Disclaimer: Encanto does not belong to me. This story is not for profit.
Author's Notes:
A news article collected screenwriter Jared Bush's Twitter explanations of how old the characters are:
"Isabela (21) first grandchild, hence golden child pressure; Dolores (21) couple months younger, in Isa's shadow hence quieter and Mariano issues; Luisa (19) next, strong middle child and feels need to please," Bush explained.
The thread continues: "Camilo (15), 'theatre kid' trying on personas, he's barely older than Mirabel (15) so when she DIDN'T get a gift after he DID it was shocking; and youngest Antonio (5) with Mirabel in nursery his whole life, hence closeness and first ceremony since Mirabel's nerves."
Jared Bush finally reveals: "Félix is a little older than the original triplets and Agustín is a little younger than the triplets. Because Agustín was accident-prone he needed to be healed often… that's how he and Julieta became a couple."
For the adult characters, Julieta, Agustín, Bruno, Pepa and Félix are all about 50 years old. Abuela Alma is thought to be between 75 and 76 years old. Jared Bush revealed Alma's husband Pedro passed away at the age of 26.
I believe Antonio's birthday must be between September to November, because one of the only references to season is in Luisa's song when she and Mirabel fall into a hopper processing round fruits. After an internet search, I have decided those are probably lulo fruits, a Colombian fruit often pressed for its juice. Lulo season is from September to November.
Upon feedback, I am going to make the attempt to be as authentic as possible to the characters' native language.
Shooting down the middle, I place Antonio's birthday in mid-October for the purposes of this story. Tracking time, Day 1 of the movie is Antonio's birthday, October 15th. Day 2, October 16th, is when most of the action takes place. Day 3, October 17th, is when Mirabel and Abuela speak down at the river and when they discover the villagers are going to help them rebuild their home. That makes the first day of my story October 17th.
CW: This story is going to discuss dysfunctional family dynamics, including abuse.
After the House Fell
Chapter 1
October 17th
After the first day of work rebuilding their home, standing in front of the skeleton of a new Casita, Abuela made a grand speech to the villagers. "Thank you all. No matter what happens, our Encanto is strong – strong because of the combined hearts of our people. Our hands and our hearts are many, and together, we may accomplish anything."
SeñoraGuzmán organized a village-wide potluck supper. Everyone brought food out into the open, picnic style. Mirabel relaxed on a blanket and watched the happy clusters of people talking. Her mom literally wept at the village's kindness.
After supper, people were still socializing. Antonio had been by Mirabel's side, but he wandered off, and when he didn't return after about fifteen minutes, she went looking for him.
Mirabel found Antonio climbing through the bones of the old Casita in an area that hadn't been cleared away yet. "What's the matter?"
Antonio turned to her, his lower lip wobbling. "I can't find the present you gave me on my birthday."
Mirabel hugged him. "Maybe we'll find it tomorrow. If we don't, you know it wasn't your fault that it got lost, right?"
Antonio looked up at her with big, tear-filled eyes.
Mirabel stroked his hair. "I promise that if we don't find it, I'll make you a new one."
"But your sewing machine and all your crafting supplies are gone," Antonio said.
Mirabel put on a reassuring smile. "I'll use someone else's sewing machine, and as for crafting supplies, don't you worry."
Antonio managed a small smile in return. "I still want to find it."
"Me, too. But it will still be fine if we don't."
"But it was special. You made it just for me. It's the only present I have from when nobody knew if I was going to be special yet."
Mirabel tried to smile through the stab of pain. "You are always special. Your Gift is not what makes you special. And I am so sorry that these things happened right after your birthday. And none of this is about you. You didn't cause any of this. And it isn't fair that you lost your Gift."
He hugged her tightly. She let him hug on her, and held him in return, for as long as he needed. Then she took his hand and led him out of the wreckage and back to his parents. In the process, she remembered the last place she'd seen Antonio's stuffed animal. Wait. Antonio gave it to Tio Bruno for his nerves!
"Where were you?" Pepa demanded.
Félix took her arm. "Don't be hard on the boy. It's been a long day."
"Where were you?" Pepa grabbed Antonio's arm. "Don't wander off. Anything could have happened and what are we supposed to do now that the miracle is gone? Tia Julieta can't heal you if you get hurt. I was terrified."
Antonio looked from his mother to Mirabel doubtfully.
Mirabel knelt and hugged him, ignoring that his mother had a hold of his arm. "We all love you very much. No matter what. OK? We're all getting used to what it means that we can't rely on the magic right now. But it's OK. We're strong. We're Madrigals. And that means we can handle anything."
She released him and rose.
Pepa was silent, but she didn't look angry anymore.
