"It's obvious that whoever, or whatever, attacked Mirabel, must have attacked her here in Casita," Pepa pointed out, "Which raises the question, are we safe here in Casita."
"We also have to take into consideration that Casita is cracking now,"Julieta added, "What if Casita collapses?"
"I don't know," Alma confessed, "I really don't know, you have a good point, but at the same time, I don't want to lose you as well. I feel that separating might make it easier for whoever is doing this to attack us."
"We don't know what happened to Mirabel yet," Julieta insisted, "Let's wait until she's up to talking to…" she paused, turning towards the door as it creaked open. Mirabel peeked her head in.
Julieta smiled, "Mirabel there you are, come here," she said brightly, as she used her hand to gesture her to come towards her.
…
Mirabel gripped the letter in her hand as she made her way down to the main level. There was a light in the dining room, despite the late hour. She hoped that Tia Pepa was there and not somewhere else, she didn't want to have to search for her, but she also wanted her to know that she got her letter, and while she was still a little wary of being around her, she excepted the apology, after all she had gone out of her way to ensure that she had got it.
She twisted the door knob, sticking her head in, Tia Pepa was there, as where Tio Felix, Abuela and her parents. Mama smiled at her, her lips moving as she gestured with her hand for her to join them.
Mirabel quickly shut the door and scrambled over to her mother, sitting down next to her before eyeing Abuela to see if she was okay with her joining what was obviously an adult conversation. Then again, according to Tia's note the whole family knew that she was deaf now. So maybe she really didn't care.
Abuela seemed to smile at her as her lips moved, but Mirabel couldn't really tell what she said, she frowned, wondering what she was supposed to do, point out the fact that she was deaf, ask her to repeat herself and hope that she remembers.
…
Alma smiled as Mirabel quickly made her way to her mother's side, "Mirabel, how are you doing?" she asked, "Are you okay? Do you need anything?"
Mirabel just stared at her in confusion.
"I thought we've already established the fact that she's deaf?" Felix asked, "Wouldn't that mean that she won't be able to hear you?"
"Right, right, your right, Felix, sorry, I didn't even think of that, we'll need to come up with some way to communicate with Mirabel if we are to solve who is threatening us."
Julieta smiled, before reaching into her apron pocket, pulling a small notebook that she uses to keep track of requests, orders, and food allergies. She flipped it to an empty page and wrote something down, before handing it to Mirabel.
Mirabel felt her mother nudge her, causing her to look at her, only to be given a notebook in response. She took it, reading the note written on it, "Abuela's wondering how you are feeling."
Mirabel glanced at the paper, and said slowly, "I'm fine Abuela, honest."
A hand reached out towards the notebook, adding something more to it, "Are you sure, it's obvious you missed the twelve hour mark that I have for healing. You'd be able to hear if you hadn't. I'm guessing that it helped but didn't heal anything completely. Right?"
Mirabel nodded, "Yeah," she said, softly, "But I'm fine."
More writing, "We need to know where you are hurt."
"I'm a little stiff, and if I move too quickly I get woozy, but other than that I am fine."
Can you tell us what happened?
"No."
"She can't tell us what happened," Julieta announced, "There goes that theory."
"Can't tell us or won't tell us?" Alma asked her oldest Julieta quickly wrote the question down.
"Won't," Mirabel said simply, with a shrug.
"Why ever not?"
Mirabel frowned, staring at the paper for a minute before saying, simply, "It's complicated."
"You need to tell us who attacked you," Pepa insisted, "That way we can stop them and make sure that they don't hurt anyone else ever again."
Mirabel looked at the question her mama had written and then at her tia who had asked it. Tell Tia Pepa that she was the one who attacked her, that would only upset her, and cause her to lose control of her gift, which would cause…
No, she wasn't going to go down that path of thought, she had to come up with something quickly, something to reassure them that everything was safe.
"I don't want to talk about it," Mirabel insisted, before quickly changing the subject, "I just wanted to tell Tia that I got her letter, and I accept her apology. It's late, I'm going to bed."
Alma watched as Mirabel made her way up to the nursery before a thought entered her mind, "You don't suppose the attacked happened in the nursery do you?"
"I don't know," Julieta insisted, "I"ve been in and out of there a bit these past few days, and I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary."
"She might have hidden some evidence that we can use," Agustin insisted, "The clothes she wore to the party, and perhaps, a diary entry about the attack."
