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although until now I'd done nothing but lie to Kyoko, I felt I could be more honest in my letters than I could in person, more myself. I didn't have to act or play games or worry about reactions to what I said. I could just write down my thoughts and feelings in the privacy of my own room, and the recipients could read and react in the privacy of theirs.
    I suddenly wished I could write to everyone instead of talking to them. Even my friends.
    "Where've you been?" my mom demanded as I came through the kitchen door.
    Even my family.
 
    I ran out of envelopes far earlier than scheduled, and though I could have asked Miss Nakamoto for more, I was embarrassed to do so. Instead, I took my allowance money and, on the way home from school one Friday, stopped in at the post office to buy some stamps that would enable me to send letters to Japan. I got away from Robert and Edson by telling them that I had to wait at school for my brother, who was supposed to pick me up. As soon as they were down the street and around the corner, I was off.
    In the post office, I saw the witch.
    I heard her before I saw her—that tap-tap-tap of her cane on the floor—and then she rounded the corner of the alcove housing the P.O. boxes and glared at me. One eye was slightly bigger than the other, and both were encased in a face that would have looked disturbing even if it had not been so horribly wrinkled. I glanced quickly away. At close quarters like this, she seemed even scarier than she did on the street, and in her glare I thought I saw recognition. That both worried and frightened me. I didn't care if I was part of the faceless rabble on which she heaped her scorn, but if she was to single me out...
    I thought of Acacia High School's dead pepper tree and the missing ducks from the pond in Murdoch Park.
    She brushed past, close enough for me to smell the strange sweet herbs on her breath. Her bony shoulder would have bumped my arm had I not stepped aside, but I did and I was glad. I didn't want her to touch me.
    Once she was past, I forgot all about her. I stepped up to the counter and bought six stamps with postage enough to send six letters to Japan. Six extra letters! I felt free, filled with possibility, the way an artist must feel when viewing a virgin canvas. I'd broken out of the box, and while I hadn't exactly been playing by the official rules of the Pen Pal Program, now I could really indulge myself and do what I wanted when I wanted.
    That night, I wrote my longest and most detailed letter yet, describing a fictional day in my life cobbled together from my own daydreams and the overheard conversations of other kids. As I finished, I heard a noise from down the hall. I quickly shut off my desk lamp and remained unmoving, praying I wouldn't get caught. But the sound grew no closer; it seemed to stay at the opposite end of the hall. In the stillness of night, auditory elements were amplified, and as the noise differentiated itself into individual components, I realized I was listening to my parents having sex.
    I was filled with disgust. I knew what sex was, of course, but there was no place in my conception of it for this animalistic grunting, and I felt queasy as I hid my letter inside my school notebook and made my way over to the bed as silently as possible. Hiding my head under the pillow, I tried to think of something else entirely, tried not to hear my mom's rhythmic high-pitched squeals, my dad's low guttural groans.
    I think that night was the beginning of my nightmares. I cannot really remember having any nightmares prior to then, but I have suffered from them ever since. Often they are so vivid and realistic that not only can I not get the images out of my mind, but I cannot be sure whether what I remember is a dream or something that really happened.
    The one that night was a doozy.
    I was in my bed asleep, and the light in my room was switched on. "Get up!" my dad ordered. I blinked against the brightness, threw off the covers