The Dollmaker / Season 1, Episode 2
Cracked Eyes of Barbora
Mira’s fingers hovered over the porcelain cheek, the air in the restoration room thick with the scent of linseed oil and old dust. The doll—number three, labeled “Barbora” in a spidery script inside its skull—stared up at her from the workbench, its glass eyes catching the weak morning light filtering through the palace’s leaded windows. The crack she was mending ran like a tear from the corner of its left eye down to the jaw, and as she brushed a thin layer of adhesive along the fissure, her breath caught. The surface wasn’t cold. Not like it should be. Not like the other two she’d finished last week. It was tepid, like skin after a long sleep, and her hand jerked back, the brush clattering against the tray of tools.
“Christ,” she muttered, rubbing her palm against her jeans as if she could wipe away the sensation. The room was silent except for the faint groan of the radiator in the corner, struggling against the Prague winter seeping through the walls. Outside, the city was a gray smear of snow and stone, the spires of Staré Město barely visible through the frosted glass. Inside, the baroque palace felt like a tomb, its gilded ceilings and warped parquet floors pressing down on her. She’d been here ten days, and already the place was working its way under her skin, every creak of the building sounding like a whisper she couldn’t quite catch.
She forced herself to pick up the brush again, dipping it into the small jar of adhesive, the sharp chemical tang biting at her nose. Focus, Mira. It’s just porcelain. Old, weird porcelain. She’d handled worse—shattered Ming vases, Renaissance figurines reduced to shards. But those didn’t feel like they were watching her. Those didn’t make her dream of hands shaping clay in the dark, fingers pressing into something soft and yielding, something that sighed under the touch. She shook her head, the memory of last night’s dream clinging like damp wool. It wasn’t her memory. Couldn’t be. She’d never worked with raw clay, never felt it slick between her palms. So why did her hands ache in the morning, like they’d been kneading something all night?
The door behind her scraped open, the hinges whining, and she flinched, nearly smearing the adhesive. Karolína’s boots clicked against the floor, the rhythm sharp and urgent, like she was always late for something. Mira didn’t turn around. She could smell the curator’s perfume—something floral and heavy, like roses left too long in a vase—before she spoke.
“You’re up early,” Karolína said, her Czech accent curling around the words, making them sound like a question even when they weren’t. Her voice was thinner today, frayed at the edges. Mira had noticed it yesterday too, along with the hollows under the woman’s eyes, the way her hands trembled when she poured coffee in the palace’s drafty kitchen. “Didn’t hear you come down.”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Mira said, keeping her eyes on Barbora’s face, on the delicate curve of the doll’s lips that seemed to smirk just a little too knowingly. She pressed a piece of archival tissue against the crack, smoothing it with a gloved finger, feeling the faint warmth again through the latex. “Figured I’d get a jump on this one. Deadline’s breathing down our necks, right?”
Karolína didn’t answer right away. Mira heard her move closer, the rustle of her wool coat brushing against the edge of the workbench. Then a sigh, long and tired, like air leaking from something punctured. “Yes. Three months. I keep thinking… if we miss it, if the exhibition isn’t ready for spring, all of this—” She stopped, and Mira could almost see her gesturing at the room, at the rows of dolls waiting on their padded shelves, at the sealed crates still unopened in the corner. “It will be for nothing. The board will pull funding. They’ll say I wasted their time.”
Mira set the brush down, finally glancing over her shoulder. Karolína stood with her arms crossed, her gray scarf still looped tight around her neck as if she hadn’t bothered to take it off after coming in from the cold. Her face was pale, almost as white as the porcelain under Mira’s hands, and her dark eyes flicked toward the doll on the table before darting away. “You okay?” Mira asked, though she knew the answer. She’d seen that look before, back in Miami, on clients who’d spent too long obsessing over a piece, who’d started seeing things in the brushstrokes or the glaze that weren’t there. “You look like you haven’t eaten in a week.”
Karolína’s lips twitched, not quite a smile. “I eat. Just… not much appetite lately. Too much to do. Too much to think about.” She stepped closer, leaning over Mira’s shoulder to peer at Barbora. Her breath hitched, just for a second, and Mira felt the air shift, heavy with something unsaid. “She’s beautiful. More than the others, I think. The detail in the lashes—did you repaint them already?”
“No,” Mira said, her voice tighter than she meant it to be. “They came like that. I’m just sealing the cracks for now. But yeah, it’s… uncanny. The craftsmanship, I mean. Whoever made these wasn’t just good. They were obsessive. I’ve never seen 18th-century work this precise. Not without magnification tools, and those didn’t exist back then.”
