The Madrigals' guest
On a nice mid-June morning, Mirabel Madrigal was set on a mission.
It was her everyday mission but a mission nonetheless.
Make your family proud.
She tried and tried every day and worked hard, though the problem was that people didn’t let her work hard because of what had happened ten years ago at her ceremony. She hadn’t gotten a gift like the rest of the family. And apparently, that meant she couldn’t do anything.
When she arrived at breakfast, though, she was surprised when instead of the hurried cup of coffee the family would have every day before going into town, everyone was sitting and turning to Abuela Alma.
A family meeting? Mirabel thought, confused. Antonio’s ceremony was approaching; maybe they would be organising the party?
“Everyone, a word,” said Abuela, “We have a guest, he’ll be staying with us for the time being.”
Mirabel shared a confused look with the rest of the family, “A guest, Abuela?” asked Isabela, “Who is he?”
“We don’t know his name,” said Mirabel’s Mamá Julieta, “But he’s injured and very sick, so he’ll stay with us for a while.”
“I want you all to be very careful,” continued Abuela, “He’s an outsider and though we’ll help because that is what we swore to do, we’ll have to be careful of this man’s intentions.”
“An outsider?” said Luisa, worried, “How?”
“We don’t know, we’ll have to find out,” said Julieta, and Mirabel noticed her sharing a look with her father, “But for now he’s very sick and injured, as I said, so he’s not a threat.”
Abuela gave a look, but Mirabel’s Mamá challenged her with her eyes, winning.
“Please, everyone,” said Abuela, turning away from her daughter’s stare, “Keep quiet and away from the guest room as much as you can. We still have our duties to think about. La familia Madrigal!”
“La familia Madrigal!”
That was all the family Madrigal knew of the ‘guest’ for a while.
Soft moans and mumblings came from the guest room, in which only Mirabel’s mother and father would go, in and out, with towels that came out drenched in blood and bowls that came out full of sick.
Sometimes, the guest’s voice could be heard through Casita, him – they knew it was a man, at the very least – shouting in a foreign language Mirabel couldn’t identify. Probably no one in Encanto could, though once she saw Isabela and Dolores exchange a confused look, as if they remembered something.
Mirabel had been changing the sheets and towels in her room when she noticed Antonio hanging around the guest room.
“Toñito, what are you doing?” she hissed, waving her hand to call him to her, “You know we’re not supposed to go near the guest room.”
“But no one’s here,” replied her little cousin, “He’s sad. Maybe we can keep him company?”
Mirabel opened her mouth to tell him no, but from the guest room’s ajar door came soft moans, almost the whines of a dog. In fact, if her mother hadn’t talked about a guest, Mirabel would have thought a dog was in the room.
It was a pitiful sound, and before she knew it, Mirabel had followed Antonio in the guest room and had approached the bed.
Mirabel sat in the chair next to the bed, Antonio in her lap.
The sight was just as pitiful as the sound had been.
The guest was a ragged man, with long, dark, matted hair and a gaunt, emaciated face. He was skinny, too skinny, his face pale, and an arm bandaged. Mirabel guessed that her mother hadn’t managed to have him eat or drink anything, or else he’d be better.
He looked trapped in a nightmare and would toss and turn, mumbling something that neither Mirabel nor Antonio could understand.
Ever the sweetest boy, Mirabel saw her little cousin reach out and touch the man’s hand, and the stranger turned sharply to him, his eyes barely open.
He said something that they did not understand, but Mirabel could see that he was probably almost conscious.
“Señor? Can you hear me, Señor?” she asked softly, “How are you feeling?”
“Mirabel?”
“Mamá!” Mirabel jumped as if she’d been caught on fire, leaving Antonio next to the bed, “I – we were just – he was alone, and we thought –"
“Tía, he was alone and crying,” said Antonio quickly.
Julieta, who had been on the verge of reprimanding them, softened immediately, as it usually was the case with Antonio’s sweet nature. She didn’t say anything when Mirabel’s little cousin turned once again to the man in the bed, “Señor?” Antonio called softly, “Señor, it’s alright, my Tía is here, she can make you feel better.”
Julieta had Mirabel and Antonio move aside so she could see what was going on. Mirabel saw her check the stranger’s temperature, and to her surprise, he did look towards her mother when she called him softly, “Señor? Are you awake?”
He looked at Antonio’s scared expression and reached out with his hand to pat his hair weakly, saying something again with his blood-covered lips curled up in a small smile, probably trying to comfort Mirabel’s cousin, who looked scared and sad at this man’s plight.
“Señor,” Julieta called again (though Mirabel wondered why bother since the man clearly didn’t understand her), putting an arm around his shoulders to prop him up from the pillows and offering an arepa, “Señor, please, try to eat at least a bite of this.”
He mumbled something unintelligible, but his eyes were focused enough for him to smile weakly at Julieta and say something in his language. It seemed to Mirabel that what he said was some kind of compliment? Of course, she couldn’t be sure, not knowing the language, but the tone and his expression didn’t leave much room for interpretation.
Julieta, too, must have understood the intention, if not the meaning of his words, because she smiled and put the arepa on his lips again.
Mirabel let out a sigh of relief when she saw his Adam’s apple go up and then down as he swallowed the arepa.
She and Antonio watched together as the tension in his body let him go, and he looked confused when he was able to fall back down the sheets, completely exhausted but not in pain anymore.
He mumbled something that could have been a ‘thanks’ and closed his eyes again.
