Julieta woke up around five a.m., feeling strange. She stared at the ceiling until Augustin woke up, rolling over on his side and cozying himself against her. "Good morning, cariño," he said with a yawn, his attempt at romance falling flat due to his obvious grogginess. Julieta chuckled fondly, but it didn't resonate the same as usual.
"What's th' matter?" Augustin asked dotingly, sleep-muddled but catching on through some sort of instinct, massaging her shoulder gently.
"I dunno," she said, eyes stinging. She blinked a few times. "I'm not above being cranky before breakfast."
"True enough," Augustin said. "You wanted changua." She had, she'd been craving it. Now her stomach tossed at the thought.
"Hmmm," she hummed mischievously, turning over. "On second thought, I think I'll be selfish today and stay in bed, refusing to let you go." She kissed him fondly, and he returned it sleepily.
"Well, if I have no choice in the matter."
As the day advanced Julieta began to experience a taught, cramping pain in her stomach, and a persistent aching of her lower back. At first, she was in denial, ignoring the symptoms as if the strength of her will could hold the baby back.
It was evening when Mama found her crying in the bathroom.
"Its coming, mama," she panicked. "It's coming, it's coming," she continued, her words fraught with frenzy and hysteria as she broke down on the other side of the door.
"Calm down, Julieta," Mama said with slow, deliberate ease. "It's not coming now, you're just having contractions." Mama could hear Julieta praying through the door. "Listen to me. You are going to be fine. The midwife will be here in no time."
"Her contractions are getting longer," Pepa informed the midwife nervously as she inquired about her patient.
"How much is she dilated?"
"I- I don't know."
"Where is she?"
"The nursery." She stroked her braid, feeling the hairs begin to unravel and stand up. "It's far too early, isn't it?" she asked.
"We can't think about that right now, it's not helpful," the midwife told Pepa frankly, turning to look at her with narrowing eyes. "Especially not for you." Pepa felt her breath catch, watching the midwife turn and stride away. She felt the wind whip against her face briskly, growing in strength before slamming into her. She beared down, clenching her eyes shut. Leaves and detritus whirled around her as she stood perfectly still, releasing a deep breath.
"Clear skies," she whispered in mantra.
It began to rain.
Bruno rarely voluntarily ventured through town alone, nonetheless his sense of direction was uncanny. It was hard to keep habitual rituals when leaving Casita for a specific purpose, often time was of the utmost importance. Today, he had a less precise understanding of events than he would like.
Bruno walked somewhat paranoidly through the streets, greeting people with a one-sided familiarity he sometimes forgot was unnerving. He queued up in front of a flower stand, remaining mostly unnoticed. The nervous young man in front of him fidgeted with indecision, and when it was his turn to select a bouquet began to splutter and blush.
"No sé… this is stupid," he sighed. "What am I even doing?" he wondered in a sudden bout of self-reflection.
"Young love," teased the middle-aged florist with a knowing chuckle, jostling his shoulder and making him gape in embarrassment. "Good choice, Diego. Girls love flowers," he encouraged, very impartially.
"It's nothing like that," he insisted, looking harassed. "But… d'you really think so?"
"Alstroemerias," the florist professed glibly, showing off a bouquet of white flowers with a flourish of showmanship. "Key to her heart, trust me. I know kids married twenty years and counting, all because of the romance of this flower."
"Wait," Bruno spoke up. Their heads turned in unison. The wall of tension was so immediate Bruno was almost impressed. "She's allergic," he explained with a cough.
"...You know Paula?" the young man ventured, hesitantly. The shopkeeper cleared his throat, looking slightly put out.
"No." But I've seen you strike out. Hard. The young man seemed to process this information, frozen for a moment.
"Right," he said awkwardly, wandering off like a lost duck. "Just talk to her." Bruno cringed in solidarity, remembering his own disastrous attempts at romance. Some memories are too painful to bear repeating.
"What do you want?" asked the florist warily as the two of them were left alone. The street was already growing sparse of people. Bruno, as always, appeared oblivious.
"Flowers. What else?" Bruno asked innocently. The man looked cautiously relieved. "Hydrangeas," he recalled. "You have an order of hydrangeas."
"I do, but they're for--"
"Don't worry. I'll get them to him," Bruno persisted.
