Even after the Casita had been rebuilt, and the magic restored, there was still some work be done. Furniture, settling in some fixtures a bit more securely, and the decision to build an extra room for Mirabel. Accidents were, of course, bound to happen and it was obviously making Bruno even more of a nervous wreck than he already was. Every time anyone said anything about finally having the house finished and the family back together he would scramble to find the nearest piece of wood to knock on. He was rather shaky and easily spooked, especially around the villagers and it was quickly discovered that the man possessed another equally as powerful gift.
He could hide. He could hide very, very well. The only time he hadn't succeeded in sneaking away was when he ran into the one of the few pollen pods left from Isabella's self discovery. It was very hard to go unnoticed when half of your body is coloured a bright red. People kept asking him to help them for the pure sake of making sure he didn't go wash it off and they could have this short amount of time to actually know where he was.
Bruno still muttered to himself, a little more often now, and rats flocked to him in much the same way as Antonio's little zoo had to him as well. No one quite knew how he could have nine rats in his ruana and, until they crawled out, people were none the wiser. Sometimes he made it obvious by pulling at the collar of his ruana and talking to the rat or rats underneath it. It was rare to see him without the creatures and, to everyone's disappointment, he seemed more comfortable to talking to them or Mirabel than he did anyone else. That was a lot to unpack.
Of course, it wasn't just the family who noticed Bruno's odd behavior. Like how he spent hours trapped in the unfinished room because there was a ladder over the doorway. He hadn't even told anyone because he "didn't want to be a bother". The way he looked and the way he acted so drastically contradicted all of the gossip and stories and people couldn't help but stare. If he noticed any of them staring he'd disappear the moment they turned their head. He was jumpy and easily startled so no one questioned it when he tripped over a pile of tiles after Camilo snuck up behind him purely for the purposes of getting a laugh. What the boy hadn't expected was for Bruno to leap away so violently and stumble into the stack of tiles before falling and smashing into a wooden beam causing one of the boards it supported it to swing down and miss Bruno's head by a few inches.
The room froze at the sound and the family scrambled over to see if the man was okay. Before anyone reached him he sat up with wide eyes and glanced at the board next to him. It was only then that they noticed the exposed nails that protruded from the wood.
"That…..could've ended differently." Bruno whispered.
After assuring everyone that he was fine he reflexively ran a hand through his hair, as if to check he was unhurt, and threw a handful of salt over his shoulder. He had felt some breeze on that one. There were bound to be more close calls like that. He threw more salt over his shoulder at the thought and glanced around before finding a small pile of lumber.
"Knock, knock, knock, knock. Knock on wood."He muttered with the last knock on his head.
People were staring, villagers were staring. It didn't matter. He had to do this. He had to keep the bad luck away. He had to keep his family safe.
No one connected Bruno's accident with Agustin's own when the man fell face first into the beam that would have swung into him had Bruno not discovered it first. No one saw the faint flicker of green in his eyes before he went to stand in front of the pile of stones. No one saw his crossed fingers. No one saw the fingers on his other hand counting down to Camilo's scare and no one saw Bruno for the rest of the day.
