The next day, Shiki arranged for Lucy and her granddaughter to come aboard the ship. He wasn't entirely sure if Lucy really was who she claimed to be but what did he have to lose by hearing her out?
"She's a damn liar. A nut case! Like that Russian girl who claimed to be a long lost duchess." Weisz said when Shiki told him his plan. "Lucy Heartfilia died on the Titanic at age 17."
"That was never proven." Shiki said. "They never found the body."
"Still if she was alive, she'd be a hundred by now."
"Actually she's a hundred-one."
"Okay so she's a very old damn liar."
"Weisz I know how this sounds."
"It sounds like a crazy old broad trying to milk us for every penny."
"For your information she didn't ask for any money. All she wants is to see the picture, and what's the harm in just hearing what she has to say? If she's a liar or just crazy, fine. No losses there. But if she's the real deal, we could be millionaires Weisz."
"I guess. I just hope this isn't a con or anything."
"I doubt it. She didn't sound like the con type to me."
"They never do man. How do you think New York and L.A got so overrun with thieves and scoundrels?"
Shiki just shrugged, then he and Weisz went up on deck to watch as a helicopter landed on board. The helicopter door opened, a ramp was laid out, and a wheelchair carrying the old woman slowly came out. Shiki quickly went over to greet her with a smile.
"Miss Lucy, it is a pleasure to meet you." He said holding out his hand to her. "My name is Shiki Granbell."
"I know." She nodded. "I've seen your reports on television many times."
"Glad to see that I have a fan." He chuckled.
"My granddaughter happens to be your biggest fan. Would you like to meet her?"
"I'd be honored."
"Rebecca dear!" She called.
"Coming Grandma."
Rebecca picked up both their suitcases and carefully stepped out of the helicopter. Her loveliness took Shiki's breath away. She looked very much the young woman in the drawing, sharing a similar figure and facial structure. However her hair was a wavy ash-blond as opposed to the woman's strait yellow locks, her skin was much fairer, and she had blue eyes instead brown. But both eyes had same sparkle of life and passion in them.
"Hello." Shiki said when he could finally speak. "Please, let me take those for you."
He grabbed the suitcases from her.
"Thank you." She said, thinking that he looked so much more handsome in person.
"Everyone this is my granddaughter Rebecca, she takes care of me." Lucy said.
"I glad to finally meet you Mr. Granbell." Rebecca said. "Your ship is incredible."
"Thank you." He said.
"I've watched all your televised reports. They're so fascinating."
"Really? You like what I do?"
"Of course."
"I'm glad. Most people would call me a grave robber."
"Then they might as well start arresting archaeologists."
They both laughed.
"No doubt you and your grandmother are tired from the trip, so I'll escort you to your cabins and let you rest for awhile before we do any interviewing."
"Thank you." Lucy said. "But first I'd like to see my drawing please."
Shiki led the two ladies down into lab where the tech crew worked, Rebecca carefully followed him while pushing Lucy in her wheelchair and when they reached the stairs, they both assisted her in going down.
Soon Lucy found herself gazing upon the old picture, confronting herself across a span of 84 years. She closed her eyes and thought back to another time in her life. A different time to where she was much younger. She could see a man's hand holding a conte crayon deftly creating a shoulder and the shape of her hair with two efficient lines. She could also see the man's eyes, just visible over the top of his sketching pad, looking soft yet fearlessly direct. It made her smile.
"You actually believe this is you Grandma?" Rebecca asked looking at the drawing.
"It is me, dear." Lucy said. "Wasn't I a hot number?"
Rebecca and Lucy both giggled.
"But Grandma if that woman really is you, how come you never said anything before?"
Suddenly the old woman found herself seeing something else from the past. Ice breaking against the ship, the echoes of screams, shots being fired, people falling into the sea, bodies that were stone-cold frozen dead on the ocean surface. She started to tremble and put her hand over her heart.
"Grandma." Rebecca said noticing her distress. "Grandma are you okay?"
"I'm...I'm fine." She said softly. "I...I think I need to rest now."
Shiki and Rebecca helped Lucy get to her cabin.
"Here we are." Shiki said opening the door to Lucy's room. "I hope you'll be comfortable here. I'm so sorry if we've upset you in anyway."
"Oh no. You haven't." Lucy said. "I apologize for making a scene."
"Here Grandma I'll help you unpack." Rebecca offered.
"Oh no honey." Lucy said. "We can do that later. I'm too tired right now, I need a nap. And I know you're just itching to explore this ship. Mr. Granbell, would you mind giving Rebecca a tour of your lovely vessel?"
"I would consider it a privilege." Shiki said.
