* Author's Note *
I hate illness.
Believe it or not, I have been sick twice while writing this chapter. Not a fun experience not feeling well and being stressed out because I wasn't writing due to said illness.
But I finally got it done! This time, we're exploring how the aftermath of Mirabel's death affects Bruno. I hope you enjoy it. :)
Chapter 4 - The Seer's Lament
In the edges of the jungle, a dark shape moved through the foliage. The oversized ruana they wore helped them conceal themselves with the plants. They tried to move with exaggerated grace to reduce noise, but the effort made them sound like a wild animal bumbling through the forest.
It also didn't help that their feet seemed to find every loose branch to step on. Or have their ruana snag on every thorny bush. Or not being able to see three feet in front of them and walking into nearly every tree.
Bruno was fed up with the jungle.
After falling over from wrestling his green ruana from the tenth thorn bush he had come across, he didn't even bother to salvage his dignity when getting up. He had tried to do so the first couple of times. But after falling over for the fifth time, he decided it wasn't worth it. If someone was going to find him at this point, they might as well find him the awkward mess he was.
When getting up, Bruno checked on the rats stuffed in his ruana to see if they were ok. After counting the eight he had, Bruno sighed and continued trying to stealth his way through the jungle, knocking on a tree for good luck on the way. He was tired of being turned around and just wanted to get out of the jungle so he wouldn't have to see another thorn bush again.
However, the mishaps helped him ignore the building grief inside of him.
After Casita fell, Bruno wanted nothing more than to go out to his familia and greet them. He wanted to apologize to them for disappearing. He wanted to hug his hermanas and be with them again and feel their presence from being separated from them for ten years. After the walls came down, Bruno thought he would have no excuse from seeing them again.
He almost went to them.
Watching his familia sort through Casita's rubble from afar, Bruno thought of all the things he wanted to say. When realizing there was too much to say, he found himself wanting to back away and flee into the jungle. Even after a couple of arguments with Hernando, he still couldn't muster up the courage to do it. The thing that finally made him try to go back to them was when they found Mirabel.
Even though he had only been with Mirabel for a couple minutes today, she had encouraged him to get out of the walls and have a vision, which he had not done both that often in the last ten years. But she had also promised him that she would bring him home. Mirabel had actually shown him a reason to be a part of his familia. He knew his hermanas and madre loved him, but he truly felt loved again when she found him.
So when he heard the family's cries that Mirabel was dead, his whole soul was crushed.
Bruno remembered himself falling to his knees when he heard that. He swore he could still feel the tears on his face when he had cried, knowing that he would never see Mirabel again. The freezing fear still seemed to take hold in his body, waiting to ensnare him again like it did in that moment.
He barely remembered running away from Casita's ruins, blindly stumbling through the forest in a blurred haze. The foliage at that time seemed to let him pass through, as if it understood his mourning. He had cried the entire time he ran, barely keeping his footing on the uneven jungle floor. It was only when he tripped over something that led him to land in a heap under a tree did he stop running. He had cried for so long under that tree, laying on the jungle floor. But he didn't care at that moment, because he just wanted the pain to be gone.
He had sobbed on the ground for so long that when he awoke from his misery, night had fallen across the valley. He remembered sitting up, unsure about what to do. He couldn't go back to confront his familia. He wasn't in a good emotional state to confront them. The pain from Mirabel's death still seemed to try to pull him down. But he knew he couldn't live in the jungle forever.
So he went to the one place he knew he could go. Well, hoped he could go.
As Bruno continued through the jungle, he felt tears begin to accumulate in his eyes. He felt more emotionally drained than ever. But he knew he couldn't stop, unless the grief would pull him back under its merciless waves.
He tried to think of something else to ward the pain away, when he ruana jerked him backwards. He looked to see what had happened and saw it tangled in another bush.
Sighing to himself, Bruno went to work freeing himself, knowing the small distraction would help him ignore the looming sorrow.
# - - - - # - - - - #
After a couple painful hours of trekking through the jungle, Bruno emerged on the outskirts of the village. Scanning the buildings, he finally found the one he was looking for.
