Despite what everyone thought, Isabela didn't always like her gift. As the oldest of the Madrigal grandchildren she was the first one to receive her gift after her parents, her tía, and her tío. She didn't know what to expect but flowers had not been on that list. She had looked at her mamá and her ability to heal anyone, she'd looked to her tía and her power over the forces of nature itself, and she'd looked at her tío and his endowment of future sight. Flowers seemed pretty useless and Abuela had gone on about how her gift would help the community as was the responsibility of the Madrigals. How would flowers do that? It was stupid, she decided. It was stupid. Not that she would show that. It would probably disappoint them all.
Isabela had always been a perceptive child and knew more than people thought she did. She could see peoples' wants and desires in the way they walked and talked and she could see how her Abuela so desperately needed her family to be perfect examples to the town. How could she do that with flowers? Stupid flowers. No matter how hard she worked flowers could never be enough. Right?
She'd just have to make it be enough. She didn't know how to do that though.
"Can we trade?" Her tío's voice startled her and a slew of betonies sprouted around her.
"Lo siento." He chuckled with a wince as she spun around to face him. "What's the matter niña?"
He sat down next to her in the grass. She'd been hiding, or a five year old's version of it which just meant she'd wandered off to be by herself. He picked one of the flowers that had sprung up and gave a small smile.
"I don't know a single person who doesn't like flowers." He said quietly as he stared at the small purple blossoms on the delicate plant. "Although I don't think delicate really fits you." His brows creased.
She gave a sad sniff.
"Talk to me?" His voice was quieter now, unsure. "You don't have to. I just want to know what's got my pequeña princesa so upset."
"What am I supposed to do with flowers?" She mumbled and Bruno's face fell. "How are flowers supposed to help people? How do I help like Abuela wants?"
"However you want." More betonies sprung up at the stern voice he took on. Her tío didn't sound like that very often. "Flowers make people happy. Happiness is…..underappreciated. Like it's just...natural. It's not though…" He paused to look back at the flower. "You have to work for it and…." He took a breath. "Sometimes people need a little help to be able to be happy."
She looked up at him with wide and confused eyes.
"What do you mean?" She sniffed.
"I mean," He reached over and pulled the five year old into his lap. "you can start by making things just as pretty as you are." He said with a grin before blowing a raspberry on her cheek and puling a laugh out of the small child.
It was an old memory and one of the first ones she had of her tío Bruno. He'd been so different back then. He had more confidence in himself. He spent a lot of time with her and the other children which meant he spent a great deal of time outside. He'd been playful and funny. He'd seemed happy but, as Isabella thought about it, he hadn't really been happy at all had he? He'd just faked it. He was good at faking things. He was good at pretending that he was fine when he really, honestly wasn't. He was good at pretending that he didn't need help or that he didn't want it.
Dios mio, how much of what she knew of him was a lie? How much of her memories were just him faking everything? He wasn't as good at it now. Maybe it was because he'd spent ten years out of practice or maybe it was just that she'd grown up and could see and understand more than when she was little. He somehow, even today, just knew how she was feeling and when he did call her out on her own acts he always looked like he had some kind of secret. Like he knew something that no one else did and that was probably exactly what it was.
Just last week she had been fiddling with a bouquet of white hollyhock. It was an idle thing. Just something to do with her hands while she thought and she had a lot to think about as of late. Her entire life had changed in an instant and it left...it left a lot of opportunities for her. The ability to break free and just be. To exist by herself and for herself. So many options lay before her and she was eager to grab at them all to see which one she liked best. Her ambitions had skyrocketed now that a new life was within her reach.
"Whatever you're thinking of doing, do it." He'd said while passing by and had left her standing in her garden, confused.
He'd always been so perceptive with her but not so much with anyone else. She often wondered why that was. The only other person that he could read like that everyone could read because her tía was just obvious even without the matching weather. She wondered if she was being that obvious in some way but no one else seemed to see whatever it was that he did. It was both frustrating and endearing that he paid such close attention to how she was feeling. He'd always been the kind of person that liked helping others in whatever way he could. It made the knowledge of how his life had been that much more tragic.
