Episode Nine: What Else can I do?
16 years ago...
"This will be the last time you see me before I get my gift," Isabela announced proudly from the flower bed. She made a hole in the stem of a delicate purple daisy and then threaded the stem of another through it as she spoke.
"That's so exciting, Isabela!" her friend replied. "What do you think your gift will be?"
Isabela added another flower to the crown she was making to match her flower necklace. "I don't know, but Abuela says I'm the most special Madrigal of all, so my gift should be something just as special."
"We'll still be able to play together, right?" her friend asked with concern.
"Of course we will!"
Abuela appeared at the patio door.
"Who are you talking to, mi vida?"
Isabela smiled brightly and floated to her feet. "No one Abuela. I'm just playing," she said as she approached her grandmother. Abuela placed a hand lovingly on Isabela's shoulder and guided her into the Casita to prepare for her gift ceremony.
.
Later that day...
The Madrigal family had not known whether or not the grandchildren would receive gifts like Abuela's children had. Although everyone hoped Isabela might get one too, there was never any pressure or expectation. The entire family waited up the night before the eve of her birthday. Even Tío Bruno came down from his tower to be with the family in case Isabela got her door. Then to their delight, at exactly midnight, her door appeared, just as the previous three doors had. This time they had the benefit of knowing that it needed to be activated by the candle. So Isabela's new door had been glowing, unformed, ever since. It taunted her to reach out and try the doorknob, forcing her to grapple with her conscience and resist the urge.
The hours of her birthday seemed to crawl as she waited impatiently for the time of the ceremony to arrive. The church bells eventually rang out for seven o'clock, and Isabela found herself at last by the front door, facing the courtyard. The entire Encanto had assembled to witness the room reveal and, hopefully, the new gift, yet not a single sound could be heard.
The Casita had created a set of stairs up to the new door, and Abuela stood dutifully halfway up, holding the magical candle in both hands. Isabela could see her mom and dad, Tía Pepa and Tío Bruno waiting on the upper balcony. Her dad stood behind her mom, barely visible from the floor below, with his hand on her shoulder. The triplets—the only Madrigals to have gifts until now, were therefore standing prominently in a row. The significance of what was about to happen dawned on Isabela for the first time since the door had appeared, and she felt a rush of nervous anticipation.
Abuela began the ceremony with a few words to the crowd and then walked slowly and purposefully up the stairs between the candles that lined the edges of each step. Isabela recognised the signal to follow. As she passed the guests, she could hear whispers of how lovely she was. How perfect she was. Then from some of the older members of the crowd, how alike she was to Abuela Alma.
Isabela arrived at her door and touched the candle as she swore to honour the miracle, serve the community and make her family proud. She then glanced at her mom, aunt and uncle. They seemed tense, but Isabela was only excited. She had no reason to feel nervous. She had no expectations. With a tender smile and nod from Abuela, Isabela reached for the doorknob. The time had come to join the triplets and become the fourth family member to receive a magical gift.
The second her hand made contact, tiny pink and lilac flowers sprouted from the doorknob and then snaked up the door in winding rows, creating vein-like shadows where they obscured the magical light. This gave Isabela a start, and she quickly withdrew her hand. After a moment's hesitation, she realised it must be related to her gift. She touched the wall beside her door, and flowers cascaded up it, spreading out from her hand. Gasps of awe sang out from the stairs behind her, and then the unformed door grew brighter with a burst before revealing a unique image—A young girl surrounded by flowers. Riotous applause and cheers swept around the building, and Abuela seemed ecstatic. Isabela's mom reached down and hugged her tightly, and then Tía Pepa whispered, "Well, go on... open your door!"
She did not need to be asked twice. Isabela pushed her door open and revealed... A large, grey stone chamber with wooden flooring. The room was completely bare, with no windows and just a single door to a small balcony on the far wall. The only thing in the room was a raised platform, accessible by a few steps, on which a wide bed rested; Isabela at least had somewhere to sleep. She looked up at Abuela, whose delighted expression had turned to horror. The triplets appeared confused and looked to one another as though each hoped one of their siblings might have an explanation.
"Do they always start like this?" Isabela asked, looking at her mom.
"No, ours were fully—" she began answering.
"Well, technically—" Tío Bruno cut in, but Tía Pepa elbowed him to shut him up.