"I'll be careful, Mamá," Antonio said, looking up at Pepa sweetly.
Mirabel scanned the clusters of people around the construction site. "Where is Tio Bruno? I thought he was with you."
Félix shrugged. "He said he had something to take care of for a minute. That was an hour ago."
"An hour?"
"So what? You don't tell a man his business," Félix said.
Mirabel saw her father and ran up to him. "Where is Tio Bruno?"
"I still don't understand any of this," he said. "First, you steal his vision from his tower, then you make it come true, then you run away, and Abuela brings you back, and suddenly there's Bruno –"
"I don't have time for this! Where is Tio Bruno?"
"I don't even know where he's been all these years. Why come back now?"
"Papá, just tell me where Bruno is!"
Pepa approached. "Bruno went to look for his rats. Well, that's what he gets for keeping rats as pets." She shuddered. "Ugly things. Always getting into everything. Pooping all over the place. Chewing holes in Casita. They're a menace. Mirabel, what was Antonio doing playing in the rubble?"
"He wasn't playing," Mirabel said defensively. "He was looking for his stuffed animal, the one –"
Pepa threw up her hands with an exclamation of disgust. "All that is gone. Everyone's everything is gone. It disappeared when the magic collapsed. There is nothing." She turned and walked away, muttering. "Nothing. We've got nothing but the clothes on our backs. What are we going to wear tomorrow? I need a bath. I don't even have a hairbrush."
Agustín was staring at Mirabel as if he didn't know her. It was the same expression he'd had when he'd discovered that Mirabel had stolen Bruno's vision and pieced it back together. "When you left, I thought you'd end up like Bruno." He gestured broadly. "Out there, somewhere, beyond the Encanto, never to return. Why did you run away?"
Mirabel frowned. "Because I thought everyone wanted me to run away beyond the Encanto and never return. Abuela accused me of hurting the family and Casita fell and you had told me to cover everything up so that no one would know because it would keep Isabela from being engaged to Mariano. When I was in trouble and I was afraid, you thought of Isabela."
Her father tried to look stern, but at the same time, he glanced around with panicky eyes. "That is not true. I was concerned about your future, too."
"I wish I could believe you," Mirabel said. She laid a hand over her heart. "You always told me I had nothing to prove. But when it came time to choose, you told me to pretend the magic wasn't dying and that Luisa wasn't losing her Gift and not to ruin Isabela's perfect night. What would you think if your father had walked in on you having a problem and his reaction was to talk about your siblings and tell you to cover up your problem?"
"I would think that he had a lot of problems and that it was his job to hold the family together no matter what. I would maybe empathize with what my siblings were going through. What I wouldn't do is run away and cause everyone to worry about me."
Stung, Mirabel took a few steps back, then turned away and started the hunt for Bruno.
Mirabel found Bruno hunkered down in an alcove created by some of the rubble of Casita that had been cleared off the building site. Mirabel's heart dropped. She crouched. "Uh, hi."
He stared at her with exactly the same expression as when they had first met. She still didn't know what it meant. "Hi."
"Um…" Mirabel gathered her skirts and knelt in front of him. "Whatcha doing? The family is concerned about you." That's not exactly a lie. I'm part of the family, and I'm concerned, so...the family is concerned.
Bruno had one knee dropping up his elbow and one leg straight out, and he leaned back against the rubble. He held a half-finished arepa in one hand. "I doubt that. I very seriously doubt that." He took a bite of his arepa. "You-You-You know, at first I thought everything was going to be fine. Then I realized –" He looked down.
"Realized what?" Mirabel prompted, resting her hands in her lap and leaning forward.
"This can't last."
Mirabel sighed and straightened her shoulders. "We will work to make it last. Anything good takes hard work."
Bruno hugged his knees to his chest, abandoning his arepa to the dusty ground. "Without my Gift, they're not scared of me." He looked into Mirabel's eyes. "Wh-what's gonna happen when we've rebuilt Casita? Am I going to get everything back? That'll mean the nightmare starts all over again."
Mirabel hugged him. "Tio Bruno, like I said before, your Gift is not a curse. You don't make bad things happen."
He patted her arm. "Yeah. Yeah, right."
"Hey, you're the one who told me that you don't make bad things happen."
"B-B-But no one else believes that. It would be better if I – I never got it back."
"Maybe, in the future, if there is a chance to get your Gift back, you can choose not to," Mirabel said softly.
Bruno sighed. "I miss my hole in the wall. Everything out here is so…exposed."
"It wasn't healthy," Mirabel reminded him.
"Maybe not, but it was familiar."
"Yeah, we're learning that familiar and healthy aren't the same thing," Mirabel muttered. "In fact, for this family, familiar and healthy might be opposites." She rose and held out her hand. "Come on. Let's go back to the others. You aren't going to sleep here tonight, are you?"
