It was so puzzling. So frustrating. It was the first time she’d won anything. The glass vase, a charity raffle prize from the garden club, was certainly beautiful. Julia found the bulb-shaped belly evocative, especially as it tapered to a slender neck. An old-fashion-looking key rested within the vase, and it was far too fat to come out the opening. Julie wondered how this key could have gotten inside the vase in the first place. And what was it for? Julia paced. Puzzled. Agitated. The vase gave her no peace.

A few days later she phoned the chairwoman of the garden club hoping to find out more about the vase, and she learned that the vase must have been donated eons ago, all records, if there were any, long lost.

Julia considered returning the vase to the garden club or donating it to a charity shop, but as much as it irritated her, she couldn’t give it up.

Finally, in desperation, she telephoned the museum in the city, hoping to get some information about the art of glassblowing. The phone number of one such artist in hand, a fellow named Dag, she made an appointment to visit him in his studio.

“What have we here?” Dag asked, admiring Julia’s vase.

Julia explained. Asked if there was any way to retrieve the key without damaging the vase.

Dag shook his head. “Possibly, but not without risk of total destruction,” he said. “I wouldn’t advise it. It’s such a beauty. As is its owner.”

Julia blushed, thoroughly charmed, completely smitten.

Dag accompanied Julia home, and that night they celebrated appropriately, unaware of the crash until the next morning.

Among the myriad shards and fragments, no key could be found.

Over the coming months of Julia’s gestation, Dax would make countless vases for her, each with a key inside.