Summary

The Prologue takes place in 1912 and is viewed through Luba’s perspective. She once placed a centipede on her friend Eliza’s slipper when she was eight years old. Luba’s mother had just died and she believed Eliza had been stealing her sister Sofya from her. Eliza Woolsey Mitchell, an American friend of the family, had taken the sisters to her mother’s apartment for a week. Luba’s father had been in Sardinia on his honeymoon with his new wife, Agnessa. That November, Sofya had been on break from Brillantmont School in the Swiss Alps, still “shattered by Mother’s sudden death the previous spring” (3). Luba had envied the growing bond between Eliza and Sofya. Late one night, Eliza and Sofya had taken her to the Celestial Globe at the planetarium. Looking up at the constellations, Sofya told Luba, “that...