Encanto Short Stories [FanFiction]

Cracks

TW: This content contains talks about unaliving someone or oneself, bully, and harassment.

This small story is set during the movie after the breakfast scene and follows Dolores. Dolores angst released on her birthday. Lo siento, Dolores, and feliz cumpleaños.

"Sobrina, can you please go into the village for me and pick up some flour and rosemary?" Tía Julieta said from her spot at the table, still eating.
Dolores, tucked a few arepa con huevos, some empanadas, and buñuelos' into her skirt pockets, then looked over to Julieta to check if see if her Tía was watching, or anyone. No one was and everyone was starting to head off for their day in the town.
"Ready to go, Antonio?" Camilo asked their hermanito.
"Parce is going to take me to school from now on, Milo," Antonio answered.
But taking Toñito to school was Camilo's favourite part of the day, Dolores thought.
"Who's Parce?" Camilo asked.
A jaguar suddenly walked out of Casita, startling Dolores who had begun to make her way back inside.
"Don't worry, Dolores, Parce won't hurt you!" Antonio said and ran up to Dolores and the jaguar.
Camilo was right behind him.
The two connected eyes and seemed to have the same worried thought. Their little brother, hanging out with a jaguar.
"You're not going to school, Antonio," Abuela said as she approached the siblings. Their mother rushed up behind them, already looking flushed in her day.
"You're staying with me and Abuela to find out how we can use your gift for the village," Pepa explained.
"A day off school?" Antonio asked. He sounded upset, which to Dolores, made perfect sense, he loved going to class. He loved learning new things and playing with the animals with his friends.
"Camilo, go to the classrooms first today," Abuela ordered.
"Sí, Abuela," Camilo responded.
Abuela looked at Dolores but said nothing before turning to leave. Pepa took Antonio's hand and guided him away from them.
"Wonder if he'll be pulled out of school like I was," Camilo muttered.
"I'll let you know," Dolores responded. "They'll ask for your help in the classrooms today. Señorita María..." Dolores took a moment to listen, again. She could hear the young teacher groaning in her bed. "Is unwell."
"I don't know how they expect me to help teach, I never even went to classes."
"And yet you do well every day you do."
Dolores ruffled her brother's hair before quickly approaching Julieta.
"Tía, Señorita María Cabrera is unwell."
"Do you know what's wrong with her?" Julieta asked.
Agustín also looked towards them, listening to the conversation and worried for his youngest sister.
Dolores listened again. "It sounds like another migraine."
"Thank you for telling us, Dolores. I'll go see her straight away."
"Muchas gracias, Sobrina," Agustín whispered.
Dolores smiled at her Tío before turning back to Casita.
Dolores always made sure to walk through the dining room as she made her way back upstairs.
"Food for you, Tío," she said now she was alone.
From within the walls, Dolores heard the scampering of the rats, and the Tío she wasn't allowed to talk about, beginning to run down the hallway in the walls to get to the portrait. Running? Why?
Did he want to speak with her? It had been so long.
Dolores met with her Tío Bruno at the portrait and he smiled up at her shyly.
"You shouldn't run like that, Tío," Dolores whispered. "One day you're going to hurt yourself."
"Eh. How's Antonio this morning?" Bruno asked just as quietly.
Dolores handed him the food she had snuck away from breakfast as she answered. "Abuela and Mamá are trying to find how his gift can help the village."
"What gift did he get? There were so many people last night I didn't get the chance to come and look."
"He can understand animals, Tío," Dolores explained. "He might start talking to your rats."
Though she joked, one of Bruno's rats stuck its head out of his hair and squeaked at her.
"They wouldn't give me away, right?" Bruno said and took the rat off his shoulder. "You wouldn't tell, right?"
The rat squeaked and jumped over his shoulder. Bruno and Dolores watched the rat scamper back down the dark corridor.
"How are you, Sobrina?" Bruno quickly turned back to Dolores.
She shrugged.
"The music was pretty loud last night. I could hear it from... well..."
"I made due. It was for Toñito after all. Oh, Mamá said he reminds her of you."
Bruno's eyes grew wide.
"Pepa said that?"
"Not directly. She said it to Papí last night before they went to sleep. It's why she's offered to help Abuela find a use for his gift."
"Hmm."
"Are you going to come out soon, Tío?"
"Dolores-"
"I miss you. Isabela misses you. We all miss you."
"Mirabel and Camilo don't even remember me." Bruno gave her a look of serious disbelief.
"You'd be surprised what Camilo remembers. Remember that time he caught you in the kitchen that night-"
"Dolores," she heard Julieta say. "Can you also pick up some cheese from the town? We're starting to run low."
