Five-year-old Carrie Plum lay curled up in her bed. She wasn't under the covers because it wasn't story time with Mom or Dad and the Sun still shone through her windows. Her tummy was still full of tuna sandwich and milk, and her ears still rang with Daddy yelling at her for tipping Mommy's vase over and making it break all to pieces on the floor. She hadn't meant to break that stupid old vase, but Daddy yelled at her anyway and told her to go to her room. So she ran upstairs to her room and jumped onto the bed, crawling toward her pillows and her many plush toys. There was a big unicorn, and a brown teddy bear, and three little pink hippos and her Raggedy Anne, and she held them close to her body and buried herself under some pillows and cried and cried and cried.

"I wish Daddy would stop yelling at me and Mommy" she shouted, muffling her voice in the brown teddy bear.

All of a sudden, her brown teddy started feeling warm and she didn't feel like crying anymore. And she heard a cute little voice in her head say "Don't cry Carrie. I'll make sure Daddy won't yell at you. You're my favorite little girl, and you are going to fall asleep now."

Carrie fell asleep in an instant and dreamed that the Candy Road Game was real.

As she lay silently dreaming, the brown bear began to stir and speak. "Spirit of my form-sake," it said, "I know you hunger. Go downstairs and feast."

Carrie did not hear the soft thump as her brown teddy bear slid off her bed; she did not see the way its button eyes blinked as it stretched stubby arms that should not have been able to move at all. She only dreamed of gumdrop trees and peppermint fences, skipping along the Candy Road Game with sticky-sweet joy.

Downstairs, the house had gone very still.

The bear paused at the top of the staircase, its stitched smile widening just a little too far. “Spirit of my form-sake,” it whispered again, its voice like a warm breeze through a cracked door, “your feast awaits.”

The air shimmered faintly, as though the sunlight coming through the windows had suddenly grown shy. A shadow, thin as smoke, slipped free from the bear’s seams. It stretched itself tall, taller than Daddy, taller than the doorway, then folded neatly back down into the shape of something small enough to pad down the stairs without making a sound. In the kitchen, Daddy was still muttering to himself as he swept up the broken vase. He wasn’t angry anymore, just tired, the way grown-ups get when they forget how small five-year-olds are.

He sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Shouldn’t’ve yelled,” he murmured. “She’s just a kid.”

The bear’s voice drifted from the stairs, soft as a lullaby. “He made her cry.”

Daddy straightened, frowning. “What the--Carrie? That you?”

The shadow move and the kitchen lights flickered. Daddy blinked, confused, then startled as the broom slipped from his hands and clattered to the floor.

“What is this…?” he whispered, backing up a step.

The shadow didn’t answer, leaning close, brushing against him like a cold draft, and Daddy’s eyes fluttered, and then he slumped gently into a kitchen chair, fast asleep, as peaceful as if he’d been tucked in by the world’s kindest hand. The shadow retreated, folding itself back into the teddy bear’s seams as the bear toddled into the room. It climbed onto Daddy’s lap with surprising ease and patted his cheek with a soft plush paw.

“No more yelling,” it said sweetly. “Not ever again.”

Upstairs, Carrie stirred in her dream, smiling as she won the Candy Crown and rode a marshmallow pony across a chocolate bridge. The bear looked up toward her room, its button eyes gleaming with something warm.

“My favorite little girl,” it murmured. "I know you hunger. Go downstairs and feast."

And Carrie rose with an unquenchable hunger in her belly.