17. The Rats That Speak

Mirabel had no intention of going back behind the walls to see Ratón, er, Tío Bruno (that was definitely going to take some getting used to). Because why would she? He had lied to her, tricked her, deceived her! Taken her trust and tossed it over his shoulder like a fistful of his salt, desecrated their friendship with his fraudulence. He had hurt her, and stung by the revelation of it all, Mirabel had retreated to the familiarity of Casita to nurse her wounds.

That’s not to say, however, that she didn’t feel a small inkling of temptation to visit him again. What could she say? She was lonely! But above else, she was stubborn, and determined that she would not cave and succumb to his treacherous wiles, because she was angry! Upset! Humiliated! He had made her look and feel like a fool, and wounded by the whole fiasco, Mirabel decided that the best action to convey her ire would be to stay away.

This was easier said than done. It also didn’t help that the morning following the confrontation (and what a disaster that had all been, seeing that the exchange had been woefully short and ended with her running away), Mirabel woke up to a small note on her table. It was folded up into a neat little square, with a quaint little rat scribbled on the outer surface. Frowning as she opened it, the crease in her eyebrows only deepened as she read the two words written on the page.

               I’m sorry.

Mirabel had every inclination to tear the paper to shreds and dispose of it in the trash bin in the corner. That’s all he had to say? ‘I’m sorry’?! Granted, it was an apology, yes, but even so! It was going to take a little more than that to win her back. No, she was going to give him the silent treatment just a little bit longer.

However, she hadn’t ripped it up into tiny pieces. She had merely crumpled it up and shoved it into one of the drawers of her dresser instead. Out of sight, and out of mind.

Of course, despite this, Tío Bruno was the only thing in her head. The only thing she could think about, no matter what she tried to do to distract herself, no matter how hard she tried to evict him from his current residence in her brain.  

Seeing the ruana she had been making for him also didn’t really help this cause. Sitting on her workbench, the base pieces had been fully assembled, and now, she had been working on embroidering the edges with brightly colored rats, each using different vibrant shade of thread. Well, she had been working on it, up until Sunday, and now, she could barely bring herself to look it.

She shoved the garment into her drawer as well. Right on top of his note.

With a sigh, she collapsed onto her bed, arms splayed out in defeat. A festering ball of emotions, yet she had no way to properly express them. There was no one she could share this with, no one who would understand, and so she was left with a hurricane that rivaled anything Pepa could create storming in her mind.

What does this change? a small, slippery voice inside her whispered. He’s still the same person. He’s still Ratón, what does it matter that he also happens to be your Tío? If anything, it makes the whole situation a lot less creepy.

Shut up, was all Mirabel had to say in response to these unwanted reflections. Not very creative, but hey, she was talking to herself, so what did it matter?

Although, despite wanting to deny it, her inner voice did have a good point. Ratón being Tío Bruno did make everything significantly less strange (because let’s be honest, Mirabel befriending a man in his fifties that secretly lived in the walls of her house was a little weird), and it also helped simplify things.  

However, in a lot of ways, it made everything so much more complicated.

Mirabel groaned, burying her face in her hands out of frustration. All it did was give her a headache, with the sheer number of questions it raised. Why had he chosen to lie to her? How had he managed to live in the walls for ten years undetected?  And the most important one: why exactly had he left in the first place?

The last one was particularly puzzling. Why would he choose to leave the family, only to not actually leave? To retreat into the walls, still present, but just out of reach? It made no sense. The rumors were that he had left because of a vision, but what prophecy could be so bad for someone to impose exile upon themselves? Like sure, he was quirky and weird and just a little (no, very) unhinged, but none of these thing could possibly lead to him making a decision as moronic as this… right?

No, there had to be more to it. Mirabel just wasn’t sure what.

Her indecision about visiting, however, was ultimately put to an end when she saw Luisa struggle and fail to lift a potted plant.

To be fair, it was a large potted plant, in fact, the same one that Camilo and Antonio had used to hide from her with her note from Ratón— ugh, Tío Bruno!— so long ago. But still! For Luisa, it should have been child’s play, as easy as picking up the church and relocating it a few streets over or moving a mountain. Seeing her struggle to lift it sent tingles of alarm through Mirabel, as she became acutely aware that the magic of the miracle was in much more danger than she initially thought. Urgency from the severity of the situation prompting her to swallow her pride, and that her personal feelings on the matter were inconsequential when there was so much at stake.

