Chapter Text
No Answers
When Mirabel finished, the room slowly emptied, people scattering back to the rhythm of survival. Only a handful remained—those too tired to leave, those with no place else to go.
Sandy Joy was still in her corner. She had not moved, not even when the boy’s laughter rang out or when Antonio’s dog padded across the room.
Her single eye was fixed on the floor, her scarred cheek hidden in shadow. The tin cup trembled in her grip, though it was long empty.
Mirabel hesitated. She had always been bold with children, fearless with animals, even daring enough to sing to strangers in the street.
But Sandy’s sorrow was a different kind of fragile. It reminded her of glass so thin it might shatter at a breath.
Still, Mirabel crossed the room and lowered herself to sit on the worn floor a few paces away. She didn’t speak at first. She wondered who had done that to Sandy.
Who had turned half her face into a bundle of scars? Sandy didn’t even have two eyes to look out for danger. Who took her sight, her identity, and her dignity?
Mirabel could find out. Travel the strands of light, see Sandy’s pain, the start of it, but compassion denied her from it. It was in violation of Sandy’s trust.
Trust that, at the moment, hadn’t even begun to be built. It would. Sandy could open her heart.
Mirabel gave Sandy a small smile and cradled her harp and plucked a simple tune—one meant for learning hands, the kind of melody a child might be given on their very first lesson.
Sandy’s head twitched. Her single blue eye flicked up, just once.
“Do you like music?” Mirabel asked softly.
A long silence. Then, so quiet Mirabel almost thought she had imagined it:
“Yes.” Her voice rasped, hoarse from disuse.
Mirabel smiled gently, as if the answer were the most precious gift.
“Me too.” She played another line, letting the notes fill the silence so Sandy wouldn’t feel pressed. “Do you…play?”
Sandy shook her head. She turned her face away, hair falling over the scars, eye fixed stubbornly on the floor. Her shoulders curled tight again, warning off any further closeness.
But Mirabel had seen the spark. Faint, fragile, like a star peeking through storm clouds. And she had heard the ache beneath Sandy’s voice.
“That’s okay,” Mirabel murmured, still playing. “You can always start. It’s never too late to learn anything.”
For a moment, she thought she saw a flicker in Sandy’s gaze—a hunger so deep it frightened her. But then the girl pressed her back harder against the wall, as if the music itself hurt.
Mirabel let the song trail off, tucking the harp against her side. She rose slowly, careful not to crowd. “I’ll come again,” she promised.
Sandy didn’t answer. Her cup rattled faintly in her hand, and she kept her head down.
But Mirabel thought she saw her lips move, shaping a word too quiet to carry.
Please.
When the last of the shelter’s lights flickered low and the room hushed into uneasy sleep, Sandy Joy stayed awake in her corner.
Her fingers still ached from clutching the tin cup. She uncurled them slowly, staring at the pale grooves pressed into her skin.
The words Mirabel had spoken replayed in her mind: That’s okay. You can always start.
Sandy squeezed her eye shut. She hated how much she wanted to believe them.
She had lied. She always lied. It was safer that way. She had told Mirabel she didn’t play, because if Mirabel ever heard her, she would hear how bad Sandy really was.
How clumsy. How ugly everything she touched became.
Her father’s voice echoed in her skull—harsh, cold, slicing sharper than the acid he had thrown:
You ruin everything. You shame us. Whore. Slut. You’re nothing but a curse. It’s your fault he raped you. You held his hand. You led him on! Never forget that, piece of shit.
She pressed her scarred cheek into her shoulder, wishing she could hide from even her own memory.
But her hands twitched.
The way Mirabel’s harp had sung tonight—it had woken something raw inside her. She couldn’t stop herself.
When no one was watching, Sandy pulled a battered case from beneath her thin blanket.
She had traded weeks of meals for the harp within it, years ago, and hated herself for it every time hunger gnawed her stomach.
The strings were worn, the wood scarred like her, but when she cradled it in her lap, her body eased. She plucked a tentative note. Then another. A stumble, a buzz, a sound half-broken.
Still, the melody was there. Hidden under hesitation, under fear, under the weight of every cruel word she had ever swallowed.
Her one eye filled with tears.
