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Chapter Text

Standing at the farthest end of the courtyard, Mirabel takes a precarious glance at the crowd. The crowd. They're all here for her birthday. They're all depending on her, because she's five (five! can you believe it? She's a big girl now!) and she's supposed to be getting her gift. But she can't move. 

Her gut is twisting unkindly, her palms are perspirating, and all of the eyes on her make her feel sort of sick. It takes all of her effort to keep her head from whirling. Casita flicks up a tile, its way of gently urging her on. (She only really begins to move when Abuela gives her a tight smile, knowing it was her way of encouraging her while not letting her annoyance show publicly.)

The top of the stairs come all too quickly yet not quickly enough. Time felt slowed, like an unforeseen resistance pushed back against her chest and she had to fight to get to the top. Finally getting to the last step, Mama grinned at her and she could see the shine of tears glint in her eyes. Mirabel smiled back, a restlessness finally settling in her chest. 

Abuela lowered the candle to be parallel with Mirabel's eyes, and Mirabel could think it was the most beautiful thing she's ever seen. The magic swirled around the intricate butterfly designs, and when she placed her hands on either side, Abuela reciting her practiced commands, she felt the magic tingle up her arms, consuming her entire being. As if it were being transferred straight into her entire being. 

(She felt fuzzy, an all-encompassing sense of unbridled magic swirled within her chest.)

"I promise," she uttered, a newfound responsibility surging outwardly. 

Wiping her hands on her ceremony dress, she reached for her door, shuffling the few steps needed, and felt a jolt zing up her arm as her door went ablaze with an ethereal white glow. She had to blink the dots out of her eyes, unabashedly gazing at her door. (Her Door! Can you believe it? She's a big girl now!)

There she was, standing ramrod straight with...a frown? No, not a frown, but not quite a smile either. Her lips were pulled taught and - with what looked like great effort - each end was raised a hairbreadth above. Her eyes looked...heavy with something she didn't know.

(She would come to learn, they were heavy with a grim understanding borne from only that of experience.)

Her hands rested behind her back and clocks dotted the space around her in a rough outline. She was older, she denoted, wearing clothes of a style she didn't recognize. However, she could never misunderstand the butterfly etched into the space where her heart resided on what seemed to be a vest(?) It didn't matter, because she did it. She got a gift! Abuela is proud of her now!

(She did it! She got a gift! Can you believe it? She's a big girl now!)

She turned around just in time to watch Abuela exclaim, "We have a new Gift!"

(And, later, if she noticed Tío Bruno missing from her party, she couldn't pay it much mind, because everything was frozen and she didn't know why. Everything was stock still; nobody heard her cries. Nobody reacted. And, when she finally figured out that she froze time, it rewound. And rewound. And rewound. until she lived through the same moment over and over and it only stopped when she exhausted herself, falling to her knees and bawling. Abuela looked perturbed, and she tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her gut.)

~~~

"It doesn't matter what you remember happening, Mirabel is saying she keeps living through the same moments and I can't bare the distraught look on mi hija's face!" Julieta seethed, staring head on at her mama.

Abuela pursed her lips. "I asked Bruno to have a vision, to see what her Gift means. I haven't seen him since the party."

"So go find him! Mirabel is hurting, she's confused and, frankly, I am too!" Julieta paused long enough to breathe, putting a lid on her anger. She rubbed her forehead emphatically. "Listen, I know it's only been a day, but Mirabel's Gift is going to need some time, some guidance. Bruno is the only other one who knows how to deal with time, and even then, they're not similar Gifts."

Abuela clenched on hand around her shawl, steeling herself. "I will give him some more time, and then we will all reconvene later to find out exactly what Mira can do and how it will be useful to the Encanto." 

She was out of the room before Julieta could give her consent, leaving the woman to nothing but the solitude of the kitchen and preparing la cena.

(The shriek Pepa would later let out rattled inside the Healer's brain, rattling something within her. Bruno was gone, his door was dark, his room untouched, and Mirabel was still crying. For once, she felt powerless. Utterly useless. The air shifted, and she couldn't exactly see how it affected the rest of her Familia.)

~~~

Mirabel is seven by the time she gets a handle on her gift. She hates her gift. No, no she can't think that. She was blessed with a gift, it was unbecoming to be ungrateful for blessings. 

But she hates the way people look at her. They all stare holes in the back of her head, keeping her at arms length at all times. But at least she has a purpose now!

(Can you believe it? She's useful! She's a big girl!)

She can rewind time! something called...Time Manipulation. She doesn't know exactly how it works, but she doesn't get stuck anymore because of her pocket watch. (She doesn't know where it came from, but it appeared a week after her ceremony when she was too exhausted to make time fritz out. she woke to it resting neatly on her nightstand, the lid having a butterfly etched into it, and, just like that, her gift calmed down.)

"Come on, Milo! Don't you wanna play with the other kids?" She begged, pouting.

Camilo gave her a look, it screamed with all the seriousness a seven year old could muster. "I have chores, Mira. Maybe tonight after la cena."

Mirabel frowned, almost letting Camilo walk away. "Wait," she called, suddenly realizing something, "We can play now, and I'll rewind like it never happened!"

"But I won't remember it!"

"Oh, right...but I will. And I'll tell you all about it!"

Camilo tapped his chin, breaking out in a grin. "Okay, deal!"

~~~

She's fifteen by the time reality hits her: nothing she does matters.

Not in the long run. 

Not even in the short term, if she's honest. 

Rewinding time means as much as a broken fence; that is to say, what's the point if it can't do its job?

What's the point if all she changes means nothing?

Time is relative. It marches forward unbendingly, forcibly dragging everyone else along. Except her. How many one-sided memories has she made? How many conversations have been lost? How many arguments, and scoldings, and "Mirabel! Fix it!"'s, and--

She doesn't remember. There are no thank you's to be given if no one remembers that she fixed it. That she had to watch, painstakingly, as a child fell, or a wagon crashed, and then rewind and fix it before it could happen. 

Only for it to happen later, in a different setting on a different day. 

She was stuck. 

But no matter; she is a Madrigal and they do their absolute best to help serve their Village. Even if some don't deserve it. 

She shuts herself away in her room, gathering an outfit for Antonio's ceremony. She dresses in black shoes, long black socks, black pants that terminate just below her knees, a white collarless button-up hidden under a black vest, and she sighs as she ties a teal neckerchief taught at the base of her neck. 

She clicks open her pocket watch; fifteen past three. She climbs the stairs of her clock tower that rests in the center of her room, shutting herself away in the small room at the top. 

"He's going to get a great gift," she muses to herself, pulling out a well-worn and well-loved book from one of her many bookshelves that lines the walls. She opens to a page halfway through the book, a despondent frown tugging at her lips. She knows how much Tío Bruno loved mystery. She has a strong feeling he would have loved this book. Winding Road. A tale about an eighteenth century time-traveler. 

Mirabel stares at the words, feeling guilt unwittingly creep up her throat. Tío Bruno. She doesn't remember much of him. Abuela refuses to talk about him, and Tia Pepa storms just a mention of his name. But she knows he's gone, and she knows Abuela blames her, and she knows the villagers see him in her and--

She sighs. She doesn't have the mental fortitude to pull on that guilt ridden thread. It's Antonio's day. She needs to be there for him. She will be, even if she has to live through it thousands of times over. 

~~~

(Can you believe it? Can you believe she's a big girl?)

Chapter Text

"This gift is going to self-destruct if you don't take it in three, two, one..." Two stubby hands snatch the present from Mirabel's loose grip. "There we go," she laughs. 

Laying on her back on the floor, Mirabel tucks one arm behind her head as she looks to the side. "What's got you worried, tigrecito?"

Antonio curls in on himself, as if trying to get lost in the slight shadow the underside of his bed provides. "What if it doesn't...work?"

Mirabel snorts, quickly stifling it. "It'll work, hombrecito, it will." 

It has to. The town depends on it. She tries not to grimace as the thought crosses her mind.

"But - what if it doesn't?" The sentence is all but a sob, a plead, and Mirabel flinches at the tone. 

She turns on her side. "Well, I don't know. Maybe you'd stay here, in the nursery." her heart sinks at the thought; she presses a finger into his chest, giving her best Older Cousin Grin. "But I'll make sure it works. I'll rewind this day over and over and over until it is perfect. Until you get a gift just as awesome as you."

"Really?" It's the cautious hope in his voice that Mirabel knows she really would do it for him. 

She nods. "Who says I haven't already?" 

He giggles as Mirabel purses her lips in a gesture to the wrapped gift. "Open it."

Needing further instruction, Antonio rips the box open, revealing a colorful, hand-made tiger. "I know you're an animal guy, so I made that, for you." 

There's an undeniable spark that ignites in his eyes as he scrambles out from underneath his bed into Mirabel's chest. "I love it!" He exclaims into her chest.

She gasps, holding him close. "Now, you're going to go out there, and you're going to open your door, and everyone will celebrate what a wonder you are."

Antonio pulls back, his grin fading into a small frown. "I wish you had a better gift."

"What do you mean? I love my gift!" She hopes her smile hides the pounding in her chest, the snarky words replaying in her head.

Fix it!

Rewind, now!

Dios - you can't do anything without relying on your gift, can you?

"Mira." she blinks out of her reverie to see her little cousin giving her a serious look. Well, all the childlike seriousness a five year old can muster. "I know what people say to you."

"Oh, do you now?"

He nods.

"Well," she tickles him, hoping his laughter will wash away the growing terror consuming her, "no te preocupes por mi. I have an amazing family, an amazing gift, and an amazing you."

And then, as casita rolls a chiming clock their way - because, Dios, every waking moment she's surrounded by clocks - her facade breaks as Antonio scrambles out of the room. She knows she should get up. She knows she should follow him. She knows she can't miss the ceremony. However, she's glued to the nursery floor. Surrounded by millions of small memories dancing around her. She has to close her eyes against the strong sense of vertigo it gives her. 

She truly did rewind too many times today. Any more and she's bound to a nosebleed, or fainting. 

Neither are desired. 

But she sits in what feels like a nostalgic, melancholy hug. As if the entire room bent to her will and traipsed itself over her. When did she grow up? When did she begin to feel herself drag behind her? When did life begin to drag behind her as she lost herself to a world full of things that, on a technicality, do not exist? 

When did Antonio grow wise?

And how does she stop it?

Only when Casita flung its tiles did she get up, stumbling and flailing. 

