Chapter Summaries

Lynn entered another fragment of Miss Doll’s memories and witnessed her childhood abandonment. The memory left Miss Doll locked inside a carriage compartment with other children after her mother left her with a rag doll.

• Lynn found another memory fragment and entered a nineteenth-century street scene from Miss Doll’s childhood.
• Lynn watched Miss Doll’s mother sell her for ten shillings, explaining that the girl had a congenital cognitive impairment.
• Miss Doll’s mother gave her a worn rag doll and promised to return after finding her father in the Southern Continent.
• Miss Doll’s mother left with her son, while Miss Doll stood beneath the blossoming tree holding the doll.
• A man dragged Miss Doll away and locked her in a carriage compartment with other ragged children.

Lynn entered another of Miss Doll’s memories and witnessed her childhood in a cellar beneath an underground factory, where trafficked children were starved and worked as slaves. He saw Shirley take the young, silent girl under her protection, leaving their fragile friendship to continue amid the factory’s brutal conditions.

• Lynn found a cluster of memories and entered a dark cellar where children fought over meager food.
• Shirley shared food with the little girl, warned her about surviving, and introduced herself as the oldest child there.
• Shirley promised to protect the girl after she had bitten a boy who attacked Shirley.
• Lynn learned that the children were trafficked slaves forced to maintain dangerous machinery in an underground harbor factory.
• Shirley trapped a rat for food, then warned the girl not to eat it because it could make her sick and get her thrown into the sea.

Lynn witnessed Black String Moon’s memories of the cellar, where Shirley protected her and became her only friend. When Shirley was taken away after growing too large to work among the gears, she returned with food and told Black String Moon that they would escape together.

• Shirley defended the silent girl from the other children and became her only friend in the cellar.
• Shirley shared stories of her dead sister and encouraged the girl to keep hoping and try to speak.
• On Shirley’s thirteenth birthday, foremen dragged her away because she had grown too large to fit between the factory gears.
• Shirley returned that night with proper food for the children and a painful look in her eyes.
• Shirley held the girl and whispered that they would escape and live together in the countryside.

Shirley helped the girl escape the factory through a tunnel she had dug, but she became trapped and fatally wounded in a narrow drainage pipe. She pushed the girl out toward the ocean, heard her call her “big sister” at last, and died as the sun rose.

• Shirley woke the girl and gave her coins, then revealed the tunnel she had secretly dug beneath the factory.
• Shirley led the girl through the machinery and away from the patrol dogs, guiding her toward a drainage pipe leading to the harbor.
• The girl crawled out of the pipe and saw the ocean and sunrise, but Shirley could not fit through because she had grown too large.
• Shirley urged the girl to survive and shoved her toward freedom as the pursuers pried open the iron plate above them.
• The girl cried “Big sister” for the first time as she fell toward the sea, and Shirley smiled, saying she had heard her.

Lynn entered another of Miss Doll’s memories and witnessed her survival after escaping the sea, as she endured life on the streets and prepared to cross the sea to find Mother. The memory ended with winter approaching and the little girl beginning to gather supplies for her journey.

• Lynn swam deeper into Miss Doll’s subconscious and entered a memory of her washing ashore in a polluted city.
• The little girl hid beneath a bridge, scavenged for food at night, and struggled to survive alone.
• She found an injured stray puppy, shared her food with it, and brought it back to her shelter.
• The puppy recovered and became her companion, helping her find food and avoid danger.
• As winter neared, she stored supplies and prepared to cross the sea to find Mother.

A young girl stowed away on a freighter with her puppy, hoping to reach the New Continent, but the ship diverted and secretly took on enslaved people. After surviving on scraps, she was discovered when someone opened her crate.

• She dreamed of her family before waking from a nightmare and preparing to flee the winter cold.
• She hid aboard a freighter with her puppy, carrying food, patched clothes, and her doll.
• The freighter changed course, and after their food and water ran out, she watched sailors force shackled people into the hold.
• She survived by collecting scraps left by sailors carrying food to the enslaved people below.
• A rough hand opened her crate and seized her hair while she was asleep.

A young girl endured captivity aboard a slave ship, holding onto hope that she would find her family on the New Continent. After secretly feeding the slaves in the hold, she was chased by a drunken sailor and fled into her cage.

• The crew kept the girl chained in a birdcage, tormented her, and made her clean the ship while her puppy followed the sailors for scraps.
• The girl clung to the hope of finding her family and shared leftover food with the starving slaves in the cargo hold.
• The Black Boy cowered and apologized to her, but she could not understand what he said.
• A drunken, smallpox-scarred sailor grabbed the girl and spoke of his dead niece, revealing that he wanted her for himself.
• The girl escaped from the sailor and hid inside her cage.

