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perplexed me, yet the girls had a wellspring of empathy for matters outside our knowing. I was anxious, however, to have them go away, so that I might practice my writing. But the girls lingered until the fire collapsed into embers; then they nestled under the covers together, where they continued their discussion, pondering the fate of the writers, their subjects, and their intended readers. I would have to wait to use the pages. The night became bitterly cold, and soon all twelve of us were huddled together in a tangle of limbs. When the last of us wiggled under the mat, I suddenly remembered the day. “Merry Christmas!” I said, but my greetings brought only derision: “Shuddup!” and “Go to sleep.” During the long hours before dawn, a foot hit me on the chin, an elbow knacked me in the groin, and a knee banged against my sore ribs. In a dark corner of the pack, a girl groaned when Béka climbed upon her. Enduring their fitfulness, I waited for morning, the letters pinned against my chest.
    The rising sun reflected against a blanket of high cirrus clouds, coloring them in a spectrum that began in brightness on the eastern edge and fanned out in soft pastels. Branches of the trees broke the sky into fragments, like a kaleidoscope. When the red sun rose, the pattern shifted hues until it all dissipated into blue and white. Up and out of bed, I savored the light growing strong enough for drawing and writing. I took out my papers and pencil, put a cold flat stone in my lap, and folded the mortgage statement into quarters. I drew a cross along the folds and made panels for four drawings. The pencil was at once odd and familiar in my grasp. In the first panel, I created from memory my mother and father, my two baby sisters, and myself, full-body portraits lined up in a straight row. When I considered my work, they looked crude and uneven, and I was disappointed in myself. In the next panel, I drew the road through the forest with the deer, the woman, the car, Smaolach and Luchóg in the same perspective. Light, for example, was indicated by two straight lines emanating from a circle on the car and extending outward to opposite corners of the frame. The deer looked more like a dog, and I dearly wished for an eraser on the yellow pencil. In the third panel: a flattened Christmas tree, lavishly decorated, a pile of gifts spread out on the floor. In the final panel, I drew a picture of a boy drowning. Bound in spirals, he sinks below the wavy line.
    When I showed my paper to Smaolach later that afternoon, he took me by the hand and made me run with him to hide behind a wild riot of holly. He looked around in all directions to make sure we were alone; then he carefully folded the paper into quarters and handed it back to me.
    “You must be more careful with what you draw in them pictures.”
    “What’s the matter?”
    “If Igel finds out, then you’ll know what’s the matter. You have to realize, Aniday, that he doesn’t accept any contact with the other side, and that woman         .         .         .”
    “The one in the red coat?”
    “He’s a-scared of being found out.” Smaolach grabbed the paper and tucked it into my coat pocket. “Some things are better kept to yourself,” he said, then winked at me and walked away, whistling.
    Writing proved more painful than drawing. Certain letters—B, G, R, W—caused my hand to cramp. In those early writings, sometimes my K bent backward, S went astray, an F accidentally became an E, and other errors that are amusing to me now as I look back on my early years, but at the time, my handwriting caused me much shame and embarrassment. Worse than the alphabet, however, were the words themselves. I could not spell for beans and lacked all punctuation. My vocabulary annoyed me, not to mention style,
diction, sentence structure, variety, adjectives and adverbs, and other such matters. The physical act of writing took forever. Sentences had to be