Out of Nowhere

CH.2

Silence was prevalent once again among the Madrigals and their dinner guests. No one had thought that someone would walk up to their front door and ask to marry their youngest female family member. The FIFTEEN year old daughter of Julieta and Augustin, who only just had her quinceañera only two months ago. Sure they expected boys to come looking to gain their youngest daughters attention at some point, but they had assumed that it would be later in life, when she was out of school and a legal adult (Augustin hoped that she would be much older by that time, but his wife told him he was being ridiculous; waiting for her to be forty before he even allowed her to be in a relationship with someone.). To have someone already asking to marry her was not something they thought would ever happen so soon. Everyone was doing mental gymnastics, trying to figure out what was going on; the main questions being: "Why is Emilio Velasquez here asking to marry Mirabel?"; "Are they seeing each other?"; and "Why would he choose to ask now?"

The mental gymnastics these questions caused led the people present to come to only one conclusion. Said conclusion caused two differing reactions in Mirabel's parents. Julieta turned to look at her daughter with concern and asked, "Mirabel, is there something you want to tell us?". While her mother did this, her father grabbed Emilio by the collar and had a look of restrained anger marring his face as he roared, "What did you do to my daughter?!"

Mirabel looked around her to see the questioning faces of her family and the Guzmans, as she quickly replied, "NO, I am not in the delicate situation that you all are assuming. I am just as surprised that this is happening as the rest of you." Her face was one of embarrassed horror at what they were implying, and she expected the boy in question would look embarrassed as well. Contrary to that expectation, Emilio was looking at her father with an expression that was somewhere between annoyance and questioning her father's sanity or intelligence.

"Señor, I can assure you that your daughter and I have never done anything inappropriate with each other before. Neither of us have shown any blatant interest in the other, until now." Emilio said, his voice relatively monotone yet formal. Her father turned to look back at his daughter to silently ask if everything the boy said was true. Mirabel nodded her head vigorously to get the point across that she has had no "relations" with anyone before.

With the assurance that he wasn't going to be a surprise grandfather, Augustin quickly calmed down and released Emilio from his grasp. He immediately felt guilty for almost assaulting an innocent young boy in his anger and concern for his daughters chastity, as he watched Emilio try to straighten out his rumpled clothing.

"I'm sorry young man," Augustin apologized, "I should not have acted so rashly without knowing everything." Despite his remorse he felt himself smile and give a small sigh in relief, "I am so glad that no one else saw me act so unhinged."

"Too late." Emilio retorted as he pointed to his right; showing everyone a group of villagers in front of the dining room windows. They seemed to have been set up in order to celebrate Isabella's acceptance of Mariano's proposal, seeing as they had a banner ready to congratulate them. This revelation brought surprise to the Madrigals and a wave of embarrassment to Augustin.

Alma knew that she needed to get control of the situation. This rude boy has interrupted the planned proposal and made the family look ridiculous in front of some of the townspeople. She knew the rumor mill would start turning tomorrow with the news of what has happened tonight. "Ay Dios Mio! First the cracks in Casita and now this!" Alma thought. It was bad enough that Mirabel saw the cracks during Antonio's Gift Ceremony, and now she somehow got the attention of this troublemaker. "The Encanto must see the candle's magic and La Familia Madrigal are strong. I cannot have Mirabel say or show otherwise and make things worse. It would be so much easier if I could just remove her from Casita for some time, but to do that I would need a reason to-"Alma's inner monologue halted as she came up with an idea. She could get Mirabel removed from Casita. All she had to do was marry her off to the one boy who asked. If she had Mirabel marry Emilio, Alma could have her gone for as long as she needed, to figure out how to keep Casita from cracking. "But then I would need a reason to accept the marriage offer and why it would be best for Mirabel to live elsewhere," Alma's thoughts countered. "Besides, I don't have any idea what is causing the cracks to begin with. If I had that, I could deal with Mirabel and solve the problem without her making things worse. It's best that I do what I can to keep this option open so that I have it when I find the cause of the cracks." she thought, referring to Emilio's surprise proposal. Alma stepped forward to speak with Emilio, gaining his attention as he heard her footsteps on the stone pathway.

"Thank you for this… unexpected proposition, but I believe that it is best for you to return home so that we may discuss this further as a family." Alma started, "We will let you know of our decision as soon as we possibly can." She wanted to sound as diplomatic as possible to save whatever face she had left and convince the Velasquez boy that he might still have a chance.

