Alma frowned, the girls still hadn't came down for breakfast, and they needed to leave soon if they were going to meet up with Ana at her old house. She knew that she should be excited to meet her hermana after all of these years, but she was more nervous then excited. It had been years since she had last seen her, and back then they had not parted on best of terms. But it had been over fifty two years since they had last talked and that had ended unpleasantly. Either time would heal the wounds or they would have made them fester. She hoped that it was the first option. Her relationship with her family was still rocky as is, still in the process of healing, she didn't want to have another relationship in turmoil.
Finally, right when they needed to leave, the girls showed up, hair still dishevealed, large bags under their eyes and wrinkle free outfits. She was relieved to see that Isabela had decided to wear a dress that day, wearing a dark indigo one with several colorful flowers down the front.
"What have you four been doing?" she demanded.
"I had a nightmare last night," Mirabel explained with a shrug, "It had some rather interesting side effects."
"It took us a while to figure out how to get the curtains to stop changing colors every thirty seconds or so," Dolores whispered.
Alma rose an eyebrow and shook her head, "Grab something quick for breakfast, we're going to be late," she said.
"Really that's all you're going to say about it?" Camilo asked, "If it was Mami's gift, you would be all over her."
"Milo," Pepa scowled, "Mind your manners," she insisted.
"At least Mirabel and your Madre don't purposely use their gifts after being told not to," Alma pointed out, "They don't have the control over their gifts that you have on yours."
Camilo straightened up, taking a deep breath and shifting so that he was a little bit taller than he really was. Pepa quickly stepped between her hijo and Madre, intervening before the argument got too loud and other guests overheard what they were talking about. "You need to stop now," she insisted, "Remember what Agustin's hermana told us. We need to keep quiet about our magic or we could attract the wrong kind of people."
"Tia's right," Mirabel insisted, "Now's not a good time to argue about that, besides don't we need to catch the next bus if we are going to meet with Tita Ana."
"Mirabel is right, grab some coffee and something quick to eat and let's get going."
…
Ana stood in front of the Madrigal's house, wondering just what the day had in store for her. She had been honestly surprised when she had received the phone call from Alma. Learning that she had survived the attack all those years ago had been startling, she had assumed that no one had survived the attack.
A couple of buses pulled up to the bus stop and several tourists carrying clunky cameras disembarked wanting pictures of the abandoned, supposedly haunted, neighborhood. She watched them carefully, wondering which ones would be her sister and her family.
None of them even glanced at her, but this was where they had agreed to meet so surely Alma would approach her.
She watched as another bus drove past, stopping at a bus stop a couple of blocks away, she glanced at her pocket watch, Alma had promised to be here by now. Typical Alma, expecting her to wait.
The bus drove away and a large group of tourists started to make their way to the nieghborhood. From the way they interacted with one another, she assumed that they were a family group, a large one at that, twelve people probably spanding three to four generations. She couldn't help but watch them. They kind of stood out among the rest of the tourists. For one thing, there was a young girl in a wheelchair. For another one of the girl's was extremely tall, taller than everyone else she ever seen before, she was also really bulky. She looked like she wrestled for a living.
The family didn't seem all that interested in any of the houses on the street, walking right past them until they stopped right in front of Ana.
"Ana," The Matriarch asked, stepping forward.
Ana smiled, if you had told her just a week ago that she would be meeting her sister today, she probably would have thought that you were saying that she was going to die, but here she was standing right infront of her.
"Hola Alma," she said, "I'm sorry, but none of my kids were able to make it," she explained, "Work, you know?" Did she knew, she wasn't sure, she had married a musician after all.
Alma chuckled, "Oh, all to well, I'm the village leader back home, and I can't tell you how much I'm not looking forward to returning. I'm sure there is going to be a pile of complaints to the roof that they want me to deal with. Most of which are going to be about my family all going on vacation at once. We're still trying to convince them that they can survive without us for a little while."
"Village Leader?" Ana repeated, "That's a big job, but considering what your husband does…" suddenly she froze, realizing that there was no one else in Alma's group near her age, "Where is Pedro?" she asked.
"He didn't make it," Alma confessed, glancing down at the ground as the grief briefly consumed her.
