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All in all, Bruno had had better mornings. As in, it wasn't even a competition today.
Good mornings involved pleasant things. Like waking up early to the bright sunlight streaming down from his room's magic ceiling that he felt he would never quite get used to. Doing a quick morning vision to check if things would be okay today and if his mother and sisters would live through the day. Finding his new, furry friends around the house and trying to coax them into letting him pet them for a bit. And then, finally, going to the kitchen to make some coffee for Mami before she got up because she was always so busy with overseeing the growth of their little town. And the best mornings were when she was not needed around town and made them chocolate santafereño before they left for school.
Bad mornings, however…
Pepa rolled her eyes at him over from the stairs in the kitchen entrance. "Bruno, you don't have time to do a vision. We're already running late for school and you're not finished with breakfast."
Bruno was too busy shoveling half his Calentado into his mouth to answer that gross miscalculation. At least Julieta was the one who'd made breakfast today, so his throbbing headache was starting to fade. Stupid vision nightmares messing with his morning routine. He loved helping out the town and making Mami proud, but this part of his Gift, he would never get used to.
"I get that you like to check, Bruno, I really do," Julieta added from the front door where she was packing their things for school, "but I'm sure we're gonna be fine if you don't check for one day."
"But everything could happen," Bruno argued through a mouthful of food, sending a few grains of rice flying and wondering how his sisters couldn't see the danger of not being prepared. Why did he have this Gift if not to keep them safe?
"Brunito, please, mind your manners," Mami scolded gently while she was hurriedly putting dishes away. She, too, was due for work, and he felt bad about delaying her. "And don't forget to feed your rats. You promised to be responsible with your pets."
"Yes, Mami," he replied dutifully, his eyes watery after he'd attempted to swallow too much at once. He knew the deal. She didn't like the rats, and the only reason he was allowed to keep them was that he'd argued that with his nine years of age, he was ready to learn some responsibility and taking care of animals would help with that. So he decided he'd had enough breakfast for today and carefully divided the rest into three equal piles. But they had to be exactly equal so that the rats learned to be fair to each other.
"Bruno, I swear, we're leaving without you! I'm not explaining to Padre Florez why we were late for algebra today!" Pepa complained, stomping her foot for emphasis. That meant she was, like, annoyed, but not annoyed annoyed. She wasn't raining yet, so he still had a few minutes of leeway to quickly kneel down on the floor and spread out the little food piles to his rats. He could feel Mami's disapproving gaze on him and was once again very grateful that she let him keep them despite her reservations.
"Diego!" he called out softly. "Valentina! Chico!" It took a moment, but then a smile spread across his face when a furry snout poked out from behind the room divider, sniffing for the treat he was offering.
But the smile turned into a frown when it was only Diego and Chico who came for their breakfast. Valentina was missing. He checked behind the divider where the other two had been, between the logs near the stove, under the dresser, in the flower display in the kitchen entrance…
"Bruno, seriously…"
"Just a moment!" Bruno called back in a frenzy, wringing his hands in worry. "I can't find Valentina!"
"Casita, have you seen Bruno's rat?" Mami asked calmly, and the house rustled the floor tiles in a way that he'd learned to read as "no" by now. So Mami stepped over and reached out one hand to lightly ruffle his hair. "I'm sure she'll be fine, mijo. You really do need to get to school. You can look for her later after your classes and your duties, okay?"
His eyes welled up with tears. "Okay, Mami," he whispered.
"All right, let's go!" Pepa took that as her cue to stomp over and drag him out the door by his ruana.
"Careful!" he exclaimed. "It's brand new, you're gonna unravel the hourglasses!"
The sky was grumbling above them as they sprinted down the road to the square of their little town. But even though Pepa was being impatient and Julieta worried, of course his sisters were right by his side. …well, right ahead of him, because he was so distracted with thoughts of little Valentina that his sandals kept getting caught between the cobblestones.
Where was she? Would she be okay? Why had she not shown up with the others, and why did even their house not know where she was? The house knew everything!
The wetness of the stones didn't help his balance, either; Pepa had been struggling with homework yesterday, and the weather had spiraled into a full-blown thunderstorm when Mami had scolded her for her groans of frustration. Around them, construction crews were removing tarps from the unfinished houses that Bruno knew they had hastily spread out last night when the downpour had started. Many shot the triplets looks when they rushed by, some annoyed about the weather, but most just seemed concerned for Pepa.
