Chapter Six

What She Left Behind (I)

October 31st, 2017

[Land of the Living]

Several Hours Prior...

It was Rosa, surprisingly, who moved first. She went rushing through the gate after Michaela. She shoved her glasses up her nose hastily as she began to run at full speed after her younger cousin and shoved open the gates. They had grown distant over the years, and now more than ever she regretted it. Especially since it was mostly her own fault, she thought. So preoccupied with fitting in and being cool with others her own age, which was more difficult than others would think when you were a Rivera and essentially ostracized from any social gathering anywhere, she kind of...pushed Michaela to the side. She winced, remembering how she had gone as far as tell Michaela to go find other 'kid friends' her age, because Rosa was almost grown up and didn't have time to play little kid games with her.

She'd see Michaela playing tag with Benny and Manny in the courtyard from her room when studying, or from the workshop, and bitterly wish she didn't have to try so hard to fit in, or desire it so badly she chose to push her family away. Because while she regretted it, it was still a choice she made and continued to make. Michaela would never mind if she joined in...

Just a few minutes ago, Michaela had almost looked as bubbly as she had been as a child, so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to drive everyone mad with her incessant chattering. It had been annoying sure, but the familia would be empty without it. How long had it been since Rosa had seen Michaela like that? Not just smiling at someone's joke or making her own wisecracks, but genuinely being so excited to share something with her family that she was shaking in place and practically incoherent in her excitement? Years. The answer was years. Because the one thing Michaela wanted to do, wanted to share, was something the Rivera family was incapable of accepting. Music. And she had known it.

"Rosa, where are you going?" Her mother called from behind her. She turned back over her shoulder with a fierce expression her eyes. "After Michaela!" She continued running, ignoring her groaning muscles from helping carrying decorations and supplies for the workshop around all day.

Abel came up besides her. "Where do you think she went?" He looked at her, voice rumbling in his chest and low with worry. "Let's check out the plaza first. She was going on about that stupid talent show earlier, remember?" She pretended the irate tone of her voice and the harsh words stemmed from anger and not worry. The sound of their shoes against the street echoed loudly in her ears as she tried to push down rising fear.

Michaela had been pretty fast, even as a kid. She seemed to have gotten even faster, because Rosa didn't see a sign of her as the siblings continued racing down the streets. Not her red hoodie or her braided hair. Would she be fast enough to avoid the creeps that came out at night? Santa Cecilia was pretty safe, but with the town so crowded this holiday, it would be too easy for a stranger to hide inside the crowd and snatch Michaela up when she was least expecting it. She swallowed down the bile raising in the back of her throat at the thought.

No. They'd find her. They had no choice but to find her. Especially since Abuelita hadn't had the right to do that, regardless of whether or not it was against family rules. Not in front of the family, not ever. She tried to tell herself it was just for Michaela she thought that, and not the carefully tuned violin hidden away in an old shoe box beneath her bed.

She had snuck out to the plaza too. Rosa had seen...she had recognized Michaela beneath the feather and sequin masks, the girl hidden beneath the swirling skirt. She didn't know where Michaela learned how to dance, but damn, she was good at it. The mysterious singer from the plaza people raved about until they were practically frothing at the mouth with pride. Yet, she had never spoken a word. She could only watch as Michaela hid herself behind layers of disguises at home, and only showed her true face on stage beneath a mask. How ironic.

Michaela had been radiant, like a star from heaven come down to grace the earth. Antonio, her friend, certainly thought so. More than once, Rosa had found him staring at Michaela with such yearning in his eyes that it was painful and intimate just looking at him, like she was intruding on some private moment. They were both pining idiots in love and it made her want to lock them in a closet together or smack their skulls together until they both got the idea to kiss.

(Most of their classmates had a betting pool on when he'd ask her out, but you'd never hear that from Rosa. It's not like she's the one who started it. Nuh Uh. No way).

