Children’s author Louisa Kwan awoke, screaming.
She couldn’t recall the nightmare but with a shudder, she remembered the word:
“Xilpher.”
The word, found in no dictionary, plagued her thoughts.
She put it to page in a cute children’s rhyme.
Once finished inking illustrations of the benign looking creature, her stress abated.
Xilpher’s Dream Land became a bestselling children’s book parents read to their kids.
No one connected the missing kids to the story.
How could they know they were invoking an ancient child-eating demon?