Mirabel wiggled her way into her nightgown, watching as her sisters prepared for bed as well, it was weird, sharing a room with her sisters. She hadn't been born yet when Isabela moved out of the nursery and had just been a little baby when Luisa had. It was kind of weird, after sharing a room with Camilo and then Antonio, to finally be sharing it with people of the same gender. Luisa was sitting on her bed, carefully twisting her hair into a braid so that it wouldn't tangle in the night while Isabela was fussing with Hector's pot.

"Do you think he's getting enough sunlight?" Isabela asked, "How cold is it supposed to get, maybe I should put a blanket around him just in case."

"Isa," Luisa snapped, tying a soft powder blue ribbon at the end of her braid, "Hector's a plant, he'll be fine."

"Luisa," Isabela gasped in disbelief, pulling the potted plant closer to her, "How could you say that? He's my baby!" she announced, stroking the top of the plant gently.

"Isa, why is it glowing?" Mirabel demanded as she stared at the Venus flytrap as it started to wiggle.

"His name is Hector," Isabela insisted, as a new leaf popped up on the stem.

"I don't care," Mirabel demanded, "Why is Hector glowing?"

Isabela frowned, looking down at the plant right as two eyes on the side of the bulb opened, "Umm..." Isabela said softly, as the plant opened its mouth, and started to bark like a dog, the new leaf wagging happily as it pulled itself out of the pot and started to happily nuzzle into Isabela's face, "Did you know that I could do this?"

"No," Mirabel confessed as the plant-dog, Hector, jumped down, using his roots as legs to scurry around the room before jumping up on top of Luisa's bed.

You probably didn't need Dolores's hearing to hear the scream that tore from Luisa's throat as she pleaded with Isabela to keep that thing away from her.

Footsteps could be heard pounding up the stairs and down the hall before the door was flung open by Julieta, "What happened, is someone hurt?" she demanded as Isabela scooped up Hector.
"We're fine Mama, Luisa's just a little freaked out about Hector, that's all," she said softly.

"Freaked out, freaked out?" Luisa demanded, "Isa, your plant spouted legs and thinks it's a dog! How are you not freaking out!"

Hector rose his head and turned to Luisa, growling at her.

"See, that is not natural! Mama that isn't natural."

Julieta rubbed her forehead, "You can keep him Isabela, but you are in charge of cleaning up after him and figuring out what he needs, okay?" Isabela nodded eagerly, "Now please, it's late and we've all had a big day today, and some of us have school in the morning."

"What are we going to do about Hector?" Mirabel asked.

"I'll just tuck him in," Isabela insisted, placing Hector back in his pot and snagging an old worn-out blanket off Luisa's bed.

"Hey, that's my baby blanket," Luisa exclaimed, snagging it back.

"Hold on, I have something that Hector can use," Mirabel insisted, opening her second drawer where she kept her sewing supplies, pulling out a dark purple baby blanket, and handing it to Isabela, who wrapped it around the pot humming gently as she stoked the head of the flytrap, who turned itself around in a tight circle before settling down into the pot.

"I wonder if Antonio will be able to understand him… he barks like a dog, so maybe, but he is also a plant."

…
Julieta sighed as she walked back down the stairs, her husband and father-in-law giving her a look as she sat down next to Agustin.

"Is everything okay, Mi Amor?" Agustin asked.

"Yeah," Julieta said, "I don't know if it was Isabela or Mirabel but one of them brought Isabela's plant, Hector, to life and it freaked Luisa out."

"One of them brought a plant to life?" Jorge Gonzalez asked, "What exactly did I just sign up for?"

"A whole lot of crazy," Agustin said.

"To be fair we didn't know that Isabela was so powerful, or that Mirabel even had a gift," Julieta pointed out, "I'm going to have to talk to her teacher when I take her to school in the morning. I don't want her getting into trouble if she has another uncontrolled outburst like at dinner, or something else pops up pertaining to it. I mean Isabela's had her gift for sixteen years now and we're just now learning what all she can do."

"I wonder why Mirabel's gift is only now showing up?"

Julieta shrugged, leaning into her husband, "I hate to say this but thinking back, I think Mirabel's always shown signs of this gift of hers, we just never stopped long enough to wonder how she knew what she knew."

…
Alma sat glaring at her coffee mug as if it might hold the answers to her family problem. Pepa and Felix had arrived home just a little while ago, Felix carrying a sleeping Antonio as Dolores and Camilo trudged in behind them. They had all gone straight to bed and hadn't even noticed her. Pepa had mentioned that they were considering leaving as well, the only reason that they were staying was because of Dolores's gift and her reliance on her room. If the miracle goes out, she would lose them forever, just like Bruno and Julieta.

