Godmother
Chapter Three
Notes: I also put this on Tumblr because old habits die hard, I guess.
Same trigger and content warnings apply, it's not going to get any less grim from here.
…..
When Gilberto Vargas joined Los Brutales, their leader had four children with three different mothers. Two of the mothers were dead, one of them ran away with her bodyguard leaving her son behind. Gilberto was brought in by a friend to tailor El Verraco's suit, a job his wife usually did, and ended up staying because being a tailor wasn't paying well in the city. El Verraco offered money and protection, neither of which Gilberto had at the time.
He had a front row seat to see each of El Verraco's children meet their end. The oldest was twenty-two when Gilberto was recruited, groomed to take over from his father before a mole within the militia betrayed him to rivals and he was executed by them. His severed head was sent back to El Verraco in a cloth bag. El Verraco wiped out the rival gang, but it didn't bring his son back.
His second oldest, a bookish young boy that El Verraco often scorned for being weak, suddenly found himself being groomed for leadership in his brother's place. It was clear to everyone but his father that he wanted nothing to do with the militia, but even so it was shocking when he tried to turn them all in to the government. Nothing came of it, but El Verraco couldn't let the matter slide. He brought his son out to the forest one day and came back alone.
His only daughter was largely ignored until she came of age, and then El Verraco traded her to another gang for a stash of weapons. She was dragged away from her home screaming and cursing El Verraco's name, and cursed it doubly when she died in childbirth, along with her child, just over a year later.
At this point El Verraco was starting to worry about his legacy, with only one son left and his wife gone. He had already been looking into magic; there were pockets of magic all around the nation, hidden from society at large. He sent moles out in every direction and had them report back if they found anything. A bruja here, a soothsayer there, most of it amounted to nothing. Then his remaining son was accidentally shot during a firefight with another gang, and whatever little bit of tenderness was left in El Verraco died with him.
Vargas was sent out as a mole into one of these fabled pockets of magic, a little village built around a family with legendary powers. They were careful about who they let in, but not careful enough. Vargas still had contacts from when he was a tailor's apprentice that vouched for him, and his papers were easily forged. He lived on the outskirts of the Encanto, helping out on farms and fixing tears in everyone's Sunday clothes and gathering information on the Madrigals.
There were four young women in the household, and two that were still of child-bearing age if necessary, but their gifts were intimidating. The incredibly strong one wasn't an option, even drugged he'd never be able to smuggle her out. The one with super-sensitive hearing wasn't an option either, he'd have a hard time sneaking up on her and even if he did get her out, the fact that she'd hear all discussions within the militia made her a liability.
The one that caused flowers to bloom at first seemed like an easy enough target, but Vargas was a sensible man; he'd seen the damage plant roots could do to infrastructure, and anyone who could spontaneously grow roses could also grow their thorns.
That left the youngest girl, the one with no gift. The lack of a gift gave Vargas pause, if he brought back a non-magical girl when El Veracco specifically said he wanted a magical girl he could picture his own flayed body strung up on the wall. But the magical estate responded to her, and that was proof enough that she had at least a little magic.
Even better, she was often on her own, and slept in a room that lead directly to a forest path to the mountains. She was the easiest to gather information on, since she was popular in the village and asking around about her yielded up her age, her birthday, her general health and her habits. He learned he could prevent any escape attempts by getting rid of her glasses.
A small part of Vargas regretted what he did; she seemed like a nice girl, all the villagers had a high opinion of her, and El Verraco ruined anyone he got close to. If he thought about it too hard, he wouldn't have wished her fate on his worst enemy.
…..
Luisa had taken to tiptoeing around Casíta, suddenly more aware of how heavy her footsteps were on the floorboards. She had made coffee for her parents, but they were both asleep, her mother curled up on the bed and her father splayed out in an armchair across from her. Neither of them were sleeping well (nobody was), and she'd be furious with herself if she woke either of them.
But just as she set a cup down on the small table by the armchair, Agustin stretched out his limbs with a quiet groan and his eyes fluttered.
