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hidden herself well, he thought. He’d barely caught sight of the garden gate and the whitewashed cottage beyond it through the tumbling bushes of privet and fuchsia.
    Rogan slowed, though he’d nearly been at a crawl in any case. There was a short drive occupied by a faded blue lorry going to rust. He pulled his dashing white Aston behind it and got out.
    He circled around to the gate, moved down the short walk that cut between heavy-headed, brilliant flowers that bobbed in the rain. He gave the door, which was painted a bold magenta, three sharp raps, then three again before impatience had him stalking to a window to peer inside.
    There was a fire burning low in the grate, and a sugan chair pulled up close. A sagging sofa covered in some wild floral print that mated reds and blues and purples teetered in a corner. He would have thought he’d mistaken the house but for the pieces of her work set throughout the small room. Statues and bottles, vases and bowls stood, sat or reclined on every available surface.
    Rogan wiped the wet from the window and spied the many-branch candelabra positioned dead center of the mantel. It was fashioned of glass so clear, so pure, it might have been water frozen in place. The arms curved fluidly up, the base a waterfall. He felt the quick surge, the inner click that presaged acquisition.
    Oh yes, he’d found her.
    Now if she’d just answer the damn door.
    He gave up on the front and walked through the wet grass around to the back of the cabin. More flowers, growing wild as weeds. Or, he corrected, growing wild with weeds. Miss Concannon obviously didn’t spend much time tidying her beds.
    There was a lean-to beside the door under which bricks of turf were piled. An ancient bike with one flat tire was propped beside them along with a pair of Wellingtons that were muddy to the ankles.
    He started to knock again when the sound coming from behind him had him turning toward the sheds. The roar, constant and low, was almost like the sea. He could see the smoke pluming out of the chimney into the leaden sky.
    The building had several windows, and despite the chilly damp of the day, some were propped open. Her workshop, no doubt, Rogan thought, and crossed to it, pleased that he had tracked her down and confident of the outcome of their meeting.
    He knocked and, though he received no answer, shoved the door open. He had a moment to register the blast of heat, the sharp smells and the small woman seated in a big wooden chair, a long pipe in her hands.
    He thought of fairies and magic spells.
    “Close the door, damn you, there’s a draft.”
    He obeyed automatically, bristling under the sharp fury of the order. “Your windows are open.”
    “Ventilation. Draft. Idiot.” She said nothing more, nor did she spare him so much as a glance. She set her mouth to the pipe and blew.
    He watched the bubble form, fascinated despite himself. Such a simple procedure, he thought, only breath and molten glass. Her fingers worked on the pipe, turning it and turning it, fighting gravity, using it, until she was satisfied with the shape.
    She thought nothing of him at all as she went about her work. She necked the bubble, using jacks to indent a shallow grove just beyond the head of the pipe. There were steps, dozens of them yet to take, but she could already see the finished work as clearly as if she held it cool and solid in her hand.
    At the furnace, she pushed the bubble under the surface of the molten glass heated there to make the second gather. Back at the bench she rolled the gather in a wooden block to chill the glass and form the “skin.” All the while the pipe was moving, moving, steady and controlled by her hands, just as the initial stages of the work had been controlled by her breath.
    She repeated the same procedure over and over again, endlessly patient, completely focused while Rogan stood by the door and watched. She used larger blocks for forming as the shape grew. And as time passed and