"There have been plenty of stories about adults being unable to shake the not-so-imaginary friends/boogeymen of their early childhoods. But they're usually about letting go of the past, exorcising personal demons, or driving wooden stakes through cold, beating hearts, and I've always thought such solutions to be far too easy. I mean, what if you and It actually liked each other? What if your friendship with It contained just as much mutual jealousy and selfishness and compassion as any other relationship? And what if It could eat you if you made It angry?"

AFTER BRUSHING HER TEETH and changing into her pajamas, Constance retrieves the half-pound of ground beef that has been rotting for three days on her apartment balcony. It smells like vomit, but she's used to it. She zaps it back to room temperature in the microwave, then carries it to the bedroom on a Fiestaware plate.

She pauses in the little bedroom, her toes pinching the carpet fibers as she thinks of what to say. On the wall is a body-length mirror, and she studies herself to see if she looks the way she feels. The worry on her face is hard to notice because her face is small and unreadable. She doesn't have enough nose, and her dark eyes are sunk too deep behind her glasses. Her small frame is lost in the baggy folds of her pajamas.

"I smell beef," says the low octave hum under the bed. "Ground. Lean. But you know I like the fat."

For most people it takes more muscles to frown than to smile, but Constance isn't wired like most people.

"You're eating beef while I'm eating ramen, and you're complaining?" she says, her voice almost as husky as the Underthing's.

"It's late," says the Underthing. "I can smell how tired you are."

"That's my facial cream."

"Is something wrong?"

How can she tell the Underthing about Bran? She thanks God for the Underthing's blindness, or it would've noticed she's been wearing contacts for the past week whenever she leaves the house.

"I'm tired," she says.

"That's what I'm saying," says the Underthing.

Constance places the plate of rotting beef on the carpet, two feet from the edge of the bed-skirt.

A pair of black tentacles snatch the plate and scoop it under the bed like a gambler raking in chips.

"Go to sleep," the Underthing hums around a mouthful of half-digested beef.

"Do you think I'm pretty?" says Constance with a sigh, not really asking, but simply preparing the Underthing for future discussions.

"You smell good to me," it says.

"You're useless," says Constance.

She makes a running leap for the bed, landing on her knees in the middle of the mattress, something she's practiced since she was a little girl. She slips under her sheets and reaches for the rotary switch hanging from the nightstand lamp.

"Goodnight," says the Underthing, lips smacking.

"Whatever," says Constance as she clicks the room into darkness. Years of sleeping above the Underthing have dulled the urge to pull the covers tight about her neck, but tonight she returns to the old habits, curling up small in the middle of the mattress. She doesn't know what frightens her more: the Underthing's untested jealousy, or the last few barriers she must lower to save herself from becoming an old woman who takes in stray cats. The Underthing would eat the cats, anyway.

Constance's mind runs in circles as she closes her eyes, but the slow grind of the Underthing's teeth soon lulls her to sleep, as it always has.