magic in their doors.
Whirling around, he caught the last twinkling lights in his door right before it died, ordinary wood once more, the magic gone. His picture remained, as did the rest of the stylized depiction of his ability, but there was nothing magical about it anymore.
He had renounced his Gift. And the magic had granted his wish.
"No more visions," he whispered, eyes wide. "Never again."
It felt as if all the nervous energy had suddenly left his body. Hadn't he told himself it was for the best? That he would never call on the future again because the result wouldn't change? What was this… loss that he was suddenly feeling? Even after how long it had been since he had last been happy to possess this Gift? Why were his eyes suddenly burning with unshed tears?
Too much. It was all too much. He needed to hide. He needed to get his bearings. He could deal with all of this in the morning. Or in a few days. His family was used to him disappearing every once in a while, they wouldn't question it. Mamá had promised not to rush him about this vision; maybe he had a bit of time until she started looking for him. He needed to get away. He needed to get to the painting.
He snuck down the stairs as quietly as he could. Normally, he would've gone past his mother's and sisters' rooms to reach the far corner of the upper floor, but too many variables made that a bad idea. Approaching from the other side was equally as risky. What if Julieta walked out of the nursery while he was going past? What if Mamá saw him from her window? He doubted most of the adults were getting much sleep tonight, so it was safer to go down and come back up at the other end of the atrium, but going straight across was just asking for trouble. So when he reached the ground floor, he carefully moved inside the open hallway in front of the bathroom, then went around the house counter-clockwise below the arches, and finally ascended the stairs between the nursery and Dolores' room.
From this angle, he could see that Mamá wasn't at her window at all, and he could hear Julieta's quiet, gentle voice whispering soothing things to her crying daughter in the nursery. Because, yes, Mirabel was still crying, and even though he couldn't make out the exact words, it was all the reminder he needed to know that he was doing the right thing.
In a few quick steps, he was standing in front of the painting, ready to dive into the depths of the house that the rest of his family had never discovered… but the painting wouldn't budge.
"Casita!" he hissed, painfully aware of how close he was to Dolores' room. There had been instances of her hearing things even through soundproofing if the sound occurred in close enough proximity. "Casita, I need to get away! Please, let me in!"
The house softly rustled a few tiles close to his feet, but he wasn't sure if it was supposed to be pensive or indignant. He and Casita had reached an understanding a long, long time ago, but he'd never quite figured out what it was trying to tell him at any given moment.
"Casita," he pleaded again, trying to force the painting away from the wall. "You saw what happened. Something's wrong with the magic, and if Mamá gets an opportunity to ask me questions, if anyone gets that secret out of me, then it will all be blamed on Mirabel! She'll have to suffer for the rest of her life, just like I did! Casita, please."
The house was silent for a moment - but then he felt the painting give way under his fingers.
With a muttered curse that might have been a prayer, Bruno yanked the cover away from the hole. The edges had crumbled with time, but it was still a tight fit even for him. But he made it, and the back of the frame swung shut to cover the secret entrance again, plunging him into darkness.
"Thank you," he whispered, over and over again, and it took him a moment to realize that his knees had given out and left him sprawled out on the ground right there behind the picture hole. "Thank you, Casita, thank you."
He'd made it. No one would ever see the vision. If they made it into his room, which he wasn't sure they could now that the door was dead, then they were faced with what felt like hours of stairs. Past that was a broken bridge. And even if anyone did make it into the vision cave, they'd still have to find the glass tablet, provided anyone even got the idea to look for it there.
Mirabel was safe. She had no Gift, and she probably would never get one, but he had done everything in his power to shield her as much as possible from taking the blame for that. At least for the time being, he had done everything he possibly could.
And thanks to the house's cooperation, he wouldn't be tempted to reveal the secret to anyone. No one would ask him that question, because no one knew where to find him. He had gained as much time as he needed to figure out how to deal with the situation. And if he had to stay in here wracking his brain for the next few days, then so be it.
"Thanks for always having my back, Casita," Bruno mumbled weakly as the exhaustion of the last hours caught up with him, and with a soft sigh, he drifted off to sleep.
"It's not like I want bad things to happen!" little Bruno shouts at his mother, hands balled into fists, and yet his eyes are full of tears. "What, you think I'm doing it on purpose?"
Bruno remembers this. He couldn't have been older than seven or eight at that point. His kid-sized body is scowling his young face into frown lines, a face still mostly unmarred by the weight of the world he's destined to carry. They're standing in the atrium, his mother looming over him in grim determination. There has been some sad vision again, probably.