A young girl escaped her captors after a sailor attacked her, leaving her badly injured and close to death. Her dog freed her from the cage, and the enslaved people aboard the ship helped her flee as the dog leaped from the deck toward freedom.

• A sailor tried to assault the girl, so she stabbed him to death with a rusty nail and cut her own face to make herself less valuable to her captors.
• The captain kept the girl caged as the freighter approached port, where Customs officers ignored the ship’s cargo in exchange for a bribe.
• The girl sang to her cloth doll while she waited in the cage, and her dog returned with keys and unlocked it.
• The dog carried the weakened girl out of the hold as the sailors pursued them, and the enslaved people on deck attacked the sailors to help them escape.
• The dog leaped from the ship with the girl on its back as alarms sounded and flintlocks fired.

After the dog carried the girl ashore on the New Continent, it died from a gunshot wound, leaving her alone. She later woke in a cloth doll shop where an old man had saved her life, but she searched in vain for her dog and doll.

• The girl dreamed of Shirley and her dog beckoning her toward a sunlit meadow before waking in the stormy sea.
• The dog carried the injured girl to shore, then collapsed beneath a roof after its gunshot wound continued to bleed.
• The girl tried to bandage the dog and promised it would recover, but it died as she held it through the night.
• The next morning, the girl held the dog's stiff body and told it that the sun had risen.
• The girl woke on an operating table in a cloth doll shop, and the old man explained that he had treated her injuries.
• The girl searched the shop's dolls for her dog and her own doll, but found neither.

After escaping the dollmaker’s shop, the girl searched the city dump for her dog but never found it, and she continued to grieve for both the dog and Shirley. She later traveled south in search of her mother, holding on to hope and gradually learning to speak and remember her past.

• The girl reclaimed her cloth doll from the old dollmaker, who told her that her dog might be at the dump outside the city.
• The girl searched the dump for her dog for days, scavenging for food and eventually accepting that she would not find it.
• On her seventh night at the dump, the girl heard a dog bark in the rain but found herself alone.
• The girl wandered the city streets, asking people about her mother, then secretly boarded a southbound steam train.
• As she traveled south, the girl dreamed of a family life and gradually began speaking normally, though she still could not clearly recall her past.

Lynn witnessed the girl's memories of wandering the New Continent until she reunited with her mother, then entered a later memory to discover what had made her lose hope. The chapter ended with the girl telling her mother about her ordeal and saying she did not resent her.

• The girl traveled south through small towns, searching for news of her mother and older brother while holding on to hope of going home.
• The girl reunited with her mother in a crowded street, and Lynn later watched the memory and noticed that these earlier memories still held a faint glimmer.
• Lynn reached for the girl's dark, silent later memories to find the source of her lost hope.
• The girl's mother brought her home, fed and bathed her, and cried as she apologized for having handed her over as collateral.
• The girl saw her older brother again and mistook his wary, disgusted reaction for fear of her scar.
• The girl spoke to her mother, recounted her journey, and said she did not resent her because she had trusted her mother's promise to find her.

The girl reunited with her mother and hoped their family could be whole, but hearing her father return brought back the memories she had buried. The chapter ended with her recognizing that her father had abused her and that her dreams of a happy family had been fantasies.

• The girl gave her patched Cloth Doll to her tearful mother, who dressed her and held her through the afternoon.
• The girl asked where her father was, and her mother panicked and hid her in the basement.
• The girl heard her father arrive and felt his voice and the sound of his cane stir painful memories.
• The girl's brother pointed out the basement, and her father came downstairs despite her mother's attempts to stop him.
• The girl saw her father's face and remembered his beatings, realizing she had deliberately shut away her memories of abuse.

Lynn witnessed the memories of the girl's childhood: her mother died protecting her, and she shot the father who had threatened her. The girl was convicted and sent to an orphanage, where she was abused and left utterly alone; Lynn could only watch her as a phantom.

• The father dragged the girl from the basement and tried to bury her, while her mother begged him to spare their daughter.
• When the father aimed his revolver at the girl, her mother shielded her and was shot dead.
• The girl picked up the gun and shot the father, then stayed silently beside the bodies until dawn.
• Police found the girl with the revolver, while her young brother had gone mad; the girl was charged with murder and sent to a federally funded orphanage.
• Orphanage staff whipped the girl and locked her in a cold room, where she clutched her doll and remembered her mother's song.
• Lynn watched the girl's suffering as a phantom, unable to reach or comfort her.

Lynn witnessed the memories of the girl’s years of abuse and human experimentation in the orphanage known as the Garden of Eden. After the institution burned and she was secretly transferred, the old doctor who had arranged her placement revealed that he had funded the experiments because he believed she was special.

