Exhausted, eighteen-year-old Bruno sat on his bedroom floor with his back against his door. A migraine was starting. Sweet Señora Molina was inconsolable after Bruno had shown her a vision that her husband was cheating on her with her best friend's husband. It was disgusting—not so much the two men having intercourse, but the two good women having their hearts broken. Señor Molina had destroyed the tablet serving as evidence and spread rumors that Bruno had spread lies about his character. While his mamá believed Bruno and supported him anyway, Bruno had asked her if he should have just kept the vision to himself and spared the two women of heartbreak.
Mamá hadn't been able to give any advice because she and Papá had not been married long enough for either of them to do anything quite so stupid, except dying maybe. Well, she didn't really phrase it like that, but Bruno's thoughts kept circling back to his papá. Bruno didn't exactly miss him, but he imagined that, if Papá had just run, they might all still be together, and Bruno and his sisters would be normal kids. Free emotions, no visions, and sheer grit sustaining the community.
Bruno grabbed the Rosary around his neck as darker thoughts swirled in his head. The Encanto was full of horrible people. Gossipmongers were the least of his problems, but they didn't help. There were vandals, adulterers, rapists, and murderers—all of them in their little village. It was partially why Julieta almost never ran out of patients to treat. His visions had prevented some of the crimes before, which was a good thing; it just bothered Bruno to have seen them at all.
Bruno could accept that innocence was not meant for someone with his gift. But seeing such violence—especially violence that had nothing to do with his own life—it left him feeling hopeless and fearful. Bruno dreaded the day that he would see something awful happening to his family or himself. To his immense relief, he was fortunate to see that his sisters had found good men that would someday become good husbands and fathers, but that did not stop his own mind from conjuring images of the opposite. Was he going insane?
Christina Mirabilis, ora pro me.
Bruno didn't want to look into his own future, and he was grateful that his gift hadn't forced him to see it either. But not knowing became almost as terrifying as knowing. The Encanto didn't feel like a safe place anymore. He would go through his days waiting for somebody to hurt him. Some days, people did hurt him—somebody whose house burned down; somebody whose lover left them; somebody who would never have children; somebody who would never marry—and many others.
What if these misfortunes were to happen to me?
He didn't want to find out. But how much longer of this could he take? Unfortunately, Julieta had taken all the sharp objects from Bruno's room—pens, pencils, broken glass, his razor—after she had caught him hurting himself last year. After forcing Bruno to eat a buñuelo so Mamá wouldn't find out, Juliet and Pepa had moved all of Bruno's art supplies into their old nursery and then removed the door from the threshold. "You will do all of your arts and crafts here, and you will shave only in the bathroom!" Julieta had ordered. With Casita's help, Julieta had chained his razor to the sink, too.
Gentle knocking blew away the dark cloud from his mind. Julieta said, "Bruno, I need to bring a cactus for Aya, but I have so many patients waiting at the plaza. Could you bring it to her for me?"
Christina Mirabilis (a.k.a. Christina the Astonishing) was a Belgian saint known for acts of penance so extreme that others wondered if she were insane; she is now the patron saint for the mentally ill. (And yes, her epithet is the etymology of Mirabel.)
