"I don't understand," Mirabel insisted, cleaning her glasses, "There were cracks everywhere. The candle, it nearly went out. Tiles were falling."

Isabela snorted, rolling her eyes at her.

"The Miracle is strong," Abuela insisted, "And so are the drinks!" she announced.

Mirabel blinked in confusion, she hadn't believed her? She must not have if she was trying to get everyone back into Antonio's room, sending Luisa for the piano and having her Papa play a joyful song.

Mirabel glanced at the party, she really wasn't in the mood to celebrate with the family. The memory of her own failed ceremony and the sudden appearance of the cracks and then disappearance. Even her Mama had left without sparing her a second glance. Mama always gave her a quick kiss and a hug whenever they cross paths.

She glanced down at her hand, the jagged cut from the broken tile bleeding steadily. She hadn't imagined it. The proof was right there. If she had imagined the cracks and the broken tiles, then how had she cut her hand. She better find something to heal it before it got infected, or before the injury got too old for her Mama's food to heal.

As she moved to make it to the kitchen, sure there was tons of food in Antonio's room, but she really didn't want to go back there, a hand grabbed her by the shoulder, a crash of thunder telling her who it was.

"Tia," she exclaimed, cradling her injured hand in her good one, "What do you want."

"What do you think you were doing?" Pepa exclaimed, "Look I get it, your gift ceremony didn't go as planned, but that does not give you the right to ruin mi Tonito's night like this."

"I didn't, I wasn't… I'm not..." Mirabel stammered, before holding up her hand, "Look, I cut my ha..."

There was a loud crash of thunder and a flash of lightning as Pepa let out a shout, "I don't want to hear any of your excuses! Just go to the nursery and wait there until Abuela or Julieta can deal with you!"

Pepa turned on her heels, storming back up to the party, pulling her braid and muttering "Clear skies" to herself, not even looking back at her sobrina, who laid in a heap of the entryway, the back of her shirt smoking.

Mirabel blinked her eyes open, and then blinked them several times to clear them. Oh, she hurt, she hurt so badly. Her eyes steamed, as she clawed herself upright. It was strangely quiet, she couldn't hear the music that was blaring out of Antonio's new room.

She tentatively rose her good hand up to her ears, first one, then the other, then she pulled it back. Blood stained her fingertips. This wasn't good, she needed an arepa. Which meant she had two options, go upstairs to the party, and find her Mama in the crowd, risking running into Pepa, who might hurt her more, or Abuela who would no doubt send her to the nursery, or go into the kitchen and see what she could find.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, all the food Mama had made that day was upstairs at the party. Which meant that she would have to go back in to find her… or she could wait until morning, it was around eight thirty, breakfast was at eight. It would be within the twelve hour time frame Mama had to heal. She wouldn't get underfoot, wouldn't cause a disturbance and wouldn't force Mama to have to make something just for her because fresh food healed better.

Yes, the best thing she could do was clean herself up and head to bed. It wasn't like she was going to be missed at the party. They didn't even miss her when they did the family photo, and if they did happen to notice that she wasn't there? They'll just assume that it proved to be too much for her and went to bed early.

Getting cleaned up was harder than it sounded, Casita only had the one bathroom, well, besides the in suite ones with the magical bedrooms, and there was no doubt in her mind that it would be busy with the large amount of guests they were entertaining, and it might take a while to find the new one in Antonio's room. So she had to make due with the nursery and a bowl of water. Luckily the cut on her hand had stopped bleeding, as had her ears. Although, she couldn't help but noticing that it was still quiet, like she had just shut herself into Dolores's room.

The party broke up around nine when Pepa reminded everyone that Antonio was still only five and needed his sleep. By nine thirty they had shooed out the last of the party goers. It took another half-hour to get Antonio calmed down enough to put to bed.

Julieta sighed as she finished putting the left over food away, "There's enough food for breakfast in the morning, I'll just heat it up, sleep in a little" she said with a yawn, "Isabela, Luisa, can you help me with the dishes please?"

"Doesn't Mirabel usually help you with the dishes?" Isabela asked.

"Where is Mira anyway?" Luisa asked, "I haven't seen her since the whole, 'The house is in danger' thing."