Karolína nodded, but her eyes didn’t leave the doll. “Obsessive,” she repeated, almost to herself. “That’s the word. I’ve been reading the palace archives, you know. Late at night, when I can’t sleep. There are stories… hints, really. About the man who made them. The dollmaker. They don’t name him, not directly, but they describe his hands. How they moved like a surgeon’s, how he could shape a face so real you’d swear it breathed.”
Mira’s stomach twisted. She turned back to the doll, focusing on the tissue paper, on the slow, methodical press of her fingers. Don’t engage. Don’t let her drag you into whatever rabbit hole she’s falling down. But the words stuck, hooking into her thoughts like burrs. Hands like a surgeon’s. Hands like the ones in her dreams, sculpting in the dark. “Stories are just stories,” she said, forcing her voice to stay even. “People back then loved a good mystery. Probably made up half of it to scare each other.”
“Maybe,” Karolína said, but there was no conviction in it. She straightened, her boots scuffing against the floor as she moved to the shelf where the first two restored dolls sat. Anna and Dorota, their names etched inside their heads, their faces smooth and flawless now that Mira had finished with them. Karolína reached out, then stopped, her fingers hovering an inch from Anna’s cheek. “But you feel it, don’t you? When you work on them. Like they’re… listening.”
Mira’s hand froze mid-motion. She wanted to laugh, to brush it off with some quip about too much caffeine or not enough sleep, but the air in the room felt heavier now, pressing against her chest. The radiator groaned again, a low, mournful sound, and outside, the wind rattled the windowpanes like fingers tapping to be let in. “I feel cold,” she said finally, her tone clipped. “And tired. And like I’ve got nine more of these to fix before I can go back to Miami and forget this place ever existed.”
Karolína turned to her, and for a moment, there was something in her expression—something sharp and searching, like she could see straight through Mira’s bravado. Then it was gone, replaced by a small, brittle smile. “Of course. I’m sorry. I’m… projecting, as you Americans say. Too many old books, too little rest.” She adjusted her scarf, her fingers fumbling with the knot. “I’ll leave you to it. I have a meeting with the board at ten. They want updates, numbers, proof this collection is worth the money. If you need me, I’ll be in the east wing.”
Mira nodded, not trusting herself to say more. She waited until the door clicked shut, until the echo of Karolína’s boots faded down the corridor, before letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Her hands were trembling now, just slightly, and she pressed them flat against the workbench, feeling the rough grain of the wood under her gloves. Get a grip. You’re not some wide-eyed intern spooked by shadows. You’re thirty-three. You’ve seen worse than a creepy doll.
But Barbora’s glass eyes didn’t blink, didn’t waver, and as Mira leaned closer to check the adhesive, she swore the doll’s smirk widened, just a fraction. A trick of the light. Had to be. She stood abruptly, the stool scraping against the floor, and crossed to the small sink in the corner to wash her hands, even though she hadn’t taken the gloves off. The water was ice-cold, biting at her wrists as she scrubbed, and she welcomed the shock of it, the way it grounded her. The mirror above the sink was spotted with age, the glass warped, but she avoided looking at her reflection. She didn’t want to see if her own eyes looked as hollow as Karolína’s.
When she turned back to the workbench, something was different. She froze, water dripping from her fingertips onto the floor, the plink-plink loud in the stillness. Barbora’s head was tilted. Just slightly, maybe a centimeter to the right, but Mira hadn’t touched it since setting the tissue paper. She hadn’t bumped the table. Her pulse kicked up, thudding in her ears, and she took a step closer, then another, her boots silent on the worn parquet. The doll’s gaze seemed to follow her, those glass eyes catching the light in a way that made them look wet, alive.
“Stop it,” she whispered, not sure if she was talking to herself or the doll. Her hand reached out, hesitated, then adjusted the head back to its original position. The porcelain was warm again, warmer than before, and she yanked her hand back as if burned. Her chest tightened, her breath shallow, and for a moment, she thought she heard something—a faint hum, like a voice half-remembered, coming from inside the doll’s hollow body. She backed away, her hip bumping into the edge of the shelf where Anna and Dorota sat, and their heads turned too, just enough to face her, their expressions serene but wrong, too knowing.
Her hand found the wall before her eyes found the dark corners of the room, and she pressed her palm against the cold plaster, steadying herself. It’s the palace. It’s the winter. It’s Karolína’s stupid stories messing with your head. But the hum didn’t stop. It grew, soft and insistent, threading through the air like a melody she couldn’t place. She turned, slowly, her gaze sweeping over the shelves, over the unopened crates, over the workbench where Barbora waited. The other dolls, the unrestored ones still wrapped in their protective cloths, seemed to shift beneath the fabric, their shapes too angular, too human.