"Tía Julieta wants me to go into town to grab ingredients. I hate doing into town."
"You should tell her that, Sobrina. Juli will understand."
"Abuela won't."
"So don't tell Abuela." Bruno shrugged as if it were obvious, but nothing got through the Madrigal family without making its way to Abuela. Somehow.
"I'll be okay, Tío."
Dolores pulled her thick headband over her ears. A trick Bruno taught her when she was five. He had his ruana hood, she had her headband.
"If it gets too much, Sobrina-"
"I know, Tío, come home. You know I can't. Abuela will be on high alert today. Tonight's the night."
"Tonight's the night?" Bruno asked.
"Mariano proposes to Isabela."
Dolores wasn't looking at her Tío, so she missed how he almost said something but suddenly decided not to.
"Lo siento, Dolores."
"I should get going. It was nice to talk to you again, Tío."
"Oh, Dolores. I'm struggling to write the next episode of Rebecca and Elonzo's love story. Any ideas?"
Dolores had to smile at that. His telenovelas were the highlight of her week.
"I'll ask Camilo. He's as good at telling stories as you are."
"Really?"
Dolores nodded, before quickly reaching into the hole and giving her Tío a hug.
"I really miss you, Tío Bruno," she whispered.
"I miss you, too, kid. But I'm right here. You should get to the village."
Bruno let go of Dolores and covered her ears with a friendly smile then disappeared back into the wall. Dolores closed the portrait behind him and continued to her room to grab her purse.
Dolores adjusted her headband over her ears before making her way out of Casita and into the village. She could hear Camilo arriving at the school, Julieta and Agustín in the kitchen still. Félix beginning to clean up after breakfast. Isabela sulking in her room and... Mirabel talking to Luisa. Well, trying to get Luisa to talk.
Dolores closed her eyes as she walked. She didn't need her eyes as she walked through the village, her senses were already on overload anyway with all the noises of the bustling village life. She could hear the children running around, she could hear Señora Valentina setting up her cafe and all the shop attendants setting up their stalls for the day.
"Nothing's wrong!" Luisa suddenly yelled, making Dolores flinch.
She reached the stalls and the usual happened.
Dolores walking through the streets of Encanto, people gave her a wide girth. They kept their distance from her and their talking became whispers as if they thought she couldn't hear them regardless.
Just like her Tío Bruno, Dolores had become infamous in the village over the last sixteen years with her so-called gift. She knew all their secrets, all their dirty laundry, and they all knew it.
After buying some rosemary, Dolores rushed away to her hiding spot right behind la casa Guzman, to temporarily get away from the stares and the whispers. Though the latter she could never really escape from.
After a few minutes, Dolores jumped off her seat and got back to the village to buy the flour and cheese.
As she approached the cheese stall, Mariano began to practice his song for Isabela.
"You make my heart soar, when you walk in the door, light up my day with your smiling face..."
Her chest squeezed tightly at his delicate words... the man of my dreams would be betrothed to another...
Dolores sighed a heavy sigh before moving on, trying to ignore the words of her the man of her dreams, and the pain it made her feel.
It was when Dolores heard that Mirabel was already in Bruno's tower after being told to check there by Luisa.
How long was I sitting down? Dolores asked herself.
Mirabel was singing to herself as she walked up the tower, it sounded hilarious, mixing horribly with Mariano's serenading.
"There she goes, the witch," someone whispered, immediately grabbing Dolores' attention.
"Dolores Madrigal, talk about a burden to the village."
"Why does Señora Alma let her walk through the village? We're not safe with Dolores around."
"Shh! She'll hear you!"
"She hears us anyway."
"I wish she'd die so we can talk freely."
The group of women laughed.
"She should disappear like her Tío. We're better off without him, we'll be better off without her."
Dolores didn't let them see she could hear them. She could hear every word.
After buying the cheese, Dolores' had enough. She had to get out of the village. Back to her room.
The voices of the villagers telling her to die or disappear, rattled so loudly in her head that she missed Julieta and Agustín leaving his little sister.
"Dolores?" Agustín asked, making Dolores open her eyes before bumping into Julieta.
"Oh, sorry," she muttered.
"Ay, Sobrina, are you okay?" Julieta asked.
Julieta wiped some tears that escaped Dolores' eyes.
"I... ah..." Dolores cleared her throat. "Sí, I'm fine. Just dropping these back at Casita so I have hands to get the flour."
"Don't worry about the flour, Sobrina. I'll ask Luisa to grab some for me on her way home."
"No, I can-"
"Get back to Casita, Dolores," Julieta said softly. Her Tía smiled softly. "Get to your quiet place. I'll get Luisa to pick up some flour for me."
