"This makes absolutely no sense." Okay he's gonna resume walking. "Anyway, what's so surprising?"

"I—it was bad, I'm paying you back for it—but the bad part was that you didn't want it??  You're going to say?  But that doesn't tell me why you do, now."

"Well the immediate reason is that I'm hungry again and you should get to enjoy eating nice food, too."

"But I haven't paid you back yet—this is just going to make it worse—"

"...Jeremy, I want you to have nice food because it will make me happy if you have nice food, it's not a thing you're doing to me, you don't owe me for being happy about something I decided to do for you to make you happy."

"I still don't understand it," he grumbles.  "But that doesn't really matter because it's not practical to do it right now."

It also doesn't matter because they're outside now so he's gonna not talk to the ghost that is invisible to other people while fetching the portable shower and generator and space heater from the person waiting out front. Oof these are heavy, okay, the way back is a bit slower.

Jeremy hovers by awkwardly.

Once he's back in the house: "I'm not sure what's confusing about it." Oh lawd stairs, this is gonna suck.

"Why you want me to be happy.  Not even in an abstract sense; you want to see and, and cause it."

"...do you not, typically, want your friends to be happy. Or, like, did, when you had more than one friend?"

"I only sort of had friends.  But even so I think I can say it's baffling that you count me as one."

"Well, I do." Hyupppp the stairs. "You did," heave, "fuck up", ho, step after step, "but you're," huff huff, "gonna make up for it," huff, "aren't you?"

"Yes.  Should I levitate something for you?"

"Aren't you," huff, "still weak?"

"Yes."

"Then no thanks." Huff huff he's in good shape though hyuuup he's up, now to the bedroom where he can set these things down.

Hover.

"At least that probably warmed you up some?"

"It sure did," he says, pinching the front of his shirt and shaking it to let some breeze in. Alright, time to unbox: a chonky generator (really a glorified battery you can feed with fuel or electric power), a space heater, and the portable shower. "Cool, this'll be good for the night."

...Nod.

"So anyway, while the heater gets to work and I eat, why don't we go back to the thing where we were getting to know each other and you tell me more about your whole deal?"

"...Yes.  Okay.  I, uh, did in fact go to six high schools, including here in Winter River.  I grew up very religious and had only recently become an atheist when I went down the stairs.  It was because I found the book and tried some spells and they worked and the whole ghost situation didn't seem to square with Christianity.  My parents actually didn't mean to hurt me that much but they did mean to rough me up a little and then they pretended.  My mother apparently considered killing me, in case that would have a better chance of sending me to heaven; she would have been willing to go to hell for me if that would have worked.  But, uh, there's neither, there's just this, and they're around decreasingly much of the time as the years go by.  But now it's pretty... fine, when they're around, it's better than being alone which did not used to be true—ghosts sometimes end up in these weird other lands and there are other ghosts there, so rarely I can learn a bit of world news or something that way.  ...I don't know, what else do you want to know?"

"You found the book while you were alive and—did it tell you how to become a different kind of ghost or something?" Om nom gimbap.

".....Kind of, yeah.  I—sacrificed my parents, and—it also technically made me more powerful while I was alive but that didn't last very long."

"Oh you needed to sacrifice them for the spell. ...based tbh."