Fear never had a place here in Encanto. At least, not one like this.
Isabela had the fear of upsetting her parents, fear of discipline; fear of failing her grandmother, her family.
But this new fear, this new branching anxiety and unease – as they scour the jungles looking for this woman's missing husband – it curdles her stomach. It makes her knees weak and her throat tight to where she has to conjure a jacaranda just to let its scent calm her.
The jungle branches practically reach for her, their vines hoisting and swinging her as she scours from above for any sign of the man. Her family spreads out along the ground, Antonio riding along Parce – the leopard graceful as he bounds across the jungle expanse with ease.
The man's wife had given a physical description, most notably his yellow and green shirt that could be spotted even through a heavy fog, as she said. Isabela's heart warmed at something she could tell the wife constantly teased her husband about.
But the dread that coils around her stomach becomes heavier.
Isabela keeps scanning the jungle canopy, swinging from tree to tree, trying note any sign of yellow in the green expanse.
The search would last for over two hours; within that time, Isabela switched from swinging to scouring along the ground once her arms got too tired. They did happen to find his fishing equipment, but no sign of him. No real signs of a struggle either, as if the man had simply abandoned his chore and walked off into oblivion.
But as they meet back at the man's designated fishing spot, her Abuela looking discouraged, Antonio suddenly calls, "Hey, I think Parce found something!"
The family gathers over towards the young boy and leopard, the jungle cat sniffing a patch of disturbed dirt.
Isabela's heart sinks. And the Madrigals fall quiet.
There, carved into the dirt, are two distinct trails, and heavy disturbances of the surrounding area.
The struggle.
"What happened?" Luiza asks, her voice quivering.
"Nothing good." Tío Felix says, earning a reprimand from her Tía.
Her father places a gentle, but firm hand on Isabela's shoulder, ushering her out of the way. He takes a few steps before her and scans the area.
He shakes his head, "He was ambushed by the river." He states, in a voice she rarely ever heard him use, even when he would discipline her or her sisters.
It turned him from someone who as accident prone, to a person none would want to question or challenge.
"What?" Abuela asks, the wife whimpering behind her, her arms gathered with her husband's things.
"Somebody ambushed him; they likely snuck up from behind him." Her father points to the matching dirt trails, "They were able to drag him here, before he started putting up a fight; maybe they knocked him out for a good minute or so. And they dragged him off over there."
As her father finishes his observation, the wife breaks past all of them in a dead sprint towards the intended direction. Her grandmother calls after her, but the wife continues on. Her father follows, Luiza is next, and Isabela resumes her swinging. Hopefully she can catch the wife before they find him.
Before she took off, Isabela heard her mother ask, "Who could do such a thing?"
And this time, Camilo answers, "No one from this village."
The potential has Isabela swallowing past her tight throat.
She's heard Abuela tell the story of Encanto's origins so many times before; what they did to escape outsiders, and the cost of her Abuelo. It was never lost on Isabela of how her grandmother treats her father, to a lesser degree now, but before . . .
Her father had come from a capital city, making him a fish out of water amongst the villagers of Encanto, but he made himself at home, and even more so, he loves her mother more than anything.
But outsiders like the ones Abuela had faced, the ones who destroyed her home . . .
A wrenching scream shatters Isabela from her thoughts, nearly has her falling to the ground had another vine not caught around her waist. She carefully lowers herself as the scream turns into a sob. It ices her blood.
Mirabel is about the pass her, when their mother pulls her younger sister back – harshly enough that her little sister doesn't argue, more so due to the shock of their mother's harsh grip.
Still, Isabela inches past a fan of palm leaves, and they've just brushed her shoulder when she smells the blood.
Isabela's insides turn watery as she approaches the ring of her family, and the wife. Her steps feel hollow as the smell of blood and rot slowly creep towards her, like invisible tendrils invading her senses. He'd been dragged far, to a secluded area that not even the Madrigals explored. It's no wonder no one heard him.
The world slows to the beat of her heart, the loudest thing in her ears.
The woman kneels before the body of her husband, weeping inconsolably as her mother tries to get her to move away from the scene.
