Four minutes until midnight. My watch, illuminated by the small flicker of candle flames and the dim, blue overhead lights, counts the seconds until the next minute ticks over. The air is heavy with alcohol, sweat, hope, and desperation.

Mary never liked dolls. She didn't like them because they talked, and they never had anything nice to say. She told her friends, her mother, and her aunt that the dolls talked, but they didn't believe her.

Why would they?

The dolls never talked to them, and dolls surely did not talk.