AUTHOR'S NOTES: So, this probably goes without saying, but given that this is 'Encanto' but in a modern setting, this universe does have current technology including computers and cellphones.
Also, Casita has an elevator that Mirabel uses to get from the ground floor to the second story and vice versa.
I almost forgot to mention that when Antonio gets his Gift, one of his new coatimundi friends decides to stick with Mirabel. The coati in question is named Micha. (pronounced 'Mic-uh')
Chapter 2
As the time for the Gift ceremony arrived, Pepa, Felix, Camilo, and Dolores gave Mirabel a look of grateful relief as she stepped out of the elevator with Antonio who still looked nervous but was clearly trying to muster some courage for the big event.
After getting hugs from his family before they headed up the stairs, Antonio waited by the drawn curtain, listening for his cue to walk up to his door.
But when casita finally pulled the curtains back and directed the literal spotlights on him, he instantly froze, not even able to budge when the house tried to give him a little encouragement.
Turning to Mirabel who was still hiding in the shadows, he held out a hand towards her, hoping that she could keep him from going up the stairs alone.
Mirabel shook her head ever so slightly before flicking a glance at her crutches. Stairs were a challenge on the best of days and her legs were already tired and sore. If she collapsed on the stairs... "I don't... I can't..." she whispered, quietly, trying to make Antonio understand that she physically couldn't escort him.
"I need you..." Antonio pleaded, softly.
All objections flew out of Mirabel's mind at those three words.
She heard Casita quietly rattle the floor tiles as she set one crutch aside so she could take Antonio's hand but she just murmured, "I have to do this... Alone," she added, knowing that the house was going to try and help.
Limping out of the shadows, Mirabel focused on Antonio and the glowing door at the top of the staircase. When her primo grasped her left hand in both of his, she gave him a confident smile as she whispered. "Come on. Let's get you to your door."
'One step at a time,' Mirabel told herself as she slowly went up the stairs with Antonio trying to support her as best he could. 'Don't think about how much your legs hurt. Don't think about not getting your door. Focus on Tonito.'
After finally making it to the second floor and leaving Antonio in front of his door, Mirabel limped over to where her tio and tia were standing and she smiled at the house when she saw that Casita had her wheelchair stationed nearby. Feeling her Tio Felix put an arm around her, Mirabel leaned on him gratefully as he helped her over. Settling into the wheelchair, she let out the slightest hiss of pain as her legs gave an angry throb.
"Thank you, Mira," Pepa whispered to her sobrina, leaning over and kissing her forehead. "I know how hard that must have been for you."
"Anything for Antonio," Mira replied, sincerely.
Abuela gave a pointed clearing of her throat before directing everyone's attentions back to Antonio as he touched the candle and promised to honor the family miracle.
Pulling out her phone, Mirabel turned on the video and made sure she could see Antonio reaching up to touch the knob on his new door.
The door glowed brighter and Mirabel could hear Pepa and Felix breathe a sigh of relief - something Mira understood wholeheartedly. Inching forward to give Antonio a hug, she stopped when a toucan landed on his outstretched arm, chirping in an inquisitive manner. Seeing the wide smile on Antonio's face, Mirabel grinned as well as she realized what his Gift was. Looking over to the courtyard as dozens of birds, coatimundis, and capybaras came into the house, Mirabel laughed at the sheer joy on her primo's face as he finally opened the door to his new room.
Saving the video to post on her webpage later that night, Mirabel put her phone away and slowly made her way into Antonio's room, her jaw dropping as she gazed upon the jungle that lay before her.
"Mirabel, look out!"
Hearing Antonio's urgent warning, Mira wheeled about quickly, just as a full-grown jaguar leapt over her head, picked up Antonio, and bounded through the room with the small boy on its back.
Like one of the sudden, natural thunderstorms that hit Encanto in the summer, the realization of what she lacked by not having full mobility hit her hard and fast.
Even if she did have her own room, it would likely be designed to accommodate her needs and disability. It might have a more open floor plan with low dressers and closets she could reach easily if she was in the wheelchair.
