Clouds trail overhead, picking down the sky with purple hems—if you are going to him, my sweet duchesses, please to let him know—I am Sorrow.

June

I am sole occupant of this room, left behind to the great wide table where I am writing this in daylight, for Sue will not enter while I am in here. Last night she whispered at me, “Nell,” and came to the foot of my bed to put a shaking hand upon the stead. She has grown terribly thin and pale. “Do you think you might change into your nightdress now, Nell?”

I looked down at my walking costume, a little soiled but quite adequate. “Nay, Sue. This does me well.”

She struggled only an instant. “Well, tomorrow, then. Perhaps you might wear your blue?”

I smiled again at her in the gloom. “Nay, Sue. This one suits me.”

June

There in the silence, Mother’s smile in her olden days crossed her face, and she held out her hand to me as we walked through the woods into town. I stood up in my strange between state and walked to meet her there across the hall, shyly stretching my own hand to touch hers.

But my fingers met cold glass, and with a start, I recognized this mother as myself, forlorn and sad, my eyes starting out from the gloomy hallway as I caught my image in the mirror.

July

I have moved my bedding, and a desk and chair, into the attic room that stretches the length of this house, establishing my residency there. The stair ascending to the room is fearfully dark and narrow, so that as one climbs, one has the sense of tunneling upward in an unknown direction. Yesterday I came up here to find Susannah waiting for me, and her head appeared at the top of the stairs, drooping over the banister like a bud. I had the strangest sensation I had seen her in this fashion before, but then later I recalled this is how I imagine a mother appears to her newborn child, as a distant flower peering down into the small cradle.

Oh! I am uneasy.

Susannah—but never mind. I write now, just to pass myself through this eyelet in the morning. I am the damp guard of the day.

July

Susannah breathes so softly when she sleeps, she would not trouble air. I have just stood over her for a little and watched. It calms me to have her so beside me, her face unshuttered, as it used to be when we were heedless and we talked.

The baby knocks a tight-closed fist in me.

August