Astrid

Astrid was discovered wedged in the rafters of an abandoned mountain-top observatory, her porcelain face tilted skyward as though waiting for alignment. Dust clung to her pale dress, but her glass eyes gleamed with unnatural brightness, reflecting constellations no one present could name.

Astrid must never be left near mirrors telescopes or reflective glass at night. her gaze draws the sky nearer warping familiar into unknown. owners are advised to cover eyes dusk with a strip of black cloth. should hands begin lift on their own whisper: “The heavens stay above, the ground stays below.” A family who kept Astrid in their attic reported strange diagrams drawn in soot across the ceiling - constellations that didn’t match any map, etched over and over as if charting a sky no one had ever seen. Their son, age nine, awoke one morning with his palm blistered in the shape of a seven-pointed star. He claimed the doll had guided his hand upward while he slept, whispering about “doors in the dark.”

A later keeper, a young woman in Portland, described recurring dreams of drifting in endless blackness while pinpricks of light burst around her like icy fire. Each morning she woke bleeding from the nose, her fingertips raw and pale as though frostbitten. She returned Astrid to the observatory where she was found, but locals say the doll still moves from rafter to rafter, always watching, always pointing.