Episode Two: I Can Hear Him Now
It would start as these things often do, with a single sound; the clatter of a cutlery drawer opening. Then the knock of a plate against wood. Perhaps the gurgle of a pot boiling on the stove. Another drawer would rattle, followed by another, and another. Each sound gliding over the previous one to create a cascading melody. Then more plates on wood, tapping a rhythm to begin with, then quickly building to a roll like thunder, as another, and another and another plate was placed. Then many at once; the sounds layering together, becoming louder and louder until the drumming became a relentless boom that shook your entire body like some great explosion. Then would come the voices. A single shout at first. A call to dinner. Then another, and another, followed by the rumbling of many feet as loved ones ran in from all directions. The shouts would continue over an atonal ensemble of murmured voices, remembering the good old days, exchanging small talk, speculating about the future. It would continue until the chorus became so loud that the shouts to dinner could no longer be heard. Then the tinkling of glasses would commence. Almost undetectable at first, but then as one after another was filled, and raised, and clinked, and just when it seemed nothing could be louder than the bang, bang, bang of the thunderous drum of plates or the crescendo of conversations layered over conversations, it would build to a high pitched ring. Reverberating like many tuning forks at once, the chime would fill your ears and mind, vibrating in your skull until that was all you could hear...
Dolores sat up with a sigh. It sounded like dinner time in the Encanto again.
.
11 years ago...
Dolores didn't exactly mind having a birthday party. On the contrary, she loved having her family and friends around her. It was just that she'd been finding it harder to tune out sounds, as though her gift had become less controllable, and she knew the party would be anything but a quiet affair.
"Maybe a few more flowers around the doorway?" Dolores heard Abuela suggest from the floor below.
"No problem," Isabela sang.
"Is that the last of the decorations? Is everything ready? The guests are going to start arriving in thirty minutes..." Dolores could hear her mom fussing as ever, and then her voice turned to anger as she asked, "Is Bruno still not down from his blasted tower?"
"Pepa, you're raining. Why don't you go and see where he is? We'll finish up here," suggested Abuela.
A small clap of thunder followed, and then Dolores heard footsteps stamping up the back stairs to the balcony by Bruno's tower, accompanied by angry muttering.
She fastened her choker around her neck and began gathering her hair into a high puff. It was time to get ready and join her family.
.
Later that evening...
The Casita bustled with activity as guests revelled in the spectacle of partying with a magical family, interacting with their sentient house, and marvelling at Dolores's cousins' abilities. Abuela's firstborn grandchild, Isabela, stole the show as ever, despite having had her own eleventh birthday celebration just a few weeks prior. Isabela was as beautiful as she was graceful, and her gift of causing flowers to bloom at will, charmed and captivated the community. Dolores needed a break from the noise, so she snuck to Tía Julieta's room while the guests were distracted. Her aunt would often cook in there during large gatherings, allowing more space for guests to occupy the kitchen downstairs. The door was always open, and anyone could enter if they wished. Being on the upper floor, removed from the busy courtyard below, it tended to be much quieter. When Dolores entered, Tía Julieta was busily preparing snacks for the continuous influx of hungry guests.
"Come for a bit of peace and quiet?" Tía Julieta asked with a tender smile.
Dolores nodded, then flinched as something unexpected caught her eye. She wasn't the only one taking refuge from the crowd.
"Tío Bruno?" she said in a small voice when she noticed the scraggy man with dark, curly hair and a thin beard. His long, green ruana made her uncle instantly recognisable, even if she didn't see him so often.
"It gets a bit much, doesn't it?" he suggested with a nod towards the doorway. He was lurking in the corner out of sight from the door, leaning against a bench and helping himself to Tía Julieta's cooking.
Dolores forced a smile. She never really knew how to speak to Tío Bruno. She never really knew him at all. Her mom warned her not to talk to him too much, so she tended to stay quiet around him. It wasn't until she received her gift that she understood what her mom was trying to protect her from. She had heard a lot of gossip around town. None of it painted her uncle in a good light, so she had come to be particularly wary of him.
"It's more the... you know..." She gestured to her ears.
"Oh, that... right, right. Your gift. That uh..." He faltered, then after an awkward pause said, "That must be tough sometimes, right?"