"Thank you, hijita," he mumbled.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you..." she whispered.
"I wasn't really sleeping..." Agustin whispered back. "I just closed my eyes for a few minutes..."
Agustin looked like he had aged ten years over the last couple of days. His normally tidy suit was rumpled and stained, and his hair was sticking up in unkempt spikes. Julieta was no better, but at least she had collapsed onto an actual bed. Seeing her parents fall apart so badly was an extra layer of pain on top of Luisa's grief. She tiptoed back out of the room as soon as her father closed his eyes again.
"There you are!" Isabela said, rushing through the hall to grab Luisa's arm.
"Keep it down, they're asleep in there!" Luisa hissed.
"Sorry," Isabela hissed back. "We're having a meeting in my room in ten minutes."
"Who's we?"
"Me, you, Dolores and Camilo."
"Not Antonio?"
"No, we need to keep him out of this."
With that, Isabela rushed away. Luisa peered over the balcony to where her grandmother was sitting at the front door, ready to intercept any visitors and to prevent any of her grandchildren from forging out on their own on hare-brained rescue schemes. Casíta was so quiet now, Luisa could hear Alma sighing to herself.
She made her way to Isabela's room, and having not been in the room since Casíta fell and was rebuilt, she was taken aback by how different it was. All the pretty elegant blossoms were gone, replaced by cacti, knobbled jungle trees and garish tropical flowers. Dolores was already there, perched awkwardly on the warped trunk of a mangrove tree.
"Do you know what this is about?" Luisa asked her.
"Not really," Dolores shrugged. "I hear her muttering all the time but not anything useful..."
"Maybe she has a plan. I'm hoping she has a plan."
Luisa wasn't used to being so useless, even when she lost her gift. All she wanted was for someone to tell her what to do, but they were all just as lost as she was.
"Even the idea of a plan would be nice..." Dolores grumbled. "I hate all this sitting around waiting for something. I mean, I'm grateful for Mariano taking the reins on this thing but..."
"It all feels so hopeless," Luisa sighed, and Dolores nodded.
Isabela threw open the door, dragging Camilo in with her. She wasted no time getting right to the point.
"Okay, here's the situation," she began, pushing Camilo towards the mangrove trunk with his sister. "Abuela doesn't want us leaving the Encanto because she thinks our gifts won't work if we're far away from it, right?"
"Right," they all agreed.
"I have been leaving the Encanto. I got about sixty miles out before my gift started weakening."
"Wait," Luisa asked. "How did you get out? Abuela locked all the doors and windows..."
"I sent a bunch of vines through the chimney and climbed out that way, it's not that hard," Isabela answered. "That's not important, the important thing is that my gift still worked even though I was pretty far out."
"How weak are we talking?" Dolores asked.
"I could still make vines, some flowers, nothing too complex or bulky. I tried to make a tree and I just got half a sapling. It's better than nothing. If we can figure out where Mirabel is..."
"That's a big if, Isa," Dolores sighed. "And the four of us against a whole militia, at half strength?"
"I'm not saying we should go in all guns blazing! But we could trail the rival militia who are out to get Los Brutales, right? You could use your hearing to track them..."
"...and I could keep us safe on the outside..." Luisa murmured.
"Exactly! The other militia isn't going to care about Mirabel, in the chaos we could sneak in and bust her out!"
"You mean I could sneak in, right?" Camilo drawled. "So what happens if my powers go all out of whack as soon as I'm in the enemy base and I get a baby head? They'll shoot me on sight!"
"We can plan a quick exit strategy," Isabela reassured him. "I could pull you out with a vine or something..."
"This sounds insane, Isa," Dolores said, folding her arms with a frown. "Your Mama and Papa are in pieces already, what do you think will happen if they lose you or Luisa as well?"
"If it was you that was taken, do you think Mirabel would give up on you? Even without a gift?"
Dolores said nothing but dropped her eyes to the floor, glittering with unshed tears.
"I'm in," Luisa announced. "Just tell me what to do, I'll do it."
Camilo sighed, rubbed the back of his neck, then finally put up his hand.
