Disclaimer: I do not own Encanto. This story is not for profit.
Chapter 21
October 31st
Mirabel woke up knowing in the fiber of her being that something was wrong. Tension vibrated in her bones. She was groggy and disoriented, but she knew something was going to happen. Then it shot across her mind: It's All Saints Day tomorrow. She relaxed again with a groan and contemplated going back to sleep. Yesterday's festivities were a pale shadow compared to the looming awfulness. All Saints Day: the worst day of the year. Abuela would get all weepy and snappish, Pepa would get weird and withdrawn, and Mamá would become anguished. Mirabel rolled onto her side with a yawn. And now there's Tio Bruno's reaction to deal with. Ugh. Tomorrow is going to suck.
She didn't end up going back to sleep, but she didn't get up for the day, either. The hurricane beating on the house made getting up feel pointless. Another day with nothing to do. Luisa is going to explode.
Everyone shared the same sentiment, dragging themselves out of their blankets and beds slower than usual. Julieta didn't put on coffee until the church clock struck eight. Breakfast wasn't had for another hour as Luisa and Mariano sluggishly put together leftovers with some fresh rice and beans and Julieta made arepas. Camilo and Antonio cooperated with Isabela and Dolores to set the table without any antics.
Mariano said Grace and they all piled food on their plates.
"This time of year makes me reflect on everything," Bruno said, munching an arepa. He waggled the arepa. "Take this, for instance. In our childhood we didn't have these. We didn't have the masa."
"Why not?" Antonio asked.
"What? No arepas?" Camilo asked, taking a big bite out of his. "How did you live?"
Bruno half-smiled. "Well, you see, the people of the Encanto came here running away from bad guys. Most people had only enough food for a short journey, some changes of clothes, and family heirlooms that were easily carried. The Encanto is a paradise, but it was completely wild when our people settled here. Corn isn't wild. It's a crop food. No established settlements, no corn. Right?"
"If that's true, how come we have corn now?" Camilo asked, finishing his first of many arepas.
Bruno grinned and gestured at Isabela. "Your prima grew it when she received her Gift."
Mirabel looked at Isabela with shock. "What? I thought you grew nothing but flowers until we had our talk."
Isabela shook her head. "What happened was, after I grew crops for the first time, the farmers took over, and I wasn't needed anymore. I was relegated to making things pretty." She sighed. "That's why at first I thought I had a great Gift, and then I got bored, and then I started feeling like it wasn't so great after all, and people were praising me, and I felt like, 'But why? What I did before was great, not all this flower stuff.'" She ate a forkful of rice and beans.
Mirabel was suddenly hyperaware of how much on their plates Isabela was probably responsible for. Rice, beans, corn…Yikes. And none of it without Isa's Gift.
"Without Isabela, we might have starved to death," Bruno said. "See, our ability to harvest, forage, and grow food wasn't keeping up with the village. We had more mouths to feed than we had food to give."
Mirabel suddenly thought back to the conversation she and Bruno had about the Gifts responding to Abuela's needs. Of course. Of course Isa grows food. That's what Abuela was worried about when Isa's 5th birthday came around.
Antonio asked Pepa, "What did you eat before there was corn? We eat corn every day."
"A lot of fruit," Pepa said. "So much fruit I remember being sick of it. I cried when Isabela grew corn and we got to have arepas and tortillas for the first time. Madre and other village women who had handled it before needed to show Julieta what to do with the masa."
Bruno nodded. "The first hot, fragrant arepa of Julieta's I ever ate made me feel like I'd died and gone to Heaven."
Julieta laughed. "And that started the town's obsession with my arepas."
"So it all goes back to not having corn," Luisa said. "I never knew that."
"Well, you were only a baby," Julieta said. "I don't think you could have remembered how much fruit we gave you to eat before Isa grew all the crops we had formerly been missing."
Félix said in a joking tone, "The number one use for your Gift was to cure tummy aches before Isabela came along to save us."
Agustín groaned. "Ay, I grew so tired of locust."
