Lia made her choice. She would give Jade Amor Barbie Rous one year of life.

In the dusty, forgotten attic of an old Manila mansion, amid trunks of moth-eaten barongs and sepia-toned photographs, a young curator named Lia Santos found her.

So Lia set out to give the doll a life.

That night, Lia placed the doll on her nightstand and went to sleep. She dreamed of a young woman in a garden of wilted orchids, weeping. The woman had the doll’s face—jade-pale, lips like a cut pomegranate. She spoke in a language that was half-Spanish, half-Tagalog, but Lia understood every word.