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Julieta could tell that something was wrong when Mirabel didn’t come down for breakfast. Especially when she hadn’t seen her awake either. Something had to be wrong, she could feel it in her core.
Mirabel was an early bird, and with the exception of Julieta and Agustín, she was always the first one to wake up. And when she woke up, she quickly got dressed and began to knock on everyone’s doors to wake them up and make them ready for breakfast. Hearing Mirabel’s knocks and happy chatters from upstairs was part of the morning routine, and this morning everything had felt eerily silent. It felt strange to not hear all of those sounds at this hour, as if something wasn’t right, as if something was incomplete.
She doesn’t know why, but Julieta just knows that something is wrong and gets an anxious knot in her stomach as she wonders why Mirabel hasn’t woken up yet. A part of her tells herself that she should call herself silly and that this was simply overreacting. Mirabel was a teenager, and teenagers liked to sleep in from time to time, or often, depending on who it was. Like Camilo who always had to be dragged out of bed, and Pepa who even as an adult hated early mornings and needed coffee to function.
And even an early bird needed to sleep in from time to time, especially after a few hectic days, or having been up for too long. If that had been the case, Julieta wouldn’t have worried so much, but everything still felt off and she couldn’t push those thoughts away as she continued to fry the arepas for breakfast. Mirabel hadn’t been up too late last night, she had actually been the first one to go to bed, a thing that was also unusual for her. She had gone to bed before even Antonio, who at four years old had a strict bedtime.
Something just wasn’t right, something was off.
She tells herself to ignore it for now, because she was overreacting, right? Everyone else always told her that she was prone to anxiety and overreacting, this was fine.
But things change when people start to come down from breakfast, one after another. She asks them all for Mirabel, but they say that she hadn’t come to wake them up. But when Julieta asks if she should go check on her, they say that they can check on her for her. They need to go and wake up Antonio anyway. Then she can continue with the breakfast and everything will be on time, because they had a long day ahead of them.
She reluctantly agrees, even if she wants to be the one to go to her. But since everyone else says that it’s fine, she stays, and Pepa goes. Yeah, they were right, they were going to the same room anyway and they could go get Mirabel.
Everything would be alright.
As it turns out, nothing would be alright, and Julieta would never forget the blood chilling scream heard from Pepa before the reality of the situation had kicked in. Screams of standing still and that everything would be okay, as everyone in the house rushed up the stairs, not even knowing the full context out of everything. But in the end, it's all too late.
And all Julieta will ever think is that she should have trusted her instincts instead of letting them be.