agustin looked at the cover of a book called 'axalotl' it showed bruno looking like his 15 year old self
"Miracles are rare, or else they wouldn't be miracles. They differ from other causes of wonder in many ways, of which their exceptional rarity is only one. Another is that they don't come without lessons, without meaning. The simplest miracle is strangely animated by the sense of something greater: the sense, perhaps, of a mysterious voice talking, of which that miracle, which is all that can be heard, is only one syllable.
Magic, though: that's more common than you'd think. It's just that magic likes to hide. And is very, very good at it.
One day, when Mirabel, Isabela, and Camilo were walking along the bank of a river, looking in the shallow water for veins of clay that they could take note of for the village potters, Isabela saw something she shouldn't. Or maybe something she should. Magic keeps secrets even from storytellers.
"That can't be right," said Isabela. "That's an axolotl."
"So?" asked Camilo, who had never heard of an axolotl.
"So, they don't live anywhere near here. They're from a region that's — you'd have to travel for three months to get there. At least. Completely different flora. Bacopa, hairgrass, floating crystalwort. I read about it in one of my books about plants."
"I knew that," said Camilo. "You're not the only one who reads."
"I wonder what it's doing here," Isabela said, taking a step forward to look more closely at the little animal; gently, so as not to scare it. The creature was the size of a hand's length. It had an almost translucent pink body, feet that looked like clever little hands, and feathery tufts that surrounded its head like a mane.
"We should catch it and bring it to Antonio," Mirabel suggested. "If it got lost somehow, maybe we can help it get home."
As if it could hear her, the axolotl bristled its mane almost indignantly and scooted a few inches backwards in the water.
"I don't think it will let us catch it," said Isabela. "Take a good look. This is probably the only axolotl we'll ever see."
The Madrigals crouched down and looked at the axolotl's little pink face; it looked back at them with gold eyes. From up close, its face looked almost like a mask, as though its features had been hammered out of gold. It wore an impassive, almost ancient expression.
Physically, nothing felt strange when it happened. The Madrigals were standing on the bank of the river, looking with interest and curiosity at the little face with gold eyes that watched them from under the rippling water. No transition and no surprise, they saw the gold eyes watch them from the bank of the river, where the creature sat beside their muddy footprints. A moment later, they realized, with a start, that they were standing in the water, facing the opposite direction from where they stood before. They shrieked and drew back from their inspection of the little animal. The water only reached their ankles, but nobody likes to be suddenly and inexplicably wet.
They scrambled out of the river, gabbling at each other. The axolotl slithered out of their way and into the water. If they were looking carefully — if they thought to look for this at all — they would have seen that the trees were just slightly different than they'd been before, that the river had a slightly different edge, that the stones sat upon each other in different configurations. But who would ever look for such a thing?
With a swish of its tail, the axolotl slipped away into the murk of the river.
***
The Madrigals had been back in the village for only a few minutes when Mirabel realized something was wrong.