Right, it's Antonio's night. She has to be there for him. 

(Can you believe it? He's going to be such a big boy! Can you believe it, Mirabel? Do you believe that he's going to be just as mature as you? Are you mature, Mirabel?)

She steels herself and flies out of the room, leaving her discrepancies behind in the same manner that she left the nursery behind. Shut and locked away behind a slammed door.

~~~

It worked. It worked. 

Standing beside her Tia and Tio, she felt a surge of pride swell indomitably inside her. She knew it was going to work. Talking to animals was a good gift. A gift as awesome as him, she'd argue. 

She trailed impatiently behind Tia Pepa into the new room as it formed. Before her eyes an entire jungle splayed out in what really can only be described as a magical descent. She made it into the room just in time to see Antonio being carted off on a jaguar's back. A Jaguar! 

(Can you believe that? He's doing better than you. Better than your useless gift.)

Mirabel lets the twinge in her gut settle, letting the all-consuming fear settle, as Abuela calls, "Everyone! A picture!"

Her family gathers in a display of staged excitement, showing of the flair of their gifts.

Without her. 

They don't notice she isn't there. 

It doesn't hurt. It doesn't. What would she have to show off anyhow? Her pocket-watch? She would stand there, tight-lipped and hands clasped behind her back. A joke. 

There's no need to be upset, or mad at all. She could rewind and mend the situation before it becomes exactly that: A Situation. 

She grabs her watch from her vest pocket, clicking it open. Time seems to slow as she reaches for the small dial sticking half an inch out of the circular frame. She should rewind. She should turn the dial a singular notch. 

She can't. 

Stuffing the watch back into her pocket - while making sure the chain is still clipped to the end of her vest - she gives one cursory glance at her smiling family, and leaves the room.

She wipes her face, she blinks, she stifles a few traitorous coughs--anything to keep her tears at bay. She's unstable on her feet, wobbling as she recklessly stomps down Casita's stairs. Heaves of air unevenly rip throughout her lungs; she falls to her knees. Palms to the cold tiles, she coughs, spluttering. 

(Would you believe that? Antonio hadn't cried this much. She's a big girl. She's mature. Can you believe it? Do you? Do you?)

The neckerchief feels too tight, yet not tight enough. She did it. She was there for him. She walked him to his door, for Christ's sake!

What else does she have to give? She can't do anything else. She can't even change fate, no matter how tirelessly she tries. 

She's stuck, chained to her warped reality by the neck; she doesn't know if she wants it to set her free, or finally kick the chair out from underneath her. 

With a final spluttering, snotty cough, she feels a sharp crack in the tile under her palm. 

"What?" She warbles, desperately wiping her eyes. Blinking, she watches in wrapped horror as her house, her Casita, cracks. 

Hundreds of huge cracks splinter across the foundation, the catalyst for a dangerous shaking akin to an earthquake. A tile falls; Mirabel screams as it shatters inches away from her. Scrambling to her feet, the girl knows what she has to to. She bounds for the stairs, fear melting like acid deep into her bones with each new deafening split. In a speed not all her own, she leaps the stairs two at a time until she can wrap her hand around Antonio's doorknob.

She screaming, "The house is in danger! The house is in danger!" Before the words fully develop as a thought. 

Abuela looks at her - panting and crazy-eyed she must look insane - and wraps her shawl tighter around her. "Show me."

If Mirabel had the energy, and a lack of social etiquette, she would laugh at herself. She would laugh and laugh and laugh until either her voice or spirit broke first. And then she would cry, and cry, and cry until exhaustion broke the dam, because they're gone.

There are no cracks, no splinters, not even the telltale sign of the a broken ceiling tile. She sags, facing her Abuela from the courtyard. The woman stands on the second floor, a look of disapproval evident in the worn wrinkles that come with old age and the prospect of living another day. 

She looks like a scorned queen, Mirabel thinks, or an executioner. 

"Abuela you have to believe me! They were right-"

She's cut off with Abuela raising a hand, restrained anger flaring around the action. "That is enough. The magic is strong!" She faces the small crowd. "And so are the drinks."

Shame burns in Mirabel's eyes as she's made into a joke. 

This time she does rewind time. 

She turns the dial and breathes. 

She's alone again. The events transpired in the last few minutes lost.

fifteen after nine becomes ten after, and Mirabel restrains the urge to break. Clenching her fists she feels a dull sting shoot through her left palm. She's faced with a cut barely three inches long, blood shyly crowning around it. Distain rises up the back of her throat; she must have cut herself running to the family. 

The house did shake, and crack, and she was not drunk. She refuses to indulge herself in the juvenile act. 

No matter. Abuela doesn't know, the house doesn't shake, and she refuses to be made into a joke tonight. 

She straightens herself, tightening her teal neckerchief. Smile, and nod. Nothing is wrong. 

(Can you believe it? She's a fool!)

~~~

"Hey, did you get lost on your way to the Oregon Trail?" A teenage girl dressed in a simple white blouse and brown skirt combination jeers, nudging Mirabel playfully. 

Mirabel barely moves, unaffected by the remark. She keeps her hands tightly clasped behind her back. "Senorita Lidia." She nods.

"So formal, Pilgrim Boy."

Mirabel sighs, slightly scrunching her nose. "I know it's you, Camilo."

"Oh - what? How!" The boy gawks, shifting between the imitation of the girl, his mama, and then himself. 

Mirabel clears her throat, looking upon the party with an exhausted eye. "You have a very distinctive gait, even after nearly perfecting the art of imitation. Senorita Lidia doesn't walk like that--so heavy footed."

Camilo snorts, raising his hands in defeat. "Damn! I'm never able to trick you, am I?" 

"Considering our closer than average upbringing, no." 

The boy whistles, "Ouch, you don't have to sound so hateful."

Mirabel dares to crack a smile. "Always one for theatrics."

"Eh, lo se, pero did Abuela approve that outfit? You know how traditional she is." Camilo has a raised brow, genuinely curious. 

Mirabel has to bite back a scoff, the threat of tears not far behind. "I don't much care for that opinion, Camilo. I'll wear pants if I want to wear pants."

Patting his cousin on the back, he smiles. "Have fun telling that to her, though, prima."

The girl forcefully steps away from the onslaught, threading her lips into a fine line. "Did you need something? Or did you only approach me to see if I could tell the difference between you and my best friend and insult my choice of clothing?" She's harsher than intended, the result of her words clear in Camilo's sudden shift in mood. 

He steps back. "I just - Okay, one I wanted to know why you aren't wearing your white vest? Y'know, the one with the butterfly crest? Seriously, you look like a pilgrim boy ready for a funeral. And, maybe I wanted to know if you'd be down for a sleepover in your room? Just you and I? I thought since -" he cuts himself off, searching for a clue in Mirabel's face. "Nevermind."

Mirabel breathes emphatically through her nose, her muscles carefully relaxing. "Ay, Jesucristo, si, Camilo. I'll have a sleepover with you. Also, I'm surprised you know what a pilgrim is."

Steadfastedly ignoring the jab at is intelligence, he pumps his fist in the air, yowling. "I knew it! Great, meet in your room after two A.M.?"

Against her better judgement, and for lack of having nothing better to do, she agrees.

"Oh, wait, Mama wants to see you," Camilo calls behind him just before he's fully out of his prima's sight. 

Mirabel swallows a ball lodged in her throat; she forces her feet to move. No point delaying the inevitable, right?

When she finds her Tia, she's wildly dancing with Felix, looking about three drinks over her limit. She huffs fondly, ignoring her body screaming at her to leave. Weird.

"Tia?" She asks. "You wanted to see me?" 

The aforementioned woman snaps to attention at her renowned title, flushed after dancing for God-knows how long. She giggles, stumbling her way over to her sobrina. "Mirabel! There you are! I presume Camilo got you?"

"Si, after he was, of course, himself first," Mirabel griped, allowing herself to smile. 

Pepa sloppily embraced her sobrina. "Ay, that boy," she begins in the mop of Mirabel's curls, "no matter. I wanted to thank - thank you."

"For?" Curious, Mirabel pulls away. 

"For cheering up mi hijo, of course!" Pepa squeezed the girl's shoulders tightly, drunkenly exclaiming her gratitude. "He told me all about your talk in the nursery and then, not to mention, the gift you made him! Oh -" She's briefly stopped by a hiccup. "And I am so thankful that you walked him to his door. I don't know what he'd've done!"

Mirabel blinks, unused to being in the line of praise being vomited at her. She shuffles her feet, abashedly looking away from her Tia. "Oh - well - you know, I made him a promise. Nothing new."

Two warm hands cup her jaw, gently guiding her back to Pepa's face. When they make eye-contact Mirabel is forced to see a barely restrained sad emotion of sorts writhing in Pepa's eyes; her smile an unconvincing charade of what Mirabel knew she truly felt. 

"You're so good with him, Mirabel. You remind me so much of B-" A pause, then, sadder, "Ay, what am I saying? I'm just a drunken Tia keeping you from the party! Go! Go dance!" She shoves Mirabel in the direction of a gaggle of people rapidly flinging their arms or a leg or...gyrating(?) heavily off-beat to the hired band. 

She hooks a left instead. She needs some air. Once she's shut the party out, she's welcomed by near silence. For the third time tonight, she tramples down Casita's staircase, into the kitchen. Hoisting herself onto a counter, Mirabel lets herself relax wholly for the first time that day. Which, mind you, she's had to relive six times. If it wasn't Tia tornading the flowers, it was Luisa dropping a desired item, or Camilo hanging a decoration wrong, or--

Mirabel rubs her forehead, wondering if she could rid an oncoming migraine with sheer willpower. 

Abuela called for perfection. She could rewind until it happened. She's curious to know if Abuela knows the toll it takes to rewind so much. 

She decides it's not worth the spiral, and looks down to her palm, ghosting over the cut. It did happen. She couldn't have cut her hand otherwise. 

A visceral image flashes when she closes her eyes. 

The cracks, the shaking, the shattering, her screams. 

It made her sick. 

"Mija?" A voice called, Mirabel tensing at the familiarity. She stuffs her left hand in her pocket.

"Hola, Mama." She's able to choke out, keeping her eyes closed out of more fears than one. 

"¿Estás bien? ¿Necesitas una arepa?" Julieta didn't bother with keeping her concern at bay; she took her daughters face in her hands - which were much softer than Pepa's, yet, colder - twisting and turning to check for external injuries. 

