When I was five years old I was very sick with an illness the doctors couldn't immediately identify. My parents took me to stay with a relative in a rural part of upstate New York while I recovered, because the city air was making things worse.
That's when I first met Mr. Widemouth.
He appeared in my bedroom the third night. Small, brown, large-eyed, with a mouth that stretched almost to the edges of his face. He told me his name was Mr. Widemouth and that he liked to play with children. He was warm and funny and I liked him. I was five and sick and lonely and he visited every night.
He taught me games. The first few were normal — hiding games, clapping games. Then he started trying to teach me the "really fun games." The first one involved juggling knives from my mother's kitchen. When I said that seemed dangerous he said it was perfectly safe if you knew how. He knew how. He offered to show me. I said I'd think about it.
The next visit, he wanted to show me a game with the second-floor window. He said if I ran really fast and jumped, the landing was fun. He said I had to try it. I said maybe tomorrow. He seemed frustrated.
He tried once more. He wanted to walk me down a particular path in the woods behind the property. He said something at the end of it was very interesting. He described it in ways I didn't understand — something about a place where children who played with him could stay. He said it was better than being sick. He said I should come now, while my parents were asleep.
I said I was too tired.
He didn't visit after that. I got better. We went home.
In college, I went back to that area for a camping trip with friends. I recognized the property. On a walk I found the path in the woods that Mr. Widemouth had described. I followed it.
It ended at a small cemetery. Unmarked stones, very old, overgrown. The inscriptions that were still legible were all children's names. All of the dates showed they had died before the age of ten.
The most recent legible date was from the 1980s. But the paths between the stones were clear, well-worn, and showed fresh use.
I went back to camp and didn't tell anyone what I'd found. I'm telling it now because I think he's still there. And I think he's still teaching children games.
Don't play his games. Don't go down the path.