Huck
"I'm your problem now." Did I arrive on your doorstep? It's time to play.
Discovery Notes
Mississippi River Basin, 1912
Warning Issued
Huck must never be kept near mirrors or standing water. He will find reflections unsettling — and may try to reach through them. Once a month, place a shallow bowl of clean river or rainwater before him and say: “For the crossing, Huck. The current runs true.” Do not touch the twine on his wrist. It is said to bind him to the shore. Untie it, and he may try to pull you back with him. If he ever begins to hum louder than the sound of your own breath, leave him by running water. That’s where he listens best.
Last Known Account
Huck was found sealed inside a tin trunk recovered from the wreckage of the Adelaide Belle, a small riverboat that sank near Baton Rouge in the early 1900s. The trunk contained a boy’s belongings — suspenders, marbles, a pocketknife — and this doll, crudely stitched but surprisingly well-preserved.
According to old records, the trunk belonged to Huckleby Crane, a cabin boy of ten who worked aboard the steamer. The captain’s log notes that Huck was “a peculiar child — talks to his doll more than the crew, says it tells him the river’s secrets.”
The Adelaide Belle went down in a fog so thick the crew claimed they never saw the bank. The boat struck something heavy beneath the surface — something that moved. Only six bodies were recovered. Huck’s wasn’t among them.
Weeks later, a fisherman’s wife reported finding a doll washed up in her net. Its eyes were clouded, as if waterlogged, but dry to the touch. When she tried to throw it back, it “caught on the line as though it refused to sink.”
Those who’ve owned Huck since claim to hear running water even when he’s dry. If placed near a window, condensation forms on the glass in the shape of fingerprints — small, child-sized. He hums at night, low and tuneless, like a work song heard from a distant shore.
He smells faintly of silt and river lilies, no matter how often he’s cleaned. Once, a collector reported finding wet footprints leading away from the cabinet he was kept in — though the floorboards were bone dry by morning.
Local lore says the Mississippi doesn’t drown her children; she keeps them. Huck may have been one of those claimed, bound to the current and carried home by the river that raised him.