(Artwork by Blackdragonsama)
He feels his young self turn and run up the stairs next to the butterfly wall, then slam the door shut after escaping to his room, even though his sisters' voices come in from somewhere, calling his name. Notably, his room is still level with the other three, no extra flight of stairs separating him from his family.
The sleeping area is closer to the entrance, too, he knows, and he runs through the sand curtain and to his bed, tightly cocooning himself in the covers, and bursts into uncontrollable sobs.
But he knows he won't be alone for long, and indeed, the door opens again almost immediately. From both the weight of the steps and the familiarity of the memory, he knows it's Mamá, and without even telling him to get out of his blankets first, she keeps lecturing him, about how he's using his Gift wrong, how he needs to be respectful to the community that relies on him, how his sisters never give her this kind of trouble…
And he curls up into the fetal position and pulls the blanket tighter around his ears in his usual, futile attempt to block out her words. He's heard them a million times before, and it's not like they ever change anything. All he wants is to be alone.
Suddenly, he's eleven years old, and just entering the house after finishing his duties. He finds Julieta and Pepa in the atrium, on the bench in front of the butterfly wall, enjoying a rare afternoon of relaxing in the sunshine after they've finished with their duties early.
One look at his face seems to tell them everything they need to know - his afternoon sessions haven't gone well. The sky immediately darkens, and he thinks he catches a glimpse of resentment in Pepa's face for ruining their precious free time.
Bruno remembers this, too. It had indeed not gone well that day. He had seen a death. Those had still been rare at that point, and they always got him into trouble, without fail.
"What do you need?" Julieta asks without getting up from the bench, but he knows she genuinely means to help. She always does. She always has.
"I don't want to see anyone," he mutters, averting his gaze. "If you could just engage her in conversation…"
They don't need to be told whom he's talking about.
"If she wants to talk, she will talk," Pepa points out, and he knows it's true.
And indeed, not even ten minutes after he's holed himself away in his room, hiding between some of the boulders at the bottom of the tall stairs, the sound of the shifting sand curtain heralds her arrival, and she wastes no time in going to his bedroom - and then finding him among the rocks, because of course she does. She always finds him. There is no privacy in this house.
And then he's thirteen, and it's him and his mother again, and he yells "Leave me alone!" at her. They're in the entrance hall this time, a vaguely familiar woman in her forties standing next to Mamá, but again, he runs away and to his room, like he's done so many times before.
Bruno's memory is a little fuzzy on this one. He thinks it's one of the local farmers not liking her vision and coming up to Casita to complain.
This time, he's alone in his bed for a short while. There's no point in hiding because Mamá will always find him no matter what, and he knows the delay is not some sudden mercy, but the time she needs to apologize to the woman.
But not to him. Never to him.
Eventually, though, his mother enters his room and forcefully rips the blanket off of him, almost yanks his ruana off along with it by accident. She's furious, he can hear that in her voice. When he keeps staring at the wall in front of his nose, refusing to even acknowledge her now that she's once again breached his privacy, even after she shakes his shoulder, she starts berating him for not facing his problems like his father would have.
Bruno just wants to get away from it all.
He's fifteen now. In the burning forenoon sun, he drags himself up the stone path to Casita's entrance door. It's painful to put his weight on his left foot. He clutches his right arm with his left to stop the bleeding. His nose and right eye are puffy and swollen. Two of his teeth are loose.
Some people don't bother with complaining to Mamá. They take a more direct approach.
His mother and sisters are still out on their duties, but Casita can sense him coming, and it rustles its tiles at him in alarm.
"'s not the firs' time," he calms the house, feeling a little silly about it, but he thinks it cares, and it does feel good that someone does, even if it's just a house.
This incident, Bruno remembers quite vividly.
Hissing to himself, he limps over to the kitchen. With a little luck, Julieta has leftovers stored away somewhere. Maybe he can heal himself before his family ever finds out. Maybe the baker will decide that metaphorically shooting the messenger is all the venting he needs, and then Mamá will never have to hear about this particular vision, and then she won't ignore his boundaries again to lecture him on how bad he is. Because if she hears about it, she will lecture him.
"Not like I c'n hide," he mutters to himself as he rummages through cupboards and drawers. "She'll find me. She always does. Never get to be 'lone in this dang place."