"Don't worry," Isabela said with a playful giggle. "Just give me a minute."
Isabela then touched her hand to the grey stone, and thousands of beautiful pink roses rapidly spread out until they completely covered all four walls. She touched the wooden floor, and a carpet of slightly darker pink petals enveloped that. The platform holding her bed seemed drab against the flowery floor, so she quickly adorned that with flowers too. She looked around at the windowless walls of flowers and thought they still looked a little bare. Realising she could probably not make windows with flowers, she instead made several long, flowing curtains of lilac orchids that cascaded down from the ceiling to the floor like pale purple waterfalls. Once she had finished, it looked like a bedroom fit for a princess.
There were gasps from all around, but none as heartfelt as that from Abuela. She kneeled to Isabela's height and ran a hand across her head and down one of the braids that rested over each shoulder.
"A perfect room for a perfect girl!" she said proudly, then she stood up as the gathered townspeople ascended the stairs to see the miraculous room for themselves.
.
3 years later...
There was already an unpleasant smell in the bedroom. Although it was too faint for most people to detect, Isabela knew that smell too well to miss. The elderly lady had only died the previous day, but the decay always started immediately. With little means to preserve a body in the Encanto, the best they could do was to move quickly after a death. Isabela had created blooms of sweet-smelling flowers around the room, but it was never enough to mask the smell completely. At best, it created a nauseating distraction for the nostrils. You could dress it up and try to make it look pretty, but death is death. It is the end. It is decay, rot, and it is eventually nothing but dust and bone. And the smell is rancid.
Abuela spoke to the old lady's family at length and ascertained what they needed ahead of the funeral. She would take care of the arrangements and ensure that the community was informed. Isabela's family was always involved when it came to births, marriages and, inevitably, death. Some family members had a more direct role than others, but none more so than Isabela. Flowers marked every key event in an individual's life. They were there at every right of passage. From the very first spark of romance long before conception, every moment of an individual's life would be celebrated with flowers. Right up until the final farewell. Where there were flowers, there was Isabela, and so death was nothing new to her. She had seen her first dead body just months after her fifth birthday and many more since.
After leaving the home of the deceased, Abuela and Isabela headed towards the church to let the priest know of the plans. Their route took them down a series of steep banks, and Isabela could hear raucous laughter up ahead. As they approached, she was intrigued by several children riding down the bank in strange wooden crates with wheels. The children seemed to be approximately Isabela's age, and as she got closer, it looked like they had shoddily made the rickety wooden contraptions themselves. They had arranged bales of hay at the bottom of the bank, and as far as Isabela could see, the hay was their only means of breaking. They dragged the crates to the top of the hill, and then one child held it steady while another climbed in. Then, with a 'three... two... one', the child holding the crate jumped in too, and they went hurtling down the slope, screaming and laughing until being abruptly flung into the hay with a bump.
One of the girls particularly fascinated Isabela as she had long black hair and wore a dress similar to her own. She imagined the dress would have been pristine when she left her house, but now it was covered in stains. Mud, grass, pollen, and what looked to Isabela like blood, all overlapped to create a beautiful technicolour monstrosity. The girl looked so vibrant and alive. A pleasant contrast to the lifeless body with which Isabela had just spent her morning.
"Abuela?" she began. "Can I speak to those children, please?"
"Whatever for?"
"I want to ask what they're doing. It looks fun."
Abuela looked horrified. "Isabela, that's not a game for a sweet girl like you," she replied. Although her voice was soft, Isabela detected a definite warning.
"Can't I just talk to them? Just while you're at the church?"
Abuela's demeanour changed. "Absolutely not. Whatever has gotten into you today? If you want to play, you can practice your acrobatics on the swing when we get home. Now come along. We still have much to do before we get back."
Isabela felt a twinge of frustration but did not want to disappoint Abuela any further, so she let the subject drop. That was the only time she ever tried to do what she wanted to do.
.
5 years later...
It was customary for the Madrigal children to have a festival thrown in their honour the day after their birthday party. Isabela's cousins and sister got to sit back and let the townspeople decorate the streets, but Isabela's carnival required flowers. A lot of flowers. People would line the streets to watch as a grand procession of giant flower arrangements passed through town, proudly carried by the stronger members of the community. The intricate floats transforming the roads into a vibrant river of colour. So every year, she would spend most of her birthday creating flowers and covering the streets and buildings with roses, daisies and orchids. Then the following day, she would walk those very same streets, greeting people as she went. At thirteen, she was more than old enough to do this alone, but Abuela insisted on accompanying her, despite letting Dolores do it by herself for the past three years.
