The Sunken Fallacy

Chapter 1: Old, Beautiful and Painful Photographs

Cups, plates, rings and shoes;

These were just a few things that were on display at the Titanic exhibition that 18-year-old Cynthia Thorntell was currently looking at. She lowered her head down looking through the glass case at a good enough distance that wouldn't sound the security alarms at a couple of China pieces, which right next to it had a small plaque discussing how they were made and how they were recovered from the wreck in the mid nighties.

She had been to many exhibitions like this before, both around the country and out, but yet it always was fascinating for her, as it had been for most of her family.

Cynthia stood up and began to go down and glance over at the other displays, all o them encased in glass cases, around her are people also looking at the artifacts, though they are mostly either people much older than her or schoolchildren likely coming from school trips. She kept moving along until she went into another room where more displays were.

Except there was only one thing that was on display in that room, it was encased in a large glass case that dangled down from the ceiling and Cynthia found herself stopping to look at it, she had only seen this display once before, it was on an old broadcast she had seen on youtube in the early 2000s.

Inside the glass case was a small charcoal drawing of a naked woman posed on a couch wearing a dark heart necklace. Cynthia looked at the corner of the page which had the date: "April 14 1912" and the initials JD.

Cynthia looked around and right next to the display was a plaque which Cynthia began to read: "This drawing was found in a safe belonging to Caledon Hockley in 1996 by Brock Lovvet in his crew, whose reasonings for diving down to the ship were not towards research and scientific exploration. It is believed that the woman in the drawing is Rose Calvert who was a passenger on board the ship.."

Cynthia stared at the drawing again, staring at the dark necklace along the women's neck and then back to the signature. Who is JD? She thought and looked back once again at the plaque, there is no mention of the artist. How long ago was that? 96? That was about 12 years ago Cynthia thought in her head as she went and pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at the time. It was 10:45 am. She didn't have much time left there, She was supposed to be meeting up with her friends for morning tea, she hadn't seen them for a couple of weeks and they had just gotten back from their trip to Paris.

Cynthia walked out of the room, heading towards the exit, passing a couple of more displays, when she found her eyes fixated on one and stopped.

There was a small display in the corner of the last room before the gift shop and the exit and moves slowly towards it. In the case, was a pair of worn-out black gloves that had holes in them, a couple of gold rings with different coloured gems along them, a purple and green hair comb with leaves on it and a golden trinket box, all of which looked very old. Cynthia immediately recognised these items, her eyes lighting up as she stood in front of the exhibit. She had seen these trinkets before, a long time ago in photos her parents and grandparents had shown her, except in those photos they were in the hands of examiners and in buckets of water.

So when she looked at the plaque next to the exhibit she wasn't surprised when she saw who those items belonged to.

"These personal items belonged to first-class passenger Maybelle Cornell who was travelling to New York to reunite with her parents after her husband's death 6 months earlier."

Maybelle Cornell; Her maternal great-grandmother.

Who would have thought these would be there? She thought excitedly, Her own part of family history is out on display here. She couldn't help but smile. She remembered back she was a child how her parents and grandparents would talk about when they first saw these items when they were first being brought up from the wreck back in the late eighties. There were very few stories however about Maybelle herself, as her grandparents would tell her when she asked about that night.