tracks

the fresh news to trodden's slow memory. anything that walks through snow or mud leaves prints — boot pairs, paws, hooves, three-toed bird feet — as ground decals aligned to the direction of travel, each with two or three minutes of memory before it fades, never more than forty to a chunk. the sled lays two tapered runner grooves with a dog's trot beside them, which is the pack's whole postcard in one image.

reading them is the game: something crossed the yard while you were in the mine, and the prints say what, which way, and roughly when. a printless courtesy tag exists for things that should not be trackable — the passerby is invited. the barghest is simply in no family at all: snow it walked through shows nothing, and the absence is the tell.