In this short chapter, the reader learns that Grace's younger sister, ashley, has finished her journal, and that she has brought it home with her. The narrator tells us that this is the beginning of the novel's story, which begins with a thoughtful gift from her sister. She tells the reader that the day she is going to escape is the day that she will die, and she tells the audience that moments out in the open are worth more years of decay than years of confinement. She asks the reader not to bring the smoke from the fire in the house, and the narrator tells her that he has been alone for a long time, and wishes someone would come and visit him. He says that a white-haired boy with puppy-dog eyes appears in his room, and no one can see him, and he wonders if that means that he is hallucinating. He wonders if this is one of his vivid dreams, and wonders if he will wake up if he goes back to sleep. He tells the narrator that he brought him dinner, and more than half of him wishes that he would come back to visit him again