As they dang well should be, Bruno grumbled in his head, thinking of some of his own "customers" who would probably have had some choice words about their futures if it hadn't been for his mother's status in the community. He'd seen Señora Rodriguez' death just a week prior, and even though she was clearly much older in the vision and the incident wouldn't happen for several decades, her family had been furious. But at least Pepa seemed safe from the scapegoating that a few of the townsfolk liked to engage in, though he wasn't sure for how long she would be.
But he didn't dwell on it today; too scared was he to imagine what Valentina might have been going through right now. Maybe she had been hungry and tried to find food elsewhere? Was it his fault, had he not given her enough? What if she had gotten lost on her way to another house? What if she'd met a wild animal, what if she was dead?! He would never forgive himself, he'd only started taking care of her about a month ago! So much for learning responsibility, huh?
They made their way around stacks of neatly crafted planks and mountains of stone bricks to the newly finished school building, but no matter how late they were, they stopped by the memorial in silent prayer for a minute to pay respect to the fallen that the town had lost on the day of the triplets' birth.
Not for the first time, Bruno wondered if his Papi would be proud of him.
Padre Florez did scold them as they rushed into the classroom with polite excuses, but gently, not the way he usually did. He called them "little troublemakers" and asked them to please take their seats, even though other late arrivals usually ran a good chance of getting punished. Many of the other two dozens of kids of various ages shot the triplets sour looks at the padre's leniency, though Bruno knew most were directed at him. And that was fine with him. He didn't really care as long as people weren't hating Julieta and Pepa.
"Hey Green Eye!" Elonzo yelled across the room, a somewhat burly kid two years their senior. "Didn't you see it coming that you'd be late? You could've at least warned your sisters, you know."
"I'm foreseeing a cactus getting stuck in your butt if you don't shut up now!" Pepa snapped immediately, dark clouds collecting under the high ceiling even as some kids outright laughed at the boy's comment. Padre Florez hastily told both Pepa and Elonzo to behave and tried to direct the kids' attention back to their chalkboards, though with a rather sobering rate of success.
As Bruno took his own board out of his wooden desk and wiped off some vulgar images he definitely hadn't drawn on it himself, his gaze blinked over to Elonzo, who was whispering to his plump buddy Victor next to him before they both turned around and grinned at him.
Bruno just averted his gaze again. Elonzo was from the Rodriguez family, and it was his mother's death that had been in the vision last week. And since Bruno felt no small amount of guilt over that, better not to rub it in. Also, Victor, if he remembered correctly, was a Castaño, so both those boys' fathers were farmers and regularly got hit by every harvest-threatening catastrophe that Bruno foresaw.
He didn't dare defy either of the older boys. He couldn't blame them for hating him.
It didn't take long for the initial commotion of the triplets' arrival to subside, and as things settled down, Bruno found his own mind completely out of focus. He'd promised Mami he'd take care of Valentina. And he'd promised Valentina he'd take care of her. And now he had no idea where she was and his stupid head was coming up with ever more gruesome scenarios of her fate - thankfully, none of them were glowing green, and there was no warmth behind his eyes and no green light on his chalkboard, so he knew it was his overactive imagination speaking and not his Gift.
If only he hadn't been late this morning, then he would've had time to look for her. Stupid vision nightmares messing with his life! He loved helping, he loved having the power to do it, but he would be lying if he said it wasn't inconvenient for him sometimes. Other kids spent their days thinking of playing and homework, the older ones spent them helping out with the construction of their hometown and bonding with their families over their shared creations… and Bruno spent them thinking about the safety of the village and the meaning of life.
"Bruno!" Padre Florez' voice cut through his swirling thoughts. "Please pay attention. I asked if you could solve this problem for us."
Bruno's gaze snapped up to meet the padre's somewhat exasperated one. A few of the other boys snickered behind him.
Words were failing him. He wasn't sure what to say, whether he should apologize for not listening, or ask for him to repeat the question, or give it a go without any context and potentially make a massive fool out of himself and give the other kids even more fodder for bullying.
Running a tired hand through his brown hair, Padre Florez called to Julieta instead, and Bruno bit his lip to suppress the bitter retort that was bubbling up inside him at the silent dismissal. The man was always very good about not showing it, but Bruno knew that particular glint in people's eyes better than he probably should at his young age. The padre, too, was afraid of receiving a bad prophecy.
As soon as the church bell signaled noon, Bruno shot up out of his seat, all his utensils already haphazardly stored inside his desk again, and within moments, he was getting on his sisters' cases.
"Julieta, come on, hurry!" he pleaded, repeatedly hopping from one foot to the other. "If we're quick, I'll have some time to look for her before we need to go work!"