"I used to love the wild blueberries," Bruno said. "Do we still pick those every year?"
"No, we stopped doing that," Julieta said.
"I want to pick blueberries," Antonio said.
Bruno chuckled. "Then I'll take you blueberry picking. That was one of my favorite activities with your siblings and cousins."
"Not that very many blueberries came back with you," Pepa grumbled.
"You were just like a little boy," Julieta added.
Bruno looked embarrassed. "Well…it isn't as though we were starving. We could do it for fun and no one would get hurt. So…why not snack on them immediately?"
"Did we go blueberry picking, tio?" Mirabel asked wistfully. She couldn't remember anything before her disastrous 5th birthday, like it had wiped out her former life.
"We sure did," Bruno said.
Julieta smiled wryly, giving Bruno a look. "And you brought her back purple. Purple hands, purple face, purple stains all over her dress. She even had purple on her knees."
Mirabel giggled. "What happened? Did I fall into the bucket or something?"
"No, you were just very enthusiastic," Bruno said. "It was cute."
"Ay, it took me forever to get the blueberry stains off of you," Julieta said. "At dinnertime, Mamá could still tell something had happened."
"I remember," Abuela murmured. "I'm afraid my reaction was stiff and stuck-up, and I couldn't see the humor in it at all." She sighed.
Isabela squirmed. "And I felt embarrassed, and I took it out on you, Mirabel. I'm sorry. I yelled at you for upsetting Abuela."
"I think I'm glad I don't remember this," Mirabel said with an eye roll. At least this is a change from starting to talk about Abuelo Pedro too much. Can we at least delay The Day of Pedro? She knew that if she had met her Abuelo, she would have loved him, but that wasn't the same as wanting to hear everyone pound their chests about Pedro all day long for 48 hours straight.
"My Mamá still eats jocote, for the health benefits," Mariano volunteered.
That got his mother and Abuela talking about the health benefits of various wild fruits that could still be found just outside the town. Mirabel saw that everyone acted relieved, and she had to wonder if Mariano had drawn them away from the awkward topic on purpose. Maybe he's not just a big, dumb hunk. That was…kind of perceptive of him.
Shortly after breakfast there came pounding at the door that sounded like fists, not the work of the storm. Mariano opened the door and three ruana-clad figures stumbled in. He shouldered the door shut against the wind. "You're wet. Here, take those off, get to the kitchen for coffee and Julieta's arepas. They're not magic, but they're warm and comforting."
The newcomers gladly handed Mariano their ruanas to hang up and revealed themselves to be Señor and Señora Orozco and their 14-year-old son Ramiro.
Señora Guzmán came to check out the commotion and see her visitors. "¡Dios mío! Are you all right?" Señora Orozco's hair was falling out of its bun. Osvaldo's hair was wet and mussed from the wind. Ramiro's shirt was on crooked, as if he had dressed hastily. "Come in, come in." She herded them into the kitchen and sat them down at the table with coffee and arepas.
"What's happened?" Julieta asked.
Osvaldo grimaced. "Our house could not withstand the force of the wind any longer."
Julieta gasped. "You could have been crushed!"
"It's not that bad," Osvaldo said. "Thankfully. But part of our roof blew away and let the wind and the rain inside. We could not stay. A neighbor and I tried to cover the holes with a tarp and weigh it down with some bricks, but the wind is too strong. That's how my son and I got soaked."
Señora Orozco said, "We came here because we know your house is the finest and sturdiest house left in the Encanto, and you have always said that those in need should come to you or to the church. The church is too far." She took a drink of her coffee.
"You did the right thing," Señora Guzmán said. "You are welcome to shelter with us until the hurricane is over."
"We will assess the storm damage as a town and rebuild whatever is necessary," Abuela said. "I am thankful you were not hurt, and I am sorry about your home."
"Thank you," Señora Orozco said tearfully.
Pepa brought towels and draped them around the Orozcos' shoulders. "This is terrible. Just terrible."
