When the crate opened again, I was greeted by light—not the soft, amber light of Arthur's workshop, but the sterile brightness of glass cases and white walls.
I had arrived.
The Maritime Heritage Museum—a grand building filled with relics of the sea, each piece a fragment of someone's story. Around me were shattered teacups, rusted brooches, pocket watches stopped forever at 2:20 a.m., the time the Titanic vanished beneath the waves.
And there I was, among them.
The doll from the deep.
The "perfect doll."
They placed me behind glass, on a velvet cushion the color of midnight. A small plaque rested below me:
> Artifact #C-237 – "The Perfect Doll"
Recovered from the Titanic wreck, 1985.
Condition: Pristine. Material: Porcelain, origin unknown.
It was strange—after so many years of darkness, to be displayed under light again. People surrounded me every day, their faces full of awe, confusion, sometimes fear.
---
"Can you believe it survived the ocean for over seventy years?" one woman whispered.
"They say even her clothes were preserved," another said.
A child pressed his small hand against the glass. "She looks… alive."
The mother pulled him back. "Don't say that, dear. It's just a doll."
Just a doll.
The words echoed through me. A reminder. A curse.
I couldn't speak to them, couldn't tell them how wrong they were. Couldn't tell them that I heard every word, saw every face, felt every breath fogging the glass between us.
I was both surrounded by life and completely alone.
---
From where I sat, I could see other artifacts—the silverware, the letters, the shoes of a child who never made it to New York. Every object had a story, but none could tell it. We were all ghosts, locked in silence.
Sometimes at night, when the museum emptied and only the security lights remained, the air felt different.
Quieter.
Heavier.
I could feel them again. The spirits. The same ones that had drifted around the Titanic's wreck. They moved through the corridors, whispering names long forgotten.
And though I couldn't move, I could sense their sorrow. They recognized me. They remembered.
> "You were there…"
"You saw us…"
"Why are you still here?"
I had no answer.
---
The museum staff often came to check on me. One of them, a young woman named Clara Hughes, lingered longer than most. She would stand before my case after hours, writing in her notebook.
> "You don't belong here, do you?" she said once, softly.
"Your craftsmanship doesn't match any known style. It's as if you were… ahead of your time."
If only she knew how literal her words were.
She leaned close to the glass, her reflection merging with my unmoving eyes. "I wonder who made you."
The name—Jacob Moreau—was engraved faintly beneath the plaque, copied from Arthur Bellamy's notes. She read it aloud, her voice gentle.
> "Jacob Moreau… What a strange name for a dollmaker in the 18th century."
And though I could not speak, something in me stirred again.
She had spoken it—my name.
Twice in one lifetime.
Once by Arthur.
Now by her.
It felt like a heartbeat.
---
Weeks passed, and the crowds never stopped. Newspapers printed my image.
"The Perfect Doll of the Titanic."
"Unfathomable Mystery of the Deep."
People saw beauty.
Historians saw preservation.
Scientists saw impossibility.
But no one saw Jacob.
Not the man who had dreamed of giving life to his creation. Not the soul trapped inside porcelain eyes, watching time bend and humanity move on without him.
Every day, I listened to laughter and wonder and the clicking of cameras. And though I had long ago accepted my silence, something within me began to ache again.
Not for freedom.
But for connection.
To be seen as more than a relic.
---
That night, long after the museum closed, the lights flickered. For a brief second, everything went black.
And in that darkness, I thought I saw my reflection move.
A blink.
A faint turn of the head.
Or perhaps… another illusion.
When the lights came back, I was still as ever.
But something had changed.
Deep inside, under the layers of porcelain, I felt a warmth pulse through me again—slower than life, but stronger than before.
As if the world, little by little, was beginning to remember me.
And for the first time since the sea took me, I wondered—
Was I still just a doll?
Or was I beginning, somehow… to wake?