One year, all the neighborhood children were invited to the birthday party of the Dixit girl. Miranda
remembered a heavy aroma of incense and onions in the house, and a pile of shoes heaped by the front
door. But most of all she remembered a piece of fabric, about the size of a pillowcase, which hung from a
wooden dowel at the bottom of the stairs. It was a painting of a naked woman with a red face shaped like a
knight's shield. She had enormous white eyes that tilted toward her temples, and mere dots for pupils. Two
circles, with the same dots at their centers, indicated her breasts. In one hand she brandished a dagger.
With one foot she crushed a struggling man on the ground. Around her body was a necklace composed of
bleeding heads, strung together like a popcorn chain. She stuck her tongue out at Miranda.