So, gearing up, she ultimately decided that it was time that she pay her little friend a visit.

She hesitated when she reached his door. She hadn’t really rehearsed what she had wanted to say; should she acknowledge what had happened between them? Pretend like it never happened? But the problem with that would be that she didn’t want to ignore her impassioned feelings, but at the same time, she wasn’t even sure if she could properly articulate and express herself to the desired capacity at the moment, and agh she didn’t have time for this. Casita didn’t have time for this.

Steeling herself (and wiping her palms on her skirt because they were getting rather sweaty… not because she was nervous though! No, not at all!), she sucked in a tight breath and opened the door without knocking, her brows set in a determined scowl over her eyes.

She tried to make her entrance as stern as possible, and she had certainly succeeded if the way that Bruno whirled around in his chair to face her was any indication. “Mirabel!” he exclaimed. His voice was a mixture of being hopeful, surprised, and relieved, all things that caused an unwanted pang to stab Mirabel in her heart. “You came back?”

Mirabel responded with a hand raised to stop him, wordlessly shaking her head as she glared at him. Bruno shrunk back into his chair, his small frame retreating into the safety of its red cushions. She ignored his query, determined to convey that she not in the mood for pleasantries and strictly here on business. No friendship, no uncle-niece shenanigans. She was doing this for the magic, for Casita, not him.

However, that didn’t prevent the genuine question that escaped from her lips before she had the chance to stuff it back down her throat. “You’re… still here?” She looked around. Nothing seemed to be out of place or altered, in fact, it looked to be largely unchanged since the last time she had been here. Even the sets and the costumes for the telenovela, their importance discarded after their exchange, still sat where she had last seen them on that fateful night. “I thought you would have left.”

And that was the truth. After he had nearly fled following the reveal that Antonio knew of his presence, Mirabel was sure that he would be gone now that she knew his true identity. Because what would stop her from telling Abuela, or the whole family? Sharing that Bruno, precious, long-lost Bruno, was still here. Living in the walls, just like the rats he kept company with.

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“I… er…” he stuttered. “I couldn’t. Not with how we left things. Not with how our last conversation went. I wanted to, I almost did, but….” He rolled his hands over each other, looking up toward the ceiling. “I couldn’t.”

“You had no idea where to go.”

“Uh, well, yes. That too.”

“The magic is disappearing.”

“Oh, is it? I hardly noticed, you see, I’ve been in here for so long, and it’s really hard to—”

Mirabel gave him a flat expression. Obviously, he was very aware of the magic disappearing, given that he had been covering up its instability by patching up the cracks that cropped up in it’s wake for an indeterminate stretch of time. So, she cut him off. “The magic is disappearing,” she reiterated, and Bruno gulped at the firmness of her tone. “And you know why.”

His eyes darted to the side, looking at the rats that sat with him on the chair. They gave him a look that clearly conveyed you’re on your own here, buddy, which caused Bruno to glance back at Mirabel with fear and apprehension. “I… uh… do I?”

Mirabel’s eyes narrowed.

Bruno scrambled under her scathing gaze. “Look, even if I did know, which I’m not saying that I do, because I don’t, what makes you think that it would help you? That you would be able to do anything about it?”

Mirabel flinched, taken aback.

Had he just implied that she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, because she was giftless? She didn’t have the blessing of the candle, so what made her think she could fix its miracle? It was something she had felt, suppressed and deep down, but she had ignored it, determined to prove herself. If she could be the one to bring the magic back, then it would give her the recognition she deserved, the place within the family after years of shortcomings and failure. But Bruno insinuating that she wouldn’t be able to do anything cut deep, especially all she had shared with him, all of her problems that he had so kindly listened to and empathized with.

Noting the hurt written plain across her features and realizing how she had misinterpreted his words, Bruno was quick to attempt to remedy his mistake, which of course meant that he dug his proverbial hole deeper and didn’t do a very good job fixing it at all. “No, wait Mirabel, not like that!” he cried out with a frantic wave of his arms. “I mean, even if you did know, I doubt you, or anyone, would be able to change fate, and ugh, it’s all so complicated.”

He let out a shaky breath and ran an unsteady hand through his hair as he slumped back into his chair. Seeing his distress, Mirabel approached him, crouching down beside him so that she was looking up into his face, even as he tried to turn away and avoid eye contact. He picked despondently at a loose thread in the armrest, the corners of his lips pointed downward as he wallowed.

