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English
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Part 5 of Canon-Compliant Encanto Stories
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Published:
2023-08-07
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2,366
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1/1
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Two Cats In The Yard

Summary:

Four days after Casita falls, Bruno tells Mirabel about an intriguing and confusing side to his gift.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

After dinner the fourth night after they lost the miracle, Mirabel sits on a bench outside her family’s temporary home, sketching in the golden evening light. No-one is about except the two black cats that live next door, both lazing on the sunny doorstep.

The street is a comfortable kind of quiet. The schoolhouse opposite is shuttered for the night; a savoury aroma drifts through the still air from the Pezmuertos’ house; and far away, on the edge of her hearing, a lone acordeón player practises a cumbia.

The front door opens. “Ah,” says Tío Bruno, “you’re here. Never mind, I’ll find somewhere else, see you later.”

“No, it’s okay,” Mirabel says, and shuffles along the bench to make room.

The cats swarm his legs as he steps outside. “Nope,” he says, “not tripping over you, that’s not what happens to me. Shoo!” He flaps his hands at them and they scram, but only as far as the corner of the house, from where they look back resentfully.

“They’re friendly cats, though,” Mirabel says, “considering they belong to Señora Pezmuerto.”

“Well, I don’t know that. That’s, uh, that’s a thing about being ‘away’ for a while, heh. The people are mostly the same but the animals are mostly new. They probably smelled rat on me. You guys okay in there?” He checks his pockets. “I think so. Uh, if you want to be alone, it’s no problem, I get it.”

Mirabel smiles. “You’re fine. I don’t really want to be alone, it’s just, that dining room’s not big enough for twelve of us. I was sharing a chair with Isabela and I swear she got the bigger half even though she’s slimmer than me.”

She pats the bench, because he needs more hints about that stuff than most people. He raises his eyebrows, then sits.

“I was sharing with Pepa. Pepa sometimes forgets she has elbows.” He grins as if being jabbed in the ribs is an amusing novelty. Maybe it is.

Even though the whole family knows where Tío Bruno was living by now, Mirabel hasn’t told anyone else about the painted plate she saw in his secret room, so maybe she’s the only one who knows what family meals mean to him. He approaches each one like an adventure, eagerly observing the family’s faces and conversation, rarely speaking up but quick to nod or smile at those who do speak. Often he’s too distracted to eat and ends up being the reason why they all linger at the table, waiting for him to clear his plate to Mamá’s satisfaction, long after they’ve finished their own food.

“Sorry. I’ll keep quiet.” He smooths his long ruana over his knees, then immediately musses it up by fiddling with the fringe. But less than ten seconds later he drops it and asks, “Whatcha drawing?”

Amused, Mirabel shows him.

“Casita?” he says. “No, there’s no tower.”

“It’s a design for our new house,” she explains. “I know there’s loads of clearing and salvaging still to do, and cutting wood and making tiles and all that, but it’s not too soon to start planning. I thought if I sketched out some ideas, we could all discuss them. It might help us work out what we want.”

“Good idea. Lotta possibilities, that’s for sure.”

That gives Mirabel a thought. “Wait, have you seen our new house? Not in the last few days, I know that, but like, ever?”

“Oh, oh! Good question. Maybe? Kinda?”

“You don’t know?”

“Well … okay, you don’t know that much about my gift, right? I could see the future. Sounds simple! But sometimes it was literally seeing with the eyes, like you … saw, heh. Swirly green and sand and glass. And other times, it was like seeing, like” — he does air quotes — “‘I see!’ Make sense?”

“Like understanding?” Mirabel guesses.

“Yeah! Like having a powerful impression of what something’s gonna be like. I kept on getting those, even when I wasn’t doing visions. It’s how I know about fútbol and telenovelas and stuff like that.”

Mirabel nods. The bit about the tía who lost her memory, which sounded like insane ramblings, turned out to be part of a long, intricate story that Dolores is so hooked on that she’s apparently been bursting to talk about it for years. The rest of the family are just starting to catch up.

