Chapter Text
"Don't forget my glasses, Tío."
"I won't forget your glasses, Mira. Here, I'm putting them on now."
Bruno Madrigal, seated cross-legged on the floor of the nursery, adjusted the chalk in his hand and stuck his tongue out in concentration. He drew a perfect circle—which was one of his gifts—to create one half of a pair of oversized spectacles on the drawing of his niece on the nursery wall. Her door was almost complete.
He had provided the general outline, the drawing of little Mirabel at its center, and her name across the top in the neatest handwriting he could manage. And Mirabel in turn had decorated it in every color of chalk they could find in the nursery.
She'd mostly drawn butterflies—he noticed she really liked butterflies—but being the thoughtful child that she was, she'd also taken care to include something to represent each member of their family. There were flowers for her sister Isabela, a rainbow for her Tía Pepa, her Tío Félix's tiple, a group of lopsided brown circles he could only guess were her mother Julieta's buñuelos.
Bruno hadn't yet seen anything that might be for him, but he didn't let it bother him. He was absent so much these days that he was just relieved she hadn't fussed when his sister had asked her to go with him while she had "grownup talk" with her abuela. He was also quietly relieved that "grownup talk" didn't include him, at least for now.
It had been a little over an hour since her real door, the door that should have granted her the gift of magic, had faded under her tiny hand. He'd watched from behind a curtain of flowers on the ground floor, hidden from the view of the townspeople assembled in the courtyard of their family's home, so he had a front-row seat to the cacophony of shocked murmurs when the ceremony had failed.
He'd never climbed the stairs faster in his life—and he'd had a lot of practice.
He felt a tug on his ruana and turned to find Mirabel standing next to him, still in her white ceremony dress, now bedecked with colorful chalk smudges. Julieta would probably chide him later for letting her do art in that dress. But he'd decided that regardless of how the ceremony had turned out, as far as he was concerned, tonight was Mirabel's night and she could do whatever she wanted. If she'd asked for a pony ride, Bruno was fully prepared to switch professions from prophet to nocturnal horse thief.
"Tío Bruno, that's not the right color," she said, holding up a stick of green chalk.
He looked back at the yellow circle on the wall and chuckled. "Aha, right you are." He licked his thumb and carefully erased it, then exchanged his yellow chalk for green and began again. "One pair of green glasses, coming up."
"Like your gift," Mirabel chirped.
He stopped mid-stroke. "My gift?"
"They're green, just like your eyes when you look into the future," she said. She wrapped her hands around the bright green wire frames on her face to demonstrate.
So that was the bit for him.
Bruno slowly turned back to the wall and continued his work, blinking and swallowing hard in an attempt to force down the burning lump in his throat. How could a five-year-old's little heart have room in it for so much love? Enough room even for her useless recluse of an uncle. He felt like he'd been given a gift he didn't deserve.
"There," he said, with a finishing stroke, "all done."
He dusted chalk from his hands and leaned back to take in their masterpiece. Mirabel climbed into his lap and sat facing the wall with him.
"Well, whaddya think?" he asked.
She leaned forward and stretched out a hand to touch the "M" on the outline of the doorknob, letting her palm rest on the wall for a moment before leaning back again.
"Just in case," she whispered.
Her tiny shoulders slumped, and then began to tremble.
Bruno's heart broke for her all over again. He'd been wondering when she'd finally cry, and had worried she would wait until there was no one around to hear. She'd been so quiet since the ceremony, even going so far as to say she was "fine", but Bruno knew an act when he saw one. The pressure to be perfect, act perfectly, in this family was so immense. Despite his sadness, he was relieved that she didn't feel the need to keep the act up around him.
He folded his arms around her, holding her gently as she sobbed. After a while, he retrieved his handkerchief from his back pocket to clean her face.
"You know," he said, wiping her cheeks, "sometimes having a gift isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's not all fun, it can even be kinda scary sometimes, and it's a lot of responsibility. Here, blow." He held the handkerchief over her nose and she complied with a small honk.
