My lungs burn with overuse as the mysterious figure weaves effortlessly through the shadows of casita's walls.
This was a stupid, stupid idea, I think, too out of breath to curse my recklessness out loud. Instead, I peer over the edge into the seemingly bottomless pit that I was about to have to jump over.
Can't back out now, I'm too close to saving the miracle. Antonio, Luisa, Dolores, Camilo… They are all depending on me to save their gifts.
I steel my nerves, back up, take a running start, leap, and–
My world goes black.
When my eyes finally open, I'm stunned to find myself strapped into a chair, my hands and feet ábound tightly with rope, the cords cutting viciously into my limbs.
What is happening to me? Is this even Tío Bruno? Ay dios mío, what if I've been chasing a complete stranger? Typical Mirabel, you're just so fucking eager to help everyone that you don't even stop to think about what you're doing.
"Heh– hello? Tío Bruno?" My voice trembles slightly as I call out to the seemingly empty room, but there's no response.
Suddenly, I take note of what's directly in front of me:it looks like a window, except the view is not one of the outside of our beloved casita.
Is… is that the nursery? Oh God, that's not a window, it's a one-way mirror. But why would anyone need–
I cut off that train of thought, horror beginning to set in. There was no telling how long that mirror had been in place. It had hung in the nursery for as long as I could remember, and I am vaguely able to recall seeing a picture of my mamá and her siblings standing in front of it as little children, just before their gifting ceremonies.
But that means– could he really have been watching– oh no, oh no. I have to get out of here and warn Tonito and the rest of the family.
Testing the strength of the knots, I wince as even that slight movement feels like it will break the skin. For the first time, it hits me that I am in deep, deep trouble: everyone is mad at me, and nobody knows where I've run off too. As far they know, I could have simply run away in embarassment for having ruined Isabella's stupid engagement dinner. A small whimper escapes my lips despite my best efforts to remain calm.
On the other side of the mirror, Antonio opens the door and begins calling out to me. At least, I think he is… I can't actually hear his little voice, but I can somewhat read his lips.
Desperately, I begin shouting at the top of my lungs, "Antonio! I'm in the walls! Go get help! Run, Antonio!!!"
But my little cousin doesn't react at all, simply shrugging his shoulders and exiting the room, leaving me completely alone once again… or so I thought.
"It's no use, mi reina," a stranger's voice whispered in my ear, close enough that I could feel his hot breath on the delicate skin of my throat. "This room is completely soundproof. My friend Hernando is quite the handyman, and he made this little playroom juuuust the way I wanted it. You could scream and scream, and not even my sweet little Dolores would hear you."
"Ti-Tío Bruno?" I choke out.
Long, spindly fingers trace the tear tracks I didn't realize had been falling down my cheeks, but the voice did not reply. Instead, wet lips press themselves against my neck, replacing the exploring touches of the stranger's hands.
"S-stop it. Let me go back to my family," I beg.
"Ah, ah, ah, mi reina," he tutted. "That's not going to happen today, I'm afraid. I've seen your future, Mirabel, and the future of casita. If you want my nieces and nephews to keep their powers, then you'll listen very carefully to what I'm about to tell you."
My eyes widened in shock as he finally stepped out of the shadows and into my field of view.
"It is you. But everyone said that you left all those years ago."
"They wanted it to be true, so I let them believe their little fantasy," Bruno says this with an air of nonchalance, a cruel smirk twisting the kind face I recalled from my childhood. "Your abuela was always ashamed of me, always encouraging the villagers to be scared of my visions. Little did she know, they were right to be frightened. You see, my little mariposa–" I shiver at the wrongness of the childhood nickname coming from his mouth, but if he notices, he doesn't react, "I don't just predict the future, I can control it."
Doubts race through me at his casual statement, even as my heart rate begins to rise.
No, impossible! Why would the candle grant him such a powerful gift? How much influence does he hold over the future of the encanto?
In that moment, I resolve to do whatever it takes to save my family's blessings. It is the only way I, the giftless Madrigal, can serve my family
"What do you want from me, Tío?" I ask, hoping that the small reminder of who I am to him will soften his stony heart enough to untie me.