He was just so different than how she remembered him. He was like a stranger and not just to her but to the entire family.
That's how she found herself climbing the stairs to his room while clutching a bouquet of armerias, azaleas, amethyst chrysanthemum, and raspberry blossoms. It seemed kind of weird giving a bundle of flowers to guy but Bruno had always loved her flowers. Just her gift actually as his face was even brighter now when he watched her use it. He'd been in anything but a good mood all day. He was frustrated and anxious and he looked a frightful mess. She could see that his worries ran straight down to his bones. Thoughts of his fears were unavoidable and the simple fact that he had no control over that or the situation at hand was frustrating him.
That's a way that Isabela and Bruno were alike. Control and the need for it. Control over their gifts and their actions and even down deep enough to need control over the way they were feeling. Her whole life had been centered around control and, as it turns out, so had his. That hadn't gone away for him though. That's where they were different. Where she was pushing forward he was pulling back. Where she found joy and excitement, he found uncertainty and fear. Moving forward and delving to new depths with their gifts required a certain lack of control instead. It required you to think differently and just let go. The more she discovered about her gift the happier she was. The more Bruno learned about his gift the more afraid of it he became.
He'd always been a little afraid of his gift. It could be disorienting to say the least and the things that he might see could never be predicted. More so, she thought that he was afraid of what other people's reactions might be than anything else. That was how it used to be anyway. Now he seemed genuinely afraid of his gift, of himself. She certainly couldn't deny that he had a lot more to deal with than she did when it came to the expansion of their powers. She didn't like seeing him so at odds with himself. She wanted him to be happy both with himself and his gift. They all did.
She cracked open his door, giving a knock on the door frame and not expecting an answer. Maybe he needed some other system so he could actually start hearing when someone was at his door. It felt weird just barging in like this but if she didn't she'd probably be standing out there all day. So, in she went. She descended from the platform just inside his room on a thick vine. She stood in the sand and thought about where he could be. Bruno's room seemed to be expanding day by day. It used to be that you could know exactly where in his room he was because there wasn't much else to look for other than his vision cave and bedroom. His bedroom had moved it would seem and Isabela wondered if she could do something like that in her own room or not. Until now she didn't know that their rooms could change like Bruno's had. Granted, the newest additions he had made himself.
She snapped her fingers with a nod as she realized exactly where he would be. He'd probably be up by that crystal mirror of his. It had become the place he went when he wanted to calm down. There was a kind of soothing atmosphere to the place. He'd been more than upset last she had seen him so, it only made sense that that is exactly where he would go, but when she had ascended the stairs and turned to the ledge where his mirror stood he wasn't there. Her brows creased in confusion. Was she wrong? Did she have to go all the way back down those stairs just to find him? Was he in his other vision cave and she needed to climb those stairs too? She hung her head with a long sigh. It only took a moment to rethink things and turn around to the much darker room tunneled farther into the cliff side.
She spun around to find the glimmer of fire light from beyond the door and she walked forward after a second's hesitation. These new additions, new caves, seemed very personal. Intimate in a way and at times it almost felt like an intrusion. Unlike his traditional vision cave these places were not for them or anyone else. He still hadn't wanted anyone outside of the family to know. He couldn't use the mirror when he wanted to and the room she found herself walking into hadn't been given a purpose yet. The caves just weren't ready for anyone else but her tío and she could feel it. It was a whole other world tucked away secretly and hidden within stone and shadow.
She'd seen the cave before but it didn't take away from the beauty of the glimmering cavern. He had yet to name any of these rooms and, if they were honest, the family was getting impatient about it. He couldn't just say vision cave anymore because the immediate response from anyone would be to ask which one. Camilo had taken to calling the ledge with the crystal mirror Bruno's Sanctum. He said it was because the mirror looked like an altar and that the word was just too dramatic not to use. Isabela rather liked it. It might just have been named without Bruno's permission after all.