As she danced elegantly through the streets, scattering flowers as she floated by, she would often stop to speak to the younger children. Isabela understood that the children of the Encanto admired her and aspired to be like her. As such, she was always careful to make their interactions both positive and meaningful. She would often make garlands of flowers that they would proudly wear for the rest of the day as they tried to mimic Isabela's flawless dances and graceful movements.
A little girl was gently urged from the crowd by her parents and stood before Isabela, smiling.
"Look what I made!" she called out merrily. She held up a small bouquet of flowers. One of the more popular attractions at Isabela's festival was a stall where the children could learn to arrange flowers.
"Oh, that's just as beautiful as anything I could make," Isabela smiled. "It's Eleanora, right?"
The town's population had grown considerably over the past thirteen years, but nevertheless, Isabela made a point of learning everybody's name. The only other family member to put in the effort was Abuela. Even without a gift of her own, Abuela worked tirelessly to be of service to the community she helped create. She often explained to Isabela that a miracle is not given unconditionally. 'A miracle,' she would say reverently, 'can just as easily be taken away.' The Madrigals were incredibly blessed, and as such, they had a duty to give back and keep on earning the miracle, lest they lose it. Isabela would marvel at the effort Abuela made to do just that. No matter how many people they passed, Abuela could greet each by name and ask them about a detail of their lives that she had been careful to remember. Isabela was determined to develop that same talent.
Abuela gave Isabela an approving nod, and Eleanora seemed delighted at being remembered by her idol. "Could you make me one of those pretty garlands?" the little girl asked.
Isabela crouched to Eleanora's height. "I could. But I have an even better idea," she said tenderly. She then waved her hand and created a crown of flowers that matched the bouquet exactly. "Now you can be a flower princess!" she announced, placing the crown on Eleanora's head. The girl's face lit up, and she skipped back to her parents to show them what Isabela had made for her.
.
5 days later...
Isabela was playing cards at the dining table with Dolores, Camilo and Mirabel when the doorbell rang. Abuela answered and then called out for Isabela, who immediately rose from her chair.
"Coming, Abuela!" she replied brightly, then turned to her sister and cousins. "Carry on without me. I'll join in again when I get back."
She headed for the door, making flowers at her feet as she went, conscious of the need to look elegant and graceful at all times. When she reached the door, she saw Eleanora with her parents.
"Oh dear, what's the matter?" she asked, noticing the girl was crying.
"My flower crown's dead!" she sobbed, holding up the battered ring of withered flowers.
Isabela smiled and said, "Well, that's what flowers do." Eleanora sniffed but did not reply, so Isabela continued, "You see... You might think flowers are special because of their beautiful colours or intricate shapes. But there's something even more wondrous about them. Do you know what the word 'transcient' means?" Eleanora shook her head. "It means 'temporary' or 'not forever'. Everything in life is transient. You and I are, this house is, even the sun will one day burn out. That might sound like a scary thought, but it's one of the most beautiful aspects of life..."
Isabela's parents had been sitting together under the arches, and upon hearing her speech, they walked towards the door. Dolores had heard everything and also came into the foyer, followed by Mirabel and Camilo. Isabela noticed her family gathering around her but continued to soothe Eleanora.
"Only when we appreciate that nothing lasts forever can we love them completely while they're here..." Isabela took the crown from Eleanora's hands, and the flowers instantly came back to life. "Flowers are a perfect reminder of the transcience of life. They bloom for such a short time and will wither and die within days if cut from the plant. But in that brevity lies their true beauty..." She placed the crown gently on Eleanora's head. "Leaving them in a little water overnight will help, but these, too, will die. When they do, I hope you will remember their beauty and appreciate how much more special it was for having faded. Be glad that you got to witness it while it lasted. And remember that the sadness we feel when the things we love are gone is because they were so special while they were here."
Isabela then straightened up. Her family all smiled at her, and her mom wiped her eyes. Then, glancing back at Eleanora, she said, "Would you like to see my magical room?"