Her uncle's comment took Dolores by surprise. In the six years since receiving her gift, she had only ever been told how blessed she was. How wonderful it must be to have such a remarkable ability. No one had ever suggested that it might be 'tough sometimes'.
"Well, to tell you the truth," she whispered, "it's been getting kinda hard to tune it out recently."
She blurted the words without thinking. She had a habit of doing that. Instantly regretting her honesty, she hastily added, "I mean, it's not that bad though. I love my gift," glancing to Tía Julieta for reassurance.
Her uncle narrowed his eyes for a brief moment. She didn't think he'd bought that.
Tía Julieta was the first to break the tension.
"You know, your mamá was around your age when she lost control of her gift. When the clouds started forming when she got upset. She never really got that under control." She looked over to Tío Bruno. "And you can't have been much older when your gift started... what did you call it again?" She paused to think of the right word. "'Spilling'?"
"A bit older, but close enough," he confirmed, taking a bite from a buñuelo. "And I did get it under control," he added, as though noticing the concern on Dolores's face.
"All I'm saying, is this seems to be something that can happen with our gifts sometimes," Tía Julieta continued. "Maybe it's time to start thinking of ways to cope when it gets... a little much?"
Tío Bruno's face lit up as he thought of something. "I uh... I don't know if this will appeal to you much, but you know... there's uh, there's always my tower. I might not have extraordinary hearing, but... but I can tell you it's pretty quiet up there. If you ever want to come and just... spend time away from the noise... you know, for your ears... you're welcome to."
Dolores didn't have time to process this unexpected offer from her weird uncle before someone appeared in the doorway.
"There you are!" It was Dolores's mom. A storm cloud hung over her head, threatening rain. "In case you have forgotten, there's a party happening downstairs," she growled, pointing towards the courtyard. "Both of you out. NOW!"
As they walked reluctantly from the room, Tío Bruno threw Dolores a sideways glance.
"Think about it. It might help," he said with a shrug.
.
The following day...
Dolores paused when she reached the bottom of the steps leading to Tío Bruno's door. She had never been inside his tower before. She'd never wanted to either. Yet she'd been thinking about what he said almost continuously all day as she greeted people around town. It was tradition for the townspeople to throw a festival to celebrate the Madrigals' gifts on the day after their birthdays. Unfortunately, the well-meaning townspeople seemed to think the best way to honour Dolores's gift was to make as much noise as possible. This year, it had been more challenging than ever to deal with. So while she was afraid of what he might say to her—afraid he would cause something terrible to happen—she now desperately craved the tranquillity her uncle had offered.
The climb up the tower was harder than she anticipated. It wasn't unusual for the magical rooms in the Casita to be much bigger on the inside, but Bruno's tower was something else. The stairs wound up the vast sandstone cavern for what felt like miles. However, the higher she went, the fainter the sounds of the Casita and Encanto beyond became. That spurred her on, reassuring her that she was doing the right thing.
When she eventually reached the top, she tiptoed carefully over a rope bridge and came to a set of wide steps leading to a tall, narrow entranceway carved into the stone. She thought about calling his name but immediately stopped in her tracks upon entering the short corridor inside. He was just sitting on the floor, picking up a handful of sand and watching it fall through his fingers.
She let out a startled squeak and he looked up, just as startled.
"Oh, you came!" he said, springing to his feet. He clearly wasn't expecting her to accept his invitation. "I would tell you to take a seat, but uh..." He looked around at the obvious lack of furniture, then an idea seemed to pop into his head. "There's a ledge! Would you like to take a ledge?" He then chuckled awkwardly, as though realising how strange that sounded. "Or... or you can have my cushion!" he suggested, reaching down and picking up the cushion he had been sitting on.
Dolores looked at the cheerfully decorated cushion emblazoned in a variety of colourful threads. Its stark contrast to the drab stone of the corridor only further highlighted the unwelcoming atmosphere. Candles lit the area from carved-out earthenware pots strewn around the floor and on the ledges her uncle had mentioned. The dancing flames created unsettling shadows, like many watching eyes that blinked and shifted as Tío Bruno moved around and his cape-like ruana agitated the air.
"Your room is really creepy," Dolores whispered, looking around at the uncanny impressions of her uncle carved in relief on the walls.
