Sofía and Mirabel looked back at each other. “I wish I could’ve seen more”
“Wait…”
They burst back into the room, startling Bruno, causing him to throw the rat in his hands over his shoulder. “You ‘wish you could’ve seen more.’ So see more!” Mirabel exclaimed.
“Have another vision!” Sofía agreed.
“Oh, uh, no, no, see, I don’t, I don’t do visions anymore.” Bruno stuttered.
“But ya could!” Mirabel insisted.
“But I won’t.”
“You can’t say ‘the weight of the world is on your shoulders, the end.’ If our fate’s up to me, ‘me’ says have another vision, maybe it’ll show me what to do—”
Look, even if I wanted to, which I don’t, you wrecked my vision cave, which is a problem ‘cause I need a big open space—”
“We’ll find one!” Sofía said.
“Where?”
“Use my room.” Antonio’s sweet voice said.
They turned around to see smiling Antonio, a ton of animals with him.
“The rats told me everything,” he said before he noticed his jaguar about to eat two or three rats. “Don’t eat those.”
The jaguar backed off, disappointed that he lost his meal.
“Our family needs help,” Mirabel told him. “And you need to get outta here.”
Bruno looked at the rats cleaning themselves with his toothbrush... and then licking the toothbrush.
“Mmm… yeah,” he murmured.
***
Casita began to shake within Antonio’s jungle room. Feeling the tremor, animals flew away and ran off scared.
“We might wanna hurry,” Mirabel commented.
“Ya can’t hurry the future,” Bruno said as he poured sand around them in a large circle. “Uh…” Antonio’s chiguiro sat in Bruno’s path. He side-stepped around it and continued to pour the sand before sitting down. “And what if I show you something worse? If I see something that you don’t like, you’re gonna be all, ‘Bruno makes bad things happen, oh, he’s creepy and his vision killed ma’ goldfish.’”
“I don’t think you make bad things happen,” Sofía said.
“Sometimes family weirdos just get a bad rap.” Mirabel agreed. “You can do this.”
Antonio handed Bruno a stuffed jaguar. “For the nerves.” He smiled at Bruno and nodded, then headed off on his live jaguar.
Bruno looked down at the stuffed jaguar, then up to Mirabel and Sofía, considering. Then, with a weighty exhale, Bruno reached into his ruana and took out a handful of salt then he threw it behind his back.
“I can do this. I can do this. I can do this, I can do this.”
Bruno lit a match, which he used to ignite piles of wet leaves. As the smoke began to spiral around the three of them, Bruno closed his eyes... entering a trance-like state.
The magic filled the room, the entire room beginning to glow in the light of his eyes, the wind kicked up, blowing leaves and sand that began to swirl around Mirabel, Sofía, and Bruno, glowing brighter and brighter.
“You might wanna hang on!” Bruno said, holding his hands out to the two of them. Sofía and Mirabel each took one of his hands before taking each others.
YOU ARE READING
Abre Los Ojos || Camilo Madrigal
RomanceSofía Valdez and her twin brother Leo have been through a lot. Their mother died in a fire when they were young and have been on the run since, traveling from orphanage to orphanage. But after returning from the war ending in Gaea's defeat, Sofía le...
