Dean Koontz - The Moonlit Mind - A Tale of Suspense

An interior door connects this space with the place where Proserpina, not only a housemaid but also a seamstress, repairs and alters clothes for the family and staff. The door stands about three inches ajar.

Harley crouches low, and Crispin leans over him, so they can both spy upon the activities in the sewing room.

Mirabell stands on a yard-square platform about a foot high. Their mother kneels before her, fussing with the fancy collar of the girl’s white dress. Proserpina kneels behind Mirabell, pinning the waistline of the frock for some adjustment that she apparently will make.

This is no ordinary dress. The fabric is shiny but less clingy than silk, less stiff than satin, so soft-looking. It almost seems to glow a little, as though the dress produces its own light. The cuffs and collar are made of lace, more intricate than any Crispin has previously seen.

Mirabell wears white slippers with white bows. Attached to each bow is what appears to be a cluster of red berries.

“I feel very pretty,” Mirabell says.

“You are very pretty,” their mother replies.

“These are like ballerina slippers.”

“They are a little,” Clarette agrees.

“Will we dance tonight?”

“Some of us will dance,” Clarette says.

“I know 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. “We shouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. We just shouldn’t, that’s all.”

“How else are we gonna find out?”

“We’ll wait and see.”

Harley pouted. “I don’t understand why we can’t ask.”

“For one thing, we were snooping.”

“We overheard, that’s all.”

“We were snooping, and you know it.”

“That doesn’t mean we’ll get in trouble.”

“We’ll get in trouble, sure enough,” Crispin said. “What we’ve got to do is — we’ve got to wait and see.”

In Theron Hall, the main dining room, where the adults have dinner, is on the ground floor. They dine at eight o’clock.

The children are served in a smaller, second-floor dining room at six o’clock.

Clarette says that children eating with children, adults with adults, is a custom in that part of Europe from which the Gregorios hail.

This could be true. Crispin has known his mother to lie, but he doesn’t know enough about Europe to doubt her on this point.

Anyway, he’d rather eat with Harley and Mirabell than with his mother and stepfather. Here on the second floor, they can talk about anything they want over dinner. And they don’t have to choke down the fancy rich-people food that’s served downstairs, like poached salmon and snails and spinach soufflé. Here, they’re served the best stuff, kid food like cheeseburgers, mac and cheese, and tacos.

Their dining room is smaller than the one for the adults, but it’s no less formally furnished. The dark wood sideboards are heavily carved, and the carving has gilded highlights. The table stands on ball-and-claw feet, the chairs have high ornate backs, the cushions are upholstered in tapestries, and a crystal chandelier hangs over them.

Sometimes it seems as if no one in the Gregorio family was ever a child.

The servants who bring dinner also inform the boys that their sister will not be joining them this evening. They have heard that she is not feeling well.

Between the tortilla soup and the chicken nachos, Nanny Sayo stops by to report that Mirabell has what seems to be a migraine. Once the headache passes, the girl will eat in her room.

Clarette sometimes complains of migraines, squirrels herself away in a dark quiet room, and is unapproachable for the duration. This is the first time that her daughter has suffered such a thing.