Child Ghost didn't want to die.
It still had a long life ahead of it.
It still...
Child Ghost froze.
Its lips moved.
It had also promised Grandma... that it would stay with her until the very end.
Grandma didn't have long to live.
It knew that.
But there was nothing it could do about the human cycle of life and death.
All it could do was spend time with Grandma every day.
So even though summer was the season it hated going out the most, it hadn't missed a single day of seeing Grandma.
It didn't understand why it put itself through all this.
Grandma wasn't the first human who had seen it.
But she was the first who had seen it... and smiled at it.
At first, it had been completely bewildered.
And a little frightened.
By Grandma's unusual behavior.
Then it discovered that Grandma liked feeding kittens.
Grandma had brought it food, too.
So for a long time, it had wondered if Grandma thought it was a kitten.
Grandma... Grandma had told it to call her Grandma.
At first, it hadn't known what the word meant.
It heard other humans call her Grandma, too.
So it thought Grandma was that human's name.
But then it heard some humans call her something else.
It was confused.
After a while, it began to see the difference.
The ones who called her Grandma were about as tall as it was, or a little taller.
It liked those humans.
The ones who didn't call her Grandma were very tall.
It wasn't interested in them.
Did human forms of address depend on height?
It didn't really understand.
But it didn't care, either.
It was only a way of addressing someone.
Besides, it had gotten used to calling her Grandma.