Eleanora nodded excitedly. Abuela gave an affirming look, and then Eleanora and her parents entered the Casita. When they stepped onto the courtyard, Isabela reached up and created a swing of vines. She climbed onto it and extended a hand to Eleanora.
"I can ride with you?" the little girl asked breathlessly.
"Of course!" Isabela replied.
.
The following week...
It started as nothing but a fleeting thought, but since the conversation with Eleanora, something had been playing on Isabela's mind. She had never said those things aloud before, but now she was haunted by her own words. 'The transcience of life'. The concept that all youth will succumb to age, all beauty will eventually fade, and everything, living or otherwise, has a beginning and an end.
Isabela was perfect. She had been told that her entire life. Yet what was that perfection really? It was an illusion. It was a collection of learnt behaviours, speech patterns, gestures, and of course, her superficial looks. She realised that she was exactly like the flowers she created. Perfect for just the briefest of time. What would become of her when her beauty faded? Or when the veil of illusion finally lifted, and people saw her for the fake she was? She had been forced down a very narrow path in life, and had no idea who she was beyond what had been decided for her.
It happened so gradually that she did not notice it at first, but in the days following her encounter with Eleanora, Isabela's room started growing. Just a foot or two each day to begin with. Then several feet at a time until Isabela finally noticed. She might have noticed sooner had it not been for the additional curtains of flowers. Isabela had not created the curtains and could not remove them when she tried. They gave her ever-growing room a heavy, smothering feeling—A strange paradox of her world both expanding and shrinking simultaneously. It made her extremely uncomfortable, as though she were struggling for breath, but she could not speak to the family about it. She could not shatter the illusion they had created for themselves of the perfect princess. So instead, she decorated the extra space with seats and trees of flowers and even made life-sized statues of herself in elegant poses to fill up the open spaces. Her room made her feel very alone, so she avoided it as much as possible, preferring to keep herself busy or spend time with her family.
With a sigh, Isabela lowered her swing-like bed, that was suspended by vines, and stepped gracefully down from her bed onto the raised platform below. She had moved in that manor for so long that it had become automatic, even when nobody was around to witness it. She left her room and made her way silently along the balcony towards the stairs. As she was passing Luisa's door, it suddenly flung open. Luisa was not at all delicate in her movements, so it opened with considerable force. The door knocked into Isabela and sent her tumbling to the floor.
"Hey, watch it," she snapped as dozens of petals flew out from her.
She sat up and dusted herself off.
"Oh, sorry sis. Didn't see ya there." Luisa then paused as she glanced towards the wall. "Woah!"
Isabela looked up to see what she was looking at. Tiny flowers growing along narrow stems with many vein-like tendrils had sprouted along the walls. They zigzagged past their doors, across the ceiling and then gathered above Abuela's door as though pointing towards the candle.
"What'd you do that for?"
"I... I didn't," Isabela replied.
Luisa then picked her up and stood her back on her feet as the flowers began fading away.
"Sure you did. You're the one that does the flowers."
Isabela thought for a moment, and then, realising Luisa was right, she whispered,
"Please don't tell Abuela."
xxx
Present day...
There sure were a lot of flowers.
Isabela had retreated to her room in the aftermath of the failed proposal. There was little else she could do. The evening had not gone at all according to plan. She always had her family around to do the thinking and tell her what to do when things went wrong. Tonight, however, her family was just as lost as she was. If she stayed around, her indecision might be noticed. Even in a crisis, she could not be seen as imperfect. Her only skills were making flowers and faking perfection, neither of which was any help right now. So she chose to stay in her room out of the way.
The sound of the door pushing open suddenly caught Isabela's attention and she instantly knew who it was; the last person she wanted to see.
"Isa? Hey!" Mirabel's voice sang out from below. "I know we've... had our issues... but I'm ready to be a better sister... to you... So we should just... hug! Let's hug it out?!"
Isabela could not believe what she was hearing. Her sister had a nerve coming to her room. Although she did not know how she had caused the cracks to appear, Tío Bruno's visions had never been wrong, so she had no doubt in her mind that it was Mirabel who ruined the proposal.
She touched one of the vines of climbing roses from which her bed was suspended and willed it to lengthen. All four did so, lowering the bed.
"Hug it out?" she repeated incredulously as the bed descended. "Luisa can't lift an empanada. Mariano's nose looks like a smashed papaya. Have you lost your mind?!"
The bed came to rest on the raised platform.