"¡Ay, ten un poco de espacio personal!" Mirabel pries her face out of Julieta's hold in a fashion less than kindly. "Estoy bien. Solo necesitaba un poco de aire." Her cut tingled at the lie, but, honestly, it could wait. 

Julieta spouted a few more worried questions at her daughter, most tumbling out of her mouth in frantic Spanish. Mirabel held up a hand, silencing her Mother. The pair sat in silence for a while, one appreciating it more than the other. 

"I know today might've been...undesirable for you-"

"It wasn't." Mirabel snapped. A wince followed, but she couldn't tell if it was from her oncoming migraine or guilt. 

"Okay, si, I know you still harbor some...less than happy feelings towards the ceremony--"

"My ceremony, Mama. Mine. As in, the one where I got stuck in time for two hours, and then rewound it seven times before I collapsed from exhaustion! And then Abuela still continued the party after all of that, because she didn't believe me, and no one knew how long I had trapped them in time. They still don't because they can't remember anything that they've done when I rewind time. To them, it doesn't exist, and, on a technicality, it doesn't."

She's red in the face, slightly huffing after the outburst. Her muscles and bones alike feel as though they'll shut down at any second; her head throbbing voraciously at the forefront of her skull. 

Julieta was frowning; she rests her hand gently on her hija's forearm. "Mija--"

"Don't Mama, por favor, I don't want to hear your spiel. You can heal people with food, Isabela can grow flowers with a flick of her wrist, Luisa can lift buildings. But me? I rewind time. And as far as anyone else is concerned, is useless when they can't remember what happened to make me rewind." Mirabel Jumps off of the counter, keeping space between herself and Julieta. 

"Mirabel, my brother Bruno lost his way in the family, I don't want the same fate for you." 

It was a last ditch attempt to get Mirabel to open up. To fall into her Mother's embrace and pour her heart into the Healer's own. Except, it didn't sound that way, it didn't feel that way. All Mirabel felt was an unjust comparison between herself and a man she can't remember. That is not fair. 

Mirabel backs away, avoiding looking at the crumbling expression on her Mother's face, and mumbles, "I promised Camilo a sleepover."

She retreats with a fleeting thought: Maybe Camilo knows what happened with the magic. 

That is to say, if there was an incident before the one she rewound. 

With a newfound determination, Mirabel bounds up the stairs.

~~~

(Can you believe what a Grade-A Fool she is? Can you? Can you? Camilo knows nothing because Nothing Is Wrong! Do you believe it? Do you? Do you?)

Chapter Text

"You know, I almost forgot how cool your room is," Camilo said, tentatively wiping the early morning from his eyes.

Mirabel scoffed, keeping the teal neckerchief loose around her neck. (She didn't like how she felt at home with the tight feeling around her neck. She knew she was damned.) "Hm, it's not so cool. It's just...clocks." She waved her hand around helplessly, trying to fill the silence with the words she struggled to say. 

"Yeah, but they're all around us. Like stars, man. They look like stars, and that shit's cool."

"Maybe falling stars," Mirabel muttered to herself, jaw set. 

Indeed, the room was filled with clocks all around them, suspended by invisible strings of time. The lowest one was about five and a half feet from the ground, a dangerous temptation for those who wanted to try-and presumably fail-at parkour. She often wondered what would happen, if it even could for that matter, if one day they all decided to fall. Shatter. Break free of their restraints, hit the ground-all of them, the hundreds that there were and splinter across the ground-and commit a long delayed suicide.

She slowly grazed her eyes up her faded sand-colored clocktower. she guessed it had to have come straight from the seventeenth century, with the eroded stone, the intricate engraved swirls in gold swarming the gigantic clock, and the clock itself. The huge Roman numerals and the fancily carved hands. It stood in the middle of her room, surrounded on all sides of the frozen clocks, like it was their god and they were the disciples. It felt almost sacrilegious. Well, if she was religious. She didn't have much time anymore to waste on believing in a man she's never met.

After all, she has to play God everyday and waste her time on fixing others, he could wait his turn.

"I just wanted to thank you, you know, for not immediately turning the sleepover down." Camilo was rubbing the back of his neck, hiding his face in the unruly mess he called hair. 

Mirabel eyed him, awkwardly smoothing out her white vest. "No problem." She spent extra time on wiping the golden crested butterfly over her heart. "I thought swallowing my pride was better than hearing you nag me all night."

"Wow, do I mean that little to you?" He put a hand on his chest, mouth ajar.

She punched him in the shoulder. "No preguntes, podría herir tus sentimientos." 

"Hey! ¿Pensé que era tu favorita?"

"You were, pero...I don't like you anymore." She smiled.

"You're a mean person. You know that? I want you to know that. You're mean." He pointed at her, slighted.

Mirabel grabbed his finger, pushing it away from her face. "Cry me a river. And don't point at me like that; I'll push you into that clock over there."

"Wouldn't it fall? Or move?" He squinted at the nearest hanging clock, poking it. "Wait, it's not ticking. Why isn't it ticking?"

To that, Mirabel pushed both of her palms to her eyes, letting out a long-suffering groan. "How have you not - they're suspended in time, Genius. They don't tick, or move, or tell you the time. Only that one does," she pointed to her clocktower, the clock marching and ticking away. "They're just...here. Frozen, forever. As a fact, this whole room is time safe. Here," she picked up a generic white mug, "drink this, it's coffee."

"What did you do to it?" Camilo scrunched his nose, skeptically peering into the mug. "And, I don't even like coffee, much less black."

"Yeah, yeah, you like tea, just like Tia. There's sugar in it, just take a sip." She shook the offered mug, hurrying her cousin to take a sip.

"Fine, damn." He grabbed the mug, surprised that it was still decently warm, and sipped it hesitantly. Smacking his lips he said, "Eugh, coffee. But not terrible. Why did you make me do that?"

"To prove a point. I poured that a month ago." She watched him pause, and secretly behind her back she counted down on three fingers. Three...Two...On-

Camilo made a gargled noise of disgust, dropping the cup, and jumping away from it like it was poison. He wretched, "Gross! ¿Qué diablos? I take back what I said earlier. You're not mean, you're fucking evil." Frantically, he wiped his mouth, and more disgustingly, scratched his tongue with his fingers.

"Don't be dramatic. It's still perfectly good. And Look," she pointed at the mug...

Suspended perfectly still a mere inch before touching the ground. 

"What the hell..." Camilo shook his head, throwing up his arms. "I give up, what is wrong with your room?"

"As I said, the room is time safe. Don't ask how I figured that out. Nothing perishes, ages, or breaks. That coffee wasn't moldy, despite having been brought in here a month ago. Watch." 

She picked the mug up, drained the coffee in two long sips, and chucked the mug back at the ground. Its rapid descent was slowed, and paused. Frozen before it hit the ground. 

"I still haven't figured out why my room does this, but I guess it's like a loading hub, you know? The only place where I don't have to rewind anything."

"So, time safe," Camilo sighed, rubbing his forehead. It was too goddamn early for an impromptu physics lesson, in fact, it would always be too early for a physics lesson. Fuck Physics. "I'm hungry. That made me hungry."

"Me too. I hate teaching idiots on an empty stomach."

Camilo's only response was a rumble from his stomach.

(Neither of them notice a slight shake from the mug before it fell to the ground.)

~~~

It's only when Mirabel, near inhaling her second arepa, does she realize half of her family is staring at her. "Yes?" She chokes out through a half full mouth.

Isabela's face twists slightly in disgust. "The food's all yours, no one's going to take it from you." 

Mirabel rolls her eyes. She swallows. "You remember last night, si?"

Her sister's face darkens in confusion. "What?"

Mirabel nods, once, curtly. "So do I. All seven different version's of it that I had to rectify. Not everyone's gift is sprouting flowers. It's exhausting. I'm hungry."

Isabela opens her mouth to retort, sees Abuela walking out to the courtyard, and thinks better of it. She smooths out the small wrinkles on her dress. 

And it's halfway through breakfast that Mirabel realizes it's going to be a very, very long day. 

In the way that Abuela trucks through her speech, in the way she's already looking for a use for Antonio, in the way she doesn't remember-because of course she doesn't, Mirabel made sure of it-what she said to Mirabel the night before, and in the way Mirabel is banished to the confines of the streets to look for something to do. 

She's extremely familiar with the phrase, and knows it's code for stay out of the way until we need you. Because someone always needs her for something, even if they'll never remember what exactly it is.

Her meal settles heavily at the very bottom of her gut. 

~~~

Rewind. Help. Fix. Rewind. 

Six times, already, she's had to twist the dial of her watch. 

She feels her head begin to throb. 

Rewind. Rewind. Rewind. Rewind. Rewind. Rewind.

~~~

"Luisa!" Mirabel yells, panting as she chases her older sister. "¡Espera!" 

Luisa barely manages a cursory glace behind her as she hefts a donkey onto her broad shoulders. "¿Qué?" She huffs, though Mirabel can't tell if it's because she's out of breath, or she's annoyed. 

"It's about - about the magic!" She comes rearing to a stop behind Luisa, speaking urgently, but lowly through her teeth. She wipes her palms on the flat of her stomach. 

Luisa startles so bad she nearly drops a donkey. "What? What about the magic? There's nothing wrong with it!"

Mirabel clicks her tongue, walking around her sister slowly to face her. She takes a moment to glance up at her, roving her eyes over the taught expression. "You're lying."

Luisa's eyes widen. "No! No I'm not. The magic is fine." 

"Your eye is twitching. ¿No sabes que te tiembla el ojo?" Mirabel crosses her arms.  

Luisa bites her lip, failing to suppress the rapid twitch of her left eye. "Fine. Me tienes."

A knowing hum rumbles from the back of Mirabel's throat. "I know I did. There's something going on with the magic. I need to know I'm not crazy."

Luisa shifts a donkey higher on her shoulders, rolling them. "Sis, you've gone crazy a long time ago."

Mirabel's face goes blank as she scoffs. "Gee, thanks. This is no time for jokes. I saw the house begin to crumble right in front of me. I need to know if you felt something akin to it previously?"

To that, Luisa does drop the donkeys and they skitter away. "What? When? I didn't see it!"

Mirabel pushes her glasses farther up her nose with raised brows. "Considering I rewound time, of course you didn't." 

She doesn't say the part where she didn't rewind immediately. She doesn't say the part where she ran to tell an adult she thought she could trust. She doesn't say the part where Abuela didn't believe her and shamed her. But that's fine. Really, truly, that's fine. Luisa didn't need to know. 

