SOLVED. Horror, short story: POV mother of a lonely English girl with a mysterious friend named Enid

[Hilary]

I read this story around 1987. The story is told from the POV of the mother. I think the family is English because they have a "garden" instead of a "back yard." Her daughter is a lonely, unattractive girl with no friends. Her teeth are crooked, she wears glasses, etc. One day the girl comes to her mother and tell her that she's met a friend named I Need in the garden. Her mother is happy for her but insists that the girl's friend must be named Enid. The little girl plays with I Need/Enid from time to time in the garden, but the mother is concerned /suspicious that she's never met this kid. She tells her daughter that she wants to meet Enid, but her daughter says that Enid doesn't like adults. Her mother is a bit put off but some kids are shy so she lets it go. Then, and this is where my memory gets fuzzy, the daughter just shows up one day with straight teeth. Her mother either notices this or her daughter shows her? In any event, the mother is taken aback and asks how this happened maybe?, but the upshot is that her daughter says that I Need/Enid fixed them, that this is what she does--she helps people with things they Need. And I think she says that she wants I Need/Enid to fix her eyes? Her mother thinks this is preposterous but her daughter's teeth are indeed fixed. My memory gets fuzzy again here but the end of the story is when the mother happens to look out of the upstairs window one afternoon and sees her daughter with her friend--only her friend doesn't look right and...she has detached the daughter's head and is holding it in her lap. The mother goes racing down the stairs and outside and finds not some little girl with her kid but an ancient, horrible creature. The creature says that its name is I Need, and it helps those who do not judge it looks, I think?, and as her daughter played with it without judgment, it helped her with what she needed--as long as her mother never saw it. But now the mother has broken that rule, so it can no longer fix her daughter's eyes. And it dematerializes into the bushes. The last lines are the mother cradling the two pieces of her daughter's body, and the line, "They buried them like that," or something to that effect.

[Becca]

Looks like this is 'At the Bottom of the Garden' by David Campton. There's an oline version here: https://www.mail-archive.com/scifinoi...

It appears in a few anthologies - The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series VI, Mad Scientists: An Anthology of Fantasy and Horror, Whispers II, maybe others.

[Hilary]

Yes, Becca! That's it! You're a genius. Thank you so much. <3

[Becca]

Glad I could help! It's wonderfully creepy - I wish I hadn't read it before bed, though!

[Kris]

Hilary, glad you found your short story. In which book did you read it?