"But Mami helps so many people with her gift," she said, sniffling. "And even Milo, he makes everyone laugh, and he's only a little bit older than me. I want to help too!"
"Mira, there are plenty of ways you can help without magic!" he said, chuckling and ruffling her hair. "You brighten everyone's day just by being you. I know I'm not around much, but even I know that. But right now? You shouldn't have to worry about anything besides being a kid."
There was a long pause, and Bruno thought about what it would have been like to grow up without a gift. To just be a son, a brother, a friend. Not a prophet. Just a kid.
When Mirabel broke the silence, it was barely a whisper. "I just want to make my family proud."
Bruno swallowed again. He was glad she couldn't see his face now.
"Me too, kid," he choked. "Me too."
A moment later, the nursery door creaked open and her father Agustín stepped inside. His worried eyes landed on the drawing of the door on the wall and he smiled weakly at Bruno.
"Thanks for watching her, cuñado," he said. He crouched down and held out his arms. "Hey Miraboo, are you ready for a bedtime story? I'll let you pick whatever book you want, even a really long one."
Mirabel clambered out of Bruno's lap and ran to her father, throwing her arms around his neck. When she didn't let go, the creases on Agustín's face deepened with concern. He stood up, lifting Mirabel with him in his arms.
Bruno stood and patted his brother-in-law on the arm, leaving a chalky green handprint on his starched white shirt. "She's had a rough night, Gus. I know Abuela doesn't approve, but you should consider letting her sleep with you and Julieta tonight."
Agustín snorted and narrowed his eyes. "Ask me how much I care about what Abuela approves of right now," he muttered.
Bruno smothered a grin. For a moment he longed for the days he and his brothers-in-law would go for the occasional night out on the town. He had a feeling they had plenty to talk about these days.
"Julieta's outside," he added, "She needs to ask you something."
Bruno nodded grimly. He knew he'd be involved in the matter eventually, and he'd been silently dreading it all night. Now his time was up.
As he stepped out of the room, he turned back to watch Agustín bouncing Mirabel softly in his arms just like he had when she was a baby, humming a song to her as he danced around the nursery. He smiled, and closed the door behind him.
"Thank you, hermano."
Julieta's voice was quiet and hoarse, and sound of it reached straight into Bruno's heart and squeezed hard.
His sister Pepa's tears were more familiar to him. Her crying spells came and went so easily and often these days. If they didn't serve her needs, like watering the valley's crops or providing the perfect ending to a great romance novel, he could usually clear her clouds away by distracting her with a dumb story or joke.
But Julieta so rarely cried, being too busy taking care of others to worry about her own troubles. So when she did, it always broke him inside, and he'd never known how to fix things the way she fixed everyone else.
"Anytime," he replied. "It's a lot easier than what I'm about to do next, right?"
"Bruno..."
"I just want you to know," he said, clenching and unclenching his fists, forcing the fear down, "I am not doing this for Mamá. I won't look just because she wants to know. Only for you. I...I need to hear it from you first."
Julieta approached him slowly and slipped her arms around his waist, resting her head on his shoulder. She smelled like fruit and coconut and confections. What should have been the scents of a celebration, now a mockery of one.
"Please, Brunito. I just need to know she's going to be all right."
"Well, you don't need a prophecy for that," he said, squeezing her back. "She's got you and Gus. She's gonna be just fine!"
Julieta sighed, unconvinced. "If we only knew why, then maybe it would make all of this easier."
"Maybe...she just got lucky."
As soon as the words were out of his mouth they felt like a mistake. And the way Julieta suddenly stiffened in his arms confirmed it.
She pulled away from him.
"You don't mean that," she said. She shook her head. "Take that back."
Bruno held his arm and avoided her wounded look. He did mean it, and he could never bring himself to lie to her. Not that he was ever any good at lying anyways, he talked way too much for that.
As usual, he'd opened his big mouth and someone had been hurt. Given enough time, he always managed hurt the people he cared about most.
