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how to pirouette.”
    “Yes, I’ve seen you do it.”
    “This dress will really
swoosh
when I pirouette.”
    Mirabell’s blond hair, usually straight, is curly now. Her dress glows, and her hair glimmers.
    Perched on her head is not a hat, which is what Harley called it, but instead a wreath. The wreath appears to have been woven of real leaves of some kind, and with white ribbon. There seem to be acorns attached to it, as well as clusters of bright red teardrop berries like those on her slippers, three fruits in each cluster.
    “If I take a bath in milk, won’t I stink?” Mirabell asks.
    “No, sweetie. There are rose petals and essence of roses in the milk. Anyway, we’ll rinse you afterward with nice warm water.”
    “Aqua pura.”
    “That’s right.”
    “What’s
aqua pura
?”
    “The cleanest water in the world.”
    “Why don’t we rinse with it every day?”
    “It’s only for special occasions.”
    “Does it come in a bottle?”
    “Sometimes. But we’ll pour it from silver bowls. Wait till you see them, they’re very pretty bowls.”
    “Cool,” Mirabell says. “Mommy, on special occasions, do you rinse in
aqua pura
?”
    For some reason, this question so amuses Proserpina that she can’t contain a little laugh.
    Clarette says, “
Aqua pura
is only for little girls and boys.”
    Except that she doesn’t have wings, Mirabell is so beautiful that she looks like an angel in her white dress, the wreath a kind of halo.
    Eye to the gap between door and jamb, Crispin is surprised by how much his sister looks like an angel. He half expects her to float off the floor and glide around the room.
    Their mother says, “All right, sweetie. Let’s get you out of this dress so Proserpina can make the final alterations.”
    First, their mother removes Mirabell’s slippers, and then she and the seamstress strip the dress from the girl, who stands now in her undies.
    Crispin is only nine, Mirabell six. He has never before been embarrassed to see his sister in her underclothes. Strangely, he is embarrassed now, but he can’t look away.
    Clarette rises to her feet, lifts the wreath off her daughter’s head, and places it on a small table that is draped in a white cloth. She handles the wreath as if it is a thing of great value.
    Now another housemaid, Arula, enters the sewing room. She looks like that actress, Jennifer Aniston, but younger.
    “Come, Little Bell,” says Arula. “Time for your special bath.”
    Mirabell steps off the yard-square platform. In her bare feet and underclothes, she follows Arula out of the room, into the hall.
    Harley eases away from his brother and moves toward the door between the gift-wrapping room and the hallway.
    Lingering at the connecting door, Crispin alone hears the last exchange between his mother and Proserpina.
    With evident amusement, the seamstress says, “If not
aqua pura
, what
do
you bathe in for special occasions?”
    “Dragon piss,” says Clarette, and she shares a laugh with the other woman before leaving the sewing room.
    Crispin has heard his mother use worse language than this. He is not shocked, merely confused. He can’t make sense of her comment or of anything he’s just witnessed.
    When they are sure Arula, their mother, and their sister have gone to one bathroom or another, the brothers slip out of the gift-wrapping room, angle south across the hallway, and take refuge in Harley’s room, which is next door to Crispin’s.
    Although they discuss the scene in the sewing room, they can’t reach any conclusions about what it means. Maybe Mirabell is going to a party this evening. But the brothers haven’t been told of it.
    Harley thinks it’s unfair that their sister should be going to a party but not the two of them. “Unless maybe it’s a surprise party for us.”
    “When has anyone ever given us a party?” Crispin asks.
    “Never.”
    “They’re not gonna start now.”
    “Let’s just ask Mom what’s going on.”
    “No,” Crispin says.