She needed air. Needed to get out of this room before it suffocated her. Grabbing her coat from the hook by the door, she fumbled with the zipper, her fingers clumsy, and pushed into the corridor. The palace was a maze of narrow hallways and locked doors, the walls papered in faded damask, the air smelling of mildew and something sweeter, like rotting fruit. She moved quickly, her boots echoing on the stone floor, not sure where she was going until she reached the courtyard door. The cold hit her like a slap when she stepped outside, the wind slicing through her coat, snowflakes stinging her cheeks. The courtyard was empty, a square of gray stone surrounded by the palace’s looming walls, the statues on the balustrade dusted with white, their faces blank and unreadable.
She leaned against the doorframe, sucking in the freezing air, letting it burn her lungs. Her hands were still shaking, and she shoved them into her pockets, feeling the rough edge of her phone against her knuckles. She could call someone. Her sister in Miami, maybe. Tell her about the dolls, about the dreams, about the way the palace felt like it was waiting for something. But what would she say? Hey, I’m losing it over here, seeing things that aren’t there, hearing things that can’t be real. Her sister would laugh, tell her to take a day off, get a beer, stop working herself to death. Mira hadn’t taken a day off in years. Didn’t know how to.
The wind howled through the courtyard, kicking up flurries of snow, and she tilted her head back, closing her eyes against the sting. She needed to go back inside. Needed to finish Barbora, to meet Karolína’s impossible deadline, to prove she could handle this job without cracking. But as she turned toward the door, something caught her eye—a shadow on the second-floor window, the one overlooking the courtyard. A silhouette, too tall to be Karolína, too still to be a trick of the light. It stood there, watching, and though she couldn’t see its face, she felt its gaze like a weight, pressing down on her until her knees felt weak.
She blinked, and it was gone. Just the empty window, the glass reflecting the pale winter sky. Her heart was racing now, her breath fogging in quick, uneven bursts, and she gripped the doorframe, the wood rough under her fingers. Go back. Lock the door. Finish the doll. But her feet wouldn’t move. The hum was back, fainter now, carried on the wind, and it wasn’t coming from the restoration room. It was coming from somewhere deeper in the palace, somewhere she hadn’t been yet, somewhere that felt like it had been waiting for her all along.
Mira’s fingers tightened on the doorframe, the cold seeping through her gloves, biting into her knuckles. The hum lingered in the air, a low vibration that seemed to coil around her spine, tugging her forward even as every instinct screamed to retreat. Her boots crunched against the thin layer of snow in the courtyard as she forced herself to step back inside, the heavy door groaning shut behind her. The latch clicked with a finality that made her stomach twist, and the silence of the palace swallowed her whole—except for that hum, that insistent thread of sound weaving through the walls. It wasn’t a song, not exactly, but it carried a rhythm, a pulse, like someone tapping a finger against porcelain, over and over, somewhere out of sight.
She stood in the dim hallway, her breath still uneven, the memory of that shadow in the window clawing at the edge of her thoughts. Her hand brushed against the wall, the plaster cool and slightly damp under her palm, as she moved toward the restoration room. The palace smelled of old wood and wax, a faint undercurrent of something metallic she couldn’t place, like the tang of a coin left too long in a damp drawer. Her toolkit waited on the workbench, the half-restored doll—Barbora—lying under the harsh glare of the task light, her porcelain face gleaming with the fresh glaze Mira had applied that morning. The doll’s eyes, blue as frost, stared up at the ceiling, unblinking, and for a moment, Mira swore the corners of that painted mouth twitched, just a flicker, before settling back into stillness.
“Stop it,” she muttered under her breath, her voice sounding too loud in the empty room. She tugged off her gloves, her hands trembling as she reached for the fine-tipped brush. She was tired, that was all. Jet lag, the cold, Karolína’s constant pressure—it was fraying her edges. She dipped the brush into the jar of diluted adhesive, focusing on the hairline crack along Barbora’s left cheek. The porcelain was smooth as glass under her touch, almost too perfect, the kind of craftsmanship that didn’t belong to the 18th century, not really. She’d seen dolls from that era before—crude joins, uneven glazing, faces more stylized than lifelike. But Barbora, and the others waiting in their padded crates, were different. Their features were too precise, the curve of their lips too knowing, the weight of their gaze too heavy. It wasn’t just skill. It was obsession.