"I was thinking about it," Bruno muttered, but he took her hand and got to his feet, allowing her to pull him out of the alcove.
"By the way, do you know what happened to Antonio's stuffed animal?" Mirabel asked.
Bruno pulled the stuffed leopard out from under his ruana. "You mean this one?"
Mirabel squealed. "Yes!" She hugged him. "You mean you took care of it? That's great! We can give it back to Antonio. He was so worried he couldn't find it that he was climbing all over the remains of the Casita, and that's so dangerous, I mean, who knows what is in there, and there's broken glass, and – thank you!" She let go of him and called out, "Antonio, Tio Bruno has your stuffed animal!"
Antonio came running and hugged Bruno around the middle, then took his stuffed animal back and hugged on it. "Thank you!"
"What were you doing with my son's toy?" Pepa demanded as they rejoined the group.
"He let me borrow it," Bruno said with a blank expression.
"What?" Pepa glared at Antonio.
"For the nerves," Antonio said, as if it made perfect sense and he couldn't understand his mother's reaction.
Abuela called for everyone's attention. "Father Agudelo has prepared the church with blankets and pillows. We will shelter in the church until our home is rebuilt."
The Father stood next to her, looking very officially benign and benevolent. His toupee was perfectly in place.
Abuela turned to him. "Thank you, Father. As always, we can count on you in difficult times to provide us guidance."
What had happened earlier today fully sank in for Mirabel. We're homeless. What have I done? She took a deep breath. No. No. I will not go there. This had to happen. And it wasn't me who did it. We're homeless because of Abuela and how she treated the family. A little voice in the back of her mind insisted, If I hadn't confronted her and yelled at her, Casita wouldn't have crumbled.
xxx
The villagers set up two of their homes for the Madrigals to bathe, one for the women and girls and one for the men and boys. In the process they received care packages of clothing. Just one set of clothes donated from each family who had spare gave the Madrigals a week's work of clothing, including underwear. Toiletries like hairbrushes and toothpaste were also gathered and given to them. They all met up in front of the church.
Abuela gave a brief public speech. "Thank you, everyone, for your solidarity and generosity." As the villagers dispersed, leaving only Señora Guzmán and Mariano, she turned to the family. "No matter what happens, we are still la familia Madrigal. Good night, everyone. Rest well, so that we may rise in the morning and give our all to the construction of our new Casita." She turned away. "I am too old for sleeping on the floor or on a hard pew. The Guzmáns have invited me to be their guest for the duration of the construction."
She left with the Guzmáns.
"I'm glad the Guzmáns have been so kind," Julieta murmured.
Isabela looked uncomfortable. She grabbed onto Dolores, making Dolores squeak. "Let's sleep next to each other. We'll pretend we're little kids again."
Dolores was wide-eyed and silent.
Isabela grinned at her. "Come on. It'll be great."
Pepa and Félix were already on the floor together, Pepa in Félix's arms looking stressed out and exhausted.
Mirabel was disheartened that Bruno had found a dark corner to curl up in. He looks so small and miserable.
Her parents were huddled up whispering to each other. Several times, her father glanced at her, grimaced, and went back to talking to her mother.
Antonio dragged his blanket and pillow over to Mirabel. He looked unhappy and lost.
"This is like one big sleepover," Mirabel said, smiling at him.
"I miss my bed," he mumbled.
Mirabel stroked his hair. "I miss my bed, too. Let's make the best of this, and then we can all have our beds back. Everyone is working as fast as they can to make a new home for us."
Luisa came up to them. "Mind if I sleep next to you?"
"Not at all!" Mirabel was happy to be asked. She'd been afraid Luisa blamed her.
"Antonio, let's partner up," Camilo said.
Antonio gave him a small smile. "Sure."
Everyone settled down: Mirabel's parents together, Dolores and Isabella clustered side by side and whispering, and Luisa, Mirabel, Antonio, and Camilo, in that order, all in a row.
Camilo smiled awkwardly. "It's weird to be sleeping in the same room."
"Yeah, that's right," Mirabel murmured. "No walls between us anymore."
"I missed you," Antonio whispered. "Having my own room was lonely."
"You had animal roommates," Mirabel whispered back, surprised.
"It's not the same." He burrowed against Mirabel's side and fell asleep quickly, the stuffed leopard in his arms.
Camilo's eyebrows arched, and he frowned.
Mirabel rolled over onto her side so that she didn't have to see her cousin's face. Ugh. That's how he looked at me on Antonio's birthday when Antonio needed to hold my hand in order to face accepting his Gift. What is his problem?