"Oh." Luisa sucks on her bottom lip, staring wide eyed at the ground. 

It's quite for a moment too long, Mirabel begins to itch and wonder if this was a bad idea. Then-

"I felt weak, last night, like, really weak. It was only a moment, but it washed over me in this - this wave and it felt like I was going to drown in it, helplessly. Then, it was gone." 

When Mirabel looks, startled at the admission, she sees a sheen of tears in her sister's eyes and an emotion she's sure Luisa has never outwardly worn before. She has to swallow her discomfort at the sight. "Oh - that - that's... helpful. Thank you." She nods, scuffing her foot and watching the way her slacks stiffly swish around her ankle. 

"No, thank you, Mira. Really." Suddenly Luisa is lifting her youngest sister into a hug, squeezing as tight as she's allowed. "I've been holding that in, all night, that felt - good to say. En serio."

Mirabel awkwardly pats Luisa's back as she dangles in the air. "You're - you're welcome."

And then she's meeting solid ground again, righted, and decides she's got to fix things. 

"Well, I'm going to - going to go back to casita. See if I can't get a move on?" 

"I'll go with you!" Luisa jumps to say. 

Mirabel reels back, bringing her hands up and waving them rapidly. "No! No! You don't need to do that!"

"No, Mira, it's fine. I want to help--"

"Abuela will be mad."

"Oh, right." Luisa sits with that information a moment, deciding. "Still, Mira, I want to-"

Mirabel turned the dial a notch, running in the opposite direction. Guilt hooked around her gut and the warmth of that hug faded. 