There were hexagonal bunches of all colours of quartz that had risen up from the stone floor of the cave. Tall spires of obsidian stood amidst a sparkling expanse of amethyst. Bloodstone and tiger's eye wound around each other in sparse gatherings about the cave. Turquoise hung from the ceiling like stalactites, surprisingly smooth agate towers stood proud, and darwin glass decorated the walls and wound between bundles of quartz like a frozen black stream. Furthermore there was a unique and thrilling hum in the air about her. To think that he'd once told her that he wished he could make things with his gift like she could. She rolled her eyes at it.
There was a single path worn into the stone that wound through the cave and took her deeper into its' depths. She'd never been this far in. She didn't know that the room was this big. Had it always been or had her tío expanded it? After she'd walked a few feet she could hear his voice muttering something. Well, she'd found him. Her pace quickened and she found him emptying a bucket onto a small rise in the floor. Or, really it wasn't it was that he'd worn a divot into the floor and its' center remained level with the floor of the cave. Isabela could see that whatever he was pouring onto it was not sand from the way it reflected the light. There wasn't a single grain of sand on the earth that looked so white and gave off a shine like that. He set the bucket down on the stone and held out his hand, looking pensively at something in his palm.
"Tío Bruno?" She called out quietly.
Unfortunately for her, and Bruno, the cave's echo amplified her voice. He gave a startled shriek and whatever it was in his hand went flying through the air and rolled down into the ring he'd worn into the floor. It was a single pearl and he almost looked like he'd been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to do. He quickly recovered when he saw her and let out a loud breath.
"Lo siento." He winced. "I didn't hear you come in. The rats have taken to letting me know if someone comes in but they don't come in here. They don't seem to like it very much." He looked around. "Is uh is there something you want?"
"You seem so frustrated today and I thought you might want some company." She offered and his gaze softened.
"That's uh, that's very kind of you." He said, rubbing the back of his neck. "But you're an adult and you have your own things to do."
"You're right I am an adult which means that I get to choose what I want to do and right now I want to do this."
What had gotten into these kids? They were more attentive, forceful, and manipulative than their parents and that was saying something. He glanced down at the bunch of flowers in her hands and squinted.
"Thought you might like them." She offered the flowers to him.
"You haven't given me flowers since you were little." He seemed confused.
"Well, I'm giving them now." She closed the distance between them, scooping up the pearl on her way over.
She all but shoved the flowers into his hands and he just stared at it like he wasn't quite sure what to do with them. She rolled her eyes, ready to strike up a conversation whether he liked it or not.
"You're really that worried?" His voice was hushed enough that the cave didn't echo his words.
She blinked.
"I guess I can understand worried." He shrugged before plucking out one of the raspberry blossoms and twirling it in his fingers. "But what are you sorry for?"
Sorry? Was she sorry for something? Well, really she was sorry about a lot of things but that should be obvious.
"I mean you're obviously sorry about something." He continued to stare at the small white flower. He looked back up at her and tilted his head. "What is it?"
"Everything." She whispered.
"Okay, that narrows down nothing." He chuckled as he tilted his head down to give the flowers a sniff.
"You know exactly what I mean tío." She gave him a flat look.
"Okay, yeah I do." He rolled his eyes. "Not your fault. You were a kid. Kids kind of mimic what's going on around them. So sure that adults actually know what they're talking about and isn't that the biggest secret in the world. Children, your parents know nothing." He laughed quietly before looking back up at her. "Adults pave the way and kids follow. I-I don't blame you. You weren't nearly as bad as others. You just kind of….stopped...seeing me? Stopped wanting to do anything with me. That's really not so bad."
"Will you just accept my apology already?" She glared.
"Y-yeah okay, alright." He shifted away from her and there was a pause before she spoke again.
"How did you know I was sorry about something? Or that I was worried? Or just any time you somehow know how I'm feeling?"
"Flowers." He smiled and she gave no question as to how confused she was over that. "Ever heard of the language of flowers?"
She shook her head.
