Chapter Text
Mirabel wasn’t sure why she felt surprised when her family chose to take the picture without her. They left her standing amongst the crowd of adoring onlookers, all clamoring for a moment with the “Amazing” Madrigal’s”. After all, this was not the first time she had been forgotten about.
It didn’t hurt any less as she watched the camera flash go off. It was a sudden yet long-overdue realization: no matter what she did, she would never be one of them, no matter how hard she tried. Mirabel was forever destined to be an outcast, not only by her family but also by the townspeople who made it their mission to remind her how ordinary she was in a family of the extraordinary.
No more.
It was clear she wasn’t wanted; it had been made clear for the last ten years. If her own family wouldn’t love her or notice she wasn’t in a picture, then she would find one that would. Outside of the Encanto.
Determined, she began pushing past the partygoers, leaving Antonio’s room and heading into the crowded hallways of their home, towards the nursery. She wondered for a moment: if she stayed, would they ever give her a room to call her own?
Probably not. After all, why give her a room when they could keep her as the built-in babysitter? She was destined for a lifetime of living in the nursery, tending to future generations of Madrigals. Or maybe Abuela would kick her out once she turned eighteen.
She could just imagine the happiness on her family's faces when they realized they were free of her. She bet they were waiting for her to run away so they could finally stop pretending to love her.
Stalking into the nursery, Mirabel wasted no time packing what little she had into one of her larger bags. Beneath her feet, Casita came alive, emitting concerning clicks and taps that Mirabel knew were the house's way of asking what she was doing. She paid it no mind, lest Casita try to stop her once it realized she was leaving.
Casita lifted a tile to stroke her foot, sensing the young girl's despair and wanting to comfort her. Without hesitation, Mirabel stomped down on the tile, causing the house to retract in fear or maybe even pain. ‘You can’t stop me, Casita’, she thought.
Within minutes she was packed and after a brief stop to the kitchen to fetch some of her mother’s pastries (in case of emergencies of course), she was out the door. Realizing what she was doing, Casita attempted to stop her from leaving. Thankfully for Mirabel, there were too many people around, and the house’s power was already stretched thin as it was from the party. As a result, she was able to dodge Casita’s attempts to prevent her escape as it attempted to push her back and barricade doors. But alas, the house was no match for an angry fifteen-year-old girl who wasted no time jumping out a first-floor window to avoid being detained.
As she exited the house, she moved quietly at first, each step deliberate in hopes Dolores would not hear her, if she hadn’t already, trying not to draw attention. But as the distance between her and the festivities grew, so did her pace. By the time she reached the outskirts of the village and the edge of the mountain, Mirabel was running, her skirts billowing behind her, her vision blurred by unshed tears and determination.
Panting, she looked up at the mountain and grimaced. It would take days to get to the other side. Good thing she knew a way out, provided it hadn’t collapsed or been sealed up in the twenty-or-so years since it had last been used. It was no secret that her father had come from outside of the Encanto, with his padres and younger sister, fleeing civil unrest just a decade after her Abuela had been given her miracle.
The narrow passage that cut through the mountainside was known only to a few, mostly the town elders and her Abuela. If it hadn’t been for the fact they wanted to leave an opening for future refugees fleeing war in Colombia, it would have remained sealed. It wasn’t even supposed to be talked about. The only reason she knew about it was because her father tended to blab when drunk and after one particular night coming home from the bar with her Tio Felix, she had managed to overhear him discuss his arrival into the Encanto. She may have been trying to sneak cookies from the kitchen at the time, but that wasn’t relevant.
Though it took some time, finding the entrance was not hard once she knew where to look. She winced as she laid eyes on it for the first time. The hole was tall enough to fit her thankfully, but the issue was the width. While it seemed to widen out once you were inside, the entrance itself was narrow. So narrow in fact, she had no doubt someone like Osvaldo would not be able to fit their large gut, much less the rest of their body through the hole.
She would need to do a lot of wiggling to get through. Biting her lip, she took a moment to look back towards the festivities. By the point, it seemed like the party was dying down. Though she was far away, the music and shouting that carried over the cool July air had started to dwindle, and fireworks were no longer going off.