So while Lucy was napping in her quarters, Shiki and Rebecca walked about the ship and talked. He showed her all the parts of the vessel and told her how they worked, and she told him all about her grandmother.
"She did a lot of traveling in her youth." Rebecca told him. "She did some acting in L.A, she also did some dancing, she loved to ride horses on the beach with Mom. She was close friends with two wives of socialites, but according to her they were not the snobby and fake kind. In fact she tells me that I remind her of them."
"Are your parents still around?"
"Yes. Mom and Dad looked after her for as long as they could and it didn't bother them, but I could tell that they wanted to spend their golden years with each other. So I decided to be her caretaker from now on."
"You two seem very close."
"We are. Mom and Dad are great, but Grandma and I have a special bond."
"Does she have anyone else in her life?"
"Just me and Mom. All her friends and relatives are dead now."
"Was there a husband in the picture?"
"No. Grandma never married and she never told any of us who my grandfather was. Not even my mother."
"Why?"
"Well Mom was born out of wedlock and back in those days, it was considered shameful for a woman to birth an illegitimate child, Grandma was probably too embarrassed to talk about him. Sometimes it made Mom upset but she would get over it."
"I see. Can I ask you something and please don't be offended, but do you honestly believe your grandmother is telling the truth? Or is she just...Um...What's the word?"
"Crazy?"
"No. No, not at all. It's just when people get old they'll sometimes mix up fact with fiction or remember things wrong. Do you think that might be the case here?"
"Grandma might have a lot of secrets but she's never lied to me or anyone else. She's old but her mind is still good, and judging by what we saw below deck, I think she was having a PTSD moment."
"Hmm...Could be, and that might explain why she never said anything before. I know if I had seen hundreds of people die, I'd have a hard time talking about it."
"What about you? Do you believe her?"
"Well I don't know yet. I mean you and the woman in the drawing do look a lot alike."
Rebecca turned bright red in the face.
"No!" Shiki started to panic when he realized how that might have come off. "Not like that! I mean your face is similar to hers! And so is your body! No! Wait! I didn't mean...Oh shit."
"Smooth Romeo!" Weisz called out in a taunting voice. "Real smooth!"
Shiki covered his face in humiliation and groaned. Rebecca couldn't help but laugh.
Meanwhile in her cabin, Lucy wasn't napping at all. She was actually opening her suit case and displaying her collection of photographs. All of them had a story to tell and each story she had told. But the story behind that drawing was one that she had not told. Not to anyone. She had kept it safely locked away in her heart and mind, never speaking of it except with those who had first hand experience with the tale as she did. For years she had been wanting to tell it but it was always too hard and too painful to speak even one word. Too many sad and scary memories that haunted her.
She looked out the porthole window of her cabin and she watched as Shiki and Rebecca walked, talked, and laughed together. The way they smiled and looked at each other, it brought back the happy memories that came from her time on that ship. It reminded her of the time she once happily conversed and laughed with a young man who looked upon her in the way Shiki was looking at Rebecca.
"I've kept quiet about it long enough." She thought as she pulled one last thing from her suitcase. A wooden jewelry box that she kept locked with a special key that she wore around her neck. She opened the box with her key and listened to the familiar melody, letting it help her remember everything.
"It's time that I told our story Natsu. All of our stories."
She closed the music box, locked it, and put the key around her neck again. When Rebecca came to get her, Shiki had a surprise for her. A few items recovered from the ship that were said to belong to Lucy Heartfilia.
"This was mine." With a trembling hand she lifted a tortoise shell hand mirror inlaid with a mother pearl, caressing it softly. "How extraordinary, it looks the same as I last saw it."
She looked at herself in the glass.
"The reflection has changed a bit."
Next she picked up an ornate art-nouveau hair comb. One designed to where a jade butterfly took flight on the ebony handle of the comb. It brought a few tears to her eyes.
"This was my mother's. My father gave it to me after she died. When I'd wear it I felt like she was alive and combing my hair again, like she did when I was little."
"According to our records." Weisz said. "Her name was Layla Heartfilia and she died of small pox when the real Lucy Heartfilia was eight."
"Yes, I was eight when Mother passed. Too young to be without a mother, and Father never recovered from her death. Losing her turned him into a cold and money-obsessed man. You could almost say that without her, my father forgot how to love anyone. Including me."
"How much do you remember Lucy?" Shiki asked. "Do you remember what happened to the watch or the diamond or the bracelet? Or about how you survived the wreck?"
"It's been 84 years." She sighed in a melancholic tone. "But I remember. I remember it all. I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in."
Shiki, Rebecca, and Weisz all gave the old woman her undivided attention as she willed her mind to go back 84 years.
"Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was."
And so began her story...