“So, I had a bunch of flashes of some kind of house. I think it’s a house. I think it’s called a house, at least. I don’t have a clue what it looks like. I got a lot of shifting impressions, kinda discordant, hard to make sense of. I know that we were in it. But there were other people there too, like another family. Maybe it was their house and we were guests, I don’t know.”

“But we were definitely there?”

“Some version of us. Versions. Different versions of us, yeah, I think so.”

“Different versions of us?”

“Yeah. Have you never made up a story where your life was different? Like, say, if you got a gift and I didn’t. You’re Abuela’s favourite, but you know there’s a downside to that. I’m the weirdo disappointment — what’s new? — but at least I stuck around. That’s one version I saw.”

“Is that going to happen?” says Mirabel, startled.

“No, no, it’s just a story. I think it’s just a story. There’s, like, cartloads of ’em, all in this strange future house somehow. I don’t think they’re meant to come true.”

It sounds like nonsense. But he’s so happy and excited, talking about it, and that’s something she wants to encourage. “What other versions were there?”

“Ha. So many. In some of them, I find love. How unlikely is that?”

“Don’t put yourself down! If you would just get out more —”

“Yeah, that’s one problem. Plus, I’m a bit of a fixer-upper, and that’s putting it mildly. Pockets full of rats. Not exactly an attraction to women. Or men, cause in some of these stories, that’s how it goes.”

He shrugs like that’s no big deal. Mirabel is startled — is that why Tío Bruno never got married? Is it part of why they weren’t supposed to talk about him? But if it was true, he wouldn’t talk about it so casually. Or would he?

“I hope you’re not thinking about trying to pair me up with anyone,” he says. “I don’t need it, okay? I just got my family back, and that’s great, and it’s enough. I’m happy like this.” He stretches out his legs as if reclining in a comfy chair.

“Okay,” she says, although his pose, slouching low against the wall, definitely looks like he’s trying too hard. “Tell me some more other versions.”

He nods. “In one of them I used to be some kind of insufferable jerkass kid who went round alienating everyone … actually that’s maybe not so far from the truth. In some of them, your Mamá was so focused on fattening me up, I was worried the stories were gonna end with her shoving me in an oven and cooking me.”

Mirabel laughs. “That’s not so far from the truth either.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the whole story, you know? Oh, I saw one where you had to save me when Casita collapsed, but I didn’t really get why. One where I was hiding in a barn or something and you kept bringing the other kids to see me. And one where … oh, a lot happened, but I liked the bit where we all played toruro and Camilo used his gift to cheat, but I taught him a lesson by cheating better. Then there’s — ooh, there’s the one where we’re all half human half animal and I have rat kids! That one’s wild! Sad too, but yeah. Or where we all live in a galaxy far away. Or on a pirate ship! Pepa was the captain and I was the navigator, and there was this mysterious map … Or, or! There’s one where I spent my whole life shut in a tower and you tried to rob the place, or something, and helped me leave and then we worked out we were related. That one had songs. Oh, oh, and there’s one where Camilo turned himself into a capybara — and one where I shrank to the size of a rat overnight — oh, and one where I was about five hundred years old and had a bunch of advanced degrees and a sword! That was kind of amazing, but also really sad and I died a lot. I’d rather live in the one where I’m a famous actor and I get you to eat a sea urchin. I could definitely see that one coming true, yeah.”

The stories are flying by too fast for Mirabel to keep up, but she’s delighted because he’s so into this. He’s doing the wild gesticulations and the enormous grins that show how his face got those deep smile lines. It’s hard to remember he’s the same man who spent the last few days skulking around the edges of the Casita salvage effort with his hood up, shuffling and stammering when anyone outside the family spoke to him. Half the town still thinks he’s some kind of bogeyman. They really need to see him like he is right now.

As if on cue, Señora Pezmuerto opens her front door. Mirabel waves. “Buenas noches, Señora!”

Señora Pezmuerto comes over. “Mirabel. Everything okay?”

“Everything’s great, thanks! I’m just hanging out with Tío Bruno. I can’t believe no-one told me what a cool guy he is.”

“Uh, hey.” Tío Bruno fiddles with the fringe of his ruana.

“Mirabel …” Señora Pezmuerto looks pitying. “I know you’re a sociable girl and you think everyone should come out of their shell. But with some people, you’re better off if they stay in their shell. Trust me.”