Her fingers steadied as she worked, the familiar rhythm of restoration grounding her. She’d always loved this part—the slow, meticulous act of bringing something broken back to wholeness. Back in Miami, her studio had been her sanctuary, a cluttered corner of the world where she could lose herself in the smell of clay and the scrape of a scalpel against glaze. Relationships, family, the messy tangle of other people’s expectations—she’d never been good at those. But objects? Objects she could fix. Objects didn’t ask for promises she couldn’t keep. She leaned closer to Barbora, her breath fogging briefly on the doll’s cold surface, and noticed something she hadn’t before. A faint seam along the back of the head, hidden under the wig of real human hair. Not a crack, not damage, but a deliberate join, as if the skull had been made in two pieces and sealed shut.
Her pulse quickened. She set the brush down, her fingers hovering over the wig. It was auburn, soft and wiry, tied into a delicate braid that looked almost freshly done. She’d avoided touching the hair so far—something about it felt too personal, too intimate—but now she couldn’t ignore the pull. She gently lifted the edge of the wig, expecting it to be glued or sewn in place, but it came free easily, revealing the smooth porcelain beneath. And there, etched into the surface in a tiny, spidery script, was a name: Barbora Kovářová, 1762. Mira’s breath caught. She’d assumed the dolls were unnamed, anonymous figures from a forgotten workshop, but this—this was specific. A person. A date. Her fingers traced the letters, the porcelain cool against her skin, and for a split second, she felt a jolt, like static, prickling up her arm.
She jerked back, the wig slipping from her hand and dangling awkwardly over Barbora’s face. Her heart was hammering again, her mouth dry. “It’s just a name,” she told herself, forcing her voice to stay steady. “Just a record. They did that back then. Dedications, memorials—” But the words felt hollow even as she said them. She reached for her phone, intending to snap a photo for her notes, but her hands were shaking too badly to hold it still. Instead, she grabbed her sketchpad and a pencil, jotting down the name and date with quick, uneven strokes. The lead scratched against the paper, the sound too loud in the quiet, and she realized the hum had stopped. The palace was silent now, oppressively so, as if it were holding its breath.
She glanced at the door, half-expecting to see that shadow again, but the hallway beyond was empty, the weak light from the sconces casting long, wavering shapes on the walls. Her eyes flicked back to Barbora, to the empty space where the wig had been, and she noticed something else. Inside the hollow of the skull, barely visible through the seam, was a glint of something dark. Not porcelain, not dust. Something... organic. Her stomach turned. She reached for her tweezers, her movements slow, deliberate, as if any sudden motion might shatter the moment. The metal tips clicked softly as she eased them into the narrow gap, probing gently until they caught on something soft, fibrous. She pulled, and a tiny wisp of something emerged—dried, brittle, but unmistakably human. A fragment of skin, or maybe tissue, curled like a dead leaf.
Her hand recoiled, the tweezers clattering onto the workbench. Bile rose in her throat, sharp and sour, and she pressed a fist against her mouth, forcing herself to breathe through her nose. The air in the room felt heavier now, thick with the scent of old dust and something else, something faintly rancid she hadn’t noticed before. She stared at the fragment, no bigger than a thumbnail, lying on the table under the harsh light. It wasn’t possible. Porcelain dolls didn’t have—couldn’t have—pieces of people inside them. It had to be contamination, something from storage, from centuries of neglect. But even as she tried to rationalize it, her mind spun back to the name, the date, the too-perfect face. Barbora Kovářová, 1762. Who had she been? And why was a piece of her still here, trapped inside this shell?
Mira pushed back from the table, her chair scraping against the stone floor with a sound that made her wince. She needed air, needed distance, needed to think. Her boots echoed as she crossed the room, her hand fumbling for the doorknob, but as she stepped into the hallway, she heard it again—that hum, low and insistent, coming from somewhere deeper in the palace. It wasn’t just a sound now; it felt like a summons, curling around her thoughts, pulling at her like a current. She froze, one hand still on the knob, the cold metal grounding her for a moment. She should go back to her room, lock the door, wait for morning. But her feet moved anyway, carrying her down the corridor, past the flickering sconces, past the faded tapestries that hung like ghosts on the walls.
The hum grew louder as she descended a narrow staircase, the steps uneven under her weight, the air growing colder with every level. Her breath fogged in front of her, the damp chill seeping into her bones, and she wrapped her arms around herself, her coat too thin for this kind of cold. The palace was a labyrinth, all winding passages and sudden turns, and she hadn’t explored much beyond the restoration room and her sleeping quarters. Now, though, she felt like she knew where she was going, even if she couldn’t explain why. The hum led her, a thread she couldn’t shake, until she reached a heavy wooden door at the end of a basement corridor. It was bolted shut, the iron rusted and pitted with age, but there was a keyhole, and through it, a faint sliver of light.
