Disclaimer: Encanto does not belong to me. This story is not for profit.


Author's Note: Thank you to LoveLikeElena for pointing out the lack of consistency in using all the Spanish-speaking family names except for Mom/Mother and Dad/Father. That oversight is being corrected.


Chapter 9

October 24th

Morning

That evening, Mirabel hadn't gone to sleep until after midnight, thinking about everything Isabela had said about the family history and trying to put that together with what Bruno had figured out about the family miracle.

She woke up to raised voices. Camilo was at her side, shaking her awake with a terrified expression. "What?" She realized Camilo had put her glasses on for her. She straightened them. "What's going on?"

"Antonio's missing," Camilo said. "He was with me, but I was asleep. And I woke up, and he wasn't there, and I thought it was because he'd gone to snuggle with someone else, like Mamá, but then when Mamá got up and I went to ask her why Antonio switched to her, she didn't have him. He's not here."

Mirabel felt frazzled and groggy. "It's not like him to wander away. But even if he did, how could he get into danger?"

"He's five!"

Mirabel yawned. "Are we sure we've checked the entire church?"

"What do you mean?" Camilo demanded. "You mean we aren't looking for him hard enough?"

"No, it's not that. I just wondered if anyone checked to see if he is with Tio Bruno," Mirabel said.

Camilo froze. Then he turned and yelled, "Mamá, Mirabel thinks Antonio is with Tio Bruno!"

Pepe flung the door to the hallway open and ran down it. Mirabel followed, slower. "It's not an emergency," she called at Pepa's back.

When Mirabel caught up, Pepa was already hugging on Antonio and kissing his head. "I was scared I lost you," she whispered.

Bruno sat on the side of the cot, the blanket rumpled and at the foot of the cot instead of on him.

"That sounds like a bad dream," Antonio said. He smiled at his Madre sweetly. "It's OK. It was just a nightmare. Tio Bruno explained it to me. Nightmares aren't real, Mama."

Pepa looked to her brother.

Bruno shrugged. "Kid had a nightmare. Didn't wanna wake anyone else up, he saw me up and about, so we went back here to this room so that we could talk without disturbing anyone. But then we fell asleep."

Pepa took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, caressing Antonio's curls. "So he was here with you the whole time."

Bruno nodded. "The whole time. I swear it, Pepa."

"Why didn't you wake me up? I'm your Madre," Pepa whispered to Antonio.

Antonio looked confused. "Because if I woke you up, Papa would wake up, and Papa is very noisy, even when he's trying to be quiet. So then everyone would be up, and it would all be because of me."

Pepa laughed, and then cried a little. "You're right. Your papa is noisy even when he's trying to be quiet." She kissed the top of his head again. "You're so considerate."

"I'm sorry you had a bad dream," Antonio said.

"Thank you, mi vida. I'm so sorry that you had a bad dream, too." Pepa snuggled him and then set him down. She met Bruno's gaze. "Thank you. You always were a good tio."

"Meh. Gotta make up for my sins somehow."

Pepa told Antonio, "He's joking. Now run along and tell your Papa where you've been and that you're safe."

"Yes, Mama." Antonio ran out of the room and almost bumped into Mirabel. He waved. "Good morning, Mirabel!"

"Good morning, Antonio," Mirabel called. She entered the records room now that Antonio had blown her cover.

"Oh, Mirabel," Pepa said. She ran her fingers through her hair a couple of times, self-soothing. "Thank you. I should have thought of this. I don't know why my mind leapt to Antonio being gone."

"Because when you were growing up, Abuela was always afraid that she'd wake up and you'd all be gone," Mirabel said. "Probably. I mean, I wasn't there, but it makes sense based on what Abuela told me down at the river. She said she was always afraid of losing you, and Mamá, and Tio Bruno."

"Fear is contagious," Bruno said. "Speaking of Madre, where is she this morning? I need to talk to her."