"I feel terrible that I ever complained about your control over your Gift," Osvaldo said. "Even at your worst, the weather was never like this. If the miracle does come back, I will get down on my knees and thank God."
Mirabel glanced around and saw that Bruno had fled. I don't blame him. Osvaldo is one of the people who complained about you. And now that Padre Agudelo has put his foot down, if you confront each other Osvaldo is going to be embarrassed, and you're going to feel humiliated…poor tio.
"We don't know what the future holds, but we know we will continue to thrive as an Encanto," Abuela said. "You all have shown that we are strong as long as we are together. The magic was never what made us strong. All along, it has been our hearts."
Ramiro and Camilo were part of the same friend group, so they went off to a corner of the house, talking about the storm and how bad it was and about this girl Ramiro liked and on and on. Mirabel found it very boring.
However, there was no way to keep Osvaldo and Bruno from being in the same place eventually, and it happened after lunch, which Bruno circumvented by taking a nap and having Antonio bring him a couple arepas. Pepa, Julieta, Félix, and Agustín agreed to all share a single room and have some of them sleep on the floor so that the Orozcos could have the other spare bedroom upstairs. Bruno left the Madrigal spare bedroom at the same time that Osvaldo changed clothes for supper, and there they were, facing each other.
Antonio had run and gotten Mirabel and they hid on the stairs watching.
"So uh, Bruno," Osvaldo said.
Bruno kept staring, looking more and more like he was wishing he was back in the walls of the old Casita. "Uh-huh…Sorry about your house. Um…didn't see it coming."
Osvaldo rubbed the back of his neck. "You're, uh, really good with spackle."
"Oh, no, that wasn't me, that was Jorge and Hernando," Bruno said, as if he just couldn't help himself.
"I'm pretty sure it was you."
"No, see, Hernando is who I am when my hood is down, and Jorge usually has a bucket on his head."
"Oh. Okay. Well, that explains the bucket."
And that like that it was over. Osvaldo walked past him and Mirabel and Antonio scrambled down the stairs as quickly and quietly as possible to avoid being caught spying.
Mirabel, Antonio, Osvaldo, and Bruno walked in on Camilo and Ramiro getting into an argument in the living room.
"Because your uncle is cursed!" Ramiro shouted.
"Bruno didn't break your house!" Camilo shouted back.
They tackled each other in the same moment and wrestled on the floor.
Bruno ran to one side and Osvaldo to the other, and after a couple of tries, they pried the boys apart, each taking their own.
"Let go of me! He ruined our house!" Ramiro shouted.
Camilo yanked against Bruno's hold, but couldn't break it. "What're you stopping me for? You're seriously going to let him say that?"
"You don't understand how entrenched the sentiment is," Bruno said. "Let it go. One fistfight between you and your friend isn't going to change it. One homily at Mass isn't going to change it. Nothing might change it, ever. This is what it means to be the town scapegoat."
Ramiro struggled against his father's hold and raged. "You're a curse! We should have driven you out of town the moment you showed up again! Now you've brought a hurricane down on our heads! There won't be a town by the time it's through!"
"Tio Bruno tries to stop bad things from happening!"
"Two weeks of him returning, and you're already under his spell," Ramiro spat.
Camilo flushed, and he gritted his teeth. "I was wrong, okay? I was 5 when he disappeared. I was a kid. I didn't know anything."
"Keep telling yourself that. Harboring him is the biggest mistake you're ever going to make, all of you."
"Okay, now, calm down," Osvaldo said. He turned his son away and gave him a little shove. "We're guests here. Our hostess needs an apology."
Ramiro bowed to an ashen Señora Guzmán. She had stood in the archway connecting the living room and the kitchen and watched the whole thing with an expression of horror. As Ramiro stomped off, she rushed forward. "¡Dios mío! Don Bruno! I am so sorry. Please accept my sincerest apologies for allowing this to happen in my household."
Mariano came into the house with an armload of firewood, wearing a rain poncho. "What is it, Mamá?"
Señora Orozco's voice drifted from the far side of the kitchen, evidently speaking with her son.