He looked around nervously, to see if anyone was up and about. But all seemed quiet. He noticed it seemed too quiet, as if the weight of Mirabel's death was being pressed down over the village, affecting them all.
Bruno rubbed his eyes. He didn't know if doing this was the right choice. Maybe he could just sleep out in the forest for a couple of days…
"No!" Bruno yelled to himself. His voice thundered in his ears as it pierced the stillness of the village. He tensed at how loud it was and nervously glanced around to see if he had alerted anyone to his presence.
Fate would have it that no one seemed to notice.
Taking a deep breath in, Bruno gathered what slivers of courage he had left, and moved forwards. He stuck close to the shadows of the houses, hoping to conceal himself. He hoped no one saw him right now and thought he was some kind of burglar. That would be just his luck.
After five painful minutes of sneaking, he finally arrived at the house he wanted. The walk would have taken him two minutes if he hadn't been moving so slowly. But he rather wouldn't risk being caught.
The house he stood in front of was small and quaint. The bright colors on the front of it were muted by the night. Signs of age were showing in the walls, but it still was sturdy and strong.
Standing on the front porch, Bruno, raised his hood over his head. "I'm Hernando and I am afraid of nothing," he muttered to himself.
He stepped close to the door and raised his hand to knock. He hesitated a little before knocking quietly on the doorframe for luck before knocking a little louder on the door.
A couple of seconds crawled agonizingly by before Bruno's worries started taking hold over his train of thought. Should I stay any longer? I might attract attention if I do. But what if I need to give them a couple more seconds? Is this even the right house? What if I'm knocking on some random person's house?! What if this is the right house, but someone else moved in, and…
Bruno didn't even notice the light coming from the front window before the door was thrown open. A thin woman holding a lantern stood in the doorway. She was about his age and had a tired look on her face.
"Can I help you?" the woman said in a sluggish, but irritated voice.
Bruno slightly jumped when she spoke. He stood still, the familiar social fear combined with the recent emotions gripped him, not letting him say a word.
The woman held up the lantern, trying to get a better look at him. The light bounced off her long brown hair, which wasn't currently held in any form. "I don't recognize you. Why are you knocking on my door so late at night?" she asked suspiciously.
Bruno mind blanked at why she didn't recognize him when he realized that he still had his hood covering his face from being Hernando. Slowly, he grabbed the sides of his hood and let it down off his head.
When the woman saw him, she stepped back in surprise, nearly dropping the lantern. Her face changed from one of suspicion to shock. Her eyes held great emotion in them, unable to process what they were seeing.
Bruno cleared his throat, and then said awkwardly, "Hola María."
The woman stepped slowly out the door in disbelief. Her movements were slow and cautious. Her eyes lingered on him for a long time, afraid if suddenly he would disappear from her like a vision.
"Bruno…is that you?" she asked, her voice thick with emotion.
He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to gather some courage to speak. "Y-yeah, it's me. I bet your…"
But Bruno didn't get to finish as María threw her arms around him and pulled him into a bone crushing hug. He could hear her crying into his dirty ruana.
"Bruno…I-I can't believe…" she started.
"I know," Bruno said, unsure of what to do. Both of his arms were currently pinned to his sides, so he didn't know how to comfort her. He was surprised to see María so vulnerable.
She pulled away from him and Bruno softly spoke. "I know my…my appearance must be surprising to say the least…"
He never got to finish as María punched him in the arm.
"I can't believe you!" she yelled.
Ow. There it was.
"You show up on my doorstep in the middle of the night after ten years without ever saying goodbye! Where in Columbia have you been?!"
"Hey, calm down," Bruno said, fearing for his life. "I thought we were best friends…"
"I am considering where I stand on our friendship! Friends don't leave without saying goodbye or disappear without a trace!"
"Are you done yelling at me?"
María glared at him so hard that Bruno felt he might wither right there on the porch. After a couple seconds of staring, she put her hand into her face and rubbed her eyes.