The florist smiled a wide, fake smile. "Of course, of course," he surrendered, too quickly.
"How much was--"
"Don't worry about it. You're a Madrigal, after all," he announced, that too-wide grin stretching nervously. "I insist,"
"God bless you, señor," Bruno agreed all too happily, a certain glint in his eye that, had the florist noticed, may have led him to question just how oblivious Bruno truly was.
He watched intently as the florist bent over to retrieve the paper bag of flowers, noticing the way he winced, favoring his left leg. He suppressed the urge to ask about the man's knee, in a conscious effort not to creep him out further.
Bruno ran his fingers through the fur of the rabbit foot pendant hanging from his belt idly as he walked through the street. His gathered odds and ends rattled and jingled as he walked, causing folks to stare and perhaps wonder about the contents of his person.
Ahead of him, the pottery shop was in sight, a cart full of pots, ornate vases, and an elaborate set of dishware being steadily stocked with product astride it. Bruno squinted in scrutiny. "…You?" he muttered. "You're not supposed to--" The boy from the florist's was talking with the ceramist's daughter who was throwing a bowl on the wheel, hands coated in wet clay. She looked mostly distracted until something seemed to shock her. The bowl spun on as she brought a hand to her mouth in surprise, smearing clay over her chin.
Bruno watched, waiting for the hint of a familiar pattern. A burly man wearing a comically miniature apron carried a heavy pot nearly half the size of him, about to hoist it into the back of the cart when his daughter squealed in joy, embracing flower-boy in a gooey, clay-smeared hug. "Of course, I'll go out with you!" she proclaimed, smooching him across the lips. "No, no, no!" Bruno gasped in horror, breaking into a sprint. A few people whistled and cheered at the display.
Her father turned, slowly. The ceramic pot slid from his grasp. Fate had been idly setting up an array of dominos, and now, they were about to topple. The pot whistled in midair for a second, and Bruno watched wide-eyed as it split against the street, breaking apart into a million pieces. The team of horses pulling the cart reared up in fear and began to run.
Bruno's legs pumped underneath him frantically, but it was no use. "Andres, get out of the way!" he screamed. The old undertaker froze, and it was true that he was a bit hard of hearing, despite his claims of the contrary.
"Madrigal?" he scoffed, turning to look over his shoulder. "The hell are you-- waah!"
Bruno stopped in his tracks, panting, forgetting about the hand still outstretched uselessly in front of him. "Andres!" he said, with a mixture of relief and reproval.
Andres landed in a heap of old limbs and decades of indignation, pushing himself up slowly from the ground. "What idiot did that? Somebody could have died!" Andres ranted, already forgetting that he was the somebody who could have died if not for his hasty maneuver. His groceries were all over the ground, ruined or trampled. Broken pieces of pottery littered the emptied lane, and people were still reeling from the stampede of destruction from the sidelines. Bruno approached gingerly, looking around at the devastation with a wince.
A tub of chemical was tipped over on its side, colorless fluid weeping from its split-open lid and into the cracks of the street. Andres seemed disgruntled as he tipped it right side up, mostly emptied. "It's going to be a week before I can get any more of this stuff, Madrigal," he grumbled. "You'd better hope nobody croaks."
When did this become my fault? "I'd already been hoping that," Bruno pointed out quietly, offering a hand up that was refused outright.
Andres dusted himself off as Bruno gathered the remains of his shopping, handing him his cane. He took it nonchalantly, as if he didn't care either way for the thing or its apparent purpose. "Yes, good," he grumbled, insisting on carrying his shopping despite Bruno's initial resistance. He cataloged each of his items with a critical eye, deeming most of them irredeemable with an annoyed grunt. He was a bit unsteady on his feet, but after picking himself up he seemed ready to continue with his daily tasks as if he'd only experienced a minor setback.
Bruno jogged to catch up with him. "Wait, wait," he called, falling in step alongside him like a faithful canine. "Where're you going?"
"Where'd you think? I've still got work needs doing."
Bruno huffed in exasperation, "Don't you think--"
Andres turned his back to him. Bruno brooded quietly as he began bartering the price of an order of lumber.
They seemed to come to some form of agreement, after a while. Andres seemed satisfied with his end of the deal. Having an unhappy-looking Bruno as a haggling companion couldn't have hurt. The instant he was finished he was already on to the next place. Money exchanged hands, and Andres walked away with a set of shiny new garden shears.
