Glass Flowers Blaschka Novels & Stories

The solarium was a structure of glass and white iron, a transparent cage that sat at the far end of the east wing. It was filled with tropical ferns and rare orchids that looked too perfect to be real, their scents mingling into something cloying and artificial. Bella stood at the glass doors for a long beat, the birth certificate folded tightly and tucked into the hidden pocket of her dress. Her hand was steady, but her skin felt like it was humming with a low-voltage current.

Kael and the silver-furred mountain trackers swarmed the threshold immediately after, shields raised high, their keen nostrils twitching and wrinkling in immediate disgust at the chemical stench. The interior of the Grand Vizier’s laboratory was not a warehouse; it was a cathedral of industry. Rows of towering glass carboys, encased in protective copper cages, stretched forty feet toward the vaulted timber ceiling. Deep inside the glass, a thick, luminescent violet sludge bubbled without heat, driven by tiny mechanical agitators that clicked rhythmically, whir-click, whir-click, through a network of overhead brass drive-belts. At the far end of the central aisle, elevated on a platform of pe

Lab day was always a bit nerve-racking anyway, and she hadn’t set herself up to make it any easier. “What you see before you is an incubator,” Mother Swan was saying, placing her hands on either side of the clear glastic container in front of her. Glastic, a substance created right before WWIII, was a product that contained the strength of plastic with the clarity of glass, and it was Rain’s understanding that there was nothing known to womankind that could shatter it.

I opened the door just a few inches and saw a small cardboard box sitting on the carpet with no name and no return address, so I pulled it inside and opened the lid while the others crowded around me to see what was inside. Resting on a bed of white tissue paper was a single rose made of delicate glass and the stem was broken in half so it looked dead and jagged, and I knew immediately that it was a message from Elena Romano because that rose was the symbol of the investment firm we had burned down in Berlin.

Gardens bloomed in defiance of the altitude, protected by shimmering atmospheric domes that hummed with a low, constant vibration. It was a paradise. And I was the centerpiece of the party. Nergal had moved me. The sterile laboratory was gone. This was the Grand Viewing Gallery. My vertical table was bolted to the center of a raised dais. A seamless cylinder of Barzil-reinforced glass surrounded me. I was on display. "Fascinating," a woman murmured. She wore a dress of iridescent feathers. She tapped her champagne flute against her lip. The sound was a sharp, high-pitched ting that cut through the glass.

When he bobs back up again, his face is jaundiced by the sunlight filtering through the window—his cheeks becoming deep, sunken pits, the flesh from a once full face hanging like the jowls of bloodhound. The Nazi smiles. These are good times. These are righteous times. ‘Here you are, Herr Fleischer.’ The locksmith places an object on the work-worn counter. It is a wrapping made from coarse sheets, which the man now pulls apart with trembling fingers. When its content is in plain view, the locksmith steps away from it as though the things he has released into the sunlight are poisonous. In reality they are three fat cylinders of glass and copper. The crooked filaments lurking inside each look

In the center of this dark forest rose the Glass Cathedral. ​It was a structure that defied the laws of physics. It was built of “frozen music”—layers of translucent crystal that had been shaped by the resonance of the First Weavers. It didn’t cast a shadow; it cast a soft, pulsing silver radiance that pushed back against the purple twilight of the Star. It was the most beautiful and terrifying thing I had ever seen.

Holy crap, I’m in a Bentley, about to drink Dom Perignon. To say I was intimidated was an understatement. Connor pressed another button, and a center portion in the wall across from us opened up to reveal a whole collection of glassware – champagne flutes, wine glasses, all those different fancy cocktail glasses you see in bridal gift sections. He poured two flutes of champagne and handed me one. I knew nothing about crystal, but I could tell that the glass was expensive just by handling it – surprisingly heavy for its size, but delicate to the touch and incredibly thin.

Things here spelt modern and had the sleek fresh scent of being so fragile that you were scared to touch it. Turning my eyes back to the shop, I surveyed the small shelves, the variety of flowers all taken from the gardens spaning the grounds. The surrounding enclosure was made of glass including the door giving view to the inside of the shop from any angle. At the counter, there was a glass case that held different vases, all of different sizes, colour and designs. My eyes narrowed on one that seemed to be made completely of gold and I moved closer inspecting it. “Like what you see?”

Each column that started to rise at the edge of the podium and connected to the top floor did so with glass vines and glass flowers snaking round it. Then, finally at the edge of the back glass wall, a smaller but wider glass podium rose with a few large glass thrones and a rectangular table. The backdrop made with many variations of flowers, vines and stems all made up of glass. Everyone oohhddd and aaahhhddd as they clapped and looked on in awe at the design and sheer magnitude of the glass artwork, almost like a glass house...or castle