Note: Although this is in the style of The Haunting of Hill House, it isn't a crossover. You don't need to have seen Hill House to understand this fiction if horror isn't your thing. I've added a few creepy moments to give it that 'Hill House' flavour but kept it light. All you need to know is that Hill House jumps between the past and present exploring each character's unique perspective of a traumatic event in the past. In the case of this fan fiction, it's the night of the failed gift ceremony. Each arc gradually overlaps and builds on the others, sometimes showing the same scene through different characters' perspectives. I've obviously added a lot of background, including how the triplets discovered their gifts, and what Bruno actually said to the dead fish lady and why, but I've tried to base everything on hints from the film, Q&As with the producers, or else let Hill House fill in some of the blanks for me. Otherwise, if it happens in the film, you can assume it happens in my story.
(Updated to make the leaps around the timeline a little easier to follow)
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and all rights belong to Disney. I suspect I might also belong to Disney at this point mind you. I keep checking my body for the trade mark.
Episode One: Welcome to the Family Madrigal
In many ways, a house is like a body. The walls are the bones; the pipes are like veins. A house needs to breathe. It has skin, eyes, a face. It can even have a personality. A home can feel happy, warm, and inviting, or else depressed, cold, and lonely. Yet however much it may appear so, a house is not truly a living being. It is nothing but a collection of bricks, and wood, and stucco. Not the Casita, though. La Casa Madrigal, as it stood proud against the magical Encanto, was very much alive.
The home of the Madrigals was not built, it was born. Born from a miracle gifted to the young family in their darkest moment. Born from love, loss, and despair. The Casita was a prayer, it was a hope, but most of all it was a wish. A wish for a safe place where the family could retreat and grieve in solitude, free from the threat they and their fellow townspeople had been fleeing. To that end, the Casita had come to life to shelter them and hold them safely in its arms. Its doors and walls, stones and tiles, all moving and shifting to interact with its precious charges. The Casita could communicate with the wave of a door or the shrug of a drawer. It kept the family safe and watched them as they grew.
There was more to the magic of the Casita than just sentience, however. The house could change if the time or need called for it. Rooms could appear, disappear, change size or, on rare occasions, shift location altogether. Photos and paintings would magically update to reflect the changes, and even the memories of the inhabitants themselves could sometimes seem to be rewritten so that they might swear the house had always looked that way while somehow knowing that was not the case. The Casita had an integral part to play in shaping their lives, and they, in turn, shaped the Casita. The house was as much a member of the family as anyone that walked within it.
Yet, for all its magic and wonder, there was one thing that the Casita had in common with regular houses. In every house, there is a dark and forgotten space. Maybe in your home, it is a mildewy cupboard that smothers your old books with a layer of velvety mould until they succumb to rot and decay. Or is it a dusty old loft where memories go to die, entombed by years of abandoned spiderwebs? Or else a forgotten crawlspace in the walls, the entrances of which have long since been bricked up and papered over; only the rats remembering its secrets. In any case, it is a place where things go to be forgotten.
The Casita, too, had its secrets, hiding in the dark, forgotten spaces. A deep wound. A break in the family. The cracks of which had started many years before our story begins...
.
Present Day...
"Hey, when's the magic gift happening?"
The town was abuzz with anticipation for Antonio's gift ceremony. In particular, three children, Alejandra, Cecelia and Juancho, had woken early, unable to sleep for the excitement. They had arrived at the lawn outside the Casita, hoping to see the magic for themselves and perhaps get a hint of the new gift.
"My cousin's ceremony Is tonight," Mirabel replied from the dining room window.
For five decades, the community had lived in peace, sheltered from the outside world in their haven in the west Colombian mountains—the Encanto. They worked tirelessly to build their homes and farm the land, teaching themselves the skills necessary to become entirely self-sufficient. The gifts granted to the Madrigal children aided the community and helped compensate for their inability to communicate with the world beyond the mountains. Mirabel had assumed that everyone in the Encanto knew her family members by name and was well aware of their gifts, but it seemed that the youngest inhabitants had either not been told or could not retain the information. Their curiosity provided a unique opportunity to talk about her amazing family and feel special. If only for a while.
