Bruno slept through the morning, and while Agustín knew that rest was really good for him in his condition, he would be lying if he said that he wasn't worried. It wasn't unusual for Bruno to get sick, and the fever didn't feel anywhere near as bad as it had when they'd found him, but Agustín didn't like seeing his brother-in-law so still and quiet.
He was supposed to be running around with more energy than a man their age should have. He was supposed to be rambling and talking about things that Agustín really didn't understand at all. Bruno shouldn't just be lying in bed, not even snoring or kicking his covers off in his sleep.
Agustín could remember times when Bruno had gotten sick in the past, and it wasn't like this. He would cough all over the place, and seem to be physically incapable of standing still. He wouldn't stop pacing or muttering to himself, whining when Alma or Julieta tried to get him to just sit down and rest.
Had Bruno truly changed that much in two years? Or was he so sick that he was just too weak to do what he normally did?
Agustín stayed at Bruno's side as long as he could, but he was tired and getting antsy. He needed to get out of the room, just to stretch his legs and wake himself up. Bruno was fast asleep. He'd be just fine for a few minutes. So Agustín left the room and went down to the kitchen to get some water and something to eat.
He really couldn't have been gone that long. When he returned to his room he had a large glass of water and a bowl of broth and some crackers. It wasn't as good as Julieta's food, but it was simple and light, and hopefully it would be easy on Bruno's stomach. He opened the door and nearly dropped the food when he saw the empty bed and blanket thrown recklessly on the floor.
Agustín felt incredibly frustrated, not with Bruno but with himself. He should have known better. He had thought that Bruno wasn't acting like himself , but he hadn't questioned it. He had told himself that Bruno was just really sick, even though it hadn't felt quite right. But he knew Bruno better than that. He honestly should have expected this.
"Bruno!" Agustín hastily put the stuff down, spilling the water and broth in his haste. He ran back out of the room, nearly tripping over his feet in his haste. "Bruno!"
Of course he wasn't in bed. Of course he wasn't asleep. He'd just been faking it for who knew how long. He'd always been a really good actor. And Bruno, even in his somewhat delirious very feverish state, had made it clear that he didn't feel comfortable being taken care of.
He kept saying that he wasn't supposed to be there, or maybe that they weren't supposed to be there. Agustín honestly didn't know what he meant, but he found it very concerning. As far as he was concerned, there was no better place for Bruno to be. Why did he think he shouldn't be with his family?
Agustín would have panicked about Bruno's absence. His wife would be furious and so upset if she realized that her brother had run off again. And Agustín was plenty worried about him himself. But he kept calm with the knowledge that Bruno couldn't have gotten far. Agustín would have seen or heard him if he tried to go out the front door, and Casita would probably stop him from trying to do something dangerous like trying to climb out a window in his state.
Still, it was better to be safe than sorry.
"Casita." Agustín addressed the house itself. "Bruno's still here, isn't he?" He knew he was, but he still breathed a sigh of relief when the shingles in the house made an affirming gesture. "Can you show me where he is?"
There was a moment of hesitancy. Casita had always been protective of Bruno. It didn't often give away his hiding places, but things were different this time. Bruno was sick and he needed the family. Casita had to know it.
Finally Casita made the affirming gesture again, and then the tiles on the floor started to flip and make a path to the dining room. There weren't a lot of hiding places here, but Casita wasn't finished. Agustín watched in shock as the walls behind their family tree pulled apart, splitting open like a door. What was somehow more shocking than that was that there was an entire broken down room behind there. A small room, but a room nonetheless.
Rats scurried all over the place, but Agustín couldn't care less about the rodents. He saw Bruno curled up in an uncomfortable way on an old armchair. He looked like he was trying to dose, and he probably desperately needed it, but he jolted when he saw the wall stared at Agustín like he was a ghost. Or a dangerous threat.
"Bruno." Agustín's tone was harsher than he meant for it to be. He had been so scared when he saw that Bruno was gone. The anxiety that he'd been feeling all night and his confusion about what was going through his brother-in-law's head made him sound far angrier than he felt.