Her heart thudded against her ribs as she pressed her eye to the keyhole, the metal icy against her skin. Beyond was a room she didn’t recognize, lit by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling, its light harsh and clinical. Shelves lined the walls, packed with jars and tools, papers and books, all covered in a thick layer of dust. In the center of the room stood a workbench, not unlike her own, but older, scarred with use. And on it, scattered like forgotten toys, were pieces of porcelain—arms, legs, torsos, faces half-formed, their empty eye sockets staring at nothing. A workshop, or what was left of one. The hum was coming from here, she was sure of it, vibrating through the door, through her chest, until it felt like her own heartbeat.
She straightened, her hand trembling as she touched the bolt. It was locked tight, no key in sight, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed to get inside, that something in there was waiting for her. Her fingers brushed against the wood, rough and splintered, and she noticed carvings etched into the frame—symbols she didn’t recognize, angular and sharp, like runes or a forgotten alphabet. They looked old, older than the door itself, and as her thumb traced one of them, the hum spiked, a sharp note that made her gasp and pull back.
Footsteps echoed behind her, quick and uneven, and she spun around, her back pressing against the door. The hallway was dark, the sconces too far to cast much light, but she could hear someone coming, the sound of boots on stone growing louder. Her mouth went dry, her hands clenching into fists as she scanned the shadows. “Karolína?” she called, her voice cracking on the second syllable. No answer, just the footsteps, closer now, and then a shape emerged from the gloom—a figure, tall and stooped, moving with a limp that dragged one foot behind the other.
It wasn’t Karolína. The figure stepped into a patch of light, revealing a lined face, pale as parchment, and eyes that glinted like wet glass. Jan Procházka, the retired historian Karolína had mentioned in passing, the one who supposedly knew more about the dolls than anyone. Mira had never met him, hadn’t even known he was in the palace, but there was no mistaking the weight of his stare, the way it pinned her in place. He wore a heavy coat, the collar turned up against the cold, and his hands were buried deep in his pockets, but she could see the tremor in his shoulders, the way his breath came in shallow, uneven bursts.
“You shouldn’t be down here,” he said, his voice low and rough, accented with the sharp edges of Czech. His eyes flicked to the door behind her, then back to her face, narrowing. “This place—it’s not for you.”
Mira’s throat tightened, but she forced herself to stand straighter, to meet his gaze even as her pulse raced. “I heard something. A sound. I just—followed it. What is this room?”
Jan’s mouth pressed into a thin line, his jaw working as if he were chewing on words he didn’t want to say. “Nothing you need to know. Go back upstairs. Finish your work. Leave the rest alone.”
But she couldn’t move, not yet. There was something in his tone, a flicker of fear under the gruffness, and it mirrored the dread coiling in her own chest. “You know about the dolls, don’t you?” she pressed, her voice quieter now, almost a whisper. “Karolína said you knew who made them. Why won’t you tell her? Why won’t you tell me?”
His face darkened, the lines around his eyes deepening as he took a step closer. She could smell the faint bitterness of tobacco on his breath, the damp wool of his coat. “Because some names shouldn’t be spoken. Some stories shouldn’t be dug up. My grandmother—” He stopped, his voice catching, and for a moment, he looked away, his gaze unfocused, lost somewhere she couldn’t follow. “She was one of them. One of his. And I’ll not have her dragged into this again.”
Mira’s breath hitched. One of his. The dollmaker’s. She thought of Barbora, of the name inside her skull, the fragment of something human tucked away like a secret. Her hands curled tighter, nails digging into her palms. “What do you mean, one of his? What did he do to them?”
Jan shook his head, a sharp, jerky motion, and when he looked at her again, there was something raw in his eyes, something that looked like grief. “You’re not ready for that. Maybe you never will be. But I’m telling you—stop looking. Stop asking. Finish the dolls and leave. Before you find something you can’t unsee.”
He turned to go, his limp dragging as he shuffled back into the shadows, but Mira called after him, her voice sharper than she meant it to be. “There’s something inside them. Pieces. Human pieces. Did you know that? Did you know and not say anything?”
He froze, his back to her, one hand braced against the wall. For a long moment, he didn’t move, didn’t speak, and the silence stretched taut between them, heavy with unspoken things. Then, without turning, he said, “I knew. And I tried to forget. You should, too.”