"What's his gift?" asked Alejandra excitedly.
"We're going to find out," Mirabel explained as she placed plates on the dining table.
"What's your gift?"
While she knew it was coming, they got to that question much sooner than she had anticipated. She did not feel like talking about herself, though, so she dodged the question and distracted herself with breakfast preparations.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee soon filled the air, and Mirabel stepped out of the kitchen, onto the courtyard, and headed towards the back stairs. Two staircases linked the lower floor with the upper. The main stairs were to the left of the front door, and the younger generation called them 'Abuelo's stairs', referring to the portrait of their late grandfather that hung on the wall by the first landing. Although they had never met Abuelo Pedro, they had heard much about him from Abuela. She would liken things the family said or did to him. 'You get your curiosity from your Abuelo,' she would say. She did such an excellent job of keeping his memory alive that the grandchildren felt as though they knew him personally. Mirabel always made sure to greet Abuelo as she passed his portrait. Living or otherwise, no family member would be left out so long as Mirabel could help it.
The back stairs were, as the name suggested, to the back of the building, on the right by the kitchen, and there was a fountain at the bottom where people could wash their hands on their way to dinner. Those stairs led to Mirabel's mom's side of the upper floor.
The upper floor consisted of an expansive balcony that ran around all four sides of the building and overlooked the courtyard. Along the balcony were many curious-looking doors. Each one depicting a stylised, pyrographic image of the family member it belonged to, along with their name. Although the images appeared to have been burnt into the wood by fire, they glowed with an ethereal golden light as though perpetually hot. It was the same ethereal golden light that created them and the fantastical rooms within.
Mirabel knocked on her mom's door first. That part of the balcony was raised higher than the other three sides by a few steps, highlighting the importance of the doors that stood along it. These were the rooms of the first generation to receive gifts, and Abuela, the recipient of the miracle that granted them. Mirabel's mom's room was on the right, and the balcony that ran along the right side of the building housed doors belonging to her children. Likewise, the room on the far left belonged to Mirabel's aunt, so the doors on the left side of the building were her cousin's, although the youngest, Antonio's door, had only just appeared and was as yet unopened and unformed.
Between these doors, raised slightly taller by a single step, was Abuela Alma's door. Although she had no gift, she too had been granted a magical room, indicating the importance of her role as the bearer of the miracle and the matriarch of the household. Above Abuela's door was a small window that could be seen not only from the courtyard but also from outside the Casita. In that window stood a peculiar candle that burnt with a mysterious, otherworldly light. Its ethereal golden light swirled around like fireflies dancing in the moonlight, reminding everyone of the miracle to which they owed their lives, and that continued to keep them safe. Although it had been burning for fifty years, the wax never melted, and the flame could not go out, never so much as flickering in the wind.
Mirabel made her way around the balcony knocking on each of her family members' doors in turn, but there was one room that Mirabel did not knock on. Tucked into the corner beside her mom's room was a short, dark staircase. The stairs led up to the final door—the entrance to a small tower. Mirabel had never been inside. The only grandchildren who had were the two eldest; her sister, Isabela, and her cousin, Dolores. No one ever knocked on that door. No one needed to.
Mirabel returned to the kitchen. As ever, the family started making their way down one by one. The coffee pots were soon drained, and the pile of food shrank considerably, all twelve members of the family set out together to start work in town. Mirabel waved to the Casita as they left, and it waved back as it always did, with one of the shutters of the nursery window. While they all spoke to the house and understood its basic responses, only Mirabel and Abuela could understand it well enough to have near-conversations with it. To Mirabel, the house was like a sibling, and she loved it dearly, even if it did always side with Abuela over her.
"Oh my gosh, it's them!"
Mirabel turned when she heard a voice. It was one of the children who had been outside the Casita that morning, excited to have spotted the Madrigal family as they arrived in town. All three of them then hurried over, keen to continue the conversation from earlier. They started shouting over one another, but Mirabel could just about make out that they were asking who everyone was and what their gifts were.
"Alright, alright... Relax," Mirabel said with a chuckle.