"Please, wait a minute," Bruno called in frustration. The nonstop pace seemed to deteriorate suddenly as a wave of overpowering scents wafted downwind, allowing Bruno to catch up.
Andres stopped in front of a quirky storefront, the stench of pungent spices battling for dominance around them. This seemed to calm both of them down enough to pause in their opposing goals and appreciate the atmosphere. Bruno inhaled slowly and saw Andres do the same. They were both the sort to feel at ease in a place like this.
"Don't you think you ought to sit down for a moment?" Bruno said finally, chuckling a little. Andres smiled appeasingly, and Bruno felt as if he could see the wisdom and understanding of decades on his face for a moment before he sighed in forced exasperation.
"If you insist, Madrigal. Just let me replace the rosemary that got crushed under the cartwheels, and then I'll do as you say." Bruno felt like a nagging child Andres had simply chosen to entertain, snorting under his breath.
Nothing about the interior conformed to an art of balance or minimalism, and the decor was odd and misplaced. For a spiritual shop, it read more like the eccentric sitting room of a peculiar old woman who liked to collect odd baubles and had a dubious fixation with taxidermy. Bruno paid no mind to the arrays of watchful glass eyes and porcelain countenances, accompanying Andres as they easily found their way around the questionably organized shelves, pressing through hanging beads when necessary.
Inevitably, the owner never appeared to meet them at the counter. Sometimes you just had to ring the bell and trust he would eventually remember he was the proprietor of a store.
Bruno sat down next to Andres on an overstuffed sofa as they waited, happy as a clam. Andres seemed to find this amusing, sinking into the cushions and letting out an exaggerated sigh of contentment that served more to mock his companion than indicate his approval of the activity. The couch seemed to swallow him whole, accepting the human offering eagerly.
"I feel so much better now, Madrigal," he drawled. "If only I'd listened sooner."
Bruno had the gall to throw a pillow at him.
"What's that?" Andres queried curiously, finally noticing the bag Bruno had been carting around.
"Hydrangeas," Bruno said.
"Hmm," Andres hummed, leaning forward to examine the bag and noticing his own name scrawled on the side. "My hydrangeas," he realized, looking somewhat strained. "Listen, son," he began, his voice oddly raspy, "I don't need anyone looking after me. I am capable of taking care of myself. I don't even need the company, I'm fine on my own, and have been for a very long time. So don't go troubling yourself for me anymore, okay?" Andres finished.
"I understand," Bruno said slowly, but it felt like a lie. If Andres didn't need looking after, then Bruno wouldn't have to keep rescuing him from an early grave.
"Good," Andres said curtly.
"But don't you think…" Bruno began, struggling for the right way to word it. "Nevermind," he sighed.
"What is it?" Andres asked warily.
"Just…" He inhaled slowly. "Don't you think everyone needs looking after, sometimes?"
"I've never needed anything from anyone."
"Why not?"
"Because I look after myself," Andres said heavily. "Always have."
Bruno turned away, sinking into the couch unhappily. It was like talking to a brick wall.
"Why'd you get the flowers, Madrigal?" Andres demanded.
"Because you forget them and have to go out again tomorrow just to pick them up," Bruno muttered. "And your knees have been hurting lately. Your doctor is thinking it's arthritis."
Andres didn't say anything for a while. And then, "Spooky," he muttered finally, glancing at Bruno sidelong. Bruno snorted.
"I check in on everyone sometimes… just to see how they're doing," Bruno admitted quietly, knowing just how creepy that might sound to the average person. "The store owner, señor Barbero; he seems like the reserved type but he actually has a nieta that he loves to death." Bruno smiled to himself. "And Rafaela's been experimenting with gouache paints. She's too hard on herself."
"Rafaela…" Andres hummed, his expression unreadable. "She painted something for me when mi hijo passed. She was just a niñita, then." He studied Bruno with that same unreadable expression. "You're a good kid, Bruno," he said finally, a little softly.
The sound of beads parting and shuffling spooked the two of them into gawking over the sofa, a bit caught off guard. Barbero looked at them expectantly, beckoning them with a vague grunt. He was clutching a tiny, amateurly-stitched plush monkey, putting it to the side as he took Andres' money. Bruno stared at it, subconsciously understanding the two of them had been stood up for a bean-filled monkey, but unable to consciously accept it beyond an unplaceable feeling of rejection.
