PROLOGUE
Lauscha in the Thuringian Forest, March 1910
The dance whirls round as the world turns round and I yearn for a joy I had forgot.
A promise, a passion, a taste on my tongue, a sweetness lost that can still be found, a sparkling glass filled with—what?
Marie sat at her workbench late into the night. To her right was a crate of glass rods, and to her left was a board studded with nails. She put the globes there to cool before they were taken to another bench in the workshop to be coated with silver and then painted. Marie was weary, but she nonetheless felt a gentle swell of pride in her work as she concentrated on the task before her. It wasn’t the same surge she had felt some nineteen years ago when at the age of seventeen, she, Marie Steinmann, had been the first woman to blow glass in Lauscha, snatching the privilege from the men of the village. But it was pride all the same, and it warmed her heart every time she saw her niece Anna sit down at the workbench and lean forward to turn the gas tap as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
The idea of a woman blowing glass was nothing new in Lauscha these days, when the boys and girls at the glassblowers’ trade school sat together in the same classroom, all intent on the same task. Marie smiled. Nineteen years might be just the blink of history’s eye anywhere else, but here in Lauscha it was light-years.
Tshhhh . . . it was such a comforting, familiar sound. “The flame has to sing if it’s to take the glass.” She could still hear her father’s voice as he spoke the words. And once more she wondered what Joost would say if he could see them now: she was a glassblower, Johanna was a businesswoman, and together, they’d made and sold thousands upon thousands of Christmas baubles over the years.
Marie stretched, then turned off the flame and got up from her stool. It was time to go to bed.
There was no warning at all. Suddenly someone behind her shoved something down over her head. It slammed her nose on the way down and squashed her right ear painfully. She turned her head from side to side but felt trapped in a narrow space.
“What’s going on?” she called out, startled. The words sounded strangely muffled, as though she were a little girl again, talking into a saucepan to hear the echo. But this wasn’t a pan on her head now—whatever it was, it was made of glass. A huge bell jar, already turning milky pale with her breath.
Was this some kind of silly joke? Weren’t Johannes and Anna far too old for such pranks? The twins were sixteen, for heaven’s sake.
Irritated, Marie tried to remove whatever it was from her head, but the palms of her hands were damp and kept slipping on the smooth curved glass. The sides of the jar were perfectly rounded—a globe rather than a bell—and it was warm, as though it had just come from the flame.
Marie could feel her own breath hot on her face, trapped in the glass.
It was a globe! The opening at the base was just large enough to fit over her head. The edges were smooth and rounded, but the whole thing was so heavy that she could feel it beginning to dig into the flesh at the base of her neck. She tried to wedge two fingers into the gap, but the globe clung tight to her like a suction cup, and her flesh was already swelling up around the rim.
Marie felt a wave of panic. This wasn’t a joke; this was a matter of life or death! She was gasping for breath now, panting out little damp clouds that clung to the glass. The more she tried to shake off the globe, the less air there was. The fear was metallic on her tongue. She tried to lick her lips and found that her mouth was completely dry.
“Help! Why won’t any of you help me?” she heard her own voice cry from far off.
A moment later, Marie was back outside the globe. She was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when she found herself back inside again. Inside? Out? She was still trapped—her eyes were staring out from behind the glass like a frog’s and her cheeks were puffed up like the gills of a fish. It was ludicrous. Wretched. Pitiful. Cold sweat ran down her clammy forehead and trickled down her neck, pooling along the inner rim of the globe.
She had to breathe; she needed air! A loud humming buzzed round and round her head, growing louder all the time. She tried to put her hands over her ears, but could only touch the glass.
Suddenly she knew that she would suffocate here.
She started to scream . . .
She sat up. Her nightgown was drenched in sweat, and Magnus’s arms were around her, his voice in her ear, reassuring her.
A dream. It had all been just a dream. But all the same, it was a long time before Marie’s breath was back to normal and she could take her hands from her neck. She still felt as though she were choking.
It was five o’clock in the morning.