Maybe, if I cooperate with him, give him what he wants, he will let me go…
Even as I think it, I get a sinking feeling in my stomach as he steps closer and resumes his exploring touches. Only this time, his hand travels farther down my front, past my chin and over my clavicles, slipping beneath the neckline of my lacy white shirt and under my bra to fondle my laughingly flat chest. .
"No, Tío, stop–" Tears fill my eyes as he pinches a nipple roughly between his thumb and forefinger. "Why– why are you doing this? I'm your niece!"
"Didn't you ever wonder, mariposa, why I left, all those years ago?" Bruno's green eyes seem to take on an unearthly glow as he uses his other hand to force my chin up. I'm unable to look away as he somehow forces a vision upon me.
With a start, I realize that this is not a vision of the future, but of the past. There I am, just a few hours before my failed ceremony is about to occur. I see the smaller version of myself laying on the bed, playing happily with a stuffed butterfly toy as the door swings open.
A slightly younger version of Tío Bruno, one with less gray hair and fewer wrinkles, walks in, and the five year old version of me is too naive to know that the click of the lock is an ominous sign of what's to come.
I try to close my eyes and avoid the horrors I know I'm going to witness, but Bruno digs his fingertips into my cheeks, painfully reminding me of just who is in charge.
And so, I'm forced to watch, bound and helpless, as our past selves engage in small talk over the upcoming ceremony. Younger Bruno asks younger me if she wants him to make the butterflies in her tummy go away, so she will feel great before the big ceremony.
Eagerly, she agrees, and he pats the pillow gently, telling her in a singsong voice to lay her head down and pretend to sleep, "just like I taught you, mi mariposa."
She obeys without question, so sweet and innocent, so completely trusting of her Tío. When he pulls down her panties and checks that she's still pretending, I begin to weep. As he expertly flicks his tongue out to taste her, I half expect her to start crying out in fear or confusion. But no, she… likes it? She spreads her little legs wider, as if she's done this a hundred times before?
My head reels as this shadow of myself is brought to orgasm within minutes, bucking and riding her uncle's face with the wild abandon of children who don't know enough to be ashamed of their bodies and their reactions.
Just as the younger Bruno was pulling his head out from under his youngest niece's lily white skirt, the sound of a key sliding into the doorknob and unlocking echoes through the room. Everything begins to grow hazy as the vision fades back into the present day, but not before I catch a glimpse of Abuela's look of horror.
Present day Bruno releases my chin, stepping away and dragging a stool to sit across from me. He waits patiently for me to speak as I process everything I've just witnessed.
"But you – Abuela– SHE KNEW!" My voice cracked with slight hysteria. "She knew why you left, and she didn't tell me? And YOU! You're a– a sick fucking pervert!"
His eyes flash dangerously, and he says in a low tone, "Watch your language mariposa. I won't have you sullying such a beautiful thing with your filthy words."
More quietly, I say, "But Tío, can't you see how wrong that was? I was only five!"
"And did it look like I forced you?" Bruno demanded. "Because I would never have done such a thing! I loved you more than any of the others."
"There were others?" I gasp. "Who?"
He ignores my question, pacing back and forth now as he mutters under his breath, "Or course she loved it. Remember the plan, Bruno. This is for the best. The others weren't strong enough, weren't perfect enough. This is what has to happen to save the miracle. It has to be like this. You know that."
"I know what? Who wasn't strong enough?" My frustration mounts as he talks like I'm not even in the room. "Untie me and I'll help you Tío. I just want to help save the miracle."
Startled, as if he's forgotten all about my presence for a moment, Bruno turns back to me and says regretfully, "I'm afraid I can't do that Mirabel. You won't agree to what I have to do next."
He approaches me, pulling out a rag and an unmarked bottle of some chemical that smells sticky sweet as it's pressed over my nose. After a minute or two passes, with me struggling all the while, my eyes roll into the back of my head once more.