"I'm in too," he said. "As long as you promise you'll pull me out as soon as it gets hairy."
"Deal," Isabela agreed.
They all turned to look at Dolores. For a moment that felt tortuously long, she said nothing. Isabela paced on the spot nervously; they needed Dolores for this to work.
"Okay, I'm in on one condition," she said at last.
"Sure!" Isabela said, visibly relaxing.
"We don't do anything until Mariano comes back with new information. We're no use to Mirabel if we just start wandering around looking for gang members."
"Of course!"
With that, they dispersed. Luisa hung back a little longer to speak with her sister alone (although Dolores was probably listening in.)
"Are you doing okay?" she asked Isabela. "Sneaking out of the house, that's a bit..."
"Let me guess, it's 'not like me'?" Isabela scoffed. "Well, there's nothing normal about any of this."
"I just want you to be careful, that's all," said Luisa. "Dolores was right, if anything happened to us..."
"I don't care, Luisa!"
Isabela was shaking with anger, but to Luisa's astonishment tears were running down her face.
"What...?"
"I spent fifteen years being the world's worst sister, and I finally get a chance to actually connect with Mirabel, and some tinpot dictator bastard wants to take that away from me? No, not happening!"
"You weren't the world's worst sister..."
"Yes, I was," Isa sighed, rubbing at her eyes. "And it was so stupid, you know? Remember when she used to try and get out all the time? And Mama kept telling me to use my vines to pull her back in, I was so angry about that 'cos I was just a kid but I held onto that silly grudge for years..."
"Try to get out? Get out of what?"
"Out of Casíta!"
"I don't remember that...that makes no sense, she loves Casíta..."
"Not back then, she was like an animal," Isabela continued. "She was always banging on the doors and screaming...and if she did get out we had to chase her and drag her back in, she bit me so many times..."
"When was this?" Luisa asked.
It sounded nothing like the sister she knew, but there was something vaguely familiar about what Isabela was saying.
Hold the door for me, hijita, okay? Don't worry, she'll wear herself out soon.
"I don't know, she was really little," Isabela said. "Like, she was up and running but she wasn't talking...but you'd gotten your gift by then...you really don't remember?"
She was scared, because the screaming was so loud, and Dolores had run out of the house because it was hurting her ears. The door shuddered on its hinges with the force of tiny fists and feet.
"It's okay, Luisa," Papa told her.
"What's wrong with her?"
"Nothing," Papa chuckled, though his eyes looked worried. "She's fine, she's just throwing a tantrum."
"No, I don't remember," Luisa muttered, more to herself than to her sister.
….
Sleeping was difficult in the cell, but there was nothing else for Mirabel to do besides huddle under her quilt and drift in and out of sleep. She had nightmares of a face with two endless black holes for eyes looming over her, and even when she was awake she thought she could hear a sort of hissing-whisper all around her.
The tall man took her out of the cell twice a day for fresh air and to use the bathroom, and he brought her better meals than the rest of the militia were permitted. El Verraco wanted her in good health since she was to be the mother of his children...
Don't. Don't think about it.
Every time she thought about it, she felt nauseous. But she had lived in denial about her place in the family for years, and she turned to denial now. She brushed it all out of her head as best she could. The optimistic part of her repeated over and over that her family would find a way to rescue her.
They won't. They can't. You're on your own.
The tall man promised that they would be moving out of the cave base soon to an actual building, with a nicer room for her and her own bathroom. It was his twisted way of trying to keep her spirits up, she guessed. If she died of despair, he'd get the blame.
"You've got a visitor on the way," he told her one morning while he was walking her outside the cave (with her shackle still on, like a dog).
"A visitor? What kind of visitor?" she asked, dreading the answer.
"A bruja," he told her. "She's going to test you, see if you really have magic blood."
"What happens if I don't?"
"Let's not think about that, okay? Just appreciate the beautiful sunrise..."
"I could if I could see it. What will your boss do to you if I don't have magic blood?"
The tall man groaned, and tapped a stake in the ground just in front of them.
