MagicalMadrigals

Pepa had always known her gift was dangerous.

She'd learned that before she'd even finished learning her letters and numbers.

When she got frustrated, thunder cracked overhead.

When she cried, she ruined weddings.

When her feelings began building up inside, the whole town seemed to tremble.

Over the years, she had taught – or rather forced – herself to suppress her emotions even when they were raging within. She had smiled when her mother gave her that look. The look that told her to behave. To be more like her hermana, Señorita Perfecta Julieta, who never put a foot wrong. She had shooed clouds away when they began to gather over her head, leading the townspeople to gravitate towards their homes in anticipation of her next disaster. Most of the time, these days, she succeeded. It was easier now. Easier to ignore her emotions. Easier to pretend that she was fine, reminding herself her feelings didn't matter that much.

Or, at least, it had been until about six months ago when he came into her life and successfully tore down all her walls.

There had been no doubt in her mind that he would come after her when she got up from the table in the middle of dinner, fed up with the constant needling from her mother and the teasing from Bruno and the pitying looks from Julieta. Now here she was, pacing back and forth in the pouring rain, soaked red curls stuck to her face, and there he was – Félix Moreno – standing mere feet away from her, shirt probably ruined and dark eyes holding nothing but love for her.

"Pepí, mi tormenta, come back inside and we—"

"No!" Thunder clapped in the distance as she turned away from him, hands raking through her curls, electricity pricking uncontrollably at the tips of her fingers. "You can't fix me, Félix. You can't stop me because I can't stop myself. Don't you think I want to? Don't you think I've tried? I don't want to live like this!"

"I don't want to fix you." He told her gently.

She laughed, a tearful – almost broken – little sound that made his chest tighten. "Of course, you do. Everyone does. Mamá, Julieta, everyone in town."

"Pepí."

"Just go home. You don't need to—"

He reached her with three long strides, seizing her by the wrists and turning her to look at him, her chest heaving as he pulled her in until their faces were inches apart. "Listen to me," His voice was soft. "You don't need fixing. There is nothing wrong with you. The problem lies with them. They are the ones who made you like this, your mamá more than any of them. She made you afraid of yourself and no matter how much I respect her, I hate her for that. I'm sorry, but I do."

"Félix, I can't do this right now, please, just—" She shook her head, working to loosen his hold of her.

"I just want to help you." He sounded almost desperate, his hold of her only tightening.

"Félix!" She snatched her hands back with a sob.

Before she could stop it a hot, blinding light shot from her palm and slammed into his shoulder. He dropped to one knee with a strangled shout of pain, one hand coming up to clutch at where he'd been struck. For a moment, she was numb. The only thing she could do was stand there and stare at him in pure horror, her hand hovering close to her mouth. Somehow though, she succeeded in snapping herself out of it and she fell to her knees in front of him as he squeezed his eyes shut. "No, no, no, no, no," Tears streamed down her face as the rain continued hammering down around them. "Félix, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to, honest."

The air between them was tense and silent for several long moments, but then she heard a sound from him she wasn't expecting in the least.

He chuckled.

It was soft and it was pained, but there was no mistaking it.

He was laughing.

"What the—"

"I always knew you'd be the death of me eventually. I just thought I'd have a little longer than six months."

"Shut up, stupid man!" She snapped, resting a hand over the charred fabric of his shirt before undoing the buttons with trembling hands and moving the fabric to one side to see the damage. Her stomach turned at the furious red welt on his skin, her fingers tracing it tenderly as she made herself look at him. "I hurt you."

He shook his head. "You marked me."

"I need…I need to find Juli. She…she needs to fix this." She stumbled over her own words, palming the tears from her cheeks.

"Who said I want it fixed?" His tone turned serious. "Leave it. Let it prove to the whole town who I belong to."

Her breath trembled. "But Félix."

He hushed her, bringing his hand up to bury in her tangled wet curls as he pressed his mouth to hers. She made a sound in the back of her throat before sinking into him, her arms slipping around his neck as he deepened the kiss and let his hands fall to her waist through her dress. The remnants of electricity still crackled at her fingertips as she threaded her fingers into his curls, but he paid it no mind as he pulled her flush against him, swallowing the little gasp that escaped her. When he pulled back after several long minutes, both of them were panting and he chuckled as he pressed his forehead to hers, feeling her hot breath on his face.

"I'm yours," He managed. "And you, no matter how unpredictable you might be, are mine."

