colored stones—Shew knew nothing of these stones. But Cerene explained that she was no ordinary glassblower. She was a Keeper of the Art.
Now, all the huge glass flowers she created were colored like butterfly wings. She’d breathed a glass castle for them, which they spent some time inside, but it didn’t last long after the fire died. Cerene had even blown a small rocking boat, which floated upon the Lake of Light—Shew didn’t question how—but that fire died too. When all her molten fires ended, Cerene wasn’t going to go back to get fire from the furnace in Candy House, not today.
If only Cerene could create fire, her powers would have been complete, and would have created her own wonderland to live in.
“Do you have any idea why you have been given that talent?” Shew asked while they sat on top of a hill next to the Rainbow’s End. Cerene had played all she wanted and was exhausted. Where they sat, the rainbow was an arm’s length away.
“It’s magic, not talent,” Cerene said. “But I don’t know why. Must there be a reason for magic? Its fun, and I love it.”
“Were you cursed when you born or something?” Shew said playfully. “I know I was cursed.”
“You were?” Cerene wondered.
“It’s a long story. I’d rather have to make my own choices than walk in the footsteps of a destiny I was made to fulfill.”
“So you’re not just a lunatic vampire like your mother?”
Shew laughed, “No, there is actually a logical reason for my existence.”
“I wish I knew of the reason of my existence,” Cerene said absently. “But I don’t care. I am having fun,” she snapped.
“You think we’re good friends, Cerene?” Shew said with caution.
“Friends forever,” Cerene giggled.
“So could I ask you something without you being upset?” Shew said.
“Something like what?” Cerene was as reluctant as Shew.
They locked eyes for a while, the moment freezing and time stopping. Shew thought it was finally the right time she’d ask Cerene for some clarifications without her getting upset. She inhaled deeply, and tried to ask Cerene as gently as possible.
“Like where you’re from for instance? I promise I will listen without judgment. I’m not going to question your answers like I did in the Field of Dreams.”
“I was born on Murano Island,” Cerene said casually. She’d been feeling much better since she’d arrived at Rainbow’s End. She felt safe here, the place where her art took its optimum form.
“Murano? Never heard of it. Where is it?”
“Near Venice,” Cerene said without elaborating.
“That’s where?” Shew knew it was in Italy—another thing she’d learned from one of her victim’s phones in the castle. She still wanted to hear it from Cerene.
“Italia,” Cerene’s eyes widened. “It’s practically an island,” she lowered her head to whisper something to Shew. “It’s shaped like a shoe,” she made an invisible shoe with her fingers.
“Oh, really?” Shew said, trying to solve some of the puzzle, and figure out what Carmilla had to do with this.
“They say a prince lost a poor girl he loved, but found her through the glass slipper she left behind,” the story seemed to mean the world to Cerene. “The gods honored their love by shaping Italia after a shoe.”
“That’s a fabulous story,” Shew pretended she hadn’t heard it before. “Any idea who the prince or the girl is?”
“It’s a fairy tale, Shew. Be reasonable,” Cerene said. “Sometimes you strike me as naive.”
“So you speak Italian?” Shew changed the subject.
Embarrassed, Cerene shook her head no, “I don’t know how.”
“You’re an immigrant, right?”
“You make it sound like an insult,” Cerene’s eyebrows narrowed.
“Not at all,” Shew said. “I think everyone in Sorrow is an immigrant, except my father and mother. How did you come to Sorrow then, and with whom?”
“I really don’t remember. I must have been very young. I have some memories of the ship I came on though.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I remember hiding underneath fish on a smaller boat for days so they wouldn’t find me,” Cerene said. “I must have had someone with me, but I don’t know who, because I was very young.”
“You remember why you were hiding?”
“I am probably an illegal immigrant,” Cerene’s lips twitched, just slightly. “I do remember the ship’s name for some reason though.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Jolly Roger, that’s its name. There was a man with a hook instead of a hand on it, but that’s all.”
“That’s a rather a detailed memory for someone who doesn’t remember much,” Shew remarked.
“Like I said, I must have been very young. You know when we first met, I’d been here for a year or so,” Cerene said.
Shew tried not to look surprised, but everything around her seemed connected. How was it that Cerene had traveled on the Jolly Roger, and why didn’t she have any other memories of her journey?
Jolly Roger was the name of the ship Shew and Loki embarked on in the Jawigi Dreamory. It was the pirate ship that attached Angel and Carmilla’s ship in the middle of the ocean when they were escaping Night Sorrow.
Shew didn’t comment on the Jolly Roger. She preferred to hear Cerene’s story.
“Once I arrived in Sorrow, I was sold as a slave to…” Cerene lowered her eyes, and looked like she didn’t want to say. “Some family you know.”
“Does your family live in the forest?”
“It’s not
“Wouldn’t you want to go back to Murano Island?”
“I should want to, but my gut instinct tells me not to,” Cerene said. “I don’t know why I get that feeling.”
“I see,” Shew nodded, making sure to ask her questions slowly, watching Cerene’s temper. She wasn’t going to ask her again how it was possible to know her mother while she was too young to remember her. “Can you tell me about…?”
“Bianca?” Cerene smiled unexpectedly. “She taught me how to become a glassblower.”
“She was a glassblower herself?”
“The best, she’s my mentor,” Cerene laced her fingers together. “She could create over a hundred glass artifacts in one day. She had the rarest talents and breathing methods. She knew every stone, every ingredient and mix. She knew of metals that no one had ever heard of. I once saw her turn iron into glass.”
“Wow,” Shew said. “She must have been extremely respected and appreciated.”
Cerene’s lips twitched again. She curled her fingers together, “Not really,” she said. “You see, my mother originally lived in Venice, a famous city for its lagoons and glassblowing among other things. But as much as glassblowing was a wonderful art, it was also a threat to the locals.”
“A threat?”
“Like I showed you, it needs a lot of fire. Houses in Venice were made of wood. Once in a while the glassblowers lit a house on fire, accidentally.”
“So the locals considered a glassblower a danger to their houses?”
“Not just that,” Cerene seemed reluctant. “Venetians thought of fire as a bad thing and that it came from the deepest pits of hell. Burning someone’s house was a serious sin because fire was loathed. It is true that they had