“I do play,” she whispered to the dark. “I just…I’m not good enough.”
The harp didn’t answer, except with a trembling chord that quivered like a heartbeat.
And though Sandy couldn’t see it, faint threads of starlight brushed around her fingers as she played—weak, flickering, but there. A spark waiting for someone brave enough to tell her it was real.
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-Elvenhome-
Casita hummed gently as Mirabel entered, brushing her shoulders with a draft of warm air as though to ease the weight she carried.
Welcome, mi vida.
“Hey, Sita. Sorry for the late hour. I stayed a little late.” Mirabel’s eyes flickered, blinking away tears.
Your dearest friend felt your pain. She waits for you in the library with her wife. We are all part of the Goddess, dearest Mariposa.
Mirabel nodded and gave Casita’s walls a small pat. All the searching all the potentials throughout the starlight, not one strand led to giving her beloved Sita her own body.
Casita deserved to be with them; as more than a house. She was a member of their family. As much an Elf as any other in the home. Sighing, Mira passed through to darkened living room, seeing a few people playing games.
To her Elven eyes, there was no darkness. She saw blues and purples. An Elf could see at night as easily as day, only in different colors.
Tia Pepa popped her head up and waved over Mirabel and Antonio, who had stayed late healing the boy’s little dog.
Mira waved her off, shaking her head; Antonio squeezed Mira’s shoulder and bid her good night, going to join his Mama.
She went straight to the library alcove, where Isabela and Leti often spent their evenings—Isa with a stack of books at her elbow, Leti with her sketchpad open and her hands moving in steady, graceful signs.
Mirabel paused in the doorway.
Isa’s dark eyes flicked up at once, sharp as always. “Mira. You look like you got stuck in a windstorm.”
“Not storm,” Mirabel murmured, slipping into a chair. “A tornado. A tornado of emotions.”
Isabela put her book aside and leaned forward. “What happened? At the shelter?”
Mirabel rested her harp across her knees, fingers tracing the strings but not plucking them.
“There was a girl. Sandy Joy. She… she’s broken, Isa. Hurt so badly I could feel it before she even looked up. But there was—” she hesitated, searching for the words—“a shimmer. Just faint. Like the first starlight before night fully falls.”
Leti’s hands paused over her sketchpad. She tapped Isa’s arm, then signed slowly, making sure Mirabel could follow: You mean she carries the spark.
Mirabel nodded, her throat tight. “I think so. But she won’t let anyone close. She lies because she thinks she’s terrible at everything. I asked her if she played music, and she said no. But I felt the truth in her, Isa. She wants to play. Maybe she already does.”
Isa’s jaw clenched. Her hands curled into fists, then relaxed against the table. “Who hurt her?”
“I don’t know all of it,” Mirabel admitted, lowering her eyes. “But the scars… her face… it was her father. I felt the memory of it in her fear.”
Isabela swore softly under her breath. “Coward. May he never find peace within the Goddess.”
Casita groaned in the beams above, echoing Isa’s fury. Cursing someone to never be with the Goddess was blasphemy, meant only for the worst of the worst.
Isa and her temper. Mira’s lips twitched in mild amusement.
Leti signed firmly, her expression calm but steady: What matters is not him. What matters is her. She is alive. And she found you.
Mirabel blinked, tears pricking at her eyes. “She didn’t find me. She doesn’t even want me there. She could barely look at me.”
Isa reached across the table, gripping her hand. “Mira. You don’t see what you are to people. You walk into a room and the whole Dance shifts. If she has even a thread of the starlight, you’ll help her see it.”
Mirabel gave a shaky laugh. “You sound so sure.”
Isa smirked, squeezing her hand tighter. “Of course I’m sure. I’m your best friend. I’ve seen you pull joy out of shadows a hundred times.”
Leti leaned over, signing with a softness that mirrored her voice when she chose to use it: Go slow. Don’t push her. Let her know she is safe. That is what she needs first, more than starlight, more than music.
Mirabel breathed out, feeling some of the heaviness ease. She nodded. “Safe. I can do that. I can try.”
Casita’s shutters tapped gently, like applause.
If I can get through to Sandy, why couldn’t I help Tio Bruno? What had he seen in the future that was so awful he faded before technology even developed?