Bruno didn't give him time to apologize or calm himself. He made an odd squeaking noise, sounding remarkably similar to his rats. He scrambled off the chair and ran towards what looked like a hallway behind the walls. Agustín went to stop him, but there was no need. The walls to the hallway closed up, stopping Bruno in his tracks.
"Casita!" Bruno sounded so betrayed that it was heartbreaking. He looked like he was going to cry. Agustín approached him slowly.
"Hermano." Agustín said. He was careful to keep his tone a lot more gentle now. "It's okay. It's just me."
Bruno wouldn't even look at him. He was scratching and hitting at the walls. He was panicking. Agustín hesitated for just a moment before he stepped closer. He reached out and grabbed the hood of Bruno's ruana. He flipped it up over Bruno's head. He froze, as Agustín knew he would.
"Don't be scared." Agustín said. "Hernando's not scared of anything, is he?"
Bruno took several deep breaths before he turned around and faced Agustín. The hood wasn't pulled over his eyes, the way he usually wore it, but he still looked braver than he had just seconds before.
"No, he's not." Bruno said. He didn't shy away as Agustín put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a comforting rub. He knew that the rest of the family didn't like Bruno's 'Hernando' persona, but Agustín didn't mind it so much. It made it very easy to stop his spiraling before it got really bad. All he had to do was slip the hood on and address Hernando, and Bruno would be able to calm down enough to take a step back and take a deep breath. After all, why should he panic when Hernando had no fears?
"Come on." Agustín said. "Let's get you back to bed."
"N-no." Bruno said, his voice shaky but sure. "I can't. I'm supposed to…to…" He looked around the room, as though he was waiting for it to tell him the words that he was having a hard time finding. "I can't be out there. I'm supposed to be here."
Well, at least Agustín knew who Bruno had been talking about when he said that someone wasn't supposed to be out there.
He had to think about how to respond. He'd tried to tell Bruno that he belonged with their family, and that they wanted him there, but it hadn't worked. Bruno just didn't believe him. He had to go about this in another way.
"Why?" Agustín asked simply. Bruno just stared at him like he didn't understand what he meant. "Why are you supposed to be here?"
"I…because…" Bruno struggled to find his words. "I had to leave, but I didn't want to. Being here lets me do both."
"Why did you have to leave?" Agustín asked. Bruno fidgeted with the threads of his ruana. He avoided looking at Agustín again. He didn't want to answer. "Bruno, please, talk to me. Let me help you. If something's wrong-"
"No." Bruno pushed Agustín away. "No, you can't help me. I-I have to do this. You don't understand-"
"So tell me." Agustín wanted to shake Bruno by the shoulders. "Make me understand." He hadn't thought that his plea would get him anywhere, but Bruno suddenly grew stiff, his eyes wide. He seemed to be putting pieces together in his head.
"You might understand." Bruno muttered. "If you understand, you'll know why I have to do this. You won't stop me." Agustín didn't say anything. He didn't think there was anything that Bruno could say or do that would make Agustín give up on him, but he wasn't going to say as much now. Bruno was so close to opening up and telling him what was going on.
Bruno took a deep breath. "I can't tell you. I won't be able to find the words, and you won't believe me. But I can show you."
It didn't take Agustín long to realize what was going on. "Is this about a vision you've had?"
Bruno flinched. That was answer enough. "Was it that bad?" Agustín asked.
"I don't know." Bruno said, though he was usually so sure if his visions were bad. "Maybe?"
"Maybe?" Agustín didn't know where this uncertainty was coming from. Well, did you have the vision on purpose, or on accident?" Most of Bruno's visions were done with purpose. He saw what people asked him to see. Sometimes though, when something big was going to happen, or when he was feeling particularly vulnerable, he would get an unprompted premonition. Those were the ones that frightened him the most.