Emilio looked at Alma with an unchanging expression, but gave off the feeling that he was thinking about something. Whether it was about what Alma had said or what his response would be was unknown. After a brief pause he nodded his head and responded, "I understand, I will take my leave and wait for a response. However, I feel that I should inform you that my parents already know that I have come here and what my intentions are, and support my decision in this matter." With those parting words, Emilio turned and headed home without looking at the reactions of those he left behind.

After letting everything sink in, Alma proceeded to do what she did best, give orders. "Well, since that is over with, why don't we all return to the dinning room and continue with dinner? It may be a little late, but I am sure that we are all hungry for something delicious to eat."

Just as she said, everyone turned and walked back into the dining room taking their places once again. Unfortunately, silence seemed to prevail around the dinner table, as everyone would take quick glances at each other; wondering if any of them would say something; and then looking at Mirabel to see how she was reacting.

Mirabel had nothing going on. Her expression was blank and her mind was empty aside from one single thought. "A boy I barely know has just walked up to my parents and asked to marry me.", was line of dialogue playing on repeat in her head. It continued to play in her head like a broken record, until she finally decided to take a pause.

"I don't need to worry," she assured herself, "he asked my parents for permission to marry me and they wouldn't let marry some random person I barely know." As she thought this, some color returned to her face along with the confidence that she would be fine.

"Not only that, I'm only fifteen! There is no way that they would let me get married without some special reason or circumstances."

A tinge of red appeared on her face as she thought of what those "special circumstances" had implied shortly prior to their continued dinner. "All I have to do is make it through this dinner without ruining Isabella's proposal and Dolores never mentioning the vision to Abuela. Then I can worry about Emilio Velasquez.", Mirabel thought as she slowly relaxed some and eased herself into her seat; intent on letting the night pass by with little trouble.

"Mirabel," she heard her name being called. She turned to see that it was Mariano who wanted to get her attention. "I know that this may be a confusing time for you, but I just wanted to say congratulations."

Mirabel looked at Isabella's boyfriend with a look of confusion and he looked back with a small laugh and a slight smile before responding. "Of all the things that I know about Emilio, I know for a fact that he usually doesn't involve himself in things that he has no interest or places no value in, or sees any involvement as unnecessary. The fact that he blatantly asked to marry you, when there have been other girls wanting to go on a single date with him, means that he sees something great in you; and that means something."

The words coming from Mariano may have had the purpose of easing Mirabel's worries, but instead they just added more questions. "Why did he choose me? What about me makes me so valuable to him? Is he really serious, or does e have another goal in mind?" Such questions were stopped when Isabella felt the need to vocalize her disapproval.

'He could have at least waited to propose some other time, instead of during your proposal." she said with a frown towards her sister. Almost as if she blamed her for the disruption.

Alma swooped in to placate Julieta's oldest; "Now, there is no need to be upset. Sure it may have delayed things but there is still time for Mariano to propose, if he still wants to." As she said this she looked towards Maria Guzman and her son Mariano, to see how they felt about it.

Mariano, in his dedicated glory, declared to his partner and everyone at the table; "Isabella, I would ask to marry you no matter what, no matter where and no matter when." He smiled to Isabella as he said this and she returned one of her own, albeit a strained one, that he was none the wiser about.

Alma smiled at this and spoke to all of those present, "I am pleased to hear that Mariano, but I do feel that before we let you continue your proposal, that we should take the time to stop any more "surprises" from happening tonight." She looked at everyone at the table and said, "If anyone has any news they would like to share, please speak now so that we may get it out in the open?"

Alma looked at everyone as the room was filled with silence once again. Mirabel sat there thinking that everything would be fine, and she had nothing to worry about as long as –.

"Mirabel found Bruno's last vision." Dolores said, in her quite voice, as everyone turned to look at her.

"Oh, no!" Mirabel urgently thought as Dolores continued to make the situation worse.

"She was in it. The magic was destroyed. She hid the vision in the piano." was all she said, leaving people open to interpret the words how they wanted to; letting chaos ensue. Cracks started forming as everyone's powers went haywire. Camilo began shape-shifting erratically, Tia Pepa started raining, Antonio's animals ran wild, and Isabella accidentally hit Mariano in the face with a plant that randomly grew from the crack between the two lovers.

Mirabel looked at her parents, who shared a look of worry with, and for, their daughter. She then looked towards her abuela and saw a look of surprise mixed with possibly a tinge of fear. She looked on at everyone's situation looking for a silver lining. She thought to herself, "This may be some special circumstances, but at least it's not a reason to marry me off."