Fate. What an interesting choice of words.

“Tío Bruno,” she said in a soft voice, setting aside her prejudice, her reluctance to act so pleasant towards the person she was still very sour towards. Do it for Casita. “Is this related to the vision that made you leave?”

She wanted to know why he left. What had spurred this entire decision in the first place. However, she knew that the answer to that question would not be forthcoming, not with Bruno’s conflict-avoidant, evasive nature. Why else had he deceived her in some convoluted ploy , if not to avoid conflict surrounding his presence in the house?  So, she was hoping that in discovering what his vision had been, she would be able to piece together the answer for herself. She was perceptive, right? She would be able to figure it out (never mind the fact that she really hadn’t been all that perceptive to Bruno being Ratón… no, she was sure that this time would be different!).

These words were not what he had been expecting, if the way Bruno’s head snapped toward her was any indication. “You know about the vision?”

Mirabel shrugged, shaking her head in a way that conveyed that she kind of knew about the vision, but at the same time, not really. “I mean, I know that there was a vision, and that you left the family because of it, but I don’t know what it was about. Nobody does.”           

Bruno let out a sigh of relief, returning to picking at the loose thread. “That’s good, because I never meant for anyone to see it.”

“Why not? Can’t you just describe it to me?”

“You know, when I say that I don’t want anyone to see it, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I want to describe it. That would kind of defeat the whole purpose.”

Mirabel straightened to her full height, looming over Bruno in the most intimidating posture she could muster. “Show me,” she demanded, planting her hands on her hips for good measure. “I need to see it.”

Bruno shifted uncomfortably, taking note of the vulnerable position he suddenly found himself in. “You can’t see it, because it’s broken. Shattered to tiny pieces, up in my vision cave.”

Mirabel frowned. That didn’t make any sense, how would one shatter a vision? However, too determined to get caught up on this minor detail, she pressed forward, taking it in stride. “Then let’s go put it back together!”

Bruno scoffed. “Have you ever been in my room? There are so many stairs, I’ve lost count… except I actually did count one time, and I think it was one thousand, two hundred and eighty-six steps, but the thing is I realized I didn’t remember counting any number in the five-hundred range, so maybe I skipped it altogether? Which would then make it one thousand one hundred and eighty-six steps instead, but still! That’s a lot of steps!” 

“Well, then, do it again! Have another vision!”

Bruno faltered, sputtering in stunned indignation at the request. After all, while the statement about the quantity of stairs in his room had been a huge reason not to go retrieve the vision, Mirabel’s suggestion was a surprisingly sound loophole in his elaborate excuse. “Oh, I, uh, don’t really do visions anymore, you see,” he explained, escaping from Mirabel’s ominous posture with a nimble leap over the armrest, backing away from her tenacity.

This, of course, was an invitation for her to press forward. ‘’But you could.”

“But I won’t.”

“Why not?!”

“Listen,” he said, the exasperation apparent in his tone. “The problem with my visions is that to do them, I need a big open space. I just can’t do it in here, and like I said, I don’t want to go back up to my room, that’s a lot of steps!”

We’re running out of time, was the silent understanding between the two of them that made Mirabel refrain from pushing forward, knowing that to climb up one thousand, two hundred and eighty-six steps stairs would not only be an exhausting waste of time, but also dangerous, given the unstable condition of the house.

They stared at each other for a moment, neither knowing what to say, neither having a solution (much to Bruno’s thinly-veiled delight) when a smaller voice cut through the silence. “You could use my room!”

Bruno and Mirabel turned toward the source of the intruding words, only to see Antonio, to Mirabel’s dismay and Bruno’s shock.

“I knew he was real!” Antonio exclaimed, his eyes lighting up in excitement as his gaze landed on the timid hermit-man cowering by Mirabel, unaccustomed to the sudden attention. Antonio was surrounded by animals, the capybaras, tapirs, coatis, and jaguar all flanking him as he cradled a small clump of rats in his arms.

“Tonito, I never said that he wasn’t real.”

“Still!”

