"Hey look," Luisa shouted, pointing towards a large boulder that looked like a bear's head, turning to the rest of the family, "There it is, Bear Rock, but which way did she go from here?" The last part was directed to her uncle who carefully knocked on a nearby tree before throwing a handful of salt over his shoulder.
"I don't really know what direction she went," Bruno muttered, "There wasn't really any way to tell which way she went."
"If I still had my gift," Dolores mourned, "I could tell you which way she is, as long as she's still…"
"She'll be fine," Bruno insisted, "She has to be."
"Did you see her alright?" Isabela asked.
Bruno shook his head, "No," he insisted, "as soon as I noticed that she was going to get hurt I broke the vision. I should have kept going, seen more."
"There's nothing you could have done more," Felix insisted, placing a hand on his brother-in-law's shoulder, "We should be grateful that we know where to look."
Bruno nodded, glancing around, before tossing another handful of salt over his shoulder and crossing his fingers, "Hopefully we find her soon, it's going to get dark soon."
Felix nodded, "Camilo and I will head east," he offered.
"Do you guys hear that? Luisa asked, tilting her head to the side.
"No," Dolores cried out, her lip quivering slightly.
Felix placed a comforting hand on his daughter's shoulder, as she strained to hear what her prima had. Finally her face relaxed a little as she nodded, "It sounds like the village sent out a search party," Dolores finally said, "At least that's what I think it is."
Just as she said that several men from the village appeared, smiling as they saw the other search party.
"Felix," Jose called out, "the reverend said that we could find you around here, where should we look?"
Felix glanced at Bruno, "Bruno's trying to figure out what way she was moving in his vision," he explained, "Wherever he says to look, we look."
"When did he get back?" one of the men asked.
"Did he cause the Earthquake?"
"Tio Bruno," Isabela asked, shoving her way through the crowd, ignoring the grumbling of the crowd, "Which way do we go?"
"I think she was headed west, or was it south," Bruno muttered
"You had a vision, putting us in this mess and now you can't even tell us where to look?"
"I don't understand why you would do this to your own niece."
"I don't understand why he had to return."
"Tio Bruno never left," Dolores announced, unable to listen to the accusations anymore, "He's been living in Casita, besides, if you don't know the difference between seeing the future and controlling the future, you need to go back to school. Tio Bruno sees the future, he does not control the future."
"Yeah," Luisa agreed, stepping forward, "We're lucky that Tio Bruno did have one last vision before the candle went out, before we all lost our gifts, or we would have no idea that Mirabel was hurt and out here all alone."
"And the more you guys stand around complaining about him being back, the longer my hermanita lies hurt all alone," Isabela snapped, flipping hair that was still covered in dust and had leaves and twigs sticking out of it randomly, placed her hands on her hips and growled, "So stop whining and start looking."
"I'm not looking if he's going to be here," another villager announced, while several others murmured in agreement.
Bruno sighed, glancing at his family, "I suggest that you look Southwest of here, towards the mountains, that's the direction she appeared to be going."
Luisa frowned as her tio turned towards the path back to the village, "Where are you going?" she asked.
"Look Luisa, I wish I can help more, but my help is just going to hinder progress," Bruno murmured, "the villagers don't want me here, so I'll just leave so they'll stay and help. Just make sure that everyone searches southwest of here."
Luisa frowned as she watched her tio leave quickly, before turning to her other tio, a question on her lips.
Felix shook his head, "Bruno has never been comfortable around the villagers, and vice versa, it's going to take a bit of time to get them comfortable with each other. Come on, let's search over here."
"Why would Mirabel go that way?" one of the villagers asked, the same one that insisted that he was going to go home if Bruno stayed, "I think it makes more sense to look east of here, there's a grove of fruit trees, if she was running away that would be where I would go."
"Yeah," several others agreed, heading East.
…
Luisa frowned, it was getting pretty dark underneath the trees and they had been searching for over an hour now, even though Tio Bruno had narrowed down the area, there was still a lot of ground to cover, and it didn't help that several people had purposely ignored what he had said. If they had just listened to Tio Bruno, Mirabel could be safe right now.
Isabela was searching next to her, "Do you think someone else has found her yet?" she asked, "Luisa, can you hear anything?"
Luisa paused, tipping her head slightly as she cupped a hand over her ear, "I don't hear anything."
"If Dolores still had her gift we would have found her by now," Isabela stated, climbing over a large boulder, not caring one bit when her dress, already caked in dust and mud from searching, snagged on a fallen tree branch and tore. Then again, it was just one more tear out of several that she had gained in the last couple of hours.