"Oh, this? This isn't my room," Tío Bruno said with a chuckle. "No, no, this is just for show. For the 'ambience'. My room's behind the vision cave." He motioned towards a large circular door at the end of the corridor. Two more earthenware pots lit up small recesses in the wall on either side like eyes, their light catching the top of the frame and giving the impression of a downturned mouth. He then added brightly, "In fact... there's a couple of rooms back there. I..."
He trailed off, but when Dolores didn't reply, he started talking again as though the silence was making him uncomfortable.
"I just sit out here because, well, I don't have your gift, so I have to be able to hear if anyone needs me," he explained. "But you," he continued hastily, "you can hang out back there if you like. Trust me, it's very quiet... and it's much nicer than this." He gestured around him.
"Does that happen much?" Dolores asked softly. "That people need you, I mean? I thought you didn't do visions anymore."
Tío Bruno seemed surprised by this comment, or was that hurt? The emotion flashed too quickly. He looked thoughtful for a moment, still holding the cushion, then replied, "Yeah... well, our family still needs me... sometimes. And I just know the second I go back there, someone will want to talk to me. Then I'll have Abuela to answer to... or your mother." He shuddered. "It's not worth the risk."
"Why don't you just come downstairs then?"
He glanced towards the entrance as though contemplating something and then answered simply, "Well, I do..." although there seemed to be a question in his tone.
Dolores continued to look around the corridor. Her uncle certainly was a peculiar man, but he didn't seem frightening like the townspeople claimed in the stories they told each other. She wondered at him for a moment. Did he really just sit in that miserable corridor all day, too anxious to move in case of the unlikely event that someone from the family needed to speak to him? An idea came to her.
"I would hear them," she whispered. "While I'm here at least, you could spend time wherever you want."
Tío Bruno's eyes widened. There was a brief pause while he processed what she said, then he smiled and gave a nod. "Okay!"
Placing down the cushion, he hurried to the round door at the end of the corridor, then gripped the handle and heaved it open. He then turned to Dolores, and asked cheerfully, "Well... would you like a tour?" Then before she could answer, he added, "Wait, how are you with rats?"
.
3 days later...
Dolores had been back to Tío Bruno's tower every day since her first visit. It was just as he suggested. None of the unwanted sounds of the Encanto reached his tower. Not even with her hearing. While she could still make out sounds from within the Casita from the front corridor, it was virtually silent once she was in the main room behind the vision cave. The only sounds were the melodic hum of the air reverberating around the cave next door, the squeaking of the three rats her uncle had seemingly befriended, and then the occasional sound from her uncle himself. This was mostly the turning of a page or a sip of coffee. Although now and then, he would do strange things like look up from the book he was reading, stare blankly into space, and then start laughing as though adding his own jokes to the story. Or while wandering between the different areas of his living space, he would start knocking on wood without warning. Dolores learnt that her uncle was a painfully superstitious man.
Tío Bruno's room wasn't nearly as nice as he had made it sound, but it was certainly a far cry from the unwelcoming vibe of the front corridor. It was fairly spacious. Windowless walls reached up to a ceiling twice the height of a standard room and her uncle had hung pictures and photographs of his family, which helped to make the bare stone walls feel a bit more homely. Exposed wooden floorboards were visible near the entrance, but a thick blanket of sand covered them everywhere else. Any furniture rested on rugs to protect it from the sand, including the armchairs in which they sat.
A tight spiral staircase stood in the centre of the room, though slightly more towards the right. The stone steps fanned out from a central pillar, and while there was a curved lip on their outer edges, there was no guardrail to catch you should you miss your footing. Your only hope being that the sand was soft enough to cushion your fall, which Dolores thought was unlikely. The staircase led to a stone platform attached to the walls along two edges to create a partial second floor. A few aloe plants hung down in pots from the edge of the platform, as well as strange metallic orbs and round mirrors on string. Dolores could just about make out that the platform housed Tío Bruno's bed and a small nightstand, though she never went up there.
The other rooms that her uncle had spoken of were pretty underwhelming too: just a tiny bathroom and a very basic, overly cluttered kitchen. That did, however, make Bruno's tower the only magical room in the Casita to have its own bathroom. So that was something at least.
Although they spoke very little, sitting together in silence for hours at a time, it rarely felt awkward. Dolores had become surprisingly comfortable in her uncle's company despite still not really knowing anything about him besides what she had picked up from others.