The footsteps resumed, fainter now, until they faded completely, leaving her alone in the hallway with the hum still vibrating through the door at her back. Her legs felt weak, her mind spinning with fragments—Barbora’s name, Jan’s warning, the workshop beyond the lock, the dolls waiting upstairs with their too-real faces. She wanted to run, to pack her things and catch the next flight back to Miami, where the sun burned away shadows and the air didn’t smell of secrets. But she couldn’t. Not yet. Karolína’s deadline loomed, and beyond that, something else—a pull she couldn’t name, a need to know what the dollmaker had done, what he’d hidden inside his creations.
Her hand pressed against the door one last time, the wood rough under her palm, and the hum spiked again, a sound that felt like a voice now, whispering something she couldn’t quite hear. She stepped back, her boots scuffing against the stone, and started up the stairs, each step heavier than the last. But as she reached the landing, a new sound cut through the silence—a sharp, metallic clink, like a tool falling to the floor. It came from the restoration room, from the direction of Barbora and the others, and it stopped her cold. Her breath fogged in the dim light, her heart slamming against her ribs, and she knew, without doubt, that she wasn’t alone up there. Something—or someone—was waiting.
Mira’s hand hovered at the edge of the banister, the cold iron biting into her palm as the echo of that metallic clink lingered in the air. Her pulse thrummed in her throat, a frantic rhythm against the stillness of the palace. The restoration room was just down the hall, past the heavy oak door she’d left ajar, where Barbora sat on her stand with her half-restored face, her glass eyes catching the weak light from the single bulb overhead. The other dolls waited there too, wrapped in their linen shrouds, their shapes too human under the fabric. Mira’s boots felt glued to the stone floor, each muscle in her legs screaming to turn back, to retreat down the stairs and out into the biting Prague winter where the world made sense. But that sound—it wasn’t just a random noise, not in a place like this. It had intent, a sharpness that cut through the dust and silence like a blade.
She forced herself forward, one step, then another, the soles of her boots scuffing softly against the uneven floor. The air grew heavier as she neared the door, carrying the faint scent of linseed oil and the sharper tang of ceramic glaze, smells that usually grounded her but now twisted in her gut like a warning. Her fingers brushed the doorframe, the wood splintered and cool under her touch, and she peered into the room. The bulb flickered once, casting long shadows across the worktable where her tools lay in precise rows—brushes, scalpels, the tiny jars of pigment she’d mixed that morning. Nothing looked out of place at first glance. Barbora stared back at her, the left side of her porcelain cheek still cracked and discolored, the right side smoothed and polished from Mira’s earlier work. The doll’s gaze felt heavier now, though, as if something behind those glass eyes had shifted while Mira was downstairs.
Then she saw it. On the floor, half-hidden under the edge of the table, lay her smallest chisel, the one with the worn wooden handle she’d inherited from her first mentor. It hadn’t been there when she left. She’d packed everything away, meticulous as always, before heading down to the locked workshop door with Karolína. Her breath caught, a shallow rasp in the quiet, as she crouched to pick it up. The handle was warm—too warm for the frigid room, as if someone had just set it down. Her thumb brushed over a faint smudge on the wood, a trace of something pale and powdery, like porcelain dust. Her eyes darted to Barbora, then to the other shrouded figures on their stands along the wall. The linen over one of them—Eliška, she thought, though she couldn’t be sure—seemed to ripple, just for a second, as if stirred by a breath.
“Stop it,” she muttered under her breath, her voice barely a whisper, more to herself than to the empty room. She straightened, clutching the chisel like a talisman, her other hand finding the edge of the table for balance. The wood groaned under her weight, an old, tired sound that made the room feel alive in a way she didn’t want to think about. She turned, scanning every corner, the shadows pooling in the crevices where the walls met the ceiling, the faint cracks in the plaster that looked like veins in the dim light. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. But the air felt thicker now, pressing against her skin, and that hum she’d heard earlier downstairs pulsed faintly at the edge of her hearing, a rhythm she couldn’t shake.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, a sharp jolt that made her flinch. She fumbled it out, the screen glaring bright in the gloom, and saw Karolína’s name. Her thumb hovered over the answer button, but she didn’t press it. Not yet. Whatever Karolína wanted—more pressure about the deadline, more cryptic warnings about the dolls—Mira wasn’t ready to hear it. She needed a minute, just one, to steady herself. She shoved the phone back into her coat, the rough wool scratching against her wrist, and forced herself to focus. The chisel. The dust. The sound. There had to be an explanation. A draft, maybe, knocking the tool off the table. Or a mouse, skittering through the walls of this ancient place. She’d seen droppings in the basement earlier, hadn’t she? Her mind clung to that thought, rational and safe, even as her gut twisted with the certainty that no mouse had held her chisel.