"Isa, I feel like you're upset... and you know what cures being upset? A warm embrace." Mirabel said, approaching the bed with her arms stretched.
Isabela could feel the rage building.
"Get out!" she ordered, and vines crossed in front of Mirabel, stopping her from coming any closer. Isabela then stepped down from the bed. "Everything was perfect! Abuela was happy. The family was happy. You want to be a better sister? Apologise for ruining my life!" She stopped right in front of Mirabel. Lowering her voice, she almost whispered, "Go on... apologise."
Mirabel remained silent for a moment but then, to Isabela's surprise, she said, "I. am. Sorry..." Then just as Isabela started thinking her sister really wanted to make things up with her, she added, "...that your life is so great!"
"Out!" Isabela said dismissively, and the vines crossing her sister started dragging her towards the door.
As Isabela made her way back toward the bed, she could hear Mirabel grabbing at plant pots and furniture, but she was no match for the vines.
"Wait, fine, I apologise," her sister yelled, sounding desperate. "I wasn't trying to ruin your life. Some of us have bigger problems, you selfish, entitled princess!"
"Selfish?!"
Isabela could no longer contain her rage. All the years, she had watched from afar as her sister obliviously lived her life the way she wanted. Playing rough with her friends, having the best birthday parties, staying home to draw, or sew, or read, while the gifted family members tended to their duties, toiling away in the town or on the farms. Mirabel had lived a life of her own design, a luxury Isabela would never know. Yet she had the audacity to call Isabela 'selfish'.
She started walking back towards Mirabel, feeling herself losing control with each step. "I've been stuck, being perfect, my whole entire life! And literally, the only thing you have ever done for me is mess things up!" she shouted.
"Nothing is messed up," Mirabel yelled back, still being dragged by the vines. "You can still marry that big, dumb hunk."
"I never wanted to marry him!" she screamed, "I was doing it for the family!"
Isabela gasped. That was the first time she had vocalised her true intentions in years. The second the words left her mouth, something strange sprouted at her feet, stopping her in her tracks. Time seemed to stop, and her pink prison faded from sight as she stared at the peculiar object. Puzzled, she crouched down to get a closer look. It was a little cactus.
xxx
6 years ago...
After the incident outside Luisa's room, Isabela would often have flowers unintentionally sprout around her when surprised or emotional. She had been concerned about the family finding out and did her best to conceal it. Keeping something you have no control over a secret is an impossible task, however. Soon enough, she was sprouting flowers in her hair at the sound of a pot being dropped on the kitchen floor or scattering petals when Camilo snuck up behind her and made a fart sound. To her relief, no one seemed to mind. Her mother reassured her that it was nothing out of the ordinary. Other family members had apparently experienced similar occurrences, like the clouds when Tía Pepa got upset, although no one knew the cause. Of all her family's gifts, Isabela's was probably the least troublesome to misfire, and Abuela just thought it made her even sweeter.
Isabela was on the upper balcony helping to decorate the Casita with flowers ready for the guests arriving. There was always a strange atmosphere on Mirabel's birthday. Everyone would overcompensate with forced smiles and excessive cheerfulness, pretending not to remember that it was also the anniversary of the day the magic failed and their uncle disappeared. Isabela knew the tension would lift the instant Mirabel's party began, however. It always did.
"Why not?"
Isabela heard the defiant voice of her little sister from the floor below.
"Everyone else gets a festival. Why can't I?"
"The festivals aren't to celebrate our birthdays," she heard her mom explain. "That's what the party's for. The festivals are a celebration of our gifts... And well... you know..."
"Well it's not fair," Mirabel pouted.
'Not fair?' Isabela thought to herself with a sneer. 'Not fair' is having to spend an entire day flaunting your gift around town for the entertainment of the inhabitants. 'Not fair' is having to spend every moment of every day being the perfect little princess. 'Not fair' is having to pretend you are happy having every decision about your life made for you, being forced into a tiny box with no escape and no chance of ever expressing your true self, whatever that even is.