The sun was beginning to sink, and Andres' supplies had been steadily restored except for the chemical that had run into the street.
"So that's what that stuff was for," Bruno said, looking a little green. "That's…"
"I know," Andres cut off, looking unbothered. "But somebody's gotta do it."
"...But, what's the suture for?" Bruno asked with trepidation. Andres' answering smile could be described as sinister. Whatever Andres said next, Bruno didn't register: something in the corner of his eye causing him to stiffen. "Cayetano?" he breathed in surprise, turning to look.
The disheveled vagabond slunk paranoidly below the shadowed stoops of homes and storefronts, wild-eyed and twitchy, looking all around as if he were being stalked by a phantom in the dwindling light and any shadow could be harboring it. Bruno watched him until he disappeared, continuing to walk alongside Andres even as he kept glancing distractedly behind him.
"What's so interesting over there?" Andres demanded finally, rubbernecking to no success. "Did it really disgust you that much to learn post-mortem the jaw hangs open?" he asked, concerned. "I didn't think you would react so poorly."
"What, seriously?" Bruno blanched.
It began to rain.
Andres complained about his joints as Bruno examined the sky uneasily, black clouds gathering and twisting above until the sky was veiled in dark omens. Bruno frowned, his brow furrowing into a crease.
"Can you get back okay?" he asked Andres without taking his eyes off the sky. Andres' face soured and he began to say something nasty in reply. "Good," Bruno interrupted, running off toward Casita.
Dark shrouds masked the remaining daylight, but the red remnants of sunset tinted the sky an eerie scarlet. The emptied streets twisted with evil energy, the leftover scraps of vivid domesticity swallowed into a vacuum of shadow. Cayetano felt his heart rabbit in his chest as a flash of lightning struck out overhead, the rumbling crash reverberating through the ground and traveling up through his trembling feet. Drenched from the downpour, icy cold wind sliced through his thin, emaciated form like paper. His body had never felt so out of his control, seized and frozen with panic, liable to shake apart at a moment's notice.
A burst of red light pierced through the clouds, casting against the cobble street and meeting an expanse of hazy fog. Cayetano keened in despair as a long, ominous shadow stretched across the red spotlight. The shadow's master advanced across the stone street, his sinister presence at once recognizable to Cayetano through the haze, who howled in dismay. How did he know? How did he know I would be here!?
Cayetano shook his head, mania dancing in his eyes as a convulsing, breathless batch of giggles ripped from his throat. "Of course, of course, he Knew," he berated himself without taking a breath. His ill-conceived plan to flee the Encanto could never have escaped Bruno's radar.
The harbinger of his destruction stopped in his advance, turning to survey him with a set of cold, clinical eyes-- as if to study an ant beneath his shoe, before squashing it. The lurid green glow of a street lamp flickered behind him, gleaming through the suspended vapor and catching in those terrible eyes.
Cayetano felt his insides wrench and contort. Something, maybe his sanity, loosened and shook free inside of him. He could hardly think beyond the primal terror, the horrible instinct to flee like prey from the jaws of his predator hijacking any reason he had left to muster after the Vision, after Valeria stole little Jada and Eunice away from him, after piles of unpaid bills shoved under the crack of his door culminated in a messy eviction. The town gossip, the wary looks, the whispers-- crazy old Cayetano, he's really lost his marbles, hasn't he?
Cayetano screamed, slobber bubbling and frothing from his lips, rolling down his chin. His eyes were bulging with madness and he dashed wildly into the expanse of mist and pelting rain, into the forest. Escape! Must escape! His foot caught the edge of a root and he plummeted into the muddy earth, scrambling wildly for purchase in the muck.
"Cayetano! Cayetano, stop this!" he heard close behind him. He managed to crawl from the ground, staggering with a renewed limp as he looked behind him, eyes glazed with fear, at his pursuer. He stopped at the edge of the treeline, watching. Visibility was low and the sounds of the storm boomed and crashed. His silhouette became an outline, then disappeared into the indistinct. Cayetano whooped, tears of joy streaming down his cheeks. Cayetano was free! Free!
