Annie heard the door close behind her and she smiled to herself. Clutching the two dolls closer to her chest, she started walking towards the bed. When the chandelier lights started flashing and exploding, she hardly paid them any attention. Lost in a world that was entirely of her making, Annie had tuned out the mortal world around her.
By the time the chandelier had finally gone quiet, Annie had seated herself on the large bed and was cradling both of her dolls in her arms. Looking at them curiously, she wondered what to call them. When it was just the one, "Baby" seemed a very suitable name, but now that there were two of them, "Baby" seemed inappropriate. Annie screwed up her eyes in concentration as she tried to think of appropriate names. She needed a boy name and a girl name, as she now had a boy doll to go with her girl doll.
Surfacing as though from a deep pool of water, two names that she had heard earlier came to her mind: April and Adam. She looked closely at her two dolls, certain that they had spoken to her mind. She smiled as whispers floated through her ears, telling her all sorts of fun things.
"Annie." Rachel's voice broke thru the haze of her thoughts. Annoyed by the interruption, Annie looked up.
Rachel was staring at her, Annie's pajamas in her outstretched hands. Annie shook her head defiantly. She didn't want to go to bed. She wanted to play with April and Adam. Pressing the dolls tightly against her chest, she shook her again.
Rachel's expression took on a fatigued look as she held out the clothing more insistently. "If you want to play for a few more minutes, you need to get dressed now. What if the lights go off? How will you be able to get dressed in the dark? You should do it now while the lights are on."
Annie stared at Rachel for several seconds before she reluctantly transferred both dolls to one arm and held out the free hand. Rachel dumped the clothes into her hand before turning her back to the bag to pull out her own sleepwear.
"Did you have fun dancing with Steve tonight?" Rachel asked, her voice slightly muffled by the shirt she was pulling on over her head. Annie had just pulled on her bottoms and plopped down on the bed to wait for Rachel. All thoughts of Adam and April gone, Annie started nodding her head enthusiastically. She had surprised him so much when they started dancing in the air. She giggled at the memory of his shocked face. She liked the way he smiled at her and she had been so happy when he had come over to start dancing with her.
Rachel's head finally popped out of the shirt and she bent over Annie to start tickling her side. "What are you giggling about?"
Annie's laughter drowned out any attempt to speak. After several minutes of tickling each other, they finally collapsed upon the bed, chests heaving as they sought to catch their breath. Annie wished she could put into words how at home she felt here. She had found another doll, dominoes, a dollhouse, music that she adored, and, somewhere in the house, there was a new friend who wanted to play hide-and-go-seek with her.
The bout of tickling having worn her out, Annie rolled over onto her side to look at Rachel. Rachel was staring at the ceiling, seemingly oblivious to Annie's presence. Annie hugged her dolls to her and rolled over, slipping her feet underneath the covers.
As she started drifting off to sleep, her mind was filled with records spinning through the air as their haunting melody pulled all of her new friends into a dance through the stars. She decided that she liked it here and she never wanted to leave.