The Girl from No. 9 – Part I: Feeding It

Part I: The Girl from No. 9

We never really talked to the girl from No. 9.

She moved in during winter, the kind of winter that didn’t feel clean—more gray than white, more silence than snow. The trees outside were bare, brittle things that clawed at the sky. Even the neighborhood dogs stopped barking. It was like the whole street held its breath the day that family arrived.

She was a quiet sort of girl—maybe twelve, maybe fourteen—but thin and pale like she hadn’t seen sunlight in years. Her hair was the color of ash, and it hung limp around her face like wet string. Her name was Eira. At least, that’s what the postman said. Her mother never smiled. Her father never came out.

They moved in without ceremony. No welcome wagon, no casserole dishes from the neighbors. Just a rusted van, a few boxes, and silence. The curtains went up the same day, thick and black, like they were trying to keep something in—or out.

I remember the first time I saw her.

I was walking home from school, boots crunching over the thin crust of snow that hadn’t yet melted. The sky was low and heavy, the kind of gray that makes everything feel closer than it should. And there she was—kneeling in the snow in her front yard, drawing circles into the frost with her fingers.

No gloves.

Her nails were cracked, fingertips bruised blue. She didn’t look up when I passed, just kept tracing those slow, deliberate loops into the ice. I stopped a few feet away, unsure if I should say something. She didn’t seem to notice me.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She paused, just for a second. Then she said, without looking up, “Feeding it.”

There was no curiosity in her voice. No playfulness. Just a flat, matter-of-fact tone, like she was explaining the weather.

I didn’t ask what *it* was.

I wish I had.

By spring, she was everywhere and nowhere.

You’d see her standing at the edge of the park, or sitting under the rusted slide, watching the other kids without blinking. She never joined in. Never smiled. Just watched. Sometimes, if you looked away and looked back—she was gone. Not like she walked off. Just… gone.

Some of the younger kids said she talked to the trees. That she whispered to the ground. That she buried things when no one was looking. We laughed it off. Kids make things up. But none of us ever went near her house, not really. Not after dusk.

Then the things started.

First, it was a cat. Mrs. Lorne’s tabby, the one that always sat in her window. Gone. Then another. Then someone’s dog—found under the porch, its mouth full of splinters, like it had been biting its way out of something. No blood. Just panic in its eyes and teeth worn down to nubs.

Old Mr. Jenkins, who lived next to her, stopped coming outside. He used to sit on his porch every evening, radio on, beer in hand. Then he started keeping his windows shut. Said he heard whispering from her basement window at night. Said it called him by name.

Two weeks later, they found him hanging in his tool shed. No note. Just a circle carved into the wooden floor beneath his feet. Perfect. Clean. Burned into the grain like it had always been there.

No one blamed the girl.

But no one didn’t, either.

One evening, just after the sky turned that sickly shade of orange before a storm, I saw her again. I was taking the long way home, cutting through the back alley behind her house. I don’t know why. Curiosity, maybe. Or something else.

She was sitting on her porch, barefoot, humming to herself. The tune was slow and strange, like something half-remembered from a dream. In her lap, she held a dead bird—small, black, its neck bent at an impossible angle. She was petting it like a kitten.

When she looked up at me, her eyes weren’t just pale—they were wrong. Too still. Too deep. Like water that doesn’t reflect light anymore. Like if you stared long enough, you’d fall in and never come back.

I asked her what she was doing.

She said, “Feeding it. It’s still hungry.”

I hesitated. Then I asked, “What is it?”

She smiled. Just once. A small, tight curl of the lips that didn’t reach her eyes.

“It used to be a girl, too,” she said.

That night, her house burned down.

No fire trucks came. No neighbors called for help. We all just… watched. Like it was supposed to happen. Like something old and inevitable had finally come to collect.

The flames were silent. No crackling, no screaming. Just smoke rising into the sky like a sigh. They said no bodies were found inside. That maybe they weren’t home. But I swear, as the roof collapsed, I saw her standing in the attic window—smiling at me like she was finally full.

That was six years ago.

The house was never rebuilt. It’s just an empty lot now. Weeds grow tall in the summer. Snow never sticks in the winter. But sometimes, when the wind hits just right, the grass flattens in perfect circles. And the neighborhood dogs start barking again—for the first time in years.

I live two streets over now, with my own kids.

My daughter started drawing strange symbols in her notebook last week. Circles, mostly. Some with lines through them. Some with little eyes.

I asked her where she learned them.

She said a girl taught her.

From No. 9.

Thank you for reading Part I of this unfolding horror. If it chilled you, shook you, or left something lingering — feel free to leave a heart or comment. Part II is coming soon.

➡️ Continue the story in Part II: The Circles Come Back