Antonio...he was a mariachi, wasn't he? He'd be at the plaza tonight. Even if he wasn't there to perform, he'd definitely be there. He was Michaela's friend, she almost never saw the two apart when Michaela wasn't at home. He'd definitely know where she was, or at least keep her cousin from doing something reckless and stupid until they could get her back home.

Abuelita needed to apologize, and not just for the guitar. They all did.

Elisa moved to where the shattered remains of Michaela's guitar lay scattered on the ground. The white painted slivers of wood looked like white flower petals decaying at the edges, pulled from the stem of a flower and left to die. That stupid thing...what was it? She had done it when she was younger, hoping beyond hope and praying that her husband liked her.

They love me...They love me not...

Everyone always thought of their own wants, but never the need of the flower. Once you snap its stem, sever it from the ground...you've killed that flower. It is dead, unable to live again even if you replant it in hopes of reviving it. Worse still, each time you twist its fragile stem in your fingers, you are hhurting it. ulling off its petals one by one, you are mutilating it. When you have no use for it at all anymore...

You discard it. You leave the remains to rot.

Michaela was the flower, hurt, being broken off at the stem (cut off without anyone listening to her)...her dreams shattered and left to decay on the ground. She tried to gather up the shards of the wood, the neck of the guitar, to put it back together. That was useless of course. You can't bring the dead back to life. A few moments ago, she had not seen something in Michaela simply just break. Something in Michaela had shriveled up and outright died.

Something like trust.

The courtyard was silent as she struggled back to her feet, motioning for her husband to let her rise on her own. Small rivulets of red trickled from where the wood had scratched her hands. Had Michaela felt the sting of this, when she was making this guitar? Elisa faced her mother with an emotion close to grief in her eyes. Almost disgust. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. "Why would you do something like that? Why?"

She looked down, looked up again, as though the ground, the walls, the confines of the hacienda would offer her some answers. All she got back from them were blank, mocking jeers and sneers. She looked at Elena again. "Why Mama?" Anger began bubbling in her veins, anger she didn't have a right to feel but burned a hole straight through her warm-blooded heart anyway. "Why?!" It was the type of anger that made your head feel like it was swelling, like all the blood in your body was forcing its way through the tiniest veins running just beneath the skin covering your forehead.

The type of anger that made you want to scream, to throw yourself on the ground, to kick and bite and scratch!

It was almost astonishing, how quiet her mother seemed now. So unsure of herself. After all, Elena Rivera had never been unsure of herself. She had always been firm and set in her decisions, regardless of whether anyone else agreed with them! Regardless on whether or not she should have consulted others when she did not! Elisa felt her cheeks turn red as they always did when she was furious, or when she was lying. It was an annoying giveaway, or a useful hint to stay out of her way. When Elena spoke, it was at first so quiet that Elisa did not hear her mother. All she saw was the moving lips.

Then Elena spoke louder. "Papa Imelio always said no mus-" Elisa snapped. "And Papa Imelio is dead, Mama! He's been dead since I was four years old! His wife, the entire reason for our goddamned music ban, had probably been dead even longer! For all we know, she could of died and we just never knew! She could have been kidnapped or even fucking murdered in the streets!" Her voice softened a little and her eyes began watering.

"You know I respect Papa Imelio as much as you do. It's not easy raising a four year old child on your own and supporting two other teenagers when you're barely an adult yourself. He had to build our family up from almost nothing. Hell, I remember sitting on his lap and hearing him read me bedtime stories before he passed. I was the one who..." She choked a bit here. "I was the one who went to wake him up one morning to find his skin was cold like ice and clammy and that he had no pulse." There was an intake of breath from Elena, from everyone in the courtyard. The sound of phantom sirens were wailing in Elisa's ears. "But that does not excuse what you just did to Michaela. Not to me, and it sure as hell won't mean anything to her." Her words were laced with venom, borderline blasphemous. The family, those still in the courtyard, took a step back.

(Benny and Manny had been sent to Mama Coco's room, to keep her company and not have to deal with...whatever the hell was going on.)

