AUTHOR'S NOTES: So, earlier in this story, I mentioned that the mountains around the encanto had been cracking, but not ACTUALLY completely split like in the movie. The village elders, including Alma, decided to use the current breaks in the barrier to help create a tunnel through the mountains to the outside world.

Slipping into the Guzman home late at night, Alma carefully made her way towards the stairs and to the room she'd been sleeping in when a small, quiet voice made her stop in her tracks.

"Abuela? Where have you been?" Mirabel asked, sitting up on the sofa as she pulled her glasses on. "It's been three days since you left. Everyone's been worried sick about you." Standing up and moving towards her grandmother, she gave a dismissive wave as her abuela looked concerned. "Don't worry about my leg. Mama's Gift is working again, so I'm just fine. Why didn't you tell anyone you were going through the mountains?"

Before Alma could inquire how Mirabel knew about the newly created tunnel through the mountains around the encanto, she stopped. "Dolores's hearing?" she presumed.

Moving back towards the sofa so that they could sit, Mirabel fixed her grandmother with a look as she wanted to know, "Abuela... Where did you go? Why did you just leave without telling anyone?"

The irony of the situation wasn't lost on Alma but she said nothing about Bruno and Mirabel's unannounced departures. After a moment or two, she explained, "I went through the pass because I needed to see the river where..." It took a deep breath of two before she could continue. "... where we were given our miracle."

"Where Abuelo Pedro was lost," Mirabel finished, quietly, the anger she'd felt a moment ago dying down.

"Where your grandfather was murdered," Alma corrected, eyes filled with tears and pain. "You were a small child when I told you the story and I left out the terrible parts."

Moving on the couch so that she was facing her grandmother, Mirabel gave a single nod as she implored, "Tell me the whole story, Abuela. Don't leave anything out."

It began with love at first sight and as Alma spoke of meeting Pedro and the romance that sprang between the two, Mirabel's eyes widened in astonishment as her grandmother seemed to come alive in a way she had never seen before. Talking about her husband and the love they shared was different than hearing Abuela speak of him being gone.

As she listened to the story of her grandparents leaving their old village and traveling through the mountains and dense forests to find a safe haven, Mirabel was further surprised to hear a sense of... relief in her grandmother's voice. How long had she been holding all this inside of her?

"Your abuelo tried to hold off the banditos who sought to harm us," Alma continued, and there was a tremor in her voice now. "I didn't want him to..."

Leaning forward and taking her grandmother's hand, Mirabel was silent as she waited to hear more.

Alma turned towards Mirabel, squeezing her granddaughter's hand. "Pedro was murdered right in front of me. In that moment, I felt like something inside of me died as well. I screamed... I cried... I pleaded to God to bring him back to me... I bargained for..."

Mirabel's eyes widened once more, this time in horrified disbelief. "You were willing to trade your life for Abuelo Pedro's?"

"My family was gone... my husband... All I had left were my three babies," Alma explained, sorrowfully. "The pain and grief overwhelmed me. I couldn't see how I could raise my children when I felt so lost and broken."

Sitting back as their previous fight came back to Mirabel's mind, she began to understand her Abuela's pain better. "You wanted someone else to make the sacrifice that night," she deduced. "You've been holding all this anger and pain inside... because you can't unleash it at the person you feel truly deserves it."

"It goes even deeper than that, Mirabel," Alma confessed, shamefully. "I was given a wonderful husband... three beautiful children... Those were my 'Gifts'... and I didn't treasure them as I should have. If Pedro sacrificed his life to save us, I had to make it mean something. I had to pay for his life with our family's Gifts."

Shaking her head in confusion, Mirabel countered the statement. "But gifts-magical or otherwise-aren't supposed to be given in exchange for something. They're given out of love... because it's something that will make someone's life better. I gave Antonio his toy jaguar because he was scared that if he didn't get a Gift, everyone would stop caring about him. That he'd be treated like I was. I wanted to give him courage to face his fears."

"The village took advantage of the Gifts because I encouraged them to do so," Alma mused. "'Don't worry about the dry weather. Pepa can water the crops for you.' 'Julieta's Gift can mend injuries or illnesses. Don't worry if the children get sick.' 'Bruno, we need to know if there's going to be a flood because of this monsoon.'"

"You buried your anger and focused on helping the encanto," Mirabel stated, simply. "But it was always there. And when someone in the family started to push back because, say... they didn't want to be a workhorse for the community... the anger came out."

It was true, Alma realized. And the worst part was that it all became a tangled knot of wanting to help the village but not wanting to be taken advantage of, needing to honor Pedro's sacrifice but not wanting to dwell on the past... of needing to be strong while feeling broken on the inside.

"Tia Pepa's weather goes crazy when she feels too many emotions at once," Mirabel mused aloud. "Abuela, I think you felt the same way, but instead of everything coming out at once, you just put all your feelings away. You couldn't control how you felt... so you decided to try and control your family."

"All I did was hurt you all in different ways," Alma murmured. "You were right, Mirabel. I never talked to you all about how the Gifts were hurting you. And all the steps I tried to take to fix the problem just added to it, making everything more complicated until I didn't have the slightest idea how to fix it."

