Chapter Text
Mirabel supposed she should be there at Antonio’s ceremony. She should be dancing with him, eating food and laughing with Camilo except-
Except there’s a tightness in her throat and a stinging behind her eyes and Mirabel is certain that if she opens her mouth a sob will come out.
So she turns around. Walks away and once she’s climbed the roof of some random house, tilts her head to the sky and tries to push back the tears.
“Come on,” she whispers through gritted teeth. “All I need is a chance, just open your eyes.” Mirabel is tired and sick of it-sick of waiting for a miracle, for the cold stares from Abuela to stop, for the whispers from the community to cease.
“I’m ready, I’m steady,” Mirable says, blinking her eyes furiously up at the colorful fireworks. “Bless me like you blessed us all those years ago. I’m ready.”
Except the candle doesn’t burn for her. Just like how it hadn’t burned when she was five at her own ceremony, seven when she begged for another try, or thirteen when Isabela’s harsh words sent her flying to her room with tears in her eyes.
So Mirabel slides down back onto the ground, sniffs, and heads back to Casita where the party is still going. It’ll continue on until late at night so maybe she can give Antonio a quick hug before trying to fall asleep in the Nursery.
She’s just stepped into the courtyard when she hears it-a sharp clatter, the sound of dry clay shattering. It's like a bullet sounding out in the quietness of the night. Mirabel frowns as she suspected the piece of clay which looks exactly like-
Like Casita’s roof tile-
But-Thats impossible! Casita has never had any dents in its walls, let alone cracks! So lost in thought, Mirabel’s grip on the tile slips and the jagged end of it leaves behind a stinging cut across her palm. Only then does she notice how the floor is trembling and when she tries to reach out it-
-it cracks-
-and from there the cracks grow. Jutting out sharply against the walls, shaking Abuelo Pedro’s portrait, and her family’s doors dim and glow as the cracks get closer and closer to the candle.
All Mirabel can do is watch numbly as the light from her sister’s doors dims. It's the most terrifying thing she’s ever seen.
‘I need to tell Abuela,’ is Mirabel’s first thought and she quickly moves. ‘The magic is in danger, our home is cracking, I need to tell-’
Sharp, sharp pain blossoms on her head. It's so sudden and so painful that Mirabel finds herself collapsing, gasping in shock. Her head feels so incredibly heavy like one of Luisa’s weights. Something is slowly dripping down the back of her neck and sliding under her blouse.
She can hardly move. Her head keeps on bobbing down, seemingly weighed down by the pain.
“Ma-” Her voice comes out raspy and shaking. “Ma-Please, I’m hurt-”
The ground beneath her is rippling like water and her vision is blurry like she doesn’t have her glasses on. ‘Stand up,’ Mirabel shouts at herself. ‘Stand up, you useless-’
And then there’s a blow at the back of her neck and the world goes dark.
Casita burns.
One of it’s own is hurt because of them, bleeding out, staining the ground with her blood that keeps on flowing out. It had tried to move her but the magic that usually flows through it’s walls and every crevice falters. It's enough time for pieces of it’s roof to fall and hit Mirabel. Sweet, energetic Mirabel who can create art with thread and a needle, and can play any instrument as long as it's properly tuned.
Casita swore to protect this family and refuses to have one of it’s youngest bleed out.
It is vaguely aware of the candle flickering and sputtering as it moves across the floor, shudders up the staircase, and bursts little Antonio’s door open. It needs to be quick.
Luisa is content.
So far, no one has asked her to move anything. She’s able to sit down on one of the large branches of Antonio’s new tree house, sip some jugo de mango, and chat with Dolores. It's a great party, with everyone dancing and laughing and singing while the food disappears quickly. In the center of it all is her little cousin, Antonio, who seems to glow under all of the praises.
Yeah, Luisa is content.
But then it ends just as suddenly when Antonio’s door bursts open and swings about wildly. Luisa and Dolores are sitting closer to it so they can see the frantic way Casita is moving the door.
Luisa and Dolores share a worried glance. One would expect Casita to be as excited as the party-goers but it seems like that wasn’t the case. “I’ll go check it out,” Luisa says to Dolores, who pursues her lips and nods.
Luisa is just walking towards the door when she hears her name called. Holding back a groan, she turns around and straightens her back at the sight of Señor Sanchez, a well-known figure in the community. “How can I help?” Luisa asks, silently begging for someone else to swoop in and take the responsibility.
Señor Sanchez grins sheepishly up at her. “Ah, Luisa, I hate to ask for you to do something now, but could you move the food table somewhere else? A lot of people feel like dancing.”
‘The table isn’t even that heavy, you could just carry it yourself with some of the others,’ is what Luisa wants to say. Instead, she plasters on a grin and heads over to the long food table, shifting it so that more people can enjoy themselves. Then and only then does she head for Antonio’s door that is still frantically waving.