Casita directs him to a cupboard door by opening it, and there are some buñuelos left in a bowl on the lowest shelf. He takes one, hoping it'll be enough to make the pain go away, and resigns himself to an afternoon curled up in his blanket. With a little luck, maybe he can get some homework done before the others get home.
Casita, however, has other plans.
He has barely stepped out of the kitchen and back into the atrium when the tiles under his feet start moving, and with a yelp, he almost topples over. But the house is gentle with him, even if it's being more assertive than usual. His involuntary slide ends at the foot of the stairs across from the kitchen entrance, and he knows the house wants him to go up.
He takes a bite out of the buñuelo in the hopes that it will make his foot cooperate, and a few moments later, he's made it to the second level and through another short slide.
What Casita wants him to look at is a painting. It's a still life - pretty in a way, but one he's never paid much attention to. He has no idea what's going on.
But before he can so much as ask the house about its intentions, the painting swings away from the wall, almost smacks into his freshly healed nose, and behind it is a crude hole, one that seems to lead to a dark corridor Bruno has never known about.
"Casita?" he whispers. "What… what is this?"
The tiles around his feet rustle impatiently, and the ones below him slide him a little closer to the opening.
A tiny bit of excitement bubbles up inside of him, distracting him from his misery - he wouldn't be a teenage boy if the thought of a secret passage inside his own home didn't manage to fill him with a sense of adventure, however faint. Still, he hesitates.
It dawns on him that Casita might not actually endorse his mother's behavior. That the house frequently gives in to the family matriarch demanding entrance to her son's private space doesn't mean the house itself doesn't respect his privacy.
Bruno places a hand to the wall in wonder. "This is… to hide away? F-from… from Mamá? She doesn't know about this?"
The tiles clatter an affirmative. He doesn't understand Casita well, but this one, he recognizes.
And that affirmative is all he needs to shake himself out of his stupor and squeeze through the hole that he barely fits into. He has wished for a hiding place, and his wish has come true. What more does he want?
He doesn't know it at this age, but the older Bruno reliving this memory in his dreams has spent hours, days, even weeks in the sanctuary he had been granted that day.
Bruno blinked his eyes open to bright sunlight. For a moment, he didn't remember where he was. His aching limbs were sprawled out across the floorboards of a narrow passageway. Was this his hideout? But he hadn't been in here in years, not since the kids had entered his life and given him a whole new purpose, a reason to get up in the morning and make it through the day somehow. It was harder to feel sorry for himself and apologetic about existing when a handful of tiny humans adored him just for being their tío, and he loved them with all his heart. Isabela and Dolores were growing up into little ladies, Luisa especially always sought him out for story time, Camilo was shaping up to be the little nuisance that Bruno himself had been in his youth, and Mirabel…
Mirabel!
Still in a daze, Bruno heaved himself into a sitting position. He was aching all over from where and how he had spent the night, but his mind was clear now. Mirabel. All of a sudden, he remembered the previous night. The failed ceremony. The doomed vision. His fateful decision.
What a mess.
Looking around, he found himself in the exact spot in which his dreams had left off, right behind the painting, probably right next to Dolores' room, though he wasn't sure if that was how the magic architecture of their home worked. The sunlight streamed down on him from multiple gaps in the walls and ceiling - he never had figured out where the light was coming from in here. None of these walls could be found on the outside of the building.
…but again, magic. He wasn't gonna waste time thinking about that right now, when he had so much more important things to figure out.
Was the rest of the family up by now? Judging by the light level, Julieta usually would be, but these were special circumstances. Maybe she'd had to comfort Mirabel all night. He pressed one ear to the painting, but predictably, he heard nothing. Not for the first time, he found himself a little envious of Dolores' Gift despite all its drawbacks, a feeling that inevitably came with all the sneaking around he frequently engaged in.
Getting to his feet, he wondered if the larger space behind the kitchen mural was still there, the way he'd left it. Many long nights had been spent in that little adventure cave of his, and maybe that was exactly what he needed right now to clear his head from all of yesterday's troubles - something both familiar and dear to his heart.
The tunnels leading there, however, weren't familiar at all. He knew they were constantly in motion, frequently shifting into different paths and connections, but it wasn't usually hard to find his way back to his personal little space. But today, none of his usual landmarks were there, and everything was covered in cracks so long and nested that at first, he mistook them for cobwebs.
As he tried to find a new path in the mess that his hideout had become, tonight's dreams swam to the surface of his mind again. There had been cracks in here even back then, though not quite as pronounced, and most decidedly not as numerous. He wondered what it meant. Was this why the magic was dying, because there were so many cracks in their home? Maybe he would be able to save the magic by saving Casita? And then the bad part of last night's vision would never come true?