She stepped toward Barbora, her boots clicking on the stone, and leaned close to inspect the doll’s face. The cracks she’d started filling that morning gleamed under the light, the epoxy she’d applied still tacky to the touch. But something was off. The edge of one crack, near the doll’s jawline, looked wider than it had before, as if someone—or something—had pried at it. Her fingers hesitated, then brushed the porcelain, cool and smooth except for that jagged line. A faint vibration traveled through her hand, up her arm, a sensation so subtle she almost dismissed it. But it was there, a tremor like a heartbeat, faint and irregular, coming from inside the doll.
Her hand jerked back, the chisel clattering to the table as she stumbled against a stool. The metal legs screeched against the floor, the noise slicing through the quiet, and her chest tightened, breath coming in short, shallow bursts. “No,” she said aloud, louder this time, as if the word could anchor her. “No, that’s not—” She cut herself off, shaking her head, her braid swinging against her shoulder. She was tired. Overworked. The jet lag, the cold, the weight of this job—it was all messing with her head. Porcelain didn’t pulse. Dolls didn’t move. She’d spent years handling fragile, priceless things, knowing their limits, their secrets, and none of them had ever felt alive.
But as she turned to grab her coat from the hook by the door, intending to step outside and breathe the sharp, icy air until her mind cleared, she froze. The linen over Eliška—or whichever doll it was—had shifted again. Not a ripple this time, but a clear fold, as if someone had tugged it down just enough to expose the edge of a porcelain hand, the fingers too long, too delicate, curled as if reaching for something. Mira’s mouth went dry, her tongue sticking to the roof of it, and she took a step back without meaning to. Her hip bumped the table, rattling the tools, and the sound seemed to wake the room, a faint creak echoing from the far wall where the other dolls stood.
She didn’t wait to see more. Her coat forgotten, she turned and bolted for the door, her boots pounding against the stone as she moved down the hall toward the stairs. The hum followed her, louder now, a low drone that vibrated in her chest, and she swore she heard something else—a soft, scraping sound, like fingernails on wood, coming from behind her. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t. Her hand found the banister again, slick with her own sweat despite the cold, and she half-ran, half-stumbled down the steps, her breath fogging in the dim stairwell.
The ground floor felt safer, marginally, with its wider halls and the faint glow of streetlights seeping through the high windows. She stopped near the main entrance, her back against the heavy wooden door, and pressed her hands to her face, the skin clammy under her fingers. The smell of old wood and damp stone filled her lungs, grounding her just enough to slow her racing heart. She needed to call Karolína back. Or Jan. Someone who knew more about this place, about the dolls, about whatever she’d just felt upstairs. But her phone stayed in her pocket, her hands too unsteady to dig it out.
Instead, she slid down the door until she was sitting, the cold seeping through her jeans into her bones. The palace was silent again, the hum gone, the scraping gone, but the weight of it lingered, pressing against her like a hand she couldn’t see. She thought of Miami, of the sticky heat and the salt on the air, the way her tiny apartment smelled of coffee and turpentine after a long day in the studio. She’d never felt watched there, never felt this kind of dread curling in her gut. But she couldn’t go back. Not yet. The deadline was one thing—three months to restore twelve dolls, a near-impossible task—but it was more than that now. Something in her, some stubborn, reckless part, needed to know. Needed to understand what the dollmaker had done, why his creations felt so wrong, why her hands trembled every time she touched them.
A sharp knock on the door behind her made her jolt, her head cracking against the wood as she scrambled to her feet. “Mira?” Karolína’s voice came through, muffled but urgent, tinged with that clipped Czech accent. “Are you there? Open up, it’s freezing out here.”
Mira fumbled with the heavy latch, her fingers stiff, and pulled the door open just enough to see Karolína standing on the steps, bundled in a long black coat, her scarf pulled tight against the wind. Snow dusted her shoulders, melting into dark streaks against the wool, and her face was pale, almost gray under the streetlight, her eyes too wide, too bright. “I’ve been calling,” she said, pushing past Mira without waiting for an invitation, her boots leaving wet prints on the stone floor. “Why didn’t you answer? I thought—” She stopped, turning to look at Mira, and her expression shifted, concern flickering under the exhaustion. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen something.”
Mira opened her mouth, then closed it, her tongue heavy. How could she explain it? The chisel, the dust, the vibration under her fingers, the linen moving on its own—she’d sound unhinged, and maybe she was. “I’m fine,” she lied, the words tasting bitter. “Just… tired. Long day. What are you doing here? It’s late.”
