Gift Swap

Part Thirteen

TWs:
Notes: Written along side Camp_Gravity

Mirabel grabbed her uncle's arm and eagerly dragged him into his room. The room didn't hold as many stairs to get to the vision room.

Mirabel sighed. "Let's try to get up there so we can figure out this mess."

"There's still a lot of stairs...."

"Let's start climbing then." She nodded with determination and started going up them. Bruno followed her up.

Mirabel had hardly been in Bruno's room and had only climbed those stairs three or four times before. She was not used to it. When they got to the top, she was panting and barely able to stand properly.

Bruno eventually got caught up with her at the top, not even seeming a little winded. He had gone up much slower than she did, mostly cause a rat kept decided to jump out of his hair,  and he was more used to the long climb.

Mirabel huffed, catch her breath. "See?" she said in between heavy pants, "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

He chuckled and set his rat back into his hair. "Are you okay?

"Of course I am!" she assured with a nod, "Let's get to that cave now before things might get weirder here."

"Just gotta cross the bridge and into the hallway to the cave."

She nodded. "Let's do that then."

Bruno led the way this time, happily humming to himself. Mirabel followed behind him, her legs already starting to ache with all the steps she's taken to get up here.

She wondered how Bruno wasn't exhausted like she was. Completely forgetting for a moment this was his room.

They soon made it to the dark and sandy cave.

"Okay. Uhm." Bruno paused, not knowing how to explain how to use the gift he had been given.

Mirabel took some charge and stood in the center of most of the sand.

Bruno watched her and sighed. "I still don't think this is a good idea."

She looked over at him. "We have to try. We can find out what's going and possibly figure out how to fix it."

"But what if you get hurt from this?"

"Did you ever get hurt when looking into the future?"

"For the first year, I always passed out afterwards."

Mirabel pursed her lips. "I don't care. We have to do this."

He sighed then nodded. "Right. How do I explain this...?"

"How about you just show me? Show me how you would do it."

Bruno nodded and grabbed one of the many buckets of sand around the room. Mirabel stepped back a bit to give him some space to watch.

He slowly poured the sand into a circle and dropped four droplets of it into a square and one final one in the center of it. He marked the five drops of the sand in the canter with pebbles cracking from the cave and sat down in the circle, taking a matchstick out. Bruno lit it to light the center marks in the circle and waited for the usual events to happen, but they didn't come.

He sighed with some defeated and looked down. "And that's how I do it."

Mirabel had watched carefully and nodded. "Okay. I guess I'll give it a try now."

He nodded. "Good luck."

She nodded and sat in the circle after Bruno blew out the small fires and handed her a new lit matchstick. Bruno held her hands as the sand around them started to swirl.

Mirabel's eyes started to glow green as pictures started to form in the sand surrounding them. Bruno looked around to try and make out the images.

"I... I think I see someone." Mirabel pointed out.

Bruno nodded, squinting to try and see who. "But who?"

"I don't know..." she tried to look closer but then turned to see another image, "Wait, over there!"

Bruno looked over. "Mamí?"

"It's abuela." Mirabel concluded, "She looks... sad."

"But why?"

"I don't know." she replied and looked over at the other image that was previously blurry but was now going into focus, "And that's... us."

He nodded. "I think we're talking to mamá."

"But about what? What's going on here?"

Bruno thought. "Maybe... we tell her?"

Mirabel blinked, surprised at the idea. "But we can't tell her! She'll get mad and blame us!"

Bruno sighed and nodded. "I know..."

Mirabel nodded and kept that image in her mind of abuela getting frustrated at everyone while she continued to watch the pictures in the sand. The scene ended in a big family group hug and everyone's gifts returning to the rightful person.

Mirabel's eyes widened with shock as she saw the picture as the wind started to slow, causing the circling of the sand to start to die down. The sand fell onto them and Bruno simply dusted the sand off his poncho.

Mirabel held her hands up to try to block the sand from touching her face, and suddenly a green crystal board fell into her hands, showing the last image they saw.

"Welp, there we have it."

She looked down at the picture in her hands and frowned. "But... wouldn't she be upset? She wants us to be perfect and our gifts to help others, she would freak out if she found out we had the wrong one's and weren't using them properly!"

"May I see the vision?" Bruno smiled. "And it shows that it'll be okay."

She sighed. "I guess it does..." she nodded while handing him the crystal board.

He took it and gently brushed aside the sand on top of it. "It's going to be okay."

Mirabel nodded. "Let's go round everyone up for a family meeting then. First without abuela and then we tell her."

"Sounds good." Bruno stood up and put the crystal tablet under his armpit. "Let's go."