Okay, so out of all the people Mirabel wants to win over, maybe Señora Pezmuerto wasn’t the best one to start with. “I don’t know what you mean, Señora. You just missed a really great conversation ab … out …” No, wait, there’s no chance most of what Tío Bruno’s just been saying will make any sense to her. “Sea urchins.”

“Sea urchins,” Señora Pezmuerto repeats in a flat tone.

Tío Bruno clears his throat. “Yeah, they’re weird creatures with hard shells that are spiny all over.” He gestures a ball shape. It’s not on the level of the excited hand gestures he was doing before, but it’s better than nothing. “And they, they live in the sea! … obviously. Heh.”

Mirabel picks it up. “But also, you can eat them, and apparently they taste great!”

“I never said that,” Tío Bruno says.

“Well, if they were gross, you wouldn’t want me to try one, would you?”

“So that’s what you’ve been doing on your travels,” Señora Pezmuerto says disapprovingly. “Eating harmless sea creatures!”

Señora Pezmuerto’s unusual name is one that her abuelo adopted before there was an Encanto, for some reason to do with politics, or war, or rebellion, or maybe all of the above. At least, so goes the rumour. Señora Pezmuerto is proud of her abuelo but not fond of the name itself, and abnormally sensitive to any perceived dead fish jokes made in her presence. In a town where teasing is a favourite sport, this just makes her more of a target.

When she had a pet fish and Tío Bruno foresaw that a cat would get it, she thought he was making just such a stupid joke, so she didn’t bother trying to keep the cat out of the room. The events of the next day didn’t make her feel any better.

Mirabel first heard this story four days ago, in outraged tones designed to convince her that Tío Bruno was bad news. Now she’s met him properly, she can’t decide whether she thinks the story is hilarious or tragic. But right now it’s hilarious because he’s never actually been anywhere near a sea.

She bites her lips to try to keep the laughter in, but Señora Pezmuerto notices anyway. Her “Hmph!” sets Tío Bruno off, and soon they’re both laughing aloud while Señora Pezmuerto stalks back indoors in a huff.

Mirabel’s the first to stop. “Tío, you didn’t make me eat the spines, did you?”

“I didn’t make you eat anything,” he says, “but no, I don’t think you ate the spines. We shouldn’t laugh at her, you know.”

“I know, but she’s so ridiculous.”

He shrugs. “Stay in my shell, indeed. Not like the spines would keep her away.”

“I want people to know the real you.”

He waggles his fingers. “Who is the real Bruno Madrigal? Are you sure you’re talking to him now? Maybe I’m just another version from that weird house-thing.”

“You’re melting my brain,” Mirabel says, but then, because she’s intrigued, “What else did you see, I mean ‘see’?”

“Well, at one point it was full of milk. Don’t ask. I just … I didn’t get it. At all.”

“What, you mean one of Isa’s children gets some kind of farming gift and their room is a dairy?”

“Idaknow. There was no context, just milk.”

“You’re making it up,” she says.

“Nope. Also, pictures of me with cat ears.”

“Like, in frames on the wall?”

“Maybe. I told you it was hard to make sense of. But it’s a place of love, I know that much. The people there … the ones who weren’t us … I can’t describe them in any way that makes sense, but they were … not like a family, but … yeah, they were like a family. Whover built that place, they did good.”

“Will do good.”

“Yeah. Someday. In some weird way I don’t understand. Great thing about my gift, you know. You thought it was meant to give us answers? Heh, not so much. Try, a million new ways to be totally baffled.”

He stretches out his legs again, as if he could rest them on an imaginary footstool. In the sleepy evening air, the sound of the acordeón carries on drifting over the rooftops. The two black cats come back round the corner and rub against Mirabel’s legs.

Notes:

All the fics referenced here — a sampling of a much larger number I wish I had been able to include — are by members of the Casa Brainrot Discord server. I want to thank kseda for founding it, and all the members for being an awesome community and making my life in this fandom ten times as much fun. This story is dedicated to all of you.

Update: I made a list of all the referenced fics on Tumblr.

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