Mirabel's smile was warm as she moved closer to her grandmother. "Start by talking. When I was in the walls with Tio Bruno, one of the first things he did was let me cry. After that, we'd talk. No judgements, no advice, no suggestions for how to feel... just letting me put my feelings out there."

A reminiscent smile brightened Alma's face as she remembered a 6-year-old Bruno crawling into her lap as she cried on the anniversary of Pedro's death. "I can be a good listener if you want to talk, Mama."

"Bruno has always been wise beyond his years," Alma noted. Hugging Mirabel, she added, "And so are you."

X

Standing in the courtyard of the rebuilt casita, Mirabel hugged her sides as she looked around her home.

Home...

For 5 years, 'home' had been a small room shared with her tio.

Now it would be the entire house with her parents, sisters, cousins, aunt, and uncles.

Everything felt so much bigger, and the thought of so much more noise and activity was suddenly overwhelming.

Slipping away to an alcove, Mirabel sat on the bench seat, knees drawn up to her chest as she closed her eyes, reciting the rhyme to herself before starting to count.

Feeling a gentle hand on her back, she gave a start, looking up to see Camilo standing there, head tilted slightly as he gave her a look of concern. "You alright?"

"I should be happy, right?" Mirabel mused, thoughtfully. "Tio Bruno and I are back with the family... the house is fixed... the magic is almost completely back... So why do I still feel scared?"

Budging his prima's feet over a touch so he could sit down as well, Camilo shrugged before sagely replying, "Because you're afraid that everything is going to go back to the way it was." Catching Mirabel's look, he shrugged again. "It was easy to talk about rebuilding the family without magic. It was a new idea, and everyone would have to really change in order to adapt. We couldn't live our lives the same way if we didn't have our Gifts to fall back on."

Assuming a cross-legged position on the bench facing Mirabel, Camilo went on. "But now, the magic is coming back and it's hard not to imagine all of us falling into our old roles."

"Life was easier in the walls," Mirabel confessed. "I missed the family, but... But it was so much simpler. All of the confusion and pain and... I left that behind when I joined Tio Bruno. Just now, looking at the house... it feels so big and imposing. I feel like... for all the ways I grew... I shrank as well."

"Simple doesn't always mean easy," Camilo pointed out, shifting into Mirabel for a moment before changing back. "Becoming someone else looks effortless, but I have to really study someone in order to become them. Not just appearances, but movements, too. How they sit, stand, walk..." Giving Mirabel a smile as he added, "I think that you're trying to be someone you're not as well. You're trying to be the Mirabel everyone remembers. You've started hiding every time you begin to have an anxiety attack. You're trying to hold it in when you need to cry..."

It was true, Mirabel admitted. Ever since her early morning anxiety attack in front of everyone, she'd put as much effort as possible into trying to hide what she was really going through. Every time someone asked her if she was alright, she pretended that she was. She forced herself to be okay during meals so that everyone would stop staring at her, expecting her to start falling apart. Hugging her knees, her eyes glistened with tears as she whispered, "I'm not fine."

Camilo gave her a reassuring look as he leaned forward, resting his arms on top of Mirabel's. "Sure you are." Seeing his prima's confused look, his smile morphed into a smirk as he explained. "'Fine' stands for 'Freaked-out, Insecure, Neurotic, Emotional'. F-I-N-E. So, by that definition... You are 'fine'."

Mirabel couldn't help the laugh that escaped her and as she hugged Camilo, crying as she did so, she felt the warm sense of relief that releasing her tears always brought.

X

Hearing scrambling as someone clambered up onto the Guzmans' roof to join her after dinner, Mirabel turned to see Dolores cautiously moving to sit beside her. "Not as easy as it looks, is it?" Mirabel commented with a cheeky grin. Looking up at the night sky, her smile faded as she guessed, "You heard me talking to Camilo?"

"And I have eyes that work just as well as my ears," Dolores pointed out. Thinking for a moment as she looked up at the stars, she turned to Mirabel and said, "I know Tio Bruno taught you to always be honest with yourself, even though this family makes that difficult." When Mirabel remained silent, she let out a long sigh before she went on. "I also know that you didn't tell Isabela the whole truth the night you and Bruno came back."

Mirabel gave a start at that, frowning in puzzlement for a moment before she understood. "I didn't... I didn't lie," she insisted. "I never tried to commit suicide."

Dolores was about to chide her prima for using the linguistic loophole, but remembering that particular night 3 years ago, she wondered if Mirabel truly didn't recall what had happened. "It was the night of your 12th birthday," Dolores reminded Mirabel, calmly. "Tia Julieta and Isabela had wanted to have a party for you. Isa wore the dress she had made from one of your drawings."

Nodding slowly, Mirabel's fuzzy memories started taking a clearer shape. Isabela had made a speech about how the family should have appreciated her little sister more. Everyone had toasted her... except Abuela. It was the first time her grandmother had outright stated she didn't want to hear Mirabel's name anymore.

