The chatter faded away like a dream in the dawn, leaving behind a heavy, stifling silence.  Ashima closed her eyes, begging herself to please, just please let her slip into that moment of oblivion where she could forget where she was and where she wasn't. She thought of stories from her parents about gods and demons, and walks with her dad, of the river and old mill, and the great oak tree with the thick branches that seemed to reach out to her and invite her to climb. She thought of the smell of baking bread and holiday candies, of flowers, fields and warm spring breezes carrying the scent of new grass.

            Something soft touched her face. Ashima smiled at the thought of her mother's fingers caressing her cheeks. Except her fingers were usually more calloused than that. Ashima opened her eyes, blinking until they adjusted. She wondered if she was dreaming, because she was looking into Asha's cloth face, and Asha was looking right back.

            Ashima sat up slowly, brow furrowed.

            Asha was on her bed – kneeling on her bed, the doll's yarn-covered head tilting up to look at her. A tiny cloth arm lifted and waved.

            Ashima, gaping, waved back, absolutely sure she was dreaming. She had to be, because Asha was gone and... Well... not alive.

            “I wish this weren't a dream,” Ashima said, relaxing. “I wish you were real.”

            Asha covered her eyes, shook her head, and then poked Ashima hard in the arm through the sleeve of her lavender nightgown.

            Ashima felt it – the rough material, the pressure on her skin. She'd had vivid dreams before but nothing like this, where she could feel and smell; smoke for the most part, like the time Asha had been left too close to the fire place. It had taken weeks for the smell to leave.

            “This isn't a dream,” Ashima said to herself. Then she repeated with rising alarm and dread, “This isn't a dream.”

            Asha shook her yarn head.

            “This isn't a dream?”

            Another, harder shake.

            “How... how... why... but... you're...”

            Rising to her cloth feet in brown felt shoes, Asha hopped off the bed then walked a ways before turning and waving for Ashima to follow.

            Trepidation told her it was a bad idea. A doll coming to life was unnatural, impossible, wrong, wrong, all wrong. It was a thing of stories, tales of demons and sorcerers with mischief and hurt on their mind. But curiosity – oh that annoying curiosity – wasn't going to let Ashima rest until she knew the truth. Real or not, normal or not, it was Asha, she was back, she was alive, and that begged far too many questions to ignore. Ashima climbed from her bed, slipped into her lavender satin slippers her mother had made, and followed Asha.

            They didn't go far, just to one of the garbage chutes. Asha hopped up and down pointing excitedly at the door.

            “You want me to go in there?” Ashima said in disgust. “Are you crazy? There's a troll down there. Is that what's going on? Did the troll bring you to life to bring me down there so it can eat me?”

            Asha tossed up her hands, looking heaven-ward as if to ask “why me? Why did I get stuck with such an idiot?” Again she signaled for Ashima to follow, and again Ashima followed, this time deeper into the house all the way to the basement, through the laundry room, through the utility room full of steaming boilers to a warped, wooden and chipped door at the very end. Having never been in this room (and in fact restricted to even enter it) Ashima had no idea the door had been there. It was open a crack, enough for Asha to squeeze through.

            With a hammering heart and sweating palms, Ashima followed. On the other side was a stairwell and a spiraling staircase lit by flickering bulbs behind dirty shades. Asha hopped down each of the steps as though traveling them were a common event. Ashima followed with more care, one foot in front of the other while her ears strained for the slightest sound; heavy breathing, heavy footsteps or a bellowing roar of hungry anticipation.

            So it was quite a surprise to come to the end of the stairs and find a tidy little alcove branching off into smaller caves – the one on the left a sort of living/dining room with a patch-work couch, a table with two chairs, a wood burning stove and a sink. On the right, a bedroom nook with an iron-framed bed, mostly rusty, covered in several ragged blankets. Next to the bed, a dresser covered with knick-knacks, most of them shiny but broken trinkets.

            Asha kept going, out of the alcove and into the massive cavern full of junk hills and mountains and roaring from the furnace. Ashima couldn't fathom why she kept following the doll and not turn around. Caution screamed at her to run, but the doll's periodic beckoning urged her on, deeper into the fields of garbage. Ashima kept close to those hills, hunkering low and peering around them before continuing on, but the troll was nowhere to be seen.

            Then Ashima saw the creature at its post by the conveyor belt, tossing bits of metal for the belt to feed the furnace. Ashima sucked in a breath and ducked back around the hill. Asha, however, had kept going, right toward the troll – stupid, stupid doll.

            Ashima had every intention of turning around and going back. She did just that, huddling close but not too close to the junk hill.

            An avalanche of junk skittered down the hill, bringing with it a furry shape about her height that blocked her way. Suddenly, a dog's skull was in her face, its eyes covered by grimy goggles.

            “What's this? What's this!” it shrilled. “Stranger! Stranger, we gotta stranger, boss! A stranger!”

            Ashima shrieked, staggered back and tripped, landing hard on her backside, and tried to crab-scuttle away. She clamored to her feet, turning to go the other way. A doll blocked her way, a foot bigger than Asha with a body of sackcloth, a head covered by a gas mask and little wooden feet and fingers clutching a grubby blue blanket. Turning the other way, it was a cat with an angular metal head and black fur wrapped around its metal body. The other way, it was a bird of wood, a mess of multi-colored feathers and a head covered in pieces of colored cloth sewn together. It stared at her with shiny mica-button eyes.

            Ashima continued to scream, turning this way and that in desperation for a way out. She started climbing the junk hill but the junk dislodged when she was halfway up, pulling her down in another avalanche of garbage. Then something grabbed her, lifting her bodily and carrying her away from the junk.