Pepa sighed. "I have no idea where she is. Also, are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Then I'll find her on my own. Wait for me. I'll try not to be long." He strode out of the church.

xxx

After breakfast everyone regrouped outside the church, waiting for Abuela and Bruno. Bruno appeared at the end of the street, instantly recognizable in his green ruana, but he was alone. When he reached them, he said, "Sorry it took so long to have breakfast with Madre. There was a lot of talking. A lot of food, but also a lot of talking."

"How is she?" Julieta asked.

"Still angry at you, of course." Bruno rolled his eyes and sighed. "But I think she's actually angrier at herself for making a fool out of herself. Which she did. And I told her so."

Suddenly, Mirabel felt something cold and wet prick her face. She rubbed her cheek. "Hey!"

"What?" Camilo asked. Then he gave a start and looked behind him. "Something touched me!"

Bruno twitched, held out his hand palm up, and looked at the sky. "It's raining."

Pepa looked up and gasped. "Oh, no!"

Camilo's eyes widened. He stared at the sky and scrunched down as if he could somehow avoid the storm. "Why now?"

"Rainy season," Bruno said. "It used to come before Pepa had full control of her powers. Now it's going to come again."

Everyone ran to the building site and helped cover the vulnerable half-finished first floor and all their equipment with waterproof tarps, canvas awnings, anything the villagers could get their hands on. After all, they hadn't had to protect a building project from the weather in decades.

"The temperature's dropping, too," Bruno said. "We're all going to need warmer clothes. It used to get down to 50 degrees this time of year."

Pepa clung to Félix. "It's all moving on its own. I can't control anything."

"No one expects you to control it," Félix said, one arm around her and the other holding up the umbrella.

"What if we get a hurricane?"

"Then we will survive." He kissed her forehead. "We always survived before. It will be all right."

Antonio whimpered. "What's a hurricane?"

Camilo picked him up. "Nothing for you to worry about."

They retreated to the church. Everyone wrapped themselves in their blankets as the temperature rapidly changed. Wind whipped around the church, gusting and howling.

"No, no, no, no, no," Pepa mumbled.

Félix hugged her tightly.

Antonio alone was at the window, gripping the sill and peering out with apparent fascination. "The whole town's getting wet."

Pepa groaned and burrowed against her husband.

Antonio was still at a window, sitting on the sill. "It's never rained just to rain." He didn't sound disappointed, only confused. "Mama, why does it rain? I thought it rained because you made it."

Pepa came over and placed a gentle hand on his back. "It's called nature, Tonito. I didn't invent the rain." She sighed. "And maybe it was arrogant to believe I could always control it. Nature is a big thing. Animals are part of nature. Weather is part of nature. Trees and plants and flowers are part of nature."

"Animals." He looked at her, wide-eyed. "The animals are getting all wet!"

Pepa chuckled. "Well, animals don't mind being wet. It's natural. Plus, a lot of animals know how to make shelter or take shelter. If they mind, they'll get out of the rain somehow." She hugged him and picked him up. "Come on. Let's play a game to pass the time instead of staring at the rain, OK?"

"Where is Abuela?"

"I don't know," Pepa said. "Somewhere in the village. I don't think she would leave. Why?"

"I was wondering if Abuela is getting wet."

"Because you want her to get wet, or because you don't want her to get wet?" Camilo asked with a grin.

Antonio giggled.

Bruno snorted. "I'm sure she's with one of her friends. She's a very popular lady. If she's not still at Señora Urrego's house, then she's with another friend."

"What game are we going to play?" Antonio asked.

Bruno stuck his hand into his opposite sleeve with a flourish. "Well, I always have…a deck of cards!" He pulled out a deck of cards housed in a worn out cardboard box. The edges were tattered and the colors of the box were faded.

"I was hoping you would," Pepa said.

Everyone gathered around in a circle, sitting in their blankets and pillows, and Bruno recruited the other adults in teaching the children how to play Chinchón.

Pepa made a team of herself and Antonio so that she could help him understand which cards to play so that he didn't try and fail to make a smart move over and over again and then get upset or frustrated.