The morning after the man’s fever broke and a couple of days later, Mirabel woke up early as usual to call for the rest of the family but was surprised to find that her father and uncle Félix were already up and about.
“Hey, Mirabel,” Tío Félix beamed at her, carrying some towels drenched with dirt and blood. He, of course, noticed her noticing what he had in his hands, “Our guest’s much better.”
“What are those?”
“Oh, your Papi and I helped him take a bath, now that he’s better,” Tío Félix explained, while Mirabel’s father patted her cheek as he passed with a bundle of clean clothes.
“We figure my clothes are probably the best for him,” Agustín said, “He’s pretty tall. Go help your Mamá in the kitchen, Mirabel, we’ll come down soon.”
And indeed, they did.
Mirabel had obeyed her father and gone down to the kitchen to help her mother and was joined by her sisters, cousins, aunt, and grandmother.
Abuela was soon calling them all to order, as they all sat for breakfast, “Everyone, our guest is feeling better, so he will join us for breakfast. I expect you all to be on your best behaviour, not to hound him with questions and overwhelm him with chaos. Make your family proud.”
She was talking to all of them, but Mirabel noticed that she was looking straight at her as if talking to her in particular. Not even Camilo was on Abuela’s radar, and he was sneaking food in his pockets again.
Mirabel didn’t ponder too much on the implications of her grandmother’s behaviour, she knew that her grandmother loved her even if she was always so much harder on her than the others because she didn’t have a gift.
She also didn’t ponder too much on her grandmother’s behaviour because at that moment, Mirabel’s father and uncle came into the kitchen, bringing the stranger with them.
Now that he wasn’t dirty and bloodied, Mirabel and the rest of the Madrigals were able to see what he looked like much better.
He was tall, not Luisa-like tall but like Agustín tall, with long, dark hair that could rival Isabela’s in length and beauty if he took some time to take care of them and a thin frame. Agustín’s clothes hung on him even though when it came to length, they were clearly fitting him fine.
He was pale, paler than Tía Pepa, the Madrigal with the fairest skin, and had dark circles under his eyes. He clearly wasn’t of the same ethnicity as them, but he had refined features, high cheekbones which gave him a haughty look and very particular grey eyes. If he wasn’t so sick-looking and obviously starved, Mirabel could see that he was a very handsome man, even more handsome than Mariano Guzman, Isabela’s almost fiancé and the town’s heartthrob.
His dishevelled appearance, though now mitigated by her father’s clothes and his combed hair, would have made him perfect for a villain in a story if he hadn’t such a curious glint in his haunted eyes and a kind smile as he waved at them in greeting.
“Here, Señor,” said Mirabel’s father Agustín, gesturing towards all of them, “This is our family. Everyone, this is Señor – er – I’m sorry, we haven’t even asked your name…”
“Oh, right,” the stranger said, “My name is Sirius Black.”
Mirabel watched his face make an odd expression as if worried about something, but when they didn’t react, he just relaxed with a tentative smile.
“Welcome, Señor Black, to La Casa Madrigal,” said Abuela solemnly with the dignified tone she usually used when in company of people that were not of the family – and sometimes even with the family.
He regarded the family for a moment as if considering something as he took in all their appearances and immediately strode to Abuela, who looked torn between her wariness of a stranger and her need to uphold the family’s reputation and, of course, their role as ‘leaders of the community’ in general. The man took her hand and kissed it gallantly, “Please, call me Sirius, Madam, and thank you for having me in your home.”
Mirabel didn’t dare smirk at the scene. Sirius had made a move that gained sympathetic smiles from the ladies – did Dolores and Isabela giggle? – and even an appreciative look from Abuela.
“You’ll have to forgive my broken Spanish, I’m not used to speaking the language,” Sirius said pleasantly.
“On the contrary,” said Julieta, “You speak quite well. Where did you learn?”
The smile he gave them was both extremely happy and extremely sad; it tore at Mirabel’s heart to watch him as he looked out of the window longingly, “Someone I met long ago. Such an extraordinary person. I learnt hoping we could talk again one day…” he paused as he looked at her, frowning as he examined her, “Were you the one looking after me? I was a bit out of it.”
“You don’t say,” deadpanned Camilo, “You screamed your head off –"
His father slapped him upside the head.
“Yes, I was the one looking after you,” said Julieta, ignoring the exchange, and Sirius’s bemused but entertained expression turned to her again, “I’m Julieta.”
Sirius smiled at her, “Thank you for taking care of me and sorry if I ‘screamed my head off’,” he said, grinning good-naturedly at Camilo, who grinned back. He looked back at Julieta, “You have kind eyes, like him.”
Julieta didn’t know how to feel about the compliment because the faraway look Sirius had while mentioning this person of his was both very flattering and borderline inappropriate. He must have cared a lot for this person.
“Please, please, do sit down,” said Pepa, waving at a free chair.
Sirius, Félix and Agustín sat down at the table and immediately Julieta presented them with their breakfast, “You need your strength,” she explained to Sirius when he looked up at her, a little scared at the quantity of food on his plate, “You’ll stay here with us, till I deem you well enough to travel.”
“Oh – well, thanks,” he said, his eyes moving to Abuela, whose lips were pressed in a thin line, clearly disagreeing with Julieta, “Though I don’t want to impose. You were all kind enough to look after me,” Julieta’s head whipped to her mother, and it was uncanny how she could challenge while her expression stayed so kind.
Julieta gave a look to Pepa, who glanced at their mother too, “Just eat,” she said.