"She probably went to bed to sleep off her hangover," Isabela scoffed.

Julieta frowned, she had seen several drunks in her life and she knew how they acted. Mirabel certainly hadn't act drunk when she had warned them about Casita cracking, "Tonight was really hard on Mirabel, girls, I know that she usually helps me with the dishes, but can you please help me tonight. I'm sure Mirabel is already in bed."

As Luisa and Isabela did the dishes Julieta went upstairs to the nursery. Mirabel was laying flat on her stomach, her head turned to face the wall.

"Mira are you awake?"

There was no answer, so Julieta sighed, sitting down on the edge of the bed, "I know today was hard on you, Corazon, but you certainly seemed certain that you saw those cracks and you don't seem drunk to me. Maybe, there was a snake up in Antonio's room, maybe you saw it and mistook it for a crack. Maybe you need new glasses. I'll have Papa set up an appointment for you tomorrow."

There was no response, Mirabel must actually be asleep, which was a possibility considering the time and when she must have gone to bed in the first place. "I love you Mira, don't you ever forget that," she said, as she stood up once more, pulled the blanket up farther on the sleeping form, and pressed a kiss on her forehead, "Things will look better in the morning," she promised.

Mirabel felt the dip of the mattress as someone sat down next to her, felt soft hands smoothing the blanket over her, and felt the soft kiss on her forehead before the dip on the mattress disappeared. She counted slowly to sixty, giving whoever it was, she suspected that it had been her mother, a chance to leave, before sitting up sharply.

She had no idea what had been said, if Mama had come in to ground her or what. She'll have to be careful, then, the last thing she wanted to do was make Mama mad at her as well, she was already in trouble with Tia Pepa.

She glanced at the door, it was close, that wasn't a good sign, if Mama had left the door open it meant that she was free to go and she wasn't grounded to her room. A shut door meant that she was in major trouble and wasn't allowed to leave accept for the bathroom. Then again, that was during the day, not at night. Maybe she had just closed the door because she thought that she was asleep. It made sense, she had been gentle with her touches, but mama was always soft with her touches no matter how bad she was.

She was always soft with her touches, the door was closed behind her… she was grounded. Grounded to the nursery because she had tried to warn her family of a threat to their safety. All because they thought she had made the whole thing up to grab attention. They thought she was some attention seeking liar.

Tears filled up her eyes as she tried to stifle her sobs, not wanting Dolores to hear them, while having no idea if she actually was having any luck keeping her sobs to herself. No one joined her so either Dolores didn't hear, or didn't care. Honestly she bet it was the didn't care, after all she heard everything.

Pepa frowned as she watched her sister leave the nursery looking as if the weight of the world was on her shoulder as she leaned against the nursery's door, running a hand over her face, "Maybe Mama was right," she muttered.

"About what?" Pepa asked, giving her sister a look as she stepped up next to her.

"Mama suggested that we send Mirabel to stay with Agustin's parents for the week of the ceremony. She said that it would probably be better for her if she wasn't around with the reminders of the ceremony, but… Mirabel didn't want to. She wanted to stay for Antonio, she wanted to see the gift ceremony," Julieta confessed, shaking her head sadly, "Maybe we should have pressed her a little more about accepting the invitation. I know that she loves Antonio, and wanted to be here for him, especially since he was so worried about not getting a gift. She wanted to be here, in case that happened again."

Pepa sighed, looking at the blue door that marked the nursery, and the teenager that was behind it. She had thought that she was just trying to ruin her Tonito's special night, but she had really wanted to be there in case it went wrong. And, honestly, that made more sense when she thought about it. Mirabel loved Antonio, and was happiest when he was happy. She would never do anything to take the attention away from him. In fact, now that she thought about it, Mirabel often times would try to divert attention from her to Antonio, this wasn't like her at all, "Tonight must have been so hard on her," she finally said, "reliving her own failed ceremony and then being humiliated in front of the whole Encanto again," she sighed, "Me yelling at her probably didn't help any."

Julieta gave her sister a glare, "No, yelling at my daughter probably didn't help tonight at all."

"I'll apologize in the morning," Pepa promised.

"You better," Julieta muttered, before sighing, "It's getting late, I better make sure that the kitchen is in order for tonight. Good night."