"Also, card games are a great time to talk," Bruno said with a twinkle in his eye. He looked younger, more lively, with cards in his hands.

"Talk about what?" Pepa asked.

Bruno grinned. "The theme of this day is nightmares. Right, Tonito? And how nightmares aren't really very scary anymore if we talk about them in the daytime." A crash and boom of thunder made him chuckle. "Even during a storm. We're still awake, dry, safe. We're all together and nothing bad is happening right now." He raised an eyebrow at Julieta's hesitant expression, meeting her gaze. Then he directed his attention at the children. "How about, every time we play a card, we say a nightmare we've had?"

Pepa winced.

Antonio looked at his mother in surprise and squeezed her hand. "It's OK, Mama. Nightmares can't hurt you."

Félix jumped right in. "OK, since it's my turn next, I'll go first." He played a card. "I had a nightmare once that your Abuela was secretly wearing my underwear, and she wouldn't admit it and take them off. And I was upset, because I was stuck wearing her underwear!" He roared with laughter.

Everyone but Julieta joined in. She just shook her head with a faint smile. "Which way do we go around the circle?"

"Clockwise," Bruno said, giving her a look. "Stop dodging. Take your turn, Julieta."

"What if I can't play a card? What if I need to pick one up?"

"Julieta…" Bruno's look intensified.

"All right, all right! Fine." Julieta picked up a card and put it in her hand. "I once had a nightmare that someone was choking to death on one of my arepas."

"If that happened, it would be the fault of the person who decided they didn't need to chew a whole arepa," Bruno said.

"Yeah, Mamá, even Camilo chews," Mirabel said.

Everyone laughed a little.

"Maybe it's not as realistic as I thought," Julieta admitted. She nudged Mirabel gently. "OK, your turn."

Mirabel played a card. "I once had a nightmare that the door to the nursery wouldn't open. And here I was pounding on the door, shouting, 'Someone let me out!' And I could hear people talking on the other side of the door. But they never acted like they could hear me."

Julieta hugged her. "That's awful."

Mirabel leaned against her briefly. Then she gestured to Isabela, who sat on the other side of her. "OK, it's your turn."

Isabela slapped down a card defiantly, smirking, and tossed her head. "I once had a dream that an evil twin took my place, and no one noticed it wasn't me, and I was trying to get out of my room, but the evil twin had stolen my Gift and used it to make vines that tied me up."

"Interesting," Bruno said. "The evil twin motif. Or would it be more like an archetype? I need to reread this book."

Agustín sat on Isabela's other side. "Of course we would notice it wasn't you, mi vida."

Isabela smiled at him. "Thanks, Papá."

Agustín put down a card quickly, as if he was either afraid someone would stop him, or that he would lose his nerve. "I had a nightmare that no matter what I said all day, whoever I was talking to laughed. And I wasn't making jokes. I was saying normal things, like, 'Pass the cream'. But everyone would laugh, like genuinely laugh, as if I had said something funny. At first it was weird, and then it really started to wear on me. By the end of the dream I was trying to find my way out of the courtyard, but for some reason I couldn't find an exit."

Julieta looked at her husband with regretful concern. "I may get fed up with how accident prone you are sometimes, but I never thought you were a joke."

Agustín adjusted his tie. "It's because I feel so unnecessary in this family, isn't it?"

"If that's how you interpret your dream, and it makes sense to you, then probably," Bruno said. "The book I read on dream interpretation says that whatever makes the most sense to you is what it is. See, it's you trying to communicate with yourself – i-in your sleep."

Luisa played her card. "I dreamed that I got so mad at Abuela that I strangled her. I killed her. But it didn't feel good. I felt awful. What does that mean, Tio Bruno?"

"That you're scared of your anger, maybe," Bruno said. "Does that feel right to you?"

Luisa nodded. "After I got my Gift, it was never safe to get angry. The next time I lost it at Isabela over some dumb girl thing we were arguing about, I smashed a chair and punched a hole in the wall – and I wasn't trying to do either of those things! It was really scary."