She laughed, relieved, before taking his face in her hands and kissing him once again.

----------

Time had healed wounds but it had changed nothing.

As their recently built Casita slept soundly around them, she laid sated in his arms, a leg hooked over his hip and her curls spread out across his chest. Beneath her, he was in a light sleep, soft snores filling the silence, the dying candle on his nightstand casting an almost angelic glow over him. On instinct, her hand moved up his chest and she stroked her fingers against the jagged edge of the old scar on his shoulder. It had faded, but it was still there. Proof that he was hers.

Proof that, true to his word as ever, he had stayed.

"Mmm…"

She felt more than heard the gentle rumble in his chest, his hand running idly down her spine until it settled upon her hip beneath the sheet.

"Mi tormenta," He mumbled. "Still not asleep?"

She moved over him slightly, lowering her mouth to the scar on his shoulder before pulling back again. "Sleep is for the weak."

He opened one eye then, looking up at her, before he chuckled in the back of his throat and rolled her so she was beneath him, her hand stroking his curls out of his face. "Not my fault I didn't get much last night." He leaned down to kiss her, her mouth soft and warm beneath his own as she laid her hand on his cheek.

"Blaming me?"

"Mhm."

She giggled, the sound becoming a sigh when he began trailing his kisses away from her mouth. He feathered them across her cheek, remembering that little spot behind her ear he had found decades ago now, before turning his attention to her neck as she curled her fingers into the curls at the back of his head. "You really stayed," She tilted her head to give him a larger canvas, her eyes falling closed of their own accord. "All these years – all my storms – you never left."

"I would have been loco." He mumbled against her skin, kissing the underside of her jaw in the way he knew she adored.

"You were loco not to let me get Julieta that night. To heal you. You were in pain for weeks." She reminded him.

He sighed against her throat, kissing her there once more before lifting his head and moving over her again to look at her. "I wanted the reminder. I told you that the night it happened, mi amor. It also made me realize what would have happened to me if I broke your heart, so it was good for two things."

She rolled her eyes, bringing a hand to his chest. "I'm serious."

"So am I," He shrugged. "I'd relive that night a thousand times if I had to."

"I believe you." She whispered, voice laced with emotion.

He kissed her forehead, then the bridge of her nose, his hand cradling her cheek as his mouth found hers once again and he kissed her long and soft and deep. Her hand slid beneath the sheet and found his waist, pulling him down to her until she could feel his warm skin pressed against hers. "I never scared you?"

"Never," He said between kisses. "It was always the other way around. You were scared of you, but you had no reason to be."

She brought her free hand to his cheek, breaking the kiss for a moment. "Félix…"

"Mmm?" He nudged his nose against hers, his breath warm against her face.

"I love you." She told him, her thumb caressing that little grin of his that still managed to set her heart racing after all this time.

"And I love you." He assured her before silencing her for the last time with another kiss.

Ten minutes.

Ten minutes, he said, Mirabel thought to herself as she donned her nightgown.

She probably should have known better than to take Miguel at his word – ‘ten minutes’ never meant ‘ten minutes’ when he was in the middle of a sketch – but she’d given him the benefit of the doubt and gone to put Solana, their little girl, to bed in the nursery, fully expecting to find him waiting for her in their bedroom when she got there. He wasn’t, of course. She had decided to give him until she had gotten ready for bed to make an appearance, but there was still no sign of him and it was clear to her she was going to have to go down to his study and get him. He would spend all night in there if she let him and that just wouldn’t do given there was no doubt in her mind that their girl would be up with the sun in the morning, diving on them and begging them to let her go downstairs and open her presents.

Raking a hand through her wild curls, she turned and made her way out of the bedroom before venturing down the hall to Miguel’s study. The door was ajar, so she pushed it open and entered the room to see him still hunched over his desk, pencil in hand. “Ten minutes, huh?” She made her presence known to him, prompting him to glance over his shoulder at her, and she failed to keep from chuckling when he gave her a sheepish little smile before turning away from her once again. She ventured across the dimly-lit room to him then, putting an arm around him from behind, and when she saw what he had been working on for most of the evening she felt the love she had for him deepen tenfold. He’d made their daughter a storybook for her birthday. A storybook with her as the main focus. He’d been working on it for weeks, carefully planning each little detail of her adventure, and now it seemed as though he was finally on the last page. “Oh, amor, she’s gonna love it.”

