Mirabel forgot where she was when she woke up. For a moment she laid there in her bed, waiting for the smell of her father's burnt coffee to fully awaken her and casita to roll her out of bed.

"Mirabel! Get up, mija, we got work to do today!" a gruff voice called from outside her door.

Mirabel's eyes shot open, and she stared up at the cream ceiling. The night before flooded back, and her first instinct was to curl up into a tiny ball. But then her Abuelo Oscar banged on her door, causing her to scurry from the safety of her blankets and into her day.

For the rest of the week it was like this. Julieta dropped off a bundle of clothing and toys for Mirabel on the third day but couldn't stay long due to her many duties as a Madrigal. A mysterious package appeared on her windowsill on the fourth night with a small wooden top inside, badly carved, with a note from Camillo. But it wasn't until till a week had passed that Mirabel saw her family again.

Oscar was an old man and was taking full advantage of having help in the house. A week after Mirabel had come to his house, he sent her into town with a list of items to get from market and strict orders to spend only half the money in the coin pouch.

Mirabel was invigorated. She'd never been to the town square alone before and this was her first time out of the house since her ceremony. Maybe she could visit home and ask Abuela when she could come home. Maybe she could go find Camillo and they could play with their dolls or their balls for a bit. Or maybe…

But the market was not what she had expected. Every townsperson was afraid to meet Mirabel's eyes. They frowned as she passed and muttered to each other, never saying a word. No one called to her to sell her toys or sweets. Rather, they exchanged their money quickly and avoided touching her hand.

Mirabel felt smaller than she'd ever felt before.

With only one item left on the list, Mirabel turned a corner onto the main square. It was there that she found what she hoped would be kind faces.

Walking through the square were her older sisters, Isabela and Luisa. Isabela, the eldest, was wearing a ruffled purple dress, a flower crown of perfect blossoms sitting atop her dark hair. As she was nearly a young woman now, she was wearing it down without the usual braids of her childhood, and she held her head high. Luisa, on the other hand, was still a child. Her brown hair was piled into a messy lopsided bun atop her head, and she wore a navy overall dress like her mother's over a white blouse that was stretched tight across her already impressive biceps.

Mirabel ran up to them, her full bag hitting her hip hard as she went.

"Luisa! Isa!"

The two young girls turned, and their eyes widened as their younger sister approached.

"What are you doing here, Mirabel?" Luisa asked, her eyes darting across the square.

"Abuelo needed a few things," she explained, sucking in large breaths from her running. "Are you two helping people?"

"Yes, and we really should be going," Isabel answered, her lips curled into a smile that didn't meet her eyes. She started to step away, but Mirabel grabbed her arm.

"Wait! Did Abuela say when I could come home? I've been really good at Abuelo's."

Luisa glanced at her older sister, her eye twitching.

Isabela just pulled her arm out of her sister's grip and shrugged. "I don't know, Mirabel. I have things to do. Good-bye."

And with that she was gone, small flowers blooming in between the cracks of the stones as she walked by.

Mirabel turned her eyes to Luisa. "Can I really not come home?"

Luisa tapped her foot, not meeting her sister's eyes. "I…I don't know, okay? All I know is Abuela said you didn't have a gift. So, you shouldn't be at the house when you don't have a gift. And she said we shouldn't talk to you so I gotta go. Bye sis!"

Then she was gone to. But Mirabel now had a plan.

The next morning Oscar woke to the smell of smoke. Moving much older than he should have, he slammed open his bedroom door to find five-year old Mirabel in his kitchen dumping water on the fire under his griddle.

"Oh. Hi Abuelo."

"What. Are. You. Doing?!" he demanded.

"I…I thought maybe cooking could be my gift." She pointed to a plate of crispy dough on the counter. "See? I was trying to make some arepas."

Oscar massaged his brow as he took stoke of the mess. "Just…go to your room. I will clean this."

Mirabel, shoulders hunched, obeyed and shut the door. But then her eyes brightened as she looked out her window. So maybe cooking wasn't her gift. There was still a world of other things to try.