Elisa had always been rather gentle and tame, the peacemaker of the family. Very rarely did she get angry or particularly stubborn about something. When she did, it was best to watch out. Her words were brutal and cut down to the bone like a knife. Elena had always wondered where she got it from. Not even Mama Coco was that harsh, though she had always been a firm hand, back when her health and memories had been good and strong. Then Elisa took a step back.

"I'm going to look for Michaela. Come hell or high water, you better have a damn good apology for her when we find her. You had no right to do that." Her voice cracked on the last words, and she pretended she couldn't feel the trails of liquid salt dripping down her face, striding after Rosa and Abel (or rather, walked as quickly as a pregnant woman could). They'd most likely be heading towards the plaza by now. Most of Michaela's age group, and their own, would be there celebrating. Michaela snuck down that way often enough. They'd be most likely to find her there...but if not...

Lucas spoke before she did, not planning on stopping her, but instead placing his jacket around her shoulders. "Abel and Rosa are most likely headed to the plaza, most kids their age will be there and its most likely the first place Michaela would run off to. Michaela hangs out in the cemetery often as well, so we'll check there first. If you feel like helping at any time soon, check the school area as well. Spread out from the house as much as you can. She probably wants to get as far away from us as possible. However, Someone should stay here to watch Mama Coco and the twins." The last was added pointedly, while he was staring directly at Elena.

It went unspoken that the matriarch's presence during the search would do more harm than good at this point.

Elisa turned her thoughts back to her daughter. Instead of telling Michaela to drop the matter, she should have supported her. That was what she had said earlier, that family supports each other. She was such a hypocrite, probably the worst mother ever to walk the earth. Of course, Mama's (Elena's) opinion would always differ from that. Only an act of God, or maybe a trip to the land of the dead, would ever get her to change her mind about Mama Coco's Mama.

If the land of the dead really did exist, if that woman died instead of simply abandoning her family, she must be a very sad woman indeed. Elisa didn't even know her name. How horrible it must be, to know you have family, and to know that they curse you without even knowing your name. For some reason, she didn't think Papa Imelio, ever stern even in the faint memories from her early childhood, would forgive or listen to whatever the woman had to say so easily. Like Elena actually.

With her husband at her side, they headed off to graveyard. She turned to her husband, only then displaying the anxiety brewing beneath the mask of a mother's righteous anger. "Mi amor, do you think Michaela's okay? If we don't find her- If we can't find her..." He squeezed her hand, and the baby gave a reassuring kick to her mother's stomach. He looked down at her with gentle eyes.

"Michaela's a smart girl, and she still has that pepper spray you gave her for emergencies. Don't talk like that. Santa Cecilia's still a pretty small town, so she can't have gotten too far away. One step at a time, Elisa...we have to get through this one step at a time. We'll find her." As the couple continued walking, calling for their girl, a traitorous voice whispered in the back of her mind. One step at a time is never enough to catch up with a girl always three steps ahead.

Hesitating for only a second, she sent an unspoken prayer to a woman she didn't even know the name of.

To my Great-Grandmother, god forbid this ever happens, but...please protect Michaela should she arrive at the land of the dead alone and confused and frightened. Please. God...Give me the hope that we will find her soon, and the strength to live on if we can't. Please, let me find my daughter and bring her home safe.

Antonio felt sick to his stomach as Michaela vanished into the crowd at the sight of his glare. Her face had crumpled when he did that, almost as though it had been a blade that cut right into her chest with deadly precision. She had been crying. His cheek ached where Elena Rivera had struck him earlier, and with a worsening sensation in his gut, he wondered if she had been the cause of Michaela's tears as well. Just as Mariana had mentioned...

His lips were numb, almost burning where they were pressed against Mariana's. In his haste to break the kiss, he almost shoved her to the ground. They both stumbled as they broke apart, and the girl looked up at him with questions in her eyes...as if they had both wanted that kiss. Her voice was slick and sweet and melancholy, to the point of being grotesque. "Why did you push me away?" She looked at him with wide, almost innocent eyes. As if she didn't understand why he pushed her away. Almost being the key word. Her gaze was shadowed somehow.

