I unfolded the carefully creased paper, a spring flower tucked in one fold. I wondered who it was from as I ran my fingers over the small pink bud. No one wrote me poems or praised my beauty, as they had for my mother. I recognized the author’s sparse brush strokes as I skimmed the first lines of the poem, and a delighted smile slipped past my proper, somber mask.

“Don’t be unseemly,” Lady Furo scolded me, glancing up from reading her favorite collection of sutras. I ducked my head so my hair fell forward, hiding my face, and continued reading.

“Who is it from?” Lady Yanagi asked, her curiosity showing in her open face.

“I’m not sure,” I lied, folding the letter back up and tucking it into my sleeve to savor again in the solitude of my own chamber. The women’s common room offered no privacy, and Lady Furo was a sanctimonious old snot who always did her best to remind us of our lacking propriety. I couldn’t wait to get away for the evening, perhaps even pen a secret reply by the full moon’s light.