She doesn't remember the last time she was hugged properly.

~~~

It's the proposal dinner that Mirabel knows, with an air of finality, that this day is going to be extremely long. 

Never-ending. 

She had spent the day, searching, scrounging, scouring casita for a singular clue. A hint, a red herring on why the magic was failing. 

This was her chance. 

Her one true, all-star shot at proving herself to Abuela. To show everyone that she's not Bruno. (It's with a heavy heart she feels that sentiment. She loves her uncle. But she never wanted to be anything like him. And what a fool she is for thinking like that.)

And yet, the house rumbles, and she looks around confused. Nothing set it off. There was nothing to indicate that this would happen, just as there was nothing the night prior. 

Abuela looks horrified, Mariano yells, rubbing his nose as one of Isabela's flowers had punched him. She stands, her hands splayed wide on the dinner table, watching as cracks skewer the wall in front of her. 

"What?" She breathes, squinting at the wall. "¿Qué pasa?" Her voice is low and curious.

Antonio begins to cry as his animals skitter away from the pandemonium, Dolores holds her ears, Camilo shifts rapidly--

Abuela. 

Abuela runs to the courtyard. 

Mirabel follows. 

She skirts around the corner, following Abuela's line of sight. 

The candle. 

It flickers, and shakes, and trembles, and Mirabel--

"No!" She yells, flicking her arm out as if that'll do anything to stop it. 

She falls to her knees. 

And everything is dark. 

The slight muffle of music booming from the second floor is what gets to her first. 

It's the cold nighttime air that gets to her second. 

She looks up, hands splayed on the tile below her, confused. She clears her throat, watching the candle. It burns brightly in its place. There are no cracks, no shakes, no trembles. 

She pulls her pocket watch from her vest pocket. Nine P.M sharp. 

Mirabel knows, with a sunken gut, that it's the previous night. 

And she knows that she has to do it all over again. And again and again and again and again  andagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagainandagain--

She knows. 

and she's a fool for it.

Chapter Text

Day... four. Yes, Day four. It's been four days. Well, on a technicality it has been four days. What has been causing the cracks is... inconclusive. I've watched for the past four days as my life, my home, my soul crumbles before me. Camilo is... suspicious. Luisa is stressed. Dolores... she's probably listening to me write this. Isa is Isa. What else is there to say about that? Parties have never been my thing. Never. But now I'm stuck in an eternal raucous environment with interactions and pleasantries long forgotten to the wisp of time. 

My wisp of time. 

After all, didn't I do this to myself? 

Mirabel sighs in an exhausted manner, tipping her head back against the outer wall of Casita. It's high noon, the sun is hot and bright, and if she were anywhere near an ocean the tide would be crashing and rising, reaching out for an audience it's unable to grasp. Her left leg hangs idly off of the small roof at the highest point on Casita that she can possibly climb, her notebook splayed open on her lap and the pen dangling loosely out of the corner of her mouth. 

As she waits for the ink to dry, Mirabel watches the ant-like villagers rushing this way and that, yelling and shouting, scurrying and hustling. A fate she wishes upon no one. Always busy, always high-strung... Sounds like a certain family she knows.

She'll have to sit through the engagement dinner again. Stay out of the way. Look for clues. Over and over and over. She blinks, something warm drips down the front of her face, in the crevices of her lips and over the peak of her chin, and when she looks she witnesses its dark red color stain the white of her notebook and the black of her calligraphy. It takes her a moment to realize it's blood. She's bleeding. 

With a start, Mirabel slams her notebook shut and scales down the roof, over the side of it, and down into the open hall of Casita's second floor just as she's done time and time again. With a palm to her nose and a fuzzy feeling in her head, she stuffs her notebook in her mochila and descends down the stairs to the kitchen. 

"Mierda!" She grumbles to herself, cutting the corner a little too hard and jams her hip into the side of the archway. A sharp hiss is thick on her tongue. "Dios-" She swallows the rest of her words as her mother turns around, looking at her with owlish, wide eyes. 

"Mirabel? ¿Estás bien?" Julieta's hands are quick to dash into her apron, groping for an on-hand arepa for her daughter. "What happened? Why is your nose bleeding? Were you and Camilo scuffling again?" Her voice is thick and worried; Mirabel feels a little daunted. 

With a palm still to her nose - the blood has begun to streak down her wrist, staining her white shirt - Mirabel dismissed the offered food by putting her free hand to Julieta's and gently pushing it away. "No mama, I haven't seen Camilo all day." 

Well, not on this run of the day. 

Mirabel hurries to grab a clean tea-towel, putting it to her face in lieu of her palm. "My gift - it's just being difficult." She hopes her tone was enough to assuage her mother. 

"Mira, you know that only happens when you use it too often," Julieta says, her voice soft and caring and Mirabel feels a tug to the left of her chest. 

My brother Bruno lost his way in the family, I don't want the same fate for you.

Mirabel thought she could see those words dimly behind her mother's eyes. Only, Julieta would never remember saying them. Not today. Not on this run. 

"I know, Mama. I know. I just - want to help."

"Oh, Mirabel, ¿sabes que puedes dejar que otros hagan su trabajo?" Julieta reaches her hand out to cup her daughter's cheek, but mirabel swerves it, swiftly turning around under the pretense of cleaning her face. 

"I nee - want to do this." Mirabel knows her mother will never understand the weight of that statement, and she wishes to keep it that way. 

When she turns round again, Julieta opens her mouth to say something, but Abuela comes walking as fast as her propriety will let her, demanding her daughter's food. Julieta bids Mirabel with a weak smile, and Mirabel knows it's the best she's going to get. Almost exactly ten seconds of relief is allowed before Mirabel hears the light treading of her eldest and only prima rounding the corner, taking it with much more grace than she herself had. 

"Mirabel." Dolores nods curtly, keeping the distance between them as she remains by the archway. 

Mirabel doesn't trust herself. She merely nods in acknowledgement. 

"You were up on the roof again. You know Mama doesn't like that. It turns her on the fritz and she gets twitchy." 

Mirabel folds the tea-towel to a cleaner side, pressing it back up against her nose. She needs a break. Rarely has she bled this bad. The lightheadedness is sitting heavily on her head, making it so she felt as if she'd topple over any second. "It's a good thing she's too busy with Isabela’s engagement dinner then, isn't it, Doll?"

Dolores's eyes snap to attention, her body gaining a subtle rigidness one would have to actively search for to notice; Mirabel saw it, though. "What did you call me?"

Mirabel shrugs. "It's a good thing Tia is too busy with Isa’s engagement then." The quick thrumming of her heart grows to an all-consuming crescendo. 

"No - nuh uh," Dolores wags her finger, stepping toward her cousin, "Mirabel, I know you. You never call me Doll, not unless..." She goes quiet, her quick vocal tic subsequent briefly. "Give me the towel."

"Que? No, I can clean myself-"

"-The towel." The crease of Dolores's brow and the sharp rise of her voice said the words she didn't have to.

Mirabel slowly, with a bloodstained and shaky hand, gave the towel to her prima. As gently as she could, Dolores cupped Mirabel's jaw, twisting her face to clean the dried spots Mirabel either didn't notice or didn't care to clean. 

"How many times?"

"Not as many as you think."

"You called me Doll." Dolores wets the tea-towel, resuming the dabbing at Mirabel's face. "Do you remember the week following your ceremony?"

Mirabel scoffs, wincing. "It's hard to forget when it's all that follows you like a shadow that doesn't fade when the sun comes up. Tio left, Abuela got mean, Mama got scared, I got scared-"

"-And I made you a promise." Dolores sets the tea-towel in the sink, wiping Mirabel's face dry with her own thumb. "Take off that shirt, the sleeve is stained. I'll wash it later."

As Mirabel complies, gingerly undoing her white vest buttons, sets it to the side, slides off the button up from her shoulders and untucks it from her pants. She hands it over to Dolores, taking note of the dark ruddy stain crawling up the left sleeve. She's left standing in a tank top and black slacks. 

"What promise?" Her voice trembles slightly.

Dolores folds the shirt over her arm, methodically choosing her words, letting the tension hang thick between them. She puts her hand back on the swell of Mirabel's jaw, giving her a private, familial smile. "That when you feel stuck, when your gift is going haywire, call my name and I'll be there. No one except you is allowed to call me Doll for that very reason. So, I'll ask again, how many times did you go back?"

Mirabel feels a sick burn in the middle of her gut; slowly it works it's way up through her chest and to the very tiptop of her throat. "I - I forgot about that-"

"Clearly."

"Doll - Dolores, not as many times as you think."

"So you've said. What's this day specifically important to you?"

"Uh, it's Antonio's ceremony! The biggest day since my Quince, so what do you think?"

Dolores tilts her head, the slight mirth in her eyes a telltale sign that she knew when you were bullshitting her. "Mira-"

"Sorry, Dolores, for this, really I am, but you won't remember this conversation at all-"

And with that, Mirabel lunges for her pocket watch from her discarded vest. Just as she has a fingertip on the dial, Dolores latches onto her wrist in an attempt to wrestle the watch from her hand. She was minutely successful, as Mirabel is stopped from rewinding, but it lands them both on the ground toppled over one another and the watch skidded feet away from them. 

"Dolores what the hell? ¿Estás demente?" Mirabel pushes Dolores backward and lurches herself forward in the same breath. The watch is completely engulfed inside Mirabel's palm when Dolores reaches for it. 

"Get off!" Mirabel yells, keeping her right hand as far out of reach as she can. But when she thrusts her left hand out toward Dolores in a last ditch attempt to keep her a bay,  she feels a burn in her palms, Dolores shoots backward gripping her right wrist in pain, and suddenly, in a spectacular burst of white light, they're sprawled out in Casita's courtyard. It is dark, the air is warm with celebration, and the faint hum and thrum of a band is emanating soundly from upstairs. 

"Oh shit." Mirabel scrambles backward, hissing in pain at the sudden harsh ache of her head, she buries it in her palm. After a moment, she says through grit teeth, "Well, that marks day five I guess."

"Mirabel."

"I'm so screwed."

"Mirabel."

"I meant to keep this secret! I mean how can I-"

"Mirabel!"

Mirabel stutters, owlishly blinking at her prima. "Y-Yeah?" She gulps.

Dolores slowly turns her right wrist into view. A golden clock is branded on dark skin, hot and angry. "What the hell is this?" Her stern hiss sounds much louder in the quite courtyard at this time of night. 

"That is... definitely new?" Mirabel supplies, an involuntary shiver running up her bare arms. 

"Did you shoot us back in time?" Dolores looks around, taking note of the obvious celebration that she was sure she already sat through.

Mirabel clicks her tongue. "Uh, well, er, yes? You see, Doll, things happen. Bad, bad, bad things. Very bad things." She stands, shoving the watch into her pocket and beginning to pace the floor. "Uh, you see, the house falls and -"

"Qué?” Dolores is on her feet, her neck craned as outward as possible to catch up with her eyes bulging from her head.  “Mirabel, what do you mean the house falls?" 

Mirabel stutters, a nervous laugh pinning her shoulders to her ears. "Doll?"

"Sí?"

"I might be the only hope at saving the magic."

Chapter Text

As a child, in the days and years before her ceremony, Mirabel was naturally a curious, insightful child. A calm baby, born premature to Julieta and Agustin Madrigal, Mirabel always had something to say - or babble depending on how you looked at it. Sickness didn't run in the family often, a cold or a sniffle now and again, the grandchildren often taking the brunt of it. However, Mirabel had a sort of propensity to illness. Strep throat, middle ear infections, naturally poor eyesight - you name it she had it. Multiple times.

It was when she was three, however, that things had been veered to the left, barreling toward a storm meant for the worst. Mirabel, sweet toddler Mirabel had gotten a pneumonia. The sickening rattle of her short breaths, the rasp to her small and scared voice, and the pallor to her skin had caused pure, thickened, unbridled fear to the bare bones of the Madrigal household. Julieta distraught, sisters and cousins confused and scared, Casita shaking under the terror. 

It hadn't gone said, if it had Julieta was sure to collapse under the weight of it all, but everyone watched the small girl as her chest rose and fell slowly, rattled, and wondered if it would have been her last. Then a day came where Julieta was forced to rest, Agustin sat with her, waiting, and the rest of the adults had their children to look after. All except Bruno. He sat in an uncomfortable wooden rocking chair in the nursery, the early afternoon sun splashing at his feet, with one hand on a sleeping Mirabel's torso. He had just read her favorite book to her - one with insects and butterflies - for the third time praying it would soothe her enough for a nap. 

Bruno stared unblinking at his sobrina, scared that she'd take a final breath and he'd miss it. Not so much irrational as it was plausible he told himself- as they'd all been told. He was sworn to his word that he wouldn't look in the future; Julieta didn't want to know, not until it happened. If it happened. He cleared his throat, whispering, "Ay, Mariposa, eres tan pequeño. You're giving us all a scare." 

He pulled a pocket watch from his ruana, one with a butterfly that his mama had given him. he clicked it open, staring at the roman numerals forced to march forward towards a future unknown to everyone and, for once, himself as well. "Time will tell," he said, "it always does. Time is all we need." He looked at the ceiling. "Please, just more time." 

(And an hour later Mirabel woke with a cry, a loud boisterous cry so unlike herself the family had been surprised to see Camilo sitting contentedly with his toys in the courtyard. It wouldn't go unnoticed by anyone that some color had returned to Mirabel's skin.)

And then her Gift Ceremony came just two short years later, and Bruno left, and Mirabel was scared and sad and alone, and a mysterious watch had appeared on her nightstand. When she turned a dial time rewound and if she focused hard enough she could freeze time, and suddenly controlling her gift became second nature to her. She forgot how to harness it in the years to come, forgetting how to use her palm, forgetting that she's not just a vessel for time to phase in an out of for the rest of her life.

Eventually, Mirabel learned how to keep the questions to herself. She learned that people didn't really want to know her, that whenever they looked at her it wasn't really at her but through her, and their faces would contort at the edges in a distain loosely hidden. She wasn't a use to people, not when they couldn't remember what they wanted her for. They saw something - someone - in her that she had yet to figure out. The villager's anger when there was something she couldn't fix. 

"L- Lo siento, señor, I can't go back th - that far yet!" An eight year old Mirabel cried, trembling under the irate glare coming from the man. 

"Jesus! You're useless!" The man was belligerent, the corners of his lips pinched in disgust. "You're no better than that - that diablo of an uncle! Bruno, yes, Bruno he was terrible!  Always bringing misfortune-" 

Mirabel cried louder, sobbed herself incoherent for hours. Camilo tried to make her feel better, he wanted his best friend back, but it didn't work. It didn't work because Mirabel, at such an age, had figured out what was wrong with her. She was her tio and it was the worst thing she could have become. And it hurt. It hurt so bad. Because she loved him. She loved him and he left her with nothing but hazy memories. He was selfish and Mirabel desperately wished she could be that selfish, too.

By the time puberty rolled around and decided to do its job, Mirabel had changed. She was twelve or thirteen, her jaw sharpened, her clothes didn't fit right, and, on a literal sense, she could see eye to eye with her mamá, if not just slightly above. She had began to wear pants and vests for no other reason than she was told it wasn't what a  blossoming lady should wear. She had closed herself off, becoming an enigma to everyone around her and, maybe, to herself, too. Her hands clasped firmly behind her back, holding, scared to let go lest she she begin to float away pulling on the cobwebbing threads of what-ifs her life had become. An irrevocable anger submerged her head first into its depths, she itched for an outlet. 

Tia Pepa had shown her on one rainy afternoon how to sew. It started off small, her passion for it. Mending small tears here, a hole there, but then, if she focused hard enough on the task, she found it quieted down the anger long enough for her head to stop howling out in pain. Because she was always in pain. Her gift and the strenuous tension of it made her ache. But she was fine. She had a duty to fulfil. She had a slandered reputation to rectify. She remembers a day when she was thirteen - physically, but mentally she stopped counting her age. The lost days and probable years didn't matter much - the air was warm and stiff, her boredom stretching out in long spools before her as she waited for Luisa or Camilo or Dolores to finish their chores. She was kicking a pebble down the dirt path, her fists plunged deep into her pockets. 

she heard a hushed conversation behind the wall of the bakery, some rustling maybe. Curious, Mirabel walked closer, hoping to eavesdrop. (Sue her, she was thirteen and bored). 

"No, I will not go out with you, now get off of me." Mirabel heard her sister, Isabela, hiss in a tone she seldom used. For the longest time, Mirabel thought it was only her who it had ever been used on. 

"Ah, come on, señorita, just one date?" A boy's voice pleaded. 

Mirabel knew that voice. She knew who that voice belonged to. Hector Sanchez. He was slightly younger than Isabela herself, but older than Mirabel. He was maybe sixteen and Mirabel's gut settled unkindly at the way he said señorita. She should do something, but she had been frozen against the other side of the wall. 

"Get your hand off of me!" Isabela demanded, her voice cracked just so at the end of her words. 

That snapped Mirabel into action; her usually calm and collected sister was cracking and that never happens. Not to Isabela; not ever. She propelled herself away from the wall, pouncing into view. "Hey! She said get away from her. You got one chance to leave." She drew herself up to her full height, hoping that maybe just her presence was enough to scare the boy off. 

But he only scoffed, smiling. "Eh, we got the useless Madrigal here. Now it's a party." His voice dripped with sarcasm, his face turning stony. He pulled back from Isabela, that much Mirabel was relieved about, but he was big and tall and he put his hands on Mirabel, shoving her. 

She stumbled backward, refusing to let her fear go anywhere but at the bottom of her gut. 

"What are you going to do about it, you little bruja?" Hector was grinning, his hands in fists at his sides. 

Mirabel swallowed, once, twice, looking at Isabela. She had a horrified expression on her face and suddenly Mirabel didn't care what exactly happened to herself. She lunged for the boy, delivering a swift punch to the gut, and, as he was bent forward, she drove her elbow into the side of his jaw. In a moment, she thought maybe this was her use, her way to show she could be useful, but then Hector rose to his feet, towering, his fist came flying, and she heard the sound before she felt it because she was gone; lights out.

When she woke, the left side of her face throbbed and she couldn't see out of her eye. She groaned, dazedly looking around. She noticed a lack of clocks surrounding her and an unusual amount of flowers flittering about the room. Only when she saw a blur of pink did Mirabel realize she was not in her own room, but her eldest sisters' room, and she was pissed. 

"you're awake?" 

Mirabel nodded. 

"Good, because you have five seconds to explain what the hell that stunt you pulled was!" Isabela was seething, her hair in strands around her face, and her hands on her hips. "I mean you come out of nowhere and act like you can handle fighting a sixteen year old boy!"

Mirabel had flinched, drawing herself upward. In her hazy state, she tilted her head, scrutinizing her sister; she looked a little like their mamá, and a lot like their abuela from what she saw of old pictures. She wonders if, perhaps, that was on purpose. If somewhere in the process of Isabela's childhood, Abuela got confused or lost in nostalgia and crafted a replica of something that probably shouldn't exist again. "I- I was trying to help you! To - to protect you-"

"I don't need protecting!"

"Every girl does!" In a surge of adrenaline Mirabel was on her feet, the tears threatening to fall. She held a hand around her left eye, staring up at her sister. "I- I'm a Madrigal. We - We're supposed to be protecting people -"

Isabela felt something jolt inside of her, something mean and ugly, as she listened to her sister speak like she was reciting an age old speech that had been relentlessly drilled into her head. Then she remembered who their abuela was and realized that maybe it had been. "You sound like a boy, Mira, but you're not. And you're also thirteen."

Mirabel stiffened, her jaw set. "Maybe I should be a boy," she said lowly, then, lower, "everyone already treats me like I'm - never mind."

Isabela stiffened as well, and both girls partook in a terse, cold staring contest, a pregnant pause thick in the air like fog. Then, "Mira, do you... want to be a boy? 'Cause if you do I-"

"-No! I mean I don't - or I think I don't - maybe - that wasn't the point!" Mirabel stumbled over her words, her face ached, the forefront of her skull ached, and she was tired. "The point was that I was helping you, and you don't even care! What would have happened if I wasn't there? Isa, what then?"

"Shut up!" Isabela stomped toward her youngest sister, making it half a foot before she thought better of it, took a breath, smoothed out her dress, and cleared her throat. "Sit down."

"But-"

"-Sit!" 

Mirabel did as told with great reluctance, crossing her arms and all but pouting. Isabela had half a mind to smile right then, but she shoved it down, opting to purse her lips. With effort, more than she'd admit, Isabela held back her tears, masking her emotions with a cold front. "Mirabel I do appreciate what you did, but it was incredibly stupid! you're thirteen! I mean where did you learn a move like that?"

"Oh I-"

"-Never mind about that! What I'm saying is that you're the younger one! I'm the oldest, it's my responsibility to protect this family - to do my part! And you got in the way. you got hurt. And now Mamá knows - Abuela knows - and you created a fuss that didn't need to happen if you had just stayed out of the way and let me deal with it!"

In the midst of her sister's anger, Mirabel saw how she was being looked at, how the perception of herself was clouded, and Isabela was looking through her. She was seeing someone Mirabel didn't want her to. She made a break for her pocket watch, but Isabela was snatching it out of her hands before she could open it. 

"No! No, you're not rewinding this time." She held the watch out of reach, almost tauntingly. "You're gonna have to face the music at some point, why not just do it now? Abuela is furious - not just at you, but at the whole situation - and you need to understand that some things you can't just fix at the snap of your fingers!"

Mirabel scoffed, "You don't understand, Isa. You never will!" She was on her feet again, drawing up to her full height. "I don't fix things I make them go away! Something can't hurt if it never happened! I don't know how to fix the peoples' problems so I make sure it never happens! I was trying to do that for you! All I'm good for is rewinding - staying out of the way, as you put it. I get it, alright?" 

"You'll never understand it either, and I don't want you to. It's my responsibility." Isabela threw the watch down on her bed, it landed face up and open, before she turned to stalk down the primly-tended-to flower path leading to her door. She stopped, hand on the doorknob. "Mamá will be in to heal you. Just, try not to give her more trouble, she's stressed enough. You can stay in here for the rest of the day if you want. Rest, nap, you need it. Don't mess up my garden."

Tell her I don't want to be healed, Mirabel almost said, but she held her tongue, flopping down on the bed. she stared up at the ceiling, wrangling out of her vest and throwing it aside. she was left in a black pair of suspenders with a blue stripe through the middle biting into an itchy pair of slacks and a white polo shirt. A few flower petals fluttered lazily throughout the room. Mirabel closed her eyes, hoping to be left alone for even an hour. 

(It would not have been noticed, but somewhere deep in the recesses of the Casita cracks had worsened, old ones grew, new ones formed, and one man was left to try and pick up the pieces.)

Years later, Mirabel would realize Isabela had a point, and Isabela would realize Mirabel had a point, and both of them had points, and if they had just listened to each other, maybe Mirabel wouldn't be left to mend the pillars of a broken house. Or maybe, she wouldn't have done it alone. 

Chapter Text

"...And that's why - well, why I think I'm the only one who can solve this." Mirabel tugged on a new button-up, a dark green one, forgoing a neckerchief. 

Dolores tilted her head, sitting softly on Mirabel's bed. "Just because you can rewind time? You think the weight of the world rests on your shoulders because of what? Because you're the one who can have second chances?"

Mirabel shrugged, averting her eyes. She blinked, once, twice, gazing around the room. The clocks seemed to mock her. "There's no other explanation. The house fell, four days ago, and then it rewound. I've been rewinding for four days. The only thing new is that you're now mixed up in it. With that tattoo now on your wrist."

Dolores looked at her wrist, running soft fingers gingerly over the golden clock branded on her skin. Oddly, the time read two o'clock. "There's got to be a reason, don't you think, prima?"

The girl in question only shrugged, again, running a hand over her forehead. She was exhausted. "No se." 

Dolores made a noncommittal hum, grazing a curious eye over her cousin's frame. "What's your plan, prima?"

Mirabel almost startled, owlishly darting her eyes around the room to look at anything but her cousin. It was a curious thing, that question. One could go their whole lives without ever asking or being asked that question. Never needing cause for it. And there Mirabel was, living on second and third and fifth chances, being asked that question. It rattled her. She's never needed a plan, her objectives, her duties, have always been clear-cut. Fix mistakes before they become problems. But this mistake has always been a problem, and Mirabel doesn't know how to fix it. Doesn't know what causes it. 

What's your plan?

She didn't have one.

She scuffled her foot, faced with a dejection she's never felt in this situation before. "We - we go back to the party. Pretend like nothing happened. Then we go to sleep, and you go on like normal. You don't need to be mixed up in this."

Dolores stood; an eyebrow raised. "Don't I, though?" 

Mirabel crossed her arms, clearing her throat. "I've caused enough trouble with whatever happened to make you rewind with me. You shouldn't know this much. It's my job to fix it, not yours." 

Dolores had stopped just before her cousin, an unimpressed look on her face. "And yet, you don't have a plan." 

"Well, I-"

"What time is it, Mira?"

Taken aback by the sudden change of topic, Mirabel faltered, smoothing the wrinkles in her shirt. "Ten after nine. It's always ten after nine."

A silence fell upon the pair, dousing the room in only the sound of ticking clocks. "Just after the picture." A quick frown tugs at the woman's lips, deep in thought. "You weren't in it, were you?"

Mirabel gulped, wracking her brain to think of a lie. And when she couldn't, when all she could do was face the question, she accepted that lying was futile. It was frivolous and futile when the woman she's lying to is her cousin that's become more of an omnipresent spirit, something to fear, something to watch your words over. "No. I wasn't. Abuela had all her important people in it, what's the use?"

The frown returned, tugged harder, Dolores reached out, fiddled with the collar of her cousin's shirt. "Mirabel, don't say that. You're important."

Mirabel stood stock still, her shoulders tense. "Sure, when you think about it in terms of events I've prevented that no one knows about. But that's not- Abuela wouldn't have been happy with my outfit. it's not exactly the pinnacle of lady-like."

Dolores hummed again, smoothing the shirt. 

"And, I mean, I'm not exactly the pinnacle of ladylikeness either. Not like you and Isa and Luisa are. Though, sure, they all contradict each other, you all are feminine. And being the youngest girl, well, there's expectations there. Follow the lead of those who came before you. Except, I don't want to."

She felt like a fool, stuttering over herself. Worrying about an insignificant issue when the more pressing matter, her house falling, loomed over them both and would come to fruition in mere hours. 

Dolores patted either side of the collared shirt, her expression stony in a way that softened around the edges. "Hm. Well, you're right, you're not the spitting image of a becoming lady, but," a pause, a consideration, "you're not really a lady at all, are you?"

And if the question had come from anyone but Dolores, had been spoken in a demeaning manner meant to insult herself, she would have taken offense to it, she would have squared her jaw and struck the offender across the mouth. However, it had been Dolores to ask that probing, curious question in a soft voice, eyes knowing, and Mirabel knew it wasn't a question at all. It was a confirmation. 

She cleared her throat of nothing but choked back words and stepped away. "The party. We need to get back to the party. And I need to swing down to the kitchen and grab my watch and shirt."

Dolores didn't pull on that thread, didn't push, but her frown stayed as she nodded. "Put the shirt on my bed, I'll scrub out the blood later." She took towards the door, stopping for only a second to say, "And try not to give yourself more bloody noses. It's not good for you." And left for Antonio's room.

Mirabel exhaled shakily, tugging at the fabric of her pants. 

What's your plan, Mirabel ?