"Why did you kiss me?" He returned, instead of answering. His hand came up to touch his lips, and he almost retched in anger. In disgust. "I didn't ask for you to kiss me. I don't appreciate being kissed without giving consent either." As he took a step away, she took two steps forwards, hair sweeping forwards over her shoulder as she reached for him. Her fingers skimmed the lapels of his suit lightly as she looked up at him and a frown took hold of her countenance.

"Am I not attractive enough? Do I lack the beauty, the wealth, the reputation to seem appealing to you?" She tightened her grip on his suit. "Why do you push me away Antonio?!" Mariana seemed angry, almost desperate. Her eyes had a wild, frightened glow to them - like a stray cat afraid of human's after being tricked and preyed on and thrown out too many times. He spoke without thinking, blunt and tactless. "I push you away because you aren't who I love, regardless of how many times you confess to me or how many kisses you throw at me!" He paused, certain his words weren't coming out right. "You aren't her, and it wouldn't be fair to either of you to pretend otherwise!"

Mariana dropped her arms with a blank-slate expression on her face. Her voice became empty, almost mindless. "Her? You're talking about Rivera, aren't you?" At first , her voice remained toneless. As she spoke though, it began to drip with ill-will and poorly restrained disdain. "Michaela Rivera, the daughter of Elisa Rivera, the granddaughter of that crazy bitch Elena who beats everyone who plays music? That girl made of nothing but shoe leather and stitches and polish? That girl with no friends, no real wealth, and a psychotic family hell-bent on keeping music away from themselves out of respect for a dead man?"

She grabbed him by the collar, dragged him to the back of the plaza where people would pay little mind to anything going on. "Why?!" She demanded. "Why does that nobody of a girl capture your attention so much?! What is it that she has that I fail to measure up to, that I fail to surpass?! Is it because she is kind? Pure and Innocent? Why?! What is it that makes her so appealing when-!"

Antonio's eyes darkened when she called Michaela a nobody. "How dare you call her something like that?" he snapped back. "What is wrong with you? Just a few hours ago, you were acting as though you were sympathetic with her!" Mariana sneered. "Sympathy? For her? I hate her. I hate Rivera. Hate her, hate her , hate her, hate her hate her hate her! Sympathy for a Rivera? From me? Knowing who my mother is? It was a lie to get your attention." She spat wickedly.

"Your mother? what the hell does she have to do with this? Was it all lies? Everything? Even that you suspected she was getting hurt because she hung out with me, because I convinced her to hang out at the plaza. That she was being hit at home? Verbally abused, neglected? Was that lies too?"

Antonio felt sick, no he felt positively nauseated. Mariana, earlier, had come up to him shortly after Michaela had left the plaza. She had practically dragged him to her house, where he was sat up in the family living room where she gave him ice for the bruise on his cheek. They had walked through that little local museum to de la Cruz, her great-great grandfather, the one with the clothes from his earliest years and performances, and that old portrait found in his mansion. She had told him, warned him that it was possible Michaela was...

"I think she might be getting abused at home."

Mariana's statement was so absurd, Antonio froze in his tracks. He turned to the girl, and said as much. "What? There's no way that's possible. If anything, she's being sheltered by her overprotective abuelita." He didn't expect Mariana's face to harden as it did. "Exactly!" she barked out, beginning to pace back and forth in front of him, wringing her hands.

"Elena Rivera is too overprotective! It wouldn't surprise me if Michaela tried to take things into her own hands, only to get punished severely for it later. She hit you just for handing Michaela your guitar! Imagine what she could do as punishment to Michaela herself, who isn't even supposed to be at the plaza when no 'self-respecting' Rivera would ever show up there!? If anything, you got off easy compared to what she might go through."

"Michaela's never shown up bruised or having any sort of bad injury though." Antonio chuckled nervously, trying to placate his agitated companion. Scowling, she picked up a nearby rag and began dusting some of the old glass cases and straightening the dressed up mannequins. Then she moved over to the largest display in Santa Cecilia, the woman's portrait.