As if in response to that naive thought, turning the next corner brought him face to face with The Chasm.
It had definitely grown bigger again, much bigger. The wide hole in the floor had been there from the start, or at least from the day he'd first entered the walls, but he'd always assumed it had been a result of the tree roots pulling the wooden boards apart. Though why the magic wouldn't be able to compensate for that, he couldn't say.
Over time, it had gotten somewhat bigger, but never big enough for him to actually be afraid of it. Now, though, the divide in the path was positively enormous, wide enough that a big step wouldn't get him across it anymore this time, and not unlike the gaping hole he himself had created in his own room just yesterday.
…what time was it?
There was enough of the floorboards left on the sides that he could safely circumvent the pit, but just barely. The irrational part of him was convinced that the hole would've grown bigger in a few days when he wanted out again, effectively trapping him inside the walls forever. He knew that was ridiculous, but he had always been a worrywart.
However, it wasn't just the chasm. Even if he disregarded the getting lost part, the path to his personal space had definitely gotten longer over time. He wondered what it was that made the magic "tick" in the parts of the house that most of the family didn't see.
His room was still the same, though.
One step over the threshold, and Bruno already felt the warmest of smiles pull at the corners of his mouth. Some of those muscles hadn't been used in forever - days, if not weeks - and the sensation was a little alien. But for a moment, he didn't care. No one could see or judge him in here, no one could berate him for who and what he was - and, most importantly today, no one would ask him questions before he had answers that wouldn't sentence Mirabel to a lifetime as an outcast.
But even that problem, monstrous as it was, felt a little smaller in the cozy atmosphere of his sanctuary.
All his little possessions and treasures were collecting a thick layer of dust that sparkled in the sunlight streaming through the gaps in the walls and ceiling, and it comforted him, because it was proof enough to him that he was still the only Madrigal who knew about this place. His painting supplies were still strewn all across the middle of the floor where he had last left them; he faintly remembered scattering them there while leaving in a hurry because Pepa's distressed voice in the atrium had been calling him to dinner and the smell of steaming Ajiaco had been streaming through the crack in the kitchen mural and his stomach had been rumbling enough to drive him out of hiding. And that time, it had even been okay to come back. At that point in time, his mother had given up on lecturing him long ago and had switched to hurtful wordings and disapproving stares - though in her defense, probably not consciously.
Leaving in a hurry was also why his hammock wasn't properly attached to the wooden beam overhead with both strings, one side loosely swaying in the faint breath of air that his arrival had introduced to the little room. Underneath was a small stack of books that he'd brought with him over time, mostly his favorite adventure novels, and right next to them was a chair fashioned out of a barrel, one of the multitude of presents that the Madrigals frequently received from the townsfolk and never quite knew what to do with because there were so many.
Stepping farther into the room, he was momentarily blinded by intense, green light. His body went into panic mode immediately - until he remembered that no vision would be coming, because he had renounced his Gift and the door was dead. Almost apathetically, he wondered if that would also keep away those stray visions that he had never properly invited.
Turning around, he found the source of the brief flash of light to be his stained glass lantern near the door. It had been a present to him for a very early birthday, maybe even before the Gifts, when the town had still liked him, and he'd loved the lamp ever since. The artist had picked up on his adoration of glass art and just pretty colors in general and had made it just for him, which was a big part of why looking at it had rarely ever failed to raise his spirits. It had broken his heart when he'd foreseen her death a few decades later, and it broke all over again when, with a sharp jolt, he realized he no longer remembered her name.
The urge to light a candle inside the lamp faded even more quickly than it had appeared, and maybe that was for the better, because this was when he finally registered the sounds drifting through the crack in the mural.
He didn't dare go close enough to the opening to look. But there was light filtering through the tiny gap - the kitchen was apparently just as bright as his room. And there were voices, too - Julieta and Agustín, probably by the stove. When he inched a tiny bit closer, the jumbled bits of noise resolved into words.
"…mean you didn't get any sleep?" Agustín, inadvertently confirming Bruno's suspicions.
"She wouldn't settle down until the wee hours of the morning. I don't blame her, she was so excited for her own Gift. And now this." Julieta heaved a sigh. "She eventually cried herself to sleep, and by that point, I figured I might as well get started on breakfast."
The sound of a kiss drifted over, and not for the first time, Bruno was insanely grateful that Julieta always had Agustín to rely on.