It might even have more places to sit down and a larger space for her sewing and supplies...
There weren't many areas in Antonio's room that Mira could get to easily, even with her crutches, and the level spots were surrounded by uneven ground and tree roots - all of which were potentially problematic.
But Antonio... he was free to run around and explore to his heart's content. He could climb the giant tree, play in the river, ride his new jaguar friend... All the things Mirabel would never be able to do.
When Abuela called the family together for a picture, Mirabel was hesitant to join the rest of her family until Isabela, Antonio, and Julieta called her over.
Wheeling over, Mira tried to back up without rolling over anyone's feet and she ignored her grandmother's look as Antonio got into her lap with one of the coatis perching on Mira's shoulder. "That's Micha," Antonio whispered while the newspaper photographer set up his camera. "She wants to help you since she's got a bad foot, too."
Looking at Micha, Mirabel noticed that the coati's back right leg was much shorter than the left and the paw itself was somewhat deformed. Nodding at the animal, Mira smiled. "Thanks, Micha. It's nice to meet you."
"Straighten up, Tonito," Abuela instructed, tapping Antonio's shoulder sharply. "We're taking the picture."
As Mirabel joined in with everyone saying, "La Familia Madrigal!" she felt, for one fleeting moment, like she was truly part of the family.
But as Antonio's party began properly, Mira felt herself being pushed to the side as the rest of the family and the partygoers headed towards the tree where a dance floor had materialized along with space for the local band.
"Come on, Micha," Mirabel murmured, waiting until the doorway was clear before heading back out of the room. "We'll only be in the way." Heading along the hallway, she stopped by the pictures of her sisters and cousins standing before their own doors.
It wasn't just the lack of special powers that made Mirabel resentful about not having a Gift.
It was the lost opportunity to be physically normal.
Isabela had been plagued by one allergy after another until her Gift apparently made her immune to such problems.
Luisa had been born premature and she'd always been weaker than the other children until her Gift corrected the problem.
Dolores had been prone to ear infections and had lost most of her hearing to meningitis when she was 3. But with her Gift, her hearing had returned tenfold.
From the moment that her door had first appeared, Mirabel had held onto the hope that her new Gift would make her legs stronger and she could walk on her own without needing crutches or braces. She'd never need a wheelchair again and she could run and play like any other kid in town.
Thinking back on her ceremony, Mirabel remembered her father carrying her to the glowing door, kneeling down so she could open it and be blessed by the miracle...
A blessing that never came...
Micha gave a concerned chirp as she settled in Mira's lap, cocking her head in a curious manner as she felt the braces on Mirabel's legs.
"I was born with bad legs," Mirabel explained as she touched Micha's bad leg. "Just like you, you know?" Getting what passed as a commiserating chirp, Mira frowned as she looked at her family's doors before her eye finally landed on the nursery.
She didn't want to go to bed, but she couldn't bring herself to try and go join Antonio's party. She couldn't dance and wheeling around large crowds usually resulted in accidentally rolling over someone's toes or bumping into their legs.
Casita clacked the floor tiles in a would-be cheerful manner and shuffled Mira's wheelchair over to the staircase, sending her on a controlled slide down to the landing where Abuelo Pedro's portrait hung.
It was something that had always made Mira laugh a little when she was younger, but tonight it felt like salt in an open wound.
As the stairs slowly went back to normal, Mira gave a thin smile. "It was a nice thought, Casita. I know you're just trying to help me feel better." Looking up at her abuelo, she felt hot tears sting her eyes as she asked, "Why didn't I get my Gift that night? Even if I didn't get magic... You couldn't have at least given me my legs? I've tried, Abuelo. I have tried really hard to get better and to do things like everyone else... Just tell me why. You fixed Luisa and Dolores... why am I the one who had to stay broken?"
Broken...
Remembering being in the hospital after going down the stairs wrong and breaking her ankle, Mira's thoughts turned to looking at the cast, wondering why her mother's food couldn't heal her. Any other injuries could be mended quickly, but anything related to her legs took time to recover from...