Mirabel quirked her head in confusion, which Antonio was quick to notice. “The rats told me all about your friend in the wall,” he explained with a sheepish shrug. “Except, this isn’t Ratón, this is—”

“Tío Bruno, yeah I know that now,” Mirabel said, shooting Bruno a stern, peeved look that communicated that she hadn’t quite forgiven him yet. Something Bruno acknowledged with a thick gulp that made his throat bob.

Antonio gave them both a bright smile, completely oblivious to the thick layer of tension blanketing the room. Or maybe he wasn’t oblivious, and was instead choosing to ignore it. That was a very real possibility.

“Well, what are we waiting for! Let’s get going!”

Mirabel clapped her hands together in agreement, gathering up her skirts to follow Antonio. The menagerie he had brought with him escorted him out, and Mirabel had been just about to follow the capybara that was slow on the uptake to exit when she heard an awkward cough behind her.

Ugh. Please don’t say anything, please don’t—

“Wait, Mirabel, before we leave…”

Mirabel paused, turning around with clenched fists and a stifled groan. “Yes?” she asked, her terse voice being ground out through gritted teeth.

Bruno hesitated (even though he had been the one to ask for her attention), grimacing as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I, uh…. There’s something I need to say.”

Well, duh.

That was the snarky response Mirabel wanted to snap at him. However, this intention was stolen from her as there was a deep, creaking groan that could be felt throughout the house, and a small trickle of dust rained down from the ceiling as a result.

Mirabel let out a hum of anxious displeasure as she watched this happen, before looking back at Bruno with an arched eyebrow. “Now?”

Bruno nodded emphatically. “It can’t wait,” he said, which caused Mirabel to fold her arms in impatience. She knew exactly what was going to happen now, what he was going to say, but truth be told, she was still cross about it all. She had only come back here to seek out Bruno so that he would help her fix Casita, not so that they could reconcile.

She wanted to reconcile. Oh, how badly she wanted her friend back. But, she couldn’t. Not with how he had burned her. Spurned her trust, no, if Mirabel was one thing, she was not meek. She was not fragile or weak, she had resolve and determination, and it was going to take a little more than the sad tilt of Bruno’s regretful eyes to make her fold.

Luckily, he had come prepared.  

Reaching into his ruana, Bruno pulled out a slip of paper, unfolding it as he squirmed under the harsh scrutiny of her gaze. “I wrote this, the night you found out the truth. And I wanted to send it to you, but I realized that it would be better said in person. And um… here we are.”

He looked at the paper for a brief moment, before cringing and shredding the note into several pieces, littering them on the floor in a snowstorm of discarded apologies. “Actually, you know what? never mind. Let’s, uh, let’s get going.”

(He was no longer prepared).

In front of him, Mirabel scowled. Nuh-uh. She wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily, especially not since he was the one who initiated this whole conversation!

He wanted to have this talk? Fine. They were going to have this talk.

“Why did you do it?” she asked, before Bruno could turn and escape with Antonio. “Why did you lie to me?”

Bruno winced, his hands dancing around as he tried to stall. “Oh you know… reasons?”

The corners of Mirabel’s lips turned downwards. That had been a horrible response.

Noticing her displeasure, Bruno ran a hand through his hair as he crouched down onto the floor, retrieving the scraps of his impulsive, destructive decision.  “Damn it, I really shouldn’t have ripped this up,” he griped under his breath as he struggled to reassemble the pieces.

After a prolonged stretch of time where he tried and failed to rectify his error, he finally gave up, dropping the scraps back onto the floor as he decided to improvise. Which, knowing him, was about to go really well, or really bad, depending on whether or not he decided to stick his foot in his mouth. It was always a toss-up with Bruno.

“The reason I lied, Mirabel, was because….” The sentence died off, perishing a horrible death, and he fidgeted with the fringe of his ruana, rolling the loose threads between his nervous, spindly fingers. “I was scared. Scared of what you’d say. Scared of what you’d think. Scared that you would go tell the whole family. When you told me that you didn’t know who I was, I realized just how valuable that was. Everyone hated Bruno. Hated me. They blamed me for the bad things I foretold in my visions, because I’m Bruno, and I make bad things happen, and everyone always assumes the worst. But you? You didn’t feel these things about me, because you didn’t know it was me. And even though it was selfish, I….” He paused, his tongue snaking out to wet his dry, chapped lips. Collecting himself. “I craved that. I craved someone who didn’t just see me for my gift.”

