Finding Mirabel

The Day After

Waking up there was a single blissful moment. Just a treasurable second when she couldn't remember what happened yesterday.

Without opening her eyes, she still noticed the smell of the room being different, the texture of the sheets being raspier. When she finally opened her eyes and sat up, she realized she wasn't in her bedroom.

Julieta remembered. And she wished she wouldn't have. Agustín also stirs next to her feeling her movement.

"Juli?" He wiped the tiredness out of his eyes and sighs looking at her. She can see the moment he too realizes, remembers. And it's probably even worse than when she felt it. Seeing it on her beloved face was even worse.

Grief doesn't have a face until you see it in the face of someone you love. She didn't ever want to see it ever again and she tries to soothe it as she always does.

"Let's go out looking again, mi amor." She says.

He looks like he was startled out of his daydreaming. "Yes. You're right. I'm sorry."

"Please don't ever apologize for feeling." She needed to assure him. She needed to assure herself.

She put her hand on his cheek looking into his eyes and could already feel her eyes watering again by just looking at him. Looking away she tried not to burn the broken look in his eyes into her brain.

She needed to see her daughters, or what was left of them

"I'm going to go downstairs and check on Luisa and Isabela, are you okay here?"

"Yes, of course. I'll be with you in a few minutes, mi amor."

"Te amo. I love you."

"Y yo a ti. And I you."

As she exited the guest bedroom, she walked down the stairs. Going into the living room she spotted her other two daughters laying on the couch holding each other tight. Luisa's head pillowed on Isabela's shoulder, drooling a little. Her arm wrapped around the others' middle.

Julietta walked towards them and crouched down. Looking at their relaxed faces and wiping a stray hair out of Isabela's face. She smiled at their closeness, wishing it could have been like that for all these years.

Although the sun was already starting to rise, and her children probably wanted to go back to searching as soon as possible they could sleep just a little more. They deserved their rest.

Isabela had scared her half to death yesterday. Seeing her eldest making herself so violently sick from being scared, well it terrified her. She, her mother, couldn't help her and her little sister, Luisa, she helped instead. It had reminded her of when she would go to Pepa for comfort after Bruno ran away, they were 40 years old at the time but that didn't change a thing.

"Mamá? Wha-" Luisa was smacking her lips together sleepily trying to get the drool out of the corner of her mouth. Her eyes barely opened. "Wha' are you doin?"

"Just watching you sleep, mi cariño. Try to get some more."

"Alright, Mamá." Without thinking much more she just closed her eyes once more tugged herself closer to her hermana and fell back asleep, Julieta could tell because her breath slowed again.

Her daughters were safe. Two of them at least. And now she's going to make sure her youngest will be too.

Walking out of the house she could see the first rays of sunshine falling over their small town. It was a beautiful sight, one she'd normally treasure and take in. But right now, she didn't have the time.

Getting a few bottles of Aguapanela, a sugary drink, she keeps as emergency stock, that survived the collapse of the house. She puts them into the small pockets of her apron and walks in the direction of the newly cracked mountains. What drew her into that direction, she didn't know.

She walks until she reached a river, she has never been this far out of Encanto before, or at least she can't remember.

Looking all around she decides to follow the river upstream and kept walking until the sun was now shining above her. It was getting really hot, the humidity of the rainforest frizzing up her hair. She should have brought something for herself to eat and drink as well. She probably needs to turn around, she'd be no help for Mirabel dying of thirst here.

Maybe she could take a sip of the river water? As close as she seemed to the origin it was probably quite clean. As she looked around for a spot to have a sip, she noticed the river next to her losing its clearness and instead turning orange. No not orange it was red. She turned her eyes upstream and her heart froze and she saw the water getting redder and redder as her eyes trailed up a small waterfall.

The redness was trickling down from up there and Julietta was too small to see over the edge. The rocky surface on the side of the waterfall looked climbable. She tried not to think about what the redness was. With sweating hands and shaking legs, she held onto the rocks and started climbing

Eventually, her head popped over the ledge and she could finally see where the blood was coming from. It was a corpse. And her hands gripped on tighter onto the rocks out of pure relief because it wasn't a human corpse. It was a Coati that was killed, half-eaten, and left in the river.

As she breathed out in relief, she felt the rock she was so precariously balancing on slipping and with it she slipped down too, down the wall and onto the rocky surface she previously climbed. Her head connected with one of the rocks and with a sickening crack her world turned black.