Bruno had said that it was up to Mirabel to save the miracle, but no one really wanted her to. No one, that is, but her. Which was a problem since Julieta wouldn't even allow her to so much as look at her youngest. Going to the reverend hadn't had the results that she wanted. Why couldn't her children understand that she was trying to protect them? She needed the miracle to keep burning so that it will keep protecting them from the outside world.

"But Mi Amor," a strong male voice called out, inside her mind, "What's the point of keeping the miracle lit if all it does is trap the children in with the enemy?"
Alma jumped up, startled, as she looked around the dining room, no one else was there. Who had just spoken, and why did he sound just like Pedro? And what was he talking about, there were no enemies inside the Encanto. No one would dare hurt her family members. Ever.

Today had just been stressful, and tomorrow would no doubt be just as bad, if not worse as her family continues to ignore her, and it becomes more clear that she had lost control of her own family. She just hoped that Pedro might be able to help her figure out how to save the miracle, her family.

…
Julieta sat breakfast on the table and allowed her daughters to dish themselves. "Once we're done eating I'll walk Mirabel over to school," she announced, "I want to talk to your teacher about your gift before you get in trouble for it."

"Can I go with you?" Isabela asked, from where she was carefully hand-feeding Hector some bugs she had dug up from the field the day before, "I think Hector might enjoy a walk, won't you boy?"

The plant barked happily, his leaf wagging a mile a minute as he ran around Isabela a couple of times, causing her to laugh, "I thought so."

"You're actually going to let her take that thing out?" Luisa asked.

"Don't talk about Hector that way," Isabela snapped, pulling the plant into her chest as if shielding it from abuse, "He's a valued part of this family."

"He didn't even exist twenty-four hours ago," Luisa insisted, "How can he be a valued member of the family?"

"He's my son!"

"He's a freaking plant!"

"Ninas, ninas, please, stop this fighting," Julieta pleaded, as she rolled her eyes up to the sky, Please Papa, give me patience, she silently pleaded, "Isabela is quite fond of Hector, and if she wants to take him out to town she can, but Isabela, not everybody is going to appreciate him like you do."

"Keep him on a short leash," Bruno insisted, his eyes glowing slightly as he spoke, "He likes to nip ankles. Especially Alma Madrigal's."

"I see nothing wrong with that," Isabela insisted proudly.

…
Breakfast at Casita was tense, to say the least. It was the first meal that the family had sat down to together since Julieta had left. It also didn't help that when she had tried to do her morning announcements she had been silenced by Pepa, who told her children that they had the day off again, but that Camilo had to go back to school.

"Uh come on Mami, one more day?"

"You'll get to meet Isabela's pet, Hector," Dolores offered, "He's really causing quite the stir over at their house."

"Isabela got a pet?" Felix asked, "Good for her, though I'm surprised that Julieta allowed it… then again, she did allow Bruno to take several rats with him."

"What type of animal is it?" Antonio asked.

"It's not an animal, Tonito, I think it's a Venus flytrap or something similar to that," Dolores said, "It's the plant that she sicced on Abuela yesterday."

"That's not a pet, that's a plant."

"That 'plant' Tonito, thinks it's a dog, barks and growls like one, and according to Tio Bruno will enjoy nipping at people's ankles."

Camilo ended up doing a spit take across the table, "It thinks it's a dog, how does a plant think that it's a dog?"

"I don't know," Dolores exclaimed, "All I know is that Isabela was tending to it last night, it started to glow, and suddenly it was barking and jumping up on Luisa."

"Okay this I have to see," Camilo announced, stuffing an arepa into his mouth before grimacing, "I miss Tia's cooking."

"Well, too bad, because I doubt you'll ever get her food again, even if you are injured. The amount of people she left in pain yesterday because of her little stunt was horrible."

"Nobody was in pain Mama," Pepa insisted, "The only ones that complained were cry babies."

Alma opened her mouth to respond, but she never got the chance to, as Pepa finished eating and started to herd her children out the door, announcing that she too was interested in seeing the newest member of Julieta's family.

"It might take us a while to get to the school," Dolores added, "Tia's letter that she posted in the Encanto Daily is spreading like wildfire through town. There are at least three different people planning to ambush us as soon as they see us," she announced.

"What are you talking about?" Alma demanded, glaring at her second-oldest granddaughter.

"Tia Julieta posted a letter to the Encanto in the newspaper," Dolores said, "Explaining her side of things, it's causing quite a stir around town. Especially since you lied to them about it yesterday. But that's your problem, isn't it? I have plans for lunch so don't count on me."

Alma stood in silence, unsure of what to say as Pepa took her children and left the room. She wasn't really one to waste time with the newspaper, what with Dolores telling her everything that was going on there was no need for it… until now. She needed to know what Julieta said, and what they were talking about with Isabela's dog plant.