We keep count.
Hollis Tare is not a hero and does not become one. She is the Reckoner: the officer of the crown whose whole work is to walk the nine parishes once a year and settle what is owed — three fish, one shilling, a song sung whole. What grows across the chapters is the size of the debt, never Hollis. Each chapter stands alone; the running threads are rewards for continuity, never prerequisites.
A parser adventure in five acts. Tallymarch keeps its accounts on split hazel: a debt is notched across a stick and the stick split, one half to each party. You are the Reckoner, and once a year you walk the nine parishes and pay what the crown