Year of the Boar, Seventh Month, Day 12.

The scroll is still on my bed-covers and I am still awake. I cannot bring myself to move it and yet I cannot stop looking at it. If I so much as pick it up, he will come through those pages and my nightmare will begin all over again. Chiyo does not speak; she comes in with food, puts it down and waits while I pick at it listlessly, she feeds and waters Crystal and then she leaves. I do not know where she goes. Perhaps she sits in the ante-chamber with the other maids. None of them ever venture in here; I do not know why... There was a time when I knew all of the servants, when I talked with them and giggled at the ladies of the House and their outlandish fashions... when I was little and had no care at all... As I gazed out of the window earlier, I thought wistfully that I did not know how happy I was when Mother was still alive... I believed myself miserable because she treated me like a toy but I had everything. I have more now that I am an adult and the Ruling Lady myself of course, but I feel that I have nothing at all.
It occurs to me as I write this that the contents of that letter may be important; if Shigeru is on his way here, it would be better if I knew so that I could prepare. So that I could hide... the very thought makes my stomach turn over as does the thought of touching that parchment and reading the venom that crawls through his ink but if he comes here and finds me unaware... unprotected... would that not be far, far worse...? I can barely breathe thinking about knowing the contents of that scroll but on balance, I must know. Perhaps I will ask Chiyo to read it for me and tell me the worst so that I do not have to touch it. In the meantime, I must organise a working party to look at the defences of the House... gods, why do you hate me so much...?