Tio Bruno had tried making her feel better by slipping into the kitchen for a piece of the cake Julieta had made, but Mirabel had been devastated by her abuela's harsh words.

After Bruno had gone to sleep, Mirabel had quietly found the bottle of wine he'd kept hidden and slipped out of the den, opening up the bottle and taking a long drink... and then another... and another...

Mirabel didn't recall much of what happened after that. The next memory she had was Bruno's look of horror and desperation as he knelt over her while she lay on the floor.

"You almost died of alcohol poisoning," Dolores concluded, murmuring quietly just in case anyone was eavesdropping on them. "Some of the cake icing managed to pull you back, but... but it was very close. Tio Bruno gave up drinking after that. He couldn't touch alcohol ever again without thinking about how you nearly drank yourself to death."

"I just wanted all the pain to go away," Mirabel whispered as she began to cry. "Even now... I just want it all to stop. I don't want to hurt... I don't want to be afraid all the time... I just want to be me again."

"You're still you," Dolores assured her, pulling her prima into a hug. "You're just getting older and learning that who you are isn't simple anymore. There's light and dark in everyone. And if you need to hide in the shadows, that's okay. Let the light of others brighten your world and show you the way."

Thinking on her conversation with Antonio about how her fears and depression were like clouds obscuring her view of the night sky, Mirabel pulled away from Dolores a bit, looking up at the stars again. "Our family is like the constellations, isn't it? Stars coming together to make cohesive shapes, shining as they light up the dark."

"The stars don't shine," Dolores corrected, lightly. "They burn... millions of miles away. Some have already gone out, but we can still see the glow." Considering Mirabel's comparison, she smiled. "You're right, though. Our family will continue to light up the world long after we're gone. But one star alone doesn't make a constellation," Dolores went on, looking at Mirabel. "You need many stars together."

'I'm not alone,' Mirabel reminded herself, understanding with clarity what her prima was trying to tell her. 'I used to help my family carry the burdens their Gifts created. Now that they know what Tio Bruno and I have been through, it's time for them to help us.' But no one would help her unless she asked. Unless she was completely honest with herself and her family.

Healing was too much for her to do alone, even with Bruno's help. To make things better, Mirabel needed everyone to stand beside her, lifting her up and helping her grow. Turning to Dolores, she smiled. "I hear you," she promised. "I really hear you."

"I'm glad," Dolores replied, as the two shared another hug.

X

The morning of the house rededication celebration, Mirabel waited until everyone had finished breakfast before tentatively standing up, trying to control her breathing as everyone turned their attention to her.

"I'm not who I used to be," Mirabel began, simply. "Neither is Tio Bruno. None of us are who we were months, or even years, ago. Time changes us... some more than others. The... The-The idea of being around so many people at the rededication... it-it scares me. I don't know if I'm ready for that... or if I can even handle it. I want to be there with the family, but... I-I-I don't know what's going to happen."

Abuela stood as well, moving over to Mirabel's side and pulling her into an embrace. "Whatever happens... we will deal with it... together."

Julieta stood as well and as she hugged her daughter. "Having you back is what matters, mi vida."

One at a time, the Madrigals gave Mirabel a reassuring embrace and words of encouragement, taking care not to crowd her if she showed signs of distress.

When Victoria Guzman came forward, she simply took Mirabel's hands in hers, smiling as she spoke. "Bravery isn't always great deeds. Sometimes, it's as simple as admitting our flaws and asking for help when we need it."

"I do need help," Mirabel replied, looking at her family. "I just... I don't know what... what kind of help. Sometimes it's someone to listen to me... Other times, I just n-need to..." She began crying as she tried to articulate what she wanted to say.

"Whatever you need, Mirabel, we can give you," Mariano promised his future in-law. "If you need a place of peace and quiet, please feel free to come here."

Nodding her gratitude, Mirabel couldn't help the joy swelling up inside her as she tentatively asked, "Family hug?"

At the center of the embrace, Mirabel couldn't stop crying at the love she felt from everyone.

x

Standing before her family with many of the villagers behind them, Alma Madrigal kept her speech short as she addressed the crowd. "Many years ago, my husband, Pedro, sacrificed his life to save me and our children and to protect those who came here for refuge. His sacrifice was rewarded with my children and grandchildren's Gifts which have aided this community many times. And while my family and I will always help when we are needed, I hope that in the years to come, you learn to see us, and not just the magic."

Beckoning Mirabel forward, Alma smiled as she watched Bruno and Antonio take her granddaughter's hands, walking her forward. "10 years ago, you were denied your door, mi dulce nieta. But this door..." Alma pulled out the doorknob and gestured to the front of the house. "...This door will never disappear. This door will always be open to you, Mirabel."

Taking the knob in her hands, Mirabel slowly stepped forward, turning to look at her family as they gave her confident and encouraging looks. Taking a deep breath, she raised the doorknob, and as she inserted it, she felt the warm rush of her family's magic infusing the house from the cobblestone walkway to the very top of Bruno's tower.

Home...

Home had been such a small place the last five years, and truthfully... it had been lonely.

But now, home was her family... her entire family. But more than that, it was a place for her to heal and grow.