It had always made Mirabel feel like a broken toy that would be fixed only to break again later on...
The sound of rattling roof tiles made Mirabel look up just as one of the tiles fell to the ground and shattered. Wheeling over to the tile, she was about to bend down to pick it up when Micha beat her to it, setting the broken tile in Mira's lap.
The edges of the tile were sharp and cut into Mira's hand as she lifted it to examine it. Letting out a cry of pain, she looked at the gash across her left palm. Muttering a few choice curse words, she looked towards the kitchen. Her mother always kept stashes of food available in case of emergency, but wheeling over to get something would be a challenge with one hand.
Before Mira could figure out what to do, she looked up sharply as she heard cracking sounds coming from the walls. The cracks began to spread, going across the doors and making them flicker dangerously before racing towards the miracle candle sitting in the window of Abuela's room.
Looking down at Micha, the coatimundi looked alarmed as well which made Mirabel the slightest bit relieved as it meant that she wasn't imagining the cracks. "I need you to go back up to Antonio's room and tell him to tell my mother I need her. She needs to know about this - " Mira held up her injured hand. " - and that there were cracks in the house."
Micha took off as fast as she could, leaving Mirabel alone in the courtyard. But just as she began running through the events that had just transpired, she watched as the cracks slowly began to mend themselves. "Casita? What happened? I just saw the cracks, and now... I did see them, right?"
While the house tried to rattle the floor tiles in a reassuring manner, they sounded weary, much like Mirabel did when she tried to insist she was fine after a long day.
"It's okay, Casita," Mira replied, forcing a smile. "Mama will know what to do." Although, the more she thought about it, she wondered what her mother could do about the cracks. The house wasn't alive alive, so healing food wasn't going to work. And the cracks were gone now so the broken tile still sitting on her lap was the only evidence that something had been wrong in the first place...
The sound of someone letting out a startled yelp made Mirabel wheel about, ignoring the increased pain in her hand as she stared at the man who had just come down the stairs.
"Oh, my..." Mirabel breathed, her eyes wide as she and the figure just stared at one another for a moment. "What are you...?"
"Ai Dios!" Julieta shrieked as she stopped dead on the staircase with Felix right behind her. "Bruno!"
"Wait, Julieta!" Felix exclaimed, but he wasn't fast enough to stop his sister-in-law from charging towards her brother and smacking every inch of him that she could.
"I thought you were DEAD, you -!" Julieta let out a string of profanity that even made Felix stop and stare in disbelief. "No warning! You just disappeared!" Her tirade was interspersed with more cursing as she went on about how scruffy and thin Bruno looked.
"You never took care of yourself! You look like you haven't eaten a proper meal since you left! And the clothes!" Grabbing Bruno by the upper arm, she marched him towards the kitchen, hollering over her shoulder, "Felix, can you get Mirabel?"
Felix ducked behind Mira, pushing her wheelchair into the kitchen and over to the table where Bruno was cowering slightly as he watched his sister angrily grabbing ingredients for a fresh batch of arepas.
"Start talking," Julieta told Bruno as she began to mix the corn dough. "Why did you leave?"
Bruno muttered something under his breath and when he caught Julieta's look, he spoke a little louder as he began, "T-Technically, I didn't actually leave."
Seeing that Felix wasn't making eye contact with anyone as he muttered something about Bruno living inside the walls, Julieta focused her anger on her brother-in-law next. "You knew about this?! And you never said anything?!"
"Juli, I-I-I asked them not to," Bruno murmured, calmly.
"I'm sorry... 'them'?" Julieta cut in. "Mirabel knew about this, too?!"
"Mama, I swear I didn't know anything about Tio Bruno," Mirabel jumped in, quickly. "I promise I would have said something if I had."
"Dolores knows...," Felix explained, hating the idea of ratting out his only daughter. "... and Luisa."
Mirabel's jaw dropped and her mind suddenly raced back to when Luisa had first started pushing her away. At first, Luisa had just claimed she was too busy to help Mira but eventually, the distance had morphed into something more akin to hostility.