Her mom was right that the festivals were a celebration of their gifts. However, she was wrong about their parties. Those were mostly about their gifts too. Everyone knew that Mirabel's birthday parties were the best ones. Only a fraction of the guests who usually attended Madrigal celebrations would come to Mirabel's. It would be close friends of the family and people who genuinely cared about her. The guests were not there to gawp at the family's miraculous abilities, pretending to care about them as individuals while knowing nothing about them besides what their gift could do for the community. Instead, they would ask Mirabel about her life. They would say kind and encouraging things about whatever her latest hobby was as she tried new things to see what fit. They had supported her through the painting phase, the accordion phase, the horse riding phase, and they would no doubt be delighted when she showed them the things she had been working on in her latest needlecraft phase. It was purely a celebration of Mirabel. Of a quite ordinary, perfectly normal girl.
Rather than have an entire band show up, the guests at Mirabel's party would sing together around the piano while Tía Pepa and Tío Félix danced. Then Luisa would bring the dining table and two smaller tables together under the arches, and everyone would gather around to play 'The Mad Hatter's Tea Party'. That was Isabela's favourite part of the night.
The Mad Hatter's Tea Party was a dice game unique to the Encanto, in which players worked together in pairs to become the victors. Each pair would take it in turn to throw five dice, and the resulting combination would give them a unique score. However, should any pair roll five identical numbers, the highest scoring combination, they would call out 'A Cambiar!' and everyone had to roll a die. Anyone who rolled an odd number would then stand up and move to the first empty seat to their left. They would now be working with a different partner, which meant a penalty to each score. Only by rolling the same score as their original partner could they reunite. It was a ruthless, fast-paced strategy game in which everyone attempted to subtly communicate with their partners from across the table while trying to balance scoring points with not letting their temporary partner do too well. It was one of the most enjoyable activities Isabela ever got to experience, yet only possible at a select few smaller gatherings. One of which being Mirabel's birthday party.
"Hey sis. Looking good!"
Isabela had begun making flowers down the stairs just as Mirabel came up, presumably on her way to get changed. She had been playing out all morning, and her clothes were thick with mud.
Isabela did not reply. She found herself feeling a dark, unpleasant emotion. She did not recognise it at the time, but it probably began as jealousy and quickly developed into hatred. Mirabel clearly picked up that something was amiss.
"Isa? Have I done something wrong?"
"No... I'm just busy..."
"Well you sure seem like something's wrong," Mirabel pushed.
"Look..." Isabela said through gritted teeth, "I have ONE job to do in this family, and that's to cover everything in flowers. So if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to doing just that."
Mirabel looked confused but seemed to get the point. "Erm... Okay? Well, see ya at the party then... I guess..."
"Mm-hmm," Isabela replied, unable to even look at her sister.
"Seven thirty..."
"I know what time it starts!" she snapped.
xxx
Present day...
Isabela could not make cactuses. Her gift was flowers. Flowers were beautiful, symmetrical, and perfect. She examined the cactus, still unsure if she had caused it to appear. She reached out to touch it, and it pricked her finger, growing larger as she made contact and sprouting two globular areoles like little ears. It was the strangest thing. Ugly compared to the flowers she was used to, yet somehow beautiful in spite of the ugliness, or maybe even because of it.
She scooped the plant up in her hands and marvelled at it. She always understood that perfection was an illusion. The closer you got, the further away it seemed to become. Perfection was nothing more than a measure of how close to some arbitrary standard something was. While the point of a standard was that it remained unchanged, in the case of perfection, the 'standard' was also an illusion, forever moving and becoming less attainable. The cactus just was. It had no need for symmetry or bright colours. It did not need to give off a sweet scent. It was simply happy to exist.
Isabela looked around at her sickly pink room. She had spent the last sixteen years believing that all she could do was make pretty flowers. She never asked herself if she could make other kinds of plants grow. She never thought to try. She never thought for herself at all. With the cactus in hand, she began to walk around, the seed of an idea germinating in her mind.
"Lets hug!" said Mirabel, with her arms out.
Isabela was not paying attention to her sister, and was instead whisked out of reach by a vine as she swung into the main living area of her room—a vast, circular space with an intricate, decorative lawn of flowers. Due to the flowers surrounding it, her furniture blended in so neatly that it was easy to forget it was a bedroom and not some enchanted secret garden. It was charming and exceedingly pretty, but Isabela was sick of pretty. In a moment of madness, her mask dropped, and she let go of the fake persona she had been wearing all her life. With a wave of her hand, the pretty little roses disappeared under thousands of spiky, hairy, stinky and multicoloured ferns, thistles and wildflowers.