~~~

"I was wondering where you took off to," A girl said, approaching Mirabel. 

Mirabel turned her head, giving a slight nod. "Evening, Senorita Lidia." 

"Must you insist on calling me that?" Lidia mused, looking at Mirabel from under her eyelashes. 

Mirabel grinned for the first time in probably a week, though it was taught and not wholly genuine. "I call every girl that, so, yes."

"Truly a gentleman."

"I do try."

"So, what are your plans for after the party?" Lidia had a brow raised. 

Mirabel sighed, "Camilo wants a sleepover, I told him yes."

Out of the corner of her eye, Mirabel saw Dolores making her rounds, rubbing deftly at her wrist. A thrum of guilt hammered at her heart. She stood straighter, a slight grimace on her face. "Lo siento, pero, excuse me, Lidia, I have rounds I should make before the night ends." She turned to leave before a hand caught her forearm.

"Wait, Mirabel, you owe me a dance. Later. Remember?"

Mirabel pursed her lips, thinking. The realization dawned on her, and she could slap herself across the head. "Right! I do remember, Senorita. How could I forget making that promise to my dear best friend?"

Lidia smiled then, letting the girl go. "I'm holding you to that."

"I'll be around before the party is over, lo prometo!" 

Mirabel dashed toward Dolores, but the lanky figure of Tia Pepa appeared in front of her, materializing out of thin air. "Mirabel!" Pepa exclaimed.

And Mirabel knew where this was going. Four days she heard the same drunken speech; she didn't have time for it tonight. Not when a new variable had been added and could tilt this whole operation on its head. Mirabel needed to talk to Dolores.

She barely heard her aunt speak, but confusion set in when Pepa swung her around, shoving her toward the dance floor, and spoke, "Go dance, Dolores told me you've needed a distraction tonight. No sneaking away again, go, go dance, I know you've promised someone one."