The body has slumped to the ground, but the bloodstains have dried on the trunk of a tree, splatted the same way Isabela had seen painters whip red paint onto a canvas.
His skin is purple, lips and tongue gone from animals, one eye pecked clean from scavengers, the other left dangling only by a single tendon. A hole bores through his head, bulged around the edges, his shirt and pants stained with blood and what smells like urine.
Somewhere behind her, someone vomits as a roach crawls out of the hole in the man's head.
Isabela prays that the animals haven't told Antonio what happened.
Her father kneels a foot before the body, his face serious but solemn. She hears him mutter a silent prayer before removing his vest to cover the man's emaciated face.
Then, he slowly rises and rolls his shoulders. He turns and takes three strides towards Abuela and says firmly, "We need to bring some men out to help bring him back, and bury him, and then we need to get everyone back into the village."
To her surprise, and to her father's, her grandmother doesn't argue. Instead, she turns and orders everyone back to the village. But not before helping her mother carry the still-weeping wife to her feet and guide her back as well.
Luiza switches out with their mother, carrying most of the woman's weight, and Isabela takes a few delicate steps towards her parents as she hears her mother whisper, "What does this mean, Agustín?"
Her father wraps his arm around her mother's waist, pulling her close. Only a man of the city could understand such injuries, such cruelty.
Gravely, her father says, "It means someone's found Encanto. And we need to be ready."
Bruno takes deep breaths as he sits in the dark of his newly renovated vision cave, safe for a single ray of light. His tower had been restored when Casita had been rebuilt, but not before he collaborated with the house to make some improvements on his tower.
The first being a rope-pulley system that could lift him towards the cave rather than all those stairs. A part of him still believes that tiring himself with those said stairs is what made him lack in seeing further into his visions.
The second being an oculus that Casita carved at the zenith of the cave, to allow that sharp beam of fresh sunlight. Though the darkness emphasized the quiet and concentration, it also made him feel, alone. Something he didn't mind in the past, but as of recently, and especially after that dream, Bruno is grateful to have that bit of light. That bit of glimpse to the outside – help solidify that he is alive and free and not dreaming.
Sitting at the center of his sand pit, the four stones around him – carved with ancient yet familiar whorls – glow a delicate green. Fading and growing as if they are breathing, sleeping; waiting for him to awaken them.
Adjusting to his knees, Bruno takes a deep, steadying breath. The power within him opens an eye.
It only ever manifested at his command, or in his dreams, but sometimes there would be a faint tug from within his chest. Like a thread tied to his collarbone, pulling in and whispering to be acknowledged. It's only happened a few times – this morning being one of them.
A heaviness had planted itself on his shoulders since waking up from that dream. As if his powers were begging him to look deeper, to look further. He thought it was just nerves from seeing his entire family slaughtered, and he hoped it would go away with some fresh air and a bit of Julieta's cooking. And when it didn't, when that thread continued to pull, he retreated into his tower.
Bruno takes another breath, and whispers, "I can do this. I can do this. I can do this."
Although a part of him does wish Mirabel was here, just to have that anchoring presence. He hadn't really done a vision since she brought him back home. But he cannot risk telling her, telling the family. Not yet.
Cracking his knuckles, Bruno closes his eyes.
He reaches within himself, descending into that well where his magic resides, following that tether.
All around him, the sand begins to vibrate, a delicate green light trickling between the grains like ocean foam.
Behind his closed lids, Bruno melts into his power, feeling it envelope around him like a cocoon of water, before traveling back up his chest. That's when he opens his eyes, knowing they are glowing as opaque as polished jade.
The sand begins to swirl and lift around him, forming the familiar dome, entombing him within. Bruno stares ahead, feeling his consciousness fade; his feet walking the lucid path as an unknown hand guides him through the foreign scenes. That tether grows loose, fading slightly as he gives himself over to that presence.
Already that awful sense of dread fills his stomach, and he thinks he might vomit sand. But he takes deep breathes, feeling the stiff ache in his knees, feeling his hair tickling his forehead as the dome continues to swirl and form.