Bruno rubbed his arm. "Both?" He said it like a question. "I mean, the first time it was a vision vision, but I've seen it a few times since, and I couldn't control it." So whatever he had seen was very important. "The thing is, the visions don't like to be hidden. The future makes itself known to me because it wants to be known. I-I couldn't tell anyone else what I'd seen, but I knew if I didn't tell then I might have another vision, and then there will be another emerald, and everybody else might see it, which would kinda defeat the purpose of hiding it in the first place-"
"Bruno." Agustín cut him off before he could really work himself up. "Why couldn't you tell anybody else?"
"You'll understand." Bruno looked tired. "You'll get it, and you'll agree with me. And then you'll help me hide again." Agustín refused to agree, but Bruno didn't notice the lack of response. He just took Agustín's hand and pulled him out of the room, which was sealed up again by Casita. They went upstairs and made their way to Bruno's room.
Agustín hadn't been in here since Bruno had disappeared. The unlit door was just as eerie looking as it had been that first day. Bruno didn't seem bothered by it. He just let himself in, as though he had never left.
The hourglass doorway, the secondary entrance to Bruno's room, had sand falling from it. As Bruno approached though the sand parted for him. The sandy hill on the other side had solidified somewhat, making a small awkward staircase that was a lot easier and safer to traverse than a steep, if short, hill. Bruno walked into his room with the confidence of somebody who had never left.
Bruno stepped towards the massive staircase that led to his vision chamber, but Agustín grabbed his arm, stopping him. Bruno had been moving fairly well until now, but as soon as he was no longer moving his legs seemed to start shaking. Agustín had thought this would happen, which was why he had grabbed Bruno in the first place.
"You are running on adrenaline and pure stubbornness." Agustín said. "You're in no state to walk all the way up there."
Bruno hummed and looked up at the staircase. He looked a little dizzy as he took in the height. "Yeah, yeah, no." He pulled out of Agustín's grip, only to go to the middle of the room and plop face-down on the sand. "You go. Get the vision. I'll wait here."
"Oh, no, I don't think so." Agustín sat on the ground next to Bruno. "After your little disappearing act I'm not going to let you out of my sight.
Bruno groaned and Agustín could hear the mope in his tone. "Fine." He rolled over. "My friends can get it."
"Your…oh." Agustín flinched when he saw some rats scurry out of some holes in the wall and ran up the stairs. He didn't think he would ever get used to Bruno's rats.
They would probably have a few minutes before the rats returned with the vision, and Agustín intended to take advantage of every second. "I know you wanted to show me the vision and not just tell me about it, but you know the tablet itself won't show me everything you might want me to know." The tablets only showed one image. Something that summarized maybe the most important part of the vision, but not everything that led up to it.
Bruno groaned and rolled over again. He was going to suffocate himself.
"Come on, I'm sure it's not that bad." Agustín said. "Why don't we start simple? Who did you have the prophecy for?"
Bruno seemed to try to burrow himself deeper into the sand. But he did, in fact, answer. "Mamá."
Agustín didn't know why he was surprised. Before Bruno's disappearance he had been getting increasingly reluctant to provide visions, and the people of the village had been just as reluctant to ask for them. Alma was one of the few people who could get Bruno to use his gift.
He wanted to ask about what Alma had wanted to know, but he didn't need to. He knew exactly when Bruno had left. It had been the night of Mirabel's gifting. They had known that the timing wasn't a coincidence, but they hadn't been able to figure out what the connection was. This made so much sense, and Agustín was kicking himself for not figuring out that Alma, who had been so anxious about the future of the gift, would have asked her son to look for answers.
"She wanted to know if the gift was safe." Agustín said. It was not a question. "What you saw. Was it really that bad?"
"...I don't know." Bruno said. "It was so hard to understand.. But it didn't really matter what the vision itself meant. It could have been good. It could have been bad. But the tablet makes it look really bad, and I-I knew what people would do if they found out."
Agustín didn't claim to understand the gifts or the miracle, but he had how it made his family suffer. It had always been especially clear with Bruno.