A cascade of mud, silt, stones, and ripped-up trees slammed into his side. His terrified wail was smothered by the crushing weight, sweeping him up and pinning him under the side of a collapsing hill.
His lungs filled with dirt and he tasted blood. A low gurgling whine parted from his throat, and then a squeak. His arm stretched, and he strained ineffectually to grasp something just out of reach. Freedom… but why did it hurt?
The fog slowly parted, admitting the other presence lurking in wait. The sound of little bells tinkling was oddly pronounced over the sound of the rain. Death's shadow loomed over Cayetano as he bent down to touch the palm of his hand, soothing his gloved fingers across his skin reassuringly.
"Come with me," said a voice. It was calm, level. It had the tonal consistency of velvet.
Cayetano's eyes were as dull and sightless as glass, and mud sloughed from his mouth in a stream. his jaw gaped open, slack.
The other presence departed, with a passenger.
Bruno watched Cayetano disappear into the fog. It's useless, he's petrified of me! Bruno sighed. "I really ruined his life, huh?" he whispered into the downpour. From above, the relentless booming of thunder caused him to shiver. Something inside of him cowered, a supernatural sense of foreboding sinking into his bones. He could swear he heard the tiny tinkling of bells over the rain. But the notion was ridiculous. Either way, it felt like the end of something.
Bruno turned away, abandoning the thought. He hadn't witnessed a storm like this since that day. "Pepa…" He had to get to Casita.
The birth of a child should be a happy day. Of course, the lingering statistic would give any couple nerves. There was a chance you wouldn't make it, a chance your baby wouldn't. But those things usually don't happen here. Julieta's first aid ensured most births went smoothly, and though she was unaware of this, Julieta was a little more resilient than most people tended to be. Fate had taken a liking to her since the moment she opened that door into the other world on her fifth birthday. Nothing should have ever gone wrong. The labor should have started when the baby was ready, as fate provided her.
This is not what happened.
Fate had taken a disliking to Bruno ever since he opened that damned door on his fifth birthday. Bruno couldn't say he cared much for Fate either, so the animosity was mutual. When he found Pepa in the foyer, the anger at the injustice of it all began to burn deep inside of him.
She was sitting next to Felix on the loveseat, completely still. Her eyes were carefully shut, and her nails were digging into the plush armrest. She didn't appear to hear or notice anything, sitting completely still and muttering something under her breath. As Bruno got closer, he could make out the lyrics.
"'Estaba la pájara pinta, Sentada en su verde limón,'" Pepa sang quietly to herself, the jaunty pace of the song lilting and jumping with a childlike glee Pepa herself didn't currently Possess, humming when she forgets a word. Bruno thought she didn't notice him, but when he gently touched her forearm her eyes flicked open easily. She was wearing a carefully pleasant expression, but the skin around her eyes was tight. "Yes, Bruno?" she asked faintly. If she noticed his dripping wet clothes, his breathlessness, or the desperate look in his eyes, she tried her best to ignore it.
What happened, Pepa? The words were on the tip of his tongue, although the answer had come to him unbidden the second he'd felt the rain on his skin. It was taking everything out of Pepa to repress her emotions. Just like then.
He smiled faintly back at her. "That song is very lovely," he praised emptily, easing his hand back and forth across her arm sweetly. She only nodded, closed her eyes, and hung her head to resume singing.
"'Con el pico recoge la rama, con la rama cortaba la flor--'"
Bruno trudged through his accumulated puddles, feeling the wet squelching of his shoes but not being in the right mind to care. He went slowly at first, minding appearances, but as soon as he was out of range of Pepa he began to run. He felt his heart hammering against his ribcage, the pumping of his blood, the gasping heaves of breaths floundering from sore lungs. He came to a halt at the nursery, rainwater running onto the tile with abandon. The room where Pepa, Bruno, and Julieta had grown up, played in as very little children before their fifth birthday.
He heard her sobbing. He wondered how long she had been doing that. Inside the room, Julieta lay propped up on a bed of pillows, her fingers digging into the bedsheets. Augustin clung to her other hand, his expression projecting an encouraging front that was betrayed by the nervous twitching of his eyes. "Juli, Juli, just focus on me," he whispered hurriedly. Her forehead was plastered with sweat, her face puffy and red, and her eyes were wet and swollen, brimming with fear. A cry escaped her and she struggled not to squirm. "Focus, focus," Augustin reminded her firmly, "Breathe, cariño, you have to breathe. Todo saldrá bien."