“I just can’t get this last page the way I want.” He grumbled while erasing another faint line.

“It doesn’t need to be perfect,” She reminded him. “She’s not going to mind.”

He sighed deeply, leaning back in her embrace. “I know, but I do. Give me ten more minutes?”

“Tell you what,” She stroked his hair away from his face when he tilted his head back to look at her. “I want to go down and make sure mi mamá is getting on alright before we head to bed, so you have until I come back upstairs to get this finished. If you’re still sitting in here when I get back, I’ll drag you to bed myself, got it?”

The corner of his mouth curled into a small smirk. “Is that a threat or a promise?”

“Mmm, yeah, nice try.” She hummed, leaning in to kiss him softly.

“I love you. You know that?” He asked when she pulled back.

“Of course,” She told him. “I love you too. Now get back to work.”

Taking her arm from around him, she left him to get on with his sketch and made her way back out of the room before closing the door behind her to make sure he had no distractions. She then headed for the staircase and slid down the railing, padding through the courtyard to the kitchen so that she could go and look in on her mother. It was clear the moment she walked into the room that something was bothering her. She had gone completely overboard with the food for tomorrow – there were plates upon plates of all kinds of treats laid out over the table and the kitchen counters – and she only really did that when there was something on her mind. She had every intention of talking to her about it, but then she heard the sound of shuffling bare feet and noticed the little dark curls poking out from behind her skirts. Putting a hand on her hip, she cleared her throat and Solana slowly moved out from behind her abuela. “And what are you doing down here?” She asked.

“I just wanted some milk, Mamá.” Her little girl told her, playing with her hands.

“Uh-huh,” She nodded. “So it had nothing to do with you wanting to sneak a look at your cake for tomorrow?”

Solana glanced at her abuela. “I wanted to see if Abuela started it yet.”

“Mi vida, I already told you that I won’t be icing it until the morning.” Julieta reminded her.

“I know, but I thought you might have changed your mind.” Solana shrugged.

Sharing a look with her mother, Mirabel approached her little girl and scooped her up into her arms. “Do you remember why tomorrow is such a special birthday?”

“I get my gift?” Solana raised an eyebrow at her.

“Mhm,” Mirabel hummed. “Tomorrow is gonna be a very long day. You get all your presents in the morning and then you have your gift ceremony in the evening and your Papá and I don’t want you being too tired to enjoy it. You get a little grumpy when you’re tired and you don’t want to be grumpy at your own party, do you?”

Solana shook her head.

“Then you need to try to get a little sleep.” Mirabel told her, placing a kiss on her forehead.

Moments later, the sound of hurried footsteps and excitable giggles filled the air and Mirabel turned just in time to see Ali, Luca, and Mateo come running into the kitchen with Luci, Lázaro, Elías, and Florencio behind them. “Soso! Papí said we can have a special birthday slumber party in the nursery tonight!” Ali beamed, out of breath.

“Mamá and Tía Isa said we could come too!” Luci added, her little brothers and cousin nodding in confirmation.

Julieta’s chuckling prompted Mirabel to look her way. “So much for her getting some sleep tonight.”

“Yeah…” Bruno rubbed the back of his neck as he entered the room, Mirabel turning to him with a slight smirk. “In hindsight, I probably should have run it by you.”

“Probably,” She teased. “Did you speak to Isa? You know she’ll kill you if you keep Enzo up.”

“Yeah. She and Emil are having him in with them tonight.” He told her.

She rolled her eyes. “So you ran it past her but it didn’t occur to you to run it past me?”

“In my defence, I had three big distractions” He gestured to his chilren.

She thought for a moment before letting out a dramatic, over-exaggerated sigh as she looked at her daughter. “Well, I suppose it is your birthday eve after all…”

Solana’s face lit up. “We can have a slumber party?”

“You can have a slumber party,” Mirabel replied while setting her back on her feet. “But I still want you to get some sleep tonight.”

“I will.” Solana told her.

“Come on, Soso!” Luca grabbed her by the hand and began all but dragging her out of the kitchen, the rest of the children following quickly behind them.

Leaning back against the kitchen table, Mirabel looked at her uncle. “If she’s in a bad mood in the morning because she hasn’t slept, just know I’m blaming you.”

Bruno shrugged. “I’m used to it. Night.”