"It's physically impossible to relax!" insisted Alejandra.
"Tell us everything," yelled Cecilia. "What are your powers?"
Juancho ran in front of Mirabel, blocking her path and shouted, "Just tell us what everyone can do!" Mirabel noticed he was shaking and holding a cup of coffee. While it was not unusual for even young children to drink coffee in the Encanto, it tended to be a much weaker brew. It seemed that Juancho's family did not know that, or he was drinking it without their knowledge. In any case, that little boy was clearly drinking far too much of it and at full strength too.
Mirabel was only too keen to encourage the children's captivation with her family. The community had painted a colourful mural near the main plaza in town to show their appreciation for the Madrigals, so Mirabel thought she would use that as a visual aid.
She pointed to a cheerful-looking woman with fair skin and red hair tied in a thick braid. She was wearing an orange and yellow dress and had a yellow ribbon in her hair.
"So... this is Tía Pepa," she began. "She can control the weather and... Well... to be honest, it's mostly her mood that affects it..." she considered the image for a moment and then added, "but it's a super important gift. A lot of what we can grow here is thanks to Tía Pepa."
The children seemed suitably impressed, so Mirabel continued.
"And this is my mom..."
"Who's the creepy guy?" interrupted Cecelia with a grimace. "I've never seen him before." She was referring to the peculiar man between Tía Pepa and Mirabel's mom in the image. His dark hair was long and unruly, and he wore what appeared to be an unusually long, green ruana. He had a strange, otherworldly stare and held an hourglass between his hands.
"You wouldn't have," Mirabel explained, considering the image. "No one's seen Tío Bruno in years." The kids looked shocked, so Mirabel clarified, "He disappeared."
"Disappeared? How?" asked Cecilia.
"Dunno. No one really talks about him. Though apparently... he could see the future!"
"Woah!" said Juancho.
"Is he dead?" asked Alejandra bluntly.
"Maybe... but I sure hope not." Mirabel realised how dark the conversation had become, so she quickly moved on. "Anyway... that's my mom, Julieta," she said, pointing to a kind-looking lady with a tanned complexion and brown hair. She wore an apron and held a tray of baked goods in her hand. "She's amazing. She can heal any physical injury instantly with the food she makes..."
"Could she heal a black eye?"
"Anything."
"What about a broken wrist?"
"Anything."
"If I burnt my finger...?"
"You're not getting this. Are you, kids?"
"I know who that is," said Cecilia proudly, pointing at the older woman painted above and behind Mirabel's uncle. Her hair was grey with age, and she wore a magenta dress. The magical candle was held firmly in her hands. "That's Alma, your Abuela!"
"That's right!" Mirabel smiled. It did not surprise her that Cecilia would know her grandmother. Abuela knew everyone who lived in the Encanto by name and made frequent visits to every household to ensure they were content and had everything they needed.
"Mirabel!"
They were suddenly interrupted by Mirabel's dad, so she excused herself to the children and went to see what he wanted. He was with Tía Pepa's husband, Tío Félix, who held a long piece of paper in his hand. Her dad, Agustín, was much taller, but what Tío Félix lacked in height, he more than made up for in width. They were best friends as much as they were brothers-in-law. On a regular day, they would typically stay behind and clean the Casita while the gifted family members were out, but Tía Pepa needed the night to be perfect for her son, so she had likely given them both an impossible list of errands to see to while she was off using her gift in the corn fields.
"Any chance you'll be back at the house by two?" her dad asked, "Osvaldo's putting together a little something for you."
"For me? Why?"
"Just... you know..." her dad seemed unusually awkward, even for him. "...Your mom and I.. well... we just thought you might..."
"You're worried I'm upset because it's Antonio's gift ceremony tonight." Mirabel said flatly.
Her dad looked embarrassed and shrugged, "Well, it's a big deal. Especially for you..."
