"Where are you, where are you?" she mumbled to herself, pressing her ear to the wall. Normally the sounds found her, but now she had to try harder to focus. She never realized how big Casita really really was, everything always seemed so close to her, but realistically there were hundreds of places Bruno could be.

She had always wondered how the rest of the family didn't know he was there all along, but she understood now how much harder they had to work to understand the things that she heard without trying. She focused on the the familiar acoustics, trying to narrow down what subtle sounds she associated with him. Humming, knocking, scurrying….

The rats!

She turned and saw Antonio listening attentively as the rat in his hand spoke to him. She was relieved to see that her little brother wasn't losing his brand new gift quite yet, but her heart ached thinking of how he was taking the current chaos. Chaos was not a foreign concept in Casita, but this was almost too much at once and she knew that was no time for secrets.

"Antonio, did the rats yell you where Bruno is?" she asked.

The rat and her brother exchanged a quick glance and he stumbled on his response. "Uh… who?"

"There's no time for that, I know tio Bruno lives in the walls with the rats and I know the rats are always talking and squeaking and I know you can understand them so I know you know something, and I need to find him before the whole Casita comes down!"

"Oh…right," said Antonio as the rat ran up his arm to whisper in his ear. "Um, they said there's alot of places he could be. Usually now he's near the kitchen, but last time they saw him he was patching the cracks but he was running out of spackle so he could be-."

Dolores let out an exasperated sigh. She knew what Antonio was going through, knowing too much and having to sort through it. But she needed to be direct. "Bruno!" she yelled. Antonio had never heard his sister yell, he didn't know her voice could be that loud.

"Woah," he marveled.

"Bruno!" she yelled again.

"What if mama hears you?" whispered Antonio.

"No one ever hears me," she said, looking around for a response. "Besides, I'm not gonna talk about Bruno; I'm gonna talk to Bruno. Tio Bruno where are you!?"

"Hey!' came a whisper, the first time in years a whisper had been a just a whisper to Dolores. She placed her ear against t wall and started pounding until she heard a knock back. "Haha!" she laughed victoriously.

"This is the weirdest week ever," said Antonio as he watched his sister talk to the wall.

"I thought we had a agreement;" said Bruno through the wall. "You bring me arepas, I give you carefully crafted drama once a week. Why are you trying to blow my cover all of a sudden?"

"Because the house is crumbling all of a sudden!"

"It's actually been doing this for awhile now," he admitted sheepishly. "Now, Hernando has a alot more things to patch if you would stop drawing so much attention-."

"Tio Bruno, listen!' pleaded Dolores, she heard his footsteps stop. "Your vision was wrong!"

"What?" He said surprised. "Hey kid, I know I don't always say what people wanna hear but I have a 100 percent success rate. Even when I don't mean to."

"But my prophecy, your vision for me was wrong," she said. "Or at least, it wasn't final."

"What do you mean?"

"You said the man that I love would be engaged to someone else," she breathed, the house rumbling beneath heir feet. "And you were right, but she doesn't love him. That's a part you didn't see. So your visions can be undone."

"Okay, well that's the first one in 45 years I not gonna hold my breath,"

"Tio, whatever your vision about Mirabel was maybe we can undo it," she said.

"We already tried that," said Antonio.

"What?" asked Dolores surprised she had not heard about it.

"Yeah, Mirabel is fixing everything right now," he said, fully confident in his favorite prima.

"How?"

"All she has to do is get along with Isabela and it'll fix everything," said Antonio and Dolores looked at him as though he was on fire.

She squeaked. "We're doomed," she whispered. "Oh boy, we're really doomed."

"It can't be that bad, right?" asked Bruno. "I mean, last time I saw them they got along fine."

"The last time you saw them Mirabel was Antonio's age," spat Dolores. "Tio Bruno, Luisa has been losing her gift and now mine is fading too. It's only a matter of time before the rest of the family feels it. I can tell Camilo is losing control. Even if Mirabel manages to fix things with Isabela, will that fix everything? Is there anything we can do to help? This can't be all Mirabel's fault, it shouldn't be up to just her to fix it."

"I-I don't know," he mumbled. "The Encanto is so complicated, I don't know what's causing the cracks and the fading... I don't always understand my visions. All I know is they hurt people. Some gift, huh?"

"Tio, we both tend to know too much," she said softly. "People expect that of us and then get upset when we share what we know, because not sharing it creates a burden too heavy, a sound too piercing. But what happens if Mirabel can't-?'

"Mirabel stop!" came Abuela's voice from down below. Dolores ran to the banister and saw Mirabel and Isabela on the ground covered in flowers. She and Antonio quickly ran downstairs and she assumed Bruno stayed to listen in. They joined the scene quietly and cautiously. She could tell that Mirabel had accomplished her goal; it had been ears since she had seen her cousins stand next to each other without antagonizing one another. It had worked! The magic could be saved! But why was Abuela so upset? Why didn't it feel fixed?

And then Mirabel and Abuela fought.

And the cracks got wider.

The next things Dolores knew, she was being lifted by the floors of Casita and was outside in a pile with her family. She was safe.

But Mirabel was gone.

And Casita was gone.

They searched high and low for Mirabel, but there was no sign of her. This never would've happened before, she knew. She'd close her eyes and she'd find Mirabel in seconds. The family could turn to Dolores to tell them she was safe, alive. But now she was completely cut off, her senses all equal. Her mother's and tia's had gone as well. Her mother thought Antonio had been hurt and couldn't suppress her tears, which normally would bring a storm but nothing came, and so she cried without consequence for the first time in years. Tia Julieta rushed to comfort her, grateful Antonio was okay but then realized if he had been hurt she could not heal him. Tia Julieta became frantic, flinging debris looking for Mirabel and though Luisa did not have her former strength she had enough muscle to help. But she had vanished.

So much was happening all at once, something Dolores was familiar with. But now it had to happen up close, it did not come to her, it did not find it, it had her close by. Everyone was talking all at once, overlapping and yelling and loud and... familiar.

"We need to find Mirabel," she said, forcing herself to speak above everyone. "We need to split up and look for her."

"We need to stay together," her father said. "We don't know what's happening!"

"No, I know how sound travels and no matter how loud we are here, the reverb will keep traveling back and even if she hears us unless she's nearby we won't hear her," trailed off Dolores. She scanned the remains of Casita, there was no sign of Bruno, which had to be good. She knew her tio was out there too, did he need to be found or was her searching for Mirabel too? ""We have a better chance of finding her if we call from multiple points."

"I agree," her tio Agustin said instantly, the minute he stepped forward he found himself beside a bee hive. But he did not let that deter him.

As Dolores searched the mountainside calling for her prima, she had a flashback to about ten years ago, doing the same thing. Last time, it was dark. She was younger, she was even less sure what was happening. The grownups went searching for Bruno and tried to worry the children, but they knew nothing could be kept secret from Dolores and enlisted her to help. To hear for any sign of her tio, and indication he was nearby. But tio Bruno did not want to be found, and so he wasn't. Even with her gift.

She hoped that would not be the case with Mirabel.