He left the kitchen then to follow the children upstairs to the nursery and once she was alone with her mother, Mirabel looked over at her once more with a soft sigh. “Mamá? Are you okay?” She asked her after standing there in silence for several long seconds, her mother looking over her shoulder at her as she washed up a bowl.

“What makes you ask that?” Julieta asked.

“Uh…” She looked around at the numerous plates of treats. “You may have gone a little overboard with the treats for tomorrow.”

“You know how busy Casita gets during a ceremony. We’ll get through them.” Julieta reminded her.

She knew there was something her mamá wasn’t saying and so she moved away from the table, taking three small steps towards her before turning and leaning back against the counter. “It’s about Solana’s ceremony tomorrow night, isn’t it? It being the first one without Abuela? You don’t have to pretend, Mamá, not with me.”

Julieta was silent for a moment, but then she reached for the towel on the counter and used it to dry her hands while turning to face her daughter. “I don’t want to let her down,” She shrugged. “I don’t even really know what I’m doing. She made it look so easy, she always handled ceremonies so well, but I…I worry I’ll mess it up.”

“Why? You know what you have to say and what you have to do. You watched her do it with all us kids while we were growing up.” Mirabel reminded her.

“I know. It doesn’t make sense,” Julieta chuckled under her breath. “Your pá thinks it has more to do with me still having a hard time with her being gone.”

Mirabel nodded. “I mean, it’s understandable. It’s only been six months, Mamá, it hasn’t been that long. And you spent the most time with her before she…”

“She didn’t prepare me for any of this,” Julieta said quietly. “She thought she had more time. So did I. But now I’m here and I’m just trying to make her proud.”

Hearing the slight waver in her voice, Mirabel wrapped her arms around her on instinct, pulling her into a hug. “You’re doing amazing.”

“You think so, mi amor?” Julieta asked into her hair.

“Yeah, I do,” Mirabel smiled. “I don’t know how you do it. There are twenty-five – nearly twenty-six – people in this house and somehow you manage to keep it all going while running your stall every day at the same time. Abuela would be super proud of you, I know she would. She’d be as proud of you as all the rest of us are.”

Julieta blinked back the tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “That means a lot to me. Gracias.”

“You’ll do great at the ceremony tomorrow night too,” Mirabel assured her, lifting her head from her shoulder to look at her. “You have nothing to worry about.”

“You are wonderful, you know that?” Julieta reached up to stroke a curl back behind her daughter’s ear.

Mirabel shrugged. “I learned from the best.”

“You should go and get some sleep,” Julieta told her, running a hand down her arm. “Soso is going to have us all up before sunrise no doubt.”

Mirabel couldn’t help but laugh. “Believe me, I know. You should get to bed too. Much longer and Pá will come looking for you, you know he will.”

“I’ll finish these last few dishes and then I’ll go up,” Julieta told her. “You don’t have to worry about me, mi vida, I’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure?” Mirabel raised an eyebrow.

“I’m sure.”

“Good. Well, goodnight, Mamá.”

“Goodnight.”

She turned and made her way out of the kitchen then, brushing her hair from her face with a sigh as she walked back into the courtyard. She knew her mother would do fine tomorrow night. She would be nervous all day, no doubt, that was to be expected, but when the time came for the ceremony she would handle it perfectly. With all the care and the passion that her abuela had in all those years prior. She was going to make her so proud of her, there was no doubt in her mind about that.

She just needed to have more faith in herself.

The same faith that everyone else did.

—————

She had been making her way back to her bedroom, exhausted and more than ready to just fall into bed, when she heard the sound of laughter and squeals coming from the nursery and now she found herself walking down the hall again. Stopping outside the room, she took a breath before turning the doorknob and opening the door only to be greeted with sheer chaos. Her tío was nowhere to be seen, the children having been upped and left in the care of Camilo and Valeria in the time she had been in the kitchen with her mother, and now the lot of them were engrossed in a serious pillow fight. Not exactly the early night she had envisioned for her girl. Camilo was the first to notice her standing there and he stopped, mid-swing, shooting her that silly grin of his as the others quietened. “Hiya, cuz.” He greeted her.

“Uh…” She looked around the room. “Where’s Tío Bruno?”

Valeria chuckled behind her pillow. “He and Isela said something about a…uh…early night for once. Asked us to take charge.”

She made a face. She was happy for her tío, of course, but his love life was something she had zero interest in hearing about. “And this is taking charge?”

“You can’t have a slumber party without a pillow fight!” Camilo said, swinging his pillow at Solana, making her giggle as she fell back onto the bed. “Wanna join us?”

