My question trembled on my tongue, but I pushed the words away. Mother didn’t like me to talk when she painted me and I had to get the timing absolutely right. For months I had been building up to asking this question. For months I had tested the words on my reflection, watched my eyes widen with anticipation and fear and something else I couldn’t name.

Mother patted and smoothed blue powder onto my eyelids, careful to be gentle, then blew the excess away and picked up the mascara wand. When I was little I’d feared this part, but I was used to it now. I kept my eyes open and looked down at the fuzzy tip of my nose, making myself go cross-eyed. A headache started like it always did, but I didn’t complain.

I held my breath and sat extra still when Mother curled my eyelashes, remembering the time five years ago when an itch had made me move and she had ripped out a clump of lashes. The pain had been so intense that I hadn’t been able to hold in the tears that had rolled down my cheeks and ruined Mother’s careful work. I had been sent to my room for the rest of the day and she had not spoken to me for three days.

I pushed out my lips, keeping them open a sliver, while Mother lined my mouth with a scarlet pencil and filled in each lip with scarlet lipstick. She slipped a folded tissue between my lips and I closed my mouth on it and silently counted to three. I opened my mouth and Mother withdrew the tissue and dropped it in the wicker bin beside her chair.

Her eyes scanned my face. I waited, breath held, hoping she would not wipe it off and start again. A moment passed. She gave a nod and smiled.

‘You’re such a beautiful little doll, Mirabelle,’ she said, picking up the hairbrush.

She moved to stand behind me and began to brush my hair with long, slow strokes. This was my favourite part. My shoulders dropped an inch and I concentrated on the wonderful sensation of bristles lightly scraping my scalp, but I could not relax. My question hovered at the front of my mind, on the tip of my tongue, in the jolting beat of my heart.

‘Mother?’ I said.

‘Yes, Mirabelle?’