"So, telling us you lived behind the walls for the last ten years stretched the truth by a little bit, didn't it?"
Bruno chuckled nervously. Mirabel didn't sound angry like he feared, but he could tell she was still baffled.
"Well, I almost never left my hideout for the first three to four years, but after Lina was born…I guess she already told you that part of the story."
The teenager didn't ask any further questions about how it was possible that Lina had the chance to be born at all. It wasn't urgent at the moment, and Mirabel was confident that her uncle would share that part of the story when he was ready.
She smiled at the little girl lying in the grass close to Parvel. Lina scolded two of her father's rats, who didn't want to hold still while she tried to portray them with her crayons. Mirabel soon realized that all the pictures of rats wearing fancy clothes in Bruno's hideout weren't drawings he made out of boredom. Instead, Lina must have made them, probably to comfort him when he was feeling alone there.
"She always was smarter than me." Bruno suddenly mumbled, smiling fondly at his daughter, who was building a reck from some branches over his rats' heads. They needed to stretch to get the cheese Lina attached to the upper limb, allowing her to draw the pets without getting distracted by their movements. Like the curled texture of her brown hair and her emerald eyes, Lina must have inherited her love for the little rodents from her father.
"Why didn't you stay here? "Mirabel hesitated, not sure if her Tío could take it in a wrong way. "I know that you love us, but you heard every bad word our family said about you for YEARS! So why didn't you simply stay here with Elena and Lina and instead risk getting caught every time?"
Bruno sighed, not knowing how to explain it in the less complicated way possible. "Elena and I both knew that at one point in your life, you would need my help. I had to stay close to our family to know if something happened to you. Also, I had to clean up every shred of evidence as soon as some rumor of Elena's whereabouts spread in town. It isn't like I never thought about it, though." He admitted, and Mirabel could sense how much it had torn him for over six years. This home was a true paradise, especially compared to his dreary hideout in their house. Leaving one family behind only to be close to the other couldn't be easy.
"Besides, it isn't like being away from our family is good for us anyway." He added. "Our gifts and therefore our lives are strongly connected to the family and our house. Whenever one of us tried to disconnect from the rest for too long, it took a high toll on our physical and mental health. Your mom was in Luisa's age when she figured that out."
Bruno remembered the day he found Julieta at the far edge of the Encanto the day Senior Rodrigez died. Nobody knew how seeing all the injured and sick people drained the young woman over the years, especially when she wasn't able to do anything. He found her unconscious body close where he knew their father died, thankful for his gift that warned him just in time. They never told Pepa or their mother about that; only Augustín learned about his wife's struggles when he married into the family.
"So that's why you told Lina all the stories about our family. To stay connected." Mirabel wondered why her uncle made sure to tell his daughter about every gift in their family, knowing that he would rather live without his ability to see the future.
"She was the only Madrigal who, apart from Abuela and us triplets, was almost born outside of Casita, and she was the only one that almost..." Bruno shook his head, not able to speak out loud about what almost happened that night. The pictures of Elena screaming and Julieta struggling to save them still haunted him to that day, and he was sure that they would until the day he closed his eyes for the last time.
"So, why didn't they come back?" Mirabel questioned, trying to distract her uncle from the pain she somehow knew he was feeling. "I can understand that they couldn't as long as you were hiding, but you have been back for almost a month! I am sure that Abuela and the rest of the family will understand when you explain the situation to them."
Bruno sighed. Finally, they were getting to the bottom of the problem that kept him awake for weeks. "I don't worry that much about our side of the family, although I am not that sure if Pepa and Abuela would let me live long enough to explain anything."
He paused, observing Elena hanging the wet clothes she cleaned earlier on a clothing line. She smiled softly at him before she went back to her tasks.
"I am worrying because of her's."
Yet again, Mirabel realized that the friendly woman who somehow won over her uncle's heart was also the daughter and granddaughter of the same family that had a feud with her's for decades.
"Hey, it's not like the Morenos would ever stand a chance against us Madrigals." Mirabel joked, trying to encourage her uncle. "Besides, the townspeople would always help us to protect them."
Bruno shook his head, taking the vision he had just hours ago out of the bag he carried under his ruana, placing his hands on top of it so that his sobrina couldn't see it yet.
"Years ago, somewhere between Camilo's and your ceremony, I had a vision about Elena not being able to officially be with someone for over a decade. Of course, you probably figured out by now that "official" was a crucial part of that prophecy."