It was a big deal. When your cousins live with you, they can feel more like siblings. Closer in some cases. Her cousin, Camilo, for example, was born just two months before her, so they had shared the nursery for the first five years of their lives. It was no surprise to anyone that Mirabel and Camilo had become closer to one another than to their sisters. Mirabel had thought they would always be inseparable, but once he received his room and the ability to shapeshift, Mirabel was left alone in the nursery to await her own gift ceremony. Camilo quickly became preoccupied with his new role within the family, and they soon drifted apart.
Although ten years older, Mirabel had a similarly close bond with Antonio. From the moment he was born, she had taken it upon herself to help her aunt and uncle care for him, and she had spent many hours with him in the nursery, telling him stories and teaching him to read. Being a painfully shy child who struggled to speak even to children his age, Mirabel had become one of the few people he could open up to. She had a talent for understanding not only what people said but also what they truly meant, and this ability to hear the unspoken made communication much easier for Antonio.
Her dad was right. While she could not wait to see Antonio open his door and get his amazing gift, she feared they might lose their special bond, as she had with Camilo. Mirabel was pretty sure that was not what her dad was getting at, however.
"What can you see?" came the voice of Alejandra as she suddenly popped into view.
This took Mirabel by surprise. "What do you mean?"
"Like how your uncle could see the future. Is your gift like that? Can you see the past? Or what people are doing in another part of town?" Cecilia suggested excitedly.
"Or what people are thinking!" said Juancho, covering his head with his arms. It appeared that the children had been speculating together.
Mirabel hesitated, "I can see..." she looked around at the bustling plaza for something to distract them. Thousands of fresh flowers lined the streets, masking the stone walls of the buildings and cascading down from wooden balconies. Her eldest sister had to be around there somewhere. She then noticed the familiar lavender dress in the plaza ahead. "...I can see Isabela!" she declared hastily.
"Isabela?!" the kids repeated with delight.
They quickly turned and ran towards the young lady, and Mirabel watched as Abuela gave her sister a loving kiss on the cheek. Isabela then began to pirouette gracefully, and as she did so, circles of red, pink, and lilac flowers appeared at her feet. Many more flowers rippled outwards, covering a sizeable area of the plaza, then ran up the sides of buildings, adorning them with beautiful blooms until it looked as though the town had not been built but grown.
Perfect in every way and with a charming gift, Isabela was the poster child of the Madrigal family. Although never said aloud, it was apparent that she was Abuela's favourite grandchild too. Everybody loved Isabela. Even Mirabel loved her, just as she loved all her family. She loved her, but that was not to say she particularly liked her. They had a strained relationship, though Mirabel had never understood why.
While the children were distracted, Mirabel took her chance to escape. She spotted Abuela walking back to the Casita with Antonio, who had just been fitted with his white ceremonial outfit. Mirabel ran to catch up with them.
"Antonio!" she called out.
The little boy let go of Abuela's hand and turned to his cousin. He was smiling, but there was worry in his big brown eyes. Mirabel did not want to draw Abuela's attention to it, so she simply gave him a reassuring pat on his head, momentarily flattening the tight, black curls that bounced back immediately.
"Looking smart, little man!"
Antonio's smile looked genuine for a moment, and Mirabel smiled back. "Heading my way?" she asked, taking his hand.
They walked a little way towards the Casita, but then as though teleporting around the town, the children popped up again; this time, another boy had joined them. Mirabel did not want them to start asking questions in front of Abuela, so she hastily made an excuse to leave.
"Actually... I've... just remembered I needed to see Luisa," she lied.
"Great. When you find her, tell her to come straight home," said Abuela. "I have a few jobs for her."
Now Mirabel had to find her sister. So she set off back towards the plaza at a run, doing her best to look purposeful, and hoping to lose the children.
Luisa was a towering young lady with broad shoulders and a muscular build, and so difficult to lose. Mirabel remembered that Luisa had been helping to build a road connecting a new area of farmland to the town, so she started her search there. The new path stopped abruptly when it reached the river and then continued on the other side as though waiting for a bridge. Mirabel was about to cross the river via an existing bridge a short distance upstream when she spotted her sister approaching.
"Hey Luisa!" she said brightly, "Abuela said she needs you back at the Casita..."
"No problem. I'm almost done here..."
"Need any help?"