He chose his next words carefully. "If she'd been given my gift...and everything that comes with it...would you still have been happy for her?"
She didn't answer, but the tears that filled his sister's eyes said everything she didn't dare say aloud. He quickly stepped forward to hold her as she broke down, just as he had for Mirabel.
"You'll understand," she said after a while, between hiccups. "When you have children of your own, you'll understand how impossible all of this is."
Bruno snorted in spite of himself. "Well then, apparently I'll never understand."
Julieta shoved him away again, rubbed her eyes angrily, and swatted him on the arm, causing him to laugh harder.
"Don't you start that again," she said, pointing a finger at him. "Don't you give up on yourself!"
"I don't need to," he said, sweeping his arm in front of himself dramatically. "My reputation precedes me wherever I go."
She scrunched her nose. Bruno hadn't been aiming to annoy her, that just came naturally, but he'd take her being angry at him over being sad tonight.
"Wait, what about Victoria?" she asked. "I thought you two were getting along?"
He nodded and scratched his beard thoughtfully. "We were, we were. But that was before she asked me for a vision."
"Ay," she sighed, "I thought she promised not to ask you."
Bruno shrugged. "They all do, eventually. Anyways, it seemed harmless enough. She asked me to look to see if her brother Vicente's wife was having a boy or a girl so she could surprise her with a gift."
Julieta's face darkened. "Oh, Bruno. Please tell me the baby's going to be all right, Señora López is so far along in her pregnancy!"
"I never got a chance to see it. You see, Victoria asked for a vision of Vicente's child, and my gift showed us a perfectly healthy little girl,"—he forced out his next words through gritted teeth—"who just happens to be their next-door neighbor Señora Silva's daughter."
Julieta's brows furrowed, and then they flew upwards as realization dawned. She winced. "Yikes."
"You said it," he sighed. "She's not talking to me anymore. Not that her brother would allow her to anyways after...that. Another broken home courtesy of Bad Luck Bruno."
"Courtesy of Vicente López, surely," grumbled Julieta.
"Let's face it, sis. As much as I appreciate your continued confidence, there's no one left in this valley who'll take a chance on me. Not anymore. Not after everything."
His sister tilted her head to one side and smiled that soft, gentle smile of hers. It had a healing magic all its own, and Bruno felt a twinge of shame that on one of the worst nights of her life, she had wound up trying to comfort him.
"Someone will," she said. "It will just have to be a very special person that wins the love of my very special brother. My gentle, sensitive, big-hearted brother." She reached out to pinch his nose and grinned when he batted her hand away, grumbling and blushing. "And who knows, if they're not here already, then maybe they'll come from outside the valley."
And that made Bruno's heart skip a beat.
He took a steadying breath. Fragments of a vision from long ago flitted through his memory. A lone rider moving carefully through a rocky pass. A classroom, children laughing. A bear towering over him. He was dancing with someone in the town square. And then that kiss...
It was all a half-remembered dream by now, and one that seemed more impossible with every passing year.
Still, theoretically it was a fixed point in his future that told him he had at least one more chapter left in his story. Every other vision he'd given had inevitably come true. Should he doubt this one just because it might end with "and they lived happily ever after"?
He was suddenly aware that Julieta watching him with growing concern.
"Well, I hope this 'very special person' can fly," he teased, throwing a thumb over his shoulder, "because these mountains aren't getting any shorter!"
She rolled her eyes and then, catching sight of something behind him, went motionless.
He turned to follow her gaze and found their mother, hands clasped in front of her, leveling a look of stern disapproval at him from the doorway to her room on the far side of the house. Alma turned and disappeared into her room, leaving the door and its luminous, ever-vigilant likeness of her open behind her.
Bruno swallowed. "The future awaits."
Before he could go, Julieta pulled her brother into one more embrace.
"For Mirabel," she whispered.
"For Mirabel," he said.
11/1/22: Please enjoy this bonus art of Mirabel's door created as a part of #encantober fan challenge over on Tumblr for the prompt "Door":