Osvaldo looked uncomfortable. "My son has some, ah, wrongheaded ideas about Bruno." He let out a sharp, false laugh. "I don't know who he's been talking to, but I've got to set him straight. I never, um…" He escaped into the kitchen.
Bruno looked at the floor and petted a rat cupped in his hand. "It's all right."
"It is so not all right," Mirabel said.
Camilo scowled. "Yeah. This officially ends our friendship. He can't apologize enough. I don't care what he says, no one attacks my tio like that. I don't need friends who can't respect my family."
Antonio hugged Bruno's legs. "I know you're not a curse. Te amo, tio."
Bruno looked like he was trying not to cry. "Te amo."
Julieta hurried into the living room and hugged Bruno. "I am so sorry."
"Yeah," Bruno mumbled. "About that…I think you're all being too hard on Ramiro. He's young, he doesn't know, he's – he's –"
"A jerk," Antonio piped up.
Bruno looked at Antonio with a startled expression.
"I can't believe I hung out with him," Camilo muttered.
Mariano had to be gently reminded by his mother that he was standing and staring with an armful of wood for the kitchen. He allowed her to steer him off in that direction.
"Let's not let this get out of hand," Bruno said. "I've seen what happens. We're all under the same roof, sheltering from the same storm. I don't want anybody to cause trouble. I mean it. I won't be happy if I catch you fighting – and that is not an invitation to try to do it where I won't catch you." The rat he held squeaked as if agreeing with him.
"If he picks another fight, I'm not holding back," Camilo said. At Julieta's dirty look, he said, "But I promise not to start a fight."
Bruno placed his rat on his shoulder and massaged his temples with a grimace. "I guess that's the best I can ask for."
"We want to defend you," Mirabel said. "We love you. And we're glad you're back – no matter what."
"And I love you, and I don't want to cause you any trouble," Bruno said. "All of you. Please. Trust me. This is not a fight you want to pick right now. At the very least, wait until the house is done."
"Because you'll have somewhere to hide?" Camilo asked.
"Exactly."
Mirabel wanted to groan, but she understood. "Fine. I promise I'll wait to kick butt until you're safe in your new room in our new house."
"I guess," Camilo muttered. "Okay, I'll wait." He grinned. "But I will be making a list of everyone who's not nice to you, and I am going to get them back for it."
"I didn't hear that," Julieta said, turning away. "I'm going to go back to helping with supper."
Bruno collapsed in the armchair he'd decided he liked. Antonio climbed onto his lap and snuggled with him.
Mirabel smiled at that.
Luisa finished chopping wood and came inside, and she was not happy to hear what had happened while she was helping Mariano with the firewood for the kitchen. "I won't let my guard down again. I promise, tio."
"It's not your job to be my bodyguard," Bruno said. "Besides, how could you have known?"
"I should have known," Luisa insisted.
Mirabel hugged her. "I'm upset, too."
Luisa deflated and hugged Mirabel in return.
At dinner, the atmosphere was strained, but everyone managed to make polite small talk about things that didn't have to do with Bruno, or the hurricane, or anything else of substance.
Then Osvaldo said, sipping his glass of wine, "I'm sorry that your engagement fell through. You're nice kids. But I guess the magic going all ka-phlooey did kind of kill the mood."
Abuela and Señora Guzmán's voices overlapped. "No – That's not why –"
"I love Isabela regardless, but I respect her wishes," Mariano said.
Osvaldo looked confused. "So, she broke it off? That's not what I heard. I heard –Ouch!" His wife had kicked him under the table. He bent down and rubbed his shin.
Then she pinched her son's ear. "Not a word out of you, either. I'm ashamed of you both. Aren't things bad enough without you two gossiping?" She sighed and looked at the ceiling. "Men!"
That broke the tension.
Agustín offered, "This stew is delicious." Everyone then talked about the food, praising it, and then praised the wine, and the Guzmán wine cellar.
No one commented that evening when Julieta and Agustín slept downstairs and Bruno slept upstairs with Pepa and Félix.
