Being able to hear everything all the time was an amazing gift that Dolores usually appreciated, but it could get overwhelming. She had learned to tune out unpleasant or loud sounds and just take them in as white noise, but it took focus to be able to do that. If she was caught off guard, or too tired or emotional, the noises quickly became too much.
Over the years she had learned how to listen to quieter or nicer sounds. They didn't block out the noise, but it helped her to focus so she could tune them out. Dolores had a lot of favorite sounds. She liked listening to a gentle rainfall, and thunder rumbling from miles away. She liked the sound of Isabella's flowers growing. She adored the way that Camilo's breath sounded when mamá brushed his hair. When she was especially anxious she would stop and listen to the flame flickering on the candle.
Those sounds reminded Dolores of peace and comfort. It made her feel safe and taken care of. While those were her favorite sounds, there were other sounds that made her anxiety spike every single time she heard them.
She didn't like it when people cried. The sound was piercing and heartbreaking, and it was especially unbearable when the tears belonged to someone in her family.
She didn't like hearing arguments, and she heard a lot of them. Her parents fought with each other. Her mamá fought with abuela. People in town were frequently fighting with each other. It made Dolores' head hurt and got her worrying about something going wrong. That the fight would go too far.
The noises she hated more than anything else were the sounds of someone who was ill. She couldn't take any of it. The harsh breathing. The rapid heartbeat. The feverish mutterings. The crying. She couldn't handle any of it. The noises themselves were overwhelming, but the suffering was worse than anything else.
She wasn't used to hearing prolonged suffering without relief. Dolores heard people crying frequently, and she saw people who were hurt all the time, but she didn't really consider that intense suffering. Most people she heard crying were soon comforted and reassured, and anybody who was hurt got healed by Julieta's cooking. Things could be done about that pain. Not much could be done about most illnesses they got in their valley. They just had to wait for the pain to go away. It usually did within a few days, but sometimes it didn't.
What was the worst was when someone was sick and they didn't have someone around to comfort or take care of them. They just suffered alone. Not too many people in the Encanto had to suffer like this, but one person regularly did.
Dolores grimaced when she heard a painful sounding cough in the walls, followed by a pitiful groan. Tío Bruno was sick. Again. He got sick a lot. She couldn't remember if he had gotten sick as often when she was younger, or if this was a new thing. Did he just have a weak body like the poor Arias girl in town who was rarely not sick? Was he just not very good at taking care of himself? Or was he getting diseases from the rats that she could hear scurrying around him?
Dolores didn't know why Tío Bruno got sick so often. He was always okay within a few days, so she convinced herself it wasn't a big deal, but she couldn't help but worry every time she heard him sneeze and cough. It always sounded so harsh, and that was when he was trying to keep quiet and hidden. How bad would he sound if he wasn't holding back?
This time was a bit worse than the others. He sounded the same as always, but he'd been coughing like this for a week, and he'd probably felt unwell for quite a bit longer. It had been a long time for just a common cold or a simple fever. Something was wrong, and Dolores felt helpless. She couldn't help Bruno. All she could do was lay in her bed, wide awake, and listen as Bruno coughed, and then coughed again, and then just kept coughing.
Did he have dust in his lungs? She imagined it was very dusty in the walls of the house, and dirt and dust always made her cough and sneeze when she got exposed to too much of it. Was the coughing getting the dust out, or just leaving him tired, hurt, and unable to breathe?
Not for the first time she wished he wasn't in the walls. She wanted him in the house, where one of the other grown-ups could take care of him. He shouldn't be isolating himself like this. Especially not when he clearly needed help.
Dolores had learned how to sleep through the noise, but she didn't dare do it now. She stayed awake, and she listened, because she had a bad feeling in her stomach. Bruno's cough really didn't sound good. What if he got worse, and nobody would know? What if she woke up in the morning to find that he'd passed on during the night, far sicker than she thought he was?
If he didn't stop coughing by morning then Dolores would sneak into the walls and bring him some of Tía Julieta's chicken soup. It wouldn't heal him, because her gift couldn't cure sicknesses the same way it healed injuries. But even if it didn't magically make him feel better it still had to help. It had been far too long since Bruno had to have had a hot meal, and some good food could do wonders for him.