"You're not so bad, Tío Bruno," Dolores suddenly said, oblivious to how strange that sounds when it comes out of nowhere.
He was clearly taken off guard by this comment.
"I'm not so bad? Wh-who says I'm bad?" he asked, looking up from his book.
Dolores didn't even pause to consider her next words.
"Well, everyone. People around the Encanto think you're really creepy. They say you used to run through town screaming prophecies, then apparently, if you looked at someone and your eyes glowed green, something bad would happen to them soon after. Like their goldfish would die or something. They say your visions are cursed, and it's bad luck to even say your—"
"Okay, okay," Tío Bruno interrupted. "Wow... I think I get the point." He slumped lower in his chair. "Are you always this delicate with the truth?"
"You... didn't know any of that, did you?" She cringed, realising she'd hurt his feelings. "I'm so sorry..."
Tío Bruno sighed and feigned a smile. "It's fine... It's nothing I haven't heard before. I'm just surprised they're still saying those things after all this time, you know? I mean, you'd think they'd at least come up with a new script."
Dolores didn't know how to respond, so the room fell silent again. After the silence continued for several minutes, she eventually spoke.
"So can you? Make your eyes glow, I mean?" she asked, wondering if he might show her.
Tío Bruno answered immediately as though he had been waiting a long time for someone to just ask.
"No. I can't," he said with an almost pleading tone. "It's just something that happens when I use my gift... And I can't make bad things happen either, while you're asking." He then lowered his voice and added, "At least, not intentionally. But even if I could, why would I?"
"So, why do people say those things then?"
"I don't know," he replied with a shrug. "I guess people just need someone to blame when things go wrong."
xxx
Present day...
{I'm not worried. I'm NOT worried. I'm not...}
The Casita was unusually quiet. The after-party of Antonio's gift ceremony had continued until the early hours, so most of the family had slept in. Being a light sleeper, Dolores had woken at her usual time, and in the stillness, she heard something she usually barely noticed. The chatter of the Casita and town beyond wasn't all her gift could pick up. Now and then, she also heard a different kind of voice. It was faint, distorted and distant, as though from another world entirely. This disembodied voice was difficult for even Dolores to make out. Even at its loudest, when it seemed to her to be just feet away, the family didn't appear to hear it at all. Mostly, it was just unintelligible muttering, but now and then, when the world was unusually still, which was mainly during the night, she could make out words.
In any case, it was a cruel voice. Cruel because it reminded her of things she would rather forget. It reminded her of a secret she wished she didn't know. It poked at a wound left by her dishonesty, by a promise made and immediately broken. Bleeding from the trust she had betrayed. She supposed some people might be rather scared of such distorted whispering in the night, but despite the bitter feelings it stirred in her, Dolores knew the voice meant no harm.
{I'm not worried. You're worried... Stop looking at me like that... Oh, and I suppose you know what it means? Yeah, I didn't think so... Oh that? You're bringing that up now? I've told you. That was nothing. You see, the thing about a 'little spill' is it can easily be cleaned up. You just need the right... Oh god, I'm gonna need more salt.}
.
Breakfast at the Casita was generally a casual affair. The grandchildren would take turns waking up early to set the table and brew the coffee. They would then knock on everyone's door before returning to the kitchen to help Tía Julieta prepare the food and lay it out so the others could help themselves whenever they came downstairs. While it was common for many of the family members to end up gathered together, breakfast was not typically a meal that required everyone to sit down formally. They would often not sit down at all, instead glugging back a cup of coffee, grabbing an arepa and a piece of fruit, and then heading out to get an early start on helping the community with their gifts. That was of course unless Abuela had something important she wanted to announce, which happened often. And the day following Antonio's gift ceremony was one of those days.
The family had gone to bed in the early hours, merry, relieved, and content in the knowledge that the ceremony had worked. Abuela, in particular, seemed to be uncharacteristically cheerful. Luisa woke the family much later than usual, and when she did, she informed them all that they were to eat together outside on the patio. Everyone understood this meant a speech was coming.
Abuela began her address with a warning not to take their gifts for granted and instructed them to work extra hard that day to show their gratitude and willingness to earn the miracle they'd been blessed with. Dolores already knew the next part of the announcement because she had been the first to know: Mariano Guzmán would be visiting with his Abuela that evening and planned to propose to Isabela.