"You know that I disapprove of us invading our daughters' privacy," Julieta insisted, "You can't look through her diary, but her clothes might have some evidence. I'll take Mirabel to the doctor tomorrow, he might be able to shed some lights on somethings."
…
Bruno watched as his sisters, brother-in-laws, and Mama, finally left the dining room, heading upstairs to bed. This was bad, this was really really bad. The cracks, and Mirabel, that was what his vision had been about. Mirabel standing in front of Casita with cracks all over the place one second and the cracks being gone the next. Why didn't it show her being attacked?
He sighed, running his hand down his face, so many questions, and no answers in sight.
Well, now that everyone had gone to bed for the night it was a good time for him to sneak into the kitchen and get some food.
…
Luisa just couldn't sleep. She had failed her hermanita, one hundred percent failed. She was the Hermana Mayor, she was the strong one, it was her responsibility to protect Mirabel, and what happens? Mirabel was attacked and now she wasn't strong and she's going to be the next target, she was sure of it.
Just outside her room there was a loud thud, as if someone had tripped over one of the potted plants she had moved around before totally losing her gift.
"Pa, is that you?" she called out nervously, sneaking over to the door and peering out, nothing, "Okay," Luisa said out loud, trying to break the silence that seem to surround her, "That's weird."
She headed downstairs to the bathroom, used it, and was about to head back upstairs when she heard a crash coming from the kitchen.
She froze, someone, or something was in the kitchen, it was late enough she doubted that it was a family member, everyone was in bed by now. That meant that it was probably whoever, or whatever, had attacked Mirabel, and they were no doubt plotting out who to attack next. Probably her, but what if they go after Mirabel again? Mirabel had been removed from the family tree, what if they wanted her dead?
She was not going to stand by and allow this creep, whoever they were, to hurt her hermanita again. She didn't care that her gift was completely gone now, she was still stronger than most people due to the amount of exercise she did each day, she could still protect her sister.
…
Bruno grimaced as he knocked over a stack of pots and pans that hadn't been put away for the night. Considering what he overheard them talking about in the dining room before everyone had gone to bed, he wondered if perhaps Julieta had left them in that strange location in the hopes of tripping, and perhaps scaring whoever had attacked Mirabel away.
He grimaced slightly, and hoped that anyone who did hear the pots and pans would assume that it was Camilo, and not try to come down to investigate the news. Still he better find what he wanted and get back into the walls.
He opened the cupboard that he knew that Julieta kept the leftovers in and was quickly grabbing what he could fit in his pockets, when he heard heavy footsteps coming closer and closer. He froze, what where the chances that they would assume that he was Camilo? Maybe if he stood very, very still, like a statue, they wouldn't notice him.
The next thing he knew was he was being slammed into the far wall as a scream filled the air. He wasn't actually sure who was screaming, him, or Luisa, who had him pinned against the window, her eyes wide with fear.
Footsteps came pounding down the stairs, the wind picked up greatly as thunder crashed overhead. The light turned on blinding Bruno, as the voice of his sister exclaimed, "What's going on here, Luisa?"
"I heard a noise," Luisa insisted, her grip on Bruno's rauna tightening, "I went to investigate. This man was snooping through our cupboards," she insisted, slamming him back into the wall again.
This upset the rats Bruno had hidden in his ruana, causing them to squeak, a few of them scrambling up onto his shoulder.
Luisa let out a terrified scream, letting Bruno go.
Bruno scrambled to his feet, trying to dodge around Pepa, only for him to feel a hand grab the back of his rauna, causing him to fall flat on his back. He looked up into the green eyes of his sister, who glared down at him, "I will not allow you to hurt…" her eyes widened in surprise and recognition, "Bruno?!"
"Hola Pepa," he said meekily.
"Wait," Luisa exclaimed, "Tio Bruno? Why in the world did you attack Mirabel?"
"I've never hurt anyone, especially not Mirabel," Bruno insisted, allowing his sister to help him up off the floor with only a small grunt of pain.
"Lo Siento," Pepa insisted as Bruno once more got to his feet, "Mirabel was attacked the other day… we don't know who did it, so we're kind of on edge at the moment."
"I noticed," Bruno insisted, rubbing his back, "I got slammed into the wall and then into the floor in like five minutes."