Dolores didn't sleep, but she dozed slightly as she listened to the almost hypnotic sound of her tío's consistent coughs. She got comfortable, and she jolted when there was a sudden change. She heard Bruno yelp in surprise, quickly followed by a series of thumps. She could imagine what had happened. He had probably tripped.
He was both the clumsiest and the most graceful person that Dolores knew. When he was anxious and uneasy he was far more nimble and flexible than he looked. When he was feeling comfortable and confident he forgot to be careful, and he ended up tripping over his own feet.
She didn't like it when people got hurt, but she couldn't help but be amused when Bruno tripped. It was always the silliest of accidents, looking almost staged. He never got seriously hurt, and he always talked and mumbled to himself awkwardly when he got back on his feet. It was funny, and Bruno knew it.
She waited to hear her tío say something to himself and stand up, or for him to start coughing again. She didn't hear anything. There wasn't even a groan in pain or a whimper. There was silence from Bruno, and Dolores had never been so scared to not hear anything.
She sat up in her bed and clutched her blanket tightly. She looked at the wall and stared at it with wide, frightened eyes as she focused and tried to listen. She wanted to hear anything from Bruno. Even if he was in absolute agony, she thought that a scream would be better than this suffocating silence.
A minute passed. Two minutes. After five minutes Dolores got truly frightened. What if Tío Bruno had really hurt himself?
She didn't want to even think about it, so Dolores did what she always did when she heard what she knew to be a dangerous accident, followed by silence. She went to get Tía Julieta. If Bruno was hurt, she'd be able to help him. She could heal anything, no matter how bad it was, just as long as the person was alive.
Dolores ran out of her room and to Julieta and Agustín's room. She was crying at that point, but she was pressing a hand tightly over her mouth to try to muffle the sound. She didn't want to wake up the rest of the family. More than that, she wanted to listen. If Tío Bruno was unconscious she wanted to know the second he woke up.
She knocked on the door, and then just let herself in. None of them kept their rooms locked. If someone snuck into another person's room so they could snoop or mess around with something they shouldn't then Casita would put a quick stop to it.
"Tía Julieta." She said quietly but urgently. She nudged her aunt's shoulder. She didn't wake up immediately, and Dolores was scared and overwhelmed. "P-please, wake up. Bru…I-I need your help." She didn't like keeping Bruno's presence a secret. She'd been wanting to tell about him for the past two years, since he had first left. The only reason she hadn't was because she was scared that if his hiding place was revealed then he would run away somewhere further away. Somewhere she couldn't hear him. What if something happened to him, and he wasn't close enough for the family to do anything about it?
At least when Bruno was in the walls he was still here. At least he wasn't completely alone.
Julieta started to stir, and Dolores felt like she was going to break down. She let a sob out, and finally her aunt woke up.
"Dolores?" Julieta sounded exhausted, and a part of Dolores felt bad for waking her, but she was too relieved to truly feel bad. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know." Dolores said. That was the whole problem. She didn't know what was wrong with Bruno. "I heard…someone's sick. They've been coughing all night, and it sounded pretty bad, and then it sounded like they fell, and I can't hear them anymore."
Julieta sat up. She took Dolores' hands. "Breathe, Lola, it's okay." She hadn't realized she was panicking until her tía tried to calm her down. Julieta brushed her tears away. "Do you know who's hurt?" Dolores nodded. "Do they have family or friends nearby who can take care of them?"
For such a simple question it was so hard to answer. What was Dolores supposed to say? Bruno did have family nearby, but they weren't at his side. If Dolores hadn't heard him they wouldn't know he needed help, and he would be alone.
"I don't know." Dolores finally said. Her voice cracked in distress. It was heartbreaking that her uncle was so close, and she couldn't confidently say that their family would take care of him. She knew they would, but she didn't think Bruno would easily give them the chance. And while Dolores thought that her mamá would probably be happy to see Bruno, her surprise and hurt would probably be expressed through anger first, and Bruno might panic.
Julieta gently ran her hand through Dolores' hair. "Well, if nobody else is taking care of them, we'll check on them and make sure they're okay."