Her family would probably notice her absence soon if they hadn’t already. Not that she thought they cared but a small, bitter part of her thought they might go out of their way to ensure she stayed miserable and unloved by making sure she couldn’t leave. And it wasn’t a far stretch, her own sister treated her like dirt and went out of her way to ruin things for Mirabel.
Ripping her skirt that she spent hours embroidering, calling it stupid and ugly, like her, tripping her into mud puddles so her brand new blouse was permanently stained, destroying her library books, and then blaming her so she would get yelled at by the librarian and by Abuela. The list was never ending. Isabela made it her mission to torment her and made it clear she would do anything to make sure Mirabel was unhappy.
With a renewed vigor, she began the arduous process of squeezing through the narrow opening. Grunting and yelling, it felt like forever to get through before finally she managed to pull herself into the tunnel. It was by no means massive, not by a long shot; her shoulders brushed against the cave walls. But it was better than trying to squeeze her way through for what had to be miles.
Inside the tunnel, there was nothing but blackness for what seemed eternity. As she squinted, she could make out the faintest of details. If her father’s story was to be believe, it was a few miles through the center of the mountain and out to the other side. Mirabel sighed; She was in for a long night.
While she had grown accustomed to the fact that she would never have a child to call her own, there were still periods in her long life when the pain would resurface: each time worse than the last. By now, she knew she should be past it. After all, it had been so long, and she had so many wonderful nieces and nephews to dote on.
But no matter what she did, she couldn’t move forward. Something would always drag her back.
Seeing a young child kicking a ball or a mother cradling her newborn could bring her to tears, plunging her into depression for months, sometimes years. She knew Alexander struggled with it too, though not as deeply. Perhaps he was better at accepting things for what they were, or maybe he just knew how to mask the pain without anyone seeing.
There were times when she wondered why he was even still with her, despite his protests he would love her, child or not. The guilt however was overwhelming. Surely it had to be her fault. Despite many attempts she hadn’t gotten so much as pregnant much less miscarried a child. She didn’t know if that would have made it easier or worse.
They had tried to adopt but their village was small and remote; most of their goods had to be bought from the nearby city of San Pedro. And children of their nature, especially orphaned, were rare and hard to find. It was a lose-lose situation.
So now, here she was again on the stoop of her home, eating a tub of bloodberry ice cream while she watched the kids in the park across the street play, their mother and fathers scooping them up to give them kisses or to tend their scrapes and bruises. It wasn’t fair. Why did it always have to hurt so much?
“Feeling down again, my love?”
Her husband stood in the doorway to their home. In the twilight hours of night, he looked especially handsome she noted, with his usual hair tied back loose and framing his face. He took a seat next to her on the steps and gave her a one-armed hug that she leaned into. The familiar smell of wood and ash, mixed in with citrus hit her nose and she couldn’t help but bury her face into his neck.
“A bit. I see them and start thinking about the what-ifs.” She admitted after a few moments of silence, tears pricking her eyes. Oh, what a fool she was, to be this old and still crying over such petty things.
“It does no good to dwell. Come inside; you need sleep.” He started to lift her up but she resisted, pulling back from his embrace.
“Alexander...” She knew she should sleep; staying awake only exacerbated the issue but it was hard, so hard. Eating an entire thing of ice cream probably also didn’t help her current emotional state (or her stomach for that matter.)
“Carmen, please,” he replied softly, stroking her cheek. He wished he could take away her pain. Despite loving their life together, he sometimes felt guilty that he couldn’t give her what she wanted most.
“I’m not tired,” she said, removing his hand from her face and turning back to her tub of ice cream, a silent cue that she wanted to be left alone.
“Of course. I’ll leave you be.”
Carmen didn’t watch him go back inside. Instead, she kept her gaze on the families, feeling the weight of what she could never have. She knew it was a long shot and this was not the first time she prayed but looking up to the night sky, fingers clutching the ice cream like a lifeline, she prayed for a miracle.
“Give me a child I can call my own, please. Give me a miracle.”