"Last to arrive but first to leave, hermanito, very mature," Julieta quipped in good fun as she neatly placed her own chalk inside a box before carefully storing it in her desk. "Don't worry, I'm sure she's fine."
Bruno groaned and turned only to find Pepa chatting with some of the other kids. His eyes were welling up with tears again out of sheer frustration, but he didn't want to leave without his sisters after they'd waited for him this morning so pati-… well, not patiently, but at least they'd waited for him.
Julieta was now getting up, and thankfully, Pepa seemed to sense his desperation, for she excused herself from the conversation and came over to join her siblings for the way home. But before either of them could make their way over to the exit, Bruno jumped at the sensation of something touching his shoulder.
Whirling around with a yelp, he found himself face to face with a raven-haired kid with sleek bangs whose name he didn't remember. Delgado family, maybe? "W-what is it?" He mentally smacked himself, remembering Mami's lectures. "I-I mean, what can I… do for you?"
"B-Bruno," the other kid replied, equally as timid and not quite meeting his gaze. "Um, we… we need your help." Carlos, he remembered now. About a year older than him? Good kid, but often hung out with the bullies for some reason. Maybe he wanted to be cool, or maybe he didn't want to be the target of their sneering, for which Bruno couldn't really fault him.
Still, no time for any of that right now. Bruno forced himself to reply as calmly as he could. "Help with what?" Did they need a vision? Couldn't they wait until after lunch time? He'd be back in the square anyway, giving out prophecies to anyone who asked for them. Couldn't Carlos see that he wanted to be anywhere but stuck in school right now?
"T-there's a rat," Carlos continued, shuffling his feet, and immediately, Bruno felt himself slipping into full focus. "And it-it's in trouble, they said."
Before he could help himself, Bruno had lunged forward and grabbed the boy's shoulders. "You found Valentina?!"
"I'm sure she's still at home somewhere," Julieta threw in beside him.
"Yeah, the house will help us find her," Pepa added somewhat sourly, and at her tone, Bruno threw a glance back to his sisters. To his surprise, they were both scowling.
"But Carlos already found her!" he argued incredulously, then turned back to their classmate. "Can you show me?"
Carlos nodded, still not meeting his gaze. "Sure. I-it's not far from here. Just follow me."
"I'm coming with…" Pepa started, but Bruno quickly waved her off and grabbed Carlos' wrist to drag him out of the classroom.
"No time, hermana, I don't want you to be late for your duties because of me, or Mami will be angry with you two. Just go ahead without me and tell her I'm coming home as quickly as possible!"
His sisters were still scowling as the door closed behind him.
Soon after they'd left the building, Carlos had taken the lead and wordlessly sped up into a run, past the memorial and in the direction of the big town hall building the construction workers were currently erecting. The midday sun had dried the cobblestones from yesterday's rain, making it a little easier for Bruno to follow, and he stopped himself from asking questions so that he had more breath for the physical exertion as they rushed past the town hall and into the area of fresh construction sites behind it where houses were still only built up to the ground bricks and lowest foundations of the walls. But Mami and the town elders were making an effort to get these houses finished this summer so that the last few families could finally move out into their own homes and would no longer have to sleep in the house that Mami had nicknamed Casita.
Bruno had no idea how Carlos could possibly have found Valentina, seeing as they had just been in class together, or why he wasn't revolted like so many others were by the idea of someone's pets being rats, but Bruno didn't really care. From the path they were taking, he figured the boy knew exactly where they were going, which was good because he himself was lost by now. Between school, homework, Vision Duty, and pet care, there wasn't a lot of time left for exploring or playing with the other kids. Not that any of them seemed to want to play with him, most of them were either hostile or distant.
He almost ran straight into Carlos when the boy stopped abruptly, but caught himself in time. "Is it here?" he asked as he made to look around the barely even started building, but immediately, his gaze fell on the two waiting for them next to the far wall - Elonzo and Victor.
Bruno shrank back instinctively, and suddenly, he had the sinking feeling that he knew why his sisters had been scowling.
"Hola, Bruno!" Elonzo called, waving him over with one hand, and it seemed casual enough, almost welcoming. "Glad you made it. See, we found this rat that's stuck in a mud hole over here. Maybe you can get it out?"
Bruno considered himself many things, but an idiot wasn't one of them. This was a setup. Of course it was.
But he had no choice. He couldn't let them harm Valentina.
