The Glass of Lead and Gold

by Cornelia Funke

  “I was born like this,” Ofelia said. “Maybe you were born dressing like a boy?” She wrapped her scarf around her neck so swiftly that for a moment Tabetha could have sworn she had two hands. “You want to wait at the inn, or do you have a warmer place you call home?”

  The Will-o’-the-Wisps blurred in front of Tabetha’s eyes. Tears. Look at you! she scolded herself. Just a bit of Christmas spirit and you’re losing it.

  “It’s actually not that warm a place,” she said hoarsely. “And I wouldn’t call it home.”

  “Well, then I suggest you come with me,” Ofelia said.

  But when she turned, Tabetha was still standing in front of Arthur Soames’s shop door. “I’ll pay you back,” she told the older girl. “Every penny. It will take a while, but I will.”

  “Not if we both freeze to death tonight,” Ofelia answered. “Hurry up, or I’ll regret I asked you to come along.”

  But Tabetha still didn’t move. “You’re a very good liar.”

  Ofelia looked at her, with night-black eyes.

  “I am,” she said. “I love to make up lies. It’s like making up stories. My father says I should be a writer one day. A left-handed one, of course.”

  She turned again, and started walking.

  Tabetha still hesitated, but eventually she followed her. After all, it was a very cold night.

  Tabetha slept on a bench in the Fuentes’ kitchen. It was by far the warmest place she had slept for years. Borga was still cooking when they arrived back at the inn. Her head almost hit the ceiling, as the house was one of the oldest in Londra, having survived the last fire. The ten Hobs who helped her—men, women and children—all had to fit on one of the wooden chopping boards. Some were complaining, in their bird-like voices, that they would have to work until dawn to complete all the Christmas orders the Fuentes had accepted, but the Troll woman shut them up with one impatient grunt, and Tabetha fell asleep to the sound of her humming a tune that sounded both sad and astonishingly harmonic.

  THE TROLL WOMAN WAS GONE WHEN Tabetha woke, and the Hobs were sleeping amongst stacks of clean pots and pans. Morning light was seeping through the window and a few Grass Elves were dancing in the pale sun, but they hadn’t brought Tabetha sweet dreams. She couldn’t remember much of what her dream had been about, but it had definitely been a bad one, featuring Arthur Soames and Bartholomew Jakes’s Thumbling. Ofelia had been in it too—with six hands, each holding a glass.

  She was nowhere to be seen, when Tabetha looked for her in the restaurant. A girl named Sue, who she had seen behind the counter a few times before, told her Ofelia had gone out. Nothing more. She wasn’t back when the girl opened the door for the first guests, and neither did Arthur Soames’s delivery boy show up. After waiting more than two hours, Tabetha was tempted to go down to the river—as its steadily moving waters always calmed her mind—but she was afraid her delivery would arrive in her absence, so she stayed and waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  It was already early afternoon when Ofelia came back, her cheeks as red as her lips from the cold. Where have you been? Tabetha wanted to ask, but she didn’t. It will be fine, she told herself. She even managed to smile at Ofelia, but Ofelia didn’t smile back. She barely said a word to Tabetha, almost as if they’d never met, and for the next two hours Tabetha didn’t catch more than a few vacant glances from her, while she watched Ofelia serve soup to sailors and dockworkers, with a smile on her face that didn’t reach her eyes.

  You don’t know her at all, Tabetha’s heart whispered. Or whatever it was that whispered inside her sometimes. How could you trust her, after having just met her? How? Why? She asked herself these questions over and over again, as she felt more and more invisible in the crowded restaurant and Ofelia’s eyes evaded her like those of the rich women who passed her on the street. She should have known. The dress, the lipstick, even the accent… and all those brilliant lies! And Tabetha had trusted her with the one valuable object she owned.

  At three of chimes, the small restaurant was so crowded that there was a line at the door, but there was still no delivery.

  There wasn’t one at four, or at five, when the lantern man lit the gas lights outside. Ofelia was serving a man whose face was covered in tattoos of Mermaids and Watermen, when Tabetha grabbed her arm.

