Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780701139681Barbara Hanrahan was both a writer and a visual artist, and this magical first novel is an autobiographical evocation of her childhood. A delicious blend of fantasy and realism, it is a powerful, lyrical story of a child's rites of passage through a world where the family home, its garden, and the three women who preside over it, area vital and compelling participants in the shaping of a child's rituals of discovery and awareness.