Agustín hugged her tightly. "You're not a monster," he murmured. "You're my daughter. My beautiful, brave, gentle daughter."

Luisa smiled, relaxing into her dad's embrace and hugging him in return.

Camilo sat on Luisa's other side. He played his card with a gleeful grin. "I had a nightmare that my Gift went wrong and my face got stuck partway, and I was hideous, and I became the village outcast, and even at dinner at home, everyone made me wear a paper bag over my head."

Antonio laughed. "That would never happen."

"It's funny now that I'm awake," Camilo said. "Sort of."

"I think the same advice for Luisa applies," Félix said. "You're not a monster. You're my son."

Camilo looked embarrassed, but happy.

"Tio Bruno's turn!" Antonio said, bouncing on his mother's lap.

The others briefly fell silent.

Bruno gave his siblings reassuring glances. He played his card. "I had a nightmare once that I saw one of the soldiers who chased Madre and Padre and the others out at the river, here in the village, but then the soldier disappeared, so I ran around and around trying to find him and trying to warn everyone that he was here in the Encanto, but no one would believe me, and every time I almost caught the soldier, he disappeared again."

"But there is no soldier," Antonio said.

Bruno smiled at him gently. "That's right. There is no soldier."

Mirabel did not miss that her mother and her aunt were relieved that this was the nightmare her uncle had chosen to share.

"My turn, my turn!" Antonio said. His mother helped him pick his card, and he played it with barely contained excitement. "My bad dream was that I kept trying to talk to people, and they couldn't understand me, and then I finally figured out, I was an animal! I'd turned into a tapir in my sleep!"

"And no one has your Gift but you, so no one would ever be able to talk to you again," Bruno said, giving Antonio's a parents a look as if he wanted to make sure they understood why the dream had been frightening for Antonio.

Pepa hugged on her son. "Oh, Tonito, I'm so sorry." She kissed the side of his head. Then she grinned and tickled him. "But if you really did turn into a tapir one day, we'd all figure out a way to communicate with you. You could write down what you want to say, and we could read it."

Antonio laughed. "Tapirs can't write."

"But you can, so you would be the only tapir in the whole world who can write," Pepa said.

Dolores was silent, her hands folded in her lap.

"Sis," Camilo said pointedly. "You're holding up the game."

Dolores plucked a card out of her hand and nudged it into place as if the card itself were her unwanted dream. "I dreamed that all day long everyone was talking about nothing except mean things about me," she mumbled. "And even when I tried not to hear anymore, I couldn't shut it out. And the worst part was that everything that everyone said was all true."

"That sounds like a very guilty dream," Bruno said in a kind tone, meeting Dolores' gaze. "What were you accusing yourself of, niña?"

Dolores sighed. "Of being aloof. Of being cruel. Of not caring about anyone but myself. Of liking it when the things I hear hurt people, because I told someone – usually Abuela – and there are consequences for the speaker. That I like getting people in trouble." She sank into herself with misery, collapsing forward and bowing her head.

"Look," Camilo said, looking alarmed and ashamed. "Hey. If I said any of those things when we were arguing, I was just being a brat."

Dolores shook her head, tears welling up and falling. "It isn't you."

All the expression drained out of Bruno's face briefly, and then was replaced with tension, his brow furrowing. "Is it the villagers?"

Dolores bit her lower lip and clenched her hands on her skirt.

"Dolores?" Pepa asked with alarm.

Félix looked confused and upset. "What is this? Is your dream real, hija? Did you hear the village gossiping about you?" His shoulders stiffened, and he frowned. "Because if so, I'm going to crack some heads, and they won't be so lucky now as to be able to eat a magic arepa and be all better."

"Is this why you stopped doing errands for me in the village?" Pepa demanded. "Because some people have been bullying you?"

Dolores wrapped her arms over the top of her head and sobbed, tears dripping down her cheeks.

Her parents hugged her from either side, and Camilo abandoned his spot in the circle and hugged her from behind, and then everyone gathered around her, the card game forgotten.