“Yeah, no, I’m going to bed.” She replied, lifting her glasses from her nose and running a hand wearily over her face before replacing them again.

He pouted. “You used to be so much more fun.”

“Mamá is boring.” Solana giggled.

Mirabel feigned hurt. “I am not boring, thank you very much. I just know a certain little mariposa is going to come diving on me in a few hours and I need my sleep.”

“Because she’s old.” Camilo whispered to the nearly five-year-old, only making her giggle more.

Taking the pillow from Lucinda, Mirabel launched it hard at her sobrino. “We’re the same age! Actually, you’re a month older than me!”

“She has a point, mi amor.” Valeria laughed.

“Who’s side are you on?” Camilo asked, whacking her with his pillow.

Shaking her head at the nonsense, Mirabel couldn’t help but laugh. “Just make sure Soso goes to sleep before midnight, por favor.”

“Will do,” He assured her. “Now, if you don’t mind, we were kinda in the middle of something here.”

She muttered a quiet goodnight before heading back out of the room and closing the door behind her, the laughter starting up once again moments later. She was a little worried that it would be long past midnight by the time the lot of them eventually crashed and fell asleep, but she didn’t really mind. Not as much as she had tried to make out. It was a special occasion and she didn’t mind her little girl having a rare late night, a bit of fun, especially when she had one of the most important days of her life ahead of her. She was going to make her so proud. Miguel too, she was certain, but they would make it clear to her that her gift wasn’t everything.

There would be no pressure.

There would be no expectations.

They would love her unconditionally.

Yawning into the back of a hand, she padded back down the hall to the bedroom she shared with her husband and finally made her way back inside, glad to see him tucked up in bed with a book rather than still at his desk in his study. “And she complains at me for coming to bed too late,” Miguel teased, saving his place in the book with his thumb and setting it down in his lap while she approached the bed. “I completed that last page and I’ve finished two chapters while you’ve been gone.”

She rolled her eyes at him as she pulled back the covers and climbed into bed, removing her glasses and folding them neatly before putting them on her nightstand. He closed his book and set it down on his own nightstand then, Casita dimming the lights as he opened his arms to her and let her settle into his side. They were silent for a time then, his fingers running along her arm through her nightgown as she listened to the steady thump of his heart beneath her ear, but then she tilted her head back on his chest to look at him. “I keep thinking…” She said. “What if it happens again? What if I’ve…rubbed off on her? What if she doesn’t get a gift?”

“Where’s that come from?” He frowned.

“It’s something I’ve always worried about,” She confessed. “I can ignore it normally, but these past few weeks – thinking about the ceremony – it’s been impossible.”

He thought for a moment. “It’s possible, I suppose. I don’t know how the miracle works in situations like this.”

“Me neither,” She admitted quietly. “It’s not her not getting a gift that worries me. Not entirely. It’s the thought of her going up there in front of the whole town and it happening.”

“I know,” He kissed her forehead, sighing against her skin. “But you’re worrying about something that hasn’t happened and might not.

“I know. I just know how it feels, that’s all.”

“Then you’ll be the perfect person to deal with it if it does happen. But I don’t want you spending the whole day worrying tomorrow. I want you to enjoy yourself.”

Curling a hand into the front of his nightshirt, she snuggled closer to him. “I will. I can’t believe she’s five already.”

“Me neither,” He shook his head. “Getting old, you and me.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” She laughed.

“Who—”

“Cami.”

“Ah.”

The two of them chuckled, settling further down beneath the quilt.

“I promise,” He mumbled into her hair after they had lain together in silence for a time. “No matter the outcome tomorrow night, nothing will change. Not where I’m concerned anyway. I know what it is to love someone without a gift and it’s the easiest thing ever. It’ll be just as easy for me to love her as it is for me to love you.”

She gave him a watery smile. “Mamá was right. You really are perfect.”

He smiled as his hold of her tightened. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” She assured him, accepting the kiss he gave her before Casita turned the lights down the rest of the way.

They settled properly then, his hand rubbing a warm path up and down her back through her nightgown as she tucked her head into the side of his neck with a sigh. That worry still niggled in the back of her mind. The thought of their girl reaching her door only for it to vanish right in front of her as it had for her all those years ago. She couldn’t change it though. She just had to believe that the candle knew what it was doing now just as it had back then. That her little girl would be fine in the end.