There was another pause, this one a little longer than the last. “I shouldn’t have lied to you, Mirabel. But after all those years of being isolated from our family, from being treated like an omen of bad luck from the community, it was nice to have a friend. It was nice to have someone who saw me for me.”

He took a deep, ragged breath. “I understand that I shouldn’t be giving you excuses, and I know that what I did was wrong. But I’m sorry, Mirabel, so, so sorry, and I hope that you can forgive me for lying to you.”

Mirabel stared at him, her eyes searching his as she processed his heartfelt response. As she suddenly understood his motivations, his reasons, and felt her anger be replaced by a strange mixture of pity and sadness. While she still felt wronged, she realized that Bruno had been wronged as well. By his community, by his family, and if she had known his true identity from the beginning, then she probably would have wronged him too.

Bruno mistook her lack of response as her still being upset, so he hastily continued speaking. “Listen, I understand that you’re mad at me, and I know that I screwed up, and you really don’t have to accept my apology, even though it would be kind of nice because this whole thing has been stressing me out, but I know this isn’t about me, I just—”

His ramblings, scrambled and disjointed as they tended to be, were cut short as Mirabel surged forward, capturing him in a tight embrace. Like the times before, Bruno was hesitant to return the gesture, spine stiffening under the hold of Mirabel’s arms, although this time, for a different reason. Whereas before, it had been from aversion to contact, now it was because the action had severed his choppy sentence (which was probably a good thing; he had really been struggling and this had been a merciful way to put him out of his misery).

It took him a few prolonged seconds, but he sank into the contact, melting into the embrace as he mirrored Mirabel and returned the gesture. It was by far their longest hug yet.

Long enough to make Bruno mildly uncomfortable, as he broke the silence with a stunted, self-conscious chuckle. “So… you’re not mad at me?”

Mirabel pulled back. “Oh no, I’m still mad at you,” she said with a snort, the words spoken in a light enough tone to indicate that she really wasn’t all that mad. “But at the same time, it’s impossible not to forgive you, because to be honest?  Watching you struggle like that was pretty depressing. Agonizing, painful, unpleasant, excruciating—"

“Okay, okay, I get it. Last time I pour my heart out to you about anything.”

Mirabel laughed, her voice turning genuine “Although with that being said , I really do appreciate you sharing with me. Even though it doesn’t change what happened, it helps me understand why. Why you did what you did, why you felt the need to lie to me. Besides,” she said, tucking a stray curl behind her hair as she averted her gaze. “Us family weirdos have to stick together.”

Up until this point, Mirabel had initiated all three hugs between them. Bruno, averse to contact after ten years of isolation, had been reluctant to accept them, much less reciprocate the gesture, although he had pushed himself outside of his comfort zone for the sake of his niece. His friend. However this time, after hearing Mirabel’s admission, her statement of unity, he was the one to pull her back into an embrace, squeezing her with a strength that was comparable to Luisa.

Surprising, given his slight frame. And the fact that he seemed to live a relatively sedentary lifestyle, if the worn down nature of his chair (and the fact that he was almost always sitting in it when she came to visit) were any indication.

“Thank you, Mirabel.”

Bruno’s eyes were glassy, thick tears brimming and ready to spill. There was no way for Mirabel to see this, obviously, because that’s just how hugs worked, but she could hear it in his voice. The emotion, years of neglect and isolation, of being so tantalizingly close yet so far from his family, only for it all be undone by Mirabel. For her to bridge the gap and serve as the liaison between him and the Madrigals.

When she had first found him, a little secret tucked away, she had thought that he had been the one helping her. But now, now that she knew that he was her family, her Tío, she realized that in a way, she had helped him just as much.

Maybe he hadn’t been wrong about her gift. Maybe, just maybe, there was an inkling of truth behind it. Maybe, her purpose was larger, more complex than she had initially realized.

Of course, all good things had to come to an end, and Antonio, being a five-year-old with a justifiable lack of recognition towards moments as significant and emotional as this, popped his head back in to ruin the mood.

“Um, guys? You still coming?”

Mirabel withdrew from her Tío, craning her neck to see Antonio at the doorway, her musings about the true nature of their friendship and her own purpose within the family being temporarily forgotten. “We’re right behind you, Tonito!” she called. Patting Bruno on the shoulders, she walked past him, and she could hear him following her close behind.

Apologies and forgiveness were fun and all, but there was no more time for those cloying sentimentalities. They had a miracle to save.