Mamá was sitting in an armchair at the foot of the bed, minding the water pitcher with an expression that was carefully controlled and calm. Her eyes flicked over to Bruno as the door slipped open, her gaze holding a warning.
When Julieta saw him, her eyes filled with outrage. Bruno flinched as she began twisting and thrashing, grasping wildly for something on the bedside table to hurl in his direction. "Bruno!" She howled, knocking a glass of water onto the ground with a crash. "Dammit, dammit!" she sobbed in frustration. Augustin tried to calm her, take her by the wrists, and plead for her to stop, but she was obsessed, fighting out of his grip.
Bruno stared, stunned. This isn't Julieta.
The midwife's assistants were already closing in on him, an arm on his arm, a hand pushing him away. Bruno neither fought it nor complied. "Chuli, I--" Did I do this? He looked over at Mamá, his eyes full of realization. She stared back with that same unreadable expression. He wished she would scream at him, glare, sneer, something.
"Señor Madrigal, you need to leave."
"But--" he grabbed onto the door frame on either side, securing himself in place. "Chuli!"
Julieta screamed, burying her face in her palms. This isn't Julieta. Julieta is kind, she's understanding to a fault, and she never gives up.
"Prove me wrong, Chuli!" He shouted, his voice faltering with a volume he rarely if ever reaches. "He needs you, and you need him, too," he said, smiling, though tears welled up and threatened to fall.
"Señor, that's enough."
His fingers slackened against the doorframe. The hands on his chest began to shove. Bruno stumbled, slipping against a puddle of rainwater and falling back onto the tile. The door shut, and he heard the lock fasten shut. He crawled off the floor, sitting against the wall. He shut his eyes slowly, listening to Julieta's pained crying. What had she said to him?
'I know the real you.'
What did that even mean? The 'real' me. A brother she accepted and loved when nobody else would. He wondered if she had been mistaken.
After an hour, the noise from the other side of the door began to sound more frantic, more urgent. Bruno found himself crossing his fingers, taking a breath, and holding it there. A small prayer fumbled out. He didn't know who the hell he was even talking to. It wasn't God. it felt as if he were pleading with Fate itself. Come on, you stubborn old bastard. Just this once let me have it. Let me have it.
Julieta's pained moaning came to a head, intensified sharply, then subsided into labored breathing. Julieta whimpered in horror, a reaction to something. After this, silence took the room.
Inside, the midwife methodically attempted to force circulation into Julieta's baby's tiny body, rubbing the fragile little newborn's back. "He's so small, too light," an assistant breathed.
"His lungs can't be fully developed," The midwife muttered, barely louder than a whisper. He remained as still as a corpse. Skin that should have been flushed pink looked gray, and his lips were purple.
Julieta gasped wildly for breath as if she, like the baby, could not get enough air.
A faint heartbeat got fainter and fainter until the assistant couldn't feel it at all anymore. The assistant shared a grim look with the midwife, who immediately switched to resuscitation techniques.
Time crawled on like this for a while before the midwife finally stopped. She removed her hands from the dead newborn. Her gaze was full of pity as she looked at the mother. A hoarse wail ripped from Julieta's throat.
In the hallway, a jagged fissure violently split the tile, extending from beneath Bruno's feet and splintering up the wall in an instant that had the breath catching in his throat. Crimson stalks of vegetation sprouted from the widening opening, writhing and twisting as if in pain, sprouting extra limbs that reached and tangled in wild alien shapes.
Bruno fell to the ground, feeling the crack as if to prove to himself it wasn't a figment of his imagination. As soon as he touched it a memory slotted back into place, and he gasped.
"Why, why are you here now?"
A string of denials rushed from Julieta's lips, a dreadful, frenzied madness in her gaze as she stared sightlessly across the room. The midwife tenderly wrapped the baby in a blanket, and hesitantly returned it to the mother. Julieta contemplated the small bundle in her arms in silence. Agustín kneeled at her bedside, his face as white as a sheet. A sheen of sweat coated his forehead, nonetheless, he shivered. Neither of them spoke.
Julieta trembled terribly, an uneasy fog settling over her. She stared at the unmoving bundle as if possessed. Pepa and Felix were eventually sent for. The midwife and her assistants slunk away, giving the grieving family their space.