She couldn't control the weather. She'd read all her favorite sad stories and cried, and a drop of rain never fell. She'd glared at rain clouds in a freezing down pour, willing the sun to come, and it never did.

She spent a week in bed with a cold because of that.

Mirabel also couldn't lift anything heavier than a bag of groceries. Luckily, she'd dropped the heavy rocks onto her Abuelo's vase and not her foot. Though he hadn't been happy with that outcome either.

The townspeople had found her staring at them strange when she'd been trying to eavesdrop and now, they avoided her on the streets.

She'd spent hours in front of her mirror but no matter what, her nose or hair or ears never changed.

Mirabel was starting to lose hope. Six months had passed with only one visit from her Mama. She had said that Abuela was still trying to figure things out but it may be best if she stayed with Abuelo Oscar for the rest of the year. Mirabel wondered if they would try her gift ceremony again on her birthday but with every passing day, that seemed unlikely.

Mirabel was wondering along the cliffs behind her home, walking up the green hills late one night after that visit from her Mama. She was trying so hard to make her family proud, to find her gift. But nothing was going right.

She continued to climb as the candles in other homes were burned out for the night. Abuelo had already tucked in her in before she'd climbed out her window and he always went to bed right after, so she had no reason to worry about him finding her.

She just wanted to see it again.

Mirabel crested the last hill and there it was. The casita.

Every color stood out against the green landscape and each window seemed to glow from the inside. Even from a distance, she could feel the music and rhythm that pulsed through its veins. Despite having gone so long, it still looked like home.

Mirabel's home.

Carefully, she continued to walk up to it. She hated to think how upset Abuela would be if she found her.

"No, no, no…," someone muttered from the side of the house.

Mirabel turned and crept toward the voice, finding her sister Isabel standing amongst hundreds of roses. She watched her sister wade through them, occasionally stopping to fix a crooked petal or a stem. She made one pinker or one more red, and full on stepped on one she particularly didn't like.

When she was satisfied, she turned back to the field of flowers and spotted Mirabel lurking.

"Aah!" she jumped back, almost falling. "What are you doing here?!"

"I…I just wanted to…," Mirabel drifted off, looking at the blossoms her sister had made as long as she could remember. She'd used to watch her work for hours in the gardens, making every color in the rainbow. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?" Isabella hissed, attending to the flowers she had stepped on when startled. Under her touch they grew bigger and brighter.

"That." Mirabel pointed at the flowers. "How do you make the flowers grow? How do you use…your gift?"

"I don't know, Mirabel, I just do it," Isabella snapped, spinning back around. "Now go away, I'm practicing."

"Is it like focusing really hard when you don't know a word? Or like squeezing really hard when you can't open your jar? Do you point your hand a certain way, maybe?"

"Stop it!" Isabella whisper-yelled as Mirabel moved her hands around, trying to do something she couldn't. Isabella's eyes darted to the casita. "Go home."

"But…" Mirabel's arms fell to her sides. "This is my home."

"No, it's not. You don't have a gift."

"But…that's not my fault."

"How do you know?" Suddenly Isabella's eyes were blazing with a fire. All the pink roses turned bright red and orange, making her look like she was controlling an inferno. "We all have gifts, it worked for everyone else. So why not you, Mirabel? Because something is wrong with you."

"That…that's not…"

"Because you weren't special enough. You aren't blessed, Mirabel. You're not perfect. So go home. Because this certainly isn't yours."

Before any of her tears fell, Mirabel ran down the hill, back to where she now knew she belonged.

And Isabella watched her go, knowing that if she could never get her flowers right, Abuela could be sending her away too.

Wow this took off fast! Thank you so much for all the follows and favorites and reviews so far, it really means a lot! I wasn't sure if people were going to like this story. I'm not sure how often I'll get chapters done but I wanted to get a second out there so you all knew how much your support means to me. So thanks and I hope you enjoy!