Mirabel craned her head around, resisting a frown at the drunken, knowing smile crossing Pepa's face. Mirabel really, really needed to talk to Dolores now, needed to punch her, maybe.

What's your plan, Mirabel?

She really didn't fucking know, and she couldn't waste her precious time dancing it away, but another shove, a stumbling of feet, and the shy smile of her best friend and Mirabel knew she couldn't say no. She would find the time, later, would recluse away in her tower scribbling in her journal, scribbling on her chalk board, every thread and every variable. 

But for now, she would dance. 

And is that your plan? 

~~~

"I cleaned your...Mirabel, what the..." Dolores waltzed into the small room at the top of Mirabel's clock tower, a room she's seldom been in, and startled, drawing herself up to her full height. 

The room was big enough for a six-chair table in the middle, bookshelves on one wall, twin-pairs of swords crosses over in the middle on the wall between two of the bookshelves, a smaller bookshelf beneath them. A chalk board on the wall next to it, with indecipherable handwriting scrawled on it, and the wall parallel to it had a small alcove that housed a window-seat. Surprisingly, the clock on the other side of the alcove was opaque, casting the room in a dim, bronze light. 

And slumped over the table, shirt skewered and two coffee mugs discarded, was Mirabel, dried blood from her nose and spit dried at the corner of her mouth, fast asleep. Dolores dropped the shirt she was holding, swiftly crouching to her cousin's side, shaking her awake. 

The girl jolted, instantly bringing a hand to her head. "Ugh..." she muttered. "I feel like Tia after a long night of coping."

Dolores bit back a snort, schooling her expression into one of concern. "You're bleeding."

"Huh?" Mirabel blinked; her glasses bungled up on her face. she fixed them, touching a hand to her nose. "Mierda." She wiped at her face, not caring that it hadn't cleaned much of the blood.

"Didn't I tell you not to rewind so much?"

Mirabel tilted her head, smacking her lips together. "I hadn't since... since technically two days ago? this might just be a fluke. And thanks, by the way, for telling Tia I needed a distraction. Made me stay at the party."

Dolores was unimpressed. "That was my plan. I knew you'd try and run off again, I could hear you muttering to yourself after we came back. I got lucky that Lidia showed up."

"Mhm."

Dolores stood up, dusting herself off. "And, really, Senorita? At least try and keep your crush on her at least to a minimum, it's embarrassing."

Mirabel balked, shooting out of her chair, hair frazzled, and face imprinted with the rough fabric of her shirtsleeve. Dolores noted it was the same dark green one from the party. "I do not!" 

Frivolous, really, to refute something Dolores can hear. "Sure, Mira, you promised her one dance and thirty minutes later you're still dancing because she batted here eyelashes at you. But you don't have a crush, right, my mistake." 

The tips of her ears red, Mirabel squared her jaw, smoothing her pants. "I don't. It is your mistake."

Dolores acquiesced, walking over and picking up the shirt she had dropped. "I cleaned this for you. And you missed breakfast, it's around eleven. Camilo and I covered for you, don't worry."

Mirabel accepted the shirt without a word, setting it on the table. "Thank you. Tell Milo thanks too."

"So, what are you doing up here? Is that coffee?"

Mirabel ran a hand through her hair, yawning. "After Camilo had gone to sleep, I made my way up here. Wanted to see if there was something I was missing or if I couldn't figure out what exactly happened to make that tattoo appear on your wrist. Wanted to figure out just why all of this is happening. Perks of being casita's favorite, she delivers the best coffee in record time."

Dolores absentmindedly rubbed her wrist, feeling the slight ridges of the branding. "It doesn't hurt anymore, and mama hasn't noticed, so we're good on that end."

"Good, that's good." She walked to the chalk board, gazing at it with a scrutinizing eye. "I've written down all the details I can remember. The house always falls at the end of the night, right after Isa's engagement dinner. Or, well, during it. The house shakes and shakes, cracks appear, the candle flickers, and boom. House to rubble. I've always rewound before the house can really fall."

"And you end up right back at the party."

"Precisely."

"Do you think they could be connected, somehow?"

Mirabel casted a cursory glance at her cousin, considering. "You know, I hadn't considered that."

Dolores preened. "Good thing you have me, now. We'll get to the bottom of this." Touching her cousin's shoulder, she gently gave it a squeeze.

Mirabel bit her lip, nodding. "I just," she shook her head, rubbing her eyes from under her glasses. "What if there's something I'm missing? The first day I rewound, I talked to Luisa, and she said that she felt weak, at the party. Didn't get much more than that, but it was something. It means her gift was on the fritz. And what if she's not the only one?"

Dolores chewed on her cheek, perching on top of the table, folding her hands over her lap after smoothing her skirt. "It would explain your random nosebleed today, wouldn't it?"

Mirabel wiped at her nose, again, sighing. "No, I think I might just be getting sick. You know my health."

"Hm. Everyone does. But you haven't been sick for a while, right? Not since you started going on those runs like Doctor Colmenero-Gutierrez advised."

Mirabel put her head to the chalk board, exasperated. "All I know is that I can't tell Mama. I can't have her put me on bedrest. She's been so... on edge since Antonio's ceremony had been getting closer. Once, about a month before my quince, I got a cough, and she wouldn't let me do anything for a whole week and a half. Over a cough!"

Dolores huffed, a slight smile on her face. "Camilo had been so worried you had lung cancer or something."

"Yeah. I think even Isabela was pale with worry."

"You say that like she hates you."

Mirabel scoffed, pushing away from the chalk board and over to the table, dumping her journal back into her mochila. "Well, she doesn't seem to like me."

Silence drug over them again, like a knit blanket, under false pretenses to keeping them warm. "Maybe that's a clue. Maybe that's why the house falls. Maybe..." She shook her head, pushing off of the table. "Maybe we are missing something, and the only way to find out is to talk. It's almost lunch, we should head down."

And, on cue, the church bells rang, signaling that it was twelve o'clock sharp. Mirabel grimaced, and Dolores only offered a small smile of support. 

What's your plan, Mirabel ?

She didn't know. But she had enough.

Chapter Text

Working with Dolores had been...overwhelming, to say the least. 

That first day, after they'd both been shot back to the party, Dolores hadn't really left Mirabel's side. Mirabel wanted to scream, wanted to run, wanted to isolate herself away and deal with the problem on her own. Dolores wasn't supposed to remember, she wasn't supposed to have that curse laid upon her slender shoulders--she could see the toll it was taking. 

But she did remember. 

She remembered all of the failed days and had stuck to Mirabel's side like glue even still. 

//

Dolores Day One

"So, what do you usually do?" Dolores strolled up to Mirabel's side easily, hooking her arm under Mirabel's. 

"What?" Mirabel squinted at the woman, falling in step with her as they walked into town.

"I'm trying to figure out a plan, here, so tell me what you've usually been doing." 

Mirabel rubbed a hand over her forehead. "Not much of anything. I talk to Luisa, get the same answer, run back to the house and... flounder. I can't seem to really talk to any of the others, they're too busy."

Dolores hummed, smoothing a crease in her skirt as they walked. The sun was high, the church bell's ringing to signal the start of a new hour and the ending of lunch. "Creo que ese es tu problema." 

"Que?"

"You don't find new angles. You don't step outside of--cómo se dice--the box."

Mirabel stopped, pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. "What would you know? You've not seen the same outcome the past four days no matter what. Either I talk to Luisa, or I don't and the house falls. Cracks appear, no matter what I do and everything crumbles."

So, what's your plan, Fool?

Dolores extracted her arm, crossing them over her chest. "Okay, so I haven't seen the house fall, pero, what's that got to do with the fact that you are clearly drowning here. I'm extending my hand, so take it. I want to help."

Mirabel bristled. "You can help by doing what you usually do, I'll figure it out."

And when she walked away, taking strides longer than she would to ensure her cousin would not follow, Mirabel knew she was digging a grave, but she refused to lie in it.

She went to Luisa. She ran into Camilo. She ran from Isabela. And that evening, right before Mariano could present the ring, Mirabel too stuck in her own head to care, Dolores kicked her in the shin and pointed to the ceiling.

Cracks engraved into the tile. 

And then the shaking. 

The torrential downpour of tile flakes falling down around them.

Mirabel, with the burn of frustrated tears in her throat, clicked her pocket watch. They were shot back to the drawing board.

//

Dolores Day Three

"Would you stop running for one second, Mira?" Dolores had her backed into a corner, eyes alight with determination.

"I can't. I can't, Doll, because if I do, I'll have to look at the facts. Look at them laid bare in front of me. It's been seven days, and I'm no closer to fixing it than I was from the start." Mirabel bit, her arms sitting heavily over her chest.

"¡Así que cálmate y déjame ayudarte!" Dolores reared back, her tone going louder than her ears could handle. Mirabel made it a point to keep her tone level no matter how much she wanted to scream. "I can't have you fainting, your nosebleeds are still frequent, and you're running yourself ragged, Mira."

She looked away at that, running her palm through her hair. "Lo se, Prima, lo se." 

"Why do you refuse my help?"

"I don't need it."

"Bullshit."

Mirabel snapped her gaze back onto the woman, mouth slightly ajar. "You swore."

"So?" Dolores bit her cheek, standing to her full height. 

Mirabel managed a tight grin. "You never swear."

"And you refuse to look in mirrors, so I guess we're both doing something we never do." 

Mirabel scoffed, a swell of anger surging low in her gut, her smile turning into a dark scowl. "Low blow." She pushed away from her cousin, turning to stalk out of the kitchen when a nimble hand caught her wrist. 

"Mirabel--"

"Save it. I don't need your fucking help. I just need to goad more information out of Luisa. She was beginning to tell me something about tio Bru--nevermind. I'm going to find her."

And the moment was lost between them, Dolores rubbing at the clock engraved on her right wrist. It had to mean something, she concurred. It had to. She had to show up for her cousin when she needed it most. 

//

Dolores Day Six

Rewind. Rewind. Rewind. That's all I ever FUCKING do as of late. Luisa said something about Bruno. Something about a vision and a fight with Abuela. The details are fuzzy, I can't remember which day she told me that. I'm not surprised if Abuela had something to do with Bruno leaving. Fighting is all she seems to be good at. 

Dolores won't leave me be. 

Why won't she leave me be?

I've been cruel, I know, but...

No. there's no but there's nothing there's no plan theres no plan theres no plan theres no plan--

"You'll run out of ink if you keep scrawling into that thing."

Dolores had come up to Mirabel's side, taking in the view from the Casita's rooftop. 

"I've got more in my room."

"If you say so."

Dolores sat down, hooking her leg around Mirabel's that hung idly off of the ledge. She had been doing that, the simple touches whenever Mirabel let her get close. A hand on her cheek, on her wrist, an arm hooked around her own, or a leg cast and sunk like a weight to Mirabel's. They were light, could be imagined, but they were grounding and spoke words Mirabel knew she didn't want spoken. 

They let her know that it was real. 

That someone else besides herself remembered.

Remembered everything. 

"Will you let me help you, now?"

Mirabel closed her journal and shoved it back into her bag, letting the pen fall into the depth as well. Tilting her head back, she breathed in the crisp air of the morning, relished in it. She had five minutes before Luisa would go herding the donkeys, five minutes before she would coax the same information out of her, seven minutes before she'd run into Camilo, eight minutes until Isabela would appear out of thin air and she'd run for it, and twenty minutes before Abuela would stare at her, in the courtyard, piercing through her, seeing someone that wasn't Mirabel herself, and speak to her. 

Tell her to let the others work their magic. 

Like she forgot Mirabel had a gift. 

Like she wanted to forget Mirabel bore a similar gift to her son, and they were heading down the same path with a reputation up in smoke. 

Like she really just wanted to forget Mirabel, gift and all.

She didn't want to run into her mother in an hour and get told that she didn't have to push herself so hard. That she had family for a reason. What Julieta couldn't understand, what Mirabel didn't think she wholly understood, was that there was a pull, an unorthodox force tugging Mirabel along, dragging her through the same day, because she had something to fix. And only she could fix it. 

"What's the plan?"

//

Dolores Day Seven

They had a good run. They really did. Mirabel, for the first time in eleven days, had hope. It was formidable, malleable, and extinguishable, but it was there. 

And then Isabela had opened her mouth. 

And Mirabel ran. 

