Counttoten Stories

In the fifth grade, people didn't know Sophia Anderson's name. She was known as the-girl-who-chewed-on-her-hair. In eighth grade, people knew Sophia Anderson as the girl who was dating Steve Rodrigues; he was tall and already had a mustache. In high school, however, people knew Sophia Anderson because of her brother. Not because he owned a cool car and was head of the football team, but because he owned a gun and knew how to pull the trigger.

What made Eloise Willian's story so unlike many others is hidden behind memories not even Eloise can reach. With dead parents from such a young age, there's not much to reach for. No photos, no sign of them ever existing. She wanted to be reminded of their existence. She was tired of making them up in her mind. Although there was not much else to do as a young child in an orphanage trapped within grey walls under an even greyer sky. Her adoption led to her attending Hogwarts, as well as what they now call the Golden Quartet. While searching for answers surrounding her parents she finds love.

The boarding house on Bellweather Lane should have been condemned years ago. Its windows have gone blind with age. Its hallways breathe after midnight. And at the end of the second-floor corridor stands a stained glass door that glows even during power outages, spilling bruised colors across the walls like something alive beneath the paint. Six strangers move in anyway. Cheap rent has a way of silencing instinct. Maren Dorsey arrives last, carrying two overpacked suitcases and a lifetime of exhaustion into a house that feels aware of her before she ever crosses the threshold. The other tenants are young, funny, grieving, restless. People are trying to outrun loneliness, debt, mistakes, and themselves. Then they learn the rules. If you hear a laugh that isn't yours, close your eyes. Count to ten. Don't breathe. Don't open them. Pray. Nobody takes them seriously. At first. Soon, the mirrors stop keeping pace with reality. Water begins climbing upward through drains. Laughter leaks from the vents at impossible hours. A miniature replica of the boarding house appears in Maren's room, changing whenever nobody is looking directly at it. And somewhere inside the walls, something is learning. Watching. Waiting. When the first tenant dies, the house changes. The doors lead to the wrong places. Reflections begin answering back. Names appear where no one wrote them. Every rule hides another lie. As terror spreads through the halls, Maren uncovers a truth buried beneath decades of disappearances and forgotten rituals: The house was never haunted. The house was taught. And whatever waits behind the stained glass door has been expecting her for far longer than she's been alive. This is not a ghost story. This is a story about a house that learned how to hunger. ©️ Relle H