  “Why is the glass not here?”

  The tattooed man gave her a sinister look. The customers would all take Ofelia’s side, she realized, not the mudlark who had escaped from the cold and slept on the kitchen bench.

  “I don’t know. Maybe it didn’t work. Maybe the shard was not enough.” Ofelia didn’t look at her. She sounded tired and as if she was somewhere else.

  Or like someone who had a secret.

  “You made a deal with Mr Soames! That’s why his boy didn’t show up. That’s why you had your Troll follow me! You planned it from the beginning.”

  “Planned what?” Ofelia freed her arm, with a strength that surprised Tabetha.

  “You stole it from me! That’s what you did. ‘Let’s pretend the shard is mine.’ I bet you told Soames to deliver the glass only once the stupid mudlark is gone!”

  The man with the tattoos placed himself behind Ofelia. The Mermaids on his forehead moved. Rubbing Elven dust into the skin had that effect.

  “That’s a wild tale.” Ofelia’s voice was like ice. “I didn’t know you were such a great storyteller.”

  “I’m definitely not as great a storyteller as you—or should I say, liar!” Tabetha hated the words she said, but she hated feeling like a fool even more. “That glass was meant to be mine. It’s the first time something good came to me, and you stole it!”

  Ofelia just looked at her with those black eyes, so different from the goose-grey eyes Tabetha’s mother had passed on to her.

  “Ungrateful! Zat’s wat you are!”

  All the guests drew their heads down between their shoulders, including the tattooed man. Borga was standing in the open kitchen door. She filled the doorframe more tightly than the door itself.

  “But of coars. Yu are just uh mean, silly mud boy, ’oo smells of fish. Leaf her alon!”

  She came out from behind the counter, her fists swinging in the air. Tabetha imagined she could feel them all over her already, but Borga stopped when Ofelia stepped in her way.

  “She’s not even a boy!” she said. “So who’s the liar? She trusts nobody. And she only cares about herself. Let her go. I don’t care what she says.”

  She gave Tabetha one more glance with those black eyes, then she turned and chased the Hobs—who had been stood still on the counter as if winter had frozen them—back to work.

  “I should have known! A one-handed girl…” Tabetha hated her own voice—so shrill and hurt, like a child’s. She even felt like a child again, like the girl sitting by her dead mother’s side, all alone, for ever. So angry, so scared. Curse Christmas. It made it all come back. But she couldn’t stop. “Yes, a one-handed girl!” she yelled. “I’m sure it was a lie you were born like that! Chopping off a hand, that’s the punishment for thieves!”

  Borga took a heavy step forward.

  “Get out!” she bellowed.

  Some of the guests shuffled their feet, not sure if the order was meant for them too.

  “You have no hands at all, Tabetha Brown,” Ofelia said calmly. “And you don’t even know it.”

  Her words followed Tabetha outside. Ofelia slammed the door so fiercely behind her that the metal sign swung against the façade of the old house, making a sound as hollow as a funeral bell.

  THIS TIME, WHEN SHE MADE HER WAY back to Crystal Lane, Tabetha didn’t follow a Troll woman who ploughed a path through the crowds, but Christmas had finally emptied the streets and filled the houses. After half an hour of running through the deserted city, she stood once again in front of Arthur Soames’s shop, out of breath and with shaking knees, her lungs filled with so much of the icy air that she couldn’
t stop coughing.

  The shop was dark, except for the Will-o’-the-Wisps in the tree, and there was a CLOSED sign hanging behind the glass of the door.

  Tabetha felt her stomach turn with despair. For once, the river had tried to make up for all the past years of misery, and she had thrown its gift away, giving in to her accursed yearning for trust and love.

  She had bent down to pick up a stone to smash Arthur Soames’s precious windows with, when she remembered a skill Midget had taught her, just a few weeks before the Waterman killed him. It took her a while to find a hairpin between the cobblestones, but she did, and after a few attempts, the lock at Arthur Soames’s shop door gave in.