"Why didn't you get her out yourself?" he challenged calmly before he could stop himself, slowly stepping closer so he could look at where Victor was pointing, and sure enough, there was a wet patch of ground behind the foundation of the new house, softened from yesterday's thunderstorm. A foot in diameter, maybe two. It didn't look like there was any room to breathe in there.
"You're good with rats, right?" Victor threw in, barely suppressing a snicker. "The thing wouldn't listen to us, but we can't have it suffering, right?"
Bruno fixed them all with a long look, each of them in turn, Carlos included. He wasn't sure if he wanted his gaze to convey that he knew what was going on or if he wanted them to think they'd fooled him. It didn't matter what they thought, right? What mattered was that they were using an innocent little creature to play a prank on him for the bad visions he'd given their families. Or whatever it was that Carlos was here for.
Without another word, Bruno turned away from them and knelt down in the mud. His pants and his beautiful new ruana were immediately soaked with cold sludge, but he paid it no mind. If Valentina was stuck down there, then she couldn't possibly be alive anymore. Right?
Furrowing his brows, he drew back his left hand, and in one swift motion, he plunged it into the mud as far as he could, almost all the way up to his shoulder.
And then screamed in raw pain as a hot jolt flared up his forearm.
Drawing back, he stared at his arm on which a thick layer of mud was mixing with something shockingly red. What was going on?
"Oh no!" Victor yelled out behind him in obviously fake concern. "Are you okay?"
Bruno tuned him out. He didn't care if he was giving them their laugh or not. All he could think of was Valentina. So he grit his teeth and stuck his hand back in again, trying to feel around for something furry, but all he found was another flash of blinding pain. Before he could think any better of it, he grabbed whatever it was that was hurting him and pulled it to the surface.
For a moment, all he could do was stare at the shard of glowing green glass between his fingers.
"Oh, so that's where that vision ended up!" Elonzo exclaimed pleasantly. "Thank you so much, Bruno, Papá was looking for it. You see, it's all we'll have left of my Mami in the future, now that you've cursed her."
Victor was still snickering, and even Carlos joined in now with a weak chuckle of his own.
Bruno could feel his lips starting to tremble. He knew this was a setup, he knew he was going to injure himself, but what else was he supposed to do? If they'd truly hurt Valentina just to get at him, he had no idea what he was going to do.
Biting his lip, he plunged his arm in again, and despite his best efforts, a whimper escaped him every time his searching fingers met another sharp edge of the thing his tormentors were using to inflict pain on him because they had failed to understand that he hadn't meant to inflict any pain on them.
Elonzo and Victor now burst out laughing; they clearly couldn't hold it in anymore.
"He's still doing it, he's so stupid," Victor sneered.
Elonzo stepped over to grab Bruno's shoulder from behind and physically yank him back far enough that his bleeding arm was free again. "We wouldn't take your stupid rat, Green Eye, they're stinky and disgusting, just like you."
Bruno's movements stilled.
Slowly, he cradled his injured arm with his right, then looked up from his position in the mud with watery eyes, straight into Elonzo's grim, triumphant expression. "She… s-she's not here?"
Victor was still openly guffawing in the background. "And he forgot to pretend he's right-handed, too. Look, he used his left, like the curse that he is."
Bruno blinked back tears as he got to his feet. He wasn't a curse. And he didn't mean to curse anyone. It wasn't his fault when visions turned out bad.
But there was no empathy for his pain in Elonzo's expression, for the boy now narrowed his eyes, not a trace of a smile or even just compassion in his pursed lips. "Stay away from our families, Green Eye!" he growled. "Hope the little monsters eat you!"
A sob escaped Bruno's throat before he could stop it, and without another look at his classmates, he turned and ran.
As soon as he was past the town hall building and out of their sight, his steps stilled. He wasn't actually sure where to go. He couldn't exactly show up at home like this. Mami had enough on her plate trying to run the village and keep everyone safe at the same time; he didn't want to burden her with this. But where else to go? Maybe he should wait in the square until Julieta came down with her food cart for the day? But that still wouldn't fix the problem with his soggy clothing, right?
Slowly, uncertainly, he made his way up the cobblestone road in the direction of his own home, clutching his throbbing left arm. He would've wrapped the limb in his ruana if that hadn't been just as muddy and filthy as the rest of him. Visible injury or not, though, he drew many looks with his appearance, even though he'd hoped to blend into the crowd of equally muddy construction workers. But of course, if it was a Madrigal looking like that, it inevitably raised questions. He knew most of the townsfolk liked him, most of them weren't like Elonzo and the others, but right now, that meant he had to worry about people checking on him. As long as they didn't look too closely to see the blood underneath the sheen of mud, maybe he would be okay.