"Were you afraid that someone was going to hurt you?" Agustín asked. If Bruno was being threatened, and leaving was the only way to keep himself safe, then he might just understand why he had felt the need to leave. But why wouldn't he have told his family? They would have helped him.
Bruno scoffed. "Not me. If it was me I wouldn't have cared." And Agustín hated that he believed him. Bruno didn't take care of himself. He didn't feel like he deserved it.
"So why-?" Agustín swallowed thickly. "Why did you leave? What did you think would happen?" He paused when he reconsidered the words that Bruno had used. "Wait. You didn't think you would get hurt. Who were you worried about?"
Bruno grimaced. He curled in on himself. He clearly didn't want to talk about it, but he needed to. Agustín put a hand on his back. "Bruno?"
"I was trying to protect the family." Bruno said. "I know…I know I'm not good for the family. I just cause trouble. I-I've accepted that, but I couldn't let this happen. Not because of me. And I didn't know what else to do. I had to leave."
"What did you see?" Agustín asked. It was around then when they heard the rats scurrying back to them. They were holding emerald shards in their mouths. The vision.
"You'll see." Bruno sat up and accepted the shards from the rodents. He brushed some sand aside and started laying the pieces out, assembling it like a puzzle. "You'll see. You'll understand. And you'll help me, right?"
"I'll help you." Agustín said. "Maybe I won't help you run away again, but I'll help."
Bruno took a deep breath, only to cough in a painful sounding way. He groaned and rubbed his chest, clearing his throat as he did so. He finished assembling the tablet, giving it a disgusted look when he did. Bruno tilted his head at different angles, as though that would change how he viewed the vision.
"It's just as bad as I remember." Bruno grumbled. He gestured to it. "Take a look. Just, uh, don't get too mad at me. I swear I didn't try to see it. You know I didn't."
"I know." Agustín said. "I won't get mad." He adjusted his position to take a look at the tablet. He saw Casita, though it was odd. At first the house looked fine, but then Agustín got into position and he saw alarming cracks in the walls. He drew back, startled, only to see the cracks disappear at this new angle. Now he understood why Bruno had been shifting around.
"It changes?" Agustín frowned. This had never happened before. "Why is it doing that?"
"I don't know." Bruno said. "Maybe the future isn't set. Maybe it's showing that Casita goes from whole to broken in the blink of an eye. Maybe it breaks, and then fixes itself. I don't know." He was staring at Agustín cautiously, like he was just waiting for an outburst.
Agustín frowned and looked at the vision again. He'd been paying attention to Casita, but now his focus was on the young woman standing in front of the house. At first Agustín had thought that it was Julieta, because she somewhat looked like the way she had when she was younger. But Julieta had never had glasses, and Bruno's visions didn't show the past.
It took an embarrassing amount of time for Agustín to realize that the young woman in the tablet looked remarkably like his daughter.
"Is that…" Agustín leaned closer to get a better look. "That can't be Mirabel."
"It can be." Bruno flopped back into the sand. "And it is."
"But…but what does this mean?" Agustín hated trying to interpret Bruno's visions. "Will she have something to do with whatever is happening with Casita?"
"I don't know." Bruno repeated tensely. "Breaking it? Fixing it? It was so hard to tell. The vision was all over the place, and I couldn't focus on any of it. I-I didn't want to." He put his hands over his eyes. "But like I said, it doesn't matter what the vision means, because you know what everyone will think it means."
Agustín's stomach sank. "They'll see it as a sign that the miracle is wavering." That had been Alma's fear. "And that it's Mirabel's fault." He'd heard rumors in the village two years ago, where people were speculating about that very thing. The rumors didn't spread too much, because nobody wanted to blame an innocent five year old, but they wouldn't have that same hesitation as Mirabel got older.
He had a lot of concerns about his daughter, and he was very protective of her, but it wasn't as intense as he thought it would be. He knew Mirabel wasn't at fault, and if Bruno's vision was right, which it always was, then this wouldn't be an issue for several years. They had time to figure it out.