Luisa looked her up and down as though checking to see if she had miraculously sprouted muscle since she had left the Casita. "Ehm... I think I've got this, thanks," she remarked.
Mirabel leaned in closer and whispered out the side of her mouth, "It's just... I'm being hounded by kids today, so I kinda need to look busy... So if there's anything I can do... anything at all..."
"You mean like those kids?"
Mirabel turned around and saw that the children were standing behind her on the bridge. Yet another little boy had joined them.
"Can you make trees grow?"
"Could you make a rainforest?"
The kids were still speculating about what her gift could be. Mirabel looked around at the town. Towering palma de cera sprouted up here and there from the streets as though they had spilt down from the mountains where the sloping hills met the valley. Their narrow trunks continued upright, reaching far higher than even the tallest buildings. The original inhabitants had been careful to build around them, removing as few of the trees as possible. That had created an unusual layout to the town, with irregular spacing between buildings, or streets on obscure angles to one another, resulting in a more natural, organic feel. Of course, there were other species of tree besides the wax palms, including many shrubs in giant pots that decorated the front of buildings, bringing a touch of greenery to street level. Most of the trees were far older than Mirabel, and she certainly had not made them grow with some magical gift.
Before Mirabel could say anything, she and the children were suddenly shaken off balance as the bridge beneath them lifted into the air. It then spun around and floated further along the river until finally coming down again and joining the new road to the road into town. Luisa dusted her hands together and stood back to observe her work. The children gawped at her strength, but Mirabel knew that lifting a stone bridge was nothing. Luisa could lift the entire Casita with the family inside if she so wished. There was nothing too heavy for her, thanks to her gift. Luisa then hurried back towards the house, eager to find out what Abuela required of her.
"So, what's your..." Cecilia began again.
There was now little Mirabel could do to escape their questioning. She had not intended to let it drag out like this. The longer she had evaded their questions, the harder it had become to talk about herself. She loved talking about her family, so she could not resist telling them about all their phenomenal gifts, but now, there was only one gift the children cared about.
She hurried towards the Casita, trying to dodge the barrage of questions about her gift. By the time she reached the front path, several more children had joined the mob, and the questioning had devolved into mindless chanting. She noticed Osvaldo coming around the side of the Casita. His donkey had a large box on its back, packed with party items; hats, sparklers, paper windmills, candy, and who knows what else. She could see the open door, and it felt as though the Casita was beckoning her in, yelling, 'quick... you're almost there!' She pushed onwards, eyes ahead, and the chanting seemed to get louder still. They were now just repeating her name over and over.
"Mirabel! Mirabel! Mirabel!"
Just as she was about to make it to the sanctuary of her home, Abuela appeared in the doorway. Stopping her in he tracks.
"What are you doing?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Oh, they were just asking about the family and..."
Alejandra jumped up. "She was about to tell us about her super awesome gift!"
Mirabel opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything;
"Oh?"
Her eldest cousin, Dolores, appeared at the door, and Mirabel knew the jig was up. All she could do was brace herself as she hurtled helplessly towards her undoing. Dolores could not help it. Although kind-hearted, she had a habit of spilling the truth without consideration of the consequences. This tendency was quite problematic when combined with her gift. She was always the first to know everyone's business, gaining her a reputation as a gossip. Dolores could hear a conversation several miles away if she wanted to. Although there were many sounds in the Encanto, her superhuman hearing would naturally latch onto any mention of her or her family's name. She would have been well aware that Mirabel did not want to talk about her gift, but that would not deter her.
Dolores had been there on the day of Mirabel's gift ceremony. She was there when the little bespectacled girl with curly hair walked up the stairs in her pristine ceremonial dress with nervous anticipation. She was there when that girl looked at the beaming face of Abuela as she bent down and reached out the magical candle. She was there when the little girl, filled with excitement at what was to come, touched the candle and then, with a steadying breath, reached for the doorknob of the mysterious, glowing door that was to be her fantastical new room. And Dolores was there when that magical door simply faded away, vanishing forever before their eyes.
"...Mirabel didn't get one. Hm," Dolores said with a shrug and then disappeared back into the house.