When I next come too, I'm no longer sitting up. Instead, I'm flat on my back in a different room, surrounded by the dim, flickering light of a dozen candles. I realize, to my dismay, that while I was asleep, I've been stripped naked and tied spread eagle to four different posts. Straining my head to look around as best I can, all I can see beyond the candles is that I'm surrounded by a large circle of what looks like sand.
"Oh good, you're awake."
I whip my head to the right and see my estranged uncle step over the line of white sand, I recognize it as the one from his room, and I can't help but wonder what he's going to do to me.
"Tío?" I say in a small, timid voice. "What are you going to do to me? Is this really going to save the encanto, or are you just doing this for you?"
"Of course I want to save the encanto." His reassuring voice is belied by the manic gleam in his eyes, that haunting shade of green that seems to see straight into my soul. "This is the only way, Mirabel. I've seen it. Trust me. It's the only way…"
He slowly begins to strip, peeling each layer of clothes away and folding them neatly before gently placing them outside of the circle, ever so careful not to muss the sacred line. One he is completely bare, I cannot help but stare at his naked body.
For a fifty year old man, he is surprisingly spry and lean. Obviously, he's spent the last ten years eating only what little food he could steal from the kitchens, and it shows. I avert my gaze when I reach his lean hips, but I snap back to attention when he straddles my midsection, the tip of his growing cock nestled between my small breasts.
My breath catches in my throat as he brings out a bowl of what smells like medicinal oils and lights a stick of incense that makes me lightheaded and drowsy all at once. When he begins rubbing the oil into every inch of my skin, I can't stop the moan of ecstasy that slips out. In the back of my head is a small voice telling me that I'm acting strangely, that I should be fighting this, but then his hands are all over me once more, driving the last of my coherent thoughts out of my mind.
Tío Bruno's face is all I can see through my heavy-lidded eyes as he smiles above me.
"That's it, cariño, just relax. Let me take care of you like I used to," Bruno murmurs as he captures my lips in a gentle kiss, slipping his tongue into my pliant mouth.
He sucks lightly on my bottom lip, leaving it swollen and tender, before moving down my body to lavish attention on one budding breast and then the other. My nipples tighten and harden beneath his ministrations. Even if I wanted to stop him, I'm too far gone, I can only lie there helplessly, mewling in pleasure as he alternates between sucking on the tiny nubs to the point of pain and then soothing them with his broad tongue.
"Tío," I pant.
"Call me Bruno," he orders.
"B-Bruno… Bruno please!" I don't even know what I'm begging for at this point. I've heard the village girls giggling over boys in the hallways between classes, but Luisa has never had the time to explain things to me, and Isabella would rather die than to help her stupid little, giftless sister. At best, I have a vague notion of the mechanics. Still, there was this growing ache between my legs, and a slickness that went beyond that of just the oils.
"Please what, mi mariposa? Do you want me to chase the butterflies away, just like I used to?"
The flush that stains my face makes its way down my neck and chest before traveling lower, to the soft flesh of my tummy. That small voice is saying no, and I open my mouth to tell him to stop, but all that comes out is–
"Yes. Please Bruno, I need you!" I hardly recognize my own voice. It has a sultry, throaty quality to it that I've never heard myself use before. "Show me how special I am to you." Little did I realize, but my eyes had slowly begun to turn a matching shade of green as my uncle's, and the circle around us began to glow that eerie color as well.
Bruno wastes little time in obliging me, moving down to bury his face in my lap once more. He shoves his tongue deep between my dripping folds, his large nose grinding into my clit in a way that makes my hips buck against their restraints. Satisfied that I was ready for more, he pulls back and latches onto my clit with an impatient fervor, wringing half-screams, half-sobs from me as I fall apart beneath him just as I used to. Only this time, the sensations are even more heightened, both due to the maturity of my body and the incense and oils acting as an aphrodisiac.
Without giving me much time to recover, Bruno plunges a finger into my pulsing virgin cunt, quickly followed by a second. I'm already building up to a second orgasm, and I close my eyes in anticipation, only to be shocked by his hand being replaced with the head of his cock.
Suddenly, the knowledge of what is about to occur comes crashing down on me, cutting through the drugged stupor.
I tense up immediately, and cry out, "No! Tío Bruno, no! It's not right!"