"Woah... Isabela! What's going on? Wait up!" Mirabel called after her.
Isabela did not reply but looked at her sister with what she hoped was a mischievous grin. She had never tried to look mischievous before, but it fit her mood perfectly. Excited to see what else she could do, she ran onto her bed and started to use it as a swing. Several small jacaranda shrubs appeared in the room, and as her bed flew past, it created a breeze, causing the blue flowers to blow off the branches and scatter like confetti. Before the petals had even come to rest, smothering the monotonous pink flowers with a snap of vibrant blue, gnarled, strangling figs twisted up from the floor.
Isabela leapt from her bed, and using a vine to slow her fall, she dropped onto the centre of an enormous palma de cera as it slowly rose upwards out of the ground, getting taller and taller by the second. Mirabel tried to swing onto it with one of the vines but missed and had to grab onto the trunk. When she noticed her sister climbing up through the fronds, Isabela took her hand and pulled out of reach of the sundew flowers that had sprouted around the tree and began snapping hungrily at her.
"Isa, I had no idea..." began Mirabel breathlessly.
"Me neither..." replied Isabela. "I'm just so sick of pretty, you know? I just want to be 'me'. The real me."
Mirabel did not seem to understand what she meant. "I thought your life was perfect," she said, "Everything just seemed to effortlessly go your way."
"Perfect?" Isabela said, slumping to her knees with a sigh. She did not know where to begin, so said nothing. To her surprise, Mirabel replied as though she heard everything Isabela could not say.
"I always thought your gift was just making flowers. It's awesome to see you breaking out like this. I can't wait to see what else you can do. To see who you'll become. To finally see the real you."
Maybe Mirabel did understand after all.
Isabela felt Mirabel's hand on her shoulder and turned to face her. Her sister's eyes displayed genuine love, and Isabela wondered if it had always been there, but she never saw it. She thought about what Mirabel had just said. Was there still more to her gift? Was there more to her?
Mirabel reached out her hands, and Isabela took them, letting her sister help her to her feet. An idea then hit her, and with her second-ever mischievous grin, she created a vine that carried them both towards the small balcony to the back of her room. The curtains of flowers parted and lifted to allow their passage. From the balcony, they travelled around the outside of the Casita as a multitude of mismatched, imperfect plants sprouted up around them and spread into the town beyond. Clouds of technicoloured pollen exploded in their wake as they rode the vine higher and higher until they found themselves right on the roof of the tower. Isabela accidentally knocked into one of the tall leggy thistle-like plants that sprouted there, and bright yellow pollen splattered onto her dress.
She paused for a moment. Isabela had never gotten her dress dirty before. She looked at Mirabel's surprised face and then felt that new expression return to her lips. With a glint in her eye, she started to kick the other plants, sending the vibrant colours into the air and adding new stains to her dress. Mirabel joined in, and soon two of them were surrounded by a patchwork cloud of colour. Isabela's dress was transformed into a mess of blue and red, yellow and green. It was perfectly hideous, and hideously perfect. She felt more alive than ever before. Her light had been fading for years, and it finally shone brighter.
The vines carried Isabela and her sister off in different directions and then brought them together in front of the window where the magical candle stood. Isabela felt euphoric, and the resentment she had felt towards her sister for many years had completely gone. A warmth came over her as she reached forward, and without thinking, as though it were simply the most natural thing to do at that moment, she hugged her sister for the first time in years. Mirabel's face lit up as she looked towards the wall, so Isabela turned to follow her gaze. The cracks around the window shrank and began disappearing. Something extraordinary was happening. She quickly grabbed Mirabel's hand and swung them both around the Casita one last time with a vine. The vine released them when they were above the courtyard, and while they were free-falling, Isabela created a thick pile of flowers to cushion their landing; blue, red, purple, but not a single pink flower in sight.
"You're a bad influence on me!" Isabela laughed, flicking a flower at her sister as they lay together, looking up at the hazy, moonlit clouds.
"What is going on?"
They both sat bolt upright at the stern voice of Abuela. Isabela glanced down at her dress in horror. She had been too caught up in the moment to consider how Abuela would react when she saw her. That angry voice brought her crashing back down to reality.
"Abuela! It's okay, everything's..." Mirabel began hurriedly as they both got to their feet. "We're gonna save the miracle... The magic..."
"What are you talking about? Look at our home. Look at your sister!"