"Abuelo was a hero," Mirabel insisted, brightly, reaching out and taking Alma's hand, giving it a brief squeeze, "He sacrificed his life so that Abuela and everyone else could escape. He was able to hold the raiders back long enough for the others to escape."
"A single man was able to hold off an entire army?"
"To be fair, we're just assuming that Abuelo was a musician, it could just as easily been a cover for being a spy or something," Mirabel pointed out, "I mean, doesn't anybody else find it odd that the army targetted this nieghborhood? From what I understand it was one of the poorer nieghborhoods in the city at the time."
"It had to do with Politics," Tita Ana insisted, "They drove you out of your home because of politics."
"We've been very sheltered in our village, Mirabel," Abuela insisted.
"Yes, I know that Abuela, I'm just saying, that the fact of the matter is, Abuelo was able to single handedly stop the army, and therefore an alternative reason for the army to attack has to be considered. A single man can't hold off an entire army unless he's some sort of magician, and we all know that there's no such thing as Magic."
"What are you talking about Mirabel?" Antonio started to ask, but Dolores covered his mouth hissing into his ear. Antonio's eyes went wide, as he nodded, so Dolores released her hold on him.
"Little kids believe just about anything," Dolores insisted with a laugh.
"Anyway, what are you doing today?" Alma asked, muttering a soft thank you to Dolores that only she could hear.
"Nothing much," Ana confessed, "I kind of expected to spend the day with you."
"I thought you said that we could go to Grand Adventure Amusement Park today?" Camilo groaned, "You never said anything about having to spend the day with an old person I don't know!"
"Camilo," Abuela snapped, "I was going to suggest that you all go to the amusement park while I catch up with Ana. If your parents want to join us and get to know their Tia, I'm sure that Dolores and Isabela are old enough to keep an eye out for the children, or if they want to go to the amusement park that's fine too."
…
"I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I just know that I'm going to die," Luisa insisted as she sat Mirabel down in the far seat before sitting down next to her.
"You don't have to ride if you don't want to," the worker offered, "Rollercoasters aren't for everyone."
"No, no," Luisa said softly, "I'm good."
"Are you sure," Mirabel asked, "you can always stay with Antonio and Tia Pepa if you want."
"I'm fine," Luisa insisted, "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die."
Mirabel rolled her eyes, how in the would had she been lucky enough to be sitted next to Luisa was beyond her. "If you're this scared you don't have to ride."
"Yes, I do," Luisa insisted, "Isabela will never let me live it down if she found out I was scared."
"This is the last chance," the worker said, "If you want to get off, you can."
"Nope, I'm good," Luisa insisted, her eye twitching.
"Okay," he said slowly, pulling the restraints down and double checking that they were locked in place before nodding to the person who was working the controls, the ride lurched into movement, slowly climbing up a tall hill.
"I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die," Luisa muttered under her breath, "I'm going to die."
They reached the top of the hill, and with a woosh, they headed back down, up and down, through a loop and around the track, before slowing to a stop at the beginning.
Mirabel rolled her eyes as the safety bars snapped out of the way, "See Luisa, that wasn't so bad."
"Isabela was right that was fun," Luisa said, scooping Mirabel up and walking her over to her wheelchair, "We should go again."
"Seriously?" Mirabel asked, "You spent the whole time saying that you were going to die, and now you want to go again?"
"I changed my mind," Luisa insisted.
"Maybe later," Isabela said, "There's so many other rides, we'll come back to this one later."
"I guess," Luisa muttered.
…Later That Night…
Antonio sighed as he buried his head into his father's neck, tired after exploring Grand Adventure Land all day.
"So," Isabela asked, "Did Luisa just freaked out on the rollercoasters with me, or?"
"Everybody," Dolores said, "Even that time when she was sitting with a complete stranger."
"Yeah, that sounds about right," Luisa confessed, before plopping down on a bench next to the bus stop, "Boy I'm tired."
"I'm going to sleep tonight," Dolores confessed.
"I think that I'll be asleep before I hit the pillow tonight," Isabela agreed.
"I think Mirabel beat you to it," Camilo said, nodding towards Mirabel, who was fast asleep in her chair.