Summary: Isabela develops vitiligo. Her mother and family frantically scramble for a cure, but Isa's not so sure she wants one. She kind of likes this new look. She'll need Mirabel's help convincing her family to calm down about it, though.
Disclaimer: Disney owns all the characters and setting herein.
It started as a tiny white spot just above her belly button.
Isabela only just noticed it while bathing, and didn't think much of it at the time. Probably some odd stain left over from her recent experiments with plants.
But a couple weeks later, there was a similar white spot on her bottom lip. It wasn't noticeable to anyone but herself, pondering the spot in the mirror. She checked her belly again, and was shocked to realize that the white patch emanating from her naval had grown to a couple inches across. She glanced again at her reflection. She should probably help herself to something made by her mother, just in case.
Life in la Casa Madrigal had greatly improved ever since the house had fallen and had to be rebuilt as a family and community effort. The family now made every effort to be honest with themselves and one another. Luisa was learning to say 'no,' and the villagers were learning to take 'no' as an answer. There was a strict, "We don't bother Bruno," policy in effect for the village. Only specific members of the Madrigal family were allowed to request visions from Bruno. Otherwise, he only gave them out when he felt like it.
Isa herself had felt very free over the last several months. She was allowed to wear what she wanted, and she and Mirabel had lately been in the habit of exchanging clothes, resulting in both their outfits becoming increasingly covered in plant motifs both embroidered and home grown. But Isa hadn't lost her sense of fashion altogether, and her new look was generally approved by the townsfolk. She was still considered the most beautiful girl in town, and she had to admit to herself that she still had that streak of vanity that had, at one time, caused a chasm between herself and her youngest sister.
As Isa swept down the stairs toward the kitchen, she saw that Dolores was walking arm in arm through the courtyard with Mariano, Isa's former betrothed. Dolores carried a picnic basket under one arm.
"Another picnic lunch, prima?" Isa teased gently. "You know, the town is starting to talk."
Dolores blushed a bit, but gave a mischievous grin. "I know. They're saying some of the most entertaining and scandalous things."
Isa gave a genuine, melodious laugh and bade the couple a wonderful day before gliding into the kitchen. Once alone there, her demeanor changed. She could still put on the facade of grace and decorum easily enough, hiding her own stress and worry. It would be a very long time before any of them broke that habit. She spotted some fresh arepas cooling on the counter and scooped one up, popping it in her mouth and nearly gagging as it burnt her tongue.
"You really should wait for those to cool, mija. They don't do much in the way of healing when they're the source of injury."
Isa jumped and spun at the sound of her mother's voice. "Oh! Sorry, I was...feeling a bit hungry and thought I'd have a...a small snack."
Julieta was a practiced mother with nearly 23 years of experience. She knew when one of her daughters was hiding something. She closed the distance between herself and her eldest, tilting Isa's chin up to study her. "What's wrong, Isa? Nausea? Cramps? Headache?"
"Oh, nothing's wrong, Mamá," Isa insisted.
Julieta didn't look remotely convinced. She gave a small hum before instinctively flicking at the white patch on Isa's lip. "What's this? It's not powder or flour."
Isa flinched and pulled back. "Oh, that? It's probably something I got on me while working with some new plants. No big deal."
Her attempts to play off the mystery spot got her that signature mom look from Julieta; chin tucked, one eyebrow raised and the opposite eye half lidded. Isa's breath hitched for a moment before she released it. Busted.
"Fine," she conceded. "I first noticed it this morning. There's one on my belly too. I don't know where it came from, but...something is bleaching my skin, and I don't know what."
All of the parental alarm bells went off in Julieta's head. She pulled Isa close to study the spot on her lip again. It seemed wholly unaffected by the arepa. In fact, Julieta could've sworn it looked bigger, even if it was ever so slightly.
"Maybe you should stick to plants you're more familiar with for a while," Julieta suggested, handing Isa another arepa. "If you're dealing with some kind of sap you're allergic to, who knows what it could do to your skin. You know how your father gets with bee stings and strawberries. You might have inherited his allergies."
Isa internally shuddered at the idea of swelling up and breaking out in hives like her father did whenever he had an unfortunate encounter with one of his allergens. Thankfully, those reactions were very short lived due to the cooking of the wife he'd had the greatest fortune to meet. But Isabela Madrigal would never be caught out in public in such an unsightly state. She may have had her freedom, but she also still had her pride.
Julieta cupped a hand behind Isa's head. "Let me know if the spots go away, and we'll see if we can figure out which plants might be causing them."
"Of course, Mamá," Isa assured her. "I was just gonna go and clear some of the more recent plants out of my room."
Julieta nodded her approval as Isa left the kitchen. On her way up the stairs, Isa gave a sigh of relief. Her mother hadn't dismissed the white spot as being nothing to worry about, but she'd also given a suggestion for a possible solution, and as far as Isa could tell, the answer was most likely one of her many new plants. She passed Bruno coming out of his room. He held a green pane of glass tucked under one arm, mostly hidden by his ruana.
"How are you today, Tío Bruno?" Isa asked politely. This had become a pointed question from family members such as herself and Abuela Alma in the months since Bruno had rejoined the family. It translated roughly to, "Are you honestly doing alright, did you have another upsetting vision, and do we need to force you to eat and sleep?"