He slides a hand around my throat, and the same fingers that brought me unimaginable pleasure only seconds prior, now squeeze my airways so tight that I begin to see stars and spots.
"Shut. Up! How can this not be right? You were destined to be mine! I told your abuela the same thing, but Mamá was too softhearted to do what needed to be done. She took away your gift that night, thinking it would stop me from wanting you, mi mariposa, but all it did was push your fate further into my arms."
My head begins to hurt, both from the bruising grip on my throat and the idea that Abuela had denied me my gift on purpose.
What if he's telling the truth? Why else would Antonio get a gift, but not me? No… no, there has to be another explanation… Right? Abuela wouldn't take away my encanto.
Perhaps sensing my inner turmoil, Bruno seizes upon my indecision and releases my neck, pressing himself inside me another inch. I can feel the throbbing of his cock as he stretches my pussy beyond what I had ever experienced before. All the while, he whispers things in my ears, things he could only have discovered during his time hidden within the walls of casita.
"She prayed for another boy, you know. She wanted dear, sweet Julieta to bear her a grandson that looked just like her beloved Pedro, but instead, she got you. I was the one who held you when she yelled at you that children should be seen and not heard. I was the one who chased the nightmares away when she denied you your birthright. I would watch over you every night in the mirror, watch as you grew more miserable in your cursed life, doomed to be forever ordinary. The least interesting Madrigal."
The tears stream freely down my face by now, and not because Tío Bruno had over half his length inside me. No, this is a deep-seated resentment that he was bringing to the surface. I realize that he knows how I feel because he himself had been rejected. I feel a sick sense of kinship forming between us, despite my disgust at what he's doing to me, and my resolve to save the encanto for my family is slowly giving way to a desire for revenge.
"Please, Bruno," I beseech. "Just do it. Give me back what she stole from me."
A look of delight crosses his face, and he responds by cradling the back of my head and giving a sharp thrust of his lean hips, freezing briefly as he sheathes himself to the hilt inside me.
Something snaps inside me, a piece of myself seemingly rattling loose, and I'm stunned speechless. What should feel like the most wrong, twisted, corrupted thing in the world, feels like everything has been set right with the world.
Any pain I was feeling fades almost instantly, and it's replaced by the most intense heat I have ever experienced. My body feels like it's on fire from the inside out as Bruno pistons in and out of me like a man possessed. Every inch of my skin feels alive, and green light begins to leak out of every pore as the magic of the encanto washes over me and settles in my womb, where Bruno's cock is ravaging my cunt and marking it as his own.
With a grunt and a blinding flash, he comes deep inside me, shouting my name as he does. The bindings around my wrists and ankles suddenly disappear as he sags against me, and instead of running, as any sane person should, I cling to him as a lover would.
Running my fingers through his hair, I allow Bruno to lie with his head nestled between the gentle swell of my heaving breasts.
"Bruno?"
"Yes, mi mariposa?"
"What is my gift? I– can feel it inside me," I say with a hint of wonder, "But I don't understand what it is."
He places a hand on my small belly, and the smile he gives me takes my breath away.
"Ay, mariposa, tu tienes el encanto de la vida, the gift of life. Your abuela can never give or deny a gift again. That job falls to you now, and, when the time is right, when our child is of age, we will return to take what is rightfully ours: our place as the head of the Madrigal family and the true protectors of the encanto."
We made love several more times that night, and each time, I could feel the milagrito in me growing stronger.
Before we fall asleep, Bruno shows me a vision of us in the future. Me, ripe with his third child, and our little Lucía, kneeling at his feet, sucking her father's cock. He whispers in my ear that this will be the new way for the family to receive their gift, for only by submitting to us will they prove themselves worthy of the honor of an encanto. That way, selfish people like my abuela can never stand in the way of our family's destiny again.
So drunk on the power that I will soon hold, I don't even protest at the wrongness of our future child's tiny lips wrapped around her father's cock. I gladly accept all that he has to offer me and all that we will be. For too long, I was left out in the dark, the outcast of my family.
But with my Bruno, I have seen the light, at last.