Her employer at the museum, aware of Catherine's grief, gives her a special project - to piece together both the mechanics and the story of an extraordinary automaton, commissioned in the nineteenth century by Henry Brandling to amuse his dying son.

Her employer at the museum, aware of Catherine's grief, gives her a special project - to piece together both the mechanics and the story of an extraordinary automaton, commissioned in the nineteenth century by Henry Brandling to amuse his dying son.