  The glass ornaments on the Christmas tree shimmered even more mysteriously in the dark, but Tabetha felt like breaking them all. She found a door behind the counter, and behind the door a steep staircase leading down to another, metal door in the basement. There was light seeping out under it, and she could feel heat coming through the metal, as if the entrance of Hell was hidden in Arthur Soames’s cellar.

  The door wasn’t locked. Tabetha opened it just wide enough to peek through. What she saw made her almost close the door again. The windowless room behind it was swarming with Fire Elves, like a beehive with bees. Fire-Elf stings were supposed to be deadly, and their fierce, red faces gave the impression that they couldn’t wait to use them. Tabetha only dared to slip through the door when they all gathered around a stone basin at the back of the room, which was filled with melted glass.

  The Fire Elves hummed with excitement, while some of them pulled strings of the hot mass up like liquid yarn and carried them to a shelf with half-finished bowls and vases. Tabetha couldn’t take her eyes off them. She only noticed Arthur Soames when one of the Elves accidentally let a small splash of the melted glass drop on his shoulder. He didn’t notice. Arthur Soames was sitting at a workbench, a glass with a slender stem in front of him. He was staring at it, as motionless as if he had done so for hours. Only when Tabetha approached the table, did he lift his head.

  “Ah. It’s you,” he said. “I guess there is no question how you got in. You looked to me like a thief, the moment you stepped into my shop.”

  “You’re the thief,” Tabetha said. “That glass is mine. I found the shard, by the river.”

  “Did you? Who cares? Do you think anyone will believe you or that one-handed daughter of a woman they call a Witch behind her back? You both lied to me. This is the true Glass of Lead and Gold. I suspected it all along, but the Fire Elves confirmed it. They are drawn to magical objects, and got very excited about that piece of a so-called copy.”

  Tabetha wasn’t really listening. Or that one-handed daughter of a woman they call a Witch behind her back? She felt so happy. So ridiculously happy. Until she remembered her own words. All those words she had spat at Ofelia, poison brewed by years of loneliness.

  Two Fire Elves were hovering above the finished glass, their huge insect eyes taking up almost half of their faces. The Fire Elves’ red bodies reflected on the glass like dancing flames. Arthur Soames’s mastery had turned the shard Tabetha had dug out of the river mud into a glass of such perfection that not even she could detect the original piece. The engravings wove around it seamlessly, and along the rim there was a fine line of gold.

  “Yes, look at it! You still think this is yours?” Arthur Soames’s face glowed with sweat and pride. “Look what my hands turned that miserable shard into. The Elves and I gave it back its shape and beauty, the true form appropriate to its magic. With you, it would only have stayed a useless fragment of its former glory, for ever broken.”

  “It’s still mine,” Tabetha repeated, although the buzzing of the Elves rose like an angry choir around her. “The river gave it to me, not you.”

  The glass-blower picked up the glass and scrutinized it from all sides. “Ah yes, the river. And I am sure you believe in those tales about the immortal Elf, who made this glass and threw it in there to share his magic with human trash like you?”

  He snapped his fingers and the Fire Elves surrounded Tabetha so densely that she could feel their heat on her skin. She tried to remember the cold outside, to help relieve the pain, but she couldn’t. All she felt was fire.

  “They will kill you if I tell them to,” Arthur Soames said. “So behave. You may watch me demonstrating the magic that the Glass of Lead and Gold can do when brought back to life by a master’s hand.”

  He reached for a mug filled with water, and poured some into the glass. Then he drank it all and wiped his paper-thin lips with a handkerchief.

  “Now, Arthur!” he said to himself. “It’s time to think of something tragic. True heart-break. Deep misery. How about the death of your father? No… your second wife’s passing?”

  He touched his cheeks. “Nothing? Well…” He frowned. And smiled. “Oh yes. Much better.”

  A wet shimmer filled his raisin eyes. “It was the most delicate piece I ever made, and that foolish woman broke it within days.”

  Tears ran down his cheeks and dropped onto the table.