"Not yet, Bruno," she said, clearly agitated. "I have about ten years of yelling to make sure you don't run off again!"
"Maybe we could continue the yelling inside?" Bruno meekly asked, as he glanced around to see if anyone had been woken up by the commotion.
Seeing his paranoia, María sighed and gentured toward the open doorway. "Be my guest," she said. "But you're not off the hook yet, Bruno."
"Understood," he quietly said before rushing into the house before María changed her mind.
# - - - - # - - - - #
María led Bruno into a small kitchen, where a polished dining table was set up in the corner of the room. Bruno took a seat as she lit some candles, bringing a warm glow to the room.
As María started to prepare something on the stove, Bruno's thoughts started to overtake him. He was glad that María had let him in her house and now he might have a place to stay for at least tonight. But that small comfort wasn't enough to keep the overflowing grief at bay. Bruno tried to bite back the tears that formed to threaten, not wanting to reveal his emotional state to María yet. She had just seen him for the first time in the last ten years! He figured he could at least wait till morning to break down into an emotional mess.
"Bruno!" María shouted.
He jumped in his seat and quickly turned his head. She was giving him a concerned look, and he realized she must have been trying to ask him something.
"Yes?" Bruno asked meekly.
"I was just asking if you wanted some tea or not," María said.
"Oh. That would be…nice."
"Alright. Some tea for both of us."
They sat in silence for a couple minutes while María boiled some water. Bruno had a hard time trying not to fidget, as awkward silence always made him uncomfortable. But it seemed easier to do this time as he had to concentrate on doing something to prevent his emotions from bursting out again.
He caught María looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Bruno assumed she was looking at him because she hadn't seen him in ten years. She probably was looking at his thin frame, wondering where he's been to look like this. But on one occasion when he saw her glance at him, he saw her expression was full of concern. He then realized she was worried about his mental state, not his appearance. Bruno tried to keep a better grip of his emotions after that.
Soon, the tea was done. María set his cup down in front of him. He mumbled a thank you as she sat down on the opposite end of the table.
They sat like that for a couple of minutes in agonizing silence. Bruno didn't touch his tea for a little while. María took small sips of her's, seemingly in deep thought. The moments slipped by as they sat there, trying to think of what to say to each other.
María spoke first. "Bruno, where have you been? You just left everyone and never said a word to anybody where you were going. So…what happened?"
Bruno remained silent. He didn't trust himself to speak. Besides, how could he tell her where he went without talking about Mirabel?
After a couple seconds, María sighed in frustration. "Look, I'm…still angry at you. We were best friends for years, and you show up on my doorstep after all these years without explaining where you've been! I honestly want to yell at you for what you did."
Bruno braced himself for her to carry out her threat. He had been on the receiving end of anger so many times, either from his familia or the villagers. Those times, he hadn't done anything wrong to deserve it. But this time, he felt like he did.
But instead of yelling, María spoke in a hushed tone. "But I'm not going to. I can tell something's weighing on you. When you showed up on my doorstep, it looked like you had seen death itself. You had that haunted look in your eye, like…when you gave someone a bad vision. But it seems different this time. Like you're in pain."
Bruno almost lost his grip when she said that. She had no idea how close to the truth she was. He looked up and saw María staring into him. Her eyes were filled with worry. It startled him, how she wasn't letting her anger out on him.
"Bruno, where have you been?" María asked again. "Please. I want to know."
Bruno looked back down and let out a shaky sigh before steeling himself. He might be able to get away with talking about where he went without speaking about why he left.
"I…hid in Casita."
María furrowed her brow when he said that. "You were in Casita for…ten years?"
"Well, yes. I've…been living in its walls."
"Is that why you're so skinny?"
Bruno gave a weak chuckle to her response. "Yeah, it was…hard to snatch food without the familia noticing. I almost scared Camilo to death one night trying to get some."
María sat in silence after that, staring down at her cup. Bruno sighed internally, grateful that she hadn't probed that much into his disappearance. If he could just avoid her from asking…
"Why?"
