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Several minutes pass, but you cannot lay your eyes on any public houses, with or without locking doors. You shouldn't be too surprised though, as most of them are closer to the harbor to catch the custom off of the ships. Still, you cannot help but feel frustrated ... until, after another several minutes have passed, when you find exactly you are looking for, just two streets up from Spinster's Street. Right at the nearest corner of the upcoming intersection, it sits, a homely looking hodgepodge of hewn lumber, rising to an imposing - if not concerning - five stories. From where you are at the moment, you cannot see a name, but you can clearly see the trademark for a public house, painted ten feet tall on its third story. More than that, you can see it's shingles - and hanging underneath a singularly large shingle that depicts what looks to be a canopy bed with spears for the posts, there are smaller shingles advertising specific amenities - one of which clearly depicts a lock and key.
Smiling broadly, you start to wrestle your cart onto the sidewalk ... which is when to your shock, Strange-Staining suddenly activates. There are partial footprints on the sidewalk, what appears to be two different sets of them. They might have been made at the same time, by two people walking together, or they might have been made hours or even days apart, possibly even by the same person. You cannot really tell from this position. For a split second, you wonder if father made them, and your heart soars ... until you realize that even incomplete as they are, you can tell that the boot that must have made them would be too small to fit father's feet, and your heart plummets, as if he just left you again. As you stare at them, a passerby just walks straight through them, and you cannot help but wince - even though the footprints clearly are not communicably Strange. If they were, then this entire sidewalk would be smothered right now.
Not wanting to draw any more attention to yourself than you already are by being a six foot, four inch woman, you wrangle your cart up onto the sidewalk, and cautiously follow the footsteps, giving them as much of a berth as you can. As you do, you make a point to not look at them directly ... though if anyone was watching for a reaction to these footprints, you might have already given yourself away with that abrupt stop. The thought gives you a rapidly sinking pit in your stomach, but as there is nothing that you can do about it now, you keep your composure as best you possibly can. As you draw near the intersection, you consider just turning around and walking away, but as that might give yourself away as well, you decide against it, at least for now.
As your gait slows and stiffens, your mind is racing, considering all of the ways that a partial footprint could have been left behind. For it to be possible, the sole of the boot that made the print would have to be both Strange in the Second Degree and incompletely covered.