It hadn't made any sense until now.
"Luisa started pushing me away because she knew she'd cave if I started asking questions about what she was doing and what secrets she was keeping from me," Mirabel deduced, looking at Felix with a critical eye.
Bruno nodded in confirmation before turning to Julieta who was finishing patting out the arepas. "Juli... I am really, really sorry about not telling you. Y-You have to believe me when I say that I wouldn't have hidden if I'd had any other choice."
"Abuela asked him to have a vision to find out why Mirabel's door disappeared," Felix explained as he went to the fridge and brought out several bottles of water, passing them out. "But the vision... it was about Mirabel and Bruno panicked. He didn't want her shunned like he was."
"I was trying to protect Mirabel," Bruno concluded, sadly, before turning to his sobrina. "You had enough to deal with."
Thinking about the cracks that had appeared and then disappeared, Mirabel began recounting the event, beginning with the roof tile falling, causing the cut on her hand. Pausing before putting the arepas on the flattop griddle, Julieta quickly took a picture of the injury with her own phone as well as the broken tile with traces of blood along the one broken edge.
"Ai, Dios..." Felix murmured, rubbing the back of his neck as Mira finished her story. Smacking Bruno's upper arm, he snapped, "I told you that we needed to tell someone about the cracks, bro!"
Mirabel watched her mother and how silent and tense she looked as the arepas cooked - both signs that she was holding back from unleashing a hurricane of fury upon her brother and brother-in-law.
Once the hot, fresh arepas were placed on a platter and set on the table, Julieta sat down as well, looking from Felix to Bruno. "The whole story. From the beginning."
Bruno began the tale, starting with Mirabel's door disappearing. "Mama didn't know what was wrong with the magic and whether the door fading was because of that, or..."
"Or?" Julieta prompted, raising an eyebrow.
"You remember when we were worried that Luisa wouldn't live long enough to get her Gift?" Bruno replied, looking over at Mira. With a shrug, he went on. "She thought that it could have been a sign that Mirabel wouldn't live much longer."
Letting out a long sigh and burying her face in her hands, Julieta took a few moments to compose herself before she lowered her hands and turned to her daughter, squeezing her forearm before looking back at Bruno. "But the older Mira got, the more Mama probably wondered if Mirabel's disability was what kept her from getting a Gift. Like... Like the magic was tired of correcting our family's birth defects."
"So... So I didn't get a Gift because of my legs," Mirabel mused, looking at her lower body.
"Bruno and I have been trying to figure out what happened for the past 10 years, Mira," Felix told her before taking a bite of arepa. "But the vision he had that night..."
"Yes, let's talk about that, shall we?" Julieta snapped, focusing on her brother. "Why in the world wouldn't you tell me that you had a vision about Mirabel?"
Bruno finished off his own arepa and downed some water before explaining. "Because before I saw Mirabel in the vision, I saw the magic in danger and the house breaking apart and then healing. I knew it wouldn't matter how the family interpreted it - as soon as the town found out about it, everyone would assume that it meant that Mirabel was going to destroy the family."
"The cracks have been going on inside the walls for years now," Felix added. "Dolores heard them one night and she and I followed the sound, we came across the entrance to the wall space. That's how we found out about Bruno."
"And Luisa?" Mirabel wanted to know. "How did she find out?"
"Luisa doesn't know about the cracks," Bruno corrected, quickly. "She just knows that I've been living in the walls. She couldn't sleep one night and she came down to the kitchen while Felix and I were working on one of his books."
"Mama is going to go mad when she finds out about all this," Julieta murmured, standing up and starting to clean up the kitchen. After a few moments, she stopped, taking a deep breath before looking at Felix, Bruno, and Mirabel.
"Felix, you need to let Dolores know that I know what's going on," Juli instructed, thinking quickly. "I'll tell Isabela and Agustin and we'll talk to Luisa. Tomorrow, we'll need to tell Mama. Bruno..." Seeing her brother look like he was expecting to be yelled at again, she softened as she nodded in Mirabel's direction. "Bruno, the other bed in Mirabel's room is empty. Why don't you sleep there tonight?"