It first shows him the mountains around the Encanto; how they cracked and split once Casita had crumbled. He flies closer, seeing the sand darkening until they mimic shadows, slithering through that crack like an obsidian snake. He follows it through the jungles, along the river, until he sees his village. Sees Casita.
He can faintly hear the cave grumble around him, like the hungry belly of an ancient beast.
The house implodes on itself, the sand fraying and scattering like ink in water. He feels a tug at the back of his head, like someone pulled a single strand of hair, and the sand reforms into that blackened snake, maw stretching wide and hissing at him with absolute hatred.
Bruno gasps, retreating on his knees and receiving a sharp pain shoot up into his hips. He stifles back the pain, but his stomach sinks when the sand flits away to reveal the creature's eyes.
Two glowing orbs of pure turquoise glare at him, the expression so human-like. And so terrifying.
It launches at him, and Bruno stumbles back, a scream escaping his lips. But of course, nothing happens – no vicious bite, no choking on sand.
Bruno scrambles to his feet, turning around to the other side of the dome, seeing the snake wend its way through the village. Thinner veins of shadow stretch from its body, spreading across the entire expanse of Encanto.
It sniffs for them. Hunts for them.
Villagers run and scream, suddenly hardening into stone, frozen in their place. Petrified. Runes of an unfamiliar language glow that same turquoise color across its scaly back.
Then, there's a glimmer of light. A warmth that draws his attention. Bruno turns and sees Casita, a delicate golden glow coming from within. As soft as the candle that once stood at the base of his mother's window.
Bruno is brought inside, the world zooming by in a blur of sand. Within Casita's atrium, that light continues to shine. It's, familiar – warm and welcoming. But as Bruno tries to approach it, as he tries to give it shape, that snake slithers in front of him, hissing and shrilling.
It coils around that light, suffocating it little by little.
"No." Bruno whimpers.
He doesn't know who or what it is, what it represents, but a deep primal fear has him reaching for it.
The snake looks to him, its form flickering between blinks of lightning – revealing a human shape for the briefest of seconds.
"What are you?" Bruno whispers, grateful he's the only one to hear the tremble in his voice.
But it seems that is all his power has to offer, as the vision starts to form and solidify. His familiar green glow spiderwebbing into a glass tablet. He takes in his hands, taking deep breaths to steady his still-trembling hands.
The tablet shows the snake coiled around Encanto, staring directly at him, those glowing eyes shining turquoise when tilting the tablet a certain way. It also shows a shadowed figure standing within the creature's chest. He can tell it's the shape of a man, but no discernable features.
There must be more – something he's not seeing. But even the thought of trying to look deeper into the vision has his knees quivering, almost making him lose his balance.
Bruno looks up at the sky through the oculus, seeing the shadow of a bird fly past. A headache slowly begins to ascend up his neck and into his head. This is all he can afford right now. Perhaps he can look deeper into the vision tomorrow.
But there is the matter of telling his family. Something tells him they are not going to find that woman's husband alive, and that it is connected to this vision. But that means this person, who has invaded their home, is dangerous. And isn't afraid to kill.
He'll tell the adults first. They will find a better approach to tell the children. In the meantime, he'll keep the vision in his tower. He won't risk anyone else seeing it. Casita had carved some lines into one of the walls of the cave as a means to store his visions. Bruno props it within the stone, grateful for the small lip that guards it from falling.
As Bruno leaves his cave and begins the pulley system to bring him down, he fights the bubbling unease at the thought of telling his family about his vision. His mind flashes back to all the times before, feeling the branding of their words like a hot iron. What if they think he's still a bad omen? What if they still see the worst in him? Some villagers still think he's creepy and a weirdo, but he's come to live with that. But if his family still thinks the worst of him . . .
Bruno shakes his head, viciously condemning himself for such thoughts. His mother had been different when he'd found her and Mirabel by the river. His vision had been true, and he'd never seen the family happier. His mother practically dotes on him now, her and his sisters.
He can't hide this from them. And even if the worst comes to pass, it would still be better than knowing he could've done something to prevent it. Or to better prepare them for it.