"We aren't working alone," Luisa grunted, climbing up next to her older sister, "Someone will find her."
"But what if we're too late, what if she's…" Isabela trailed off, angrily swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand, "The last thing I told her was that I hate her. Those can't be the last thing I say to her, they just can't."
"Over here, I've found something, over here!" a voice called out in the distance.
"Dolores found something," Luisa shouted as loud as she could, before breaking into a run, running towards the sound of her cousin's voice.
Isabela followed her sister through the trees towards the sound of their cousin. Dolores was standing next to a bush with a bright pink thread caught in the thorns, "She must have come past here," Dolores said, "It's a thread from her dress."
"Great," Isabela said, "Now where is she?"
"I don't know, but," Dolores looked at the bush again, before examining the ground, "I think she went this way," she said, pointing to soft indents in the ground, "You can almost see her footprints."
"How do you know so much about tracking?" Luisa asked as Dolores led the way.
"I couldn't always rely on my hearing to find lost children, what if they are being quiet or there's a loud noise like a waterfall I might not be able to hear them. When you hear everything you miss a lot of important stuff, like your Prima running away…"
"We'll find her," Luisa insisted, "We have to… we just have to."
The two sisters followed their cousin through the trees, in the gathering darkness, until suddenly Dolores stopped causing Isabela to crash into her, "Dolores?" she asked.
"I've found her," Dolores whispered, forgetting for a second that she didn't need to whisper to protect her ears.
Isabela pushed past Dolores, and froze, in front of them was a downed tree, underneath it was a tuff of brown hair, blood pooling underneath her, a large butterfly made of thread that was more red than pink identifying who it was.
"¿Está ella muerta?" Isabela gasped out, turning to her cousin with fear in her eyes.
Dolores dropped down on the ground, ignoring the squishing of the mud as she did so, pressing her fingers gently against the base of her neck like she had seen her tia do before. Normally she would just listen to see if her heart was still beating, or if she still was breathing, but now. Now she felt as her fingers pulsed up and down with each heartbeat.
"She's alive," she announced, letting out a sigh of relief.
…
Mirabel hurt, that was the only thing she could think of, she hurt, it hurt to breathe, it hurt to think, she was pretty certain that it would hurt to move too, if she could actually move. She was cold too. The ground was a little bit on the damp side, seeping through her clothes, she should have changed out of her favorite skirt and blouse, they were no doubt ruined by now.
Voices seemed to call out to her, muffled and confusing, growing louder and softer at random as she slipped in and out of consciousness.
Then suddenly there was someone crouched beside her, she could feel two fingers pressing gently against her neck, "She's alive," a voice called out with a sigh of relief. She knew that voice.
"Lolo," she groaned, trying hard to look and see her cousin without moving her head too much.
Lolo, what Camilo and Mirabel had called her when they were little, until Abuela had yelled at Mirabel and told her that she needed to stop talking like a baby. Tears sprung unwillingly to her eyes as she cupped her hand over her cousin's cheek, "Shh, Mira," Dolores murmured, "I'm here."
Isa quickly knelt down next to Dolores, peering down at Mirabel, "Mira?"
"Izzy?" Mira asked, her voice barely a whisper, Dolores could hardly hear it, "I hurt," she murmured, breath rasping in her chest. Dolores shuddered, she had heard this breathing before, right before the person had died.
"We need to get this tree off her," Dolores announced, "She can't breathe."
"I don't know if I can lift the tree," Luisa muttered, eyeing the large trunk that pinned her hermana down.
"Show me what to do, and I'll help," Isabela insisted, standing up and trying in vain to wipe the mud now up to her knees on her dress.
"Let's see," Luisa said, "crouch down like this," she instructed, squatting down with oher knees bent, "That way you lift with your legs instead of your back."
Isabela nodded her head copying her sister, "like this?"
Luisa nodded, before grabbing the trunk carefully in her hand, "Carefully, the bark is sharp," she said, "Now the count of Three, lift the tree as high as you can, and Dolores, you pull Mirabel out."
Isabela felt like her shoulders would pop out of their sockets with the weight of the tree as they lifted it up.
"Dolores, quick, I don't know how long I can hold it," Luisa gasped out.
Dolores rushed forward grabbing her prima by the shoulders and pulling her away from the tree.
Mirabel grunted in pain, her eyes rolling in her head as she lost consciousness.