She dusted the gilt frame, and looked approvingly upon the face of the subject. She was dressed in simple finery, a gorgeous blue dress and diamond choker. Her hair was done up, and she smiled very slightly. Her eyes were distant and her smile sad. She wore a golden ring on her hand. Some believed it was a posthumous painting of a lover. Mariana set down the rag and took a deep breath, as though channeling all of her self-restraint not to punch him in the face. Her expression was twisted somehow. Twisted and dark.

"There are more types of abuse then just physical, Antonio. abuse doesn't always leave a physical mark." She started pacing again. "She could be verbally abused, there's emotional abuse...hell, she might even be neglected with how skinny she is. You don't see it? How anxious she gets whenever her family is around? More specifically, that matriarch? Even her mother...Elisa once gave me a bracelet made from cowrie shells, back when Michaela and I were young and still..." Her eyes were almost cloudy before she shook herself out of the off-topic reverie. "They might not even be aware that's abuse. Maybe even Elena Rivera herself doesn't realize it, but still..."

Her hands trembled, and for a second, Antonio almost believed she was talking about herself and not Michaela. More than that...while he didn't want to believe it, he could see where she got the idea Michaela was being abused.

Michaela...didn't talk much about how things were at the Rivera Hacienda. When he asked, she would always say it was the same as usual and immediately launch straight into one topic or another she knew would snare his attention. She didn't talk much at school either, was always pretty quiet and didn't really talk to anyone but him either. Something Mariana had said earlier caught his attention.

"You said that I got off easy, earlier in the plaza. What did you mean by that?"

Mariana paled and bit her lip. She wouldn't look at him and began to fidget with her hands. "I-..."

"I don't have any proof of this, but it's common knowledge around town that you're friends with Michaela. She might...be protecting you, by...taking your punishment for herself at a later date. No one ever sees Michaela around near the end of the week. Officially, she's helping in the shoe workshop, but...sometimes I think it might just be a way for her to hide any possible injuries she gets from being punished."

Her voice was little more than a whisper as she finished speaking. "I...need to get more proof, and it that's the case, it might not just be Michaela in danger. Until then though, it might be best for you to avoid her. It may be that hanging around her...is making the situation, if there is a situation, worse."

End of Chapter.

Again, pretty short. At some point, I am going to redo this entire...arc? Sub-arc? I don't know what to call it (Mariana's Antics?). I couldn't really see how I would fit in the little nuance between Mariana's behavior, Antonio's behavior, and everything that happens up to the Living Family meeting Imelio in this chapter so it's probably going to seem a little (or very) half-assed. While written in 'flashback' form, it's them explaining to Imelio what exactly happened after Elena smashed the guitar.

Also, I'm going to say this straight out. Mariana is not romantically inclined towards Antonio. Antonio is fairly rich, Mariana is famous and to a certain someone who has not been introduced yet, it's a match made in 'heaven'. (More specifically, their little heaven. ) Said person does not like most of the Rivera's but has a keen eye on one of them. She takes after her great-grandfather in that regard and has little care for anything else, even sacrificing her own daughter's well-being (hinthinthint).

Keep in mind, Mariana is the daughter of an actress, the great-great granddaughter of Ernesto de la Cruz. She was raised in the limelight and more than anything else...She had to learn how to pretend.

It's not as glorious a life as Michaela believes...

One reviewer on A03 pointed out bastard children weren't highly regarded. They are right, and the child of Ernesto de la Cruz was no exception. They were born in 1924. Before de la Cruz died, they had to prove themselves to him, and even then many people believed they were just after the money and fame. That child, and their descendants, had to fight to grab the limelight and maintain it to maintain their legitimacy. That's not taking into consideration some more...unsavory rumors about them.

The plot is pretty convoluted, and my younger self in my baby fanfic years would be so confused reading it, hence why I will rewrite it at some point (but at this point I lack the experience to write it as well as I want to). Since I have nothing else to say, thank you very much for your reviews! Please enjoy this chapter to the fullest extent possible (or burn it in a bonfire, up to you).