.
"What do you think that was all about?" Camilo whispered to Dolores as he and his other gifted family members headed into town.
"You mean, what Mirabel was asking?"
"Yeah. She's taking this stuff with the cracks pretty seriously, don't you think? Should we be worried?"
"I don't think so. As I said to her, the only one worrying about this is her. Well, besides Luisa… and the—"
Camilo abruptly stopped walking, prompting Dolores to halt too. "You didn't say that though, did you? About Luisa?"
"I uh, I might have mentioned her in passing, yeah. Her eye was twitching last night. You know that only happens when she's worried about something."
"Aw, but you know what she's like. Under the slightest pressure, she'll spill everything. You really need to think before you speak, Dolores…"
"Oh come on. What does Luisa know besides what she overheard that night? She doesn't know what we know at least. She doesn't know about…" She nodded towards the tower.
Camilo glanced over his shoulder with a troubled expression. He was clearly not convinced.
"All the same," he said seriously, "maybe you could keep a close ear on those two? I've a really bad feeling about where this is going."
Although Dolores didn't quite share Camilo's concerns, the voice in the walls also seemed rattled by what Mirabel claimed to have seen, and if she were honest with herself, she had been unnerved by some of the things it said.
"Fine. If you're that worried, I'll listen in. But I really think this whole situation is being blown out of proportion," Dolores replied, trying to convince herself as much as Camilo.
She then broke into a slight run in order to catch up with Antonio and ask if he would accompany her to the church. A family of coatis had taken up residence under the floorboards and no matter how many times they had been moved and the way in sealed off, they somehow managed to get back inside. She thought Antonio may be able to succeed where everyone else had failed.
xxx
11 years ago...
Dolores made her way up the now familiar steps that led to her uncle's door. Something sounded different on her approach, but it wasn't until she pushed the door open that she realised why. A curtain of falling sand blocked the hourglass-shaped gateway that separated the entrance lobby from the main cavern. She walked towards it and felt it with her hand. There didn't appear to be a way to turn it off.
Confused, but with no way through, she left the tower. When she reached the bottom of the steps, she saw Isabela coming up the stairs from the floor below.
"Been to see Tío Bruno again?" Isabela asked when she reached the balcony, unable to completely hide her disgust.
"No. I was going to, but there's sand blocking the way..."
Isabela looked smug. "Oh, that means he's not in his tower. So people don't waste their time climbing the stairs. You didn't know that?"
"It's never come up, no."
"Then what are you even talking about up there in that creepy tomb?"
Dolores was a little taken aback to hear Isabela describe Bruno's tower.
"You've been up there?"
"Of course I have. Right after I got my gift, Abuela took me up there for a vision. She didn't do that for you?" She looked genuinely surprised.
Dolores didn't answer.
"Well, if he's not in his tower," Isabela continued, "he'll most likely be in Mamá's room, hiding from Abuela." As she finished speaking, a row of flowers sprouted from the floor and marked out a path towards Tía Julieta's room. When the flowers reached the door, they surrounded its frame. "I wanted to see her, but if he's there, it can wait," she remarked before turning back towards the stairs with a flick of her hair.
Dolores knocked on Tía Julieta's door and was told to enter. Once inside, she saw her aunt sitting in one of the three armchairs by the window on the far right. On the coffee table in front of her was a decorative wooden box filled with a variety of herbs and a small bowl of fresh fruit. A half-drank cup of tea rested beside the herbs, just like the one in Tía Julieta's hand.
"He's here, isn't he?" Dolores said, looking at the extra cup, although his breathing was the biggest clue.
Tía Julieta laughed and nodded towards the beds on the opposite side of the room as Tío Bruno leapt into view.
"Oh, it's you," he chirped as he made his way back to the armchairs. "Can't be too careful you know."
Dolores stood still, taking in the scene, until Tía Julieta spoke.
"¡Hala! join us," she said, patting the empty chair. "There's more tea in the pot if you want it."
Dolores sat in the free armchair as Tía Julieta poured her some herbal tea. After a few sips, she asked, "Why are you so scared of Abuela, Tío Bruno?"
"Scared? It's not that I'm scared exactly. It's just—"
Tía Julieta interrupted, answering for him. "Bruno has a habit of putting his foot in his mouth. The more nervous he gets, the more likely he is to say something dumb, or incriminating, or—"
"-Or that can be mistaken for a prophecy," he remarked.