  Arthur Soames stared at the wooden surface as if he expected to see flowers grow from it—and uttered an astonishingly vulgar curse when small pieces of lead appeared where his tears had dripped onto the table. He hastily wiped his eyes with the handkerchief and stared at the grey smear on the fabric. He stared at it for quite a while, the Fire Elves swarming round him.

  They had all forgotten about Tabetha, and she had just managed to take two silent steps back to the door, when Arthur Soames lifted his head.

  “Come here!” he said, waving her to his side. “Unless you want me to set the Elves back on you?”

  Tabetha walked over to the table and stared down at the leaden tears that covered it like tiny pebbles from the river.

  “As you saw, the magic works for me as well,” he continued. “But not in exactly the way I hoped for. I admit crying is not my reaction to what life throws at me, one of the most accomplished citizens of this great city, but you look miserable enough to produce plenty of tears. I am sure any moment of your existence would give reason to shed them. So why don’t we collaborate? You drink from the glass and cry some tears, and we’ll share the result?”

  Tabetha watched how he filled the glass once again with water. She didn’t ask what would happen if she denied Arthur Soames her services. The Fire Elves had clearly enjoyed their task of intimidating her earlier.

  The water tasted of fire. And of silver, if there was such a taste. Each time Tabetha wanted to put the glass down the Elves gave off an angry hum until she drank it all.

  But you look miserable enough to produce plenty of tears. Her mother’s last days had been filled with so much pain, fear and despair that she had cried an ocean of tears. But it was not the death of her mother or father that came to Tabetha’s mind in Arthur Soames’s workshop, nor the pain in the narrow chimneys, or all those nights filled with hunger and loneliness. The words she had said to Ofelia—those were all she could think about. It was so fresh a pain. She had betrayed the trust of someone who might have become a friend.

  The first tears she cried were tears of self pity. Tabetha was embarrassed to realize it, but they were tears of shame as well, of helpless loneliness and all the bitterness which life had brought and poisoned her heart with. Her tears were a river running down her cheeks and dripping from her face, onto Arthur Soames’s table. They blurred her eyes so much, at first she didn’t even see all the gold.

  It filled the table and spilt onto the floor—so much gold, all of it tear-shaped. Sadness, turned into the most precious metal on earth. Some of the Fire Elves found their hot hands covered in melted gold, when they tried to pick the tears up, and Arthur Soames clapped his hands like a boy who’d received just the right gift on Christmas Day.

  “Well, look at this!” he exclaimed. “I guess you proved to be useful for the first time in your miserable existence, boy.”

  “I’m not a boy,” Tabetha said, while she was wa
iting for her heart to feel at least some kind of joy. But it wouldn’t. It felt as if it had turned to gold as well.

  Arthur Soames carefully picked up three tears, grabbed her hand and let them fall into her palm.

  “Here, I think that’s more than generous. You can buy a pile of rags from those, and soup till the end of your miserable days. And now go. Before the Elves kill you. They like to do things like that, sadly—at least, the ones I know—and I won’t be able to hold them back for much longer.”

  He mocked her with a thin-lipped smile. Tabetha had never before felt such a yearning to hurt someone. She put the three tears into her pocket and looked at the glass, which was standing on the table, surrounded by her tears.

  Her Christmas gift, granted by the Themse…

  And suddenly she felt it inside, as if the river had come to protect her. She felt its wide, wet vastness, its waters cooled by the melted snow and by cold oceans far away. Tabetha filled each inch of her body with its murky waters until they cooled the heat of the Elves. Then she grabbed the glass and threw it onto the floor, with all the strength she had, and stamped on its shards with the boots Ofelia Fuentes had brought her, until she had crushed them into nothing but powdered glass.

  Even the Fire Elves were surprised. This granted Tabetha a few precious seconds to make it through the door. She heard them coming when she was halfway up the stairs, deafening her ears with their angry buzz. But the river still protected her. She heard its wet roar inside her, cooling her burning skin and keeping the Elves at bay. She broke more glass while running through Arthur Soames’s shop. She broke as much as she could, although finally its beauty stopped her. Some of the Elves swarmed after her into the night, but the cold killed them on the spot and they fell into the snow, turning as grey as burnt-out coal.