The house was dark when Mirabel entered. The adults had gone to bed long ago, their dirty glasses still scattered across the dining table.
But not everyone was asleep. As she walked upstairs, she could see a faint light coming from the crack at the bottom of her old bedroom door, and hear hushed voices, and she sighed. She was exhausted, emotionally wrung out, and there was still so much to talk about.
The door creaked softly when she pushed it open and the whispers stopped. The bedroom was small and dimly lit by candles, with three beds and a dresser shoved inside. Camilo was splayed across her old bed, with her sisters together on one bed and Dolores on the other. They all stared at each other for a long moment. Dolores and Isabela looked like they'd been crying.
"Okay, before we do anything, I have to go wash up," Mirabel said. She looked to Dolores, who was watching her with wide eyes in the flickering candlelight. "Did you hear?"
Her cousin nodded. Mirabel nodded too, wincing—she'd have to get used to Dolores just…knowing everything again.
Mirabel found her bag on the floor by her bed and dug around for pajamas. The others watched her silently.
"Did you tell them?" she asked when she stood up.
"Yeah, she did," Camilo said, sitting up. His expression was grim. "Just—mierda, Mirabel."
Isabela let out a strangled sob and buried her face in her hands. Luisa wrapped her arms around her.
"And I made it worse—" Isabela cried into Luisa's shoulder. "I-I hurt him with my–my curse—"
Mirabel sighed and dropped her clothes to climb up on the bed with her sisters, throwing her arms around them both.
"He's okay, Isa," she murmured. "And you are not cursed. None of you are cursed—I mean, our parents call them Gifts for a reason."
"Easy for you to say," Isabela mumbled. She sniffled.
Mirabel flinched and sat back on the bed, as those old feelings came rushing back—inadequacy, jealousy, anger—but she bit the inside of her cheek and clamped them down tight, locking them away to deal with later.
"That's not fair, Isa," Luisa softly chided. "She can't help it any more than we can."
Isabela just sniffled again.
"Well, not that this isn't enlightening," Camilo said, breaking through the tension. "But do you mind, Mira, telling us why you decided it was a good idea to bring Tío Bruno—poor, cursed, monstrous Tío Bruno—here, during the busiest weekend of our lives?"
"I couldn't just–just leave him there!" Mirabel cried. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "You all just heard what he's been through. And you all didn't see where he was living—this tiny, busted room with nothing but–but broken furniture and–and these plates—" Her voice hitched and she struggled to swallow around the sudden lump in her throat.
"Plates?" Dolores asked carefully.
Mirabel told them everything she hadn't wanted to say in front of Antonio and Bruno. She described the plates, deeply carved in the surface of the rickety table and painstakingly painted with each of the triplets' names. She told them how that led her to the green, glowing vision tablets and the images floating within them, depicting each of them in turn. She told them how he had seen everyone in his visions but didn't know anything about them, even their names.
She backtracked, and told them how he had a vision in front of her and saved her when Casita crumbled around them, even after she had chased him through the house. She told them how carefully he asked her questions about the family afterward while she repaired his ruana.
She told them how much Casita danced when she figured it out the next morning. She told them how he didn't deny his identity when asked directly, but seemed prepared for her to leave him alone, utterly and completely.
She told them how he was terrified of leaving the hidden valley but came anyway—only because she asked.
"Mierda," Camilo whispered when Mirabel was finished.
Isabela nodded weakly.
"At least…we know we can change him back now, right?" Luisa asked tentatively.
Dolores squeaked in surprise.
"What?" Isabela and Camilo exclaimed.
"Shhh!" Mirabel hissed.
"It's his hands!" Luisa explained in a rush, lowering her voice. "His hands were normal after his vision, once he calmed down. No, erm. Claws. But everything else was still the same."
Camilo's eyes lit up. "He had claws? And, more importantly—I was right about it?"
The girls rolled their eyes and ignored him.
"I wondered…" Isabela murmured. "I thought I'd just imagined them."
"Was I right about anything else?" Camilo asked, a touch too gleefully. He turned to Mirabel. "Was there blood everywhere?"
"No! Caremondá!" Mirabel snapped, chucking a pillow at her primo.
He dove out of the way, snickering. "Dios, I'm just trying to lighten the mood—"
"So…was it the vision that triggered the change?" Dolores asked, ignoring her brother. She addressed Mirabel. "Maybe having one kickstarted the process?"