What Agustín was so much more worried about was Bruno. His hermano had run off, isolating himself and taking responsibility for something that wasn't his fault. He was terrified of being with the family again because he was scared that he would slip up and let them know about this vision.
Bruno wanted to run again. He was so sure that it was something that he needed to do that he was convinced that Agustín, now that he knew about the vision, would help him do so.
Agustín looked away from the tablet. He turned instead to Bruno, who was laying far too still. He was waiting. Agustín dreaded to think about what Bruno thought his reaction was going to be.
"Hermano." Agustín said quietly. "Can you look at me? Please?"
Bruno was still for a long time before he eventually turned his head to peek at Agustín, who reluctantly laid down to be at the same level as him.
"I'm not going to help you run away." Agustín said. Bruno grimaced and drew back, but Agustín took his hands and pulled him back. "I'm not mad at you for what you saw. I don't blame you. I don't blame Mirabel. While I appreciate what you tried to do for my daughter, I hate what you ended up doing to yourself. You can't go on like this. You're destroying yourself."
Bruno just looked confused. He had genuinely thought that Agustín would support him, and that was heartbreaking. "I-I'm fine." He coughed, as though to prove otherwise. "I mean, better me than Mirabel."
Agustín squeezed his brother-in-law's hands. "I wish you had come to us. We could have figured something else out. We can find a way to keep Mirabel, and you, safe from being blamed. But I need you to trust me. Trust us."
Bruno stared at him for a long time before he closed his eyes and looked away. Agustín rubbed his knuckles with his thumb. He knew he wouldn't be able to convince Bruno to change his mind so quickly. It would take time to persuade him, and Agustín didn't think that he would be the one to convince him. He would probably only listen to his sisters.
"I'll tell you what." Agustín said. "Stay with us while you're sick. Let us take care of you. When you're better and thinking clearly we'll discuss what should be done about your vision. If that means you leaving, then…then we'll go from there."
Bruno pouted. "I'm already thinking clearly." He said. Agustín highly doubted that, and not just because Bruno was sick. He'd always had a hard time gathering his thoughts and keeping calm. If he didn't have someone there to keep him calm and give him a second opinion then he quickly spiraled.
"Just humor me." Agustín said. "Let's get you back to bed. You're going to sleep, and when Julieta gets back we'll tell her about all of this, and we'll make a plan as a family. Fair?"
Bruno sighed tiredly, but he didn't try to pull his hands away from Agustín's. "Don't tell Mamá."
"I won't say a word to her." Agustín said. That wasn't a hard promise to make. He didn't want Alma to get mad at either Bruno or Mirabel. For now they needed to keep things in a very tight circle.
"And Pepa." Bruno said. He sounded a little tired. "Don't tell Pepa." Agustín didn't want to agree to that one. He didn't understand why Bruno was scared of his sister. But he was asking a lot from Bruno. He didn't know how much more he could ask before Bruno just disappeared for good.
"She doesn't have to know." Agustín said reluctantly. Bruno immediately relaxed at his words. He looked like he was going to fall asleep on the spot. That was something that Agustín had always thought was odd about Bruno. His energy levels spiked and dropped so quickly, like a flip had been switched.
"Are you ready for bed?" Agustín asked. Bruno hummed and nodded slightly. He was already half asleep. Agustín shook his head, smiling fondly. He had missed his hermano so much. He stood up and picked Bruno up, just as he had just a few hours ago. He was still far too light in his arms. He wanted to let him sleep, but as soon as he woke up he was getting some food in him.
Agustín carried Bruno out of the room, pausing just long enough to kick some sand over the tablet. He would come back for the shards later, but right now Bruno was his priority, not the vision. He brought Bruno to his and Julieta's room, laying him on the spare bed again. Bruno seemed to be asleep, snoring and coughing slightly like Agustín had expected him to in the first place. But he wasn't going to trust it now. He'd been fooled before, and he wasn't going to let it happen again.
Agustín wasn't going to take his eyes off of Bruno for one second until Julieta got back, and then they would all sit down and have a long-overdue conversation.