“What’s wrong with you?” Luisa asks, brow furrowed. She’s never seen Casita act this agitated. Her stomach twists as she descends the stairs in order to find the source of her house’s worry.
The brawny woman had just descended the stairs when she saw it. A dark pool of something and cracks of all things running across the floor of the Casita. Luisa gasped when she saw the cracks had reached even the walls on the second floor.
The ground is suddenly shifting her further when Luisa glances down.
She just stares. The world fades away, the music softens to a whisper, and something is crawling under her skin as she gazed down at the prone body of Mirabel that is surrounded by something dark.
She just stares and finally, finally opens her mouth to scream because she’s pretty sure her sister is dead.
Mirabel has always been smaller but right now she’s tiny, curled up on the floor with her eyelids shielding half of her eyes that look so, so empty. She had just been alive, walking Antonio to the candle and entering his new room. How could she be lying here, dead on the ground with her family only a floor away?
Luisa is falling, falling to the ground as she tries to hold her baby sister in her lap. God, she’s so cold. How could none of them hadn’t noticed? How could Luisa not notice? She’s the responsible one, the one her tio and tia trusted to hold all the kids and entertain and she failed.
“Mama!” Her voice sounds twisted and raw. “Mama! Help! Someone, please help!”
Miraculously, the universe answers her. Julieta is there, face pale and eyes wide. “Mirabel,” her mother is saying, brushing back her daughter’s curls. “Mirabel, carino, open your eyes. Please, open your eyes. Luisa, what happened?”
“I don’t know.” Luisa is still holding Maribel who’s head just flops back and the sight of it makes her stomach churn. “I-I just saw her like this-Mama-”
Julieta is standing up, hands bloody (and that's her sister’s blood, mierda, mierda) and sprints towards the kitchen. It's only then Luisa notices how some of the people from the party are on the ground floor, gasping and whispering.
Two people are kneeling besides Luisa. Her papa gives out a strangled gasp before turning around and yelling something, and Isabela is shrieking. She sounds wounded, as if she’s the one bleeding from the head. The shriek turns into a sob as Isabela cradles Mirabel’s head.
“No, no, no,” Isabela is wailing, curled in on herself and white flowers start growing from her hair and falling to the ground. “Luisa, who did this? Who did this?!” More voices join in.
“Is that Mirabel?!”
“The blood!”
“Who did this?!”
‘I don’t know,’ Luisa wants to say. ‘I don’t know.’ Instead, all she can do is grab her older sister and let sob into her soldier. All she can do is cradle the broken body of her baby sister.
Julieta returns, a bowl of soup in her hands that nearly spills all over Mirabel. “Mira,” she gasps out, spooning some of the soup and holding it up. “Mira, you have to eat this. Carino , please open your eyes.”
But Mirabel’s eyes were empty. Usually, they were always shining with different emotions-wonder, happiness, anger. Mirabel was someone who felt everything so strongly and reacted even stronger. But tonight her eyes looked dead.
“Mirabel, please!” Luisa had never heard her papa sound like this, scared and angered at the same time. “Mirabel Madrigal, you stop scaring your family right now. Mira-”
“Mirabel, wake up.” Isabela is leaning over, begging. “Mirabel, I promise I’ll stop being mean. I’ll let you m-make me a new blouse and do m-my hair just please wake up!”
“Agustín, help me open her mouth,” Julieta began urgently. “And apply pressure to the wound, there might still be time.”
Someone has stepped forward. Abuela looks shaken, clutching her shawl in a death grip with one hand and placing a shaking one on Julieta’s shoulder. “Julieta,” Abuela begins, voice trembling and says the two words Luisa had been dreading. “She’s gone.”
“NO!” Julieta jerked away and lifted Mirabel gently from Luisa’s hold. “My hija is just hurt, she’s just hurt! I can help her, I’ve always-always-”
The great sob that had been lodged in Luisa’s throat, choking her, finally crept up at the sight of her mama holding Maribel. An ache was spreading from Luisa’s chest, making her tremble because this was her baby sister. The same sister she swore to look after and protect, and Luisa failed.
Abuela just falls to her knees and presses Mama’s face against her shoulder. “Oh, mi pobre querida,” Abuela says and the grief is too raw in her own voice. “ Mi pobre querida, lo siento. Lo siento.”
“I can help her, Mama, I can heal her.” And yet Julieta made no move except to cradle her youngest. The air is thick with grief and despair.
Luisa-She should be pulling herself up. Getting the townspeople away from Casita, helping her parents and Isabela, helping in any way she can. But all she can do is let her papa hug her and Isabela tightly.