"Yes, or that..." Julieta agreed. "Then that makes him more anxious and well, over the years, it's just become a bit awkward—"
"-And it doesn't help that your mother hates me," Bruno cut in, throwing a glance at Dolores.
"Pepa doesn't hate you. She's just not good at letting go of a grudge. Give it time."
"It's been thirteen years. How much more time does she need?"
Tía Julieta laughed and turned back to Dolores. "Anyway, that certainly doesn't help because then he's having to walk on eggshells, which makes him more nervous, which makes him more likely to say something wrong, and so—"
"-It's just easier to stay in my tower and blame the stairs," he said with a dismissive shrug.
His comment reminded Dolores of something she had been wondering about.
"How come you ended up getting a whole tower?"
Tío Bruno briefly looked in the direction of his tower. "Well, I didn't always have the tower," he explained. "My room moved."
"It moved? Why?"
"No idea. The room you've seen... the one behind the vision cave? Well, it was a lot like that before it moved." He turned to Tía Julieta. "We used to call the tower the 'viewing tower', right?"
"We did, and after dinner, Mamá would read us stories in there while we gazed up at the stars and dreamed of faraway lands."
"Like Arabian Nights!" Bruno recalled fondly.
"-Or Brothers Grimm," Julieta added with a smile.
Dolores marvelled at how they were finishing one another's sentences, as though sharing one thought. Her mom would also get like that with Tía Julieta sometimes, and it always fascinated her. The 'triplet thing', as everyone would call it. The conversation had struck a chord with Dolores too. She knew all too well how it feels when you say too much, or the wrong thing. It only takes a split second, one short sentence to act as the match, and before you know it, you have an entire rainforest burning around you. There is nothing you can say to undo the damage. No amount of apologies can douse the flames.
Her aunt and uncle continued to reminisce about their younger days and it was the most relaxed and talkative Dolores had ever seen her usually gawky uncle. While she also often struggled to put her thoughts eloquently into words, she too was finding it surprisingly easy to speak.
"I saw Isabela before," she said in a brief lull in the conversation.
"Oh, your cousin? How is she?" Tío Bruno asked brightly. "I haven't spoken to her in ages."
Dolores wanted to reply with, 'well that's because she doesn't like you', but managed to bite her tongue for once. Instead, she simply said, "She's fine," before continuing, "She told me you had a vision for her once. After she got her gift."
"I did, yeah."
Dolores thought for a moment then asked, "So how come you didn't have one for me?"
"Well... I offered... But your mother told me I'm not to. Ever. Under any circumstance. She even told me what she'd do to me if I did... heh. So yeah... sorry about that." He waited for a reply, but when Dolores didn't respond, he leaned forward and asked, "Are you disappointed?"
It wasn't that she was disappointed as such. She didn't know what the feeling was. Maybe jealousy?
"Would you have a vision for me if I promise not to tell anyone?" she blurted before she could stop herself.
Tío Bruno did not look thrilled by her request. He shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, then answered slowly, "There's a... good chance she would actually kill me you know..."
"I think you're being a little dramatic," Tía Julieta cut in, then turned to Dolores. "But I agree it's not a good idea. Bruno can't control what he sees, and it's not always something you want to hear."
"I didn't get my reputation for nothing," he agreed.
"Maybe when you're a little older, we can talk about this again, okay?"
"But Isabela was only five when she got hers!" Dolores protested, then turned to her uncle and making her eyes as big as possible, tried once more. "Please can I have a vision? I promise I won't mind what you see. You did it for Isabela... It's only fair."
After a long pause, Tío Bruno sighed. "Fine... but not a word to your mother."
.
The following spring...
Several loud thumps jolted Dolores from a deep sleep. From how hard they hit the door, she guessed it was Luisa, seemingly forgetting the rule about not knocking for Dolores with your fists. She slid out of bed and opened the door.
"Can I come in?" Luisa asked immediately. She looked rattled.
"Of course. What's wrong?"
Luisa waited until they were both inside, and Dolores had closed the door before she started speaking. "Did ya hear anything last night?"
"At the gift ceremony?"
"No... after that. Through the night. Did you hear what happened with Tío Bruno?"