"I've got an extra blanket and pillow in my closet," Mirabel offered, wrapping up a couple of extra arepas and setting them in her lap as she backed up from the table. Micha quickly settled onto her shoulder once more and Mira gave her new friend a quick scritch.
"O-Okay," Bruno muttered as he stood up to follow her. "I-I mean, I can just use my ruana. You don't have to..." After a moment, he stopped Mira and gave her a sad smile. "Mirabel, this isn't... You didn't cause any of this, okay?"
"Mmm-hmm," Mirabel murmured, not meeting her tio's eyes. When they were in the elevator, however, Bruno quickly hit the button to pause their ascent.
"Mira, I heard what you said tonight... when you were talking to mi padre," Bruno said, going down on one knee so he could be more face-to-face with Mirabel. "I honestly don't know why you didn't get a Gift... But I do know that it wasn't because you're broken."
Mirabel started to reach up to turn the elevator back on, but Bruno when stopped her, her eyes welled up with tears as she murmured, "All I've ever wanted was to make the family proud of me... Just once... But now... Tio Bruno, am I hurting the family? I mean, can you just tell me that?"
"I can't tell you," Bruno began. When Mirabel looked away, a mixture of anger and disappointment on her face, he took her hands in his and waited for her to look at him before he went on. "I can't tell you... because I don't know. I honestly don't know why you were in the vision or why the cracks appeared and disappeared... If I had any actual answers, I'd tell you."
Sniffling, Mirabel leaned forward and hugged her uncle, holding onto him as he murmured gentle reassurances. When he finally stood up, he gave her a warm smile as he turned the elevator back on. "Listen, uh... d-do you mind if I borrow the bathroom you and your sisters use? I-I just want to clean up a bit. It's been a while since I've had a real shower."
"Yeah, of course," Mirabel replied immediately. "If you want, though, you could use my parents' bathroom. That way you could grab some clean clothes." When Bruno gave her a slightly confused look, she explained, "Mama was the one to clean all the personal items out of your room. She keeps all that stuff in a trunk in her closet."
The elevator door opened and while Mirabel headed for the nursery, Bruno slipped away to his sister's room and bathroom.
After getting changed into pajamas and posting the video of Antonio's Gift ceremony to her webpage - 'Guess who can talk to animals now? SOOOO proud of Tonito!' - Mira took a few selfies with Micha to share before the coati decided to settle at the foot of her bed for the night.
Hearing the door open, Mira looked up as Bruno slipped inside, followed by half a dozen rats. "I-I-I hope you don't mind," Brno muttered, noticing the look Mirabel gave his little friends. "Th-That's why I'd gone down to the kitchen in the first place. I was going to try and get something to eat. For me and for them."
Nodding at the arepas on her nightstand, Mirabel limped over to her bed, grateful that Casita had taken care of her crutches. "I thought you might want a snack," she replied with a knowing look. Taking off her braces, she got settled in bed before propping herself up on one elbow, watching her tio as he did an odd 'knock on wood' routine before sitting cross-legged on Antonio's old bed. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," Bruno responded at once. "I-I just... I-It's weird, not being in the walls. Sleeping in an actual bed. I-I usually sleep in this old armchair o-or in a hammock."
Sitting up. Mirabel paused for a moment before asking, "Would talking help?"
"T-Talking about wh-what?" Bruno wanted to know, eating half of an arepa and sharing the other half with his rats.
"About anything," Mira prompted, moving so her back was against the wall. "What all did you do while you were living inside the walls? Other than patch cracks and help Tio Felix write the most popular book series ever."
Feeling slightly more relaxed to be discussing things other than his vision or cutting himself off from the rest of the family, Bruno became animated as he described doing various performances with the rats, watching the family, and his cowriting with Felix.
When Bruno finally began to yawn, Mirabel set her glasses aside and settled down once more, waiting until she saw her tio fall asleep before she finally gave in to slumber herself.
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