Bruno gave her a look like he'd just been caught trying to filch one of Julieta's pies. He attempted to brush the green pane further under his ruana, but Isa had already seen it and was watching it. He sheepishly pulled it out. "Oh, I'm...I'm doing alright, I suppose. I just...had another one of those confusing visions that I can't make much sense of." He glanced toward Abuela's door. "I was just on my way to consult someone on it."
"Good idea," Isa said with a nod. "If it's something that seems bad, we'll need to plan for it, of course."
Bruno smiled weakly at her. "Of course. I don't think it's necessarily bad, but...I don't know, some people will probably find it...awkward." He met his niece's eyes before glancing away with a bit of a huff. He looked back at her for a moment and said, "You might wanna...you've got...something on your lip." He gestured toward his own bottom lip.
Isa self-consciously put a hand to her mouth. "Oh, this? Yeah, I was...sprayed in the face a little bit by one of my plants," she lied. "It's not a big deal. Mamá already looked at it."
Bruno didn't look convinced, but he simply shrugged and said, "Yeah, probably best to avoid that happening in the future." His eyes widened a moment when he realized what he said, instinctively shuffling the jade colored glass behind him.
Isa gave him a suspicious look before deciding to let him go. "Well, have a lovely day, Tío," she said before turning to her own door and entering her room.
Isa spent nearly two hours clearing suspected plants, banishing them outdoors and being extra careful not to handle them directly. She racked her brain, trying to remember which plants she'd been working with around the time the white spots had appeared. But nothing significant stood out. She took another look at her clothes, almost all of which were dyed with some plant-based pigment, and decided she needed a change. Temporary though it may be, she still had to rule out the possibility of some allergen being transferred to her clothes. There were precisely two people whose clothes fit her well enough to borrow, and one was on a date she did not wish to disturb. So she made her way to the other option's room.
Mirabel's new room had been gifted to her by Casita upon the home's renewal. The door didn't glow, but it was still quite spacious inside; moreso than it logically should've been, though not palatial like the rest of the family's rooms. The family had accepted the front door as Mirabel's for now, theorizing that, with the candle such a prominent centerpiece on her new bedroom door, that particular door would probably start to glow when she inherited the candle to keep and guard the family's miracle. Abuela was already training Mirabel for this eventual task. Isabela approached the bedroom door now and gave it a sharp rap before letting herself in.
"Mira?" she called, only to be greeted by the sound of a whirring Singer brand sewing machine—a gift the family had sprung for after Mirabel's old machine had been destroyed when the house collapsed.
"Mirabel!" Isa called louder.
The machine stopped, and Mirabel stepped out of one of the alcoves. "What's up?"
"I need to borrow a dress," Isa said. "I think I may have gotten some kind of chemical on my clothes that I'm possibly allergic to, and I need to wash basically every item I have. Seems I need a more...structured approach to my botany experiments."
"Ooh, yeah, that kinda sucks," Mirabel said sympathetically. "Thing is, a lot of my clothes have been back and forth between our closets and have your plant dyes on them."
"Well, do you have anything that's relatively dye-free or that's been washed recently? It's only temporary, until I can get my laundry done and figure out what's going on with my plants."
Mirabel led her sister to her closet, where Isa picked out a fairly simple dress with no homemade dyes and minimal embroidery. She was pretty sure this dress was a hand-me-down from her to Mirabel, as it had a style more suited to her when she had been a teenager, although Mirabel had since added her colorful touches to it. It might be slightly on the small side, but it would do.
"Perfect," she declared.
Mirabel gave an amused snort. "Come on, Isa," she teased, "you know how we feel about that word here."
Isa shook her head in mock exasperation. "Okay, so it's definitely not perfect, and certainly not me anymore, but it'll work for now."
"So what exactly happened with your plants?"
Isa nibbled at her lower lip. "I developed a...mild skin issue, and Mamá thinks it might be due to one of the plants I've been working with lately. We have to try to figure out what's causing it, because Mamá's cooking only goes so far when you keep getting sick or hurt from the same thing over and over again."
"Yeah, I don't envy you in that," Mirabel admitted. "That's gonna be some work."
"What's more, Tío Bruno had some sort of vision that he called 'awkward,' and the way he was acting around me with it, I can't help but think it involved me."
"In other words, you need to figure out this plant thing fast, or you might be in for something kind of embarrassing and a bit alarming to people who don't know what's going on."
"I don't know what's going on," Isa confessed. "I'm just a little freaked out myself. Not to brag, but I've had flawless skin my entire life—oh, don't give me that look, we both know it's true, and no, I'm not sorry, because you're the one who rejected my skincare regimen as 'too complicated'—anyway, when Mamá suggested I might have inherited Papi's tendency toward allergies...that's honestly something I don't want to deal with."
Mirabel propped a hand on her hip and gave an exasperated sigh. "Seems to me your best option is to just ask Tío Bruno if his vision was about you, and if it was, if it also had anything about how to treat this new, flawed skin of yours."
"Yeah, I should probably do that," Isa said absently. "Anyway, thanks for the dress on short notice. I'll return it as soon as possible." She made a beeline out the door, leaving Mirabel scrambling after her.
"Oh, don't worry about that dress!" Mirabel called as Isa power walked back to her own room. "You can keep it because I never wear it!"
Isa didn't acknowledge her, slipping into her room and letting the door swing firmly shut behind her. Mirabel shook her head and went back to her sewing project, wondering what the fuss was about. So her sister had some kind of rash caused by a jungle plant. How bad could it possibly be?