"I like to think it's your first language. You speak it so well and without even thinking about it. Take this for example." He gestured to the flowers in his hands. "Raspberry blossoms are a symbol of remorse. That's how I knew. You grow what you feel. As for the worry. You have Armeria, which are symbolic of sympathy so...thank you for that I guess. Azalea just overall means take care of yourself and I'll admit I haven't exactly been doing that."
He fiddled with the petals of another raspberry blossom.
"And amethyst chrysanthemum is power and protection. So, yeah. You're pretty worried aren't you?"
"How do you-"
"I've always been a hopeless romantic." He waved her off. "Not that it really did me much good." He deflated. "But!" He looked back up at her. "It came in handy for something."
She couldn't help the laugh that floated up from her throat and into the cavern, bouncing off the walls and Bruno gave a laugh of his own. She finished off with a long sigh and looked back at him seriously.
"I keep forgetting how scary it must be." He tilted his head in question. "Learning all of this." She gestured around. "So...suddenly it seems."
"Not really. I mean...it's a sudden understanding but not a sudden pop up of something new. Well….okay yeah this is kind of sudden and….dramatic admittedly."
"It really is different with you huh? I mean I'm more than happy with everything new I've learned. It's freeing but you don't seem to see it the same way."
"Isa...I had an argument with Pepa a while back and...I could have hurt her. I could have hurt her and anyone else in that room without meaning to. I can't-" He pressed his left hand onto his eye. "I can't lose control of this. Not anymore. I have to figure that out. It just seems to keep getting more dangerous and I didn't consider that until recently."
"Tío Bruno," She laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "If you're really going to learn anything you have to give up a bit of control to step out of that box that we all got stuck in. I know that's what you want. Control. Believe me, it's not all it's cracked up to be." She rolled her eyes. "Your gift doesn't really seem like one that's about control or even can be. You keep talking about time like it's alive in a way. You say it has rules or knows how to fix itself and if it can do that do you really think you can control it?"
He blinked.
"Time is chaos. You're trying to reign in chaos." She looked at him sadly. "Tío, you can't do that. No one can do that."
"I could." He mumbled, looking down at the flowers again.
"No you can't!" She yelled and he jumped. "You can't control something that is the embodiment of anarchy!"
He stared off to the side, brows creased and his gaze suddenly grew intense. He mumbled something to himself.
"Tio." She groaned.
"No, no, no shhh." He held out a hand. "Anarchy."
"Yes. That's what I said."
"No! No. Anarchy. Anarchy is a system in itself just an extremely complicated one. But…..also simple in its' own way. A system can be broken down….if I can break down the system….I can work with it….not against it. Maybe I'm just working against the system…."
He wasn't talking to her anymore and she understood that almost immediately.
"I think I could do that." He nodded to himself and Isabela could see his mind drifting.
It was probably best to leave him. If he could make a breakthrough on something it would make him feel better and she could get behind that. There was one thing though.
"Tio Bruno?"
"Hm?" He looked back at her.
"Would you come down for dinner tonight? We've missed you."
"Oh." He looked away and she was ready to argue with him if she needed. "Yeah. Okay." He nodded.
"Promise?"
"Yeah, I promise." He gave her a smile.
"I'm holding you to that. If I don't see you I'm sending tío Felix up."
"Please do not do that." He said with wide eyes. "I'm pretty sure he's still mad at me for what I said to Pepa."
"I don't know what you said but he's not mad. We'd know if he was." She said flatly. "He is not afraid to say what's on his mind."
"No, no I'm pretty sure he is."
"More motivation for you to come down then." She said victoriously, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she turned to walk out.
"Please anyone but Felix!" His voice echoed behind her.
She laughed.
Yeeeaaaaah. Don't know how I got the language of flowers thought stuck in my head but I went nuts looking up the meanings for the plants she talks about in her song. A catus is symbolic of endurance for instance which would be her recognizing and finally voicing that the marriage isn't something she wants but feels like it's something she has to endure. Jacaranda is wisdom/rebirth. Strangling figs are strength and joviality. Vines in general are a release of prophetic powers. Palm is victory and strength. Yeah...I spent three hours looking up flower meanings.
If anyone's wondering betonies are surprise and white hollyhock is ambition.