"Then this is where my head is going to be," he said. "If I get lucky he'll take that first and leave my other bits and pieces alone."
"What will he do to me?"
The tall man hummed and cleared his throat, but ultimately wouldn't give her an answer. She supposed she would also be lucky just to have her head on the stake.
The visitor arrived after nightfall, and Mirabel was woken and brought into the same room she'd met El Verraco in. The room was still dark, little orbs of light from dozens of scattered candles and the heavy scent of incense let her know there was going to be some sort of ritual.
"Dios mío," she heard a woman mutter. "She's a baby. You're a pig, Verracino!"
"I didn't ask for your opinion, Ana," El Verraco's voice boomed from a shadowed corner of the room. "Can you do the ritual or not?"
"I can do it," the woman sighed. "But not with these men in here. Get them out."
The squeak of a dozen or so leather boots filtered out through the door, then it closed with a hard clatter that made Mirabel jump. The tall man took her by the arm and pulled her over to a table, where she could just about see the fuzzy outline of a woman's face. Her eyes were ringed with black paint, large gold circles dangled from her ears. Dressed all in black, she melted into the shadows cast by the candles.
"Get undressed, dear," she instructed. "You can leave your undergarments on, but I need to see your skin for this."
Mirabel's face burned as she undid the knots in the oversized blouse and skirt and let them drop to the floor. She could feel El Verraco's remaining eye trailing over her body from his corner. The tall man at least had the decency to avert his eyes.
Suddenly, the bruja blew a handful of white powder directly into Mirabel's face. Before she had time to even realize what happened, her knees went weak and she toppled over. The tall man caught her before she smashed her face into the table.
"Could've warned me," he grumbled.
"Put her on the table," the bruja told him, ignoring his complaints. He did as he was told.
Mirabel's entire body was numb, she could barely blink. Distantly she felt the bruja pull at her undergarments to expose her stomach, then an odd scratching sensation. In the very edge of her eyeline, she saw the bruja dip a long thin instrument in a bowl. She was writing on her skin.
"Don't worry, chata," the bruja whispered as she moved up to write across Mirabel's chest. "It will all be over soon."
"Is this going to take long, Ana?" El Verraco asked from the darkness.
"It will take as much time as it takes," she replied flippantly. "If she has any magic in her, I will find it. Keep your peace and let me work."
The witch scribbled on every inch of exposed skin, from the soles of Mirabel's feet to her eyelids, finishing with an elaborate circled rune around her navel. She picked up a candle (green, or maybe light blue) and waved it up and down and around the table. Then, when she started a soft-voice chant, Mirabel felt the first pull.
"That's it," the bruja whispered, and begun her chant again, louder.
The pull was excruciating. If she could have screamed, Mirabel would have screamed until the cave collapsed around her. As it was, she could barely breathe through the pain. It felt like a stream of fire was crawling up her throat. Slowly, a golden trickle of dust rose from her mouth into the air.
"Huh," the witch murmured quizzically.
The pull stopped, the fire went back down into her chest and Mirabel sucked in heavy, shaking breaths. The gold dust hung in the air, lazily floating in a small circle, softly hissing.
"What is that?" El Verraco asked, making his way out of the shadows to stare at the golden circle.
"I'm not sure," the bruja said. "I haven't seen this kind of magic before..."
"But it is magic?"
"Absolutely," she said. She never took her eyes off the circle. "It's very old, I can feel that..."
She reached out to touch the circle, only for it to suddenly contort into spikes and lash out at her, accompanied by a high-pitched, unearthly screech. The witch was knocked to the ground by the force of it, clutching her hand, moaning low. The spikes folded in on each other, over and over, until they shot out in all directions, shaking the room hard before they vanished into thin air.
El Verraco showed no concern for the witch. He stared down at Mirabel, stuck on the table, rubbing his chin. It was left to the tall man to help the old woman to her feet. Half of her face was black with blood.
"This is a bad idea, Verracino," she moaned. "This is magic we don't understand. Let the poor girl go..."
"As I've said already," he told her sternly. "I didn't ask for your opinion."
