Imagine this picture: You are on a creaking ghost ship. You push open a wooden door in the deepest part of the corridor with dim lights flickering in the background. Then in front of you is a headless doll in her gothic-styled dress smiling at you in the creepiest fashion. No matter how one thinks about it, such a scene would be enough to scare someone to death….
If Duncan didn't know Alice well enough by this point, he would've surely pulled his gun at this instant.
Alice didn't know how evil she had just made the atmosphere. Obediently pressing her head back to her neck, the girl quickly regained her agility and greeted Duncan with a bright smile: "Good evening captain! Are you looking for me?"
Duncan then made up his mind and eyed the doll up and down suspiciously: "What are you doing here? Why does the goat head say that you're counting your hair inside the cabin?"
Alice moved her neck from side to side, then gently smoothed out her slightly messy hair with those fingers before making a slightly embarrassed face: "It's just… to see how much hair is left."
Duncan looked at the doll like a retard not comprehending. Eventually, he noticed something on the edge of the table: it was a spool that had come from who knows where, and between the combs were several silvery-white hairs. The source of which was obvious…
Duncan was expressionless: "…"
Alice noticed the captain's gaze and immediately explained with a serious face: "Look, this one is called Miffy, this one is called Perley, this one is called Phemia, and this one, the name is…"
Duncan finally exclaimed: "You even gave a name to every hair you lost?!"
"As a memento," Alice looked solemn and sad, "didn't you say I'm a doll? Us puppets don't grow hair on our own… In case it all falls off one day, I'm holding onto them to reminisce about the good times when I had them…"
Duncan got dizzy due to the puppet's weird logic. He even forgot the reason for coming until he finally snapped out of it. "I didn't mean what I said. You don't have to take it to heart…. No wonder you kept to the cabin during these two days. You've been naming the hair that came off each day?"
Alice nodded harmlessly: "Mhmm."
Duncan tensed his face and sighed for a while: "Fine, I'll look for a puppeteer in the city to get a solution. You can stop this…."
Alice was taken aback: "You're going to tie people up and take them aboard the ship?"
Duncan glared at her: "… I'll buy you a few wigs to spare! It's unbefitting for the Boundless Sea's mobile natural disaster to kidnap a puppeteer."
"But a mobile natural disaster penetrating into the human city to buy wigs is not very befitting either…" Alice muttered subconsciously, but just halfway through the muttering, she quickly swallowed it back in. "Ah, I won't say it, hehe…"
"Don't be silly," Duncan suddenly felt vexed at lowering himself to the doll's wavelength. Then waving his hand after remembering his purpose for coming, "Forget it, your sudden distraction caused me to get sidetracked. Sit down Alice, I have important things to speak with you."
Alice knew this was no joke based on the captain's serious expression. Quickly retracting her fawning smile, she sat on her wooden coffin box and put the spool away.
Duncan sighed. For some reason, he always seems to lose his composure before Alice despite being able to keep a calm composure against more shocking entities: like confronting the goat head when he first came to this world, or possessing a sacrificial body with a hole through the chest, nothing ever fazed him. Yet, before this silly and borderline goofy doll, his sanity would always hover at the edge of collapse and non-collapse.
If he thought about it, this was probably due to Alice's style. It's really hard to fend against such a character.
Raising a finger to make a hooking gesture at a chair, the wooden seat promptly creaked over and stationed behind Duncan's legs for him to sit.
"Ray Nora, what is your impression of this name?"
"Rey Nora?" Alice blinked, her face unpretentiously confused, "I haven't heard of it… Sounds like a woman's name? And there is a sense of elegance and nobility… Your acquaintances?"
"Theoretically, it should be your 'acquaintance', but you say you don't know… Very well, I believe you." Duncan was not so surprised by Alice's answer and continued, "What about the Frostbite City-State? Are you familiar with the name? Any impressions?"
"Frostbite City-State? I heard the name when I was in the box. It seems to be a city-state on the cold sea, and there is a place called Cold Harbor there. They said the harbor acted as the gateway from the cold sea to the central sea." Alice recalled in thought, "But I don't know the specifics, so I have only heard the name."
"What about 'Alice Guillotine'?"
The puppet looked even more confused: "Alice I know, that's my name, but what is the guillotine?"
This situation was basically what Duncan expected after asking several questions and getting similar responses.
Alice was confused about all this, just like she said on the first day of their meeting. She didn't know her past, the truth behind Anomaly 099, about the Frostbite city-state, and she hadn't heard of the Frost Queen who died half a century ago.
Even if her appearance was exactly the same as that of the Frost Queen.
No matter though, he merely wanted to see the sort of reaction by mentioning these key words to Alice.
So… maybe my focus should not be on the doll but on the "coffin"?
Duncan's eyes slowly sharpened, and his attention fell on Alice's gorgeous heavy wooden box.
The ornate coffin that once housed the doll was still in the room, and Alice now sat firmly on it.
Alice loved her suitcase, using it as a stool and locker and sometimes sleeping in it—despite the normal beds in the room.
"You open the box and let me see," Duncan said.
Alice felt a little puzzled but quickly jumped down from the box and opened the lid for the man to peer inside.
The wooden case was lined with soft red velvet, and in the corners were some random items sprawled around: a comb, a spool that's wrapped with her hair, a small mirror, and a few metal trinkets.
"I found these from the ship, in another cabin…" Alice explained carefully, pointing to the items in the corner of the box. "I asked Mr. Goathead, and he said these were ownerless things. I… Can I keep them? I think they're beautiful…"
Duncan looked at the old trinkets.
Perhaps a century ago, someone on this ship would've worn these things on themselves. But now, they're clearly items devoid of ownership, merely evidence that this ship once belonged to the material world.
"Keep them, they're yours." Duncan nodded, but then his gaze suddenly noticed a small object in the pile of items. Reaching in to pick it up, "This thing…"
It was a tiny hairpin, delicate and not like something that would appear on the Vanished. It resembled a silver-white feather, and it was dotted with little broken wavey patterns along the edges. Although it was still as new as it had been from a century ago, this item was clearly not of this era in design.
Duncan frowned. For some reason, he felt a faint longing when he saw this hairpin…
There was even a name that he almost blurted out despite not recalling the exact wording.
Duncan blinked in astonishment over his own reaction. He didn't know what was going on with this feeling that suddenly emerged from the bottom of his heart, but gradually, he understood.
Just as he knew the name "Duncan Abnomar" the first time he came to this ship… He had just come into contact with the remaining "echoes" in his body again!
He looked down at the hairpin in his hand, wondering how such a delicate and small thing could "resonate" with the biggest natural disaster on the Boundless Sea. But soon, Alice's voice woke him up from his thoughts: "Captain? Captain, you…"
"I'm sorry, but I can't give you this hairpin," Duncan said to Alice, but then he quickly realized the wording was wrong and too cold toward Miss Doll here. Quickly adding, "I'll go to the city-state and buy you some new ones later—they're all old."
"Really?!" Alice suddenly showed a surprised expression, "Captain, you are so wonderful!"
"Don't get too happy just yet." Duncan shook his head and casually placed the hairpin away, "we're not done yet… Alice, the next thing I want to tell you is something about your origin. You need to listen carefully…"