~~~

Dolores was confident in herself, in her ability to create a plan on the fly because she knew how everyone in the village ticked and churned. 

She knew that Senor Rodriguez had an affair three years ago, which resulted in the end of his marriage and torn his reputation to bits. She knew that Senora Alvarez and her wife were thinking of adopting a child but wanted to keep it under wraps in case it didn't work out. She knew that Hugo Gomez was planning to ask Maria Sanchez out, and she knew Hugo would get his heart broken because Maria liked Rosalinde Guiterrez-Gonzalez, and she knew that that wouldn't ever work because Rosalinde Guiterrez-Gonzalez was straight as an arrow, and she liked Hugo Gomez.

It was all juvenile stuff, but she knew it. 

And she knew the sounds people could make during private times because she was bestowed a curse giftwrapped to be presented as a gift and then told to deal with it. She had the talk at seven, years and years before she would have ever needed it, years and years before Isabela herself had needed it, but that was her curse. And she learned to deal. She kept it all in, because her role was to listen, not talk. 

And she also knew that Isabela didn't want to marry Mariano, but it wasn't her place to say it. It was never her place to talk, so she let Mirabel do the talking for her. She was content to take the back burner, be the plan maker, the listener. It was what she excelled at. 

But she wasn't ready for the day she'd have to use her voice, and she didn't think her family was either. 

~~~

"You...what?" Mirabel's mouth hung ajar. She smoothed the creases in her pants, tugged at her suspenders, fiddled with the buttons of her shirt--anything to not be still. She couldn't stay still.

Isabela's face contorted in shock, in anger, as she flew from her bed and over to the patch of roses where Dolores and Mirabel stood. "What did you hear?" She all but yelled, her eyes wild and panicked.

Mirabel gulped, eyeing Dolores, before she stood straight, breathing, "That you don't want to marry Mariano." Then, lower, softer, "That it was your responsibility to the family." 

She choked on the words, a memory zipping through her mind. She was thirteen, she got in a fight, Isabela was yelling, yelling those same words. And they didn't feel good the second time around. She eyed Dolores again, catching the grimace, and it hit her, then, that she must have known Isabela would be saying this to herself four hours before the dinner. She must have heard the same pep talk over and over and that was the plan. 

The plan was to catch Isabela in her weakest moment, hoping, praying, for...

Well, Mirabel didn't know. 

Isabela caught her sister's gaze, snapping her eyes to Dolores. "You--" she stalked closer, "--you heard that. You heard all of that."

Dolores's grimace deepened, but she didn't move to speak. 

"Isa," Mirabel started, "Isa we just--"

What? What were they doing? Fixing things? Trying to understand?

"We-you don't have to- say no!" Mirabel was desperate now; she could feel the turmoil radiating off of her eldest sister. "You don't have to say yes! You can--"

"--Enough!" Isabela roared. "Get out! Get out and forget this happened!"

Mirabel couldn't do that. Not when they were doing so good. They were getting answers. They were making progress. Luisa felt weak at the party, Bruno had a vision just before he left that they needed to find, she had a real talk with Camilo at their after-party sleepover about life and she realized she didn't recognize the boy who she had once called her twin, and now Isabela didn't want to marry Mariano.

That was huge. 

That was problem-solving huge. 

And Isabela was trying to discard it. 

"I can't do that, Isa." 

"Get out!"

Mirabel reached an arm out, desperate, "Isa if you'd just--let me protect you!"

Isabela balked, Dolores winced, and Mirabel stood firm. 

"Protect me?" Isabela scoffed disbelievingly. "Mirabel. You cannot protect me. All you do is get in the way. All you do is get in my way, and you want to call that protection?" She jabbed her finger into her youngest sister's chest, heaving, daring. "You have no idea, not a single inkling, of what the word sacrifice means, of what protection means--"

There was a familiar rumbling in the floor, low, heavy, slow. Mirabel felt like she was the only one who could feel it. Hear the way the walls strained and cracked and crumbled. It was closing in.

"--so do not come in here and act like you do. I want you out of my room."

Mirabel floundered. 

She gasped.

And she did the only thing she excelled at.

She ran. 

She ran far and wide, scaling the whole village, running her lungs dry, running her legs taught, running the sweat down her face and drenching the collar of her shirt. She was a blur of dark green passing between houses, dodging councilmen and mothers and fathers and children alike, hopping fences and sucking down whatever air her lungs could contain. She didn't feel free, she didn't feel light, but she felt fast. 

She felt like her problems couldn't keep up, her brain left behind, her thoughts with them.

And then she returned, gasping, sweating, bursting through Casita's doors. She didn't get far before a nimble hand forcefully wrapped around her forearm and yanked her into a spare sitting room that was seldom used. 

"Where have you been?"

The blood rushing out of her ears nearly made the question inaudible, but Mirabel saw the anger on Dolores's face clear as day regardless. 

"I've been worried sick for three hours, Mira. Camilo's been covering for you. You owe him."

Mirabel scoffed, the action of sucking in as much air as she could rendering her unable to speak. Camilo came careening around the corner, his form a copy of Mirabel. He reverted back in a blur, his face stricken. "Mirabel--"

She held up a hand, her lip curling unkindly. "Don't. Alright, I get it. You covered for me. Thanks. Owe you one."

He tilted his head, unimpressed, and for a fleeting second Mirabel saw the similarities between him and Dolores. "That's not what this is about."

"Sure, it isn't." Mirabel wiped her forehead, adjusting her glasses. 

"It's not." The boy stepped closer, standing next to his sister. "I'm just--I'm...worried. You've been acting weird all day. Both of you have. Spill."

"There's nothing wrong." Mirabel rolled a shoulder, undoing the top button of her shirt to wipe at the sweat there. She slipped her arms out of the sleek navy-blue suspenders and let them fall stiffly at her sides. "Don't worry about it. Thanks for covering. When's dinner?"

"In fifteen, pero Mirabel that's not--"

"I said don't worry about it!" She snapped, grabbing her primo by one side of his collar. "I owe you, capiche?"

Dolores put a warm palm to Mirabel's shoulder, her eyes warning. 

Camilo stood unfazed; his brows downturned. "You're not acting like someone who has nothing to hide, primo."

"What did you call me?"

"I said prima. Now, spill."

Mirabel barred her teeth, an action that would have Abuela scolding her on the etiquette of ladylikeness for forty-five minutes, and shoved Camilo away. "There's nothing to tell! Why can't you just drop--"

"Mirabel your nose!"

At Camilo's gasp, Mirabel swiped a hand under her nose and the skin came back red, the blood falling at a rapid pace and her head began to pound. A migraine she'd been putting off all day, fighting it, losing to it. 

"Mierda!" She shouted, cupping one hand around her face.

She moved to slip past the two-person barricade her cousin's had made, and just as she did, she came faced with a new barrier. The jaded, frowning, formidable face of Abuela. 

"Good heavens, what is going on? What is all this commotion?" Abuela demanded, her face pulled in a frown, eyes stony and cold. 

"Nothing, Abuela! Just--"

"Is that sweat? Are you running a fever?" The concern died with the bubbling anger in Abuela's tone. She looked past Mirabel at Dolores and Camilo. "What did you two do? Why is she bleeding?" 

before either could speak, Mirabel swayed on her feet, blinking rapidly. "Nothing! Nothing is wrong! Just let me--"

Camilo wrapped an arm around Mirabel as she fell backward, and in a blast of white everything faded. 

The courtyard was dark, the smell of alcohol faint, and the blast of music was emanating soundly from upstairs. Camilo hissed as a sharp burn blazed up the skin on his right wrist, and in similar fashion to Dolores, a golden clock etched into his skin. The time read Three P.M. Dolores was unfazed by the scenery change, but concern colored her face white as she stared at the unconscious body of Mirabel, blood streaming steadfastly down her face in twin trails from her nose. 

Camilo felt his gut drop as every synapsis on his skin blazed like an uncontrolled forest fire. 

"Dolores what--"

"Shut up! You have questions, I have answers. First help me with Mirabel."

Camilo gulped, nodded, and did what he did best. 

Pretended like this didn't affect him deeply as he shifted to someone bigger. 

~~~

The three did not return to the party that night. 

Camilo did not get his answers that night. 

And that marked the very short run of day twelve. 

(Mirabel, when she woke late the next morning to Dolores draping a wet cloth over her forehead, telling her she was to rest, and to Camilo pacing her floor, wearing it thin, she felt all hope extinguished in the pit of her gut.)