Dang it.
"Why did you leave everyone to hide in your own home?" María asked, her voice shaky. "What did you see that made you hide? Was it about the magic?"
"That was…part of it," Bruno said quietly.
"Was…the rest of it about Mirabel? You left after her gift ceremony."
Bruno spoke before he could stop himself. "I…couldn't protect her."
"What?"
Bruno felt the grief, pain, and sadness trying to get out. He barely could stop them before they finally wriggled out of his hold and he started crying.
"I-I left everyone, because…because I was trying t-to protect Mirabel," Bruno said, choking out the words between the tears. "I had…I had a vision a-about her standing in front…in front of Casita who was falling apart. I knew how it would look…t-to everyone. They would think…they might have thought she would…destroy the Miracle."
Stop please, Bruno begged himself. But he kept going.
"So…so I left to p-protect her. So she wouldn't…wouldn't have everyone belittle her bec-because of it. But she was treated…mistreated because she didn't have a g-gift. She was a-abandoned by so…so many people because she wasn't special. I-I had to hear that every…everyday from inside the walls."
He couldn't stop himself from speaking. The emotions seemed to be in control and he could only watch. He remembered his familia ignoring or being frustrated with Mirabel for no reason. He heard about how some of the villagers treated her because she was giftless. But he would never forget listening to Mirabel crying to herself in the nursery, wanting to have a gift to not be useless.
A rage took hold inside of him. She didn't deserve to be treated like that. She didn't deserve to be treated the same way he was because of his "bad omens". It was…it was…
"It's all my fault!" Bruno yelled.
María jumped in surprise as Bruno stood up quickly, knocking his chair to the floor in the process.
"I couldn't protect her from the…the ridicule and the names and…and the disappointment because she didn't get a gift! Everyone treated her the same way as if they knew about my vision! I should have been there to help her! But I ran away because I'm…I'm a coward!"
The tears weren't coming in bursts, but continually flowing down his face. The feelings inside him came to a boil. They hurt so much that he wanted to stop. But they kept overflowing out of him.
"So what good did hiding do?! Nothing! Nothing at all! I failed her! I couldn't protect her from everyone!"
"Bruno." He looked up to see María standing at the far wall with tears in her eyes. "I…I'm sorry. I…would have never yelled at you if…I had…"
"If I had told you? Yeah, that was another thing I failed at," Bruno said bitterly. The anger inside him seemed to recede for a small moment. "I failed to protect Mirabel. And now I've failed to save her from dying."
"Bruno, that's not…your fault. You couldn't have possibly known…"
"Really?! I should have known! I can see the future! I'm 'Bad Luck Bruno', the one who always sees the worst! But I never saw this coming! Not once in my years of being a curse did I see Mirabel getting crushed by rubble because she wanted to help her familia! Why?! Why couldn't I see that?! I couldn't…I…should've…"
The world seemed to spin as the anger that supported him like a crutch was suddenly taken away. Bruno fell to the floor in a heap, the grief overwhelming him again, crushing him in its grasp. Even though the anger was gone, the tears still freely flowed.
"I…should've…should have…seen it…I should've…seen…"
Bruno felt himself being pulled into a hug, as María was there on the floor with him. His mind raced with everything that had happened. He wanted it all to go away so he would never have to deal with it again. He wished María wasn't there to see him like this. Leaving seemed like a good option.
But instead he threw his arms around her and started sobbing into her shoulder. A shame inside of him tried to push through the grief, because of how he was acting.
But he didn't care at that moment, because the one person that had loved him in years was gone.
* Author's Note *
Diving a bit into a subplot here with Bruno. I really wanted to explore Bruno's mental state after hearing that Mirabel died. He will be coming back in later chapters!
I appreciate all the support I've been getting on this story! I'd love for you to comment about what you've thought and theories about what's going to happen. Your support keeps me motivated to keep writing this story.
Thank you so much.
Next time, we'll be going back to Mirabel and her dilemma of being a ghost!