But Isabela was shaking her head. "No, no, that can't be it," she said. "He would have figured that out long ago if so."
"Maybe we're overthinking it," Mirabel said slowly. "Maybe it doesn't have to do with his Gift at all—maybe it has to do with…us?"
"Us?" Isabela asked, frowning.
"Yeah, maybe…maybe we're helping him somehow?" Mirabel asked.
Camilo snorted.
"No, I'm serious!" she said. "None of us really know where the magic came from, sí? Only that it came from our Great-Great-Great Abuelo or something like that? So, what's stopping the solution being something equally miraculous?"
"But it was some random witch who cursed him," Dolores reminded them. "She's not connected to our type of magic at all, so Tío's curse is something completely different than ours."
"All I know," Luisa said, holding up her hands, "is that Tío Bruno's hands changed back after Mirabel and I helped him. So logically, that means if we keep helping him, then maybe the magic will wear off and he'll be himself again?"
"So we make him have more panic attacks to help him through?" Camilo asked sarcastically. "Sounds great, that's a wrap everyone!"
Dolores threw another pillow at him.
"What?" he demanded, mid-dodge. "All we can do is endlessly speculate—we'll never know for sure what changed his hands and until we do it's a complete crapshoot—"
"So what if it's a crapshoot?" Mirabel interrupted, lifting her chin. "Even though we don't use the name, we're still part of the legacy of the 'Amazing Madrigals,' curses or no curses, Gift or–or no Gift. We have to at least try."
The room was silent as the cousins looked at each other.
"Then we do whatever it takes to break the spell," Luisa said, like it was the simplest thing in the world.
Camilo snorted. "Easier said than done."
Luisa fixed him with a level stare, an intensity glowing behind her eyes. "Obviously. But Mira's right. A long, long time ago, our family was given a Miracle. Maybe…maybe this is our chance to finally earn it."
"But what if we can't?" Isabela whispered, giving a voice to all their fear. "What if he's stuck like this forever?"
"We can do it," Mirabel said. There is no other option.
Dolores abruptly sat up, tilting her head. "Shh, wait, there's someone—"
At that moment, the door creaked open and they all jumped.
Félix stuck his head into the room. He glared at them, bleary-eyed. "Ay, niños! Go to bed!"
"Dios, Papi, don't scare me like that—" Dolores huffed.
"Tío, we're adults—" Luisa said.
"But I am in bed!" Camilo's eyes grew impossibly bigger as he smiled at his father.
Félix rolled his eyes, unphased. "Fix your face, Camilo. Bed. Sleep. Now. Let's go, let's go, before you monos wake the whole house. Or worse—Antonio."
More sounds of protest echoed around the room. Mirabel took the opportunity to slide off the bed and snatch up her pajamas from the floor. "I'm gonna go wash up now, bye!"
She grabbed a candle and darted under her uncle's arm and down the hall to the bathroom. She quickly shut the door behind her, heaving out a long sigh and running a hand under her glasses and down her face. She leaned against the door for a few minutes with her eyes closed before she forced herself to move.
A while later, Mirabel slipped back into the room, feeling a tad cleaner and very, very sleepy. The candles were out and her cousins were gone. Her sisters were already in bed, their backs to her. She took her glasses off and wiggled under the covers.
She had just closed her eyes when Isabela whispered, "Mira?"
"Hm?"
"Do you really believe all that? About us being these amazing Madrigals or whatever?"
"I mean, yeah," Mirabel said, opening her eyes again and frowning. "Just because we don't use the name anymore doesn't change who we are."
Isabela was silent. Then—
"I'm sorry."
"Oh. For what?"
"About what I said. Luisa's right—it's not your fault. You didn't…ask to be Abuela's favorite."
"I wish I wasn't," Mirabel whispered, immediately feeling guilty.
"I…I know."
Mirabel waited, but when Isabela didn't say anything else, she rolled over and closed her eyes.
"Do you really think we can change him back?"
Mirabel cracked her eyes open, but her eyelids felt like stones.
"He saved us—saved me, Isa," she murmured. "I have to. And it…it'll fix…everything…"
She shut her eyes again and was asleep in seconds.
Translations:
1. La Reunión de Primos Continuó - The Cousin Meeting Continued
2. Caremondá - dickhead
3. Monos - monkeys