"Now?" Dolores asked. She was scared to wait until morning.
"Now." Julieta said. She got out of bed and took Dolores' hand as she led the way. She was glad that they were going to be taking care of Bruno, but she couldn't help but be anxious about revealing her uncle's secret. Would her family be mad at her for not telling them sooner? Would Bruno be mad at her for telling at all?
Dolores was scared of getting in trouble, but more than that she was scared of something happening to her tío. So after stopping by the kitchen to grab some leftover food for some quick healing she didn't hesitate to bring Julieta to the painting that she had heard Bruno coming and going through. She opened the painting, and flinched at Julieta's small noise of shock.
"I'm sorry." Dolores said. "I know you're going to get mad, but please help him first." Dolores would take being yelled at, and having her family disappointed in her, just as long as Bruno was okay.
Julieta looked at the secret passage. Dolores thought that she would demand answers, or at least ask questions about why there was a sick person hiding in their house. She was prepared for those questions, and it was almost more alarming when Julieta just steeled her expression and went into the passage. She was ready to work, and Dolores wondered if she knew more than she had said.
Then again, was it really that hard to figure out who was in the walls of the house? Casita was very protective, and even territorial. She gently but firmly kept people from going anywhere they shouldn't be. If somebody was in the house, it was because Casita wanted them there. She was fine with guests, but there was a very small list of people who could stay in the house for an extended period of time.
Dolores had never been back here. It was a little scary. She stayed close to Julieta, tightly holding her hand as they carefully made their way through the narrow walkways. Everything was still far too quiet for Dolores. She could hear the creaking of the floorboards, and the squeaking of rats, and the frantic breathing of Julieta as she failed to hide how nervous she was. But she couldn't hear Bruno.
It didn't take them long to find him. The hidden passages between the walls weren't that big. In just a minute Dolores could see a still form sprawled on the ground, wearing a ruana that she could recognize, even with this poor lighting and after all these years.
"Tío Bruno!" Dolores let go of Julieta's hand as she hurried to her uncle's side. He was just laying there, still and quiet. She reached out to shake his shoulder to wake him the way she had woken Julieta. She squeaked when her aunt pulled her back, putting herself between Bruno and Dolores.
"Bruno." Julieta's voice was odd. It was both stern and shaky. She sounded more scared than Dolores had ever heard from her, but she also sounded so determined that she almost seemed angry. Julieta didn't hesitate the way that Dolores had been. She rolled Bruno onto his back and straightened him out. Dolores watched in quiet awe as her aunt made sure that Bruno was more comfortable, and in a better position for was only because she could hear the hitch in Julieta's breath that she could tell that she wasn't as calm as she was asking.
"W-why aren't you giving him food?" Dolores asked.
"Feeding someone who is unconscious can be…complicated." Julieta said. "Especially when they're so sick. I don't want to make him choke." Julieta ran a hand through Bruno's hair, her touch so gentle that it was almost cautious and reluctant. She seemed scared of making his condition worse. "He has a small bump on his forehead, and a sprain in his ankle, but other than that I think his injuries are minimal. The food can help a little, but until he's awake I think it's too risky."
Dolores wrung her hands. "How do we wake him?"
"We wait." Julieta said. She looked around the small hall. "And we get him somewhere more comfortable. She took a deep breath and looked at Dolores. "I need you to get Agustín." She didn't need to say why. Dolores knew that Julieta wanted to get him out of these halls, but between the two of them they couldn't get Bruno out of here. They needed more help.
Dolores didn't want to let her uncle out of her sight, but she was no good to him by standing here uselessly. Julieta was keeping an eye on Bruno, and she could help him more than Dolores could. Getting more help was the best thing that she could do.
She nodded and turned back the other way, going faster this time. She didn't like being back here. It felt dangerous, and not at all like Casita. She was scared, and tired, and she really didn't want to be alone. But Tío Bruno needed her. She could be alone and scared for a little bit. If Tío Bruno could do this for two years, she could do it for two minutes.
She would get Tío Agustín. He would get Bruno somewhere safer and more comfortable. Tía Julieta would take care of him until he was better, and then everything would be fine.