Karolína didn’t answer right away. She unwound her scarf, the fabric rasping against itself, and hung it on a hook by the door, her movements slow, deliberate. Her hands were trembling, Mira noticed, just slightly, and there were dark smudges under her eyes, deeper than they’d been that morning. “I couldn’t sleep,” Karolína said finally, her voice quieter now, almost a whisper. “I kept thinking about what Jan said. About the dollmaker. About… the names inside them.” She glanced up the stairs, toward the restoration room, and her jaw tightened, a muscle twitching under the skin. “I had to come back. I had to see them again.”
Mira’s stomach dropped. She didn’t want to go back up there, didn’t want to face whatever she’d felt, but she couldn’t let Karolína go alone. Not with the way the curator’s hands shook, not with the feverish glint in her eyes. “Wait,” she said, grabbing her coat from where it still hung near the entrance, the wool cold and damp from the draft. “I’ll come with you. But we’re not staying long. I need air after this.”
Karolína nodded, already halfway to the stairs, her steps quick and uneven, like she was being pulled. Mira followed, slower, each step a battle against the instinct screaming at her to turn back. The air grew heavier again as they climbed, the smell of dust and oil creeping back into her lungs, and by the time they reached the restoration room, her skin felt tight, prickling with static she couldn’t explain.
The room looked the same, at first. Barbora on her stand, the other dolls shrouded, the tools still scattered where Mira had left them in her panic. But Karolína didn’t hesitate. She crossed straight to Eliška—or the doll Mira thought was Eliška—and tugged the linen down with a sharp, jerky motion. The porcelain face beneath stared out, half-restored from Mira’s work the day before, the left eye missing, the socket a dark, empty hole. But the right eye, glass and eerily blue, seemed to follow them, catching the light in a way that made Mira’s breath hitch.
“Look at her,” Karolína whispered, her voice raw, almost reverent. She reached out, her fingers brushing the doll’s cheek, and Mira saw it again—that faint tremor, like a pulse, traveling through the porcelain into Karolína’s hand. The curator didn’t pull back, though. She leaned closer, her breath fogging against the doll’s face, and murmured something in Czech, too soft for Mira to catch.
“Karolína,” Mira said, sharper than she meant to, her voice cutting through the quiet. “Step back. Now.”
But Karolína didn’t move. Her fingers lingered on the doll, tracing the line of its jaw, and when she finally turned to look at Mira, her eyes were glassy, unfocused, like she was seeing something far beyond the room. “They’re not just objects,” she said, her voice barely audible, trembling at the edges. “They’re… more. I’ve felt it since I found them. Like they’re waiting for something. Or someone.” She paused, her hand dropping to her side, and then added, almost to herself, “I think it’s me.”
Mira’s blood ran cold, the words sinking into her like frost. She didn’t know what Karolína meant, not fully, but the weight of it—the implication—hit her hard. She stepped forward, grabbing Karolína’s arm, the curator’s sleeve rough under her grip. “We’re leaving,” she said, her voice low, firm, even as her own hands shook. “Right now. You’re not thinking straight.”
Karolína resisted for a moment, her body stiff, her gaze still locked on the doll. But then she blinked, a shudder running through her, and nodded, letting Mira pull her toward the door. The hum was back, fainter now but still there, vibrating in the walls, in the air, in Mira’s bones. She didn’t look at the dolls as they left, didn’t let herself glance at Barbora or the others, but she felt their eyes on her back, heavy and unblinking, all the way down the stairs.
Outside, the cold hit like a slap, the wind cutting through Mira’s coat as she locked the palace door behind them. Snow swirled in the streetlights, sticking to her eyelashes, her lips, and she welcomed it, the sharpness clearing her head for the first time in hours. Karolína stood beside her, silent, her scarf clutched in her hands rather than wrapped around her neck, as if she didn’t feel the cold at all. Mira wanted to say something, to ask what the hell that had been, what Karolína meant by “waiting for someone,” but the words wouldn’t come. They hung between them, heavy and unspoken, as the snow piled up around their boots.
Finally, Karolína turned to her, her face half-shadowed in the dim light, and said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have dragged you back up there. But I… I can’t stay away from them. Not anymore.” Her voice cracked on the last word, a fracture that revealed something raw, something Mira hadn’t seen in her before—fear, yes, but also longing, a pull she couldn’t fight.
Mira didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She just nodded, her throat tight, and watched as Karolína turned and walked into the night, her figure swallowed by the snow and the dark. The palace loomed behind Mira, its windows black and empty, but she felt it watching her, felt the weight of what she’d touched, what she’d felt, what she now knew she couldn’t ignore. The dolls weren’t just art. They weren’t just history. They were something else, something alive in a way she couldn’t yet name, and as she stood there, the cold seeping into her bones, she realized she was in too deep to walk away.