Bruno stumbled back, stood, and felt his back bump against the wall. That was when Felix and Pepa appeared in the hallway.
"Bruno?" Felix inquired, meeting his wide, frightened eyes with confused ones. There was a sucking noise, like a sudden inhale or wind pulling against roof shingles.
"Did you--" Bruno began, before losing the thread of his thoughts, feeling them slip away like a bar of soap through his fingers. He felt like something was amiss but when he looked around everything was as it had been.
"It's terrible," Bruno uttered, feeling himself shudder. Because whatever it was, it must have been terrible.
"We know," Pepa said like it was nothing and it didn't even bother her anyway. Blank. Careful.
Felix's eyes narrowed at Bruno. "We heard."
They pressed past him. He shook his head, then pushed his way into the room after them.
As Bruno entered all eyes fixed on him. Bruno looked straight at the little bundle in Julieta's arms, his heart missing a beat. Julieta's hitching breaths stuttered and picked up as she forced herself to sit up. "Why did you say it? Why!" she howled, a storm raging in her misty eyes. Her vocal cords were so abused that all her words broke and failed her, but that didn't dissuade her. Guilt gnawed in his belly as Julieta deteriorated into a sobbing wreck, hugging the bundle of blankets to her chest. Agustín, who rubbed soft circles into her back, looked at him with an almost unreadable mix of emotions. There was something resembling pity in his gaze, but it was darker, twisted: not the kind he ever wanted to see again. To receive that look from such a kind-hearted friend really put his offense into perspective.
"Julieta…" he exhaled, voice faltering as he stumbled forward to comfort her, fix her. Mamá blocked his advance with an arm across his chest. He'd almost forgotten she and the others were there, wide eyes falling onto her, stricken. Her face was hardened, years worth of suppressing pain allowing her to steel herself at this moment.
"It's not a good idea, Brunito," Mamá said. It's not a good idea. Bruno realized the gazes of each person in the room were on him, mirror images of Mamá's. Félix's eyes seemed to agree with Mamá, studying him for something Bruno felt he would find lacking. Pepa wouldn't even look at him.
"Right," he said, voice quavering with uncertainty. He didn't want to leave now: leave her sitting there covered in her own blood and tears and shaking like a leaf. It wasn't right. But he did because they'd asked him, because Pepa wouldn't look at him and Agustín wouldn't stop looking. He drifted from the room like one of his dreams, while somewhere distant, realization slowly dawned on him. Julieta's baby. She would never rock him in her arms or watch him grow up. He would never hold his first nephew: first of his generation, heir to a line of miracles.
Looking out into the courtyard, the rain was coming down harder than it had in many years. Why couldn't they have received one last miracle? Didn't they deserve it?
A great, old, pink-headed vulture swooped unheeding through the downpour, letting out an ear-splitting screech. Bruno flinched. Watched it beat its broad wings until he lost sight of it.
It was a month before anyone found Cayetano. The stench of deteriorating flesh drew a lumberman to the site of the landslide, and the corpse was quickly excavated. Andres had almost died the same night. He was found at the bottom of the hill. The rain had slickened the surface of the stairs, and he must have slipped. They barely kept him alive long enough for a weak and recovering Julieta to muster enough strength to save him. It hurt to watch her push herself but the thought of Andres suffering for even a moment longer made him nauseous.
It was Bruno's fault. All of it.
The funeral was only a small gathering of family at the gravesite behind the house. It felt too personal for anything else. There were two Madrigal graves now, a father he couldn't remember and a nephew he had never gotten the chance to meet.
He looked over at Julieta. She still wasn't herself. Melancholy had wormed its way into her heart and made a home there.
He took her hand in his, squeezing her palm comfortingly. Her gaze fell to the grass, her lip trembling. And then she pulled away. Not in a sudden way, not violently. Firmly. Like a line being drawn in the sand.
Bruno didn't react in any meaningful way, turning to look over his shoulder as she left. Agustín met her at the gate, and they left arm in arm. Bruno couldn't help but linger, unable to will his legs to move. He looked at the grave.
There was an angel holding a trumpet engraved into it. Below, it read:
In Loving Memory
Baby Espero
Beloved Madrigal Child and Grandchild
