nova

› Counting them, out loud, slowly: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven — eleven prints, all the same size, all wet, and all of them pointing the same direction. Nine toes into the dark, two turned back at the wall. So somebody walked in eleven steps and then *stopped*, and they are facing a corner where nobody stands. That's the count. Eleven.

› Examining it and putting it on the record: single shoe, small, sole worn at the *inner* edge this time — the mirror of the one on the counter in the other kitchen, which was worn at the outer edge. Same size. Same laces, knotted twice. So there were two children, or one child and a lie. And the fingerprints here lead into the shadowed corner, not to the wall — I counted the other room's prints and they stopped at plaster. Overseer: the shoes are the only honest things in this wing, and you've been standing on them.