Dolores had never seen her cousin look so intense, and a terrible feeling of dread come over her.
"Tío Bruno? No, I must have been asleep. What's happened?"
"I dunno. I just heard our mamás talking to Abuela. They said something about a vision and him leaving the Encanto. Then when I came out my room just now, and turned towards the tower? The light's like, totally gone from his door. It's like, the magic isn't there anymore."
Dolores felt her heart sink at those words. It hadn't been intentional, but ever since he gave her a vision, her visits to Bruno's tower had become fewer and further between. Firmly believing she would get around to visiting at some point, she had eventually stopped going altogether.
She cocked her head, and despite the tower being on the opposite corner of the Casita, she could clearly make out the sound of falling sand. Luisa was right. Tío Bruno was gone.
xxx
6 weeks ago...
Dolores had become a little better at tuning out sounds, although she couldn't turn her ability on and off the way she could when she first received her gift. She would often take walks through the hills around the Encanto, and while it was nowhere near as peaceful as her uncle's tower had been, it still offered a little respite from the noise. It was on her way home from one such walk, that she suddenly heard her family name. In the years since the failed gift ceremony and Tío Bruno's disappearance, her family had become a frequent topic of rumour and speculation, although conversations about the Madrigals were mostly positive overall. Still, it was impossible not to tune in when she heard her name through the usually incomprehensible prattle of the Encanto.
"One of the Madrigal girls? ¡Qué maravilloso! I can't think of a more worthy family for you to marry into. Have you informed her of your feelings yet?"
Despite their distinctive accent, Dolores couldn't quite put her finger on where she had heard the voice before, so she decided to keep listening and headed in the direction of the conversation. She continued to listen as a young male voice told the older female voice that he had not found the confidence to speak to the girl in question.
Dolores didn't have to walk right up to the house. As she neared a street in the most prestigious part of town, she realised exactly where she had heard those voices before. It was Mariano Guzmán, and his Abuela.
.
Later that day...
"Our Isabela? Are you sure?" Abuela asked excitedly.
"Yes, I think so. He sounded serious," Dolores affirmed, proud to be of help to the family.
"This is wonderful news. Could you pay closer attention to their conversations, please? Let me know the moment you get a date for the proposal."
Dolores thought he wanted to speak to Isabela first but didn't want to contradict Abuela, so simply replied, "Of course. I'll do my best."
So it came that Dolores would sit in her room by the window every evening, once the chaos of dinner was over and the younger inhabitants of the Encanto began retreating to bed. She heard so many conversations. She learnt of a woman who loved her grandson dearly. She learnt of a talented young man who wrote poetry and put it to music. She listened to him sing with a voice sweeter than pineapple while he tapped out a beautiful melody on his piano. She learnt of the way he had taught himself to cook, and bake, and sew so that he could take care of his Abuela as she aged. Night after night she listened, until it suddenly hit her. Or was it really all that sudden? If she was honest, she had felt it creeping up on her but chose to ignore it. She couldn't ignore it any longer though, and she was horrified at the realisation. Dolores had let herself fall in love with Mariano.
.
2 weeks later...
Dolores was at the market in the centre of town, picking up supplies with Luisa, who carried four huge bags of corn flour and two boxes of candles on one shoulder. She finished paying for the goods then looked at the shopping list. "Okay, we still need potatoes, corn and..." she stopped in her tracks when she spotted Mariano walking straight towards them.
"Dolores..." he began.
There was a loud throbbing in her ears as blood rushed to her cheeks, and her hands and feet went numb. She tried to speak but couldn't get the words out and instead just made a small squeak.
Mariano looked confused but tried to continue.
"I just wanted to ask..."
Dolores's heart raced. She needed the conversation to end before she heard the name 'Isabela' leave his lips.
"If you want to talk about my family, I suggest you try someone else... I'm not interested," she snapped, suddenly finding the ability to speak as the words burst from her mouth. She then hurried off in the direction of the Casita, leaving a puzzled Luisa to stand awkwardly with her arms full next to a stunned Mariano.
As she hurried home, Dolores couldn't contain her tears. Why had she asked Tío Bruno for that horrible vision? Of course his vision had been perfectly accurate. They always were. It was exactly as he said; her one true love, the man of her dreams, would break her heart. He would be engaged to someone else.