Chapter Text
“Ma? I can’t find my shoes!”
A small voice rang through a tiny house on a hill. It was quiet there, so no one ever needed to get too loud to be heard. There was only a kitchen, sitting area, bathroom, and two small bedrooms. It was all we needed and it was all I had been capable of building on my own.
“Alright, chiquito, let’s see if we can’t find it around here somewhere.” I said as I stepped out of the kitchen and into Alejandro’s room. It was messy, as always, but just organized enough that we both had a rough idea about where everything was.
I looked through his laundry and soon found a small pair of sandals. “They were right here.” I set them in front of him. “It didn’t even take a minute to find them. What’s up?”
Alejandro had become noticeably clingy lately. He was suddenly unable to do a long of simple tasks and found himself needing my help. Something had to be wrong.
“Nothing.” He mumbled, staring at his shoes instead of putting them on.
“Well why don’t you get your shoes on so you can go out and play?” The children of this small village were always so friendly to my son. I doubted anything happened between them to make Alejandro act this way.
He silently shrugged and pushed around his shoe with his toes. He wouldn’t look me in the face.
“Alejandro, you’re making me worried. I need you to be honest. I promise it’ll be okay.” I set a hand on his outer arm and stroked with my thumb, trying to comfort the small child.
He shook his head. “You’ll be mad.”
I sighed, understanding his concern. “I may be. But I won’t yell and I’ll try to understand. Alright?”
“Okay.” He said, going to reach under his pillow, pulling out a letter, and handing it to me.
I recognized the handwriting as being that of Lucia. My old friend in Encanto. I hadn’t lived there in nearly a decade. She kept me updated on the village and we wrote via two birds she trained to carry our messages over the mountains. I had one and she had the other.
I didn’t open the letter yet. “Why did you hide this?” I decided not to show any anger or disappointment. I wanted to hear him out first.
“It would make you sad. You’re gonna cry and scream.”
This made me smile. “Alejandro. You’re a strong boy. But you can’t protect me from everything. If it makes me sad then it’s my sadness to feel.”
He nodded, silent and staring at the floor again.
Alejandro always had a gift for predicting other people’s emotions and reactions. I knew he was right. It made me scared to open the letter, but I knew I had to.
‘Dearest Maria,
It pains me greatly to write this letter to you. But over the past few days, strange happenings have plagued the Madrigal family.
Luisa lost her strength, the candle went out, and their house collapsed. It took time, but they have repaired themselves and their gifts have returned. I don’t doubt Alejandro was affected by this loss of magic.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the worst part. Bruno Madrigal has returned. He never left. They discovered him living in the walls. I can’t imagine what it was like. Hearing your own family either refuse to speak of you or act as if you were a monster. They say he had painted a dinner plate into a spare piece of wood to mimic the one he would have had in the house, and used to eat with them from behind the walls. It’s tragic.
Abuela Alma apparently asked him for a prophecy after Mirabel’s gift ceremony. He saw the family falling apart with Mirabel at the center of it. He was afraid his family would think the worst of it and turn on the girl when she was only five. So he hide it and left. Turns out, the prophecy was of her saving the broken home.
Either way, they’re having a celebration to welcome him home. I think you should bring Alejandro. At least come into town so we can discuss this in person. The party is in a week.
Love, Lucia’
Alejandro was right.
My knees hit the ground before the first tear fell. My throat hadn’t felt this raw since the day I lost him, and then, since the day I gave birth to our child surrounded by strangers. Both days had been bloody and raw. But this somehow felt even worse.
The man whose death I mourned years ago was suddenly back. A death I had taken years to understand and grieve. And now here I was, screaming at the air, terrifying my child who had begun to cry too, and I grieved him again. Only this time I didn’t know what I had lost. A future? Or maybe now it was a past I wish I had. A past with him. History. One I never had the chance to make. It was like losing everything all over again but with the knowledge that it didn’t have to be this way. I lost it all. For what? My son lost a chance at growing up surrounded by a big and loving family. For what?
It felt like hours before the screams died down in my house. I cried myself to a headache that no amount of water could fix. My son was trembling in his room.
“I’m sorry.” Tears were still falling.
Alejandro shook his head. “I knew it would happen.”
I frowned and sniffled. “But that doesn’t make it any less scary.” I knew why he was afraid. He was afraid because he’d read the letter himself and didn’t know what was so upsetting about it.
“Who’s Bruno?”
When I tried to answer, only a choked sob came out. “Uhm. An old friend that we thought went missing.”
“Are you sad because he’s back?”
I took a deep breath. “I think so. I think I’m sad because he felt without saying goodbye and, I never knew what happened to him. So. It hurts to know that he was never really gone. And, of course, it was very sad to read about the horrible way he lived.”
“Why does his family hate him?”
Of all things, I chuckled. “Bruno is special, like you. He can see into the future. But sometimes he sees things that people don’t like. So they get mad at him when it comes true.”
Alejandro looked confused. “That sounds like it isn’t his fault.”
“It’s not.”
“Bruno’s family is mean.”
That got a laugh out of me. “Perhaps.”
We stood there a while. Him by his bed and me by his door, nursing a glass of water for my throat.
“Are we gonna go to the party?”
I raised my eyebrows and checked the date on the letter. It was only three days old. It takes two more to cross the mountain into Encanto. Maybe three with Alejandro. I still had time.
“Maybe.”