Shaira stared at the house, its peeling grey paint and hollow windows unsettling her. The old Warner place had been empty for as long as she could remember.

“Hey, Sha? Are you coming?" Lena, her best friend, waved from the sidewalk.

Shaira shook herself from her morbid fascination. "Sorry, just… that house is so…"

"Creepy? That’s the word," Lena finished. "Seriously, have you ever seen anyone coming or going?"

"No," Shaira admitted, glancing back.

"Who lives in that house?" Lena asked, her voice tilting into mock-horror.

Shaira tried to laugh, but a prickle of unease ran down her spine. Something moved within those empty windows. A trick of the light, probably, but a sense of wrongness settled over her.

Later, Shaira couldn't stop picturing that flicker of movement. What if it wasn't a shadow? The next day, she biked back, the fading light casting monstrous shadows as she drew closer to the Warner house.

A faint light spilled from an upstairs window. Someone was home. Or something. She froze, realizing she'd come with no plan. Why…

A soft rasp echoed from the porch. Something shifted near the overgrown flowerbeds. Shaira held her breath as a figure stepped out – a pale, frail woman, her clothes in tatters.

The woman looked at her, eyes dull. "Hello, child,” she rasped. "Can you spare a crumb for an old woman?”
Pity replaced Shaira's fear. Something was very wrong here.

“Who lives in that house?” Shaira asked, her voice trembling.

The woman sighed, a spark of life entering her eyes. “Just me now, dear. For quite some time, just me.”