Mirabel nodded, secretly grinning that all the speculations her aunt and grandmother made that morning were all about Bruno. She couldn't wait to see their faces when they found out the truth.
"That and Elena's disappearance were the final straw that turned a family dispute into a downright feud. Unfortunately, I wasn't deescalating the whole situation, either."
His niece shrugged, not seeing why his little outburst that morning was such a big deal. In her mind, the Moreno's deserved every word he said. "It wasn't your fault. It's not like they jumped on everything our family did to give them the right to hate us anyway."
Bruno gave his niece a sad smile. "Oh, it was my fault, not only today but for a lot of things that made this dispute worse. When I was a kid, one of my first visions was that the Morenos belonged to the casa Madrigal. I broke the prophecy as soon as it fell into my hand and told everyone that everything was ok. Samuel always felt that I was lying, but my visions weren't that clear at this point anyway. I am thankful for that. It would have had the shock of a lifetime if I realized at the age of five that one day, I would have a daughter with a Moreno that wasn't even born at that time."
He chuckled when he thought about that night. He had so many nightmares the following weeks, always ending with the Morenos kicking them out of the house. Bruno never told his mother or sisters about the actual outcome of his vision. Today, the prophecy that scared him so much as a kid was the one thing that gave him hope.
"The second time I "messed up" was almost sixteenth years ago. Elena's mother had cancer, and the Morenos were too stubborn to give Julieta's food a try. So when Elena and I finally convinced them, it was too late."
Bruno sighed. The Madrigal never knew why he saw Marina in one of his involuntary visions, but unlike Mateo probably thought, he didn't warn him of his wife's actual condition only to make a move on his daughter. He could clearly memorize that day: Everyone was screaming when all the hope was crushed, only Elena stayed brave when her mother died. Julieta had so much hope that she could end the feud by saving Marina that she did overstrain herself and didn't listen to her body. Everyone thought that Bruno had a vision of Samuel's daughter-in-law dying only minutes before her actual death, but in fact, he could see his sister miscarriage Mirabel if she wouldn't stop. That was also one thing he would never tell anyone.
"Tío Bruno, none of that was your fault," Mirabel exclaimed, trying to wipe away the guilt she could see on her uncle's face. Why was self-blame such a prominent character trait of him?
"It was, Mirabel, but I was only playing my part. It all comes down to this." He quickly glanced at the vision still lying in his hands before turning it around again. It wasn't the right time yet.
"The night Lina was born, I was sure that the vision I gave Elena years ago must have been an error. I considered coming out from the hiding: I wanted to be there for them; I wanted them to be a part of the famila Madrigal. Silly me that I never thought about the fact that one way or another, all my visions turned out to be true." Bruno took a deep breath, knowing that all unpleasant memories would haunt him again by telling the story. But he must, even if he didn't like to talk about that. Mirabel needed to understand.
"The second I wanted to call for Julieta, I got another uncontrolled vision. Well, this time, it was less a vision but a warning: It was a voice that was alarming me NOT to come back before the time was right and to hide my family as good as I could. Something like that always happened when I tried to change something that needed to happen or when I forced it to occur at the wrong time."
Mirabel couldn't help but feel worried; she had to ask him, even she most likely wouldn't like the answer. "What would happen if you ignored the warning?"
"I don't know, but every time I did in the past, something horrible happened, mostly related to sudden death or other catastrophes. So I hope you understand that I'm not too eager to find out what would happen this time." He paused, closing his eyes while all the flashing images of the nightmares he had had the last six years crossed his mind. Bruno knew that every single one of them was one potential outcome of the situation if he missed the right moment.
"How do you know when the right moment is?" Mirabel asked hesitantly. She wished that Elena would come home, but hearing all the danger she and her daughter were in made her understand why her uncle couldn't tell anyone yet. Even if he found the right moment, he would probably hesitate only to keep them in the safe.
"That's what I could see this morning." Finally, Bruno handed her the vision, and Mirabel gasped as she could see townspeople running through the jungle, presumably searching for something. There was no need to ask what it meant as she could see the Moreno's leading the mob.
"Right now, Samuel and Mateo gather some people to search for Elena. They will be here by midnight, and when she and Lina aren't gone by that time…. Well, you can guess that I really don't want that to happen." Bruno paused, looking his niece straight to the eye.
"I don't know if it's the right moment or if I am already too late. But, one way or another, it will all come to an end tonight. It's time you learn about the role you are playing."
"I don't know…."
He interrupted her, giving her a tired smile. "Didn't you want me to ask about your headaches?"