"Maybe I'll ask Bruno for advice later," Julieta went on solemnly, startling him quite violently with the sudden mention of his name.
"Bruno?" Agustín repeated, not unkindly. "You think he'll know why Mirabel's door disappeared?"
There was a pause filled with low, squishy sounds - Julieta was probably kneading some kind of dough. After a moment, she gave another sigh.
"I mean… yeah, we've grown apart, but I know he loves our girls to pieces. All the kids, really. There has to be something he can do. Maybe his non-parent perspective will help?"
Bruno's lip started trembling, and he felt his eyes watering all of a sudden. He hadn't been aware that his sister spoke that fondly about him when he wasn't present. He'd thought she resented him just like everyone else did.
(Artwork by Noni_Art_16)
"Abuela already asked him," Agustín provided. "I saw them talking by her window when I left the nursery last night."
Instead of an answer, there was a wet splat, but Bruno couldn't see what had caused it. Mentally going through everything he knew about his sister, he decided she had punched her fist into the dough bowl in frustration.
"She probably asked him about the magic," she bit out venomously. "Only about the magic, not about Mirabel. Our little girl has been looking forward to last night ever since she was big enough to understand what a Gift even is and that one would eventually be waiting for her. She was so ready to make us all proud and serve the community and all that, and I'll bet you anything that Mamá acknowledged none of that in her request to Bruno. I'll bet you anything she just worries about the magic and not what its failure did to Mirabel."
Bullseye. Bruno couldn't resist sneaking a glance through the crack to see his sister while she was giving that spot-on analysis, even though he knew rationally that she was standing too far away. Part of him was glad he wasn't the only one who knew their mother so well.
"Mirabel is perfect the way she is!" Julieta added randomly, almost defiantly.
"Always has been," Agustín agreed calmly. "She's our little ray of sunshine, and nothing the magic does is going to change that." He cleared his throat. "Maybe I should talk to our older daughters today, see if they can't help cheer her up."
"They're just as clueless as everyone else," Dolores' quiet voice entered the conversation, and there was some shuffling. Maybe the two adults were pulling apart from another kiss, or maybe her sudden appearance had just startled them. She did tend to have that effect on people.
"Good morning, Dolores, dear," Julieta then offered. "Did you sleep well?"
There was the sound of soft footsteps wandering around the kitchen. "I could hear Mirabel crying all night," Dolores admitted a little too quickly, the way she sometimes blurted out things that caused her pain if she kept them to herself. "Even when I was in bed, through the soundproofing. I think I might've been imagining it, but I just felt so sorry for her."
"I'm sure it would make her feel a little better to know that you were thinking of her," Julieta provided, and Bruno could clearly hear the smile in her voice.
"And also, it distracted me that the sound is off," Dolores continued.
A moment of silence. Clearly, Bruno wasn't the only one confused by the statement.
It was Agustín who asked the question. "The sound, Lolo?"
Dolores didn't answer for a moment, and, risking another glance, Bruno found her lingering near the table, practically right in front of the mural, looking around the dining area in confusion.
His breath caught in his throat, and he didn't dare release it, for fear of alerting her to his presence - and then he remembered that he really, really should've taken her Gift into account, not just when he'd destroyed the bridge, but also and especially about the matter of hiding in the walls for now. She didn't need his breathing to detect him. She could probably hear his heartbeat, right now, hammering away in his chest, and whatever other sounds a living body produced. What had he been thinking?
But then she turned away again, and he realized with a pang that, while she clearly heard him, she didn't seem able to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. "The hum of the magic sounds different today," she finally explained.
Bruno wondered if that made sense to anyone other than himself. Only he knew what part of the hum had disappeared.
But before anyone could comment, before anyone but him had probably even understood what Dolores was saying, the morning air was pierced by a horrible, heartbroken, loss-filled shriek that sent shivers down his spine.
Pepa.
Julieta was already halfway out the kitchen with food in her hand before Dolores' shock had worn off enough that she remembered to cover her ears. But Bruno knew, he knew exactly what had happened. Pepa wasn't injured, or otherwise hurt or in need of healing magic.
Pepa had found his dead door.
"Mami?" Dolores whimpered as several of the still living doors banged open on the top floor, and then she and Agustín hurried after Julieta and towards the confused voices of the rest of their family.
In shaky, jerky movements, Bruno turned his back to the crack in the mural and leaned against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut as he slowly slid down to the ground.
He had made a terrible mistake.