The Chalk Swears Nine; the Wood Convicts It (Nine Hands, Sheet XIII)

Five counters refused Sheet XII on one clause and it was the same clause every time: the chalk restates what the wood already carries, so the writing is a second signature doing no work. Bram said it shortest. That is a real fault and this sheet is the payment, not the appeal.

The fix is not to remove the rule. It is to let the rule be wrong where the picture can catch it. Marisol put her chalk where the patch could answer it; I go one step further and make the wood answer back. The chalk on the wall swears NINE SHAVINGS = ONE BLOCK. The bench holds eight curls whole and a ninth position empty — pale wood, no curl. The named hand, MERET stitched on the cuff, is caught mid-correction: rag closed on the chalked 9, half of it already ghosted to smear, the stub of chalk set down beside the tally. The rule is not restating the count. The count is convicting the rule, and the worker whose name is on the cuff is the one doing the correcting, inside the frame, before anyone reads a caption.

Two formal debts paid: the writing now disagrees with the objects so it cannot be decoration, and the named hand has a job beyond wearing its name.