She kept coming every other day, and our games became bolder. When my mother saw us hanging from the railing of a bridge, she yelled until her ears turned red. She forbade me from ever speaking to that niñita machona again. After the mother incident, Elisa disappeared for over a month, which is why I couldn’t say no to her when she offered to bring me a gift. Besides, who rejects a gift?

Lying under my sateen sheets, I heard the tap on the window.

The moon was bright and full behind Elisa. She was carrying a package wrapped in newspaper. I was so excited I could barely unlock the window.

When she stepped in, she studied my room as though it were a museum. She walked in circles, exploring every one of my possessions. Once she’d concluded her inspection, she handed the package to me.

“Here.”

I unwrapped it with trembling hands. Virgencita del Cisne, it was a doll! A dancer! But the strangest one I’d ever seen. From the waist up, she was a regular girl, but her bottom was made out of a round pillow covered with a red skirt. She was beautiful, even if her face was soiled and she was half-bald, which told me that this doll had been played with, unlike my sister’s.

“She’s so pretty,” I said. “Are you sure you don’t want it?”

“It’s yours.” She’d found my book of prayers and was sifting through it. “With one condition.”

“Whatever you want!”

A knock on the door startled us. “Who’s in there, Catalina? Who are you talking to?”

“Nobody, Mamita.”

“Don’t lie to me! I heard another voice. Is it that girl?” She banged the door. “Open!”

If my mother saw Elisa she would take the doll from me and I so wanted to keep it.

“No! It’s not her!”

As my mother twisted the door open, Elisa dashed toward the window and hid behind the curtain.

My mother was carrying a candle in one hand and her rosary in the other. She paced the room, examining every corner. It was a miracle that she didn’t see Elisa behind the flowing curtain. It was an especially bright night. The moon was so wide outside my window I might be able to touch it.

“Where is she?” my mother said.

“Who?”

“I heard a voice!”

“I was talking to myself!”

“Don’t take me for a fool, Catalina, I clearly heard two female voices.”

I didn’t know if it was the rosary in her hand, my prayers to the Virgin, or the bright light outside my window, but before I knew it, I came up with the perfect answer.

“It was the Virgin Mary.”

I thought my mother would start laughing, but she didn’t. “Are you lying to me, Catalina?”

I shook my head, glancing at the flash of red under my bed—the doll’s skirt.