Chapter Text
“What are you doing?”
Mirabel Madrigal is many things. A daughter, a sister, a cousin, and granddaughter. She’s also a seamstress, and one hell of a baker. She’d say she’s also quite the icon to the children of the Encanto, known as their primary entertainer and caretaker when their parents and educators aren’t around to watch them.
What Mirabel is not, however, is immune to the critical and icy gaze of her abuela .
She halted in her march, and so did the children surrounding her. She moves in time when one of the children, Juancho, her mind supplies, reacts to the sudden stop of everyone’s movements by almost falling flat on his face, and she grabs his collar to pull him upright— all while in an unbreaking staring contest with the matriarch of her family.
In a third beat of her heart, she manages to stammer out in an attempt of being casual, “Ah- Oh, well, they were just, uhm, asking about the family, and—“
“SHE WAS ABOUT TO TELL US ABOUT HER SUPER AWESOME GIFT!”
She winces, grinning as she tries to shoo away at the sudden urge to swipe at the child’s foot and make her fall flat on her face as Juancho was about to.
Dolores decides this is the perfect time to speak when she is usually so quiet. “Oh. Mirabel didn’t get one. Hm!”
The children turn to her, forlorn expressions set in their young, tiny faces.
Concern. Confusion. Pity.
“You didn’t get a gift?”
Mirabel forgot to mention that. Besides not being immune to her abuela’s judgmental habit, she was also not a Madrigal with a magical gift. Huh. Must have slipped her mind.
She hasn’t cared about it in a while— no, really she hasn’t. She hasn’t. She just feels like the reminders are a little unnecessary.
She doesn’t get the pleasure to deny how much she cares about being the giftless one of her family when a rather irritating voice calls her name.
Ah, Osvaldo.
Mirabel really doesn’t care anymore. She’s just as special as anyone in her family! Who needs gifts? Pfft!
Ask her mama. Ask her papa. Ask Luisa. Ask Isabela. Ask Antonio!
She’s just as special as her family. She knows that. Her padres know that. Her hermanas knows that. Her primito knows that.
“You have nothing to prove!”
She knows that. She really does.
The cracks in Casita might not, however. Investigate the cracks. Investigate. Something’s wrong with the magic? She’ll fix it! Not because she has something to prove to abuela anyone, it’s just because the magic’s in danger.
“Help me save the miracle..”
Her hand clenches around the strap of her bag.
“I will save the miracle.”
The first step to Mirabel’s incredibly fool-proof save-a-miracle plan was to consult her prima, Dolores.
“The only one worried about the magic is you..”
Off to a great start.
“And the rats talking in the walls..”
Rats— what?
“Oh, and Luisa. I heard her eye twitching, all night. Hm!”
Bingo.
The second step to Mirabel’s incredibly fool-proof save-a-miracle plan. Consult her hermana, Luisa.
This part was a little harder. Just a little.
“Dolores says you’re totally freaking out, any chance you know anything about last night when the magic—“ she halts at her sister’s eye twitching. “You do!”
In hindsight, she probably shouldn’t have yelled. Or slammed the table. Or decided she would interrogate her hermana during breakfast while abuela was making an announcement.
She prevails, though. Because she’s Mirabel Madrigal and she has nothing to prove.
Chasing after Luisa is easy. She’s quite fast when she needs to be. Years of avoiding Samuel De Santo and whichever other jerk was trying to pick on her came in handy. Thanks, Samuel and The Jerks.
Getting her to talk was the easiest part of step number two. She was the expert at being an annoying little sister. Isabela once said it must have been her real gift.
Luisa’s suggestion after their short therapy sessions determines the third step of Mirabel’s incredibly fool-proof, save-a-miracle plan: Head to her estranged and missing uncle’s tower.
She won’t admit that she pales at the thought of Casita not being able to help her in the room. The stairs are long, high and steep. The sand seems to be trying to pull her further down. The whole place looks like it’s about to come crashing down in an avalanche.
Casita clicks and clacks its tiles hurriedly. Don’t go in there , it says. Please .
Mirabel smiles. “I’ll be fine, Casita.”
Danger can’t stop her.
She turns to face the hourglass shaped opening, a waterfall esque curtain of sand pouring endlessly.
Get away, the room seems to tell her. Dangerous, too dangerous, it yells frantically.
Danger can’t stop her.
The toucan she had just met heeds this warning and flees. She does not listen, heading straight for the stairway.
Each step gets harder the higher she gets. Pieces of the sandy rocks chip off and fall into the void. She doesn’t hear a sound when one falls.
There are hushed whispers in the air of the deserted room. They speak of the horrors they’ve seen, the horrors they will see. Sometimes, she hears her own voice in the wind. She wonders why she would be screaming for help.
Sometimes the voices are her family’s. Sad. Overjoyed. Angered. A voice she recognizes as Isabela’s yells, somehow still hushed, Perfect .
Whispers of the present and whispers of what she assumes is the future. The entire room is an unsaid, undiscovered and incredibly uninterpretable prophecy.
Mirabel shudders. She can understand her tío Bruno for not wanting to sleep in here anymore.
Her feet are sore from all the climbing. Her shirt is soaked from the sweat. Her hair is sticking to her face no matter how many times she has wiped it off. She’s pretty sure just climbing these stairs is a month’s worth of Leg Day exercises. She’ll have to test her leg strength later, maybe this room has strengthened it.
The toucan squawks in the distance up above. Mirabel sighs.
Three hours and thirty seven minutes. It takes her three hours and thirty seven minutes to hike the stairs. The miracle was not kind to Bruno in terms of a nice room.
She groans when she sees the gap between the platform and the path that leads to a cave of sorts. Yes. Of course. Just her luck.
She eyes the posts and the old rope knotted around them. She doesn’t trust that rope to hold her weight. She tosses one of the posts forward and holds onto it anyway.
She breaths. I can do this.
Another breath. For the miracle.
And another. For my family.
Another. I have nothing to prove.
She jumps.
And she doesn’t have any time to process it when her skull is cracked open upon impact with the far down floor.