Isabela did not know what to say and could not look at Abuela for the shame.
"Please, Isabela wasn't happy and—" Mirabel tried to explain.
"Of course she isn't happy. You ruined her proposal!" Abuela snapped.
"No, she needed me to ruin her proposal..."
Isabela was mortified at hearing the truth spoken to Abuela, even if from someone else's mouth. She hung her head and quietly stepped aside, hoping to avoid Abuela's attention.
"And then we did all of this, and the candle burned brighter and the cracks..." Mirabel continued excitedly. "That's why I'm in the vision. I'm saving the miracle..."
Abuela shouted at the top of her lungs.
"You have to stop, Mirabel!"
Mirabel looked shocked and immediately stopped talking. Luisa came out from under the arches and stood supportively beside Isabela as Abuela continued to yell.
"The cracks started with you. Bruno left because of you. Luisa's losing her powers, Isabela's out of control because of you. I don't know why you weren't given a gift, but it is not an excuse for you to hurt this family!"
Isabela felt the ground shake beneath her feet while Abuela spoke, and there was a dreadful rumbling sound as cracks appeared around them. She noticed that her mom and dad had heard the shouting and come downstairs.
"I will never be good enough for you. Will I?" Mirabel eventually said, through choked-back tears, "No matter how hard I try." She looked around at her parents and sisters. "No matter how hard any of us tries. Luisa will never be strong enough. Isabela won't be perfect enough. Bruno left our family because you only saw the worst in him..."
"Bruno didn't care about this family!"
"He loves this family!" Mirabel shouted defiantly as Tía Pepa and Tío Felix came into the courtyard. "I love this family! We all love this family! You're the one that doesn't care! You're the one breaking our home!"
"Don't you ever—"
"The miracle is dying because of YOU!"
Before Abuela could respond, another rumble rattled through the house, and a huge crevice opened up on the floor between Mirabel and Abuela. It then shot rapidly up the wall towards the candle.
"No, no, no!" cried Tía Pepa as the crack reached the little window, toppling the candle with a bump.
Camilo had been listening from the balcony and quickly dashed along it to try and catch the candle if it fell, transforming into different people as he tried to find the fastest form. Noticing this, Isabela created a vine to get up there and attempt the same thing. Mirabel had the same idea, but with no gift to draw on, she simply called out to the Casita for help. The house used part of the railing along the balcony to create a ladder.
Just as Isabela was about to reach the tiled roof below the candle, the cracks reached her door, and the magical light went out. The vine instantly disappeared, and she plummeted like a stone towards the ground. The Casita quickly reached out some of its beams to break her fall, then lowered her safely to the ground. She had bearly enough time to react, when Camilo landed beside her. He looked down at his hand and then to Isabela. From the horror on his face, she could tell that her cousin had lost his gift too.
With no gift to lose, it was now all up to Mirabel. She continued to hurry up the makeshift ladder. Isabela tried to get back onto her feet before any debris fell on her, but the tiles beneath her began to undulate rapidly, pulling her, Camilo and the rest of the family towards the front door. Her mom desperately tried to run against the tide of tiles, calling out to Mirabel to leave the candle and get out of there, but the Casita was too determined. They were all sent tumbling out of the front door to safety. All they could do was watch helplessly from the grass outside as Mirabel scrambled closer to the candle. She reached out her hand, desperately trying to grab the faintly burning stub with her fingertips as the balcony threatened to give way at any moment. Photos, paintings, years of memories, all falling as the walls continued to shake and crumble all around.
Mirabel seemed to grab the candle just as Bruno's tower began to split in two, the top separating from the base and then sliding towards Mirabel. Isabela watched in horror as the sister she had just made up with lost her footing and slipped down the roof tiles, tumbling towards the floor with the tower crumbling after her. She could just about make out that the Casita quickly made a set of stairs to catch Mirabel and bring her safely to the floor, but then her view was obscured. Her mom screamed helplessly as the tower hit the ground with an earth-shattering crash. Plumes of dust billowed into the air, and the entire Casita was reduced to rubble.
As the dust settled, Isabela saw that in a final act of heroism, the house had made a shelter of furniture and the fallen window shutters from the nursery around her sister. A shutter waved goodbye one last time as they fell away, lifeless, and Mirabel was left holding the candle that had finally, after fifty years, gone out.