Dolores nodded and Julieta and Agustín kissed to say farewell before Julieta left for her table and Agustín walked with Dolores back to Casita.
Neither of them spoke as they walked. Agustín never knew what to say to her, but he could see the tears, could see the struggle to keep her head up as the village continued to whisper about her long after she'd left.
Agustín took the bags of rosemary and cheese off Dolores.
"So you have your hands free," he whispered.
"Gracias," Dolores whimpered before covering her ears to try and muffle the noise.
Casita not only opened the door for them both but set up the stairs so Dolores would end up directly in front of her room.
"Mija, are you okay?" Félix asked when they walked in.
Dolores ignored her father and ran up the stairs into her room. Closing the door behind her.
She rushed to the one place in the whole Encanto. A room within her room. Her studio. Completely soundproofed.
When she was five, this room inside her room had initially been where her bed was, but as she grew older and picked up more hobbies to distract herself, she moved her bed out of the quiet room and moved in some of her hobbies she preferred to have quiet for. Like Tío Agustín's old piano no one knew she'd saved with Luisa's help. The guitar she'd made herself.
Dolores stood in the middle of her quiet room and looked at the instruments before sitting at the piano and beginning to play. She didn't know any songs other than what she had heard Tío Agustín play, but she also had the habit of playing how she felt. And right now, Dolores was hurting.
She played through her tears. Having no noise other than the piano vibrating off the walls.
For a moment, Dolores was at peace.
And when she was calm, when she felt better. She went to leave her quiet room. The first noise she heard... the familiar sound of Casita breaking.
She froze to listen as she always did. The cracks. She and Mirabel were the only ones inside Casita, though Abuela was coming back, leaving Pepa and Antonio. Oh, Isabela was still in her room. Bruno had noticed the cracks and was already starting to act on them as he usually did. So if Dolores' needed to evacuate everyone, she'd have to get Isabela... Mirabel who was...
Dolores' grip tightened over the doorknob.
Mirabel was at the top of Bruno's tower. In his vision cave. And that's where the sounds of the cracks were coming from!
Fear and panic had Dolores frozen.
"Mirabel, run!" Dolores yelled as if her prima could hear her.
"What?" Bruno said from within the walls. He could always hear Dolores' cries. The walls echoed.
"No, no, no!"
Dolores covered her ears as the tower began to crumble.
Inside the tower, Mirabel must have finally noticed the state of the tower crumbling around her and hurried. She sounded panicked.
"Mirabel, get out of his vision cave! Hurry!" Dolores yelled, again, as if Mirabel could hear as well as she could.
"Oh no..." Bruno muttered.
Dolores began to run out of her room. She heard the repetitive thunk, thunk, thunk of Mirabel pushing her whole weight against the cave door.
She planned to get to the tower, find out how Mirabel crossed the broken bridge, and get her out. Hopefully in time. She kept listening, waiting for either the door to open or Mirabel to go silent.
How would Dolores explain this to her familia? How would she break the news to Tía Julieta and Tío Agustín if she didn't get to Mirabel in time?
What about Isabela and Luisa?
By the time Dolores hit the balcony railing, the door burst open and Mirabel screamed as she fell out with the weight of the sand. Dolores listened as Mirabel relaxed. Only to freak out again.
She's okay, Dolores told herself. She's okay. I don't have to tell them she's gone. I... ay, dios mio. You'll be my death, Mirabel.
Dolores took a steadying breath before returning to her room as Abuela walked in.
"She's okay, Tío," Dolores said to the wall, knowing Bruno was on the other side, as anxious for Mirabel as she had been. "She got out."
"My tower?" Bruno asked.
"Not your whole tower, just your vision cave."
"Ay, dios mio. Thank God she got out. Why was she in my cave? How did she even get in there?"
"I don't know, Tío. Luisa said she should look there for your vision but I don't know how she got in there."
"At least she's safe. Are you okay, Sobrina? That would have been terrifying."
"It was, but I'm okay. She's okay, so I'm okay. I better go, Tío."
Bruno didn't reply as Dolores began to make her way to her quiet room again.
"Oh, Tío Bruno? You really should shave soon. My fave is still itchy after hugging you."
Bruno laughed weakly within the walls.
"Tomorrow, I promise."
Dolores reminded herself to make sure she wasn't doing anything while her Tío shaved. She hated him having anything sharp in his hands.
This time when Dolores sat at the piano, she turned and picked up the guitar to begin playing what she remembered of Mariano's serenade. She pretended it was for her, not for her prima. The pain ripped through her, tearing her heart apart.
She dropped her guitar and cried.