"Damn it," Bruno hissed. "I should have known something like this would happen." He stood, furious, his hands clenching and unclenching. A rat popped up out of his collar and squeaked. He didn't acknowledge it.

Mirabel, on her knees beside Camilo behind Dolores, felt a wave of helplessness and confusion. I didn't even know. How could I not know that what happened to Tio Bruno was happening to my cousin?

Pepa looked up at Bruno, still stroking Dolores' head. "Don't do it. Whatever you're thinking about doing, don't do it. If you intervene, it will just look like you are who the village says you are."

"Damn it!" Bruno turned away from her. "Then what am I supposed to do?"

"Abuela has to do it," Mirabel said.

Everyone fell silent, including Dolores, and looked at her.

"The bullying will only stop if Abuela says it's not OK," Mirabel said. "And means it. And punishes the first person to disregard her. Because the villagers think that Abuela made the Encanto, and that she has the power to kick them out."

"This has to stop." Bruno clenched his hands and hunched his shoulders. "And I'll make it stop, one way or another. If Madre doesn't come through for us, then I'm taking matters into my own hands. Remember that. I don't care what the villagers think of me anymore, but they are not going to say unjust things about my niece." He stormed toward the front door of the church.

Pepa quickly stood. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to find Madre, and I'm going to tell her to fix this, or else." Bruno yanked down his hood and marched out into the storm, his ruana whipping around him as he closed the door behind him.

"Ay, he should have taken an umbrella," Julieta said, wringing her hands.

"Bruno is right," Félix said, standing as well. "Either that woman fixes this, or I'm going to defend my daughter – the Rubio family way."

Pepa took his arm, clinging. "Please don't."

"What is the Rubio family way?" Camilo asked.

Pepa's expression was guarded. "Félix was quite a troublemaker in his youth. Like all the Rubio boys." She gave her husband a look. "You promised you would give all that up."

"This is my daughter," Félix retorted.

Agustín groaned. "Never cross a Rubio."

Mirabel wished the villagers were more open to gossiping about each other in front of her, but she knew that even though they liked her, they'd never speak freely for fear of things they said getting back to Abuela or the other members of the family. She'd had no idea the Rubio family had a reputation for getting rough with people they didn't like. The times she'd met Félix's four brothers and their parents, she'd liked them and thought they were all as carefree and humorous as her uncle. I guess all families have an 'other' side.

Pepa returned to her daughter, kneeling down and cupping Dolores' cheek gently. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked softly.

Dolores had stopped crying. Her expression was rigidly stoic. "Other than Papa's temper? Because I didn't want to get in trouble for what I was already in trouble with them for."

Pepa's expression became stern. "If someone is hurting you, that is absolutely the right time to tell us. They deserve whatever they are going to get from Bruno, Madre, and your father." She caressed Dolores' cheek. "We love you. We don't want anything bad to happen to you. To think that you were refusing to go into the village because of this – it sickens me to think that I was probably nice to whoever was attacking you. I wish I had struck them down with lightning while I'd had the chance. The Encanto is not meant to protect people like that."

Antonio hugged Dolores' arm. "I wish I could still talk to my animals so that I could have Parce eat them."

Dolores didn't meet their gazes. "No. It's true. I should have been minding my own business. If you knew what I'd done, you wouldn't be interested in defending me. Abuela is going to be disappointed. I should never have taken matters into my own hands."

"You can't do anything to deserve being hurt by the villagers," Mirabel said. "And I hope it wasn't one of my friends. If it was, I'll have to seriously reconsider that friendship."

Camilo looked frustrated. "I know you. You would only have been in someone else's business if you thought someone was in danger, or would be in danger if you didn't do something."

"I never imagined this would all come out," Dolores murmured.

"Well, I think it's better that it did," Mirabel said. She noticed that Dolores wouldn't tell them what had actually happened, and she'd learned enough about her cousin to refrain from pushing. That would only drive Dolores away.

Notes: Chinchón is a Spanish card game similar to gin rummy.