• Lynn realized that Shirley and the puppy had been the girl’s last sources of comfort, and that he could not change her past.
• The girl’s memories showed how the orphanage’s staff forced children to labor before conducting brutal human experiments on them.
• Lynn watched the girl endure pain experiments and other abuse for several years as the Garden of Eden operated without restraint.
• Public outrage over the research led the government to withdraw its support, and a fire destroyed the orphanage after the girl and other subjects were moved away.
• The old doctor who had treated the girl’s facial wound told her he had arranged her placement and helped fund the experiments.
• The doctor said the girl’s heart had stopped for fifteen minutes during one experiment, yet she had survived.

Lynn witnessed the memories of the doll girl’s survival, transformation into a living doll, and rise as a celebrated dancer. The chapter ended when her buyer was revealed to be her older brother, the boy from the night her family was destroyed.

• Lynn recalled how the girl escaped the underground factory and crossed the New Continent despite injuries, infection, and pollution that should have killed her.
• The old man suggested that the girl might have died during her ordeal and continued living only because she had not fulfilled her wish to see her mother.
• The old man transformed the girl into a doll, replacing her body while preserving her brain and eyes, and spent more than a decade perfecting her.
• The doll girl became a celebrated dancer and a symbol of the possibilities of combining industry with flesh.
• Lynn watched her being sold as a collectible, then recognized the buyer as her older brother, the boy who had gone mad on the night twenty years earlier.

Lynn witnessed a memory of her older brother finding and torturing her after nearly twenty years apart, while the thread connecting her to him made her feel her Doll body's simulated agony. The memory ended as her brother approached with the intent to destroy her faith in family by violating her.

• Lynn's long-lost older brother recognized her and dragged her from her cage, blaming her for their parents' deaths and beating her with a whip.
• He injected nearly half the blue potions from his briefcase into Lynn's brain, causing her Doll body to convulse in simulated agony.
• Lynn felt the torture through the thread on her little finger and watched her brother's hatred and warped pleasure.
• Her brother said he knew she still longed for a home and still saw him as family, then declared he would destroy that bond and began approaching her.

After her brother attacked her, she stabbed him in the neck with broken glass, but he used his last moments to reveal that Shirley was alive and had been brought to the building. She rushed to save Shirley, only to see her and her children fall from a shattered window as they briefly recognized each other.

• Her brother stopped attacking after she stabbed him in the neck with a shard of glass, then explained that he had planned to torment her by revealing Shirley was alive.
• Her brother showed her Shirley on a screen and revealed that Shirley had survived captivity, endured years of hardship, and been brought to the building.
• Her brother used a remote to show thugs entering Shirley's room, and she cried out for Shirley before running down the corridor.
• She broke through the door to Shirley's room, but the floor-to-ceiling window shattered and Shirley and her children fell into the storm.
• Shirley and she saw each other for a fleeting moment before Shirley vanished into the night.

Lynn discovered the source of Miss Doll’s death fixation in the horrific memories of her past life and realized he could revive her by killing the version of her embodied in those memories. He found that girl in her subconscious and, despite his anguish, prepared to erase her.

• Lynn watched Miss Doll’s memories end with her taking her own life and understood why she had become fixated on death.
• Sir Awen left the colossus network, confronted the Dollhouse, and entered the room to establish a telepathic connection with Lynn.
• Lynn told Sir Awen that his firstborn power gave him a way to revive Miss Doll by separating her from her past self.
• Lynn explained that he planned to kill the other version of Miss Doll in her subconscious to remove the memories behind her fixation.
• Lynn found the frightened girl representing Miss Doll’s past life and raised his revolver as he questioned whether erasing her was the right choice.

Lynn refused to erase the girl’s painful past and instead plunged with her into the deepest reaches of the Sea of Loss, intending to give her a life without suffering. He created a new world in which he met her on the shore after she washed up.

• Lynn aimed his Revolver at the girl but could not pull the trigger after she made a pinky-promise gesture.
• Lynn held the girl and asked Sir Awen how much time passed in reality while they were in the subconscious.
• Lynn told Sir Awen he would give the girl a complete life and then broke their connection.
• Lynn carried the girl into the Sea of Loss and used his power to shape a world of their own.
• In the new world, Lynn found the girl washed ashore and offered to take her to a hospital.

In Black String Moon's spirit world, Sir Awen entered the deepest reaches of her mind to find Lynn before he lost himself. Lynn experienced a life with the little girl he had found years earlier, caring for and raising her in a warm home where Shirley had come to visit.

• Sir Awen learned Lynn had crossed into the deepest part of Black String Moon's subconscious and rushed after him to make him stop.
• Lynn spent a winter day with the little girl, who collected fallen petals and asked him to carry her home.
• Lynn remembered finding her on the beach two years earlier and how she had gradually grown to trust him.
• Lynn refused the girl's request for ice cream, then took her home and reminded her that he was her legal guardian.
• Lynn dressed the girl in her house jacket and sent her to help Shirley prepare a feast.