But would Valentina be okay as well? If she hadn't been there, then where was she? Had his classmates known she was missing, had they hidden her? Or was this just a giant coincidence? The cruel prank had eaten up all his time, too; would he even be able to look for her anymore before he had to go back down the hill for Vision Duty?
Before he'd made up his mind on his options, though, he heard his own name being shouted ahead of him farther down the road, and raising his head, he saw both of his sisters rushing down the hill, clearly looking for him. Julieta was already wearing her work apron, and Pepa had a rainbow cloud over her head.
"Bruno, all three of your rats are playing with each other in the kitchen!" Pepa yelled from afar, cupping her hands around her mouth to amplify the sound.
And just like that, all the pent up energy left him, and he sank down to his knees in sheer relief, right there in the middle of the street. The tears he'd been doing his best to hold back finally spilled out of his eyes and down his cheeks.
Valentina would be okay. It had just been a coincidence. She was fine and she wasn't injured and nobody had taken her away.
His sisters were both out of breath when they reached him, but Julieta was immediately kneeling by his side with one hand on his shoulder.
"Are you okay?" she asked in her Healer Voice, gently prying his left arm from his right hand with which he was still cradling it, and they both gasped when they saw the state it was in.
"I'm so glad she's okay," Bruno whispered, a detached part of him noting that that was probably not an appropriate answer.
"How did you hurt your arm?" Julieta demanded again, but she seemed to understand that there would be no answer, because now she switched tactics and pulled him to his feet instead, then dragged him with her along the road until they reached the edge of their own grassy lawn. But instead of going the rest of the way up to their house, she turned them left and to the little stream that widened into their town's river further down the hill. Bruno let it all happen.
Moments later, he found himself bent over the water's surface while his sister cleaned his wound with careful, practiced motions.
Pepa was hovering nearby, but not too close, because a huge, almost pitch-black cloud was soaking her, and she was already wet from head to toe. "What did Elonzo do this time?" she spat out.
"N-nothing," Bruno stammered, pointedly avoiding eye contact. "He d-did nothing, I was… nothing happened."
Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw them share a Look. Pepa's cloud thundered and grew, but Julieta shushed her.
"It doesn't matter anyway," their eldest reasoned. "It's not like there'll be consequences. If we complain about Elonzo to Mamá and she acts on it, it'll just end with Señor Rodriguez challenging her leadership again, and that'll make everything more difficult for the Encanto than it has to be."
Bruno rapidly blinked his eyes. Her words stung, way more than the vision shards had done, but he didn't want her to see.
But she clearly did, because she suddenly clasped her hands around his left in the water. "That's what you want, right?"
And he couldn't blame her for thinking that way. Those had been his exact thoughts earlier. And had he been given the choice in this moment, he also would've opted not to tell Mami, there was no question about that. But for some reason, it really hurt that the idea had come from his sister instead.
"Excuse me," Pepa growled and turned to go, angrily waving her hands at the still raining cloud as she stomped up the hill to their home.
(Artwork by orchidlatte)
"Please take care of Valentina until I can feed her!" Bruno called after her.
"We already did, of course we did," Julieta assured him as she pulled his now mostly clean arm out of the water and examined it. "I'd really like to wash it properly, but as long as you eat lunch with us, it should heal just fine. I think the magic will take care of any infection from here on out." When the cuts started bleeding again, she pulled her apron over her head and started wrapping his arm in it.
"Juli!" he protested, trying to yank his hand out of her grip. "You'll ruin your work clothes!"
"You're one to talk, hermanito," she countered with a smile as she tied a loose knot to keep the garment in place. "Mamá can scold me later if she wants. I just want you to be okay."
And with that, she got to her feet, then reached out one hand to pull him up as well. "C'mon, let's see if the house won't help us smuggle you into your room so you can get changed before Mamá sees you."
In silence, they made their way up the rest of the path to their home. Neither one of them commented on the thunderstorm that had broken loose over the Southern part of the town.
Bruno's arm hurt. But other than that, he was mostly relieved. Valentina was going to be fine. He was going to see her again in just a few moments and make sure she was okay, and he'd give her all the food he could get away with before either Mami or Julieta stopped him.
At least Elonzo and the others hadn't actually taken her. Somehow, that made what had happened today a lot easier to bear. It had only been him and no one else.
Because no matter what happened to him or around him, as long as it was just him, and not one of his sisters, or his mother, or his rat friends… as long as it was just him, Bruno could endure it.